Subject: Daily Dose - 080106 - Finnish war, BIZARRE NEWS, shiner, DDL, Rotten News

After the end of the Finnish war, a young female reporter from a British newspaper was sent to Finland to write an article about the soldiers home-coming. She had interviewed half a dozen, when she met Pekka on the street.

"Excuse me," she said "but were you in the war?"

"Yah, I was in the infantry."

"Would you mind to answer a few questions for a newspaper article?"

"No, I wouldn't mind at all."

"When you came home, when the war was over, what was the first thing you did?"

"I f*cked me wife." Pekka said bluntly. The journalist went crimson, and tried desperately to change the subject.

"After that. I mean, what did you do after that?"

"I f*cked her again." he answered. If possible the journalist turned even more red and got even more desperate to change the subject.

"Other than that! Uh -what did you do when you were finished with all that?"

"Then I unstrapped my skis and removed my heavy backpack."

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BIZARRE NEWS...

Man pesters 911 because it's a free call

PENSACOLA, Fla. - Police in Pensacola, Fla., have arrested a 21-year-old man and accused him of making nearly 300 calls to 911 emergency operators this month. A statement by the Escambia County sheriff's office said many of the 292 fake calls made since July 1 were sexual in nature, and the caller would hang up if a male operator answered.

The suspect, Cheveon Alonzo Ford, told investigators he had no minutes left on his phone and "911 is a free call," the Pensacola News Journal reported.

Deputies used global positioning coordinates to track the calls to a home, where Ford was arrested Tuesday. He is being held on $50,000 bond, charged with making obscene and harassing telephone calls, the report said.

***

It wasn't a chocolate bar in the pool

FARGO, N.D. - A large municipal swimming pool in Fargo, N.D., was reopened Wednesday a day after pranksters threw a bag of dog dung into it in sweltering temperatures.

Early Wednesday, a swim team arrived for practice at the Island Park pool and found the mess, the Fargo Forum reported Thursday. Dave Klundt, the assistant director of parks and recreation, was called and the doors were ordered locked as maintenance workers set about cleaning up the solids, the report said. Then, the pool that can hold 1,200 people was super-chlorinated, which requires at least 12 hours to dissipate to the point where people can safely enter the water.

The combined heat and humidity index measured 106 degrees on Wednesday, and Klundt said while vandals might think it was funny, "they don't understand that they're displacing a lot of people on a hot day."

Police have asked the public for any information in the investigation, the report said.

***

Cat predicts deaths at nursing home

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Doctors at a Providence, R.I., nursing home say a cat that keeps the patients company seems to be able to predict their deaths.

Staff at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center said the 2-year-old feline, named Oscar, will go into the room of a patient whose end is near, curl up next to them and purr, WebMD reported Thursday. David Dosa, who submitted an essay on the cat to The New England Journal of Medicine -- which published the paper Thursday -- said the vigilant cat has been present for the deaths of more than 25 residents and often serves as a fill-in for family members who cannot be present at their loved one's bedside.

"As people would pass, the question (among staff) was always, 'Was Oscar at the bedside?'" Dosa said. "And the answer was invariably 'yes.' This is an end-stage dementia unit. Deaths are common."

As for how the cat knows when a patient is near death, experts say there are a number of possibilities ranging from sense of smell to mimicking the behavior of humans who care for the dying patients.

***

Judge lends shoeless defendant his loafers

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - A Florida judge lent a defendant his own shoes so the man would not have to testify in flip flops supplied by the jail.

Maybe it was the effect of Broward Circuit Judge Jeffrey Levenson's loafers, but Michael Fernandez was acquitted of cocaine trafficking, The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported Thursday.

Sheriff's deputies brought Fernandez to the courthouse by mistake in his jail uniform and flip flops. His court clothes followed him a bit late but without the shoes.

"I take great pains to ensure that the defendant's custody status is not disclosed," Levenson said. "I just wanted to make sure he was covered. I guess I didn't really think about it, I just acted."

Jim Lewis, Fernandez's lawyer, said the judge's size 11 shoes fit the defendant perfectly. Levenson -- his feet concealed behind the bench -- presided over the courtroom in his socks.

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I had worked late, and my Labrador was so overjoyed to see me arrive home that he jumped up just as I leaned down. Our heads collided, and I sported an impressive shiner for several weeks.

I had to repeat frequently to co-workers and friends how I came by it, and one day on the elevator, a secretary whom I hadn't seen for some time looked at my black eye and exclaimed, "My goodness, what happened to you?"

"The dog did it," I wearily replied.

A man standing next to us looked over at me and said knowingly, "Ahh, you must own a boxer."

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DDL

Cleopatra said everything bored her,

But her visitors clearly adored her.

Mighty Caesar then came,

Saw and Conquered the dame,

Although probably not in that order.

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"The first thing I did after being hired as the director of learning technology at a high school was to change the sign outside my door -- the one that had my name followed by the acronym D.O.L.T."

***

"According to a new study, ladies and gentlemen, you can improve your memory by watching less TV, doing crossword puzzles, eating more fish – I can't remember all that."

--Dave Letterman

***

"Scientists are saying that if global warming doesn't stop the oceans could rise as much as four and a half feet. One thing all scientists can agree on is that Gary Coleman is going to drown."

--Conan O'Brien

***

"I think the worst time to have a heart attack is during a game of charades."

-Demetri Martin

***

Has your girlfriend/wife put on a little weight over the Xmas period? If so, encourage her to walk 3 miles in the morning and then 3 miles again in the evening.

By the end of the week the cow will be 42 miles away.

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Rotten News....  (true)

November 26, 2007 

Puerto Rican officials probe sabotage of beauty contestant's evening gowns

By Rebecca Banuchi, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Pepper spray failed to deter Ingrid Marie Rivera, who beat 29 rivals to become the island's 2008 Miss Universe contestant.

Pageant organizers said they hope to catch and expose whoever was responsible for dousing Rivera's evening gowns with pepper spray and spiking her makeup, causing her to break out in hives.

Rivera was composed while appearing before cameras and judges throughout the competition. But once backstage, she had to strip off her clothes and apply ice bags to her face and body, which swelled and broke out in hives twice.

"We thought at first it was an allergic reaction, or maybe nerves," said pageant spokesman Harold Rosario. "But the second time, we knew it couldn't have been a coincidence."

Rivera's clothing and makeup later tested positive for pepper spray. 

Someone also stole Rivera's bag containing her gowns, makeup and credit cards. And a bomb threat forced pageant officials to postpone the last day of competition on Thursday, said Magali Febles, director of the Miss Puerto Rico Universe pageant.

Beauty competitions in the U.S. Caribbean territory, which boasts five Miss Universe titles, second only to the United States, are fierce, drawing boisterous audiences and accusations of rigged results.

But the pranks under investigation this year are a first, Rosario said.

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Cows' ear hair and other waste hit taxpayers

By Naomi Kresge

Thu Nov 22, 12:45 PM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - The German government wasted some 1.9 billion euros (1.4 billion pounds) last year on everything from defective brushes made of cows' ear hair to new seats for army trucks that are not roadworthy, auditors said on Thursday.

The examples were cited in the Federal Audit Office's 2007 annual review of government spending, which found a lack of oversight in 85 percent of 40,000 cases it investigated.

The review showed that government dealings with the national rail operator, Deutsche Bahn, had cost the taxpayer 190 million euros -- most of it money Berlin paid the firm for a stretch of track that was never built.

Germany also spends millions renting computers for more than it would cost to buy them, pays twice as many staff as it needs to look after police uniforms, and maintains an underground air surveillance bunker that serves no military purpose, it said.

Germany's army, the Bundeswehr, spent 1 million euros on special brushes made from the inner ear hair of South American cattle to clear a dirty projection screen which had disabled a 16 million euro combat simulation centre.

But the brushes could not remove the flecks left on the screen by weapons systems, the report said. The centre has gone unused since 2004 -- though maintenance costs 1.5 million euros a year -- because lasers used in simulations could ignite the dirty screen.

The army has suggested building a 2.4 million euro mudroom to clean the weapons before simulations, but still has not worked out how to clean the screen, the auditors said.

The patent office spent 8 million euros over three years to rent computers it could have bought for one million euros less.

The army developed new seats for elderly personnel transporters that should be kept off the road. "Even with the new seats the trucks are so unsafe they can't be used to transport people on public roads," the auditors' report said.

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Topless swimmers make waves in Sweden

Wed Nov 21, 10:35 PM ET

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - A group of Swedish women is making waves by taking their tops off at public swimming pools in a protest against what they call gender-biased rules on swim wear.

About 40 women have joined the network and staged topless protests in at least three cities, said Sanna Ferm, 22, one of the founders of the group called Bara Brost, or Bare Breasts.

"The purpose of the campaign is to start a debate about why women's bodies are sexualized," Ferm said Wednesday.

She said the fact that men can be bare-chested in public swimming pools but not women is "a concrete example of how women have fewer rights than men."

Reactions from other swimmers have ranged from support and encouragement to anger and even indifference, she said.

Women can sunbathe topless in the summertime at beaches around Sweden, which is known for its relaxed attitude toward nudity, but they are required to wear tops at public swimming pools.

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Photo News from the British Tabloids....

Hoax nuke blast seen on TV

PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) -- Members of a Czech art group who hacked into television broadcasting with images of a hoax nuclear explosion were charged and will have to stand trial, a state prosecutor said Thursday.

A freeze-frame from the Web cam shows an image of a nuclear explosion.

The six members of the Prague-based Ztohoven group were charged last month with spreading false information and face up to three years in jail if convicted, said Dusan Ondracek, the state prosecutor in the northern town of Trutnov, who is in charge of the case.

The trial could begin by the end of January, Ondracek said.

On June 17, viewers of a Czech television channel watching a Web cam program monitoring weather in various Czech mountain resorts could see a nuclear explosion taking place in the Krkonose or Giant Mountains in the northern Czech Republic.

In December, the project was awarded the NG 333 prize for young artists by Prague's National Gallery together with a cash prize of 333,000 koruna (US$18,350). E-mail to a friend.