All posts by Chuck Shepherd »
SILENT DISCO
— Werner Purkhart has been running a “silent disco” in Salzburg, Austria, for four years. He was denied renewal of his business permit in July because his parties were too loud. At a silent
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Dog Potty
Enric Girona recently donated his prototype of a pet commode to the town of El Vendrell, Spain. Owners would train their dogs to use the station — a hole in the ground with a
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Too Much $$$
Larry Ellison, the CEO of Oracle Corp., and the world’s fifth-richest person, according to Forbes magazine, is a big basketball fan. He is reported to have an interest in purchasing the Los Angeles Clippers
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DO YOU EAR IT?
Artist Diemut Strebe offered his re-creation of the famous ear of Vincent van Gogh for display in June and July in a museum in Karlsruhe, Germany. In part, he built the ear with genes
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MODEST MEAT
The International New York Times in Kuala Lumpur recently carried a page-one story noting increased worldwide demand for pigs raised in the fresh air rather than in pens. The piece was illustrated by a
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EVERYONE IS ABOVE AVERAGE
Ask Americans how they stand compared to their fellow countrymen, and in survey after survey, the vast majority rank themselves “above average” in such areas as driving skill, sexual prowess and honesty. A recent
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COLOR BLIND
Dave Wilson, a white conservative candidate for the board of the Houston Community College System, pulled off an astonishing victory over the African-American incumbent, by distributing campaign materials that made him — Wilson —
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NUCLEAR TRACTOR PULL
Edward Teller, the famous theoretical physicist known as the “father of the hydrogen bomb” for his work on the World War II-era Manhattan Project, died in 2003. His daughter Rene told The Free Press
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ON GUARD!
When Franco Scaramuzza saw two men pepper-spraying a couple in a shopping center parking lot in Nashville, Tenn., he bravely responded in the only way he knew how. Scaramuzza, who teaches the art of
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EXCUSE ME … IS IT DAY OR NIGHT?
In April, 2008, the Swiss watchmaker Romain Jerome, who the year before created a watch made from remnants of the Titanic, introduced the “Day & Night” watch, which doesn’t provide the hour or the
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