Today's Topics:
a question
News of the Weird
penguins
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Message-Id: <9303111652.AA10971@enet-gw.pa.dec.com>
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 93 08:52:21 PST
From: "Alan H. Martin 11-Mar-1993 1154" <amartin@tle.enet.dec.com>
To: bob@tle.enet.dec.com
Cc: amartin@tle.enet.dec.com
Subject: a question
>From: "The Rt. Rev. Wor. Dr. Y. Foo" <dryfoo@athena.mit.edu>
>Date: Wed, 10 Mar 93 11:04:11 EST
>Recently a hot babe approached and ... said, "... Can you give me a Bob-job?"
...
>But, now ... I'm wondering what a "Bob-job" is *supposed* to be.
You met "Connie". I hear she's trying to find out whether there's some
technique that "Bob" saves for those long weeks away from home on "sales
trips".
/AHM
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Date: Thu, 11 Mar 93 06:46:09 PST
From: Chuck Shepherd <cshepherd@igc.apc.org>
Message-Id: <9303111446.AA16646@igc.apc.org>
To: subgenius@mc.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: News of the Weird
WEIRDNUZ.267 (News of the Weird, March 19, 1993)
by Chuck Shepherd
Lead Story
* In December, Ohio University was awarded the nation's
second patent for an animal--for a mouse that carries a
human gene. The mouse is to be used in lab studies;
the human gene helps make it resistant to viral
infections, which limit the utility of ordinary lab
mice. The first patented mouse was engineered to grow
tumors rapidly. [St. Petersburg Times-AP, 12-25-92]
The Litigious Society
* In October, Katherine Balog, 60, filed a lawsuit in
Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., against Bill Clinton and the
Democratic Party to recover damages for the trauma
caused by Clinton's candidacy. The fact that Clinton
was then on the verge of becoming President despite
allegedly being a "draft dodger" and a "communist
sympathizer" induced in her, she said, "serious
emotional and mental stress" that was certain to create
future medical expenses. [San Francisco Chronicle, 10-
15-92]
* William and Tonya Parker filed a $10,000 lawsuit in
December against the Holiday Inn of Midland, Mich.,
claiming that an employee walked into their room
without warning on their wedding night while they were
having sex. The couple said they now suffer post-
traumatic stress syndrome and that their sex life has
become dysfunctional. A Holiday Inn spokesperson said
the intrusion was an accident and that the couple
should have hung the "do not disturb" sign on their
door. [Louisville Courier-Journal, 12-10-92]
* In January, the New York Times reported that as many
as ten city prisoners over the last three years have
had guns smuggled in to them and have then shot
themselves so that they can file lawsuits against New
York City for negligence in allowing guns in the cells.
One lawsuit asks $8.5 million in damages. [New York
Times, 1-19-93]
* High school student Leigh Ann Fisher and her parents
filed a $4.2 million lawsuit for emotional distress in
August after she was replaced as captain of her high
school cheerleader squad in Vilonia, Ark., near Little
Rock. [Globe and Mail, 9-15-92]
* In January a Montgomery County, Maryland, judge
finally warned litigant Michael Sindram that he would
face contempt of court charges if he filed any more
"frivolous" lawsuits. The Washington Times reported
that Sindram had filed at least 350, losing them all
except "one or two" that were settled, according to the
judge, because of their nuisance value. Sindram is
0-for-42 at the U. S. Supreme Court. [Washington Times,
1-17-93]
* Schenectady, N. Y., jail inmate Jose Rivera Martinez,
33, filed a $750,000 lawsuit against the county jail,
alleging that he was permanently disfigured in 1990 by
the warts he received from eating jail-issue hot dogs,
to which he said he was allergic. [Albany Times Union,
2-10-93]
* In January, former Northwestern University professor
Olan Rand filed an employment discrimination complaint
against the university, claiming he was wrongfully
fired the month before. Rand was fired after he
pleaded guilty to theft of $33,000; he had continued to
collect his mother's social security checks in their
joint account for five years after her death in 1981.
In his petition, he claims the university should not
have discriminated against him, since he suffered from
the disability of "extreme procrastination behavior."
[New Haven Register-Chicago Tribune, 2-21-93]
* Ella Bagwell filed a lawsuit against the owners of
the Friendly Food Mart near Anderson, S. C., in
February, claiming they failed to pay off on a video
poker game in the store. She claimed that the store's
clerks by custom paid 25 cents for each replay earned
on the machine, that one day she won 999,999 free
games, and that she is thus entitled to $249,999.75.
The store owners said the machine must have
malfunctioned. [Greenville News, 2-12-93]
* According to records obtained by New York Newsday,
New York City paid $30 million last year, and has paid
$320 million since 1978, in lawsuit damages to people
who have tripped on sidewalks that are in disrepair.
City law actually requires property owners, and not the
city, to maintain the sidewalks, but the city gets sued
for failure to enforce the law against procrastinating
property owners. [New York Newsday, 2-16-93]
* Bentonville, Ark., inmate Ross Chadwell filed a
lawsuit against Benton County in February, claiming
that Sheriff Andy Lee violated his civil rights.
Chadwell had tried to escape in August 1992 after being
temporarily made a jail trusty but was soon captured
and further punished. Chadwell said Lee acted
"recklessly" in putting him in a position from which he
could attempt to escape. [Arkansas Democrat Gazette,
Feb93]
Creme de la Weird
* Writing in a 1992 medical journal, two doctors in
Bristol, England, reported the case of a 53-year-old
man who came to a hospital emergency room, "alert and
oriented," but with two holes in his skull--the result
of a suicide attempt with an electric drill. The
doctors' literature search on "deliberate self-harm" by
"craniocerebral penetrat[ion]" produced reports of
incidents with nails (four reports), ice picks (two),
keys (five), pencils (three), and chopsticks (six).
[Surgical Neurology 1992, vol. 38, p. 471]
Inexplicable
* In February, Anthony Thomas, 23, facing a maximum of
12 years in prison for selling cocaine in Lake City,
Fla., said he thought that a long sentence would help
him deal with his drug problem. He called a special
conference with the judge and requested a sentence of
30 years, which the judge granted. [[Milwaukee Journal-
N. Y. Times, Feb93]]
The Diminishing Value of Life
* At a Long Beach, Calif., wedding reception in
February, a man described as about 20 years old shot a
33-year-old man to death because he was upset by the
seating arrangements. [L. A. Times, 2-15-93]
END
/
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Date: Thu, 11 Mar 93 11:20:55 -0500
From: Eric Haines <erich@eye.com>
Message-Id: <9303111620.AA13481@hemlock>
To: subgenius@media-lab.media.mit.edu
Subject: penguins
(some of you may have seen this before...)
from Audubon Magazine, got me when
A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots stationed on the
Falkland Islands have devised what they consider a marvelous new game. Noting
that the local penguins are fascinated by airplanes, the pilots search out a
beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowly along it at the water edge.
Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn their heads in unison watching the planes
go by, and when the pilots turn around and fly back, the birds turn their
heads in the opposite direction, like spectators at a slow-motion tennis
match. Then, the paper reports, `The pilots fly out to sea and directly to
the penguin colony and overfly it. Heads go up, up, up, and ten thousand
penguins fall over gently onto their backs.'
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End of Subgenius Digest
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