Subject: Daily Dose - 080512 - red in the face, BIZARRE NEWS, nightcap, DDL, News from the British Tabloids

A teacher was giving a lesson on the circulation of the blood. Trying to make the matter clearer, he said: "Now, boys, if I stood on my head the blood, as you know, would run into it, and I should turn red in the face."

"Yes, sir," the boys said.

"Then why is it that while I am standing upright in the ordinary position the blood doesn't run into my feet?"

A little fellow shouted, "Cause yer feet ain't empty."

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BIZARRE NEWS...

Bizarre Patents

A fart collecting device: It comprises a gas-tight collecting tube for insertion into the rectum of the subject. The tube is connected to a gas-tight collecting bag. The end of the tube inserted into the subject is apertured and covered with a gauze filter and a gas permeable bladder.

A glove for courting couples who wish to maintain palm-to-palm contact while holding hands. It has a common palm section, but two separate sets of fingers.

A chair for coition: Provides support for two people, one astride the other. In one preferred form, the seat vibrates.

An ashtray which warns you to quit smoking. When you pick up the box of matches from the holder, light passes through a hole to a photocell. This activates an audible warning device.

A ladder to enable spiders to climb out of a bath. It comprises a thin flexible latex rubber strip which follows the inner contours of the bath. A suction pad is attached to the top edge of the bath.

A car registration plate which indicates the sex of the driver. The inventor says that since the plate makes the driver's sex immediately apparent, other road users will change the way they behave. They will become more polite, and predict better the behavior of other drivers.

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FDA considers approving cloned foods

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration was expected to deem meat and diary from cloned animals safe for human consumption. The FDA examined the issue for six years and asked producers of cloned livestock to not deliver foodstuffs to markets until their official ruling on the food's safety, the Wall Street Journal said Friday.

It's expected to take at least three years for meat and diary products from cloned offspring to reach store shelves but the pending decision would be a landmark decision for biotech companies as cloned cattle, for example, fetch at least $15,000 for copies of prized bovines.

Food retailers expressed concern over a failure of effective government oversight of cloned livestock, saying, "consumers will lose the ability to choose clone-free products." Some consumers view clone-derived foodstuffs with disdain, calling the foods "Frankenfood" but Jeffery Barach with the Grocery Manufacturers Association said consumers will welcome the quality products as they become more educated.

Australia, Canada, France, Japan and New Zealand permit the use of livestock clones but their foods rarely enter the consumer market. The European Union bans the importation of U.S. meat amid concerns over the use of hormones and U.S. food companies face obstacles in European markets that are unlikely to respond favorably to consuming cloned products.

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Hotel's weirdest lost item: 4-year-old boy

EDINBURGH, Scotland - A Scottish hotel said the strangest item left behind by guests in 2007 was a 4-year-old boy who was accidentally left by his parents.

The boy was left at the Travelodge in Edinburgh amid chaos caused by his parents' rush to attend a family party, the (Glasgow) Daily Record reported. The parents quickly realized their mistake and returned to find the boy playing with toys in the hotel room.

"The couple were very flustered. They had lots of luggage to pack in their car and they were already late for a family party," a source at the hotel told the Daily Record. "It was a bit chaotic and they left the boy. They did collect him quickly but he is still counted as the strangest item of lost property we've had," the source said.

Other Travelodge locations also reported their most bizarre lost items of 2007. One Scottish location reported a suitcase full of wigs and glasses was left behind by a guest while other European locations reported an urn of ashes and a living Persian cat, the Daily Record reported.

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Thief lifts male enhancement drugs

CARLISLE, Pa. - A shoplifter, perhaps hoping for a lift, pinched about $100 worth of male enhancement aids from a drug store in Pennsylvania, police said.

Carlisle, Pa., police said the man stole several bottles of Vasorect ULT pills, in addition to Stamina RX pills and a bottle of Cobra capsules from the pharmacy, the Harrisburg (Pa.) Patriot-News reported. The drugs are considered aides to assist men's sexual performance, officials said.

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Miami civic chief once had lengthy commute

MIAMI - The Virginia-to-Florida commute for Miami's Downtown Development Authority executive director when he first started in 2003 caused auditors to see red.

Dana Nottingham began his tenure at the taxpayer-funded agency five years ago on New Year's Day, living in Virginia and flying to Miami for board meetings during the first six months of his employment, The Miami Herald reported. That caused DDA auditors to raise their eyebrows and raise red flags about whether Nottingham should have been entitled to a full-time salary and benefits because he lived someplace that wasn't in Florida, let alone Miami.

Nottingham dismissed the concerns about the initial living arrangements, saying he was "frequently" in Miami during that time.

"The board of directors of the Miami DDA was bully aware of my relocation requirements prior to me being hired as executive director," Nottingham told the Herald in writing. "My relocation from Virginia to Florida and the winding down of my consulting practice in Virginia was fully disclosed."

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Joan had invited her younger sister, Nancy, to leave her country home and come to the city for a weekend to see how the urban half lived. She also arranged for a friend of hers named Bill to take Nancy out for a night on the town.

After a pleasant dinner and a show, Bill and Nancy went to Bill’s apartment for a nightcap. They talked and listened to soft music for a pleasant interlude; then Bill suggested they retire to the bedroom.

"Oh, no," Nancy protested. "I don’t think my sister would like it."

"Nonsense," said Bill, as he gently took her arm. "She loves it."

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DDL

There were two little mice in Rangoon

Who sought lunch in an old lady's womb.

Cried one mouse, 'By Jesus,

I'll wager this cheese is

As old as the cheese in the moon!'

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The reason there are so few female politicians is that it is too much trouble to put makeup on two faces.

-Maureen Murphy

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It is better to deserve an honor and not get it than to get one and not deserve it.

- Mark Twain

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Wise men talk because they have something to say. Fools talk because they have to say something.

- Plato

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News from the British Tabloids

Man sues over 'haunted' house

An Italian family are preparing to sue the previous owners of their house for not telling them it was haunted.

Gaetano Bastianelli, 57, and his wife Stefania paid £94,000 for the home in the Umbrian town of Spoleto in 2005.

"We considered it the deal of the century," said Mr Bastianelli, after the owners agreed to leave all the furniture and fittings, right down to the coffee cups.

The couple claim they were unaware the house had been built close to the disused Pozzi Ginori cemetery, or that an exorcism had been carried out there in the 1970s.

"The ghosts started their haunting on the first night," said Mr Bastianelli, a former long-distance lorry driver. "I woke suddenly at around one or two in the morning. There was water seeping from under the bathroom door."

He claimed that by next morning, malevolent spirits had left "luminous green mould all over the walls".

After that things got worse. He said the sound of chains rattling had alarmed his 10-year-old daughter, and claimed that the lawnmower and his wife's car had spontaneously combusted.

Now Mr Bastianelli has engaged a lawyer, Antonio Francesconi, to sue the previous owners for failing to inform him that the house was haunted.

A local historian, Sergio Grifoni, confirmed that an exorcism had been performed on a girl in the house in 1977.

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Bodybuilder fined £70 for exercising too loudly

A bodybuilder has been fined £70 for exercising too loudly in his top-floor flat.

Giran Jobe's grunts and the noise of 10kilo weights hitting the floor at night were recorded at 100 decibels - as loud as a rock concert.

Neighbours moaned they were unable to sleep and the fitness fanatic, 36, admitted 47 breaches of a noise abatement order to magistrates in Thanet, Kent. Doris Fox, 68, said: "I thought he had an angle grinder up there."

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Son offers £7 an hour for someone to take his elderly dad to the pub

A son is offering £7 an hour for someone to take his elderly dad to the pub for a beer.

When great grandad Jack Hammond, 88, had to move into a care home, he found a good local but has no one to go with him for a pint. So his son, Mike, 56, advertised at the local post office for someone to join the former radar technician at the Compass Inn in Winsor, Hants, twice a week for a few drinks.

He said: "We're looking for someone who can share a conversation. He's not a heavy drinker, it's the company he misses. He's intelligent with physics and maths degrees."

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Photo News from the British Tabloids....

Beer bottle solar heater

A Chinese peasant has made a solar water heater - using only beers bottles and hoses.

The beer bottles lie on a board in rows, all connected by hoses which allow cold water to flow through them and be heated by the sun.

"I invented this for my mother. I wanted her to shower at any time more comfortably," says Ma Yanjun, a carpenter, of Qiqiao village, Shaanxi Province. "A real solar water heater is too expensive to me, so I came up with the idea of making one on my own. I hope this invention can be promoted nationwide, and allow mothers in undeveloped rural areas to have a hot shower."

Ma has now helped more than 20 families in the village to make and install their own beer bottle solar water-heaters. He says he will build a public bathroom for the village using his invention when he has the money to buy enough beers.