The Shriners' Favorite Flower

A potter in Nepal pauses to smoke a cigarette? or something stronger, during an annual potters' exhibition.  The country of very high mountains also has a reputation for another type of 'high,' which attracts a lot of foreign (Western) tourists.  Many of these also are artists, musicians, poets, and philosophers, in search of nirvana.  The growing of the poppy plant in Nepal and India has burgeoned as poppy growth has fallen sharply in Afghanistan due to the war.  The plant itself has some erotic features that will blow your mind.

His Last "Whopper" With lettuce and a Limo

Pa. man gets drive-thru send-off after funeral

Published - Jan 26 2013 05:38PM CST

Associated Press

(The Associated Press)

Linda Phiel places a "Whopper Jr." sandwich from Burger Kingon the casket to be buried with her father David Kime, Jr. at Prospect Hill Cemetery in York, Pa. on Saturday, Jan. 26, 2013. Phiel and other mourners went through the drive-through at Burger King and each got the hamburger to honor Kime, Jr. who loved fast food. (AP Photo/York Daily Record, Jason Plotkin)

YORK, Pa. (AP) — Mourners at a Pennsylvania fast-food fan's funeral wanted him to have it his way, so they arranged for his hearse — and the rest of the procession — to make one last drive-thru visit before reaching the cemetery.

David Kime Jr. "lived by his own rules," daughter Linda Phiel said. He considered the lettuce on a burger his version of healthy eating, she said.

To give him a whopper of a send-off Saturday, the funeral procession stopped at a Burger King where each mourner got a sandwich for the road.

Kime got one last burger too, the York Daily Record reported. It was placed atop his flag-draped coffin at the cemetery.

Phiel said the display wasn't a joke, rather a happy way of honoring her father and the things that brought him joy.

"He lived a wonderful life and on his own terms," she said.

Kime, 88, a World War II veteran, died Jan. 20.

Restaurant manager Margaret Hess said she knew his face and his order. She and her crew made 40 burgers for the funeral procession, including one atop Kime's hearse shown in photo above.

"It's nice to know he was a loyal customer up until the end — the very end," she said.

___

The Ultimate Stacked Dumb Hooker

Prostitution sting lures woman straight to police

Published - Jan 24 2013 05:11PM CST

Associated Press

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Authorities say a 20-year-old Portland woman drove 50 miles to reach the man she thought was her client after being solicited for prostitution through phone and text messages.

But there was something unusual about the destination: It was the Salem Police Department.

Stranger still, police say the woman walked past several uniformed officers and clearly marked signs reading "Salem Police Department" before arriving at an unmarked door, where they say she attempted to contact the man she thought was her client.

Instead, she was arrested. The phone and text messages were part of a sting operation by Salem police detectives, who first identified the woman through a website.

The Jan. 11 arrest led to charges of prostitution and promoting prostitution for the woman of Portland.

An attorney for Smith couldn't be found Thursday afternoon but it is expected there will be dozens of pro bono lawyers at the jail following this story.

Nobody Loves Me, Everybody Hates Me. I'm Going Away To Eat Worms

Worms: A Zimbabwe snack, from tree to dinner table

Published - Jan 24 2013 09:57AM CST

TSVANGIRAYI MUKWAZHI, Associated Press

(The Associated Press)

In this photo taken Monday Jan. 7, 2013, Mavis Nkomo places harvested mopane worms outside to dry, outside her home in Gwanda, Zimbabwe. In Zimbabwe as well as most parts of southern Africa, mopane worms are a staple part of the diet in rural areas and are considered a delicacy in the cities. They can be eaten dry, as crunchy as potato chips, or cooked and drenched in sauce. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

GWANDA, Zimbabwe (AP) — In Zimbabwe as well as most parts of southern Africa, mopane worms are a staple part of the diet in rural areas and are considered a delicacy in the cities. They can be eaten dry, as crunchy as potato chips, or cooked and drenched in sauce. I decided to document the harvesting, preparation, sale and consumption of the worms, and found the preparation somewhat stomach-turning. But the worms can be mighty tasty and they're very nutritious. Here's everything you always wanted to know about mopane worms but were afraid to ask.

THE MOPANE WORM

The worm is the large caterpillar of the Gonimbrasia belina species, commonly called the emperor moth. It is known as a mopane worm because it is found chomping the leaves of mopane trees after it hatches in summer. It has also burrowed its way into literature, finding its way, for example, into the pages of Alexander McCall Smith's series about The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, set in neighboring Botswana. At least one of the characters munches on dried mopane worms.

THE HARVEST

After six weeks of rain, the mopane worms can be seen clinging to, and feeding on, the leaves of the mopane trees in rural Gwanda, an arid cattle-ranching area in southern Zimbabwe. Amanda Ncube normally fetches firewood to sell and looks after the family cattle, but when it's worm-harvesting season she joins other women and a few men in collecting the worms, which are as long as the width of two hands and as thick as a cigar. She slowly plucks them from the lower branches before climbing partway up the tree to shake off the higher ones. The more stubborn ones that cling to the leaves and branches are pried loose with a long stick. The worms excrete a brown liquid once they make contact with a human hand, leaving the pickers' hands wet and slippery. As they harvest the worms, the women and men move from one tree to another until their buckets are full. A thick slimy green fluid comes out as Ncube carefully squeezes out the entrails from a mopane worm she has just plucked from a tree. While some worms are prepared on site, other harvesters wait until they are back home where they squeeze out the entrails of the worms before leaving them to dry for a few days in the hot African sun. During harvest season, the porches of mud-walled homes are covered with thousands of worms, laid out to dry.

THE MARKET

At the local market, mopane worms are quite popular with residents who buy a cup or two of them and eat them immediately. The market is abuzz with activity, with most stalls strategically displaying the delicacy so people cannot miss them. Vendors offer free samples. The mopani worms are graded according to size and the area where they were harvested. Picky buyers ask about their provenance before buying, favoring worms from one district over another because, to the connoisseurs, worms from one area taste different from those from another.

HIGH PROTEIN

The mopane worm is a healthful and cheap source of nutrition.

A Zimbabwean nutritionist, Marlon Chidemo, says the worms are high in healthy nutrients and contain three times the amount of protein as beef. He says eating worms is less taxing on the environment than consuming beef because it takes far fewer leaves to produce worms than it does feed to produce the same amount of beef.

WORMY BUSINESS

Dried mopane worms have become a multimillion-dollar industry, even exported to countries like South Africa and Botswana. They can be found in African restaurants in Paris.

Good Grief Charlie Brown - Say It Isn't so.

Voice actor for Charlie Brown arrested in Calif.

Published - Jan 23 2013 11:59PM CST

JULIE WATSON, Associated Press

(ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Peter Robbins appears for his arraignment Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2013 in San Diego, on charges of stalking and threatening his former girlfriend and a plastic surgeon who gave her a breast enhancement he apparently didn't like. He felt the plastic surgeon had overreached in her enhancement of his girlfriend's boobs (see below) causing the couple to be ridiculed in public and damaging his image in the acting community.  He claimed his girlfriend's boobs now look like giant melons.  Robbins who was the voice of Charlie Brown in several "Peanuts" television shows, pleaded not guilty Wednesday in San Diego Superior Court to two counts of stalking and 10 counts of making criminal threats. (AP Photo/U-T San Diego, John Gibbins)

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The man who was the voice of Charlie Brown in several "Peanuts" television shows was charged Wednesday with stalking and threatening his former girlfriend and a plastic surgeon who gave her a breast enhancement that he paid for before the relationship ended.
Peter Robbins pleaded not guilty Wednesday in San Diego Superior Court to two counts of stalking and 10 counts of making criminal threats.

Prosecutors said the 56-year-old voice actor best known for his portrayal of Charlie Brown on the TV special "A Charlie Brown Christmas" repeatedly threatened his former girlfriend, calling her as many as 37 times in a 24-hour period on her cellphone and telling her he would kill her and her son if she did not give back his dog and car.

Prosecutors said he also followed and threatened her La Jolla plastic surgeon, calling her office so many times she moved to a hotel temporarily out of fear for her life and hired an armed guard outside her clinic. Authorities said Robbins was demanding a refund for the surgery, according to the criminal complaint.

On Dec. 31, Robbins allegedly confronted his former girlfriend in a hotel room, beating his dog and telling her he would not stop hurting the animal and would kill her if she did not get a refund for the surgery, Deputy District Attorney Elizabeth McClutchey told the judge in arguing that bail be increased to $550,000, said he then grabbed his ex-girlfriend by the neck and shoved her against the door before fleeing.

Prosecutors also told the judge that Robbins had been practicing at a shooting range and recently purchased a gun but had not picked it up yet. San Diego Superior Court Judge David M. Szumowski agreed to up the bail to $550,000.

Robbins was arrested Sunday at the San Ysidro Port of Entry after authorities doing a background check upon his return from Mexico spotted a warrant from the San Diego County Sheriff's Department.
Robbins was best known for his performance as the voice of Charlie Brown on "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."

Defense Attorney Marc S. Kohnen told the judge the bail was set too high for a man with no prior criminal record, who has lived in San Diego County for 30 years and whose work is watched by so many children to this day. He called him a "distraught man" and said "this is not a stalking case" but declined to comment on what led to his arrest.

"Mr. Robbins is an eccentric individual," Kohnen told reporters after the arraignment. "He's not a threat to society."

(Not the actual girlfriend, an illustration.)

If convicted, Robbins would face a maximum sentence of up to nine years in prison, prosecutors said.

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Charles Darwin Revisited

While all of these Bizarre Stories have appeared elsewhere and are a popular annual item in the bizarre community, they bear repetition because of their audacity and their warning of how tainted the gene pool already is.  Here they are, once again, describing the untimely demise of nine (the man who shot his own balls off still lives, but no longer with the ability to reproduce) individuals who, by their actions, helped improve the gene pool.  It is worth noting that all of the winners of this year's Darwin Awards are men.  This may help explain why the life expectancies of women are longer than those of men.

2012 Darwin Awards

Nominee No. 1:[ San Jose Mercury News]: An unidentified man, using a shotgun like a club to break a former girl friend's windshield, accidentally shot himself to death when the gun discharged, blowing a hole in his gut.

Nominee No. 2:[ Kalamazoo Gazette]: James Burns, 34, (a mechanic) of Alamo , MI , was killed in March as he was trying to repair what police describe as a "farm-type truck." Burns got a friend to drive the truck on a highway while Burns hung underneath so that he could ascertain the source of a troubling noise. Burns' clothes caught on something, however, and the other man found Burns "wrapped in the drive shaft."

Nominee No. 3: [ Hickory Daily Record]: Ken Charles Barger, 47, accidentally shot himself to death in December in Newton , NC . Awakening to the sound of a ringing telephone beside his bed, he reached for the phone but grabbed instead a Smith & Wesson 38 Special, which discharged when he drew it to his ear.

Nominee No. 4:[UPI, Toronto ]: Police said a lawyer demonstrating the safety of windows in a downtown Toronto skyscraper crashed through a pane with his shoulder and plunged 24 floors to his death.? A police spokesman said Garry Hoy, 39, fell into the courtyard of the Toronto Dominion Bank Tower early Friday evening as he was explaining the strength of the buildings windows to visiting law students. Hoy previously has conducted demonstrations of window strength according to police reports. Peter Lawson, managing partner of the firm Holden Day Wilson, told the Toronto Sun newspaper that Hoy was "one of the best and brightest" members of the 200-man association. A person has to wonder what the dimmer members of this law firm are like.

Nominee No. 5: [The News of the Weird]: Michael Anderson Godwin made News of the Weird posthumously. He had spent several years awaiting South Carolina 's electric chair on a murder conviction before having his sentence reduced to life in prison. While sitting on a metal toilet in his cell attempting to fix his small TV set, he bit into a wire and was electrocuted.

Nominee No. 6:[The Indianapolis Star]: A cigarette lighter may have triggered a fatal explosion in Dunkirk, IN. A Jay County man, using a cigarette lighter to check the barrel of a muzzleloader, was killed Monday night when the weapon discharged in his face, sheriff's investigators said. Gregory David Pryor, 19, died in his parents' rural Dunkirk home at about 11:30 PM. Investigators said Pryor was cleaning a 54-caliber muzzle-loader that had not been firing properly. He was using the lighter to look into the barrel when the gunpowder ignited.

Nominee No. 7:[Reuters, Mississauga , Ontario ]: A man cleaning a bird feeder on the balcony of his condominium apartment in this Toronto suburb slipped and fell 23 stories to his death. "Stefan Macko, 55, was standing on a wheelchair when the accident occurred," said Inspector Darcy Honer of the Peel Regional Police. "It appears that the chair moved, and he went over the balcony," Honer said.

Finally, THE WINNER!!!:[ Arkansas Democrat Gazette]: Two local men were injured when their pickup truck left the road and struck a tree near Cotton Patch on State Highway 38 early Monday. Woodruff County deputy Dovey Snyder reported the accident shortly after midnight Monday. Thurston Poole, 33, of Des Arc, and Billy Ray Wallis, 38, of Little Rock , were returning to Des Arc after a frog-catching trip. On an overcast Sunday night, Poole 's pickup truck headlights malfunctioned. The two men concluded that the headlight fuse on the older-model truck had burned out. As a replacement fuse was not available, Wallis noticed that the .22 caliber bullets from his pistol fit perfectly into the fuse box next to the steering-wheel column. Upon inserting the bullet the headlights again began to operate properly, and the two men proceeded on eastbound toward the White River Bridge .

After traveling approximately 20 miles, and just before crossing the river, the bullet apparently overheated, discharged and struck Poole in the testicles. The vehicle swerved sharply right, exited the pavement, and struck a tree. Poole suffered only minor cuts and abrasions from the accident but will require extensive surgery to repair the damage to his testicles, which will never operate as intended. Wallis sustained a broken clavicle and was treated and released. "Thank God we weren't on that bridge when Thurston shot his balls off, or we might be dead," stated Wallis

"I've been a trooper for 10 years in this part of the world, but this is a first for me. I can't believe that those two would admit how this accident happened," said Snyder.

Charles Darwin

Thurston Poole look alike

Upon being notified of the wreck, Lavinia ( Poole 's wife) asked how many frogs the boys had caught and did anyone think to get them from the truck? Though Poole and Wallis did not die as a result of their misadventure as normally required by Darwin Award Official Rules, it can be argued that Poole did in fact effectively remove himself from the gene pool.

Wow! What a Cheesy Tunnel

Norway cheese fire shuts down road tunnel

Jan 23 2013

OSLO, Norway (AP) — A road tunnel in northern Norway will be shut for several weeks after a 27-ton truckload of sweet goat's milk cheese caught fire.

Regional traffic department chief Geir Joergensen says flames engulfed the tunnel last week and gases from the melting, brown load hindered firefighters. It took four days to put it out.

The driver was not hurt and no other vehicles were in the 3.6-kilometer (2.2-mile) tunnel at the time.
Joergensen said Wednesday that the tunnel near the small Arctic municipality of Tysfjord, some 1,350 kilometers (840 miles) north of the capital, Oslo, likely will be closed for two more weeks.
Goat's milk cheese, a sweet delicacy with a high sugar and fat content, is an essential part of many Norwegians' daily diet.

It also packs a fierce odor.  Jeez!