Fun_People Archive
5 Jun
Weirdness [532] - 17Apr98

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Fri,  5 Jun 98 16:39:05 -0700
To: Fun_People
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Subject: Weirdness [532] - 17Apr98

X-Lib-of-Cong-ISSN: 1098-7649
Excerpted-from: WEIRDNUZ.532 (News of the Weird, April 17, 1998)
		by Chuck Shepherd

* In March, two Missouri legislators proposed a law to have the state give
$1,000 to any married couple over age 21 who do not have sexually
transmitted diseases, who have no children prior to the marriage, who have
not aborted a fetus, and who were not previously married.  The law would
establish official Missouri policies of chastity and faithfulness.
[I don't suppose anyone was worried where they would find the funds... -psl]

* In March, Rogers, Ark., software developer Rick Bray introduced his
TVGuardian sound monitor, which silences offensive words in television
dialogue and prints tamer substitutes as captions on the screen.  Bray
expanded George Carlin's "seven words you can't say" to about 100, and says
his device can analyze surrounding dialogue so that, for example, "God" will
be muted only when used irreverently.  (An earlier version of the software
captioned "Dick Van Dyke" as "jerk Van gay.")
[Oy! Don't let me get started...  -psl]

* Movie producer Warren Weideman announced in February that his company
would make a crime-and-intrigue adventure film for the Showtime cable
channel based on the work of U. S. Postal Service inspectors and said he
hopes it will improve the Postal Service's reputation.  Several years ago,
Weideman worked for USPS scanning movie scripts, trying to find places to
insert positive images of the Postal Service and admitted there were "not
that many."

* The Sleepwalking Defense to homicide finally made its way to the U. S. in
February after having achieved success in a famous case in Canada 10 years
ago.  Phoenix, Ariz., inventor Scott Louis Falater said he was sound asleep
during the time he stabbed his wife 44 times and during the time neighbors
watched him hold his wife's head underwater in a backyard swimming pool.
Just as the Canadian defendant had supposedly driven 14 miles to his mother-
in-law's home while asleep and beat her with a tire iron, Falater managed
to put on gloves, kill the woman, bandage a cut, and dispose of his bloody
clothes, all while asleep.  Not impossible, said an expert on sleep
disorders.

* In February, Houston, Tex., City Councilman Rob Todd sent the vice squad
to investigate Myrtle Freeman's Condoms & More shop, but they turned up no
violations.  Frustrated, Todd, noting that the novelty inventory included
chocolate lollipops shaped like breasts and items like "edible panties,"
then sent the health department in to close the store for not having a
license to serve pre-packaged food.  To avoid closing, the condom store
chose to discontinue its grocery section.

* In November, Oregon State University physics professor John Gardner had
a federal grant application rejected, apparently solely because it was not
typed double-spaced.  (Gardner, himself, is blind; he was applying to work
on technology for the disabled.) And in December, the Georgia Court of
Appeals turned down, irrevocably, an appeal by the state in a $2.7 million
personal-injury case because the state's paperwork was submitted in New
Times Roman typeface instead of the required Courier.

* In Pittsburgh, Pa., in September, Francis Glancy, 41, with a blood-alcohol
reading more than three times the legal limit, fell off his bike, knocking
himself out, and was charged with DUI under a 1993 ruling that makes a
bicycle a "vehicle."  However, the statute permits first-offenders to avoid
a conviction if they get counseling and agree to a 30-day driver's license
suspension.  Glancy had no driver's license so the judge told him to apply
for one, then allow it to be suspended for 30 days so he could get the
conviction erased.

	Copyright 1998 by Universal Press Syndicate.

© 1998 Peter Langston