Here are a few weird news stories I got off of MSN

First up is: It's not big brother it's Target that's watching you.

You Might Want to Do Your Shoplifting Elsewhere: Increasingly, police departments and government offices (customs agencies, NASA, even the FBI) rely on state-of-the-art investigation support from the Target Corp. (as in Target department stores), according to a January Washington Post report. Target's world-class forensics lab in Minneapolis is the first choice by many departments for examination of surveillance tapes and other evidence, and it was Target in the mid-1990s that finally moved agencies to coordinate previously incompatible databases of criminals (treating the felon population as a nationwide "inventory control" problem). A Target executive said he works for "a high-tech company masquerading as a retailer." [Washington Post, 1-29-06]

Next is how to be a police dept. in california.

How to Be a Police Department: In California, a police department can be created if a local government gives a transportation contract to a private company, automatically empowering that company to hire its own cops, who, though not allowed to make arrests, can carry guns, access police databases, and receive government anti-terrorist grants. The law achieved notoriety in February when Internet millionaire Stefan Eriksson's Ferrari crashed in Malibu, and he later made confusing statements, including the revelation that he is the "deputy commissioner" of the "San Gabriel Valley Transit Authority" police, a post he acquired by starting a modest bus service for the elderly. [Los Angeles Times, 3-8-06]

God owes ad. fees
Questionable Policies: (1) The Wood Methodist Church was informed in March by the town council in Dudley, England, that it owed an "advertising fee" of the equivalent of about $130 to put up a cross. (Town regulations specify that a "cross" is an ad for Christianity.) (2) In March, Apache County, N.M., contracted to pay up to $100,000 to a former Arizona attorney general to investigate Apache's sheriff, Brian Hounshell, who, after an exhaustive previous investigation (whose cost was not revealed), was accused of misspending $8,000 of taxpayer money. [Daily Telegraph (London), 3-8-06] [The Independent (Gallup, N.M.), 3-17-06]

Someone is full of it.

The publisher Powerhouse Books (and its imprint Rosen Editions) is preparing for the imminent release of photographer Ellen Jong's "Pees on Earth," a series of shots of Jong urinating in prominent public spots around the world. Jong is a mainstream professional whose non-urinary work has appeared in Vogue and other publications. [Publishers Weekly, 2-9-06]

From my neck of the woods.

(1) In February, the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled that the neck is a "sexual or intimate (part)" and thus that a forcible kiss there is a felonious touching that allows sentencing the offender to life in prison under the state's "three strikes" rule. (2) Also in February, a Florida appeals court upheld a jury's simultaneous findings that Nicholas Cappalo was not guilty by reason of insanity in the burglary of a home in May 2002, but guilty and sane during the ensuing getaway, in which he led sheriff's deputies on a 15-mile, high-speed chase. [KATU-TV (Portland, Ore.)-AP, 2-16-06] [St. Petersburg Times, 2-11-06]

Finally in the wake of the UGH 2 of 15 new hires passing thier drug test. Yes I said 2 of 15. That's 13 people who couldn't pass the oral swab test. I find that pathetic. Here's a really bad idea on how to pass a drug test.

On Feb. 23, a woman asked a clerk at the Get Go! convenience store in McKeesport, Pa., to "microwave something for me. It's a life-or-death situation." The clerk complied, but when she realized that the item might be a severed penis, she called police. The woman later explained that it was a dildo-shaped container of urine because she had to be drug-tested for a job afterward and needed urine heated to "body temperature." Unexplained still in subsequent press accounts was why she stored the urine in that type of device. She was charged with criminal mischief (for contaminating a microwave food oven). [Washington Post-AP, 2-24-06; CNN-AP, 3-3-06]

That's it.

ttfn