frouman.net

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* The beauty pageant each April at the Rattlesnake Roundup in
Sweetwater, Tex., requires traditional skills like interview poise,
evening-gown fashion, and talent, but also some ability and
inclination to milk and skin rattlers. High school senior Kyndra

Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

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* Caribou Baby, a Brooklyn, N.Y., "eco-friendly maternity, baby
and lifestyle store," has recently been hosting gatherings at which
parents exchange tips on "elimination communication"--the

Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

*Editor's Note: Chuck returns to blogging what's really weird from
*
*the past week. Mondays, starting tomorrow, May 6th.
*
[link]

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Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

Ladies and gentlemen, Beginning next Sunday, Yr Editor makes
a long-awaited, thrice-weekly return to the blog
WeirdUniverse.net. On May 5th, you could (if you wanted to)

Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

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* To counter the now-well-publicized culture of rapes in India, three
engineers in Chennai said in March that they are about to send to
the market women's anti-rape lingerie, which will provide both a

Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

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* Undocumented immigrant Jose Munoz, 25, believed himself an
ideal candidate for President Obama's 2012 safe-harbor initiative
for illegal-entry children, in that he had been brought to the U.S. by

Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

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* Wait . . . What? A startup company in Austin, Tex., also serving
San Francisco, promises to take its customers' incoming U.S. Mail
three times a week, photograph it, and deliver it back to the

Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

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* In March, Microsoft was fined 561 million euros (about $725
million) by the European Commission after, apparently, a
programer carelessly left out just one line of code in Microsoft's

Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

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* One of the many decisions greeting Pope Francis, as Salon.com
pointed out, is whether to officially recognize a "Patron Saint of
Handgunners"--as urged by a U.S. organization of activists for more

Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

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* Leaders of the ice-fishing community, aiming for official
Olympics recognition as a sport, have begun the process by asking
the World Anti-Doping Agency to random-test its "athletes" for

Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

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* A Verizon risk team, looking for data breaches on the firm's
computers, found that a software developer for a Verizon contractor
was basically idle for many months, yet remained productive--because

Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

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* An Arizona appeals court ruled in February that someone can be
guilty of driving under the influence of marijuana even though its
psychoactive ingredient has long left his system. Since tests of

Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

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* Officials at England's 12th-century St. Peter's Church in Seaford,
East Sussex, which is renowned for its eerie quietness, created a
30-minute CD recently of near-total silence, first as a small-scale

Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

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* An estimated 3.2 million kids aged 5-12 take mixed-martial arts
classes, training to administer beatdowns modeled after the adults'
Ultimate Fighting Championships, according to a January report in

Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

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* Cliche Come to Life: The Kerry, Ireland, county council voted in
January to let some people drive drunk. The councillors reasoned
that in the county's isolated regions, some seniors live alone and

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* California lawyer Jonathan Frieman finally got his day in court in
January, but a Marin County judge quickly rejected his argument
that he is entitled to use the state's carpool lanes accompanied only
by a sheath of corporate papers in the passenger seat. (During the

Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

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* Perspective: A leading "adult" search engine reported in
December that, over the last seven years, just two of the most
popular Internet pornography websites it analyzes have been viewed

Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

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* "Fulton Jail Will Get Working Cell Locks," read the December
19th Atlanta Journal-Constitution headline. The County
Commission serving Atlanta had finally voted to break a

Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

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* The usual 20,000 or so visitors every year to Belgium's Verbeke
Foundation art park have the option (365 of them, anyway) to spend
the night inside the feature attraction: a 20-foot-long, 6-foot-high

Lead Story

* Updating "The Smell of Napalm in the Morning": A cosmetics
company in Gaza recently began selling a fragrance dedicated to
victory over Israel and named after the signature M-75 missile that
Hamas has been firing across the border. "The fragrance is pleasant