Subject: Daily Dose - 050131 - tribal experiment, BIZARRE NEWS, baseball quote, DDL, Rotten News

A couple was watching a Discovery Channel special about an African bush tribe whose men all had penises 24 inches long. When males reach a certain age, a string is tied around their penis and on the other end is a weight. After a while, the weight stretches the penis to 24 inches.

Later that evening as the husband was getting out of the shower, his wife looked down at him and said, "Whadaya say we try the African string-and-weight procedure?" The husband agreed and they tied a string and weight to his penis.

A few days later, the wife asked the husband, "How is our little tribal experiment coming along?"

"Well, it looks like we're about half way there," he replied.

"Wow, you've grown to 12 inches?"

"No... It's turned black."

________________________

BIZARRE NEWS...

Cell Phones Have Never Been This Mobile

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - It's a bird, it's a plane, it's....a flying cell phone!

A man trying to aid a prison escape had a unique idea. Using a bow and arrows, he fired cell phones into the yard of a high-security prison. The 25-year-old man taped two mobile phones and a battery charger to three arrows and flung them over the 12-foot wall into Mariefred prison on Friday night.

He was arrested after police discovered his car parked about 650 feet from the prison walls, with a bow hidden underneath it. Authorities weren't sure which inmates were meant to receive the phones.

The one thing they are sure of is that the cell phone Cupid could get up to a year in jail.

***

Lighting Up the Holidays

HOUSTON -- One Texas MBA student is about to become very popular. While designing a glow-in-the-dark jogging suit, he was struck with a brilliant idea. Now Beau Carpenter is the proud inventor of the GloThong.

This illuminating undergarment has batteries that, when fully charged, light up the straps for two hours in various neon colors.

This neon thong has already attracted the attention of eager customers at a strip club. Wall adapters are available to charge them up, but if you're on the go, the car charger is your best option.

They'll be available soon and will cost you about $50.

***

No Smiling, But Say Cheese

PITTSBURGH, Penn. - It seems that the State Department is not a fan of smiles. According to new State Department Rules that went into effect this summer, passports photos that display unusual or unnatural expressions, such as big, toothy grins, are prohibited.

A State Department spokeswoman says that smiling has the ability of distorting other facial features. She explained that for a proper computer analysis of a photograph a neutral facial expression is becoming the standard.

So, if you're going out of the country for a fun vacation remember to contain your enthusiasm.

***

Culprit Escapes Without a Squeak

VILLACH, Austria - A security camera was a huge help for a shop trying to determine who or what was making off with their money.  The tape recorded that a mouse was the culprit taking money from the register.

Officials said that the mouse was just looking for materials to construct a nest. The shop owner became suspicious when about $65 went missing.

I guess the shop owner won't press charges or present the rodent with an eviction notice.

________________________

At the UPS cargo phone center where I worked, a woman called and said, "I need a baseball quote."

I immediately answered with Yogi Berra's famous "It ain't over 'til it's over!"

There was a brief moment of silence before the woman asked, "What was that?"

"You asked me for a baseball quote," I responded, "and that was the first thing that came into my head."

"Oh," she replied. "My husband told me to call and get a baseball quote."

I asked if she wanted to ship something, and she said she did. Then it dawned on me: "Do you mean you want a ballpark figure?"

___________________________

DDL

A hot-tempered girl of Caracas
Was wed to a samba-mad jackass;
When he started to cheat her
With a dark senorita
She kicked him right in the maracas

___________________________

"They said I wasn't being funny. And I said to them, 'I know that, but tomorrow I will go back to being funny, and your show will still blow.'"
--Jon Stewart, on his sniping match with Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala on "Crossfire"

***  

"Fear Factor" is being sued for two and half million dollars by a Cleveland man who said watching the show made him vomit. I guess he has one of those rare TVs without the off switch."
--Jay Leno  

***  

As a child my mother would always tell me not to sit so close to the TV, that it was bad for my eyes.  Now, as an adult I spend 8+ hours a day within 2 feet of a computer screen.

***

I decided to stop worrying about my teen aged daughter's driving and take advantage of it. I got one of those bumper stickers that say, "How's my driving?" and put a 900 number on it.

At 50 cents a call, I've been making $38 a week.

***

I dreamed I drank the worlds largest margarita and when I woke up there was salt on the toilet seat...

Thank God I decided not to eat the worm!

________________________

Rotten News....  (true)

Asia Quake Impacts Va. Well-Water Levels

Sat Jan 8,10:21 PM ET

RICHMOND, Va. - The South Asian earthquake that spawned deadly tsunami waves also shifted water levels by at least 3 feet in a geologically sensitive Virginia well some 9,600 miles away from the epicenter, researchers say.

The well near Christiansburg, which started oscillating about an hour after the magnitude 9 quake near Sumatra on Dec. 26, is particularly sensitive to movements in the Earth and is monitored by the U.S. Geological Survey.

David Nelms, a groundwater specialist with the USGS in Richmond, saw the changes from his computer.

"It just shot up and then it went down below where it originally was," Nelms told the Richmond Times-Dispatch for Saturday's editions, adding that it took about five hours for the water to stop fluctuating.

The USGS tracks water levels around the country, and has monitors at 21 wells across Virginia, primarily for drought.

The Christiansburg well, in the western part of the state, also shows regular, but small, changes caused by tides.

*******

Sat, Jan 08, 2005

High crime in Vatican City

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican may he a holy city but it is also one of the few places in the world where crime, the worldly type anyway, apparently pays.

According to figures released on Saturday some 90 percent of crimes committed inside Vatican City -- nearly all of them petty thefts, pick pocketing and vandalism -- go unpunished.

Most of the crimes take place among tourists in St Peter's Basilica, St Peter's Square and the Vatican Museums.

Some 90 percent of the perpetrators are never identified or found, Nicola Picardi, a sort of justice minister for Vatican City, said at a ceremony on Saturday opening the judicial year.

Most culprits disappear among the 18 million annual pilgrims and tourists to Vatican City -- a 108 acre sovereign city-state surrounded by Rome.

Many of those who do get nabbed usually don't face charges because of the bureaucratic complications regarding foreign citizens.

Because Vatican City has such a small resident population -- about 500 people -- and such a huge number of visitors -- 18 million -- it has perhaps the world's highest per capita crime rate -- 106 percent.

And, if a petty thief is Catholic and should be hit by a crisis of conscience after picking a fellow pilgrim's pocket, priests hear confessions in St Peter's Basilica all day.

********

Mohammed Enters List of Favorite UK Boys' Names

Thu Jan 6, 9:56 AM ET

By Matthew Jones

LONDON (Reuters) - Mohammed has joined perennial favorites Jack and Joshua as one of the most popular names given to British boys in 2004, a sign of the country's growing ethnic diversity and a legacy of Muslim immigration decades ago.

The Office of National Statistics said on Thursday Mohammed -- meaning variously "one who is praiseworthy" or "exalted" -- had moved up two places to enter the top 20 for the first time.

"It is all about demographics. There are now more Muslims being born in Britain than previously," said Dr Jamil Sherif of the Muslim Council of Britain, an umbrella group of 400 organizations.

"About 40 percent of Muslims here are under 25," he told Reuters. "There are a lot of young families."

Emigration from Asia and Africa surged during the 1960s and 1970s and Britain -- population around 61 million -- is now home to about 1.6 million Muslims.

But despite its increased popularity, the name has a long way to go before it takes the laurels from Jack which has topped the charts for 10 years.

One of the fastest movers in the boys' names was Charlie, which gained nine places to 16, while last year's big climber Alfie dropped nine places to 27 and Spencer slumped 47 places.