It's time for more weird news!!!!

Here from peoplepc:

Officials Criticize 'Hooters for Neuters'

Tuesday, June 27, 2006
LOS ANGELES - Several city officials on Tuesday sharply criticized a planned bikini contest to raise money for spaying pets, saying the "Hooters for Neuters" event was degrading to women.
Hosted by the Hooters restaurant chain, the July 13 fundraiser will donate money to the spay and neuter programs at Los Angeles Animal Services.
"Are we going backward here?" said City Controller Laura Chick. "We are a city with all kinds of progressive programs that empower women and end discrimination in the workplace, and now we're being connected with a Hooters bikini contest. It isn't right."
Councilwoman Jan Perry said the department's attempt to be creative in telling pet owners to sterilize their animals "crosses the line."
"I was surprised and amazed with the photograph on the flier, and I don't think it projects a good image for the city of Los Angeles," Perry said.
Animal Services Director Ed Boks apologized for making people upset, but said the "Charity Benefit Bikini Contest" would go on as scheduled.
"These people have gone out of their way in helping us, and I would hate to deny these businesses from helping to save the lives of animals in our shelters," Boks said.
Boks promised a more rigorous vetting process for future fundraisers.
The fundraiser is not city-sponsored, but a promoting flier is posted on the Animal Services Web site.
The original flier showed a bikini-clad woman, but the latest version shows a dog wearing a T-shirt that says "Hooters for Neuters."
Boks said that the owners of Hooters approached him about the fundraiser a month ago. He said the ads were made without consulting the department.
"When somebody steps up and says they want to help your agency raise money, your inclination is to say `Yes,'" Boks said. "But, we probably won't be involved in any future bikini contests."

So much for freedom of speech:

Man May Get Jail for Ticket Expletive

Tuesday, June 27, 2006
BERKLEY, Mich. - The parking fine was $10. But the comment Robert Militzer added to the check could land him in jail for 30 days.
The computer programmer from Allen Park got the ticket May 29. When Militzer wrote the check to Berkley District Court, he scribbled on the memo line, "BULL (expletive) MONEY GRAB."
That got Militzer an in-person court appearance - on a contempt of court charge. He's scheduled to go before a judge Wednesday, accompanied by an American Civil Liberties Union attorney who will argue Militzer's remark is protected by the First Amendment.
Militzer, 38, was ticketed for parking in front of a friend's house overnight. He said he obeyed signs prohibiting parking between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. during previous visits, but the signs weren't there the morning he was cited.
"I thought they were gaming me, collecting fines without giving people a fair chance to avoid it," Militzer told The Detroit News. "If the sign had been there, I knew what the law was. I would take my lumps and move on."
Militzer said he realized the off-color notation "didn't solve anything." But, he added, "It let them know I felt they were being unfair."
Richard Eshman, Berkley's public safety director, said Militzer could have requested a hearing to argue against the ticket. "There's an avenue for protesting that kind of thing," he said.
ACLU lawyer Elsa Shartsis said Militzer's "choice of words may not be the best, and it may offend some people, but it's not illegal."

These are from msn:

Damn is all I have to say for this one

Compelling Explanations
An Iowa tribunal turned down Chris T. Coppinger's demand for unemployment benefits in May, following his firing from a charitable fund-raising company in Davenport for various alleged indiscretions. Among the company's charges was that Coppinger had had sex on top of his desk with a co-worker, but Coppinger argued that that should not be a terminating offense, since many other company employees had had sex on his desk, too. [Des Moines Register, 5-15-06]

Never Give Up: Ronald Blankenship, a shoe repairman in Birmingham, Ala., finished second in June's Democratic primary for sheriff and was placed in a run-off, when the Birmingham News discovered details of an apparently shady past: faking his death in connection with an insurance policy, assault and passing bad checks. Blankenship's defense, a week later: It must be another Ronald Blankenship (even though "both" men have the same middle name and birth date and coincidentally are married to women with the same first, middle and maiden names). [Birmingham News, 6-13-06]

Honesty Is the Best Policy? (1) Jonifer Jackson, 20, was arrested in Clarksville, Tenn., in April and charged with reckless endangerment for firing a 9 mm pistol while street-preaching (because, he told police, it was the only way he could get people to listen to him). (2) Phillip Daniels, 42, was arrested in Dallas in April, as the one who had set off five explosives in the previous two weeks (which he told Dallas' KXAS-TV were done just because he likes the sounds). (3) Yasuhisa Matsushita, 25, was arrested in Iwata, Japan, in March as the man who stole a high school girl's swimsuit, put it on, and pranced around in it while relieving himself because, he told police, "(I)t felt so good." [WSMV-TV (Nashville)-AP, 4-3-06] [KXAS-TV (Dallas), 4-4-06] [Mainichi Daily News, 3-4-06]

Ironies
In May, in the midst of the Ford Motor Co.'s "Red, White & Bold," buy-American ad campaign touting its classic Mustangs, the research firm CSM Worldwide (using statistics from the U.S. Department of Transportation) revealed that 35 percent of the 2006 Mustang's content came from overseas, and in fact, that five Honda models and seven Toyota models contained more U.S. content than the Mustang, including Toyota's Sienna minivan, which was 90 percent U.S. [Wall Street Journal, 5-11-06]
More Ironies: (1) The May 10 tornado that hit Highland County, Ohio, touched down in the town of Hillsboro, along Wizard of Oz Drive. (2) In April, The Washington Post, covering outdoor press conferences by Capitol Hill legislators to decry the then-recent bump in gasoline prices, reported that the vehicle of choice for most of them returning to offices only a few blocks away was a gas-guzzling SUV, and in fact that several senators hopped into idling SUVs even to travel across the street from the Capitol to their offices. [WCMH-TV (Columbus), 5-11-06] [Washington Post, 4-27-06]

Cliches Come to Life
(1) The Chicago Sun-Times reported in May that at least six homeless substance addicts had claimed that someone had paid them $5 each to vote for certain candidates in a recent Chicago school board election (but that a schools spokesman, after consulting the rules, said vote-buying in Chicago school board elections might not even be illegal). (2) London's Guardian reported in April that access to British dentists is becoming so difficult that in a recent week, 6,000 do-it-yourself crown-and-cap replacement kits had been sold to consumers. [Chicago Sun-Times, 5-20-06] [New York Times, 5-7-06]

Creme de la Weird
In May, a judge in Reno, Nev., sentenced Raymond Russell George, 58, to five consecutive life sentences for molesting three young girls over a two-year period, but George said he welcomes the prison time because it will give him a chance to use his comprehensive knowledge of the Bible to help inmates find Jesus. George is notorious also for his dreadful inattention to hygiene, which he said is necessary to keep fellow prisoners (his potential congregants) from getting too close to him. (Otherwise, he said, they "flick boogers at me and fart in my face.") [Reno Gazette-Journal, 5-17-06]

Least Competent Criminals
Flunking Finance 101: John Faux, 41, was arrested in Niagara Falls, N.Y., in April and charged with robbing a Key Bank branch of about $2,000; Faux had complained to the teller that he had clearly demanded not $2,000, but "$100 million," and the two were still arguing when the police arrived. And Tekle Zigetta, 45, pleaded guilty in Los Angeles in March to trying to smuggle $250 billion into the country (which Customs agents discovered, in the form of 250 bills of the denomination of $1 billion, bearing a picture of President Grover Cleveland). [Buffalo News, 4-18-06] [Reuters, 3-15-06]

Updates
Veteran New England mobster Anthony St. Laurent, 64, was arrested again in April, in Providence, R.I., on loan-sharking charges. As with previous arrests, St. Laurent tried to convince the judge not to jail him because his colorectal condition required him to take 40 enemas a day, but the condition has apparently worsened, in that he now claims to need "to have his stool removed, biweekly," according to his lawyer. (Note: "Biweekly," meaning "every two weeks," is often used incorrectly to mean twice a week.) [Providence Journal, 4-14-06]

Four weeks ago, News of the Weird reported that a "side business" of British farmer David Lucas was building gallows for export to Zimbabwe and other countries that still execute by hanging. After the story was widely reported in the British press, a man who identified himself as Lucas' sometime-business-partner told reporters that Lucas had been joking, that he had built only one gallows and was not actually in the business. At press time, it is unknown whether Lucas, or his partner, was telling the truth. [UPI, 6-1-06]

Undignified Deaths
(1) Recent incidents in which people were run over fatally by their own cars: a 62-year-old woman backing out of a parking space at a Wal-Mart in Kahului, Hawaii, in May (she had apparently opened the door to look behind her and fell out), and a 76-year-old woman visiting her husband's grave at Maple Grove Cemetery in New York City in April (details not reported). (2) A 67-year-old woman was killed in Houston in May when her car went out of control, swerved across a road, and slammed into the lead car of a funeral procession about to depart Guadalupe Funeral Home for the cemetery. The woman's family later announced that they would just leave the body at Guadalupe for funeral arrangements. [Maui News, 5-24-06] [MSNBC-AP, 5-1-06] [Houston Chronicle, 5-24-06]

That's all for tonight. I thought you'd all enjoy reading about these. You can read more here.

(Visit Chuck Shepherd daily at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com or www.NewsoftheWeird.com.

ttfn