ROME, Italy -- The country's highest appeals court has ruled that it is a crime for men to touch their genitals in public.
The ruling ended the appeal of an unnamed 42-year-old workman who allegedly fondled himself. His lawyer defended the practice, saying it's a local superstition that men touch their genitals to ward off bad luck.
Apparently it's the Italian equivalent of knocking on wood.
LOS ANGELES -- Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch will be put up for public sale unless he pays more than $24 million owed on the property, according to a Tuesday court filing.
When told about the auction, Jackson said, "It's a sad time in America when someone so naive and trusting is forced to -- oh, never mind."
LOS ANGELES -- Actress Pamela Anderson is seeking an annulment of her marriage to Rick Salomon after just two months.
The pair cite irreconcilable differences as the reason behind the split. She wanted to release their sex video in HD-DVD, and Salomon preferred Blu-ray.
BRISBANE, Australia -- Two children watched in horror as a 16-foot python swallowed their family dog whole.
"It was so sad," one of the kids sobbed, "when we called 'Here boy!' for the thousandth time and the lump didn't move."
GREAT FALLS, Mont. -- A fourth-grader has won a planetary mnemonic contest, devising a handy way to remember the planets.
National Geographic created the contest in response to the recent announcement by the scientific community that there are now 11 recognized planets -- Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Eris. Ceres, Pluto and Eris are considered dwarf planets.
The winning mnemonic is My Very Exciting Magic Carpet Just Sailed Under Nine Palace Elephants.
That is so impressive! I guess some kids are just born Proficient At Nearly Startling Young Ages, Skillfully Studying Earth Sciences.
NORWAY -- After years of planning and construction, the world's first secure, deep-frozen repository for seed storage has opened. The repository, located 400 feet below the ground, provides an insurance policy should a large-scale disaster strike the earth's agriculture.
According to a press release, there hasn't been so much seed buried so deep since my honeymoon.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
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3 comments:
Hey, when did this planet Eris get named? I thought it was going to be Sedna. Or maybe that's another microplanet. What does it take to be a planet these days, anyway? It seems to me the standard to become a "planet" is about the same standard required to become a "celebrity" in today's world.
*SIGH*
Love yer blog, by the way!
Jennifer aka "Internet Marketing Badger"
I hear you, girlfriend. Ceres, Eris, Sedna? Sounds like Siegfriend and Roy's Golden Retrievers, or maybe stuff you'd find on you after spending a night in a tent.
I know absolutely nothing about the planets. They change more often than Liz Taylor's husbands, and they're not half as useful at parties.
Anyway, thanks for your kind words.
[putting on professorial spectacles]
Eris is the largest dwarf planet, at its farthest about 3 times farther out than Pluto, with an orbital period of 557 years. It's actually bigger than Pluto and has a moon of its own. This is the one that was originally named "Xena," and its moon "Gabrielle," until the fuddy-duddies got at it and changed it (the moon is now called - are you ready? -- 'Dysnomia'). Eris is named after the Greek goddess of discord, so maybe it's as well she's way out there. Sedna, meanwhile, is still around, named after an Eskimo sea goddess, but it's a smaller body. You can see a nice picture of the relative sizes of these things at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/90377_Sedna
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