Odd News [Old]

[Iyouboushi]

To go along with the sister topic of "Odd Things," I thought it'd be interesting to post some strange news articles that have been found on the net. Since news links are not indefinite, you might want to c/p the story here in addition to the link back.


No clowning: Ronald becomes a McHottie!

No clowning: Ronald
becomes a McHottie!
Move over Paris Hilton – McDonald's going sexy

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: September 24, 2005
1:15 a.m. Eastern



© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com



Ronald gets a McMakeover

On the heels of Paris Hilton's sexually supercharged burger campaign for Hardee's and Carl's Jr, fast-food giant McDonald's is serving up a new generation of Ronald McDonald – one that's not a clown, and not even a Ronald for that matter.

The McMarketing campaign in Japan replaces the traditional baggy-pants male clown with a sexy, bikini-clad woman.

"In the Japanese TV commercial," notes Britain's Guardian newspaper, "the foxy female version, with shoulder-length straight auburn hair in place of Ronald's frizzy mop, smolders at the camera in a flowing yellow dress, and later a red and white striped bikini with thigh-length leggings and red high heels."




"The customers are calling her the female Ronald but that was not our intention," said campaign creator, Hidekazu Sato, known by his nickname Kazoo, through a translator. "We devised the costume and took the red and white stripes and the yellow, which were recognized and converted them into a stylish dress. ...

"We were assuming that even if we didn't include the McDonald's logo and even if the model was a beautiful Caucasian just those colors of the mnemonic design would wake up people's association with McDonald's. The important point is we didn't change Ronald himself – we played around with his costume."




The London Times reports the Japanese campaign is bringing customers back to the Golden Arches, as well as winning praise from design and fashion experts, but the gender change is too radical for a global audience, so the traditional clown is not being retired.

Illinois-based McDonald's, founded in 1955 by Ray Kroc, reportedly has had a grilling relationship with Japan since its debut in 1971.

According to the Times, when faced with accusations that hamburgers were inimical to the country's diet, Den Fujita, the first McDonald's Japan president, declared: "The reason Japanese people are so short and have yellow skins is because they have eaten nothing but fish and rice for 2,000 years. If we eat McDonald’s hamburgers and potatoes for a thousand years we will become taller, our skin become white and our hair blond."

[Iyouboushi]

Woman crashes car into swimming pool

Woman Crashes Car Into Swimming Pool

September 23, 2005

By KOMO Staff

BELLEVUE - A test drive in a car ended with a big splash and a daring rescue in Bellevue Friday morning, after a woman somehow drove the car into a swimming pool.

Police say it was just before 8 a.m. when 911 dispatchers began receiving calls that car had driven into the community pool at the Racquet Club Estates in northern Bellevue.

When police and firefighters arrived, they found the 20-year-old driver was still trapped inside the car. Firefighters dove into the water and broke the car's sunroof and rear window with their fire axes and pulled the woman to safety.

Police say it all began when the woman was interested in buying a car from a friend and went to take a test drive. But when she started the car, she somehow mistook the gas for the brake. The car jumped a curb and bolted out of the parking lot. It drove over a phone utility box, glanced off a tree, then crashed through an 8-foot fence and into the pool.

The woman was unable to figure out how to open the car windows to escape and was trapped in the sinking car. A resident of the complex had attempted to rescue the woman by breaking a window with a baseball bat, but was unsuccessful.

Redmond firefighters, who were the first on the scene, got on top of the car as it was sinking and broke out the sunroof and rear window with their fire axes and pulled the woman out through the sunroof.

Witnesses say the womanfs shrinking air pocket as about 8h when she was pulled to safety.

The woman was taken to Overlake Medical Center for possible hypothermia, as it was chilly outside and the pool was unheated.

The woman only had a learner's permit, but no charges will be filed since she did not drive on a public roadway.

The car was uninsured.

[Iyouboushi]

Armed and Dangerous - Flipper the Firing Dophin

Armed and dangerous - Flipper the firing dolphin let loose by Katrina

by Mark Townsend Houston
Sunday September 25, 2005
The Observer


It may be the oddest tale to emerge from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico.
Experts who have studied the US navy's cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying 'toxic dart' guns. Divers and surfers risk attack, they claim, from a species considered to be among the planet's smartest. The US navy admits it has been training dolphins for military purposes, but has refused to confirm that any are missing.

Dolphins have been trained in attack-and-kill missions since the Cold War. The US Atlantic bottlenose dolphins have apparently been taught to shoot terrorists attacking military vessels. Their coastal compound was breached during the storm, sweeping them out to sea. But those who have studied the controversial use of dolphins in the US defence programme claim it is vital they are caught quickly.

Leo Sheridan, 72, a respected accident investigator who has worked for government and industry, said he had received intelligence from sources close to the US government's marine fisheries service confirming dolphins had escaped.

'My concern is that they have learnt to shoot at divers in wetsuits who have simulated terrorists in exercises. If divers or windsurfers are mistaken for a spy or suicide bomber and if equipped with special harnesses carrying toxic darts, they could fire,' he said. 'The darts are designed to put the target to sleep so they can be interrogated later, but what happens if the victim is not found for hours?'

Usually dolphins were controlled via signals transmitted through a neck harness. 'The question is, were these dolphins made secure before Katrina struck?' said Sheridan.

The mystery surfaced when a separate group of dolphins was washed from a commercial oceanarium on the Mississippi coast during Katrina. Eight were found with the navy's help, but the dolphins were not returned until US navy scientists had examined them.

Sheridan is convinced the scientists were keen to ensure the dolphins were not the navy's, understood to be kept in training ponds in a sound in Louisiana, close to Lake Pontchartrain, whose waters devastated New Orleans.

The navy launched the classified Cetacean Intelligence Mission in San Diego in 1989, where dolphins, fitted with harnesses and small electrodes planted under their skin, were taught to patrol and protect Trident submarines in harbour and stationary warships at sea.

Criticism from animal rights groups ensured the use of dolphins became more secretive. But the project gained impetus after the Yemen terror attack on the USS Cole in 2000. Dolphins have also been used to detect mines near an Iraqi port.

[Iyouboushi]

Woman calls cops over unreliable hit man

Woman calls cops over unreliable hit man
Tokyo police arrest woman who had tried to have her loverfs wife killed
Updated: 2:55 a.m. ET Sept. 16, 2005

TOKYO - A Japanese woman called in the police after a hit man she paid to kill her loverfs wife failed to carry out the job.

The 32-year-old Tokyo woman was arrested on Wednesday for incitement to murder, the Daily Yomiuri newspaper said on Friday.

The woman contacted a private detective through a Web site last November and paid him $9,000 in cash to murder her love rival, the paper said.

The 40-year-old detective accepted the money and suggested he could carry out the job by chasing the victim on a motorcycle and spraying her with a biological agent in a tunnel.

Police also arrested the private detective and found the alleged target safe and well, the paper said.

[Iyouboushi]

Boy Finds Rare Two-Headed Snake

Boy Finds Rare Two-Headed Snake

POSTED: 3:35 pm EDT September 26, 2005
UPDATED: 6:43 am EDT September 29, 2005

A Missouri boy found a rare two-headed snake with two independently thinking brains, according to a report. Cody Kannir, 10, was playing outside his home Friday when he discovered a baby black rat snake with two heads hiding in a tree stump in Delta.

"And then I picked up a piece of wood and he was under there," Kannir said. "I said, 'Oh my gosh, it's a two-headed snake.'"

Kannir brought the snake to show and tell. But the next day, he and his mother Marilyn decided to turn over the strange find to the state's Conservation Department's Nature Center in Cape Girardeau.

Experts said the snake is only about a week old and they are having to take extra special care to feed it.

The heads may move in different directions or even try to attack each other, since the brains are independently thinking, according to the report.

"They have two different brains so they're both thinking differently. So you have to get both of them ready to eat at once and then one willing to take it to get down to their stomach," education specialist Jeremy Soucy said.

[Iyouboushi]

School orders students to remove blogs

School orders students to remove blogs
By Wayne Parry, Associated Press
NEWARK, N.J. — A Roman Catholic high school has ordered its students to remove their online diaries from the Internet, citing a threat from cyberpredators.
Students at Pope John XXIII Regional High School in Sparta appear to be heeding a directive from the principal, the Rev. Kieran McHugh.

McHugh told them in an assembly earlier this month to remove any personal journals they might have or risk suspension. Websites popular with teens include myspace.com and xanga.com.

Officials with the Diocese of Paterson say the directive is a matter of safety, not censorship. No one has been disciplined yet, said Marianna Thompson, a diocesan spokeswoman.

She said the ban has been on the books for five years but is only now being strictly enforced. Thompson said students aren't being silenced but rather told that they cannot post online writings about school or their personal lives.

A search of both myspace.com and xanga.com Wednesday by The Associated Press found no postings by users who mentioned the school. Profiles posted by other users include photos and detailed personal information on topics such as musical tastes, body measurements and sexual history.

Kurt Opsahl of the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, which champions the rights of bloggers, said there have been several attempts by private institutions elsewhere to restrict or censor students' Internet postings.

"But this is the first time we've heard of such an overreaction," he said. "It would be better if they taught students what they should and shouldn't do online rather than take away the primary communication tool of their generation."

Thompson said parents of students who enroll in the schools sign contracts governing student behavior, including responsible Internet use.

That could dilute the students' free speech claims somewhat, acknowledged Ed Barocas, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey.

"The rights of students at private schools are far different than those of public schools because administrators at public schools are agents of government," he said. "That's not the case here."

[Smz]

I think it would probably better to teach them what they should do and don't do online.

Plus, I don't think you really should be doing that stuff when you're at school anyway.

[Iyouboushi]

The way I read it is that they have to remove their blogs regardless if they blogged at home or at school. What people do at home shouldn't be subject to jurisdiction by people at school. That'd be like Sears telling me "you can't use mIRC at home and it must be removed immedately."

Though I agree, they probably should be teaching them what to do and what not to do online to protect themselves.

[Smz]

Er, oh. I thought it was just at school. Yeah, you shouldn't have to get rid of it if you do that at home.

[NW]

Hahaha. If they tried to do that at my High School we would've said: "Ya right."

"Alright men, what do you think this is, *Insert name of rival school here* High School? We own your personal lives now! You represent us!"

It's true that they should teach them what they should and shouldn't do. If only they had a mandatory course that everyone had to take...

Myspace.com is supposed to be for those over the age of 18 anyway. They oughta get around to putting up age verification someday.