Strange But True Category
Weird, offbeat and bizarre news from around the world. Funny, strange & odd news stories that make you wince, laugh and fear for humanity.
Giraffe’s Milk Is Kosher
AT last it’s legit to suck on a giraffe’s nipple:
Israeli rabbis have declared giraffe’s milk kosher.
Ahead of Shavuot, the festival when dairy foods traditionally are eaten, a team of rabbis and Bar-Ilan University scientists have deemed giraffe’s milk fit to join the kosher menu, Yediot Acharonot reported Friday.
Neck some today…
Posted: 8th, June 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comment
The Thong Bandits’ Metrosexual Casebook
OBSERVE the picture to the left.
Gleaned from CCTV footage, the image shows two “thong bandits” robbing a shop in Arvada, Colorado, of cash and cigarettes.
Indeed, it could be any one of any number of armed forces personnel out on a jolly, or more likely it’s Joaquin Rico, 19, and his metrosexual 24-year-old alleged accomplice, Joseph R Espinoza.
One man wore a green thong and the other wore blue. And as you can see, the garments barely covered the men’s features, leaving most of their faces exposed.
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Posted: 7th, June 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comments (8)
Prison World Magazine Captures The Market
PRISON World Magazine is looking for advertisers.
Asks the organ:
Do you have something to sell? Do you have a product or service beneficial to inmates? Want to get the word out to the national prison population? Prisonworld Magazine currently services over 400 institutions nationwide with an estimated readership of 350,000 and growing daily.
No editor’s name is given for this US organ, but if it were brought to the UK, we suggest Jeffery Archer as a suitable candidate, although he will face stiff competition from tabloid editors past and present, Pete Doherty and Robert Kilroy-Silk, who has been missing for some time.
As for advertisers, we commend to your attention the peril of trying to sell the incarcerated holiday apartments, Club 18-30 holidays and city centre starter homes who count such experiences and things as theirs by right.
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Posted: 6th, June 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comment (1)
International Year Of The Potato: Prespectives On Pamela Anderson
IT’S International Year Of The Potato (IYOTP).
Potatoes [sic] are big news, making Dan Qualye momerable (how many other failed US vice presidents can you name?) and winning the Democratic Party’s nomination for Barack Obama.
Chile and Peru will one day go to war over the potato.
On the official IYOTP site, the great and good of the potato world are waxing lyrical on the vegetable:
Stanislav Menard is a businessman whose paeper factory in Slovenia churns out 3.5 billion envelopes a year. But away from his high-speed machinery, he has a special interest: he’s president of the Slovenian Society for Sautéed Potato and Onions…
But that’s nearly 90 minutes of preparation time…
“And that’s the beauty of pražen krompir! One of the basic rules of our association is that members should get together to prepare a meal of sautéed potato and onions at least once a month… The other rule is that no one should talk politics – in front of a potato, we are all equal.”
So Slovenia has had a long love affair with the potato?
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Posted: 4th, June 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comments (2)
Dark Side Of The Mooning
TO UTRECHT in the Netherlands where a 21-year-old Dutch man is recovering after a mooning.
According to police reports, the man and two others did run down a street with their pants pulled down in the back “for a joke”.
For added hilarity, the 21-year-old “pushed his behind against the window of a restaurant”. The window broke and the man did suffer “deep wounds to his derriere.”
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Posted: 4th, June 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comments (4)
Jesus Is The Cocaine Of The Masses
DRUGS traffickers mixed six pounds of cocaine into a paste and fashioned it into a statue of Jesus Christ, complete with painted-on flowing hair and a gold cape.
“This seizure shows what extreme measures people will go through to smuggle drugs,” says Janice Ayala, second-in-command of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s investigative office in Laredo, Texas.
“These people will use anything, including religious icons to smuggle their drugs,” says Steven Robertson, a spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration, in Washington. “It is sacrilegious.”
Posted: 4th, June 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comments (2)
Stan Romanek’s Alien Was On Strange Universe In 1997
STAN Romanek is a Coloradan who claims he’s been the target of alien abduction for years.
Romanek wanted to know who was peering into his windows when he lived in Nebraska, and he claims to have caught this image on tape as the alien appeared.
One Jeff Peckman of Denver got his hands on the video and is now calling for the city to set up a local Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission.
The story appeared on all the major US news organs, including Fox News and CNN.Now Tabloid Baby takes a look and finds that it all seems more than a little familiar:
On Friday, we reported exclusively that new video, supposedly showing an extraterrestrial alien peeking through a house window was apparently a ten-year-old videotape that was broadcast on national television on November 24, 1997 on the television series Strange Universe.
We of course, turned the “Alien In The Window” story to Tabloid Baby pal, contributor, columnist, TV, movie and music video star, anomalyst and ufologist Dr. Franklin Ruehl Ph.D. The doctor’s report is even more surprising than our own. He remembers a similar-looking video dating back even farther!
Dr Franklin Ruehl will now address the class:
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Posted: 3rd, June 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comment
Fan Meizhong, Runner Fan’s Earthquake Confessional
“IN matters of life and death, it’s every man for himself,” says Chinese teacher, Fan Meizhong.
Earthquake!
“I ran towards the stairs so fast that I stumbled and fell as I went. When I reached the center of the football pitch, I found I was the first to escape. None of my pupils was with me,” said the Meizhong, known as ‘Runner Fan.’
Later, when some of his students who managed to escape asked him how he could have left them behind, he replied: “I have a very strong sense of self-preservation … I have never been a brave man and I’m only really concerned about myself.”
Notes the Telegraph: “While newspapers have largely followed instructions to concentrate on uplifting tales of rescue work since the earthquake, the internet has seen a wild variety of tales emerge.”
And the internet is where the Telegraph gets its news from.
“I didn’t cause the earthquake, so I have no reason to feel guilty,” he said in an interview. “When I got back to the classroom, the students were all fine.”
He’s in interview after the jump:
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Posted: 3rd, June 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Strange But True | Comments (8)
China Today: Red Labial Whisky
ON sale in China…
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Posted: 3rd, June 2008 | In: Photojournalism, Strange But True | Comments (4)
Stan Romanek’s Alien Video
STAN Romanek says he was abducted by extraterrestrials. He has released a video which he says shows an alien peering into his window several years ago. Link to Larry King video, Link to Denver Post.
It’s big news in the US – really…
Posted: 3rd, June 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comments (2)
Gros Michel Or Cavendish: The Changing Face Of Bananas
BANANAS are no more say The Scientist:
The banana we eat today is not the one your grandparents ate. That one – known as the Gros Michel – was, by all accounts, bigger, tastier, and hardier than the variety we know and love, which is called the Cavendish. The unavailability of the Gros Michel is easily explained: it is virtually extinct.
Introduced to our hemisphere in the late 19th century, the Gros Michel was almost immediately hit by a blight that wiped it out by 1960. The Cavendish was adopted at the last minute by the big banana companies – Chiquita and Dole – because it was resistant to that blight, a fungus known as Panama disease. For the past fifty years, all has been quiet in the banana world. Until now.
Bananas…
Posted: 2nd, June 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comment
The Fast Food Cull: Pringles Man Burnt To Crisp And Canned
AL Copeland of Popeye’s Famous Fried Chicken, Fatburger’s Lovie Yancey and Carl Karcher, founder of Carl’s Jr., have all died in 2008, so too Herb Peterson, inventor of the Egg McMuffin.
News reaches the Anorak that Dr. Fredric J. Baur, inventor of the Pringles crisps can has been buried in – well, you guessed it – a Pringles can.
The can has been placed inside a traditional urn, and the man who was cremated (surely burnt to a crisp? – Ed) is now on the shelves at the resting in the Arlington Memorial Gardens in Springfield Township, Ohio.
Odd indeed. But it;s the enws of the an’s ell-by date that makes us odner. Baur died on May 4 2008.
It’s the cull of America’s fast food founders…
Posted: 2nd, June 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comments (2)
War On Terror: Taliban Kill Biscuit Eaters
“WE’LL kill those who eat biscuits,” proclaim the Taliban. The Sun illustrates the threat with a picture of a brandished custard cream.
Sun readers clutching their morning cuppas might close the curtains. Workers keen to exact terrible revenge on colleagues should offer Clive in accounts a bourbon. Is that really Gordon Brown with a Jammy Dodger or photoshop trickery by Labour’s web team designed to place the leader in hiding?
From the front line in Afghanistan, the paper reports: “The insurgents say they will string up locals who take so much as a custard cream from Our Boys, who hand out treats in friendship.”
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Posted: 2nd, June 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comments (4)
How The Potato Wars Started
RADIO Netherlands Reports:
Chile and Peru have for some time been embroiled in a dispute over the origins of the potato. Chile’s latest claim to be the region where potatoes first grew is being hotly refuted in the Peruvian press.
Scientists agree that the ubiquitous root vegetable originated in South America and that Spanish colonists brought it to Europe in the 16th century. Current thought puts its first location in the vicinity of Lake Titicaca in Peru.
The controversy is far from over. Researchers in Bolivia say they have found traces of the potato which are more ancient than those found in either Chile or Peru.
You say potato, I say this is war and you will die by a thousand chips (surely cuts?)…
Posted: 2nd, June 2008 | In: Politicians, Strange But True | Comments (2)
Fashionable Facial Hair
THIS is a man’s attempt to wear every beard type:
I’ve been growing a beard every winter for some years now, and every spring, I try to see how many facial hair variations as I can check off from the chart of facial hair types. Listed below are descriptions of the 34 facial hair types from the chart, including examples of the 24 variations that I’ve been able to attain so far.
Beats working…
Posted: 31st, May 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comment (1)
France Pulls Line Dancers Into Line
IN Fracne they panic about aline dancing:
Now country and western has become so big in France that the country’s bureaucrats have decided to bring the craze under state control.
The French administration has moved to create an official country dancing diploma as part of a drive to regulate the fad. Authorised instructors who have been on publicly funded training courses will be put in charge of line dancing lessons and balls.
The French are so uptight…
Posted: 31st, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Strange But True | Comments (2)
New Amazonian Tribe And The Tasaday Cave People Hoax
A TRIBE of Amazonian tribes people never before seen on TV.
As if. Not a week goes past without a TV survivalist or Sting going into the Amazon to butcher a monkey and experience ‘Stone Age’ life.
But the media says it is so. The media is full of tales of these humanoids painted orange, and one painted black, pointing up at the strange winged bird and taking aim with their bows and arrows.
Will a closer look reveal them to be the lost tribe of the Black & White Minstrels who never returned from their tour of the Americas?
Or is it all just a hoax – like the Tasaday Cave People – desinged to highlight a pet cause?
“What is happening in this region is a monumental crime against the natural world, the tribes, the fauna and is further testimony to the complete irrationality with which we, the ‘civilized’ ones, treat the world,” says Jose Carlos Meirelles, of the Brazilian National Indian Foundation.
The pictures are being distributed by a group called Survival International: “We help tribal peoples defend their lives, protect their lands and determine their own futures.”
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Posted: 30th, May 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comments (16)
Woman Lives In Man’s Closet, Without Him Knowing
THE BBC reports that a woman has been arrested in Japan for sneaking into a man’s house and living in his “closet” without him knowing.
Tatsuko Horikawa, 58, was discovered living in a small storage space in the house in the southern city of Fukuoka.
The house owner to a 57-year-old man, who had become suspicious after food disappeared from his fridge. He installed a surveillance system, which filmed the woman as she walked about the place.
Yes, we know, it’s an outrage. The world “closet” on the BBC, when cupboard, a perfectly good British word is freely available. There will be letters, and before long we’ll be using other Americanisms like commuter, seafood, living room, war on terror and says “skedule”.
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Posted: 30th, May 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comments (8)
Murderabilia For Sale: Murder Art
“THAT’S kind of disturbing actually,” says Florida resident John Burgin looking over the collection of murderabilia for sale on an on-line auction.
It’s a collection of pictures of artwork and letters created at the hands of four members of the Lords of Chaos, convicted in the murder of a Riverdale High School band director more than ten years ago.
CBS reports on how one of its reporters detailed to the web-surfing beat found a card sketched by Kevin Foster, the Lords of Chaos leader now spending quality time on Florida’s death row. “Chit chat” is retailing at $12.99.
No image of the art is given and Anroak “Murderabilia” is outlawed in Texas and California, but not Florida.
But no matter what you might think of it, CBS has John Burgin to tell us: ‘I wouldn’t take it if someone gave it to me, it’s quite disturbing to put it mildly.” And alter: “”It’s kind of scary,”
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Posted: 30th, May 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comment
To Boldy Go: Toilet Trouble On Space Station
THE toilet on the Space Station is out of order:
Astronauts on the International Space Station await the arrival of the shuttle Discovery – and a new pump for their broken toilet.
International Space Station astronauts are eagerly awaiting the arrival of shuttle Discovery – it is bringing a new pump to mend their broken toilet.
The station’s urine collection unit, as opposed to its solid waste unit, has been malfunctioning for several days.
Nasa said it thought a separator pump was at fault, and the three male crew members were operating it manually.
To make room for the new part, Nasa has had to remove other equipment from the shuttle, which launches on Saturday.
“Clearly, having a working toilet is a priority for us,” shuttle payload manager Scott Higginbotham said.
The Discovery mission is the second of three to take up key components of the Japanese-built Kibo laboratory.
One giant jump up and down on the spot for man…
Spotter: June
Posted: 30th, May 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comment (1)
Londoners Forget 700 Items On Tube Every Day
SAYS Julie Haley, manager of the London Undergound’s lost property office, Baker Street, to the Telegraph:
“The amount handed in is increasing year on year but the fact that we get around 700 items handed in every day is a real testament to the honesty of Londoners on the whole.”
No figures for how item are not handed in, or how many of the items are stolen and then when used – wallets cleaned out; Tube passes ripped from covers; umbrellas left after a gentle frotting – but it surely is testament to Londoner’s honesty, and the impact of alcopops and skunk on the short-term memory of Londoners who can’t remember what they had in their shaking hands when they got on the train…
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Posted: 29th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Strange But True | Comments (3)
The Woman Who Dresses The Klu Klax Klan
NEATORAMA takes a look at the Klu Klax Kland and who to get their look:
58-year-old Miss Ruth is tailor to one of the world’s most hateful (and hated) group, the Ku Klux Klan:
Coming from five generations of Ku Klux Klan members, 58-year-old “Ms. Ruth” sews hoods and robes for Klan members seven days a week, blessing each one when it’s done. A red satin outfit for an Exalted Cyclops, the head of a local chapter, costs about $140.
I didn’t realize there are so many steps in making a KKK robe! I thought it was simply:
1. Take bedsheet
2. Cut eyeholes
3. ???
4. Profit!Here’s a photo essay by Anthony Karen for Mother Jones: Link – via Liberal Avenger
Boo!
Posted: 29th, May 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comment (1)
Amsterdam Approves Sex In The Vondelpark And Outlaws Dogs
TO Vondelpark, Amsterdam, where 21 people per square meter come to relax.” As the city’s website claims: “In comparison, Central Park in New York is visited by approx. 5 people per square meter.”
With space at a premium, what are the rules?
Councillors have decreed that heterosexual and gay couples are permitted to have sex in the Vondelpark.
But they promised to clampdown on dog owners who let their pets walk in the park without a lead.
Says one dog owner: “As long as the park has existed, we’ve been allowed to let our dogs run freely. It’s outrageous that we will be punished from now on but public sex won’t.”
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Posted: 29th, May 2008 | In: Politicians, Strange But True | Comments (4)
The Anorak’s Internet
Graffiti a snail?
A bicycle window box?
The Pringles portable golf hole?
De-shelling a raw egg – hands-free…
Posted: 27th, May 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comment (1)
The Crucified Frog
NEVER cross a frog:
A sculpture of a crucified frog holding a mug of beer on display at a Bolzano museum has sparked outrage in Italy.
ANSA reports that local clerics and politicians want the work removed.
The one metre high work by late German artist Martin Kippenberger belongs to his Fred the Frog series and depicts a warty, pop-eyed amphibian nailed to a cross with a frothing mug of beer in one hand.
Curators at Bolzano museum of modern art Museion said that Kippenberger’s work was a self portrait of the artist ”in a state of profound crisis”, but their explanation has been given short shrift by local bishop Wilhelm Egger.
Posted: 27th, May 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comments (2)
