Category: News of the Weird

Too cute not to pass on, from the Washington Post, via RASSF:
A Bite and Bark That Saved a Life

Cellphone Chomp Called 911 for Beagle’s Owner

By Leef Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 19, 2006; Page B01

Belle Weaver is flying into the nation’s capital today to receive an award for saving a family member’s life. Before she leaves town, she’ll meet with her congressman, accept a certificate autographed by a football great and bow her head to receive a medal.

Stories such as hers, of heroism and quick thinking, are always inspiring. But this one has a twist, and not just because Belle is 3 years old.

You see, Belle Weaver is a beagle. She used her owner’s cellphone to call 911.

Her owner, Kevin Weaver, 34, was in the throes of a diabetic seizure, lying unconscious on his kitchen floor in Ocoee, Fla., when Belle located his phone and chomped down on the keypad, triggering a call.

Internet celebrity, Playboy model Jenn Sterger to lecture at Psi U

By Matthew Abbott, The Dartmouth Staff
Published on Friday, May 19, 2006

Photo courtesy of Jenn Sterger
Model Jenn Sterger, a student at Florida State University with 95 Facebook.com friends at Dartmouth, will give a half-hour presentation on her life.

Model and Internet celebrity Jenn Sterger will make an appearance at Psi Upsilon fraternity this Saturday as part of a programming event to raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Sterger, a fifth-year senior at Florida State University, was propelled to fame in Sept. 2005 when cameras from ABC News panned across the crowd at an FSU football game, pausing before the commercial break on a scantily-clad Sterger and two of her friends.

See also this photo:

Jenn Sterger, whose rise to fame was aided by the popular internet site Facebook.com, socializes with undergraduates and the College’s unofficial mascot, “Keggy the Keg,” on the lawn of Psi Upsilon fraternity Saturday evening. Sterger attracted a large crowd during the only day of Green Key weekend to avoid much rain.

Via DBA

For contrast, back when I was there two Dartmouth women were a the Playboy “Girls of the Ivy League” pictorial, and my recollection was despite both being fully dressed they got protested. The D described one as the “pose on a staircase reveals much of her backside and the profile of one breast” so my recollection is a little off, but *shrug*

It’s nice to see that some of the 1990s revival of puritanism has warn off…

Tempest in a D-cup as bust sizes grow

BEIJING (Reuters) – Bra producers have been forced to offer bigger cup-sizes in China because improved nutrition is busting all previous chest measurement records.

“It’s so different from the past when most young women would wear A- or B-cup bras,” Triumph brand saleswoman Zhang Jing told the Shanghai Daily from the Landmark Plaza of China’s commercial hub.

“You…never expect those thin women to have such nice figures if they are not plastic.”

Forwarded by several different people today.

Via MSNBC Argentine president to country: Eat less beef

As prices rise carnivores endanger Nestor Kirchner’s anti-inflation fight
Updated: 7:28 a.m. ET March 16, 2006
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – Argentines rank among the world’s biggest meat-eaters. But President Nestor Kirchner has told his carnivorous compatriots it’s time to consume less if beef prices continue to rise and threaten his campaign against inflation.

But isn’t that like shunning the tango or telling a soccer-mad nation to skip the World Cup?

Somehow this reminds me of Shrubbo’s “addicted to oil” comment.

On an side note, I’ve wanted to visit Argentina for a while now, and the cuisine – including excellent, relatively affordable beef – is a big part of that.

From MSNBC:
Norway, where beer flows instead of water

Woman pleasantly surprised when alcohol comes through kitchen faucet
REUTERS Updated: 6:36 p.m. ET March 13, 2006

OSLO, Norway – A woman thought she was in heaven when beer instead of water flowed from the faucets in her apartment in west Norway.

“I turned on the tap to clean some knives and forks and beer came out,” Haldis Gundersen told Reuters from her home in Kristiansund, in west Norway. “We thought we were in heaven.”

[…]

It turned out that a worker in a bar two floors below had mixed up the pipes on Saturday evening, wrongly connecting a new barrel to a water pipe leading to Gundersen’s apartment. The bar got water in its beer taps.

Definitely one to file under “News of the Weird.”

Sounds like a bad comic book, right?

But via BoingBoing.net, we find that they’re stars of the NSA children’s outreach site.

They have comments on changes to the site, but in general, I’m just baffled and astounded(*); that they HAVE a ridiculous comicky children’s site to begin with.

(* I was going to say “hornswoggled” but I’m informed that means “fooled.”)

Police mistakenly impound driver with car

TORONTO (Reuters) – An 85-year-old Canadian man spent hours inside his impounded car in freezing temperatures after his vehicle was ticketed for illegal parking and then towed to a police compound, police said on Thursday.
[…]
“They accessed the vehicle and sure enough there was an elderly man inside. He was disoriented but he was not unconscious.”
[…]
Lammi said police were unsure what stopped the man from driving his car away.