Owner: Online Oddities URL:http://www.onlineoddities.com Join Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2006 09:58:40 -0500 Rating:1 Site Description: Online Oddities is a blog devoted to aggregating and commenting on the funniest, strangest, and most interesting news stories from around the world. The news is augmented with Internet research that produces extra information not provided by others. Site statistics:Click here
Tag No Longer an Acceptable Recess Game, Age of Lawsuits is Here 2006-10-20 04:57:23
Willett Elementary School in Massachusetts has banned tag, touch football and any other “unsupervised chase game” during recess due to concerns over injury and liability. Principal Gaylene Heppe approved the ban, saying that recess is a time when accidents can happen. This comes a few years after the district criticized dodgeball for being “exclusionary and dnagerous.” Willett is not the only school to have done this:
Elementary schools in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Spokane, Washington, also recently banned tag during recess. A suburban Charleston, South Carolina, school outlawed all unsupervised contact sports.
Some parents appreciated the school’s concern for their children’s safety while others felt that the school was micromanaging the students’ lives.
School bans tag, other chase games (CNN)
Read more:Acceptable
, Recess
, Lawsuits
Muslim Youths Attack Tree to Prove the Tree Does Not Have Powers 2006-10-11 21:19:18
A 100 year old banyan tree in Jakarta, Indonesia was attacked by a group of Muslim
youth who were attempting to disprove a local superstition that the tree was sacred. Local officials lodged a complaint against the United Islam Youth (also known as Persis) alleging that the group destroyed public property by removing all the branches of the tree. Governor Sutiyoso was angered by the incident:
I am very disappointed with the incident. The cutting of the tree was such a stupid act. People of any organization who cut it need to be told that we protect the tree because of its functional value not because of superstition.
The Muslim group had become concerned that roads were built around the tree, instead of cutting it down adding to the bayan tree’s mystique. The leader of UIY, Zenal Arifin Abu Dhiya, said that the group could not allow a tree that had a reputation for having a spirit greater than that of a man to exist and he was ready to accept any punishment for the incident:
Read more:Prove
, Powers
Doctors and Surgeons are Second Most Searched Category in the Yellow Pages 2006-10-04 13:12:05 The YellowPages
Association has published a list of the top 300 searched yellow pages categories. The top 15 are mostly what you would expect:
1. Restaurants
2. Physicians and Surgeons
3. Automobile Parts
4. Automobile Repairing & Service
5. Pizza
6. Attorneys/Lawyers
7. Automobile Dealers
8. Dentists
9. Hospitals
10. Plumbing Contractors
11. Beauty Salons
12.Insurance
13. Department Stores
14. Veterinarians
15. Banks
This came to my attention via the Freakonomics Blog. Number 2 on the list is what caught Dubner’s eye. He was surprised by the results and he (and his commenters) speculate as to why people search for doctors in the yellow pages.
Let Your Fingers Do the Walking … to Find a Surgeon? (Freakonomics Blog)
Read more:Doctors
, Second
, Category
"Goodbye My Lover' Most Requested Funeral Song in England 2006-10-03 21:15:37
James Blunt’s “Goodbye
My Lover” is the most requested song for funerals according to a survey conducted by England
’s Bereavement Register, a service that removes the deceased from databases to fight excess junk mail. Mark Roy, the founder of the Bereavement Register explains how funeral music has changed over the years.
The top 20 really shows how far we have come in terms of saying goodbye. Gone are the days dirges of yore, instead we are seeing contemporary music that is easier to relate to.
The complete Top 10:
1 - “Goodbye My Lover” - James Blunt
2 - “Angels” - Robbie Williams
3 - “I’ve Had The Time Of My Life” - Jennifer Warnes and Bill Medley
4 - “Wind Beneath My Wings” - Bette Midler
5 - “Pie Jesu” - Requiem
6 - “Candle In The Wind” - Elton John
7 - “With Or Without You” - U2
8 - “Tears In Heaven” - Eric Clapton
9 - “Every Breath You Take - The Read more:Funeral
Manhattan Public School Gives Parents Detention for Lateness 2006-10-02 20:41:43
The ManhattanSchool
for Children, an elite K-8 Upper East Side public school, is trying a new way to get students to arrive at school on time: give their parents detention. Parents
who arrive after 8:25 must go to the office with their child ot pick up a late slip and then sit in the auditorium for 20 minutes before they are allowed to leave. Reactions from parents have been mixed:
Was I humiliated going to Mommy Detention
? Absolutely. But will I be late again? No.
I think it stinks that we have to wait. I’m a freelancer. If I show up late, I lose my client. It’s a little too stressful.
Principal Susan Rappaport explains the reasoning for the new system, which parents were notified of over the summer:
You can’t hold children accountable for being late. The parents need to make the breakfast, get the children dressed and get them to school on time.
The incident has received worldwide coverage and could possibly be a model for other schools with chronic lateness pro Read more:Public
Canadian Prisoner Charged With Injuring Cow After Hitting a Cow With a Broom 2006-09-29 02:13:02
A Canadian
man nearing the end of his 5 year sentence for assault at Rockwood Instution, a Canadian minimum security prison, was hit with the rarely used charge of wilfully injuring cattle. Albert Boucher was performing chores on the prison farm when one of the cows resisted its daily milking. Boucher struck the cow with a broomstick and injured the cow’s udder. Boucher tried to plead guilty to the charges since he admits to hitting the cow but Judge Marva Smith rejected his plea because he refused to admit intention to hurt the cow.
I just hit it once in the butt. I didn’t think there’d be any repercussions that would be this serious.
The cow has fully recovered from its injuries. Boucher’s next court date is in early October. The Crown’s attorney is recommending 6 extra months in jail for Boucher.
Prisoner
charged after allegedly smacking cow with broom
(AZCentral)
Udderly strange: cow murdered by broomstick (CNews)
Read more:Charged
, Hitting
, Broom
UPDATE:Steve Irwin Death Video Unlikely To Be Released 2006-09-27 21:50:00 Terry Irwin
, Steve
Irwin’s widow, has said that the video will never be shown on television.
What purpose would that serve?
This came out in an interview with Barbara Walters that airs today. The interview is Terry’s first since her husband’s death. So it is now confirmed that there will be no official release of the video but things do have a habit of making their way onto the internet…
‘Croc Hunter’ widow: Footage of death won’t air (AZCentral)
Read more:Steve Irwin
Prank Video Posted on Youtube Leads to Criminal Charges 2006-09-27 20:53:21
The Queens District Attorney office has filed charges of criminal impersonation, coercion and unlawful imprisonment against Gazi Abura, 21, after videos of him impersonating a policeman and harassing unsuspecting citizens appeared on Youtube. Abura released many videos of pranks and stunts under a Youtube series called CRaCk DVD… The Re=Up // CRaCK COPS. The video that led to charges was of Abura and two of his pretending to be plainclothes officers investigating a robbery. The three men detained Christian Tivino, 14, and questioned him about the robbery. Tivino believed the men to be real policemen but soon was notified by friends that the video had appeared on Youtube. He called the police who arrested Abura after he was picked out from a lineup. The other two men are still being sought. Abura’s lawyer claims that everyone was in on the joke and that Tivino was now embarrassed about the videos. The videos have been taken down and the best I have found was an ex Read more:Prank
, Leads
, Criminal
UPDATE: Paris Hilton Charged With DUI 2006-09-27 16:00:29 As reported earlier, ParisHilton
was arrested for DUI in Los Angeles and is now facing two misdemeanor DUI charges. According to Lawrence Taylor, a DUI attorney who runs the interesting DUI Blog, she is likely to receive a slap on the wrist:
I’d be very surpised if she does any jailtime. If she pleads guilty, she’d likely pay a fine, attend DUI school and be on probation for three years.
Paris claims she had only one margarita and when asked by Ryan Seacrest whether she was driving erratically she responded:
No, I was just really hungry and I wanted to have an In-N-Out burger!
Paris HiltonCharged
with DUI
Three Year Old Buys Pink Nissan Figaro on eBay 2006-09-27 04:50:10
Jack Neal, the three year old son of Racheal Neal, has proven himself to be a gearhead and a tech wiz at a young age. The British tot went onto his mother’s computer while she was not watching and was able to purchase an 8000 pound ($17000) pink Nissan
Figaro on eBay.
The car’s seller, Paul Jones of Worcester Road Motors, had no problem with cancelling the auction and relisting the car, which now appears on the Worcester Road Motors site.
He must have good taste in cars. We’ve all got children and they do silly things at times, so it was no problem.
This was the first time the dealership had tried to use eBay to sell a car.
Three
-Year-Old Boy Uses Mother's eBay Account to Buy $17,000 Car (Digital Journal)
Idaho Shelter Bans Black Cat Adoptions Until After Halloween 2006-10-29 18:36:25
The Kootenai Humane Society in Idaho
is banning the adoptions of black cats until November 2. The shelter is concerned that the cats may be misused in pranks or sacrificed in a satanic ritual. According to an ASCPA official, black cats are adopted less frequently than other colors of cats due to the myth and lore that surrounds them despite there being no scientific evidence to show that black cats behave differently than any other color of cat. And just like the previous post, you can’t do much about those who ignore reason - except for wait for them to die and hope to educate their children better than them.
Black
cat adoptions banned on Halloween
(Boston Globe)
Read more:Shelter
, Until
Professor Obvious Proves Vampires and Ghosts Are Fake 2006-10-29 04:17:14
Costas Efthimiou, a physics professor at the University of Central Florida has proved that ghosts aren’t real because their characteristics would violate basics principles of physics. He also did calculations that disprove the existence of vampires. Unfortunately, his research may be more needed than one would initially think:
More than 1 in 3 Americans believe houses can be haunted, a 2005 Gallup poll showed. More than 20 percent of Americans believe in witches and that people can communicate with the dead.
However, explaining to the believers in the supernatural that ghosts simply cannot exist because their existence would violate Newton’s law of action and reaction is probably not very effective.
Count Dracula not in the numbers, physicist says (CNN)
Read more:Vampires
, Obvious
, Proves
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