Fun_People Archive
15 Mar
Weirdness [421] - 1Mar96

Date: Fri, 15 Mar 96 12:33:20 -0800
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: Weirdness [421] - 1Mar96

Excerpted-from: WEIRDNUZ.421 (News of the Weird, March 1, 1996)
		by Chuck Shepherd

* In November, workers at China's Bayanghe coalfield in Xinjiang region
extinguished a fire that had been burning over a five-square-kilometer area
for an estimated 100 years.  About 300,000 tons of coal a year was consumed
by the fire, and authorities estimate 55 million tons remain. [China
Daily-Xinhua, 11-14-95]

* In a December medical journal, University of New Hampshire researchers
found that one adolescent boy in ten has been kicked in the testicles by
another kid, 40% of the time by girls.  Boys who wear glasses or have other
physical limitations are three times more likely to be kicked, and a year
after the kicking, one- fourth of the victims still suffered depression from
the incident.  [USA Today-Journal of the American Medical Association, 12-6-
95]

* Following the November defeat of President Lech Walesa, the Polish
Federation for Women and Family Planning predicted many of the
organization's supporters would end their "sex strike."  Some women had been
refusing to have sex for years to protest the combination of Walesa's strict
anti-abortion stand and the unavailability of contraceptives. [St.
Petersburg Times-Globe and Mail, 12-6-95]

* The Associated Press reported in September that the most popular
publishing genre of the moment in Japan--so huge that whole sections of
bookstores were being given over to it--was World War II novels in which
Japan wins.  In one of the most popular, war-crime tribunals against U. S.
officers and politicians must be held on the commandeered Queen Elizabeth
ocean liner because no large buildings remained standing in Japan. [Taunton
Daily Gazette-AP, 9-8-95]

* In an affidavit in November, Coldwater, Mich., Undersheriff Gary Abbott
revealed that he had been forced to make five trips, in an undercover sting,
to the Coldwater Health Spa to be solicited for prostitution.  According to
Sheriff Ted Gordon, multiple visits were necessary because the department's
recording equipment is old:  "You couldn't hear the women make the
proposition." [Ludington Daily News-AP, 11-16-95]

Copyright 1996, Universal Press Syndicate.  All rights reserved. 

Released for the entertainment of readers.  No commercial use
may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird.

© 1996 Peter Langston