FGDean@aol.com wrote Sun 20 Aug 2006 @08:20:53 PDT
re six Indiana counties wanting to go "back" to Eastern time:

Wow!  I thought the matter was "settled."

You have touched on an element of the enduring fascination with
"dumb news from Indiana":  It never ends.

And we are in eternal debt to reader Dave Foster for the term.  -- Ed.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for a 21-year-old man who
shot and stabbed two young couples  in  a Pike County cornfield.  (A
21-year-old man and girls 18 and 17  were  killed.  The  dead  man's
brother,  18,  survived and called the cops on a cell phone.) . . .

A judge in Crown Point held three spectators in contempt of court af-
ter their cell phone rang out a third time. . . .

A state trooper and a retired sheriff's deputy were killed riding bicycles
on a highway in a group raising money for law officers killed on duty.

Smoking is banned in barns at the State Fair -- which gives a blue ribbon
for the best tobacco.
                                                  [courtesy Louisville Courier-Journal]

"I don't understand."

-- Jeff Leech, an Alabama farmer at the Kentucky State Fair

A man shot at firemen with a revolver when they refused to res-
cue a cat from a tree in Kingman,  Arizona  (after he had called
the fire department to report a "tree fire").  . . . A Veterans Ad-
ministration psychiatrist  was charged with a "road rage" shoot-
ing on a Tennessee mountain interstate.  . . .  Two swans came
down with bird flu in Lake Erie. . . . PETA offered aid to Hez-
bollah for suffering Lebanese animals.  . . .  Officials in Canton,
Ohio, decided that a 13 per cent pregnancy rate among its high
school girls  justified moving beyond "abstinence only" sex edu-
cation.  .  .  .   Harper's Weekly called John Mark Karr a "pre-
operative transsexual."  .  .  .  An upscale new restaurant called
Hitler's Cross opened in Bombay,  with a swastika on the awn-
ing.  .  .  .  Forbes.com dubbed Milwaukee America's drunkest
city  --  followed  by  Minneapolis,  Columbus (Ohio),  Boston,
Austin, Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Provi-
dence (in that order). . . . Pluto became an unplanet.

"Garnier Fructis" sent us an e-mail titled "format."

Dusty Hopkins wrote Sun 13 Aug 2006 @10:18:17 CDT:

I'd like to hear  more  about the Stairway to Heaven collapse.
Where did it happen?  If one were to obtain a board from the
steps,  it should be at least as valuable  as a brick from an old
whore house. Autographed would really be great!

We can't tell you  everything!   There are copyright laws, you know.
Every once in a while you just have to run down to your local Ralph's
or Piggly Wiggly and buy a copy of the Weekly World News.  -- Ed.

Six counties that received permission from the federal government to
revert to Central time -- Daviess, Dubois, Knox, Martin and Pike in
southwestern Indiana and Pulaski in northern Indiana --  have asked
to return to Eastern time.

Ten counties  -- five in the northwest (near Chicago)  and five in the
southwest (not near other human habitation) -- remain in the Central
zone and observe "daylight saving" time.

A team of cloggers from Paris, Ky.,  were among the finalists last week
on NBC's  American Idol  Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour  Arthur
Godfrey's Talent Scouts  America's Got Talent (whew! We knew we'd
get it if we kept trying).
                                                       [courtesy NBC, Courier-Journal]                                                    

Robert Redford, 69.

Fred  Wheezy,  a  cat  who  had won the police department's
Law Enforcement Achievement Award, was struck and killed
by a car in New York. . . .  A man was arrested in Hiroshima
for making 37,760 silent phone calls to directory assistance to
"hear these women's voices." . . . AOL released search query
data on 658,000 customers, including User 88112's quest for
"christian beliefs  and sex outside of marriage"  and  "penis ab-
normalities in children"  and User 843043's search for  "fungal
meningitis and coma"  and  "easter cookie recipe for jesus' suf-
fering." . . .  NASA was reported to have lost the original high-
resolution tapes of the July 1969 moon landing  (this  would  e-
quate with Disney's losing the original print of Fantasia). . . . A
truck carrying zoo animals overturned in Texas,  killing  a  pen-
guin;  three other penguins were killed by oncoming traffic.

We received four e-mails from "Bobbie Webber" titled "Larry."

A fisherman caught a six-foot octopus in the Ohio River at Jeffersonville.

INJURE /     KILL A   WORKER   $7,500 +  15 YEARS

 Well, what is this?

(a) A want ad?
(b) A service ad?
(c) A capitalist-downsizing call to arms?
(d) A WOBBLY response to (c)?

Answer:  It's a road construction zone sign.

A Kentucky man, in the dark,  chose the parking lot of the West Virginia
state police post in South Charleston to take a leak.    A passing trooper,
smelling alcohol as well as you know what,  investigated the Kentuckian's
pickup truck,  where he found another Kentucky man checking messages
on a cell phone ("yap, yap!"), a marijuana pipe, and pills without prescrip-
tions.  Both Kentuckians were arrested.

Or is this dumb news from Kentucky?
                                                                    [courtesy Associated Press]

The mayor of Beirut said war is bad for the environment. . . .
Italian hotel owners made plans to open women-only Muslim
beaches. . . .  Esquire named Britney Spears' baby one of the
world's worst-dressed men. . . .  NBA star Yao Ming said he
would no longer eat shark fin soup.

"Delgado Anita" sent us several e-mails titled "Dear Friend."

FGDean@aol.com wrote Sun 30 July 2006 @09:00:45 PDT re
the "dumb news from Kentucky" that "school resumes this week":

That's about as dumb as it gets.

A misprogrammed slot machine at Caesar's Indiana (on the Ohio
River south of Corydon)  multiplied deposits by ten for two days
before an "honest" customer reported the problem.  The machine
would even return a cashable voucher  --  e.g.,  a $200 chit for a
$20 bill  --  without requiring the customer to gamble,  if that was
the customer's choice.  "Less  honest"  customers  made  out  like
bandits against the one-armed bandit,  to the tune of half a million
dollars.
                                       [courtesy Louisville Courier-Journal]

"What happens in Estonia stays in Estonia."

-- A spokesman for Hillary Rodham Clinton to
   the New York Times  (see Bonus item below)

Lyme Regis,  England,  canceled its annual dead eel pitching
contest over protests by animal rights activists.  .  .  .  A bar-
maid  carding  a  young  customer  in  Westlake,  Ohio,  was
shown her own stolen driver's license.  .  .  . The slaughter of
Chinese geese to curb bird flu  has resulted in a severe short-
age of badminton shuttlecocks.  .  .  . Hot weather shut down
MySpace.com.  . . .  Radiologists declared that many Ameri-
cans are too fat for X-rays. . . .  It was reported that Senator
Hillary Clinton challenged Senator John McCain to  a  vodka
shot-drinking contest in Estonia in 2004 (and that no one can
remember who won). . . . A guard dog at a London museum
tore up a collection of teddy bears, including one that had be-
longed to Elvis Presley. . . . A bank robber in Lacey's Spring,
Alabama, left his personal checkbook on the counter,  and  a
security guard left his pistol on the back of a toilet in a bank in
Brookfield, Wisconsin. . . . A New Hampshire woman baked
cookies for co-workers on the dashboard of her car. . . . Fish
fell from the sky in Manna (India).

                      [courtesy Harper's Weekly, Associated Press]

"Gonzalo Garreton" sent us an e-mail titled "I know how I can help you."

We received 12 simultaneous e-mails from "Francis" titled "didn't understand it."