Tuesday Breakfast Bender
Welcome to August 28th! On this date 43 years ago, the Beatles met Bob Dylan for the first time, after which their hair grew longer.
Future News Prediction: President Bush pardons Michael Vick for successfully distracting the media's attention away from Alberto Gonzales.
Here is your Tuesday Top 5:
5) Mutt Swapping
The never-ending battle between Mexican police and local drug cartels has gotten even weirder. Rather than kidnapping a member of the narcotics task force, dealers are now suspected of grabbing one of their most successful drug-sniffing K-9s and replacing it with a mutt. The incident took place on a flight from Mexico City to the northern state of Sinaloa, during which eight police dogs were shipped but only seven arrived. Rex IV, a highly trained Belgian Malinois sheepdog and member of an elite Special Canine Unit is missing. Baffled officers fear that under pressure (possibly gentle petting), Rex IV may crack and even "help smugglers find new ways to conceal drugs."
4) Run Huimin Run
Is it child abuse or just a kid who likes to run? The BBC is reporting that 8-year-old Zhang Huimin of China, has run 40 miles every morning (he starts at 2:30) since July 3. Thus far she has galloped 2,200 miles from the southern province of Hainan to the capital Beijing, with her father, Zhang Jianmin, biking by her side. Huimin's mother and father have separated because she felt Mr. Zhang was working their daughter too hard. (Where'd she get that idea?) Still, Mr. Zhang insists "I make the training fun for her. I don't push her."
(Special Field Correspondent Francine I. Uenuma contributed to this report.)
3) Putin the Sex Symbol?
Sure he headed up the KGB and now controls the nation with an iron fist, but after a recent photo shoot, Russian President Vladimir Putin has achieved a rank world leaders only dream of: gay icon. The 54-year-old president may have a wife and two daughters, but his bare-torso spread in Komsomolskaya Pravda has gay (and straight) chatrooms swooning (if a chatroom can swoon) with comparisons to "Brokeback Mountain." Let's hope his next trip to Camp David is during the summer!
2) The Circle of Life
They say that if you play with fire, you're bound to get burned -- but at the same, they say you shouldn't bite the hand that feeds you. With those maxims in mind, creepy creature lover Mark Voegel of Dortmund, Germany was found dead in his apartment after apparently being bitten by his pet black widow spider, Bettina. Unfortunately police arrived too late (approximately 14 days) to save Voegel, who had, in the interim, been slowly consumed by an estimated 200 other spiders, "several snakes, a gecko lizard called Helmut and several thousand termites." Officers painted described his apartment "as a cross between a botanical garden and the butterfly breeding ground in the serial killer movie The Silence Of The Lambs."
1) Band On The Runs
Some things just don't belong together, like an Oral Roberts student and a GWAR concert; or in this case a marching band and laxatives. Practice came to an abrupt and jarring conclusion last week when several members of the Connellsville Area High School Band, in Pennsylvania, were sickened after consuming a batch of "laxative-laced cookies." Never have "so this one time at band camp..." and "ookie cookie" fit together so seamlessly.
And for dessert, here is your educational Moment of Schadenfreude:
(Editorial Mastermind Michael Corones contributed to this report)
By Emil Steiner | August 28, 2007; 6:30 AM ET | Category: OFF/beat
