Fun_People Archive
14 Jul
Weirdness [436] - 14Jun96

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Sun, 14 Jul 96 10:33:56 -0700
To: Fun_People
Subject: Weirdness [436] - 14Jun96

Excerpted-from: WEIRDNUZ.436 (News of the Weird, June 14, 1996)
		by Chuck Shepherd

* ... in May in North Brunswick, N. J., police charged Rutgers Univ. math
professor Walter Petryshyn, 67, with bludgeoning his wife to death.  A
friend said Petryshyn had become despondent recently because he feared his
career had been ruined by an error in his latest textbook, Generalized
Topological Degree and Semilinear Equations. [New York Daily News, 5-8-96]

* The Bjorer Kagoj newspaper in Bangladesh reported that about 100 criminals
attended the nation's first conference of muggers on April 23.  The
association decided that the city of Dhaka was prosperous enough to support
a doubling of their daily ripoffs, from 60 to 120.  The leader, Mohammad
Rippon, was acclaimed "Master Hijacker" by the group for his record of 21
muggings in a two-hour period. [San Francisco Chronicle-Reuters, 4-24-96]
	[Planning your holiday?  Rio or Dhaka?  It's a tough choice...  -psl]

* In January, the New York City Parks Department, which controls permits
for vendors on park land, doubled the annual fee for the hot dog pushcart
that had the exclusive license for the spot just south of the steps of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art--to $288,200 a year. [ARTnews, April 1996]
	[Is that a typo?!  -psl]

* Reuters news service reported in May that German scientists at the Max
Planck Breeding Institute have invented a suicidal potato--whose cells
automatically kill themselves if attacked by potato blight fungi, thus
slowing the blight and saving crops.  [Chicago Sun-Times, 5-20-96]

* The Central Wholesale Market in Sapporo, Japan, put two melons on sale in
May with a pricetag of about $1,285 each.  They were described as "perfect
beauties" in color and sweetness.  [Independence Examiner-AP, 5-10-96]

* The U. S. Treasury Department announced in February that it would spend
up to $32 million in a worldwide public relations campaign on the new
counterfeit-proof $100 bill.  (Within two months of the bill's release, in
Richmond, Va., alone, the Secret Service found at least 14 counterfeits of
the new bill that had been passed in stores.) [Park City Daily News (Bowling
Green, Ky.), 2-28-96]

Copyright 1996, Universal Press Syndicate.  All rights reserved.
No commercial use may be made of the material or of the name
News of the Weird.

© 1996 Peter Langston