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Yucks Digest V1 #110



Yucks Digest                Sat, 14 Dec 91       Volume 1 : Issue 110 

Today's Topics:
                            administrivia
                  25 things done during Prev. Maint.
                              anon wire
                         ELF Magnetic Fields
                            Holiday gifts
             More, perhaps less, Interesting Movie Combos
             North Dakota now 2nd greatest nuclear power!
                Okay, we'll pay for the $0.30 stamp...
                  one of those computer quiz things
                             Review Terms
      Spaghetti Warehouse (or How do you make a compaint heard?)
                              Tele-Facts
                              The Camel
      Well, I think you should just cut it off with him, then...
                Dolphin love a step beyond puppy love
                            dolphin redux

The "Yucks" digest is a moderated list of the bizarre, the unusual, the
possibly insane, and the (usually) humorous.  It is issued on a
semi-regular basis, as the whim and time present themselves.

Back issues may be ftp'd from arthur.cs.purdue.edu from
the ~ftp/pub/spaf/yucks directory.  Material in archives
Mail.1--Mail.4 is not in digest format.

Back issues may also be obtained through a mail server.  Send mail to
"yucks-request@uther.cs.purdue.edu" with a "Subject:" line of the
single word "help".  You may also use this server to join or leave the
list, or to obtain an index of past issues.

Submissions and subscription requests should be sent to
spaf@cs.purdue.edu or yucks@uther.cs.purdue.edu

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat Dec 14 11:37:11 EST 1991
From: spaf
Subject: administrivia

Unless I get a lot of submissions in the next 7 to 10 days, this will
be the last Yucks digest of the year, and the last digest in Volume #1.
Starting in January, Yucks will begin Volume #2.  If I get a flood of
submissions, then there will be more digests this year.

From December 21 thru January 2, Yucks will be on hiatus.

Whatever holiday you celebrate around this time of year, I hope it is
(or was) pleasant and fun-filled.  If you must dip into the eggnog
excessively, please do something likely to be quoted here in Yucks for
our amusement -- not for the ironic horror value.  Be safe, and
I'll continue to try to provide humor and the unusal to you in 1992.

--spaf

PS.  If you are likely to be offended by explicit accounts of sex with
dolphins, don't read the last two messages of this digest.

------------------------------

Date: 11 Dec 91 08:20:07 GMT
From: andy@rat.csc.calpoly.edu (Andy Pippin)
Subject: 25 things done during Prev. Maint.
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny

	Here at Cal Poly we have the great honor (!) of having a
	PS/2 AIX cluster with an IBM 3090 as a fileserver (to be
	fair, it does many other chores, but this is the primary 
	use for students.)  

	The following list is "what really happens" when it goes
	down for preventive maintenance every other weekend.  It
	was posted locally by Allan Schaffer, who resides at
	polyslo.csc.calpoly.edu.

============

Top 25 things done when AIX is taken down for maintenance:   (Revision 2)

25. Let the heads cool
24. Replace the air filter
23. Re-gap the spark plugs
22. Send another installment of hush money to IBM
21  Change the transmission fluid (for network connections)
20. Create another no-traffic newsgroup
19. repaint the cover blue
18. Shine the chrome bumpers and tail fins
17. Put the cat out
16. Change the litter box (/lost+found)
15. Dust off the mouse, change mouseballs (twist-off method)
14. Re-grease the hamster treadmills
13. Check for burned out vacuum tubes
12. Remove any jammed punch cards
11. Take moths out of relays (de-bugging)
10. Replace the control rods
9.  Park the heads
8.  Remove bananas from exhaust pipes
7.  Feed the Keebler network gnomes
6.  Put in a new batch of sysadmins
5.  Put out some martinis for when we're done
4.  Pad the MOTD with a few more lines
3.  Do some laundry
2.  Alert BORG Central Command
and then, once we're all done...

1.  Boot DOS from a floppy

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 91 20:40:55 PST
From: one of our correspondents
Subject: KGB chief gives U.S. Embassy bugging plans
To: yucks

   WASHINGTON, Dec 13 (AFP) - U.S. Ambassador in Moscow Robert Strauss said
Friday that the head of the Soviet KGB gave him a suitcase filled with plans
and instruments used to bug the U.S. Embassy.
   Strauss told reporters at the National Press Club that KGB director Vadim
Bakatin handed him the case of high-tech devices last week.
   "Mr. Ambassador, these are the plans that disclose how the bugging of your
embassy took place, and these are the instruments that were used," Strauss
quoted Bakatin as saying.
   "I want them turned over to your government, no strings attached," he said.
   In 1985, the eight-story building constructed to house the new U.S. Embassy
was found to be riddled with bugs, and was left abandoned. The Soviet
intelligence agency has never publicly taken responsibility for the bugging.

------------------------------

Date: 9 Dec 91 16:06:09 GMT
From: kludge@grissom.larc.nasa.gov ( Scott Dorsey)
Subject: ELF Magnetic Fields
Newsgroups: sci.electronics,talk.bizarre

In article <1991Dec8.195240.22075@jade.tufts.edu> pwilkins@jade.tufts.edu (Paul S. Wilkins) writes:
>A 44 page booklet "How to Reduce Your Exposure to ELF Magnetic Fields" has 
>information on both avoidance and elimination of fields at home, work, and
>travel.  This booklet has the most complete coverage available and costs $10
>from HEMCO, Box 731, Hanover, N.H. 03755.  Tel. 603-643-5679.  A precision
>digital readout milligaussmeter is also available.

A: Gee, Dad, how can we reduce our exposure to ELF fields?

B: Here, son, I bought this booklet.  It says that we should remove
the Omega navigation beacon from the attic.

A: Aww, do we have to?  All the kids like the neat way the TV screen
flashes when it's not turned on.

B: The book says it's got to go.  Also, that cyclotron in the basement
is going to be a problem.

A: The cyclotron?  But how will I be able to finish my science fair
project on the lanthanide series?

B: Maybe you'll be able to borrow the neighbor's particle accelerator.
Doesn't Bobby have that nice synchrotron he got for christmas?

A: Yeah.  But how come we gotta get rid of the cyclotron but the MiG
welder can stay?

B: I don't know...  hmm... it doesn't say anything about it in here.
But I guess since the MiG system has heavily energized coils operating
above the audio band that it could be a problem.  Gosh, I sure hate to
get rid of that.

A: Yeah, and if that's a problem, I bet the MRI scanner in your
mother's sewing room would be even worse.

B: We can't get rid of that, and live like those primitive men we saw
in the museum!

A: I'm sorry son, but that's the price you have to pay.  As technology
advances, bringing with it newfound benefits, the dangers also
increase.  It's a matter of balancing the benefits with the problems,
and striking a happy medium.  For every man, that medium will be
different, and we just have to find the one that's right for us.

------------------------------

Date: Sat Dec 14 11:52:07 EST 1991
From: Gene Spafford <spaf>
Subject: Holiday gifts
To: yucks

[The intro & first 5 are repeated from last year, for those of you who
didn't see them.  I haven't checked any of these services in the last
year to know if they are still around or if the prices have changed.
--spaf]

It's that holiday time of year again, and I know how some of you
struggle to find unusual gifts for that special someone.  So, here are
some ideas taken from the back of some of my magazines.  Note that I
haven't ordered from these services (or won't admit to same), so I
can't say anything about the service or quality of goods.  Caveat
yuckster.

--spaf

Farm raised & processed, fresh-frozen alligator meat.  2 16oz packages
of alligator nuggets only $29.95 plus $8.50 shipping.  Recipes
included.  Call Alligator Bob's Gourmet Alligator @ 1-800-342-1217

Panty-of-the-month club.  Order "elegantly designer panty ...
beautifully gift-wrapped, delicately perfumed, and enclosed with a
personal note reflecting the holiday or season at hand."  Right.  You
can enroll your giftee for 3, 6, or 12 months of panties.  No mention
of a "boxershorts-of-the-month" for the distaff giver.  Call
1-718-PANTIES (1-718-726-8437) or 212-340-4169 for details & order
information. 

Sauce-of-the-month club.  $130 a year gets you a sauce each month from
Spectacular Sauces of Alexandria VA.  They have an extensive catalog
too, available for $1.50 from 800-999-4949.  Just the thing to top off
the alligator nuggets, and maybe the panties.

$14.95 to Chris Leighton, 4022 Corliss Ave. N, Seattle WA 98103
allegedly will bring you a 30 minute tape of "Slim Sphincter the
Farting Elf" performing 30 minutes of farted Xmas song.  I would
imagine that "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" would be awesome, but
I'll stick to the sauces (I almost said I'd stick to the panties, but
I'm sure that would provoke some interesting reactions).

$3.95 to Tenn. Woods, Rt. 9, Box 307A, Sevierville TN 37862 will get
you a can of sun-dried Tennessee Possum road-kill.  Yum, yum.  Slim
eats it all the time to fuel his, er, singing.

An inflatable plastic sheep, known as the "Love Ewe."  Available in
black or white.  Call Miss Kitty's @ 1-800-262-9269 for latest prices
and ordering information.

Custom curses.  These are designed to place the hex on anyone you don't
particularly care for.  Comes with a certificate to show the cursee.
They have a special "Nagging Spouse Kit" too.  For the catalog, send $1
to Jim's Arts, PO Box 1590, Hawaiian Gardens, CA 90716.

Video Roses.  A romantic gift that doesn't wilt and lose petals.  It's
a 30 minute videotape of a dozen long-stem red roses.  It comes with a
small vial of rose essence to add to the effect.  It's $12.95 + $2.50
P&H tp Video Roses, Box 517, Herrin IL 62948.

The Sacrifice Sock.  This is a single sock to put with your wash as
a sacrifice to protect your other socks.  $6.95+$1.50 P&H to 
Panacea Products, PO Box 1146, Key West FL 33041

A dozen, vinyl stickers in the shape of deer genitals.  These are just
the right size to stick on to those "leaping deer" deer-x-ing signs
by the roadside to add a little zing to the warning.  $11.95+$2 P&H.
Berkshire Images, Suite 172, 45 Padanaram Rd, Danbury CT 06811

------------------------------

Date: 12 Dec 91 11:30:05 GMT
From: jeanniec@u.washington.edu (Jean Cook)
Subject: More, perhaps less, Interesting Movie Combos
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny

The Jungle Fever Book
Bill & Ted & Carol & Alice's Excellent Adventures
Singin' in the Purple Rain
39 Step-mothers Are Aliens
My Darling, My Hamburger Hill
Little Orphan Tate  (Little Man Annie?)
Whatever Happened to Three Men and Baby Jane?
Guess Who's Coming Late for Dinner   
Adventures in Babysitting Bill and Ted
Sound of the Music Man
Children of a Lesser Corn God
St. Elmo's Firestarter
Backdraft to the Future
Angelheart at My Table
Hunt for Red Sonja
Spaceballs the Odyssey
Who's That Valleygirl?
Meaning of the Life of Brian
Harold & Micki & Maude
Code of Silence of the Lambs
Back to the Futureshock
Stand and Deliver by Me
Valley of the Gods Must Be Crazy
Lord of the Flies of Discipline
The Breakfast Club of Tiffany's

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 11 Dec 91 12:50:38 -0800
From: bostic@okeeffe.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Subject: North Dakota now 2nd greatest nuclear power!
To: /dev/null@okeeffe.CS.Berkeley.EDU

Globe and Mail, Dec. 7, 1991, page A13
 
Estimated nuclear warheads in each republic in 1990
 
Russia          19000
Ukraine          4000
Kazakhistan      1800  
Byelorussia      1250       
Lithuania (*)     325   
Georgia           320  
Azerbaijan        300
Estonia (*)       270   
Armenia           200      
Latvia (*)        185  
Turkmenistan      125    
Uzbekistan        105     
Uzbekistan        105   
Moldavia           90
Kirgizia           75   
Tadzhikistan       75
 
(*) Before independence
Source (of the Newspaper): Natural Resources Defense Council

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 11 Dec 91 19:12:41 -0500
From: jrs@ecn.purdue.edu
Subject: Okay, we'll pay for the $0.30 stamp...
To: bob

From today's newspaper...

The U.S. Postal Service said a technician programmed a scanner
to print an offensive phrase that accidentally wound up on
an estimated 10,000 pieces of mail, a television station reported.

The technician was repairing an optical character scanner that puts
bar codes on letter envelopes.  He used the two-word phrase to test
the program, then forgot to remove it before the machine
returned to service at the main post office in Columbus, Ohio,
WCMH-TV reported.

The machine printed the words, "You B----." [ Gee I wonder what
that could be... :-) ]

The phrase went onto envelopes 5 1/4 inches high and larger.

"We had intended too have holiday greetings or 'Merry Christmas'
as messages that go on the envelopes." postal spokesman Ed Johnson
said.  "It turned out to be a bit different."

Post offices around the country were alerted to watch for the
envelopes, WCMH reported.

The station said the technician, which it didn't identify, programmed
the particular phrase because he was taught in training that those
words test all aspects of a matrix printer.

The technician will be disciplined for the incident, the station said.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 91 18:14:48 PST
From: eli@cisco.com
Subject: one of those computer quiz things
To: eniac@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us

[According to Doug Comer, the following is originally from Brian Reid
and was written circa 1982.  --spaf]

It seems odd that you are upset that there are several people who have
failed the systems qual for the last time, and from the amount of mail
flying about the last few days I suppose we'll have to do something about
this.  Nothing can be done until John gets back in town (Thursday) so
you'll just have to sit on the edge of your seat.  But here is a sample of
some of the questions we asked on the qual, just so you know we were fair:

1. Pick from the following pictures the one which most accurately represents
a computer:
	A. <a picture of a Cray-1>
	B. <a picture of a S-1 Mark IIA>
	C. <a picture of a DEC 2060>
	D. <a picture of a 3 foot spool of coaxial cable>

Answer: D.

2. What is the limiting factor on the speed of paging on modern computer
architectures?

Answer: the number of meters of coax between your 8080 and your floppy disk.

3. Name 100 advantages of personal machines over timesharing machines. Name
1 advantage of a timeshared machine over a personal machine.

There was a lot of complaints about this question, and we admit it was
intended as a trick. Several of the people who passed spent over an hour
trying to think of the advantage of timeshared machines.

4. What is the primary design consideration in designing a modern computer
system?

Answer: How to maximize the ratio of coax to silicon.

5. What was the most important invention for modern computing?

	A. ECL and high speed logic
	B. Advanced cooling technologies
	C. Video Disks
	D. Cache memories
	E. Coaxial cable

Answer: E.

6. What is the most important function of a modern operating system?

Answer: the mail server.

7. What is the most important measure of the sophistication of a modern
operating system?

Answer: the complexity of the mail headers it produces.

8. What is the most reasonable power dissipation in modern computers:
	A. equivalent to a 2000 megaton nuclear device (e.g. CRAY-1)
	B. equivalent to the output of the Hoover Dam (e.g. S-1 MARK IIA)
	C. equivalent to a room full of toaster ovens (e.g. a DEC 2060)
	D. equivalent to a sexually satiated male mosquito in a room
	   at absolute 0 (e.g. a single board 68000 connected to 90 miles
	   of 300 ohm coax).

Answer: D.

(The next question is from Sue Owicki)
9. Define: A is `strongly hyperhyperimmune' if A is infinite and there is
no recursive f such that (u)[W(f(u))  A  empty] & (u)(v)
u  v => W(f(u))  W(f(v)) = empty].
	A. show that if A is strongly hyperhyperimmune then A has no
	   infinite retraceable subset.
	B. show that if A is strongly cohesive then A is strongly 
	   hyperhyperimmune.

Answer: A - obvious; B - immediate corollary of A.

10. What are the design considerations in a modern display?

Answer: it must display 10^49352 points per inch and run at least at
2 baud (to support the new, high speed 8080's out on the market).

11. Describe the new generation of `supercomputers'.

Answer: the MC68000 is...

12. Name the institutions where the most progressive computer systems work
is being performed.

Answer: Bells Labs (C and Unix) because they are part of the phone company
and, hence, like copper wire; Xerox (Altos) because they have cornered the
world coax market.

13. What units are used to measure the performance of modern computers?

Answer: TIPS - Thousandths of Instructions Per Second.

14. (Methodology) Why is it that large computers (e.g. Cray-1) are no
longer of interest to systems people?

Answer: They run too fast to understand and to use coax effectively. Running
one of these computers on an ultra-high speed network (3 megabit net) would
swamp it.

15. Where are the reliability issues centered in modern systems?

Answer: UHF connectors.

16. Define a `large program'.

Answer: A program that is more than 1/2 a page long or that has less than
10 lines of declarations for each line of code.

17. How many programs have you written?

Passing answer:  < 10
Failing answer:  > 15
Conditional:	 10x15

18. What is the largest program that you have ever heard that a real
computer scientist has written?

Answer: A mail server.

19. Why is synchronization research better performed on small, modern computers
connected by a network?

Answer: The coax slows things down so much that you don't have to worry 
about deadlocks.

20. Some people say that extremely large programs (> 500 lines) require very
large computers. How do you answer them?

Answer: If they knew what they were doing they wouldn't need a large
machine. The fact that they write such large programs means they are doing
the wrong thing.

21. What should we do with people who believe in huge timesharing machines
that run like hell and who want to write gigantic programs?

Answer: Fail them on the systems qual.

------------------------------

Date: Tue Dec 10 13:33:30 PDT 1991
From: robkp@microsoft.COM
Subject: Review Terms
To: yucks

[For you non-Microsofties -- We have reviews every 6months where we 
write about ourselves, and our managers write about us.]

                REVIEW TERMS 

says:  'Maintains a high degree of participation.'
means: 'Comes to work on time.'

says:  'Excels in the effective application of skills.'
means: 'Makes a good cup of coffee.'

says:  'Displays excellent intuitive judgement.'
means: 'Knows when to disappear.'

says:  'Displays great dexterity and agility.'
means: 'Dodges and evades superiors well.'

says:  'Demonstrates imaginative leadership.'
means: 'Imagines self to be Ivan the Terrible.'

says:  'Inspires the cooperation of others.'
means: 'Gets everyone else to do the work.'

says:  'Excels in sustaining concentration while avoiding
        confrontations.'
means: 'Ignores everyone.'

says:  'Is willing to take calculated risks.'
means: 'Doesn't mind spending someone else's money.'

says:  'Identifies major management problems.'
means: 'Complains a lot.'

says:  'Keeps well informed on business, political
        and social issues.'
means: 'Subscribes to Playboy and National Enquirer.'

says:  'Is exceptionally well informed.'
means: 'Knows where all the skeletons are kept.'

says:  'Delegates responsibility effectively.'
means: 'Passes the buck well.'

says:  'Accepts new job assignments willingly.'
means: 'Never finishes a job.'

says:  'Optimizes the use of available resources.'
means: 'Conserves supplies and funds by never doing
        anything.'

------------------------------

Date: 10 Dec 91 17:13:52 GMT
From: fran@sparc62.hri.com (Fran Corrado)
Subject: Spaghetti Warehouse (or How do you make a compaint heard?)
Newsgroups: rec.food.restaurants

In article <EdEuVcu00iUx028eIz@andrew.cmu.edu>, mj0v+@andrew.cmu.edu
(Mary R. Jensen) writes:
> At a recent dinner at the Spaghetti Warehouse (a national chain), my
> husband and I were dismayed to realize that the wood sideboard nearby,
> being used to hold silverware, water carafes and a statue of Bacchus,
> was actually a Catholic altar, complete with tabernacle!
> 
> .... more stuff deleted					
> 
> Now my question- Is there anything more I can do?  How do you get a big
> restaurant chain to change its policy?  Any advice?

I know exactly what you're talking about.  I am absolutely outraged by
the insensitivity and blatant sacrilege on display in certain Boston
area restaurants.

For example, at a well known chicken chain in the area, one has to put
up with a huge crucifix with an oven-stuffer nailed to it.  Downright
degrading.  And there's Allah's BBQ Pit in Cambridge, where the Saudi
waitresses are essentially naked except for sunglasses while they
serve up pork ribs.  My Jewish friends are really disgusted by
Moshe's, a supposedly Kosher deli in Charlestown that offers a
Saturday special of pork parmigiana with giant clam milkshakes.  Or
Cafe 666 in Salem where some friends are bothered by the Saturday
night virgin sacrifice, but it's more than made up for by the awesome
Bloody Marys at Sunday brunch.

I guess it's just the price one has to pay for living in this great
country of ours.

By the way, on your next visit to the Spaghetti Warehouse, you might
consider genuflecting on your way to the bathroom!  Other than that, I
know how you feel.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 11 Dec 91 06:13:18 CST
From: Joe Wiggins <JWIGG@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU>
Subject: Tele-Facts
To: yucks

This came from a Yucks subscriber at AT&T, so I'm guessing it's either
accurate or propaganda.

Rank of the day after the 1989 San Fran earthquake, among the days
on which the greatest number of long-distance calls were made:  1

Estimated total value of the illegal long-distance telephone calls
made in the U.S. each year:  $500,000,000

Estimated percentage change in LOCAL telephone rates since the
breakup of AT&T:  +60

Number of information operators on duty weeknights at 2 A.M.
in Mississippi:  2

Number on duty weeknights at 2 A.M. in New York City:  17

Percentage of international telephone conversations conducted in English:  85

Estimated waiting period in 1990 for a telephone in Poland, in years:  20

Number of injuries in the U.S. in 1989 attributed to "telephones or
telephone accessories":  12,953

Number of people who try unsuccessfully to get George Bush on the telephone
each year:  250,000

Number of times Marion Barry used his car phone to call alleged drug
connections during his last four years in office:  2,312

Number of public telephones Southwestern Bell installed in 1990 that can be
used while on horseback:  3

Number that can be used while seated in a golf cart:  1

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 11 Dec 91 09:24:32 EST
From: "Joel B. Levin" <levin@BBN.COM>
Subject: The Camel
To: eniac@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us

The _Boston Globe_ and NPR both reported this morning on a study
(itself reported in the JAMA) that the caricature camel used by
R.J.Reynolds to plug their coffin nails has as high a recognition factor
for six-year-olds (90%) as Disney's MickeyMouse logo, and a higher
factor for adults (70%) (and that the little ones also recognize its
association with cigarettes).

The stories referred to "Joe [the] Camel" and "the smooth character". 
Neither the _Globe_ nor NPR identified him as "the penis nose camel".

....and a followup message from rissa@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us (Patricia O Tuama)

from joel:    
    The stories referred to "Joe [the] Camel" and "the smooth character". 
    Neither the _Globe_ nor NPR identified him as "the penis nose camel".
    
boy, our local NPR station sure did (hee hee) 
what i thought was interesting about this whole Old Joe story
is that phillip morris (phillip morris, right?) says that they
don't aim advertising at children and teenagers.  and yet the 
JAMA study shows that if PM's intent with Joe Camel is to reach 
adults, then they are failing miserably

what i want to know is where do 6 yr olds encounter joe with
such frequency that his recognition level is higher than that
of mickey mouse?

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 11 Dec 91 10:27:31 -0800
From: bostic@okeeffe.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Subject: Well, I think you should just cut it off with him, then...
To: /dev/null@okeeffe.CS.Berkeley.EDU

>From a netnews posting:

	For instance, my lesbian vegetarian goddess worshipping roommate
	has falled in love with a *male* fundamentalist christian
	republican.  She says she loves everything about him except his
	penis.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 10 Dec 91 19:22:42 GMT
From: smith@canon.co.uk (Mark Smith)
Subject: Dolphin love a step beyond puppy love
To: eniac@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us

This was in today's Independent, a rather staid newspaper 
which normally avoids the ..errr.. "cheesier" news stories.

   A dolphin called Freddie by the villagers of Amble, Northumberland,
where it swims regularly, was sexually assaulted for about 20 minutes
by an animal rights activist as "gobsmacked" people looked on,
Newcastle Upon Tyne Crown Court was told yesterday.
   The diver repeatedly masturbated the mature bottle-nose dolphin's
erect penis, first with his knees and then his gloved hand, as a boat
party, which included a newspaper reporter and photographer, watched
from a few yards away, David Wood, for the prosecution, said.
   In what is believed to be the first case of its kind, Alan Cooper,
39, of Gorton, Manchester, is accused of outraging public decency by
com- mitting an act of lewd, obscene, or disgusting nature with the
dolphin in September last year.  He denies the charge.
   When the boat party saw the 12ft dolphin, weighing almost a ton, it
was swimming with a diver wearing a wet suit, hood, gloves and fins.
   He was masturbating the animal, which was in the classic mating
position, lying on its back with its penis pointing up.  Mr Wood said
that one of the party, a journalist, Alan Air, re- ported the matter to
the police who arrested Mr Cooper, who campaigns against dolphins being
kept in captivity, at his home in December.
   But Mr Cooper accused another member of the boat party, Peter Bloom,
who is connected with a dolphinarium, of encouraging the others to lie
to the police.
   The diver also denied that he deliberately masturbated the dolphin.
However, Mr Cooper admitted to police that he had been there and that
the dolphin's penis was probably erect.
   "But that was quite normal as the animals used the organ in a
non-sexist way, as a means of exploring or pulling divers along," Mr
Wood said he told the officers.  The jury was told that Freddie was
"domineering" when swimming.
   Mr Wood said: "The penis is situated in the belly towards the rear
end.  It is permanently rigid, kept in a slit in the belly, controlled
by muscles and so can be flicked out at will.
... There is little doubt that it can be used
to touch objects and explore things in a wholly non-sexist way.  It is
sometimes a fact that you find yourself hooked ... by the dolphin's
penis and towed along that way."
   Mr Wood said the defendant "actively encou- raged it to become
sexually stimulated ... by masturbating it with both his legs and his
hands.  It is the kind of behaviour that if committed between two human
beings in public, it would outrage public decency."
   Mr Air, chief reporter for the Evening News in Carlisle, told the
court: "I was gobsmacked.  I was completely stunned.  The man was
moving around him.  He had his flippers out and was lying on his back.
He lay still almost as if he was hypnotised."
   He was unable to explain why he waited two days before telephoning
the police.
   The trial continues today.

Personally, I think this has "mini-series" written all over it.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 11 Dec 91 10:01:16 GMT
From: smith@canon.co.uk (Mark Smith)
Subject: dolphin redux
To: eniac@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us

The Guardian:

  Cross-examining, Anthony Jennings suggested that the water's motion
and the animal's movements had given the appearance of rubbing.
Passengers had misinterpreted the dolphin's use of its sexual parts to
"hook" Mr Cooper round the leg - a known habit of the species.
  "Men do not greet one another like this - except perhaps at rugby
club dinners," he said.  "I suggest that is why you were disgusted."
 ...
  The full charge against Mr Cooper is: Committing a lewd, obscene and
disgusting act and outraging public decency by behaving in an indecent
manner with a bottle-nose dolphin to the great disgust and annoyance of
divers of Her Majesty's subjects within whose perview the act was
committed.

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End of Yucks Digest
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