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Yucks Digest V1 #7

Yucks Digest                Tue, 15 Jan 91       Volume 1 : Issue   7 

Today's Topics:
                           Ah, yes.  Canada
                    Colloquial comment of the day
               Intellectual frauds in computer science
              Just a whole lot of weirdness going on...
                   Let's kill the lawyers first....
                      strange laws from all over
                          Topical Humor (?)
                          Yucks Digest V1 #6

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.

Submissions should be sent to spaf@cs.purdue.edu

**********************************************************************

Date: Sat, 12 Jan 1991 13:21:23 PST
From: cate3.osbu_north@xerox.com
Subject: Ah, yes.  Canada
To: JXerarch.dl.osbu_north@xerox.com

   On the subject of interesting signs. My family lives in Montreal, where
French-speakers outnumber English-speakers. A construction team apparently
was working on changing this situation while blasting near the Montreal
General Hospital five years ago. By law, signs relating to personal safety
must be in French, and you are allowed to put English writing on the sign
if you really feel you must. A sign explaining the signals for blasting
read:  (paraphrased, but the numbers are as they were there)

Explosion will come thirty seconds after the long blast of the horn.

L'explosion suiverai deux minutes apres la longue coup du sirene.
     (Explosion will come two minutes after the long blast of the horn.)

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

Date: Mon, 14 Jan 91 13:23:39 -0800
From: bostic@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Subject: Colloquial comment of the day
To: /dev/null@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU

We could nuke Baghdad into glass, wipe it with Windex, tie fatback on
our feet and go skating.
		-- Fred Reed, Air Force Times columnist.

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

Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
Date: 14 Jan 91 00:30:04 GMT
From: friedl@mtndew.tustin.ca.us (Stephen Friedl)
Subject: Intellectual frauds in computer science

This from ;login: (The USENIX Association Newsletter), Sep/Oct 1990,
in a report on a Usenix Standards BOF session:

     An overheard conversation:

	"Mach was the greatest intellectual fraud in the last ten years."

	"What about X?"

	"I said `intellectual' "

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

Date: Tue, 15 Jan 91 08:31:38 PDT
From: kds@blabla.intel.com (Ken Shoemaker)
Subject: Just a whole lot of weirdness going on...
To: rsk@oldfield.cs.colostate.edu, spaf

December 23, 1990

THE SPEECH EVEN BORED THE SPEAKER

In October, Mary Mead, the Republican candidate for governor of Wyoming,
wrote a letter of apology to a group of county officials in Casper for having
given them what she called a "boring" speech.  "Even before I left," she
said, "I knew that my remarks had not served me well.  Some days are great,
and some aren't."

IT SUITS THEM

Utah prison inmate Robert LeRoy Ele, serving 10 to 15 years for sexual abuse
of a child, filed a $6 million lawsuit against Ed McMahon and Publishers
Clearinghouse in February for their failure to send him sweepstakes entry
blanks. (A Publishers Clearinghouse lawyer said it was the prison's fault for
not permitting bulk mail to be delivered to inmates.)

In July, a New York appeals court upheld Celestino Lucas' 1983 trial court
verdict against the New York Transit Authority.  Lucas had leaped onto the
subway tracks and lay spread-eagled across them briefly but then tried to get
up as a train entered the station.  He sued the transit authority because the
engineer was not able to stop the train in time, resulting in Lucas losing
both legs below the knee.  Under the trial court's formula, Lucas would win
$600,000.

Daniel Johnson, serving a life sentence in Texas' Huntsville prison for a
1977 rape, filed a $50,000 lawsuit against the prison in August to force
officials to curb excessive noise from late-night TV in prison lounges.
Johnson claimed "deprivations of needed rest and sleep, nervous tension,
severe anxiety, feelings of depression, dejection, fatigue, emotional pain
and torment, (and) headaches."

In September, the prosecutor in Virginia Beach, Va., dropped charges against
Aimee Ashton, 17, for holding her dripping ice-cream cone outside her car
window.  The prosecutor said it was a "close" decision to drop the case
because a "large amount" of ice cream was involved.

TACTLESS TALK

Honolulu Mayor Frank Fasi, in a July letter replying to a Philadelphia police
officer who had complained of seeing drunks, drugs and prostitutes on his
recent vacation in Honolulu: "You are entitled to your opinions, but as far
as I am concerned, you can go to hell!  Take you complaints, and shove them
up your big, fat nose."

Bobby Pringle, in his "last words" before sentencing by a Prince George's
County, Md., judge in July (having been convicted of killing his disabled
mother by stabbing her more than 70 times), said whatever sentence he got
wouldn't matter to him "because I lost my mother."

Guardian Angels national director Lisa Sliwa, asked in June whether she
married Angels founder Curtis Sliwa "for love," said: "Absolutely not.
You've seen him.  Look at him.  I mean, he need to be thrown in front of a
couple of open fire hydrants and deloused.  There's no way it would be love.
It was for the organization.

December 30, 1990

GLOOM OF NIGHT, FINE.  NUDITY, NO

In July, mail carriers in France announced they would make no more deliveries 
in Cap d'Agde, a resort town of 30,000 (and also Europe's largest 
"naturalist" community).  Citing their "embarrassment" at having to walk
through town to face people shopping and gardening in the nude, the carriers
began dumping all mail outside of town, forcing residents to sort for
themselves.

UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT

Kenneth Dean Johnson, the first person to have his car seized under a 1990
Portland, Ore., drunk-driving ordinance, was stopped again in February and
lost another car.  At the second stop, he voluntarily produced a vial of
white powder, telling police it was heroin, which he was using in an attempt
to kick his 11-year drunk-driving problem

Oldrich Pavek, 50, had his trial for shoplifting in Saskatoon, Canada, halted
pending a psychiatrist's report, ordered because of his courtroom decorum.
Pavek criticized the judge for not standing up if he expected others to
stand.  When Pavek failed to reveal a previous conviction because he thought
it didn't count until the appeal was final, and the judge corrected him on
that, Pavek told the judge to go brush up on the law.  When a probation
officer said he wanted to talk to Pavek, Pavek said his fee for "consulting"
was $20,000.

Parents of three 12- and 13-year olds filed a lawsuit in Lafayette, La., in
March, charging seventh-grade science teacher Bernadette Rubin with causing
the kids "loss of the enjoyment of life" by teaching sex education in class.

Bruce Fitzgerald was appointed harbor-master of Springfield, Mass., in
February.  Because of changes in the flow of the Connecticut River,
Springfield no longer has a harbor and is down to a single dock.

The Albanian soccer team was ejected from Great Britain in May because of an
incident at Heathrow Airport during a stopover.  According to an airport
spokesman, when the players made a cursory glance through their dictionary to
see what "duty free" meant, they thought it meant "free of charge" and began
stuffing their pockets with watches and jewelry until guards stopped them.

In October, the Pittsfield, Mass., School Committee adopted a plan to allow
11th- and 12th-grades to get credit for mandatory physical education classes
merely by reading materials on exercise concepts.

CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS

A gang of bank robbers, hitting just after $400,000 in pension payments had
been deposited in a Bologna, Italy, bank earlier in the year, detonated an
explosive device beside the safe.  However, they made off with just a few
thousand dollars because the explosives brought down the ceiling and walls,
wounding 85 people (including one robber).

Two U.S. Navy enlisted men were charged with theft of Paula Thistle's car
phone in April near Annapolis, Md.  After she discovered the phone missing,
she called the phone's number, told the man who answered that she was
"lonely," made a date with him, and arranged for police to make the arrest
when the man showed up for the date.

Federal agents arrested Gary and David Gross of Alpharetta, Ga., in April for
attempting to counterfeit $4.5 million with a printing job described by
agents as "poor," done on an offset press.  The agents were tipped off by a
store owner, who said the two had bought the linen paper used in currency and
then asked the owner if he had any green ink that "matched the ink on a
one-dollar bill."

The Lipman, Richmond, Greene advertising agency was forced to revise a radio
ad for Yonkers Raceway in New York several months ago.  For the raceway's
40th anniversary, the ad took listeners back to 1950, when "Eisenhower is
president," and the "Army-McCarthy hearings are going full-blast" (errors of
three and four years, respectively).  In the agency's "corrected" ad, 1950
became the year the Bobby Thomson hit his famous 1951 World Series home run.

In October, Carnell Wilder, 25, fearful of failing his exam to be a
Philadelphia police officer, arranged for his girlfriend, Dianna DeLarge, to
help him.  However, instead of having her take the exam in his name, Wilder
chose to have both take the exam at the same time in his name.  Suspicions
were created when Wilder received both a passing grade (hers) and a failing
grade (his).

January 6, 1991

EASILY KEEPING A BREAST IN FASHION

Plastic surgeon Patrick Maxwell of Nashville's Baptist Medical Center, 
quoted in a recent Cosmopolitan, said "permanently adjustable (breast)
implants" would be available in the future, permitting "changing size and
shape according to fashion dictates or whim."

A STINGING ATTACK

Charles Lucas, 41, was sentenced to eight months in jail last year in
Princeton, Ill., for hurling several beehives through the window of Neuf's
Tavern in Setonville.  A beekeeper had to be found to chase down the bees.

A school superintendent in Wales, Wis., said a high school teacher last year
used a track  meet starter's pistol to get the attention of her class when it
became rowdy.

Gene and Joyce White were convicted of a misdemeanor in March in Muskogee,
Okla., for keeping their young grandson confined to a dirt-floored pen in
their yard, next to a pen that contained 60 dogs.  They said they did it to
keep him out of traffic.  Authorities found the boy drooled, panted and
barked, just like the dogs, but a baby sitter said he probably learned that
behavior from watching too much television.

In a paper at an American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting
in New Orleans last February, entomologist Robert A. Smith theorized that
sperm live inside a woman's body for up to 10 days, vying among themselves to
become the one to fertilize the egg.  Smith says that would explain male
attempts to dominate females in political, legal and social institutions
through the ages and "probably reflects male jealousy."

Federal and local officials in Miami seized more than $6.3 million in April
at a Dade County home, all in small bills.  It took 12 agents eight hours to
count the money.

To remedy a burgeoning problem of public drunkenness, six top officials of
Gallup, N.M., proposed in April that the city create a "drinking zone" north
of the city in Gibson Canyon as an "attractive environment" for alcohol
abusers.  Gallup police pick up 26,000 drunks a year off the streets.

Wealthy Brazilians, exasperated by a phenomenal increase in crime, have taken
to keeping lions to guard their homes.  In one Sao Paulo condominium
development, crime dropped from 15 incidents a month to none - after a lion
almost ate a burglar alive in April.

Men in rural Thailand, trying to avoid the "widow ghost" (the explanation in
folklore for the mysterious deaths of several hundred apparently healthy,
sleeping Thai men over the last few years), have taken to wearing lipstick
and nail polish so that they might be mistaken as women.

Kentucky state Sen. Billy Ray Bailey introduced a bill in February to exempt
cockfighting from the state's animal cruelty law, explaining that he wanted
to grant chickens "the same rights we grant human beings. (The bill) lets
them box and wrestle, and provides for a referee so it's a fair fight."

A classified ad in an April issue of the Minneapolis Star Tribune: "Wanted:
woman between 20-30 yrs old, to cook, clean, wash clothes, and have a
relationship with.  Must share living expenses.  Box GA2119."

A telephone canvass in June in Arkansas revealed that, of the 62 people who
said they voted Republican in the five counties polled, only five people
"remembered" voting for the GOP candidate for lieutenant governor,
segregationist Ralph Forbes - despite the fact that Forbes carried those
counties heavily.  A "large number" said they had "forgotten" who they voted
for.

Malcolm Emory, whose career as a physicist was derailed by a 1970 criminal
conviction and who has spent the last 20 years as a welder, had the 1970
charge against him dropped in May.  He protested his innocence to the charge
of throwing rocks at a police officer during a demonstration at Northeastern
University but was convicted.  He happened to think recently to check the
photo files of the Boston Globe, in which, sure enough, he found one that
pictured him being led away by police officers, but with an armload of books,
convincing the district attorney to doubt that he could have thrown any
rocks.

January 13, 1991

DEVELOPING A CASE AGAINST POLLUTION

Jeremy Lynch, a photography student at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in
Toronto, claimed in November that Lake Ontario is so polluted with mercury
and iron that he has been able to develop photographs using lake water
captured around factories without adding any chemicals.  A Toronto pollution
control official said he did not dispute Lynch's claim.

GULP! THERE GOES EVIDENCE

Benjamin Carnesoltas, 36, was convicted in April in Lee's Summit, Mo., of
slashing a jail guard with a razor blade, although no weapon ever was found.
The prosecutor had convinced the jury that Carnesoltas, a circus performer who
can swallow and regurgitate objects at will, had gulped down the blade.

In March, a convenience store in Tempe, Ariz., was robbed by a barefoot man
armed only with a fork.  Asked to comment on the use of a fork in a robbery,
police Sgt., Al Taylor said it was "not normal."

Mark T. Sikes, 27, was arrested in Brandon, Fla., in April and charged with
performing a "lewd and lascivious" act in front of children.  Allegedly he
was sitting in a parking lot, nude, smoking a cigar, and two children had
stopped to watch him.

Stephen Douglas, 35, or Bronx, N.Y., was charged last summer in Milford,
Conn., with what police say is the largest shoplifting attempt in the city's
history.  Police say he had more than $2300 worth of over-the-counter
medicines (including 100 boxes of Bufferin) in a shopping cart that he was
calmly wheeling out of the store, hoping no one would notice.

Curtis L. Gross, 30, was arrested in Baton Rouge, La., in August.  After
allegedly beating his wife, he apparently attempted to commit suicide by
locking himself inside the trunk of his car as it was inching forward into a
lake, but the car came to rest in shallow water.

Rhode Island state Sen. Dominick J. Ruggerio was arrested and charged in
September with shoplifting condoms.

Michelle Hendrix, 42, who was named Mother of the Year in Oroville in May,
pleaded no contest to methamphetamine possession charges in September.

The $1200 Electro-Ejaculator (used to extract semen for artificial
insemination) was stolen in April from the Large Animal Clinic in East
Lansing, Mich.

LITTLE BOY - BIG MOUTH

St. Paul, Minn., police reported two unusual incidents during a weeklong
sting operation in July, in which female decoys arrested men for soliciting
prostitutes.  A 16-year-old boy and a 35-year-old man together solicited one
decoy and were arrested, after which police discovered they were father and
son.  Also, a 13-year-old boy on his bicycle approached a decoy and asked if
she wanted "to party" (slang for having sex).  She told the boy to scram, but
when he said, "Honey, I've got $35, and it's burning a hole in my pocket,"
she decided to arrest him.

Andy Barrett of Pembroke, N.H., reported a building missing from his property
in August.  It was an unassembled, prefabricated structure weighing 15 tons,
with steel girders and beams 35 feet long and three feet thick and which took
four hours for him to unload.

A Charlottesville, Va., woman reported to police in September that someone
had stolen $200 from inside her wooden leg while she napped in her home.

Only a few hours after their wedding in September, John and Jill Mitchell
were arrested for disorderly conduct at the Delavan House Hotel in Elkhorn,
Wis.  Police arrived to find them slugging and biting each other and pulling
each other's hair in a dispute over where to spend the night.

A 64-year-old overweight woman in Hartsville, Tenn., entered a hospital
several months ago for surgery on what doctors said was a tumor on her
buttocks, but what doctors found instead was a four-inch pork chop bone,
which they removed.  They estimated it had been in place for "five to ten
years," but the woman had no recollection of having sat on it.

Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, in care of the Living section, the
Mercury News, 750 Ridder Park Drive, San Jose, Ca., 95190.

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

Date: Sat, 12 Jan 1991 13:21:23 PST
From: cate3.osbu_north@xerox.com
Subject: Let's kill the lawyers first....
To: JXerarch.dl.osbu_north@xerox.com

I am growing weary of seeing chemicals with warning labels that 
imply that I shall die a horrible death simply by looking at 
the contents.  A warning label should inform me of any *REAL*
hazards, and of the precautions I should take when handling the
reagent, and should not serve only to cover the manufacturer's
derriere should some lawyer-happy numbskull decide to bathe in
the product.

A case in point from Fisher Scientific: 

CAUTION:  May be harmful if inhaled.  May cause irritation.
Inhalation may produce irritation, coughing and acute
pneumoconiosis from overwhelming exposure to dust.  May cause
a rapidly-developing pulmonary insufficiency, labored breathing,
tachypnea and cyanosis followed by cor pulmonale and a short
survival time.  More frequently, after 10-25 years exposure,
labored breathing, dry cough, chest pain, decreased vital
capacity and diminished chest expansion may occur and progress
to marked fatigue, extreme labored breathing and cyanosis, 
anorexia, cough with stringy mucous, pleuratic pain and
incapacity to work.  Death may result from cardiac failure or
destruction of lung tissue with resulting anoxia.  Has caused
tumorigenic effects in laboratory animals.  Skin contact may
cause irritation and dermatitis.  Eye contact may cause redness,
irritation, and conjunctivitis.

TARGET ORGANS AFFECTED:  Eyes, skin, and mucous membranes.
Provide local exhaust ventilation and/or general dilution
ventilation to meet published limits.

FIRST AID -- INHALATION.  Remove from exposure area to fresh air
immediately.  If breathing has stopped, perform artificial
respiration.  Keep person warm and at rest.  Get medical 
attention immediately.  SKIN:  Remove contaminated clothing
and shoes immediately.  Wash affected area with soap or mile
detergent and large amounts of water (approximately 15-20
minutes).  Get medical attention.  EYES:  Wash eyes immediately
with large amounts of water, occasionally lifting upper and
lower lids (approximately 15-20 minutes).  Get medical
attention.
 
 Yes indeed, all of this fits right on the bottle.
 And just what is this hazardous product?

 "SEA SAND, washed"

 God help me, I'll never go to the beach again!

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

Date: Sat, 12 Jan 1991 13:21:23 PST
From: cate3.osbu_north@xerox.com
Subject: strange laws from all over
To: JXerarch.dl.osbu_north@xerox.com

> San Francisco is said to be the only city in the nation to have ordinances
> guaranteeing sunshine to the masses.
I understand that in Germany, there is a law that every
office must have a view of the sky, however small.
So the office buildings are all long and skinny.

In Cupertino, California, it is illegal to count backwards audibly in
hexadecimal.

In Israel, there's no legal way for a man named Cohen to marry
a divorced woman.

The good burghers of Redwood City have outlawed the frying of gravy.

In Santa Clara it is forbidden to dedicate parking spaces to the patron
saint of television.

Prostitutes in San Francisco are not obliged to make change for bills
larger than $50.

The city of Mountain View proscribes calling pet fish by "names of
aggressive content, e.g. "Biter", "Killer", "Sugar-Ray" "

Bicycles may not be ridden without "appropriate fashion accessories"
anywhere in Santa Clara County (de facto law).

It is illegal to skateboard on walls "or other vertical surfaces" in
Palo Alto.

Wearing a sweatshirt inside-out is deemed a "threatening misdemeanor"
in Half-Moon Bay.

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

Date: Tue Jan 15 12:24:10 EST 1991
From: spaf
Subject: Topical Humor (?)
To: /dev/null

As people try to cope with the horror of the situation in the Middle
East, many are turning to macabre humor.  The following were taken
from rec.humory.funny and overheard in recent conversations:

Did you hear the extended weather forecast for Baghdad?
Partly cloudy, high winds, temperatures in the mid 20,000s.

What do the following cities have in common:  Nagasaki, Baghdad, Hiroshima?
Nothing....yet.

Why don't Iraqi schools teach driver ed and sex ed on the same day?
The camels get too tired.

Here are two versions of the calendar currently on sale in Iraq:

   January 1991                  January 1991        
 S  M Tu  W Th  F  S	       S  M Tu  W Th  F  S   
       1  2  3  4  5	             1  2  3  4  5   
 6  7  8  9 10 11 12	       6  7  8  9 10 11 12   
13 14 15 15 15 15 15	      13 14 15
15 15 15 15 15 15 15
15 15 15 15 15

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

Date: Mon, 14 Jan 91 13:19:21 -0800
From: bostic@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Subject: Yucks Digest V1 #6
To: spaf

[Keith has sent me the source for the exploding whale story -- one of the
oddest stories I can remember in some time....]

BREAK OUT THE DYNAMITE: ANOTHER IN A SERIES OF EXPLODING ANIMAL TALES
	-- by Dave Barry

	Here at the Exploding Animal Research Institute we have received
two very alarming news items that we are passing along today in the
hopes that you, the generalized public, will finally break out of your
apathetic, selfish, materialistic lifestyles and send us some large cash
contributions.
	Item One, submitted by numerous alert readers, concerns the recent
criminally insane vote by the U.S. Senate AGAINST having the federal
government monitor methane emissions from cows. I am not making this
vote up. As you may be aware, cows emit huge quantities of methane,
which contributes to global warming, which has gotten so bad in some
areas that brand-new shirts are coming out of the factory with armpit
stains already in them. So the U.S. Senate (motto: ``White Male
Millionaires Working for You'') was considering an amendment to the
Clean Air Act, under which the government would monitor methane
emissions from various sources, including ``animal production.''
	Well, as you can imagine, this did not sit well with the senators
from those states where cow flatulence is a cherished way of life.
Leading the herd of opposition senators was Sen. Steve Symms of Idaho
(``The Exploding Potato State''), who took the floor and stated that the
amendment would -- this is an actual quote -- ``put the nose of the
federal government in almost every place it does not belong.''
	So the Senate took out the part about monitoring animal methane,
which means there will be no advance warning when, inevitably, there is
some kind of cow-interior blockage, causing a potentially lethal buildup
of flammable gases and transforming one of these normally docile
creatures into a giant mooing time bomb which, if detonated, could cause
the dreaded Rain of Organs. Have you ever, in a supermarket,
accidentally encountered a cow tongue -- a large sluglike slab of gray
flesh that you couldn't imagine anybody purchasing for any purpose other
than to nail it to the front door in hopes of scaring off evil spirits?
Well, I'd like to know what Sen. Symms would say if one of those babies
came hurtling out of the sky and struck him at upwards of 100 miles per
hour. ``Yuck,'' would be my guess.
	I base this statement on a similar situation in Oregon where
innocent civilians were struck by falling whale parts. I am absolutely
not making this incident up; in fact, I have it all on videotape, which
I obtained from the alert father-son team of Dean and Kurt Smith. The
tape is from a local TV news show in Oregon, which sent a reporter out
to cover a 45-foot, eight-ton dead whale that washed up on the beach.
The responsibility for getting rid of the carcass was placed upon the
Oregon State Highway Division, apparently on the theory that highways
and whales are very similar in the sense of being large objects.
	So anyway, the highway engineers hit upon the plan -- remember, I am
not making this up -- of blowing up the whale with dynamite. The thinking
here was that the whale would be blown into small pieces, which would be
eaten by sea gulls, and that would be that. A textbook whale removal.
	So they moved the spectators back up the beach, put a half-ton of
dynamite next to the whale, and set it off. I am probably guilty of
understatement when I say that what follows, on the videotape, is the
most wonderful event in the history of the universe. First you see the
whale carcass disappear in a huge blast of smoke and flame. Then you
hear the happy spectators shouting ``Yayy!'' and ``Wheee!'' Then,
suddenly, the crowd's tone changes. You hear a new sound, the sound of
many objects hitting the ground with a noise that sounds like ``splud.''
You hear a woman's voice shouting ``Here comes pieces of ... my GOD!''
Something smears the camera lens.
	Later, the reporter explains: ``The humor of the entire situation
suddenly gave way to a run for survival as huge chunks of whale blubber
fell everywhere.'' One piece caved in the roof of a car parked more than
a quarter of a mile away. Remaining on the beach were several rotting
whale sectors the size of condominium units. There was no sign of the
sea gulls, who had no doubt permanently relocated to Brazil.
	This is a very sobering videotape. Here at the Institute we watch
it often, especially at parties. But this is no time for gaiety. This is
a time to get hold of the folks at the Oregon State Highway Division and
ask them, when they get done cleaning up the beaches, to give us an
estimate on the U.S. Capitol.

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

End of Yucks Digest
******************************