Walking Fish
Scientists from Australia’s James Cook University told reporters in June that they had spotted an aggressive fish that can walk on land, making its way toward the country from Papua New Guinea. The native freshwater “climbing perch” can live out of water for days and has survived short saltwater treks from PNG toward Australia’s Queensland.
That Hurts
Ran’dell Busch, 27, was in serious condition after being shot on July 26 near the corner of 18th Street and Emmet Street in Omaha, Neb. He was also shot in 2014 around the intersection of 18th and Emmet. And in 2012, he was shot in a scuffle after running from the corner of 18th and Emmet.
Least Competent Criminals
— A 26-year-old carpenter who was trying to break open an ATM at an ICICI Bank in Delhi, India, at 2:30 am accidentally locked himself in the tiny space behind it. He phoned police to come and rescue him.
— A carjacker in Omaha, Neb., commandeered a car from a woman at gunpoint and climbed in. According to the woman, the man was very tall. After fumbling around a bit trying to adjust the seat, he gave up after driving only a few feet and ran away.
— Jason Stange, 44, became a fugitive last year by walking away from a Spokane halfway house while on probation for bank robbery. He was arrested in July in Olympia, Wash., after he appeared in an extensive newspaper pictorial about a local movie he was starring in. Stange could have chosen an obscure stage name; instead he billed himself merely as “Jason Strange” — a choice that made detection easy for U.S. Marshals.
— A task force of Benton, Ark., police and U.S. Marshals tracked down Tieren Watson, 26, after he spent several days on the lam as a suspect in a shooting. When Watson was arrested, he was wearing a T-shirt reading, “You Can Run, But You Can’t Hide.”
Entrepreneurial Spirit
— Grande Hotel San Calogero, the planned centerpiece of a Sicilian tourist renaissance, is still nowhere close to opening 61 years after construction began. It took 30 years to build. Then developers fought for 10 years over its management. Next, a serious drainage deficiency was discovered. Repairs for the drainage problem remain unfunded.
— Construction of the ultra-modern Don Quixote airport in Ciudad Real, Spain, was finished in 2006. But the $1 billion facility never opened. In July, it was sold to a Chinese investor for $11,000.
— A woman in a suburb of Beijing filed a lawsuit against the China Dragon Garden recently when she found that her name was affixed to a headstone in gold lettering. Furthermore, half of the 600 plots were marked for people who were still living. Cemetery staff said the move was a marketing plan star. China’s aging population, and Beijing’s land scarcity, have driven up prices, and spurred intense competition and corrupt practices, according to a Los Angeles Times dispatch.
Unclear On The Concept
In June, at California’s San Diego County Fair, the deep-fried Slim-Fast bar debuted. A 200-calorie diet bar was breaded in pancake batter, fried, dusted with powdered sugar and drizzled with chocolate.
We Aren’t Alone
In July, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department posted a warning photo of a rare 8-inch-long centipede with gangly white legs tipped with venom-delivering fangs. The centipede eats lizards and toads.
Ironies
— An 87-year-old man who was taking his license renewal driving test in Deerfield, Ill., confused the brake and the accelerator and crashed into the driver’s license office. Neither he nor the examiner was injured.
— An 83-year-old man, driving around Cape Coral, Fla., in May, suffered a fatal heart attack at the wheel. The car came to rest in shrubbery ringing the offices of the Florida Heart Associates building.
— A court in Lincoln, Neb., had already sent Paul Boye to prison for 10 years for shooting his girlfriend. In June, the same court ordered him to cover her medical bills. The woman had taken a .22-caliber bullet, which left a scar cutting right through a tattoo reading “Happiness Is A Warm Gun.”
Inexplicable
A KPHO-TV news story in Phoenix featured a local doctor advising expectant mothers against “tweaking” the result of home pregnancy tests. Some women, apparently, had discovered the magic of “Photoshopping” the pink reading on the home test’s strip to make it look as if there is a pregnancy. Although the doctor warns of the general hazard of “false positives,” the 415-word news story does not explain how Photoshopping a not-positive reading into a positive one improves the likelihood of conception.
Profile In Leadership
Maryland state delegate Ariana Kelly was charged with trespassing and indecent exposure in June after she arrived at her ex-husband’s home to drop off their kids. On her arrival, she learned that her boyfriend’s girlfriend was inside. According to police, she started banging on the door and ringing the bell repeatedly. Aware that her husband had a camera trained on the doorway, she faced it and exposed her breasts. Eventually, she dared an officer to arrest her. The Washington Post reported that Kelly is a member of a legislative task force studying maternal mental health issues.
Updates
— As News of the Weird has noted, some observant Jews are magnificently creative in devising workarounds to ancient ritual restraints. For instance, the KosherSwitch theoretically allows Jews to defeat the restriction on engaging electricity during Shabbat. By employing a laser circuit that periodically malfunctions in connecting a switch to a power flow, it permits the user not to be the direct cause of the electricity. The KosherSwitch is currently the subject of a crowdfunding project sponsored by the device’s patent holder.
— Norway’s prison system had refused to honor the educational rehabilitation demands of Anders Behring Breivik, the mass-murderer of 71 at a camp in 2011. Breivik had been sentenced to 21 years in prison — the country’s maximum. At first, he was subsequently turned down when he sought to register as a political science student at Oslo University. However, in July, prison officials relented and said they will allow the enrollment. Breivik will still be subject to prison restrictions against Internet and email use.
Weird News Classic
Time magazine reported in August, 2010, that among the entries in “Detroit Hair Wars” were The Hummer (styled by “Little Willie”), in which a mass of extensions was shaped to resemble the vehicle. The hairstyle featured four large “tires” with metallic hubcaps. Another style was the Beautiful Butterfly, featuring extensions thinned, teased and stretched so that four “wings” rose from the model’s head. Both stylings appeared to be at least 2 feet long, and dwarfed the models’ heads.
Oops!
— Maine enacted legislation in July to make immigrant asylum-seekers eligible for the state’s General Assistance fund. Gov. Paul LePage promised to veto the bill. The governor misunderstood state law and believed legislation would be regarded as vetoed if he failed to sign it for 10 days. On the 11th day after the bill passed, LePage was stunned to read in the press that asylum-seekers were now eligible for benefits.
— The mayor pro tem of Georgetown, Texas, Rachael Jonrow, confirmed that a city councilman neglected to turn off his mobile microphone during a May meeting as he excused himself for a restroom break. Jonrow ignored the men’s room sounds on the PA system. But then the noise from a toilet’s flushing seemed to release the councilmembers’ tension and they burst into laughter.
— A guest at the upscale W Hotel in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., had to be rescued by firefighters in July when he fell off of a machine in the hotel’s exercise room and got his head caught in the one next to it. Rescuers arrived with torches and saws. However, they managed to pull and push and manipulate the man’s head free. (He had “significant” injuries.)
Wait, What?
— Upset that New Zealand’s health care administration has rejected paying for gastric bypass surgery, Jason Patterson announced in July that he will protest publicly by going on a hunger strike. “The first two to three days will be really hard,” he told New Zealand’s Channel 3 News.
— Local officials in China’s Xinjiang region informed Muslim shopkeepers and restaurateurs in May that they will henceforth be required to sell alcohol and cigarettes even though Islam forbids their consumption. An official told Radio Free Asia that the government aims to weaken religion.
The Continuing Crisis
— Reuters reported in early July that a big loser in the nuclear pact between Iran and six world powers was the brothel industry of Vienna, Austria, which hosted the final round. With so many male diplomats in town for two stressful months, business had been robust.
— Texas’ highest criminal appeals court agreed to postpone Clifton Williams’ execution until they could consider the significance of evidence presented to his jury in 2006. Prosecutors had claimed at his trial that the likelihood of another black man having Williams’ DNA profile was 1 in 43 sextillion (43 followed by 21 zeros — or 43 billion trillion). Texas officials have recently recalculated the FBI math and concluded that the odds that a second black man has Williams’ profile are only 1 in 40 billion trillion.
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