Otis "Bull Man" Hensley, an eccentric candidate for governor in the last e-
lection, was arrested and jailed for three days, on a charge of enticing mi-
nors to indulge in sex, for offering a woman in a grocery store in Harlan a
fatted hog for her two pretty granddaughters, aged 11 and 13.

                                                                    [courtesy Associated Press]

After two years of reconstruction of Main Street in Brownsville, crews have
finally repainted center lines.  And there is no longer any legal way  for us to
return from the Post Office – which is only a mile-and-a-quarter from the of-
fices of Borf Books and Tabloid Headlines  –  except  for  an  8-mile detour
through a town 3 miles the other way, or a 3-and-a-quarter-mile detour over
a back road requiring tacking –

Because a  double  yellow  line  has been painted all the way from the Green
River bridge, on the northwest side of town, to the Minit Mart, on the south-
east side,  without a gap for a legal left turn,  or for crossing Main on a cross
street, until the Minit Mart  – and that explains the tacking:   You cannot turn
left from the Post Office,  legally,  even to reach the back road;  but you can
turn right, drive a quarter-mile to the Minit Mart,  turn left into the Minit Mart,
turn around,  and re-enter Main Street in the opposite direction  with  a  right
turn  (if you do this you should buy something at the Minit Mart, lest a police-
man cite you for using commercial premises solely for a traffic maneuver). But
once you get to Mohawk Street, the normal turn-off to our office, no legal left
turn is possible to get on it.  You have to hang right to the back road.

Nor is there any legal place to reverse your direction on the north side of  town,
as there is at the Minit Mart  (and, further on, at the high school)  on  the  south.
Motorists going north cannot legally turn into the  town's  main  bank;  and those
from the north who do get to the bank cannot return home, legally, without going
a mile further south, to the Minit Mart, to turn around (and buy something).

Another feature of this incredible paint job  is a middle lane,  stretching  from the
Post Office to the Minit Mart (see photos below, that cannot be used legally be-
cause it cannot  legally  be  entered:  It is bounded on both sides by yellow lines,
all the way.   We asked Robert Davis,  local  court  bailiff  (and an employee of
the Sheriff),  what this lane was for:

"It's an escape route,"  he explained.  "Since you cannot enter it legally, only crimi-
nals can use it."

"I don't eat fruit, or even fruit juice, because of the sugar."
                                                                                            – Britney Spears

An Italian priest launched a beauty contest for nuns. .  .  .
North Korean nutritionists announced a new noodle.  . . .
Three  Ghanaians,  one of them a butcher,  were arrested
for the ritual murder of a hunchback.  .  .  .  A one-legged
prostitute was knocked out of her wheelchair and killed in
a Brooklyn housing project. . . . Margaret Thatcher, afflic-
ted with dementia, has forgotten she was prime minister. ...
Jericho Scott, a 9-year-old pitcher,  was barred from Little
League in New Haven,  Connecticut,  for throwing too fast.
. . . A 78-year-old woman was swept away on the baggage
chute at the Stockholm airport after misunderstanding the in-
tructions and laying down  her  body  instead of her luggage.
. . . The pro football Cincinnati Bengals' wide receiver Chad
Johnson  changed  his  name  to Chad Ocho Cinco (the new
surname is Spanish for 85,  his jersey number).

                   [courtesy AP, Harper's Weekly, Daily Snopes]

State environmental workers were spraying kudzu in 17 Southern
Indiana counties.
                                                       [courtesy Associated Press]

A black nurse  named  Cohen  won an employment discrimination suit
against  Jewish  Hospital  in Louisville. . . .

Butler County Sheriff Joe Gaddie and a deputy drove more than 2,000
miles to Tehachapi,  Calfornia,  to pick up a suspect on a warrant,  and
2,000 miles back with their prisoner in handcuffs, only to learn they had
the wrong man (who was the victim of an identify theft).

                                        [courtesy Louisville Courier-Journal – for
                                            more dumb news from Kentucky,  see
                                            photo below, courtesy Edmonson News]

"That guy is ugly.  I'm pretty."

– Joe Oros,  the "wrong man" (see Dumb News from Kentucky, above),  viewing
   the mug shot of the suspect the Butler County Sheriff thought he was arresting

"I love that guy.  They were entirely nice people."

                                                               – Joe Oros, speaking of Sheriff Joe Gaddie,
                                                                  his deputy, and the Butler County jailers

Lee Ann Womack, 42
Ray Bradbury, 88

Ellen DeGeneres got married. . . . Cindy McCain lied about
her family. . . . A Russian radio station reported that the con-
flict with Georgia was part of a  plot  by U.S. Vice President
Dick  Cheney  to prevent Barack Obama's election as presi-
dent. . . . Olympian swimming champion Michael Phelps dis-
closed  that  his daily diet includes three egg sandwiches with
fried onions, a five-egg omelet, a bowl of grits, three slices of
French toast,  three chocolate-chip pancakes,  two ham-and-
cheese sandwiches, two pounds of pasta, and a pizza. .  .  . A
giant reflective screen was raised in the Swiss Alps to slow the
melting of the Rhone glacier.  .  .  . Welsh monks abandoned a
dial-up internet connection for broadband. . . . A state trooper
in Michigan shot and killed a 7-foot python  that was attacking
a pickup truck. . . . A penguin was knighted in Norway.

• Pilots get their Georgias mixed up
• Putin muses, 'What's the difference?'
• McCain blames it all on Obama
• Mitchell estate claims news copyright
  

Tony Dean wrote Tues 12 Aug 2008 @23:44:13 CDT:

Maybe it’s too late, but I think the quote of the week should be Bush’s, "Russia’s
invasion of Georgia is an unacceptable act in the 21st century."  What a hypocrite!

Jeanette Girard <Netta1168@aol.com> wrote Tues 12 Aug 2008 @18:35:04 CDT:

Hey, I never thought I would make it to the "Tabloids."  WOW - I feel so Hollywood.

Publius Leget <arfbarf@aol.com> wrote Sun 10 Aug 2006 @11:03:26 EDT:

How many teen-age cheerleaders will fit in an elevator cab?   It  seems
the answer is 25.

A PETA representative called to inquire about an abandoned dog on
an island in Lake County's Wolf Lake, only to be told it was a coyote
decoy placed by the Army Corps of Engineers to ward off ducks and
geese that might harm wetlands plantings. . . .

A truck backing up in the center lane of  I-70 near Indianapolis' airport
was hit by a semitrailer.
                                                                [courtesy Associated Press]

A Louisville man was charged with murdering his wife 11 months after
she committed suicide (she was drunk, and he gave her a loaded gun).

                                            [courtesy Louisville Courier-Journal –
                                              for more dumb news from Kentucky,
                                              see Tabloid Headlines photo below]

"For two days and three nights media celebrities paid tribute to the glory that
 was Tim Russert and the grandeur that is themselves.... What we now know
 as the 'news media' serve at the pleasure of the corporate sponsor, their pur-
 pose not to tell truth to the powerful but to transmit lies to the powerless."

                                                  – Lewis H. Lapham, Harper's editor emeritus

"Animals committing fellatio and girl-on-girl – it's quite unpleasant."

                              – James Hawes, who discovered Franz Kafka's porn stash

"Get in the hole!"
                           – same unidentified fan, at PGA (formerly Professional Golf-
                              ers'  Association) Tournament at Oakland Hills in Michigan

Eydie Gorme, 77
Arlene Dahl, 80
Frank Gifford, 78, and
Kathie Lee Gifford, 55 (same day, Aug. 16)

Britney Spears dropped in on Jim Carrey at  his  Generation
Rescue fund-raiser for autism research. . . . Hailey Jo Hauer,
of Fergus Falls, Minnesota,  and Xander Jace Riniker, of Ce-
dar Rapids,  Iowa,  both  were  born  at 8:08 a.m. on 8/8/08,
each weighing 8 pounds, 8 ounces  [or so said the Associated
Press, but we don't believe that – do you? – Ed.]. . . .  A man
in Batavia,  New York,  was jailed for marrying his wife  (who
had a protective order against him). ... Not only were Beijing's
Olympic fireworks electronically enhanced for television but so
was the 9-year-old girl who sang "Ode to the Mother Country"
(she lip-synched it:  The singer, 7-year-old Yang Peiyi, of chub-
by face and crooked baby teeth,wasn't pretty enough to put on
TV, the ceremony's music director insisted). . . .  Joyce McKin-
ney – the former Miss Wyoming who abducted a Mormon mis-
sionary in England in 1977, strapped him to a bed in mink-lined
handcuffs and raped him three times – had her pit bull cloned in
South Korea, into five more pit bulls. .  .  . Declassified files re-
vealed that Julia Child  and Arthur Goldberg  were spies for the
U.S. in World War II. .  .  .  Two  Georgians (U.S.)  claimed to
have a Bigfoot corpse in a freezer  (but of three  DNA  samples
submitted,  one was of a human,  one was of a possum,  and the
third was of undetermined origin). . . .Barack Obama misquoted
(and seemed to have misunderstood)  Jesus  as  told in the Book
of Matthew.  .  .  . Greyhound pulled an ad that read,  "There's a
reason you've never heard of bus rage."

                                               [courtesy Harper's Weekly, AP]

A 2-year-old Martin County boy died after being struck in the chest
by a plastic baseball bat swung by his brother (it was an accident)....

More than half the state's 950 mortgage brokers went out of business
for failing to comply with  new  licensing  regulations  by the August 6
deadline.
                                                            [courtesy Associated Press]

Mustard gas leaked from the Blue Grass Army Depot in Richmond for
the second time in two weeks. Officers blamed rising summer tempera-
tures. . . .

Two counties enjoined from posting the Ten Commandments are getting
the opportunity in federal court to argue  that they now have secular mo-
tives for posting the Biblical code.
                                                                                        [courtesy AP]

"This is my redneck Stonehenge."
                                                    – Rhett Davis, of Hooper, Utah, who built a back yard fence
                                                        of three cars sticking up in the air vertically to show com-
                                                        plaining neighbors he can do what he wants with his land

"He's not a man like I am."
                                            – Tom Ivins, speaking of his brother, Bruce

"Keep it legal!"
                            – Jeanetta Girard

The 12-year-old daughter  of a New York jazz musician
survived a 14-story fall down a chimney in the West Vil-
lage, landing on a pile of soft soot  (but breaking her hip).
. . .The mother and four social workers were among nine
persons arrested in Philadelphia in the starvation of a 14-
year-old girl,  who weighed only 42 pounds at death. . . .
Mary-Kate  Olsen  refused to talk to G-men investigating
Heath Ledger's death.  .  .  .  A man dialed 911 in Tampa,
Florida, to report that a slot machine had stolen his money.
. . . A landlord in Newark,  Delaware,  drove  a  Hummer
into his tenants' home after they had not paid their rent. . . .
Wrigley  Field  was evacuated  as thunder and lightning cut
short the Cubs' baseball game with the Astros  and  Chica-
go's Loop was under a tornado warning. .  .  ."Right to life"
advocacy was ascribed to Bruce Ivins as a possible motive
for his suspected  killing  of  five  persons  with anthrax. . . .
Twenty-six teen-age girls, at a conference  at the University
of Texas,  trying  to see how many cheerleaders an elevator
cab would hold,  had to be forcibly rescued when the doors
jammed. . . . Paris Hilton, announcing her candidacy, thank-
ed John McCain for his endorsement and declared, "I'm not
promising change; I'm just hot!" . . .Four members of Amer-
ica's Olympic bicycle team disembarked in  Beijing  wearing
black masks covering their mouths and noses, for protection
from air pollution. .  .  . A woman was arrested in Marathon,
Florida, for driving around a store parking lot with her 3-year
old granddaughter on the roof of the car.

                                                          [courtesy AP, the Buzz]

• Her husbands – and lovers
• Heartbreaking miscarriage
• Why she wouldn't pose nude
  

Lance Farrell wrote Sun 27 July 2008 @11:52:40 EDT
from WTHR-TV in Indianapolis :

Very  glad  you found two of the stupidest news stories from In-
diana  and the NPR listener letter asking them to stop picking on
us.  I heard that too and meant to let you know but then forgot.

 

Last  Tuesday  we  had more requests for the Wiccan foot injury
story than I was comfortable with.  MSNBC, Newschannel, and
CNN all wanted it. I can somewhat sympathize with the guy from

Elkhart.

Terry Crow wrote Tues 29 July 2008 @10:08:11 PDT:

More dumb news from Kentucky, albeit not recent.    It seems that in
2004 a black lab named Junior Cochran was elected mayor of Rabbit
Hash,  Ky. . . . the second canine to be so "honored."   A mutt named
Goofy Borneman was previously elected, according to the town's web
site.

Ah, we have met the "city fathers" of Rabbit Hash personally.  They are quite a-
dept at promotion;  and  Borf Books  itself  has been guilty of promoting Rabbit
Hash,  in our books Ideas for a Better America and War Stories.

The problem with this particular old dumb news,  however,   is that Rabbit Hash
is not a city.  See this link to the Kentucky Secretary of State's data base.

And by Kentucky law, only a "city" can have a "mayor."  Rabbit Hash is at least
a "community" (an unofficial designation for a neighborhood of more than sparse
population but no government) and was at most a "town" – when there was such
a thing as a "town" in Kentucky  (there is no longer,  under the law).   But even a
town  had  no  "mayor."  The chief officer was the  "president of the town board"
and was not an executive.

Since the Rabbit Hash web site you mentioned calls the dogs "mayors" rather than
"presidents," we think you can view the whole story as fictitious.   The listing of the
web site on google.com as "The OFFICIAL Site" of Rabbit Hash is itself a tip-off:
How can a place without officials have an official site?  Note the first google listing,
which states "uninc Boone County, KY" – i.e., "unincorporated."

Fictitious,  except,  perhaps,  for the elections themselves.  It  wouldn't  surprise  us,
from what we know personally of Rabbit Hash, that the people there would have e-
letions just for fun, and elect a dog to anything.
                                                                                  – Editor, Tabloid Headlines

Only 13 of  the160 laps at NASCAR'S 400-mile race in Indianapolis were
run under the green flag, thanks to defective tires supplied by Goodyear.

                                                                     [courtesy Associated Press]

A judge ruled that the state legislature cannot legally extend its constitution-
ally limited session by stopping the clocks in its chambers. . . .

Yellow  Cab,  the only taxi service in Bowling Green  –  Kentucky's fourth
largest city  –  went out of business,  citing the high price of gasoline. . . .

A 4-year-old boy in Lincoln County put his little brother in the car and took
off for Grandma's house, but ran through a fence and into some trees.

                                                                                             [courtesy AP]

"The legal definition of torture has been much aired in recent years, and
  I take Mamma Mia! to be a useful contribution to that debate."

                                                                 – Anthony Lane, New Yorker film critic

"Don't even think about it – my knife is more bigger than yours."

                                – Brooklyn deli clerk Sammy Othman,  replying to a robber
                                   who had brandished a knife at him saying "I will stab you"

"I felt like I grinded really well."

                            – Michelle Wie, after shooting a 1-over-par 73 trying to qualify for
                                the men's Professional Golfers Association tournament at Lake
                                Tahoe (she shot an 80 the next day, to miss the cut by 9 strokes)

 "Get in the hole!"
                                – same unidentified fan, at the Legends Reno-Tahoe Open

Show girl Leysi Suarez apologized for riding a horse nude u-
sing Peru's flag for a saddle. .  .  . The Sheriff 's 17-year-old
niece is on trial in Hamburg,  Iowa,  for jumping on the stage
at an "art bar" and taking off her clothes. . . .  Melissa Gilbert
is playing Laura Ingalls' mother in a musical adaptation of "Lit-
tle House on the Prairie"  at the Guthrie Theater in Minnesota.
. . . A Romanian immigrant in Canada's British Columbia gave
birth to her 18th child. . . .A passenger on a Greyhound bus in
Manitoba decapitated his seatmate. . . . Iraq was barred from
the  Olympics,  and a locust plague in Mongolia threatened the
games  anyway.  .  .  . Los Angeles Times bloggers received a
memo instructing them not to write about a  National  Enquirer
story alleging that John Edwards was meeting his mistress at an
L.A. hotel. . . .One of dozens of spectators watching the moun-
ting of a steeple atop a new church in Oklahoma City was killed
when the crane collapsed on his car. . . .Police found an evange-
list's wife,  who had not been seen for three years,  in the freezer
at their home in Mobile,  Alabama,  and arrested her husband as
he preached. .  .  .  Jerry Lewis was busted at the Las Vegas air-
port with a gun in his carry-on bag. . . .Bob Hickey, 66, of Gray-
ling, Michigan, hit two holes-in-one in one round of golf.  . . . Lin-
coln's Tomb, the New Salem Historic Site and the Old State Cap-
itol will be closed two days  a  week,  and Lincoln's law office will
be open to visitors only  on  Saturdays  in an Illinois budget crunch
during Honest Abe's bicentennial  (all had been open seven days a
week in the "Land of Lincoln"). . . . A five-foot alligator struck by a
car stopped traffic on I-10 near New Orleans. . . . Doctors failed to
reattach the arm of an11-year-old boy retrieved from the belly of an
11-foot alligator in New Orleans.  .  .  . An 11-year-old boy bit a pit
bull in Sao Paulo, Brazil. . . . A 44-pound cat was found roaming the
streets  of  Voorhees,  New Jersey,  a victim of the subprime lending
crisis.
                          [courtesy Reuters, the Buzz, Harper's Weekly, AP]