- After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was
supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver
went to a nearby bus-stop and offered everyone in the queue a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the
mental hospital, telling staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies. The deception
wasn't discovered for 3 days.
- In Minneapolis, USA, 28 year old Derrick L Richardson has been charged with third-degree murder of his much
loved cousin, Ken E Richardson. According to local police, Derrick had suggested to Ken that they play game of
Russian Roulette, but having no revolver, instead put a semi-automatic pistol to his cousin's head. Apparently,
he did not realize that one bullet always loads into the firing chamber of a semi-automatic.
- Texan prisons have banned convicts on death row from having last cigarette, on the grounds that it is bad for
their health. However, to compensate for this, condemned men will instead be permitted to chew a stick of celery
- An American teenager was in hospital yesterday recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming
train. When asked about how he received the injuries, the lad told the police that he was simply trying to see
how close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.
- Thrash happy judges in Saudi Arabia have sentenced a Filipino man to 75 lashes for possession of alcohol -
after he was caught with two chocolate liqueurs at an airport.
- Following the initiatives of the Afghan Taliban government - which has banned kite-flying, T.V watching and
wearing white socks - Iran is also cracking down on its more decadent citizens. Ayatollah Mohammed Yadzi has decreed
that dog walking is to be made illegal, saying that taking dogs out onto the streets was 'a public insult' as it
was a blind imitation of Westerners.
- An Italian father has been charged with child abuse after making his son cut the family lawn with his teeth.
Neighbors alerted the cops when they saw Angelo Franco's 17 year old son chomping away in the garden as punishment
for not completing his chores.
- A 24 year old Michigan man has been charged with the possession of child pornography, even though the material
was of his 17 year old girlfriend, taken with consent. In a quirk of the law, Patrick Corp's girlfriend is old
enough for sex, but too young to be photographed in the act.
- Twenty-five female students were publicly flogged outside a Khartoum courthouse last month for enjoying a picnic
by the riverside. The Sudanese courts ruled the picnic 'immoral and riotous' because some of the girls were wearing
trousers. They were each given 40 lashes
- A Charlotte, NC, man, having purchased a case of very rare, very expensive cigars, insured them against fire
(among other things.) Within a month, having smoked his entire stockpile of cigars and without even having made
his first premium payment on the policy, the man filed a claim against the insurance company. In his claim, the
man stated the cigars were lost "in a series of small fires." The insurance company refused to pay, citing
the obvious reason that the man had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion. The man sued and won. In delivering
the ruling the judge, agreeing that the claim was frivolous, stated nevertheless that the man held a policy from
the company in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable and also guaranteed that it would insure against
fire, without defining what it considered to be "unacceptable fire," and was obligated to pay the claim.
Rather than endure a lengthy and costly appeal process the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid the man
$15,000 for the rare cigars he lost in "the fires." After the man cashed the check, however, the company
had him arrested on 24 counts of arson. With his own insurance claim and using his testimony against him, the man
was convicted of intentionally burning his insured property and sentenced to 24 months in jail and a $24,000 fine.
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