Iraq agreed to admit United Nations weapons inspectors to search for bombs, and the Bush administration said that if the inspectors find any bombs, that's why we have to attack them, and if they don't find any bombs, that's why we have to attack them.

• Elliot Gosko, a 14-year-old student from West Chester, Pennsylvania, was going through security at the airport in Aspen, Colorado, after visiting his grandparents, when a screener ordered him to drink the contents of his Gatorade jug. He had filled the jug with water from a mountain stream as part of a biology project and was planning to culture the bacteria in the science lab at Henderson High School. As it turned out, he cultured the bacteria in his own stomach. By the time he changed planes in Minneapolis, he had an especially nasty case of Montezuma's Revenge, causing him to miss two days of school and be treated for exposure to the bacteria giardia. "They stopped a bioterrorist," said Gosko's father, who had paid Northwest Airlines $150 extra to carry his son as an unaccompanied minor. Gosko didn't have the presence of mind, however, to throw up directly on the screener.
• When Gurdeep Wander, an American citizen from New Jersey, and Harinder Pal Singh, an Indian citizen, boarded a Northwest Airlines flight in Memphis, bound for Las Vegas, the flight attendants didn't like their appearance and asked passengers to keep an eye on them. Right before takeoff, Wander left his seat to retrieve his shaving kit from the overhead compartment, and a flight attendant asked him why he was not in his proper seat next to Singh. Wander explained that Northwest had missed their connection in Minneapolis and rerouted them, causing them to spend a night in a hotel, and they'd had little sleep--so he chose an unoccupied seat where he could rest. After takeoff, while the "Fasten Seat Belt" sign was still on, Wander asked the same flight attendant if he could use the restroom. She allowed him to do so, and he stayed inside for 10 minutes. She knocked on the door. He opened it, and told her he needed to clean up with his complimentary Northwest Airlines shaving kit. She knocked again a little later. He opened the door again, and was shirtless and in the middle of shaving. She consulted with the pilot, who told her to check the man's razor and then order him back to his seat. After several exchanges, during which Wander kept asking for more time to finish shaving, she got him to sit down. As soon as he sat down, another man, Carlos Nieves, got up to use the same restroom. For some reason this fact was reported to the pilot, even though Nieves was not travelling with the other two men. After Nieves left the restroom, Singh got up to use it-- because, after all, he, too, had not shaved nor slept. The flight attendant decided she didn't want Singh going into the same restroom, so she told him it was broken--not true--so Singh used another restroom and then sat down next to Wander. At this point, the pilot decided to make an emergency landing in Fort Smith, Arkansas, where the plane was surrounded by police officers, fire trucks and bomb-sniffing dogs. Everyone was told to leave the plane except for Wander, Singh, Nieves, and a fourth man who had done nothing (!) named Alaaeldin M. Abdelsalam. All the luggage was pulled out onto the tarmac, and the luggage of the four men was singled out. A dog raised an alert on Abdelsalam's bag--the guy who was clueless--and so it was blown open with a water cannon, and he was arrested! So were Wander and Singh. Nieves was released. Abdelsalam was released a little later when he explained that he worked in an oil field and his bag contained boots and a hard hat that were stained with chemicals. Singh and Wander spent a week in prison, and then Singh was released after paying a $500 civil penalty. (It's not clear why. After all, all he did was go to the bathroom.) Wander is still in trouble, though. Charged with intimidating a flight attendant, a felony that can carry penalties up to 20 years in prison, he's currently free on $25,000 bond. Okay, here's our question: why do INDIAN guys get nailed in so many of these stories? Aren't they the sworn enemies of Pakistan, where all the terrorists actually come from? And if facial hair is an issue, these guys were trying to shave it off!
• Seven-year-old Rozlin Templeton of Branford, Connecticut, was departing Hartford Airport with her mom when a security screener singled her out for a an electronic-wand search, followed by a search of her backpack, followed by a full body search of her teddy bear, follow by a request that she unpack two Polly Pockets, dolls that come in plastic cases full of accessories. Her mother, Kathryn Templeton, had the quote of the year. "If I'd only known this was going to happen," she told The Wall Street Journal, "I would have packed her Barbies instead. Barbie is so much easier to strip search." Of course, she didn't say that in the presence of the screener, for fear of being sent to the Smartasses-Will-Miss-Their-Flights Detention Area.
• Susan Hambleton of Sunnyvale, California, was ordered by a screener at Chicago's O'Hare Airport to take a drink from the feeding bottle of her three-month-old son. Since the bottle contained her own milk, she protested, saying that it wasn't a pleasant taste to her. The screener insisted, so she unscrewed it and took a sip. The screener said, "That's not enough, you have to chug it." She did as instructed, resisting the impulse to burp loudly as she was waved on through.
• Elizabeth McGarry of Oceanside, New York, obviously didn't hear what happened to Susan Hambleton, because she was forced to drink HER own breast milk by security guards at JFK Airport before she could board a plane to Florida. She's considering a lawsuit, but says she'll settle for making the screeners drink it themselves. Colleen Carboy of Dallas obviously didn't hear what happened to Susan Hambleton OR Elizabeth McGarry, because when a screener at the Austin, Texas, airport asked her to drink from a bottle of breast milk, she absolutely refused. A fracas ensued, but a female security supervisor intervened and let her board without quaffing. It took two Texas women to get this thing settled.
• An office building in Aliso Viejo, California, was evacuated after mail room workers at Fluor Daniel complained of feeling sick from the fumes of a fluid leaking from a mysterious package. The fire department rushed to the scene in hazardous- materials gear and discovered . . . a broken bottle of 80-proof vodka. Californians are, of course, allergic to all alcoholic beverages and were presumably hospitalized for shock.
• A tourist from Shanghai, China, was detained at San Francisco Airport after batteries and wires were discovered in a pair of shoes in his carry-on luggage. The man demonstrated that the shoes were designed to keep his feet warm, that the wires and batteries were harmless, and that there were no explosives inside. The police, after learning of the shoes' true purpose, blew them up anyway. Don't try to use the old "cold feet" ruse on US.
• Sigbhatullah Mojaddedi of Afghanistan and his wife Nadera were detained by screeners at Orlando airport, causing them to miss their flight to London. The screeners told authorities that Mojaddedi, who was dressed in traditional Afghan clothing, spoke of an Islamic liberation organization and said "I know you're looking for a bomb" and "God will revenge this." Actually he said no such thing. None of the screeners spoke English as a first language, and they had just detained a respected former president of Afghanistan who was visiting Jacksonville for a wedding. Sure he was talking about frappucino, but it was the WAY he said it.
• The FBI spent 13 months, using 10 full-time agents, to monitor 90 calls a day at a New Orleans brothel, both before and after September 11th. Obviously the war against terrorism takes many forms.

• Alex and Derek King, age 12 and 13, were afraid their father Terry King was going to punish them, so they decided to kill him with a baseball bat and set his bed on fire in hopes of burning up their Pensacola home and destroying all evidence, according to police. (They later recanted their confession and claimed a family friend named Ricky Chavis did the killing.) At any rate, their plan worked. Their father died from a bashed-in skull, the house burned up, and Alex and Derek were not punished- -by their father.
• A man in Merriwa, Australia, strapped explosives to his body and blew himself up on a quiet residential street to show the girlfriend who dumped him how much she meant to him. Of course, now she sees the error of her ways and knows that he wasn't crazy after all and they could have a long life together.
• Celeste Charles loaned $10 to her sister Robyn Sayer and wanted her money back. They started arguing about it in their shared Bronx apartment, then went at it with knives. Robyn bled to death within about 60 seconds, making the possibility of debt collection extremely remote.
• When the Roman Catholic church failed to approve of his divorce, 71-year-old Lloyd Robert Jeffries killed two monks and wounded two others at Conception Abbey in northwest Missouri. Now that he's expressed himself so vividly, he's expected to enjoy full communion privileges once again.
• Daniel and Lisa Vesterfelt of Grayville, Illinois, recently named the state's Foster Family of the Year, were charged with predatory criminal sexual assault of a child, aggravated battery of a child and domestic battery. Whoops!
• The sister of Jacques Robidoux of Taunton, Massachusetts, got a message from God to stop feeding solid food to Robidoux' 10-month-old son and to limit him to breast milk only. After 51 days of the all milk, all the time diet, the baby died. Robidoux was convicted of murder and sentenced to life. His wife Karen is charged with second-degree murder. His sister Michelle Mingo is charged with accessory to murder. God is not charged.
• Rocco Brusco, a 31-year-old guy living with his parents in Hackensack, New Jersey, opened a window in the apartment, causing an argument with his mother, who wanted the window closed. Their argument awakened the father of the house, Francesco Brusco, who waded into the fight and was punched out by the son, falling against a wall and hurting his head. A few minutes later a daughter of Francesco--who lives nearby--called police. All four family members were taken to police headquarters, and the son was charged with assaulting the father. The father was granted a restraining order. But the next night the police were again called to the apartment, and this time the father was dead. The son was arrested for aggravated manslaughter, and was presumably told that all windows for the rest of his life will definitely be closed.
• Barry and Judith Smiley of Albuquerque lived for the past 22 years under the fake names Bennett and Mary Propp, after fleeing from Long Island in 1980 with a 15-month-old child they had tried to adopt despite being ordered to return him to his biological parents. When the child grew up and applied for a birth certificate so he could become a law enforcement officer, no birth certificate existed. The resulting investigation led to the Smileys being arrested and brought back to Long Island for trial on kidnapping and "custodial interference" charges. As part of their plea agreement, the abducted baby--23-year-old Matthew Propp--will be remanded to diapers and held by his biological parents until the age of 41. * Under a new law in Florida, any woman offering a child for adoption has to publish her sexual history in the newspaper, including the names of the men she's been with. If she had sex while drunk, she's allowed to use "John Doe who wears green plaid, drinks Heineken, wears a Rolex, and said he would call." * Akbar Turkmenbashi, the president of Turkmenistan whose name means "Great Leader of All Turkmen," changed the name of January to Turkmenbashi, to go along with the city, streets, mosques, factories, airports, vodka, tea and currency already named after him. We're looking forward to that new Turkmenbashi Diet Cola. * Fourteen-year-old Elbert Donell Hines disappeared at a pool party in West Babylon, New York, and was missing for two days before his body was found--in the pool. Thirty people had been at the party when Hines vanished, and two of them reported bumping into something on the bottom but just "thought it was a pool toy." Two nights later, police searched the area again and noticed a "soccer ball" bobbing just beneath the surface--but it turned out to be the back of Hines' head. Two words here, people: pool cleaner. * The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver upheld the right of Joseluis Saenz, a Chiricahua Apache, to own eagle feathers that he uses in religious ceremonies. The feathers had been seized by authorities, who said that they could only be used by federally recognized tribes, but Saenz sued and won. Saenz has been unable to practice his religion lately, but now that he has the feathers back he'll be using them to stir his sacred spotted- owl soup. * Carl Patrick Brown of Gulfport, Mississippi, was caught on videotape having sex with a horse, but claimed he was high on ecstasy and didn't know what he was doing. Circuit Judge Jerry O. Terry sentenced him to 18 months in prison and ordered him to avoid further contact with the horse. He's not even allowed to explain why he never calls or visits? * Dr. George Coppa, a psychiatrist in Staten Island, New York, treated a woman suffering from "hypersexuality" for three years-- by having sex with her. The state Health Department revoked his license--but wouldn't reveal the patient's name or, more important, phone number. * The city of Venice wants to trademark its name internationally so it can earn income from companies that use words like "Venetian blinds." If the city succeeds in its campaign, the economic effects are expected to be far-reaching, especially for the city of Acme in the Czech Republic. * Drug addicts, hookers and beggars on the streets of Vancouver are demanding compensation from the Hollywood production companies who frequently shoot films and TV series there and disrupt business during the time the streets are taken over by film crews. The Vancouver Sun is backing their demands, which would ask the Hollywood producers to pay for alternative housing for displaced homeless people, and compensation when a prostitute has to retire early for the evening. In a related development, producers working on location in the Yukon will be asked to pay noise abatement fines for frightened moose. * The school board in Devils Lake, North Dakota, voted unanimously to remove the nickname of Central High School. Its athletic teams have always been known as the Satans, but devil- worshippers apparently complained that they didn't want their sacred traditions demeaned with cartoon devils on sweatshirts. They'll also have to alter their traditional cheerleading yell, which was "Two! Four! Six! Eight! Who do God and Jesus hate!" * Angry taxpayers in Stevens County, Washington, say they're tired of paying for them durn liberries, so they've gathered signatures and forced a referendum that could dissolve the entire county library system. They're especially upset that so many of the libraries are located in the smallest out-of-the-way towns in an age when NORMAL people can use the Internet, video outlets and discount book stores. The American Library Association says this is the first effort to eliminate an entire country library system by referendum. One leader in the anti-library campaign, Karen Frostad, told The New York Times, "When we were circulating the petition, we ran into people time and time again who said they pay all this money in library property taxes and they don't even use it." That much we already knew. * Animal rights fanatics are trying to shut down the annual Calaveras County Jumping Frog Jubilee, held each year since 1928 in Angels Camp, California, to celebrate the 1865 Mark Twain story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." The Animal Protection Institute is orchestrating a letter-writing campaign and claiming that humans handling the 2,500 to 3,000 competing frogs makes the frogs' skin subject to disease. The ban on frog-handling would not apply to the Warner Brothers singing and dancing frog--"Hello my honey, hello my baby . . ."--because he has retained professional management. * Eleven scientists published a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science estimating that the earth's resources are now being used up at a rate of 125 percent when compared to how fast those resources can be regenerated. This compares to a 1961 rate of 70 percent, meaning we're 25 percent over the eco-budget and basically devouring ourselves. After releasing the report, all 11 scientists had a Diet Pepsi. * Most girls under 18 would stop using clinics where they get birth control pills, pregnancy tests, and sexual-disease tests, if the clinics were required to inform their parent. According to a study in The Journal of the American Medical Association, 59 percent of the girls now using family planning clinics for these services would stop using them, but 99 percent would continue having sex. This falls under the category of "Duh" research. * Luciano Pavarotti announced he will retire on his 70th birthday--October 12, 2005--which means he'll spend three more years being forklifted into arenas for one-nighters. * Pizza Hut, Papa John's and Domino's all started tacking on delivery fees of up to $1.50 in selected markets, causing dormitory rioting in parts of Colorado and eastern Oregon. * The state of Texas went 72 hours, a modern record, without executing anyone. * Dr. David C. Arndt of Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts, left a patient anesthetized with an open incision in his back while he popped out to make a bank deposit. Dr. Arndt explained that the six-hour surgery was running a little long and he needed to get his paycheck to the bank before closing time. He just hates those ATM fees. * The average American consumes 14 meals a year in his car, and there are more food-related accidents than cell-phone-related accidents on the highways, according to federal studies. Our solution: hands-free feed bags. * "We Will Rock You," a $10.7 musical co-produced by Robert DeNiro and based on the songs of Queen, debuted in London to tar- and-feather-level reviews. The show runs two and a half hours, telling the story of a rebel group called the Bohemians fighting against a music-hating conglomerate called Globalsoft led by a big-busted executive known as the Killer Queen. The tale is set in the future, with the Bohemians living in underground caves, where they search for "the lost vibe" and "the ultimate riff." They're also hunting for a mythical guitar that was buried by the members of Queen in the late 20th century, but the Ga-Ga Police are trying to get to it first. The leading Bohemian rebel, named Galileo Figaro, has to remember the words to the lost song "The Rhapsody" in order to inspire revolution in the hearts of the other Bohemians. As noted, it's 150 minutes. Aren't those guys too YOUNG to be acidhead sixties hippies? * A woman in Jordan successfully sued her husband for divorce just four months after the nation's laws were changed to allow women to obtain divorces for the first time. Her grounds were simple: she hated her husband. Oddly refreshing, isn't it? She didn't say "He does terrible things." She said "I hate him." We can learn from the ancient cultures. * The world's first photograph--an 1825 image of a man in baggy pants leading a horse--was purchased by the French National Library for $392,000, even though the horseman is reported to have said "Wait a minute, my eyes were closed on that one." * President Bush convened an economic forum at Waco's Baylor University, home of the Bears, instead of Chicago's United Center, home of the Bulls, then made a speech about economic policy that would be worthy of Canberra's soccer stadium, home of the Ostriches. * The 41 members of the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes were fired en masse when their union contract expired and were told that from now on there will be no permanent Rockettes jobs and that open auditions will be held for each show. The clear message from Radio City management: a varicose vein is not a crowd- pleaser no matter how high you can kick it. * US Airways filed for bankruptcy, but ensured consumers that its 3,800 flights would continue at the their customary level of service. Darn. * Ed Headrick, the man who perfected the Frisbee, died in San Francisco at age 78 and left instructions for his ashes to be molded into Frisbees. Some of the mortuary Frisbees will be given to family members, and others will be sold to fund a Frisbee museum. The original flying disc, called the Pluto Platter, was invented by Walter Morrison after World War II, but it had a wobbly flight pattern. Headrick, working in research and development at Wham-O Inc., added aerodynamic ridges in 1964 and was awarded the patent for the first "professional" Frisbee in 1966. Okay, people, we know it's tempting, but let's not let this funeral get out of hand. * Jennifer Lopez' new fragrance, Glow by J-Lo, may be laid low by a trademark suit filed by Glow Industries, a Los Angeles company which already sells bath and body-care products under the Glow name in Nordstrom stores and at boutiques in Ritz-Carlton hotels. With J-Lo's perfume expected to hit stores in September, this could get smelly. Our suggestion would be that she simply expand her line: Poe by J-Lo (for writers), Dough by J-Lo (for Wall Street), Yo by J-Lo (for Brooklyn), Faux by J-Lo (when you need to fake it), Fro by J-Lo (for that retro seventies feeling), Roe by J-Lo (for girls who love caviar), Schmo by J-Lo (special nerd fragrance), Cousteau by J-Lo (for the beach), Freak Show by J-Lo (for Dennis Rodman), Go-Go by J-Lo (for strippers), and the simple Ho by J-Lo, for when you just don't care. * Adam Ant walked into a pub in north London wearing cowboy duds, causing the customers to whistle the theme to "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly." The pop singer was not amused, left, returned later brandishing a starter's pistol, and threw a car alternator through the window of the pub. He pled guilty to a single count of brawling after being chased down by a posse, but he ain't takin' kindly to it. * F-16s pursued a UFO over the Washington area, according to witnesses on the ground who said they saw a light-blue object travelling at a a high rate of speed. Pentagon officials confirmed that the jets were scrambled and sent to check out "an area of interest," but scoffed at the idea of a UFO. "Everything was fine, so they returned home," said Major Douglas Martin, a spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command in Colorado, which has responsibility for defending U.S. airspace. "Klaatu barada nikto." * Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham and the same evangelist who called Islam "a very evil and wicked religion" in November, said during a Charlotte radio interview that all Muslims owe the victims of the September 11 attacks an apology and a check. Failing that, Christians can always just suit up again for the Fourth Crusade. * Human remains were found aboard the U.S.S. Monitor when the ironclad warship was raised from the ocean floor off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, after 139 years. They didn't seem to mind. * Ten supporters of the Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans were taking a behind-the-scenes tour of the facility when a platform collapsed and they plunged into the shark tank. Two people were treated for minor cuts and bruises, but the sharks were frightened away by the fact that they were all commodities traders and lawyers. * Mister Softee ice cream trucks are being sued by residents of Hartford, Connecticut, who say they just can't stand that damn music anymore. The trucks play "Turkey in the Straw" and "The Entertainer" over and over again. In the latest fracas, the driver of a Mister Softee truck faces third-degree assault and breach of peace charges for attacking a neighborhood activist with a baseball bat. "Mister Softee tried to kill me!" claims Wil Troutman, a frequent critic of the truck's loudspeakers, who said the attack was "monstrous," although it didn't cause any serious injuries. Luis Amaro, the ice-cream truck driver, told police he only "shook a stick" at Troutman, and was backed up by his boss, who says his drivers have been constantly harassed for weeks. He said Troutman follows Mister Softee trucks everywhere, taking pictures and intimidating drivers, in an attempt to get them banned from the streets. Mister Softee is offering to compromise by adding "Roll Out the Barrel" to the tape loop. * In other ice-cream truck news, a Good Humor driver in New Jersey was beaten by a Mister Ice Cream driver, police said. Rashed Awaadeh became enraged that Good Humor was trying to invade Mister Ice Cream turf in Ramsey, New Jersey, and Shiam Daoud ended up with bruises on her head, face, arm and hip, not to mention a bad humor. * Mitchell Guilliatt pulled a hammer out of his backpack and whacked the Liberty Bell, resulting in $7,093 worth of gouge marks that had to be repaired. His lawyer said he didn't want to HURT the bell, he only wanted to hear it ring. The judge said she didn't want to PUNISH Guilliatt, she only wanted to see him spend nine months behind bars. * A man in Wilson, North Carolina, pulled over on Highway 264 when he saw a nylon padded bag on the side of the road. Inside he found an MP-5 submachine gun, which he took home. A little later a woman travelling down the same highway found a nylon padded bag containing a Smith & Wesson revolver, which she took to work. Eventually both people turned the guns over to police--which turned out to be a good idea, since they belonged to the police. Officer A.A. Boone and Lieutenant T.L. Earnhardt of the Raleigh Police Department lost them while driving to Wilson Technical Community College, where they were scheduled to teach a gun training class. About two dozen Wilson police officers and Wilson County sheriff's deputies had been searching for the guns from 8:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. The gun training class was postponed, and both officers were assigned to Barney Fife "Keep your bullets in your pocket" status. * The Monticello Association, a group composed of 700 descendants of Thomas Jefferson and his wife Martha, voted 74 to 6 to deny membership to the descendants of Sally Hemings, a slave who some believe bore Jefferson's children. The only advantage to belonging to the association is that you can be buried at Jefferson's Monticello home, but given the level of animosity and name-calling at the decisive meeting, it doesn't seem worth the price of a burial plot. What would they put on the tombstones anyway? "Proud to be a bastard great-great-grandson of a president"? Some things are better left uncommemorated. * The co-op board in a 452-unit New York apartment building voted to ban smoking inside the owners' apartments. Anybody who lights up can be evicted and forced to sell. That will teach those inconsiderate people who think that, just because we can't see them smoking, they can just do any damn thing to their bodies they want to. * Michael McDermott told a Cambridge, Massachusetts, jury that he had to kill seven co-workers at a software company because he was killing Hitler and his henchmen in order to prevent the Holocaust. The jury gave him a Heinrich Himmler sort of sentence. * Joe Dabney is suing American Airlines for losing his wife. On December 5 Margie Dabney, a 70-year-old Alzheimer's patient, was changing planes at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and was met by an airline attendant. She said she wanted to go to the bathroom and the attendant told her to meet up later, either outside the restroom or at the connecting gate. Mrs. Dabney hasn't been seen since. Her luggage, however, arrived in fine shape. * For ten years now Archer-Daniels-Midland has been buying European wine, processing it into ethanol in El Salvador, and selling it as tax-free fuel at American gas stations. The scheme was discovered when a 1978 Toyota started behaving erratically, speeding like a German, bashing into parking spaces like an Italian, plunging through intersections like a Frenchman, and apologizing like an Englishman. * Seven years of legal disputes over who gets Jerry Garcia's four guitars were resolved by compromise, with two guitars going to Doug Irwin, who built them, and two going to band members. Garcia left all of the guitars to Irwin in his will, but the band members claimed they were the property of the Grateful Dead because they, like, uh, sorta remembered Jerry saying that but, uh, they didn't remember when he said it and, uh, it's not like we know how to play them or anything but, uh, it would be cool if we had them. * Two one-year-old Guatemalan girls, Maria Teresa Quiej Alvarez and Maria de Jesus Quiej Alvarez, were born joined at the head, but were separated in a 22-hour operation performed by a team of 13 doctors at UCLA. Interestingly, the event received massive media coverage without anyone ever using the word "Siamese," indicating that "Joe Bob's Week in Review" failed to get the memo on the old term being declared politically incorrect, and also failed to get the memo on just what term we're expected to use now. At this point we're going with Yul Brynner Twins, in honor of the most famous King of Siam. Did Siamese people really protest? * More than 1.2 million Americans had plastic surgery last year, making this the most lifted, tucked, augmented and liposucted country in the world. In the last ten years, the number of women having breast enlargement has increased more than 500 per cent, with the next most popular alterations being liposuction, tummy tucks, forehead lifts and eyelid surgery. An even more intriguing statistic is that, of the 1.2 million patients, 1.1 million remained ugly. * Brandy and April, the Thomas sisters, robbed a bank in Gloucester Township, Pennsylvania, but as they left, their backpack ripped open, leaving a trail of greenbacks. When cops arrested them, they had a paintball gun--the holdup weapon--and $2,600 in cash. Another $1,700 was still floating around out there somewhere. Apruuuuuuuuuul, I told you to, like, zip the backpack! Brandeeeeeeeeeee, it was, like, too much money. What ever. * William Mallow, the inventor of clumping kitty litter and the rubber skin used on robot dinosaurs at Walt Disney World, died in San Antonio at age 72, but not before the polymer chemist delivered his latest invention, called the Mobility Denial System. Designed for use by the U.S. Marines, it's the slickest substance in the world. When sprayed on any surface, everyone slips and falls and no vehicles can get traction. Just for fun, it will be tested next week at a fat farm in North Carolina. * Federal Judge Gladys Kessler ordered the Bush administration to release the names of people who have been held in jail, incommunicado and incognito, since September 11, but Attorney General John Ashcroft vowed to continue to fight that whole "habeas corpus" thing. * A new gun called "The Butt-Master" is driving police crazy because, as its name implies, it can be concealed in a very private place. Originally a novelty product made by Serbu Firearms, it has now been placed into general production. It looks like a short slender stainless-steel tube, but it fires .22 ammunition and sells for about $300. Jail guards are not too thrilled with it, but the fingerprint identification people are really unhappy. * Voracious West Nile mosquitoes killed five people in Louisiana and infected 70 more in the worst outbreak of the disease since it first turned up in New York in the summer of 2000. The little rascals can't be distinguished from ordinary August swamp mosquitoes because they were trained in Egypt, spent two years developing sleeper cells and attended just enough flight school to get halfway across the country. * Russell E. Weston Jr., a delusional paranoid schizophrenic, is being held at a psychiatric center in the federal prison in Butner, North Carolina, on murder charges, and will be forced to take antipsychotic medication for 120 days in the hopes that it will make him competent to stand trial just long enough to give him the death penalty. Then he can go back to being crazy. * Speaking of crazy, seven women were excommunicated after going through priestly ordination ceremonies aboard a ship on the Danube, conducted by an Argentine who claims to be an archbishop. Pope John Paul II gave them until July 22 to renounce their claims and confess error, but when that date passed, he foreclosed on their souls. The women were from Austria, Germany and the United States, three countries that apparently need to improve their media coverage of the pope's position on this issue. His position in the past, in the present, and for the foreseeable future could best be summed up as: Hell no, followed by Are you insane? * Members of New York's Municipal Credit Union--mostly public service workers employed by the city--stole $15 million from ATMs during a computer failure following the World Trade Center collapse. The credit union, which has its headquarters near Ground Zero, lost its computer link to the ATM network and had no way to check accounts to make sure the withdrawals were covered by the member's balances. But officials decided to leave the ATMs operating anyway, under the theory that these 300,000 people needed their money during the crisis. Apparently some needed more money than others. More than 540 members overdrew their account balances by $5,000 or more, with a total of 4,000 stealing enough to come under investigation by the district attorney. So far 101 people have been arrested after refusing to pay up. They say that, if they have to give the money back, the terrorists will have won. * The San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a voters referendum on whether to grow marijuana on public property as a way to stop federal drug agents from busting medical marijuana clubs all the time. The idea would be for the city to grow it on vacant lots, with cultivation being handled by a job-training program for the unemployed. To ensure quality control, each lid would be emblazoned with the seal of the city of San Francisco and the face of Jerry Garcia. * Elizabeth Roach of Chicago admitted stealing $241,000 from her employer, Andersen Consulting, but asked for leniency because she's a shopaholic. Her lawyer, Jeffrey Steinback, told Federal Judge Matthew F. Kennelly that she once bought a $7,000 belt buckle at Neiman-Marcus, 70 pairs of shoes at one time, and took a shopping trip to London that cost $30,000 and was so addictive that she missed her plane home. Once she got home with her various hauls, she would feel guilty, hide it all from her husband, never wear the clothing, and then sell it to pawn shops for a fraction of its value. Here's the best part, though: the judge bought it! He said that she was using her shopping addiction to "self-medicate" her depression, so he agreed not to send her to jail. Instead she got five years probation, six months of home confinement on weekends, six weeks in a Salvation Army work-release center, and a fine of $3,000. She celebrated at Marshall Field's, but, as a sign of her newfound self-restraint, only visited eight of the ten floors. * German and Danish scientists discovered the first new insect order since 1915, wingless predators called Mantophasmatodea. They were first found in a 45-million-year-old piece of Baltic amber in a museum, but last month an international research team captured living samples in the mountains of western Namibia. The paper-clip-sized insects resemble praying mantises and, according to the Japanese, have aphrodisiac qualities when served in a creamy broth. * A woman was hit in the head with a bowling ball and a man was bashed in the eye with a bottle during a 30-person fight at Whitestone Lanes in Queens. The brawl occurred at 4 a.m., when gutter balls tend to turn into gutter brawls. * People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a spy into a University of North Carolina animal research facility and discovered clear and convincing evidence of rat abuse. Before rat brains are removed, the rats are supposed to be numbed in a bucket of ice, but cruel lab assistants were saving time by opening the skulls without anesthesia. This possibly prolonged the suffering of some rats up to three full seconds, leading to the question "Whither humanity?" * Albert Wellner of Lake Glass, Florida, was killed by 10,000 yellow jackets when he crossed a demilitarized zone of pine needles and whacked them with his lawn mower. Plaintiffs attorneys are still trying to figure out who to sue, with the most likely defendant being the negligent inventor of the pine tree. * Dr. Frederick B. Levenson, a New York psychoanalyst, formed a company called TheraDate through which therapists will serve as a dating service for their patients. You pay $2,000 for the service, after which your therapist reveals all your issues and neuroses to other therapists, who then match you up with potential partners who have the same issues and neuroses. This presumably avoids those ugly dysfunctional scenes between manic- depressives trying to date schizophrenics with abandonment issues while withholding emotional openness during long walks in the park. * Karl Glazebrook, an assistant professor of astronomy at Johns Hopkins University, says that the color of the universe is pale greenish turquoise. Twenty million gay men can't be wrong. * The first commercial human-egg storage facility opened in Los Angeles, offering to freeze any woman's eggs for $500 a year so that she can have babies when she gets around to it later in life. But if you fall behind on those storage payments, they'll change the locks on your eggs and, if they have to, box them up and sell them to hippies. * Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced the latest of 37 plans for how to deal with Iraq. The new strategic maneuver would involve building a golden bowling trophy with Saddam Hussein's name engraved on it, then telling him he has to pick it up in person. * A Princeton admissions official hacked into the Yale Web site and executed searches on the following words: "Gwyneth," "Buffy," "the 4th," "Astor," "Vanderbilt," and "Texas oil." * President Bush signed a corporate-fraud bill that he called "the most far-reaching reforms of American business practices since the time of Franklin Delano Roosevelt," thereby using up his entire four-year quota of speech references to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. * Carolyn Condit, wife of Gary, told Esquire magazine that the lame-duck Congressman never had sex with Chandra Levy. In other news, the magazine revealed that Nicole Brown Simpson died of natural causes. * In London a three-judge panel ruled that nine foreigners detained after September 11th were victims of a policy that was "discriminatory, disproportionate and unlawful." The court said that no public emergency entitles the government to take measures against foreigners that it would not take against its own citizens. That wacky British legal system--let's hope they never export it to another country. * Billionaire Sumner Redstone, chairman of Viacom, divorced his wife Phyllis after 55 years of marriage. They were young and stupid. * Juan Diego became an official Catholic saint during the visit of Pope John Paul II to Mexico, but not before the Archdiocese of Mexico City gave the Indian peasant a makeover, softening his facial features, lightening his skin, lengthening his hair, and giving him a beard. The official portrait was unveiled as Juan Diego was canonized to honor his three 16th- century conversations with the Virgin Mary, in which she gave him a message for the bishop, instructing him to build a temple in her honor. In other miraculous exploits, Juan Diego ascended barren Tepeyac Hill and miraculously found flowers there--then, when he unwrapped his cloak, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico, was imprinted there. After the papal ceremony, Juan Diego was featured in Studboy magazine. * Enraged fans threw Britney Spears souvenirs at the singer and jeered her with shouts of "Fraud! Fraud!" after she sang just four songs on the final night of her world tour in Mexico City. "I'm sorry, Mexico," she said. "I love you. Bye." She later claimed she was scared off by a thunderstorm that was approaching Foro Sol Stadium. Obviously, if a lightning bolt hit one of those electronic devices on her body, she could end up with the image of Juan Diego imprinted on her midriff. * Alec Baldwin and Ellen DeGeneres were signed for the new season of "Hollywood Squares," indicating just how disoriented you can become after getting dumped. * The nine men rescued after spending 80 hours trapped in an underground mine in Quecreek, Pennsylvania, were admitted to the Conemaugh Medical Center in Johnstown and released after treatment for minor injuries. By week's end, however, four of the men were readmitted to the hospital after complaining of symptoms consistent with prolonged exposure to the media. * The Who launched its U.S. tour, refining its sixties teen angst with a more mature outlook, reflected in its new billing as The Whom. * The last peep show on New York's 42nd Street, Peep-O-Rama, was closed. Disappointed peepers were referred to Eighth Avenue, site of a peep preservation effort. * Fifty-five pilot whales stranded themselves on the beach in Cape Cod Bay, but 46 were dragged back into the water before they could build one more damn miniature golf course. * "Joe Bob's Week in Review" normally doesn't crow about its original reporting--mainly because we don't have any--but in an item last week we reported news four days prior to the news actually happening. To recap, here's last week's item, in its entirety: "Rebekah Revels, Miss North Carolina, resigned her title because she said an ex-boyfriend had contacted the Miss America Organization 'in a calculated attempt to defame my character.' She said she didn't want 'the physically and emotionally abusive relationship of which I was once a part' to harm the national pageant in September. Sounds like kinky-photo prophylaxis to us." This week--four days after the original item--Rebekah Revels went on "Good Morning America" to reveal that, indeed, there were two topless photos of her that were in the possession of her former fiance. Yes, dear, we knew. * Hollywood animal trainer Frank Inn was buried with the cremated remains of motion picture star Benji the dog, "Green Acres" star Arnold the pig, and Tramp, the dog on "My Three Sons." Let's hope none of his offended B-list clients dig him up. * James A. Traficant Jr., the defrocked Congressman, will be required to give up his famous toupee as he is checked into federal prison to begin an eight-year sentence for corruption. The rug was discovered during a routine search by the Summit County Jail in Ohio, and now Traficant is subject to additional perjury charges for his recent sworn statement to Congress that he cuts his hair with a Weed Whacker. All you need for Astroturf is a little foam. * New York's Russian Tea Room closed after 75 years, the victim of camomile, English Breakfast, and Lipton's. * Two WorldCom executives, Scott D. Sullivan and David F. Myers, were the corporate-fraud poster boys of the week, as they were paraded around Lower Manhattan in handcuffs, charged with a $3.8 billion accounting fraud. A billion dollars is just not what it used to be. * Michael Jackson is $200 million in debt, and remarkably only $25,000 of it is dermatology bills. * Comedian Martin Lawrence didn't think interview questions by Fox News reporter Bill McCuddy were funny, so he called him a "-- --head" and seized his videotape. Lawrence was being interviewed during a Paramount Pictures promotional blitz for his new film "Martin Lawrence Live: Runteldat," but Paramount officials refused to give McCuddy his tape back--even though Lawrence chose not to answer McCuddy's questions about two incidents, in 1996 and 1999, when Lawrence waved a gun at a Los Angeles intersection and fell into a coma while jogging in the summer heat. (Both incidents are things Lawrence talks about in the movie.) Lawrence was last seen waving the videotape at overheated joggers. * Scenes from American domestic life:
  • Four wives of soldiers at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, were killed by their husbands, and one soldier was killed by his wife, all within a six-week period, with two of the soldiers then committing suicide and the other three alleged murderers looking at long prison terms. The Army was quick to say that there was no connection between any of the couples, all of whom seemed to adore Army housing.
  • Gloria Rodriguez of the Bronx asked her husband William Rodriguez for a divorce, but he was a Jehovah's Witness and didn't believe in divorce, so she hired Hector Rodriguez (no relation) to kill William Rodriguez for $1,000, with a promise to give him $3,000 more later. One Rodriguez ended up dead, and two Rodriguezes ended up serving 20 to life. But there's more: the getaway car was driven by . . . Robert Rodriguez (no relation and no relation). He got a mere nine months in jail, presumably to ensure the continuance of the Rodriguez blood line.
  • William M. Cronan Jr. of Clifton, Virginia approached his wife Sigrid as she sat at a computer in their home, shot her twice in the back of the head, put the gun down on a chair next to his wife, dialed 911, told the operator he'd killed his wife, waited for police, and pled guilty. How many times did he have to tell her to always reboot after downloading?
  • Clara Harris, a Houston dentist, hired a private investigator to find out whether her orthodontist husband David Harris was having an affair. When the private eye called and told her to come to the Nassau Bay Hilton to see for herself, she drove there with the husband's 16-year-old daughter, and found her husband with a bisexual woman named Gail Bridges. She screamed "You bitch! He's my husband!" and attacked the other woman, ripping her shirt off. According to a witness, the husband tried to separate the two women, and when other people tried to help, the enraged wife said, "This is Doctor Harris, and we're here today because he's ------- this woman." A wild argument ensued, with bystanders holding the wife back as she constantly tried to get in additional blows on Bridges, and with the teenage daughter hitting her dad with her purse and screaming "I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!" Hotel workers finally prevailed on the husband to leave, but as he walked to his car, witnesses heard squealing tires and watched as the wife's silver Mercedes- Benz plowed into him and knocked him 25 feet. She then ran him over three more times while bystanders banged on her window, begging her to stop. Instead she put the car into reverse, backed up onto his battered body, and parked the car on top of him. He died a short time later. The wife's explanation: "It was an accident." Dental-care professionals are just excitable. * Zacarias Moussaoui pled innocent, then guilty, then innocent to charges that he helped Osama bin Laden plan the attacks of September 11th. He's French. * Lynda Lopez, sister of J-Lo, is the new spokesgirl for Stayfree Thong Maxi Pads, which allow you to avoid the heartache of panty lines while frolicking in the surf. We don't really want to think about it. * Angelina Jolie filed for divorce from Billy Bob Thornton, causing a surge in tattoo-removal stocks. * A thousand garlic farmers demonstrated in the streets of Seoul against South Korea's new agreement to allow $9 million worth of garlic imports from China beginning next year. The farmers shouted slogans against President Kim Dae Jung, as police gave them a wide berth and offered breath mints. * A "Save Martha" rally for the embattled Martha Stewart was staged in front of CBS Studios, where Stewart would normally be giving out cooking tips on the "Early Show" except that the network has suspended the weekly segment until her insider- trading case cools down. Wearing "Save Martha!" cooking aprons and chef's hats, the Martha supporters hoped to get on camera during an outside broadcast, but it didn't work because . . . only four people showed up. They did look festive and summery, however. * Rebekah Revels, Miss North Carolina, resigned her title because she said an ex-boyfriend had contacted the Miss America Organization "in a calculated attempt to defame my character." She said she didn't want "the physically and emotionally abusive relationship of which I was once a part" to harm the national pageant in September. Sounds like kinky-photo prophylaxis to us. * Yankee Stadium banned "Boston Sucks" T-shirts, disrupting a tradition of profane Red Sox hatred dating back to 1918. What's the world coming to when you can't heckle millionaire athletes? Especially when they suck. * After being attacked for not releasing his tax returns, California gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon Jr. finally released 11 years' worth, thousands of pages of documents, but told reporters that they couldn't copy them, they couldn't photograph them, they couldn't bring in tax experts to look at them, and they only had till 9 p.m. before Simon whisked them away. Oh yeah, one more thing--you could only use pens and paper supplied by Simon. The old disappearing-ink trick. * Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is apparently proud of his tax returns, terminated his agent and is talking to a political consultant about a possible run for the governorship of California. Has anyone shown Maria Shriver the real estate options in Sacramento? Obviously not. * Credit card companies scored a major victory in Congress when a committee agreed to make it much harder to claim bankruptcy. There were 1.45 million bankruptcy filings last year, most of them by people who seemed like such great risks when Mastercard, Visa, American Express and Discover gave them credit lines of $100,000 on income of $20,000 so they could buy more power tools at 29 per cent interest. Instead of taking bankruptcy, they could have just made monthly payments for the rest of their lives, like any decent person. * Harvey Pitt, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, wants to prove he can police the Wall Street corporations that he once represented in private practice, so he asked Congress to promote him to "Level 1" status--on a par with cabinet members--at the very moment many members of Congress were asking him to resign, thereby proving he has the same level of awareness as most American CEOs. * Speaking of CEOS, the Rigas family had a bummer of a week, with dad John and his sons Timothy and Michael being waked up by postal inspectors at their New York apartment--aren't they a little OLD to be living with Dad?--and slapped into handcuffs on charges that they looted their own company, Adelphia Communications, for more than $1 billion. The wife and daughter of John Rigas were also sued by Adelphia itself, while another of John's sons, James Rigas, was sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission but didn't have to be cuffed. The Rigas family had told authorities that they would surrender voluntarily, but the offer was rejected because, at the SEC, Harvey Pitt needed to froth publicly. * Eighty-four people were arrested in New Orleans for bribery, fraud and malfeasance that reached deep into city agencies. Reform-minded Mayor C. Ray Nagin proclaimed a new era of clean government--the 74th new era proclaimed in the last ten years. * Major General Jean-Claude Duperval, found guilty of conspiracy to massacre and torture thousands in the port city of Raboteau, Haiti, in 1994, was fired from his job at Disney World in Orlando. It's a small world after all. * NASCAR champion Jeff Gordon says he shouldn't be required to pay alimony or support to his wife Brooke because he "risked his life" to acquire the couple's $50 million fortune, which includes a $9 million oceanfront mansion, boats, a Porsche, a Mercedes and a private jet. "It's not like he's a banker who goes to work from 9 to 5," said Gordon's lawyer, Donald Sasser. "He takes his life in his hands." Jeff Fisher, lawyer for the wife, says she's about to take something else into HER hands and squeeze. * The police department of Oceanside, California, plans to build an outdoor firing range next door to the Prince of Peace Abbey, where monks are sworn to a life of contemplative silence. Go ahead, make my prayer. * Marty Backus Jr., publisher of two small papers in Arkansas, was told by his bosses at Lancaster Newspapers, Inc., in Alabama that he would be fired if he didn't carry out all the directives in a two-page letter, including "attend church weekly," "have dinner as a family at least five times a week," and "go to bed with (your wife) every night without fail." He managed to keep his job for five years, but apparently he missed Sunday School or something, because last year they fired him after 21 years of service, questioning his religious faith and company loyalty. Backus is filing a federal lawsuit, which reads, "Uh, can they do that?" * Victoria's Secret is going all the way to the Supreme Court against a little shop in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, called Victor's Little Secret. Victor and Cathy Moseley sell sex toys, adult videos and lingerie, but Victoria's Secret claims they're infringing a trademark, and the Supremes have agreed to hear the case. After all, Victoria's Secret wouldn't want people to hear their name and think about . . . SEX. * Atrazine, the most widely used agricultural herbicide in the United States, turns frogs into hermaphrodites, makes it impossible for them to croak, and sometimes causes them to grow extra testicles and ovaries. We allow it in our drinking water, which accounts for San Francisco. * Two years ago an 11-year-old girl was arrested and handcuffed by transit police in Washington, D.C., for eating French fries inside a subway station. The cops searched her backpack and actually took her into custody, resulting in a lawsuit which, believe it or not, Metro is actually CONTESTING. Aside from the constitutional issues, which we won't go into here because they're the same constitutional issues aired in every case of this type, our question is: where has there ever been a train or a train station that did NOT have at least one person eating French fries in it? That must have been one hellaciously messy fry. * Manuel Birrento of Samora Correia, Portugal, bought the world's biggest bouquet of red roses--518 of them, one for each day since he was dumped by his girlfriend--and had them delivered to her. The Guinness Book of World Records confirmed it as the biggest bouquet ever sold by a florist in one order, but important tip for males everywhere: it didn't work. * Two sheep seized from a Vermont farm last year were found to have a brain-deforming disease, but it will take three more years to determine whether they had actual mad-cow disease. That's how long it takes for them to start baaing inappropriately. * Chancellor Gerhard Schroder of Germany is suing the D.D.P. news agency for its allegations that he dyes his hair. D.D.P. had quoted an image consultant as saying "It would do Mr. Schroder good to admit that he dyes his graying curls." But Schroder intends to produce evidence from hairdressers in Berlin and his hometown of Hanover stating unequivocally that his hair remains its natural dark brown color. Obviously there are no wars going on in Germany right now. * A Portuguese woman found part of a rat leg in a hamburger she bought at the state hospital in Leiria. The woman complained to local health authorities, and an investigation is underway, since Portuguese burgers, as everyone knows, are commonly served with all four rat legs intact.Morocco invaded the obscure Spanish island of Perejil, which means "parsley" in Spanish. There were no casualties because the only inhabitants are goats. Six days later the Spanish armada stormed the island and took prisoner the entire Moroccan occupying force, which was six soldiers strong. Four hours later the prisoners were handed over to Moroccan authorities at the border port of Ceuta. The goats, however, were held by Spain and denied "prisoner of war" status. * Dallas Cowboys offensive lineman Aaron Gibson weighed in for summer training camp at 410 pounds, making him the biggest man in the history of the sport, and the only man in the world required to buy three seats on Southwest Airlines. * Amhed Omar Saeed Sheikh was sentenced to death by hanging for the murder of Daniel Pearl, after which the former London School of Economics student invoked Allah and vowed revenge on Pakistani authorities. This will presumably cause Allah to use cheap frayed rope. * Citizens of Berkeley, California, will vote in November on a referendum to ban all coffee that is not "organic, fair-trade and/or shade-grown." With one of the highest concentrations of coffeehouses in the country, Berkeley is a city that already knows what this means. "Organic" means coffee plants that haven't been exposed to pesticides or herbicides. "Fair-trade" refers to a movement in Europe that guarantees a minimum coffee price to small Third World farmers who operate within organized cooperatives. "Shade-grown" means the coffee is grown in a manner to protect rainforest canopies that are inhabited by migratory songbirds. When you have all three, you avoid a nasty visit from the dreaded Frappuccino Inspector General. * A northern snakehead--described by ichthyologists as a Chinese "Frankenfish" that can destroy all living creatures, then jump up on land and migrate to a new body of water--was discovered in a drainage pond in Crofton, Maryland, and state wildlife officials want it killed. The fish, prized as a delicacy in China and Korea, can live up to four days on land, can grow to 15 pounds, and has no known predators in America. It has been traced to a fish market in New York's Chinatown where, because of its resiliency, it was able to call a cab and escape. * The National Security Agency hired Eric Haseltine, chief of research and development at Walt Disney Company, stimulating rumors that future special services operations will involve "black arts" ground forces disguised with giant animal heads. * Air Force General Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said "we hadn't thought about this" in response to questions as to why he was unprepared to defend the Pentagon from an air attack on September 11th. There are so many targets to defend, that one just slipped their minds. * NBA scoring leader Allen Iverson of the Philadelphia 76ers was charged with four felonies and ten misdemeanors after he allegedly threatened two men with a handgun while searching for his wife, whom he had thrown out of his $2.4 million mansion-- naked. Iverson's attorney said his client is not guilty and that it was just a family scavenger hunt. * An F-117 Stealth fighter dropped a 25-pound dummy bomb on a house in Monahans, Texas. Officials at Holloman Air Force Base near Alamagordo, New Mexico, insisted that the plane had encountered Al Qaeda fire. * Disgruntled Nigerian women took 700 ChevronTexaco workers hostage for nine days at the Escravos oil terminal without using any weapons except the threat that they would take their own clothes off. (It's a traditional shaming gesture in Nigeria.) It worked! The company agreed to hire 25 villagers and build schools, electrical and water systems. The women broke into singing and dancing on the docks, except for two who were exhibitionists. * John Walker Lindh pled out for a 20-year prison term, and his father proclaimed him a great patriot whose story is similar to that of Nelson Mandela. Don't let his people go. * When President Bush spoke, Wall Street listened--and the Dow plunged 439 points in response to his reassuring words about the economy and vows to reform corporate governance. The market remained at its lowest point since 1997, but Martha Stewart proposed decorative paper doilies for all the seats on the New York Stock Exchange and that made everyone feel better. * Rapper Jay-Z released two singles, "Take Over" and "Superugly," making derogatory and profane references to Destiny Bryan, the seven-year-old daughter of rival rapper Nas and a woman named Carmen Bryan. Then a third rapper, Cam'ron, went on New York radio station WQHT and threatened to kidnap Destiny and give her to R. Kelly as a sexual favor. The mother of the girl, fed up, held a press conference in Harlem, and called for boycotts all the way around--of the music and the radio station-- and showed remarkable restraint by refusing to commit a single homicide. * More than 160 people got salmonella poisoning, and one died, at a restaurant in Chattanooga that will henceforth be known as Dead Lobster. * "Sesame Street" is introducing an HIV-positive Muppet on its South African program this fall, and is discussing doing the same thing in the United States. The new character will probably be a five-year-old female "Monster," like Grover and Elmo. "We know that she'll be lively, alert, friendly, outgoing and HIV- positive," said Joel Schneider, vice president of Sesame Workshop. "She'll be healthy, not sickly." And we imagine that she'll act up. * Avian flu hit the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, resulting in the slaughter of 4.74 million chickens and turkeys at 197 farms. At the last minute, several of them tried to hire lawyers. * Scenes from our secure republic:
    • Two elders from the Waorani Indian tribe of Ecuador wore lethal blow-dart guns around their necks while taking four planes to get to New York, without ever being asked to surrender the guns or even to present them for examination. They then walked through New York City barefoot in palm skirts and entered a courthouse where they have a case pending against ChevronTexaco for the pollution of their water--and again federal screeners waved them on through. Meanwhile, a fat woman with tweezers was detained in Akron.
    • Part of New York's 64th Street between Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue--one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the world--was closed off to both pedestrian and vehicular traffic after a report of an "unidentified beeping object" in a black plastic garbage bag on the curb. Residents--including Ivana Trump, Tommy Mottola, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Donatella Versace--were instructed to stay indoors and away from their windows as the Emergency Service Unit, better known as the bomb squad, arrived on the scene. The bag was opened to reveal . . . a smoke detector. The detector was "disabled and discarded," but conspiracy theorists continue to wonder what smoke was doing on the curb.
    • Rochelle Miles, responsible for hiring security screeners at Philadelphia International Airport, was charged with falsifying employment forms so that people with murder, drug and weapons convictions could get hired. None of them, however, had ever been convicted of a box-cutter-related offense.
    • Kamal Dawood of Palestine was jailed for five months and denied bail after two school crossing guards in Brooklyn claimed they saw him open a mailbox, deposit something in a closed fist, then stand around drinking coffee. Charged by the government with "threatening to use a weapon of mass destruction"--even though neither anthrax nor faux-anthrax was found in the mailbox--as well as "injuring a letter box" and "obstructing the passage of mail," Dawood was acquitted by a jury on all charges. He was not released even then, however. Federal marshalls hustled him over to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which intended to challenge the legality of his visa. You just TRY to stand around drinking coffee in this country.
    • As American Trans Air flight 204 approached New York, two fighter jets were dispatched to escort it to La Guardia and then three Indian men and one woman were taken off the plane by armed officers, separated, questioned, and detained for five hours. They were Samyuktha Verma, the biggest movie star in India, considered "the Julia Roberts of Malayalam-language films"; Indian pop singer Biju Narayanan; Jairaj Kattanellur, a comedian and satirist; and a fourth Indian man who didn't know the first three but was taken off the plane for suspicion of FWI (Flying While Indian). The group had just performed in Dallas and were on their way to New York for a performance at Queens College, but a passenger told a flight attendant they were acting "suspiciously" when they kept changing seats in an effort to get their first glimpse of the skyscrapers of New York. They were finally released after threatening to sing an entire Indian musical. *  French scientists discovered a seven-million-year-old human skull in the Djurab Desert of Chad and named it "Toumai." Toumai is three million years older than the next oldest hominid skull, and laboratory evidence indicates that he probably bitched about how everything was better in the old days. * The FBI narrowed down the possible motives of limo driver Hesham Hadayet for killing two people at an El Al ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport to either terrorism, a hate crime, despondency over his business, domestic problems, financial problems, copycat terrorism, mental illness, frustraton with immigration authorities, road rage, a business dispute, or too much al-Jazeera. * Michael Jackson drove around Manhattan in a bus, calling Sony president Tommy Mottola a racist and organizing a protest of 1,000 people in front of Sony headquarters. Then he went to Harlem and spoke to a summit organized by the Reverend Al Sharpton to tell an audience, "The minute I surpassed Elvis and the Beatles, they called me a freak, a child molester. They said I bleached my skin. I know my race. I know I'm black." Previously he had unfurled a banner at the Equinox night club in London that read "Sony Kills Music!," then called Mottola "the devil." He also held a press conference with Johnnie Cochran and Al Sharpton to announce that he was a "slave to the music industry." Next he called for a boycott of all Sony movies, music, hardware and video games. Apparently those sales figures on his new album, "Invincible," have led people to think the title is meant to be ironic. * President Bush was hammered at a news conference, with reporters asking repeated questions about his failure to report his 1990 insider trades at Harken Energy right before the stock tanked. White House lawyers are preparing a defense to the charges that will involve the argument that any man who would willingly buy the Texas Rangers doesn't really know how to make money anyway. * "My Name Is Winona and I'm a Shoplifter" opens Monday at the Zephyr Theater in West Hollywood, with Rex Lee in drag starring as everyone's favorite bag lady. The play by Michael Kearns is set in a 12-step meeting and features a section in which Winona reads excerpts from the scathing reviews of her new release "Mr. Deeds," as well as her secret desire to date serial modelizer Steve Bing. Yes, she's officially a gay icon. * Our favorite pornographer, Al Goldstein, was scarcely out of the slammer after his conviction for harassing his ex-secretary-- he's out on bail while the case is appealed--when he was arrested again by New York City cops for harassing ex-wife Gina Goldstein. In the June 10 issue of Screw magazine, Goldstein published a "Wanted" poster of the ex-wife, along with her work phone number, and asked readers to call her at work. The man is just a journalist trying to cover his beat, okay? * Congress voted to dump nuclear waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, where it will be safe for 10,000 years. After that time, if anything has gone wrong with the groundwater or environment, all Congressmen voting "yes" have agreed to resign. * Ted Williams' body was shipped to the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Arizona, and frozen so that, according to Williams' son John Henry Williams, he can "play baseball in a hundred years." But Williams' daughter, Bobby-Jo Ferrell, says her dad wanted to have his ashes scattered over the Florida Keys just to spite Walt Disney. * In a replay of the McDonald's hot-coffee case, 31 people in England sued McDonald's over coffee burns suffered between 1996 and 1998. In America the scalded 79-year-old woman had been awarded $3 million, but in Britain the plaintiffs got zip. The judge's reason? "I am quite satisfied," he wrote, "that McDonald's was entitled to assume the consumer would know that the drink was hot, and there are numerous commonplace ways of speeding up cooling, such as stirring and blowing." Now what kind of cockeyed legal reasoning is that? * Dr. Arno Motulsky of the University of Washington released research findings showing that first cousins who marry don't really have to worry that much about birth defects or genetic disease after all. "In terms of general risks in life it's not very high," he said. "Ninety-three per cent of the time, nothing is going to happen." Reacting to the news, officials in Kentucky gave retroactive GED's to eight generations of the Stegall clan. * Ten thousand salmon broke out of their cages at a salmon farm off the north coast of Scotland and raised fears among scientists that they would dilute wild salmon genes through mating, then spread diseases and introduce extra competition for food. The outlaw salmon were described as sociopathic, dangerous and pink. * Two dozen drug cases were thrown out in Dallas when seized cocaine and methamphetamine turned out to be gypsum from wallboard. All those drywall installers just seemed high, especially when they disappeared for days and had no memory of when they had promised to finish the job. * Commissioners in Washoe County, Nevada, voted 3-2 to deny a permit for a kitty-litter processing plant in suburban Reno, temporarily halting the most promising kitty-litter mining operation in the history of kitty litter. Oil-Dri Corp. of Chicago, which makes Cat's Pride and also supplies kitty-litter clay for Fresh Step and Special Kitty, thought they had found the most perfect, light, fluffy and absorbent clay in North America. The land is owned by the Bureau of Land Management, so they filed a kitty-litter mining claim, only to be opposed by the nearby Reno-Sparks Indian Colony and other suburban-dwelling Nevadans. Oil-Dri inists that the Mining Law of 1872 gives them the right to take the clay, which is much cheaper than the clay from their current mine near Ochlocknee, Georgia. They also vow to fight the county in court--because cats are waiting, all over America, and when cats wait too long, you get a nice little gift on your carpet. * Nearly 40 per cent of Americans sit on their butts, exercising zero hours per week, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. The figure would have been higher, but the remarkably lax National Health Interview Survey awarded credits for people who walk from their car in the mall parking lot to the jogging-suit department of the Nike store. * Astronomers say an asteroid orbiting the sun will smash into the earth with the explosive force of millions of tons of TNT--in 878 years. Congress appointed a special committee to monitor the asteroid, chaired by Strom Thurmond. * An Italian court ruled that Giuseppe Andreoli of Naples must continue paying $700 a month in child support for his 30-year-old unemployed son, who has a law degree and a large securities portfolio but lives with his Mamma Mia. The court said that "a son (or daughter) who refuses a job offer that is not adequate to his specific preparation, his attitudes and his interests is not at fault" and that a young person's "aspirations, capacity, scholastic history, including university and post-university specialization, and the labor market of his field" must all be taken into account before a parent is allowed to cut off the support money. In Italy, 27 per cent of Italians between the ages of 30 and 34 live with their parents. Andreoli's son Marco has admitted that he doesn't need the $700 a month, but it's the principle of the thing. Besides, $700 hardly buys a pair of Gucci loafers these days. * Michael Griffiths of Queens filed 1,800 tax returns for the 1999 tax year in an attempt to collect refunds. His W-2s for the next three to ten years will be issued by Sing Sing. * A mysterious black blob moved across the Gulf of Mexico, scaring the fish, which instinctively knew to keep away from it. Humans, on the other hand, DOVE RIGHT IN, only to report that they still don't know what it is. Isn't this the opening scene of a Stephen King novel? * Greece wants to "borrow" the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum for the 2004 Olympics, but the friezes and statues that were originally part of the Parthenon are not likely to leave London. Thomas Bruce, the seventh earl of Elgin and Britain's envoy to the Ottoman Empire, removed them to England in the very early years of the 19th century, a time when they were little more than piles of rocks on the Acropolis. Now Athens is building a multi-million-dollar Acropolis museum and is leaving a place for the Elgin Marbles, hoping to display them there during the games and promising that they'll be identified as "the permanent property of the British Museum." Parliament is uneasy, however, believing you should never trust Greeks borrowing gifts. * Marijuana is not a narcotic in Idaho, according to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In a related ruling, the court determined that Idaho is not a real state. * A 1,900 per cent rise in the tax on cigarettes took effect in New York City, making smokes cost up to $8 a pack and causing New Yorkers to cease to be smug about fanatical Californians. There was temporary gridlock at JFK Airport as every European in the city attempted to flee. 

      * Amalgamated Tubing, a publicly-traded corporation in Altoona, Pennsylvania, turned in a completely accurate report of profits, expenses and accounting practices for the past five years, throwing Wall Street into confusion. 

      *    Carolyn Condit, wife of Congressman Gary Condit, claimed in a Fresno, California, courtroom that the National Enquirer is not a newspaper. The Enquirer wants her $10 million libel suit thrown out because she never asked for a retraction before suing for an article saying she attacked Chandra Levy. State law gives newspapers a chance to correct mistakes by printing corrections and retractions before suits can be filed. But the Enquirer is not a "newspaper," her lawyers claimed. The Enquirer responded that she is not a "wife." 

      * NICO bottled water, which is spiked with nicotine, was rejected by the Food and Drug Administration, saying it was an unapproved new drug, after anti-smoking groups protested against its imminent release. Presumably they were fearful of the effects of second-hand drooling and belching. 

      * Jim Brown, the former football star and action film hero, was released from jail two months early on his misdemeanor conviction for smashing the windows of his wife's car. Brown had been offered no jail time if he agreed to domestic violence counseling, paid a fine, and contributed to a battered woman's shelter. This Soviet-style solution didn't appeal to him, so he said he would take his six months jail time instead. He was out in four because of his cooperative attitude. His wife, who had recanted her testimony against Brown long before he was tried, greeted him at home and showed off her new Teflon-coated crockery. 

      * Wal-Mart adopted a new policy on gun sales, refusing to sell to anyone whose background can't be checked because of computer glitches or missing records. The burglar can just wait. 

      * Shares in Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia have dropped 39 per cent since Martha Stewart's name was first connected to the ImClone investigation a month ago and she became a one-name tabloid favorite. It's not exactly clear how placemat and comforter sales are related to charges that she may be guilty of insider trading, but she doesn't appear to be too worried: she's still taking a $900,000 salary and a $300,000 annual bonus. This week she did fail to show up for her icebox pie segment on CBS' "The Early Show" after the network told her they were going to grill her instead of watching her grill. Responsible consumers who had pre-chilled their filling were livid. 

      * At a wedding in the village of Kakarak, Afghanistan, revelers fired guns into the air--and American gunships fired back, killing at least 50 people, including women and children, and injuring 150 more, including a friend of President Hamid Karzai who is known to be one of the most revered anti-Taliban leaders. The attack lasted for two hours, between 2 and 4 a.m., and included a bomb dropped from a B-52. The U.S. Central Command sent a "fact-finding team" to count the orphans and figure out why a wedding party would so brazenly attack American soldiers. 

      * Arthur "Spud" Melin, co-founder of Wham-O, the toy company that made millions on the Frisbee and Hula Hoop, died after an overdose of molded plastic. 

      * Key West, Florida, is overrun by about 2,000 homeless chickens who crow at 3 a.m., foul the beaches and generally get in the way, so the resort city's solution is to have chicken roundups and ship the birds to farms on the mainland. The normal solution--beheading, plucking and frying--seems not to have occurred to anyone. And THIS was the home of Hemingway? 

      * Lisa Bonder Kerkorian, who was married to Kirk Kerkorian for one month, is suing her ex-husband for $320,000 a month in child support, claiming that their four-year-old daughter needs $144,000 a month for travel, $14,000 for parties and playdates, $4,300 for food, $5,900 for dining out, $2,500 for movies, theaters and outings, $1,400 for laundry and dry cleaning, $1,000 for toys, videos and books, $436 a month for her pet bunny, and $7,000 for charitable contributions. (The little darling is the most precocious philanthropist since Marjoe Gortner.) Kerkorian is 84, his ex-wife is 36, and they got married in 1998 in order to "legitimize" the daughter when she was six months old. Their pre-nuptial agreement stipulated that the marriage would end after 28 days and that there would be no alimony. Then they continued seeing each other until the summer of 2000, when Bonder caught Kerkorian out on a date with another woman. In other words, the deadbeat cad cheated on his ex-wife. Our question: if you wait until the daughter is six months old to get married, how does that make her legitimate? Must be one of those multi- millionaire things. It may be a moot point anyway, because Kerkorian recently hired a private eye to go through the trash of Steve Bing, the man who fathered the love child of Liz Hurley, and the detective came up with a piece of used dental floss that tested out at a 99.993 per cent probability factor that Kerkorian's daughter is not his at all, but Bing's. So now Bonder is suing because . . . uh . . . her fake ex-husband cheated on her and so he has to support the child he . . . uh . . . is alleged to have legitimized back in the year when SHE cheated on HIM. Must be one of those billionaire things. And, oh yeah, Steve Bing is suing Kerkorian for $5 billion for "invasion of privacy" because "a person's DNA reflecting their very genetic being" is sacred. Must be one of those zillionaire things. 

      * The Netherlands legalized euthanasia, making Amsterdam not only the sex capital of Europe but the place where a tourist can go to die, so now they'll have them coming and going. 

      * House Resolution 256 was introduced before the Kentucky legislature, encouraging "the purchase of a submarine to patrol the waters of the Commonwealth and search and destroy all casino riverboats." Those Indiana slots paybacks are looooooooooow. 

      * Jim Barbe of Salem Township, Pennsylvania, faces two years in jail and a $5,000 fine for talking too long at a town council meeting. Barbe spoke for 11 minutes at a meeting of supervisors where speakers are limited to five minutes each. The official charge is disrupting a public meeting and defiant trespass. "I did say I was just about done," said the 60-year-old Barbe. Apparently the simple words "sit down and shut up" are unknown to the town's leadership. 

      * Englishmen around the world are celebrating the 100th anniversary of Marmite, the brown vegetable extract they like to slather on toast and mix with cheese and beans to gross out the rest of the world. It was invented in 1902 in Burton-on-Trent at an abandoned malt house, using spent yeast from the Bass Pale Ale factory. The ingredients include yeast, vegetable extracts, salt niacin, spices, folic acid, and vitamins B1, B2 and B12, and it creates a distinctive Godzilla-breath that has been known to induce vomiting in the strongest of men. No one except a Brit has ever been able to stomach it, probably because it's used to wean English babies and the taste has to be acquired before the age of 3. To celebrate the centennial, Brits will lick it out of the jar and participate in kissing contests. Last man standing wins. 

      * Two crack-cocaine addicts stole a Krispy Kreme donut truck from a parking lot in Slidell, Louisiana, but were apprehended when police followed a 15-mile-long trail of donuts caused by leaving the back door open. After being jailed, the suspects requested 40 gallons of black coffee. 

      * An Internet site reported that Canadian Finance Minister Paul Martin was quitting his job to breed Charolais cattle and "handsome fawn runner ducks," causing the Canadian dollar to dip lower on international exchange markets. The report turned out to be a prank by author Pierre Bourque, who included hyperlinks to sites featuring Charolais cows and brown-and-white ducks. Bourque reported that Martin was getting ready to show his livestock at a country fair in Havelock, Quebec, population 811. The problem is, in Canada this is considered a reasonable goal in life. 

      * Cynthia Fern Izon was jailed in Claremore, Oklahoma, on charges of embezzling $50,000 from the Tulsa Akdar Shriners group and $100,000 from the Barbie Doll Club of Eastern Oklahoma. The club had hosted the international Barbie convention in Tulsa in 2000, and it seems there was a little extra in the Barbie cash register. Under Oklahoma law, she will have her choice of a lengthy prison sentence or having her arms twisted off by her little brother and being placed upside down in a coffee can with her legs spread apart.

      The Supreme Court ruled that only juries, not judges, are authorized to give people the needle, the gas, the bullet, the noose or the jolt. It makes it easier on the condemned, who goes to his death knowing that his non-existence was desired unanimously.

      * Ann Landers died at age 83, sensibly. * The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals declared that all American currency printed at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco must include the phrase "In a Non-Specific Yet Loving Deity We Provisionally Trust." * "The Horrifying Fraud," the French book claiming the September 11 attacks were actually planned by extreme right- wingers within the U.S. government, passed 200,000 in sales and remained high on the best-seller list, causing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to name a special envoy to explain the American position on terrorism to Frenchmen: Jerry Lewis. * Angela Bassett slammed "Monster's Ball" in an interview with Newsweek, telling a reporter she turned down the lead role because "I wasn't going to be a prostitute on film. . . . I couldn't do that because it's such a stereotype about black women and sexuality." Halle Berry took the role instead and won the Academy Award for a role that is about as far from a hooker as you can get: she plays a down-and-out single mom who has hot sex with Billy Bob Thornton. Now that everyone knows Bassett's views on blackness, women and sex, she's being considered for the lead in the remake of Doris Day's "Move Over, Darling." * Four transsexuals claim they were threatened with baseball bats by employees of a Toys R Us in Brooklyn while attempting to purchase a "Butterfly Barbie." Store manager Bob Moloney claims it was renegade employees who were not acting with the sanction of the store, and he tried to make it up to the post-op females by giving one a 50 per cent discount on a Barbie Bungalow Beach House, a Scooby Doo ball and a Scooby Doo sleeping bag, then offering all of them 100 "Geoffrey Dollars," a gift certificate named after store mascot Geoffrey the Giraffe. It wasn't enough, though, and the girls filed a federal lawsuit. Their four complaints were filed on bunny-rabbit stationery in shades of mauve, fuchsia, pastel blue and hot pink. * New York's Museum of Modern Art opened its temporary home in Queens with a triumphal procession in which Egyptian-style throne-bearers hoisted aloft an artist named Kiki Smith, draped all in black, her wild white hair streaming in the wind, and carried her across the Queensboro Bridge while others carried a copy of Picasso's "Demoiselles d'Avignon." The museum will be housed in a former Swingline staple factory while its new $800 million space is being constructed, so the gods of New York pretension must be pacified. * WorldCom announced it made a $3.9 billion mistake in accounting because they were using a No. 2 pencil that had not been properly sharpened, but now they've got the problem fixed. * President Bush told the Palestinians to get rid of Yasir Arafat, thereby ensuring a rise in Arafat's popularity polls. * Every April 20th, at precisely 4:20 in the afternoon, the students of Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, gather on the soccer field to smoke pot. Nobody remembers how the tradition got started--too much pot--but "4:20 on 4/20" has become so well known that this year the police were ready. Three officers arrived at the soccer field shortly before 4:20--and there wasn't a joint, bong, doobie, blunt or baggie to be found. The Resident Assistants in the dorms had tipped off the entire school, and the party had moved a short distance away to a place in the woods called The Meadow. The cops hung around for a few minutes and were even told that the gathering had been moved. They deliberated as to whether they should go to The Meadow, then decided they had doubts about the "credibility" of the tip. After all, you can't trust a pothead. * In other marijuana news, the Dutch Experience coffee shop in Stockport, England, is doing a booming business now that British Home Secretary David Blunkett announced that cannabis possession will no longer be an arrestable offense. Hundreds of people have been seeking out the little town that's home to the first Amsterdam-style establishment where everyone is encouraged to inhale deeply and grin. The cafe offers coffee, Coca-Cola, table football, card tables and plenty of joint-rolling space, and most of the profit is used to provide free marijuana to medicinal users. Customers appreciate the quality of weed available in a country where street marijuana can sometimes be skanky, and so far the town council is tolerating the place's presence. Among recent visitors: the local MP, Chris Davies. "I applaud it," he told the Observer. "It seems an excellent way of meeting people's desire to try things other than alcohol without leading them on to harder things." Then he grinned inappropriately and nodded off. * Vanna White filed for divorce from her husband of 11 years, because he just doesn't understand the pressures of her career. * Southwest Airlines started strictly enforcing it's Fat Flyer Policy, requiring the exceptionally obese to buy two tickets instead of one. At 18 inches, Southwest has the narrowest seats of any major airline, causing a Squish Effect on adjoining seats when behemoths travel. The airline has had the policy since 1980, but they only started strict Porker Profiling this year, training ticket agents to make hip, waist and thigh judgment calls. The policy has been controversial among blimpolas, but was strongly applauded by the Lard-Damaged Victims Rights group. * The far northern Swedish city of Pitea is putting up a drive-in movie theater made entirely of ice and snow. When it opens, a large-screen VCR will project movies onto the ice screen from a wooden outhouse, but instead of popcorn, the local potato- dumpling specialty will be served. Vehicles using the drive-in will be snowmobiles--which, in Sweden, do have a backseat. * "Starballz," the animated sci-fi porno parody of "Star Wars" that has previously been mentioned here, fended off an attack by Lucasfilm, which tried to block it from distribution for "misappropriating our valuable assets." A San Francisco federal judge ruled against George Lucas' company and allowed the movie to go forward--and now "Starballz" Strikes BACK! Media Market Group, creator of the video, filed a libel suit in New York courts asking for $140 million from Lucasfilm. It seems that, shortly after the San Francisco decision in January, Lucasfilm spokeswoman Lynne Hale said that "the law does not allow for parody to be a defense to a pornographic use of someone else's intellectual property, especially when that use is directed to children." Media Market Group says they have never marketed to children and that'll cost you 140 mill, Mr. Big Outer-Space Gorillaman. Both companies, in our opinion, seem to be whipping out their laser swords entirely too frequently. * Tom Cruise met with Dan Coats, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, to encourage him to fight for the rights of Scientologists. The German government refuses to recognize Scientology as a religion, regarding it as a cult set up to make money. Scientologists are barred from some government jobs and openly derided for their love of John Travolta. * The wedding ring Eddie Fisher bought for Debbie Reynolds was auctioned off on Sotheby's.com--by Debbie Reynolds. "I thought maybe the kids would want it when they got older," she said--but neither Carrie nor Todd Fisher was interested. The last time the diamond-encrusted platinum band was worn was 43 years ago, when Fisher commenced an affair with Elizabeth Taylor. Apparently he's not coming home. * Public displays of affection are illegal in India, so the Lovers' Organization for Voluntary Exhibition (LOVE) planned a march on the Calcutta mayor's office to protest against the government's refusal to set aside a special area where people could hold hands and kiss without police harassment. Thirty people showed up for the march--and dispersed quickly when several police vans pulled up. As they scurried away, the cops presumably shouted "Get a room." * Crocodiles have killed 43 people in a six-month period in Lake Victoria, sometimes overturning small fishing boats in search of appetizers. Uganda's solution: patrols armed with automatic weapons, with officers presumably trained not to fire until they see the slime of their jaws. * A 21-year-old ship's cook killed the captain and first mate, took control of a 195-foot Taiwanese fishing vessel, and then held off a crew of 27 Mandarin-speaking sailors with two knives. The crew eventually subdued the cook while the ship was going through a heavy storm 200 miles southeast of the Hawaiian islands. They then fired flares to alert the Coast Guard and were escorted to Pearl Harbor. The movie will be called "The Chow Mein Mutiny." * Alfred Yazback was sentenced to two years in prison and fined $185,000 for selling fake caviar to gourmet stores. Even though his tins advertised "Product of Russia," they contained the eggs of Tennessee and Alabama paddlefish. In 1999, when there was a worldwide shortage of Sevruga caviar caused by Russia's ban on fishing in the depleted Caspian Sea, Yazback still sold 7,900 pounds of paddlefish roe labed as Russian caviar. He also sold some real Russian caviar that was smuggled out of the country illegally. Caviar emptor. * A Texas jury awarded Laura Schubert $300,000 after the members of Pleasant Glade Assembly Church in Fort Worth forcibly tried to exorcise demons from her on two occasions in 1996. To celebrate, Schubert boiled two cat's paws in a broth of blood. * The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that Jehovah's Witnesses can knock on any door they want without registering with local officials. The little town of Stratton, Ohio, had tried to regulate door-to-door proselytizing, but the court was influenced by receiving 17,000 free issues of The Watchtower, which Justice John Paul Stevens called "a hell of a good read." * In the Arthur Andersen trial, a Houston jury deliberated ten days before deciding that, yes, shredding documents is definitely obstruction of justice. The jury was dismissed by the judge, but four days later jurors