Sunday, September 28, 2008
And Almost Everywhere: The Crime du Jour – Kidnapping...
Global crime is supposedly more sophisticated, but an old standby – kidnapping – is becoming an epidemic. Last week, bandits from neighbouring Sudan snatched 15 tourists in southern Egypt, while brigands in Afghanistan upped the ante, taking more than 140 labourers hostage. Mexico has created a new...
Sign in to see full entry.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
And in Turkey: Room service gets out of hand...
Pelin Yucel has fired all the men at her hotel in Turkey and replaced them with women. The action follows rampant bed-hopping in which male staff seduced British women tourists. It got to the point, Yucel says, that she could never reach the night receptionist because he was busy bedding Brits. “The...
Sign in to see full entry.
Friday, September 26, 2008
And in the US: A New Category of Voters – Maxed-out Moms...
Contrary to my usual practice, this is not a short piece gleaned from a magazine, with my commentary at the end. This whole thing is a commentary, as it were, although it is occasioned by something I read in a magazine, in Time. I don’t read Time much – I prefer our Canadian Maclean’s, mostly...
Sign in to see full entry.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
And in Nepal: After 25 Tries, Unlucky Hubby Gets it Right...
Ramchandra Katuwai is the most luckless husband in the world. The Nepalese first married at age 26, but his bride ran away with a lover. “My second wife also ran away”, he said, “and the third one too.” From there on the pattern was set and no fewer than 24 successive wives split. After that he gave...
Sign in to see full entry.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
And Everywhere – Bedtime Brain Drain...
Men have never been accused of being overly cerebral in the bedroom, but it turns out that sleeping with a partner may make them dumber. An Austrian study has found that men who share their beds actually fare worse on cognitive tests, and have higher stress-hormone levels, than those who sleep alone...
Sign in to see full entry.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
And in China: Water Buffalo Attack Squad to the Rescue...
Chinese farmer Luo Fengju was collecting her tools when she heard a noise and confronted a wild bear. The animal hit her with a paw, sending her sprawling. “The bear rushed over and caught my right leg. I thought I was going to die.” But Luo survived thanks to unlikely saviours, five water buffalo...
Sign in to see full entry.
Monday, September 22, 2008
And in Australia: Scanty-Pants Dancer Regrets his Prance...
Three days after being sworn in as police minister of New South Wales in Australia, Matt brown resigned. A former lawyer, Brown initially denied to Premier Nathan Rees that he’d danced in very brief underpants while drunk at a post-budget party and had straddled the breasts of MP Noreen Hay. Said a...
Sign in to see full entry.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
And in Britain: A Fascinating New Research Finding…
A study in Britain ’s Transport Research Laboratory found that text-messaging while driving is more dangerous than driving when drunk or high, The Times of London reported. In driving simulations performed for the study, texters’ reaction times dropped 35 per cent, versus 12 per cent for people who...
Sign in to see full entry.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
And also from Saudi Arabia: A fatwa against Mickey Mouse…
Saudi sheikh slams the Disney icon as 'a soldier of Satan,' says 'impure corrupter' must be killed according to Islamic law Maybe Islamic cleric Muhammad Al-Munajid is just more of a Bugs Bunny sort of guy? In an interview with Al-Majd Television the sheikh, a former diplomat who once served in the...
Sign in to see full entry.
Friday, September 19, 2008
And in the Congo: Justice for Imprisoned Goats...
The deputy justice minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo [btw, anything that calls itself the ‘democratic’ something-or-other is guaranteed not to be democratic] was dismayed at the learning curve still facing some of his policemen when he toured a jail in Kinshasa and found a herd of...
Sign in to see full entry.