Work zone delay incurs $16 bill to Michigan

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) - An Ohio woman has sent Michigan transportation officials a bill for the $16 she says she wasted on gasoline sitting in construction zone traffic.
Carol Greenberg tells The Blade there were no signs warning about the work on southbound Interstate 275 where it merges with I-75 near Newport, Mich., about 27 miles north of Toledo.
So, she says she got stuck idling for about 50 minutes on July 23 while trying to get home to the Toledo suburbs with her cat after a visit to a specialty veterinarian outside Detroit. She says her Maine coon cat Sammy disliked the delay and howled the whole time.
In response, the Michigan Department of Transportation wrote her it's unable to reimburse drivers for time, wages, or gas lost in work zone back-ups.
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Information from: The Blade, http://www.toledoblade.com

Fountain of Youth

At the time that Alan Patton, 56, of Columbus, Ohio, made News of the Weird in 2006, he had already been consuming boys’ urine for 40 years, he said, and a 2007 jail sentence has had no apparent deterrent effect. He was arrested in June 2008 (and twice since then), accused of turning off the water in a recreation center restroom and placing plastic wrap inside the bowl to catch the nectar that, he says, enables him to “become part of their youth.” While no Ohio law prohibits collecting or drinking others’ urine, Patton violates his almost-perpetual probation by visiting any public restroom.

LEAST COMPETENT CRIMINAL: In the course of burglarizing Yaakov Kanelsky’s apartment in Brooklyn, N.Y., in July, Victor Marin, 20, accidentally left his wallet (containing ID, credit cards and photos) on the bed. After Kanelsky arrived home and called 911, Marin returned and knocked on the front door. From the hallway, he begged for his billfold back and began shoving Kanelsky’s money under the door, hoping to persuade him to trade. Unfortunately for Marin, $92 of his $217 cash haul was in $1 bills, and the crack under the door was tiny. Marin was still busy stuffing money in by the time police arrived.

THINGS YOU THOUGHT DIDN’T HAPPEN: People would hardly expect a brawl at the Guilford (Maine) Historical Society, but in May, member Al Hunt, who was irate that rare photographs of the town had been loaned to a local restaurant, might have bumped against the society’s secretary, Zarvin Shaffer. According to witnesses, Shaffer then punched Hunt in the face, Hunt’s wife grabbed a chair, and Shaffer’s son yanked Mrs. Hunt away by her hair. In April, the Sycamore (Ill.) City Council voted to quadruple the fine for overstaying a parking meter (from 25 cents to $1). The city’s 360 meters themselves will remain at a penny for 12 minutes, a nickel for an hour and a dime for two hours.

IT’S GOOD TO BE A BRITISH PRISONER: In June, Abu Qatada, a cleric described as one of Europe’s most dangerous terror proselytizers, was released from jail, where he has been awaiting deportation (for three years) to Jordan and confined to his home in London. British courts refuse to deport him because, when Jordan tries him on serious terrorism charges, it might possibly use evidence obtained by torture of Abu Qatada’s colleagues. Thus, he will remain in Britain, under heavy guard (estimated to cost the equivalent of $1 million a year), in his tax-abated home with his wife and five children, who receive the equivalent of about $90,000 a year in welfare benefits. (Abu Qatada himself receives the equivalent of $16,000 a year from the government, for a previous back injury.)

LACKING CREDIBILITY: A U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in July that officials at a junior high school in Safford, Ariz., should not have strip-searched a 13-year-old girl when all they wanted was to see if she was carrying ibuprofen. However, her “right” to privacy carried the day among the judges by only 6-5, as the dissenters pointed out that it was, after all, prescription-strength ibuprofen they were after and that officials proceeded based on information from an “informant.” (The majority apparently holds junior-high-age “informants” in lower regard.)

— News of the Weird

France's Fired Hands

Among President Sarkozy’s recent moves to trim the size of the French government was the layoff of half of the 165 physiotherapists at the taxpayer-funded National Baths of Aix-les-Bains. The pink-slipped masseurs warn that the country’s health will be at risk if people are unable to get the mud wraps, thermal baths and deep-tissue massages covered by national health insurance (along with subsidized transportation and lodging for the visits). In fact, 27 of the physiotherapists immediately went on sick leave for depression. Among Sarkozy’s other targets of government bloat, according to a July Wall Street Journal dispatch: figuring out why France employs 271 diplomats in India but more than 700 in Senegal.

MOTHERS CAUSING DRUNKEN DRIVING: Edward Defreitas, 36, was arrested in Toms River in June and accused of causing a three-vehicle collision that injured two men in a car and sent two others (paramedics riding in an ambulance) to the hospital. Defreitas told police that he had been drinking and had decided to drive around until he sobered up: “He (said he) was afraid to go home and his mother finding alcohol on his breath.”

NEEDED STEPLADDER TRAINING: School custodian Anthony Gower-Smith, 73, was awarded the equivalent of about $75,000 in June in London’s High Court after suing Britain’s Hampshire County government when he hurt himself falling off a 6-foot stepladder. Gower-Smith claimed that he had not been properly “trained” on how to use it, despite his longtime experience with such ladders, and despite his signed acknowledgment that he had indeed received training, and despite his having blamed himself just after he fell. (He disavowed the self-blame by saying that, at the time, he was woozy and didn’t remember what he said.)

FLAMING IDIOT: Shannon Hyman, now 24, filed a lawsuit in July against the Green Iguana Bar & Grill in St. Petersburg, Fla., for medical bills and lost wages when she was badly burned four years ago drinking a “flaming shot” of Bacardi 151-proof rum (which normally is consumed without incident, but Hyman had spit out the drink, spreading flames to her head and upper torso). Hyman told the Tampa Tribune: “I’m suing because I should not have been let in (because she was under 21 at the time). If I weren’t let in, none of the events would have happened.”

AHHH, FRESH AIR!: In July, the new smoking ban for bars and restaurants in the Netherlands took effect, but it won’t curtail patrons’ right to smoke marijuana in Amsterdam’s coffee shops (where they can buy up to 5 grams a day to smoke on the premises). And, just as the ban became law, the Dutch special-effects company Rain Showtechniek began selling bars a machine (for the equivalent of about $900) that, for nostalgia, replicates the scent of traditional, cigarette-smoked air (but which does not damage health or linger in clothing or hair).

NOT QUITE REHABILITATED: A prominent anti-drug motivational speaker, who uses his own sordid life story to inspire troubled kids to turn their lives around, was arrested in May and charged with attempted murder after allegedly shooting at his girlfriend and an old buddy from prison following a long evening of alcohol and methamphetamines. Said the prosecutor in Isanti County, Minn., of the rampage by Russell Simon Jr., 45, “We’re lucky we don’t have a multiple homicide on our hands.”

CRUEL & UNUSUAL DIET: Murder suspect Broderick Laswell, 19, filed a lawsuit in federal court in April against the Benton County (Ark.) Jail, alleging that he was being “literally” “starved to death” while awaiting trial, and complaining of “blurry” vision and of almost passing out. As evidence of his plight, Laswell pointed out that, in eight months behind bars, his weight had dropped from 413 pounds to 308.

— News of the Weird

Tourist survives 250-foot cliff slide

BIG SUR, Calif. (AP) - A tourist is nursing only cuts and bruises after sliding 250 feet down a cliff on California's coast.

Twenty-year-old Jost Ben of Wilnsdorf, Germany, had been tossing a football with friends Sunday at a traffic pullout perched 400 feet above the Pacific. After a stray toss, he climbed over the edge to retrieve the football.

Monterey County Sheriff's Sgt. Garrett Sanders says Ben "just started sliding." A sheriff's team rappelled down, strapped Ben to a harness and helped him scale the cliff.

Ben was treated for a gash to his face and other cuts. He wasn't able to recover the football, but Sanders noted: "He's lucky he's alive."
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Information from: The Monterey County Herald, http://www.montereyherald.com