What the heck!?!

[Jersey Nonny]

Very often, truth does seem stranger than fiction. Have you heard of any local, national, or international news that makes you want to smack your forehead and say, "What the heck?"

Post it here, so we can all be amused and/or amazed.

[Jersey Nonny]

Elderly men to get free Viagra in Mexico City

Beginning December 1, Mexico City plans to hand out free medicine to elderly men with erectile dysfunction, the local government said.

[Jersey Nonny]

AFP / Getty Images
Glowing cat clones created

What was the weirdest science story of the past year? Well, have you heard the one about the South Korean scientists who transferred genes into cloned cat embryos so that they glowed red under ultraviolet light? That tale was the top vote-getter in our unscientific ballot for the 2008 Weird Science Awards - but there's a serious point behind the glowing kitties. Such alterations may be used in the future to correct genetic flaws.

Meowwww...Here, kitty, kitty... Ewwww...Ugly Kitty!

[espresso]

Strange but true.......... October 2008

A reluctant groom set fire to the hotel where he was due to get married to avoid having to go through with the wedding.

Groom thought burning hotel down was better than getting married

Tatsuhiko Kawata had gone along with marriage plans despite already having a wife, the Yomiuri newspaper in Japan said.

Kawata, 39, decided to burn down the Risonare resort hotel rather than get hitched in front of 80 guests.

He reportedly told police: "I thought if I set a fire I wouldn't have to go through with the wedding."

Guests at the hotel were evacuated and no one was injured when he started the fire in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Kawata had been due to tie the knot later in the day at the hotel in Yamanashi Prefecture, west of Tokyo.

He was arrested after suddenly cancelling the event and behaving suspiciously.

++ Also strange but true, I still can't access my profile!!!! ++

[Jersey Nonny]

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. - A man faces a domestic battery charge after allegedly hitting his girlfriend with a sandwich as she was driving on Interstate 95 on Friday. Police said the 19-year-old man became angry and hit the woman in the arm and face with a sandwich, knocking her glasses off.

The victim nearly lost control of the car because she couldn't see the road and the man then allegedly ripped off the rear-view mirror and used it to shatter the windshield.

Authorities aren't saying if the weapon he wielded was a club sandwich.
The man was freed on $7,500 bail.

An expensive sandwich. Did he hit her before or after taking a few bites? Did he buy it at Subway? Could make a difference whether or not it's "assault with a deadly weapon."

[allport]

This is the worst story ive heard recently, in the area i live in a man was arrested for stealing dogs and trying to throw them under cars!!! WHAT!!!!!!!!

[Jersey Nonny]

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Here's some food for thought: If you have nude photos of your wife on your cell phone, hang onto it.

Phillip Sherman of Arkansas learned that lesson after he left his phone behind at a McDonald's restaurant and the photos ended up online. Now he and his wife, Tina, are suing the McDonald's Corp., the franchise owner and the store manager.

The suit was filed Friday and seeks a jury trial and $3 million in damages for suffering, embarrassment and the cost of having to move to a new home.

The suit says that Phillip Sherman left the phone the Fayetteville store in July and that employees promised to secure it until he returned.

Manager Aaron Brummley declined to comment, and other company executives couldn't be reached.

No mention of nude photos of him...I guess she looked better in the buff. Hope they were taken with her consent...but, are they both nuts!?! Serves them right...IMO

[Horselover]

For many CEOs, private jets the only way to fly

A definite "What the heck?" story!!

[Jersey Nonny]

SANTA FE, N.M. - A 21-year-old man was accused of driving drunk and leading police on a chase that finally ended with him running over himself.

The man was treated for minor injuries at a Santa Fe hospital and booked in to the Sandoval County detention center on charges of aggravated driving while intoxicated, fleeing a police officer, careless driving and two other outstanding traffic warrants.

A tip to the state's DrunkBuster hot line Sunday afternoon alerted authorities to a possibly drunken driver.

State Police Officer Grace Romero spotted the man's pickup truck swerving across both lanes of a highway, driving slowly and then fast. He refused to stop.

After narrowly missing other vehicles, police said the suspect drove through a ditch and a barbed-wire fence before stopping. He tried to put the truck into park, but it ended up in reverse.

Police said the man fell from his open door and both of his legs were run over by the front driver's side tire.

Try explaining that to your insurance agent. Does that come under the heading of liability, medical payments, collision, malicious mischief, or just plain stupidity?

[Jersey Nonny]

What some people think of as valuable!

SEATTLE - Authorities have recovered a stolen 18-carat gold bookmark that reportedly was given to Adolf Hitler by his longtime mistress, Eva Braun.

Christian Popescu, a Romanian national, was arrested Tuesday outside a suburban Starbucks after trying to sell the bookmark to an undercover agent for $100,000, according to papers filed in U.S. District Court.

Federal prosecutors said the bookmark was among several items taken in an auction-house heist in Madrid six years ago. At the time, some antiquities experts questioned its authenticity.

The bookmark is engraved with a portrait of Hitler as well as an imperial eagle and swastika, and its inscription indicates that Braun gave it to Hitler to console him after German forces surrendered at Stalingrad.

"My Adolf, don't worry," it reads, adding that the loss was "only an inconvenience that will not break your certainty of victory. My love for you will be eternal, as our Reich will be eternal. Always yours, Eva. 3-2-43."

Whether authentic or not, federal agents said its theft broke the law.

"Artifacts of historical significance are not souvenirs for illegal sale to the highest bidder," Leigh Winchell, special agent in charge of ICE's office of investigations in Seattle, in a statement.

The operation began when ICE learned a man was trying to sell the bookmark in the Seattle area. An informant contacted Popescu, who confirmed he had the bookmark and provided pictures. Popescu told the informant he wanted $150,000 for it.

Spanish authorities estimated the value of the bookmark at between $13,000 and $17,000, according to court documents.

[Jersey Nonny]

My sister sent me this in an email:

A Lady Named Irena Sendler

There recently was the death of a 98-year-old lady named Irena Sendler.

During WWII, Irena got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist. She had an ulterior motive...
She KNEW what the Nazi's plans were for the Jews, (being German).

Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of her tool box she carried, and she also carried in the back of her truck a Burlap sack, (for larger kids).
She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers, of course, wanted nothing to do with the dog, and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.

During her time and course of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants. She was caught, and the Nazi's broke both her legs and arms and beat her severely.

Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it, and reunited the family.
Most, of course, had been gassed. Those kids she helped were placed into foster family homes or adopted.

Last year Irena was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize....

She LOST.

Al Gore won for doing a slide show on Global Warming.

[adore79]

Im speechless, she was (is) amazing. It is incredible what we can do when we get the chance, or if we are brave enough.

[Jersey Nonny]

Originally Posted by Horselover

For many CEOs, private jets the only way to fly

A definite "What the heck?" story!!

WASHINGTON - Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally says he'll work for $1 per year if the automaker has to take any government loan money.

The plan Ford is presenting to Congress this week also says it will cancel all management employees' 2009 bonuses and will not pay any merit increases for its North American salaried employees next year.

Detroit's automakers, making a second bid for $25 billion in funding, are presenting Congress with plans Tuesday to restructure their ailing companies and provide assurances that the funding will help them survive and thrive.

You can go here to read more.

Ford CEO offers to work for $1 a year - Autos- msnbc.com

[Jersey Nonny]

SEDALIA, Mo. - A hunter bagged a big buck on the second day of firearms season, but the kill caused him a lot of pain. Randy Goodman, 49, said he thought two well-placed shots with his .270-caliber rifle had killed the buck on Nov. 19. Goodman said the deer looked dead to him, but seconds later the nine-point, 240-pound animal came to life.

The buck rose up, knocked Goodman down and attacked him with his antlers in what the veteran hunter called "15 seconds of hell." The deer ran a short distance and went down, and died after Goodman fired two more shots.

Soon Goodman started feeling dizzy and noticed his vest was soaked in blood.

He reached his truck and drove to a hospital, where he received seven staples in his scalp and was treated for a slight concussion and bruises.

Way to go, Bambi!!!

[grewupinabarn]

Not so much a 'WTF' story, but more of a 'Wow'. A biology professor at SE Missouri State University took a look a the map of presidential election results in the Deep South and figured out that the weird pattern of 'blue' counties matched the pattern of cotton plantations (black dots) on an old 1860 map .


Sorry for the ultrahuge image! The full story is at this blog.
The Vigorous North: The Black Belt: How Soil Types Determined the 2008 Election in the Deep South

[Lenina]

I don't know if this qualifies as "what the heck" but what the heck.

The top 10 stupid Christmas gifts - New Zealand's source for oddstuff - strange, weird & bizarre news on Stuff.co.nz

Love,

Lenina

[Jersey Nonny]

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama says you won't catch him lighting up a cigarette in the smoke-free White House.

"There are times where I've fallen off the wagon," the president-elect said when asked in a broadcast interview whether he has kicked the habit.

"I've done a terrific job, under the circumstances, of making myself much healthier," he said. "And I think that you will not see any violations of these rules in the White House," he said on Sunday's "Meet the Press" on NBC.

Obama told Men's Health magazine in an interview for its November issue that he wished he had more time for staying fit and that he still occasionally smoked a cigarette.

Obama said in that interview that he had bummed a cigarette a couple of times during the campaign. "But I figure, seeing as I'm running for president, I need to cut myself a little slack," he said.

At least he's not a "binge smoker"!

[Jersey Nonny]

Give the Guy a Butt!
Let Obama smoke in the White House.
By Ron Rosenbaum

Let me offer a somewhat hyperbolic hypothetical. It's the winter of 2009, and a crisis has erupted between the United States and the former Soviet Union. Putin (surprise!) is acting arrogantly and aggressively, trying to push the new American president around. Do you want Barack Obama, the guy who has his finger on our nuclear trigger, notorious nicotine addict, to be dying for a smoke? All irritable, his nerves and famously smooth temper on edge? No outlet for his intolerable frustration but ... a butt. But no butts to be found.

he White House, of course, has been a butt-free zone since the Clinton administration. That pack of Marlboro Reds he's kept stashed under a bush in the Rose Garden, hoping it'll be camouflaged? Out of reach. The only thing that looks like a butt is, well, a button, and it's looking good. Why not reach for it? Then he won't have to put up any longer with the insane puritanical rules imposed by those who don't know, will never know, the knife-edge of nicotine desire.

Do you want to die because President Obama is dying for a smoke? It's true that smoking would be bad for our 44th president, who's been trying to kick the habit. Lung cancer caused by smoking is a major cause of death in America. Even secondhand smoke is deadly, we're told. But how about secondhand radioactive plutonium? Might that turn out to be a major cause of death (for those not already dead in a nuclear exchange)? Do I have to answer that?

OK, so Obama isn't going to start a nuclear war because of the well-meaning but counterproductive no-smoking rule. At least, I hope he isn't. I don't smoke, but I know smokers, and I know smokers trying to quit, and they scare me.

Which is why those who say a president who smokes in the White House would be a bad role model are all wrong. In fact, consider the possibility that he'd be a better, perhaps more effective, negative role model. He'd teach the nation's youth how scary an addiction smoking is: Even the most powerful man in the world is putty in its tobacco-stained hands.

Why couldn't they just build him a little smoking shed!?!

What do you think? Should he be forced to quit? Should he go to NA (Nicotine Anonymous)?
Hey, The 12 Steps might even help him to be a better President!

[Jersey Nonny]

updated 10:33 a.m. ET, Tues., Dec. 16, 2008
Three years after she cheated death in a skydiving adventure gone terribly wrong, Shayna West and her toddler Tanner share a mother-son bond like no other. Unbeknownst to Shayna at the time, Tanner was in her womb when she survived hitting pavement at 50 mph while attempting her first solo parachute jump.

Now a mother of two, West returned to TODAY Tuesday to talk about her amazing story of survival and the long medical journey she has undergone to reconstruct her face after it shattered like an eggshell upon impact.

“I’ve had my share of hard times and bad luck, but in the mix I’ve also had some wonderful things come out of it,” West told Meredith Vieira via satellite. “The last three years, my babies are what kept me going. But I’ve also met so many wonderful people, and just have been blessed with everything that has come along my path.”

West’s fateful journey began Oct. 9, 2005, as she leaped from a plane over Siloam Springs, Ark., in her sixth skydiving jump, her first unaccompanied. As a video camera in the plane captured in dramatic detail, West’s main parachute failed to open properly, sending her spiraling out of control. And as terra firma loomed ever closer, her emergency chute failed to open — a one-in-a-million malfunction.

It was only when West was rushed to a hospital emergency room that a blood test revealed that she was two weeks pregnant. Naturally, West was shocked; she said she never would have jumped if she’d known she was pregnant.

Miracles do happen!!!

[Jersey Nonny]

'Grinch' tickets Santa as he delivers toys
Retired teacher is hit with $115 double-parking fine in NYC

NEW YORK - Santa Claus has added a New York City traffic agent to his naughty list after she gave him a ticket while delivering gifts to children.

Chip Cafiero said he'll fight the $115 ticket he received in Brooklyn on Black Friday when he was dressed as Santa.

The 60-year-old retired schoolteacher was riding a horse-drawn carriage and handing out toys and candy canes. An SUV carrying the toys and protecting the horse from traffic was double parked next to him.

Santa said he yelled "Ho! Ho! Ho!" to get the traffic agent's attention because the SUV wasn't blocking traffic. But in his words, "This grinch just went ahead and fined me."

Local politician Martin Golden described the parking ticket as "ridiculous."

Police declined to comment on it.

Ho! Ho! Ho! Indeed!!!