Candidate Colbert gains 1 million Facebook supporters
Effort makes strong case for using social networks to promote political candidates
October 26, 2007 (Computerworld) — Comedian Stephen Colbert’s announcement that he plans to run for president of the U.S. may have struck some as a joke, but his supporters on Facebook have taken the campaign very seriously, signing up in droves over the past 10 days to drive membership in his group past the 1 million mark on Friday.
His 1,000,000 Strong For Stephen T. Colbert group is the fastest-growing section on Facebook, according to followers of social networking sites. The group’s membership grew from 5,000 on Oct. 17 to 500,000 on Oct. 23 to more than 1,015,000 at noon today.
In contrast, Sen Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) One Million Strong For Barack group has accumulated just over 380,000 members over the past nine months.
Stan Schroeder, a blogger at Mashable, a site that follows social networking developments, blogged that Colbert’s Facebook effort marks the strongest example of social network usage for political promotion to date.
“By spending very little time and money, Colbert has managed to gather one million supporters,” he wrote. “Whether or not they’ll vote for him is another matter, but it’s obvious that these (and all following) elections will largely be fought online.”
Rana Sobhany, a blogger at Allfacebook, a blog that follows developments on the social networking site, blogged: “I never would have thought that in just over a week, 1 million Gen Y’ers would be able to assemble for any cause, let alone in support of a presidential candidate, and apparently neither did anyone else.”
However, Sobhany noted that “Colbert’s presidential aspirations will likely fizzle out by election time” and that “this politically inactive and seemingly apathetic demographic is just going through the motions of showing their support for a candidate. But then again,” he added, “no one believed Colbert could muster this massive outpouring of support in a week.” 
Crappy Architecture
The Inaugural General Assembly of the World Toilet Association will have its first gathering next month. In honor of the occasion, founding member Sim Jae-duck of South Korea built this toilet-shaped house south of Seoul.
“Among its many amenities, the house features four deluxe toilets,” said the group, started in South Korea and dedicated to providing clean sanitation to the more than 2 billion people who live without toilets.
The home has a showcase bathroom located in its centre. Other toilets have features that range from elegant fittings to the latest in water conservation devices.
More Odd News from The News Room
Strange and Unusual Headlines
Nude Self-Portrait On a Rug Pinched
MCMINNVILLE, Ore. (AP) — Tamera Bremer titled the life-size nude self-portrait she laboriously wove into a rug “the sexy sex: all-nude review rug one.” Somebody apparently found it fetching, and late Monday it vanished from an exhibit floor at Linfield College.
Bremer said the latch-hook work took thousands of hours and she valued it in the five-figure range.
It was the first in a five-rug project the Portland artist, an adjunct professor at Linfield, has in the works.
The curvy cutout was fashioned from monk’s cloth, a heavy cotton, and hand-painted in 10 colors on alpaca yarn.
“I don’t understand why anyone would want to steal something like this,” she said. “Whoever did it doesn’t understand what they’ve done. It’s my life’s work.”
A video camera and two pieces of student art also were missing.
McMinnville Police Capt. Dennis Marks said officers will check with local second-hand stores. But if it’s college kids, it’s probably in somebody’s room, Marks said.
More Strange News
Associated Press - October 10, 2007 5:43 AM ET
ELLWOOD CITY, Pa. (AP) - It might look like junk. But not to Todd McDevitt. He knows the first Batman comic when he sees it. McDevitt owns five New Dimension Comics stores in the Pittsburgh area. He says his eyes almost popped out of his head when a man walked in and wanted to know if an old comic book was worth anything. The man said he had recently found a copy of Detective Comics 27 in the attic. The pre-World War II comic book features the debut of Batman. McDevitt says it wasn’t in the best of shape. He won’t reveal exactly how much he paid for the old comic book, but McDevitt says it’s worth about $250,000. A mint condition copy goes for twice that much.
GRETZKY’S GARAGE SALE
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif. (AP) - Now, you can get a great jersey from the Great One if you’ve got the bucks. Wayne Gretzky is holding a benefit garage sale in a couple of weeks at a school in Westlake Village, California, outside Los Angeles. Gretzky and his family have sold their house and moved from Southern California to the Phoenix area, where he coaches the Coyotes. At the October 27th sale, they’ll be selling everything from autographed jerseys to home furnishings. Gretzky is also offering signed bottles of his newly released wine. Proceeds from the Gretzky garage sale will go for local education programs and a new baseball stadium at the Oaks Christian School.
ANSONIA-COCKROACHES
NEW YORK (AP) - A swanky New York City apartment building has some undesirable tenants. At least that’s what attorney Alan Arkin claims in his suit against the owners of the Ansonia building. Arkin charges his apartment is “completely uninhabitable” because it’s overrun with cockroaches. Angelina Jolie is a neighbor in the building and former tenants include Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey. Arkin says he and his wife can’t turn out the lights at night because the roaches crawl all over the bed. He says they’re even in the coffee maker. No comment yet from officials of the realty company that owns the Ansonia. But Arkin says they told him he should just move.
CAT URINE CHARGES
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - Cat pee cost Cynthia Hunter nearly two months in jail. She was busted for stealing from a Brandon, Florida, Wal-Mart. Deputies added drug charges when they found a vial of yellow powder in her purse. The Tampa Tribune reports a field test for drugs suggested the substance was speed. But Hunter maintained it was dried cat pee for her son’s science project. Lab tests determined she was right and Hunter was sprung from jail. She pleaded guilty to petty theft and a judge gave her time served.
GAY CUSTOMER-LAWSUIT
NEW YORK (AP) - Khadijah Farmer wants more than an apology. She’s suing a popular restaurant in New York’s Greenwich (GREN’-ich) Village, claiming a bouncer chased her out of the women’s bathroom because she looked too masculine. Farmer told a news conference yesterday she knows she looks like a man, with her short hair. But she says she was humiliated and is the victim of gender discrimination. The incident occurred at an eatery called the Caliente Cab Company after New York’s gay pride parade last June. The restaurant is denying the discrimination claim.
Teens Nabbed After Police Station Turn
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Talk about a wrong turn. Three teens suspected of burglarizing vehicles were arrested after they attempted to elude a police car by turning into a police station.
An area resident reported the break-ins about 3 a.m. Monday and gave police a description of the teens and their car. Officers spotted the car - and it appeared the driver noticed the officers, police spokesman Joel DeSpain said. He turned right, apparently in an attempt to avoid the squad car.
“They turned right into the East District Station, ” DeSpain said. “Then we arrested them. ” Two 16-year-old boys and a 15-year-old girl were tentatively charged with entry into a locked vehicle, property damage and theft. Police recovered two iPods, credit cards, car stereos and two baseball bats from them, DeSpain said.
Boy, 6, Tries To Drive To Applebees
BROOMFIELD, Colo. (AP) — A 6-year-old boy was hungry and decided he’d go to Applebees. So he grabbed the car keys, took his booster seat from the back seat of his grandmother’s car and placed it in the driver’s seat, then made a go of driving himself to the restaurant Tuesday.
He made it about 75 feet. Unable to take the car out of reverse, he crossed the street and ran into a transformer and communication box, knocking out electricity and phone service to dozens of townhomes.
Nobody was injured and the boy, whose name was not released, got out of his car and told his grandmother what happened.
“He proceeded to start the car and started backing up,” said Sgt. Colleen O’Connell of the Broomfield Police Department. “He went backward about 47 feet, hit the curb, then went backward another 29 feet.”
Investigators couldn’t figure out how the boy reached the accelerator.
No charges will be filed.
Change for $1 Million?
PITTSBURGH - Change for a million?
That’s what a man was seeking Saturday when he handed a $1 million bill to a cashier at a Pittsburgh supermarket. But when the Giant Eagle employee refused and a manager confiscated the bogus bill, the man flew into a rage, police said.
The man slammed an electronic funds-transfer machine into the counter and reached for a scanner gun, police said.
Police arrested the man, who was not carrying identification and has refused to give his name to authorities. He is being held in the Allegheny County Jail.
Since 1969, the $100 bill is the largest note in circulation.
Police believe the $1 million note seized at the supermarket may have originated at a Dallas-based ministry. Last year, the ministry distributed thousands of religious pamphlets with a picture of President Glover Cleveland on a $1 million bill.
Happy Valley declares end to nude gardening
Rights - The City Council responds to neighbors’ complaints with a tentative nudity ordinance
Thursday, October 04, 2007
PETER ZUCKERMAN
The Oregonian Staff
The nude gardener of Happy Valley should at least put on underwear.
That’s what the City Council decided this week in tentatively approving an ordinance that makes it “unlawful for any person to expose his or her genitals while in a public place or place visible from a public place.”
If formally approved later this month, the law will apply when children younger than 13 are around or when “the exposure reasonably would be expected to alarm or annoy another person.”
Violations carry a $1,000 fine per exposure.
The issue arose when neighbors complained that Steven J. Howatt, 51, refused to put on clothes while gardening, mowing his lawn or walking around his property. A mail carrier also asked to changed routes.
Howatt, who didn’t attend the council meeting, said the controversy says more about neighborliness than nudity.
If someone had spoken to him nicely, he said, he probably would have put on some clothes. Instead, one neighbor yelled profanities at him and others complained to his employer, the police, the media and the city, he said. “I’m disappointed we couldn’t work out something.”
A few Happy Valley residents wrote to the council in support of Howatt. “I hate to see more of our rights taken away because a few people are uncomfortable,” said one e-mail.
Mayor Rob Wheeler said the nudity ordinance has attracted statewide attention. “In my seven years with the city,” he said, “I’ve never seen people or the media so interested in what we’re doing.”
‘Gay bomb’ scoops Ig Nobel award
Pioneering research into a “gay bomb” that makes enemy troops “sexually irresistible” to each other has scooped one of this year’s Ig Nobel Prizes.
Other winners included work on treating hamster jetlag with impotency drugs, extracting vanilla from cow dung, and the side-effects of sword swallowing.
The awards, founded in 1991, mark achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think”.
The prize ceremony took place at Harvard University, US.
Genuine Nobel Laureates handed out the much-coveted awards to the winners, who took away no cash, but instead received a hand-made prize, a certificate, and, of course, the glory of such an illustrious win.
Sword effects
Dan Meyer, executive director of Sword Swallowing Association International and an author of the British Medical Journal paper Sword Swallowing and its Side-Effects, said: “I was surprised and extremely honoured when I found out I was not only nominated for an Ig Nobel prize but that I had won it. I couldn’t believe it.”
He told the BBC News website that the study revealed that when professional sword swallowers ingested a single sword very carefully, it did not do much harm, but swallowing many swords, strangely shaped blades, or being distracted when swallowing, could cause injury.
The findings also suggested that sword swallowers should not swallow swords if they already had a sore throat, he said.
Unfortunately, said the organisers, nobody from the US military who carried out the research on chemicals that could prompt homosexual dalliances amongst rival troops (a research project called Harassing, Annoying and “Bad Guy” Identifying Chemicals) attended the ceremony because the study’s authors could not be tracked down.
Real research
The Ig Nobel Prizes were created by the Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), a science magazine.
Ig Nobel Prize
The Ig Nobels celebrate the unusual side of research
The awards, now in their 17th year, are intended to “celebrate the unusual, honour the imaginative - and spur people’s interest in science, medicine and technology”.
Marc Abrahams, the editor of AIR, told the BBC News website: “When I became the editor of a science magazine, suddenly I was meeting all kinds of people who had done things that were hard to describe, and for the most part, nobody had ever heard of.
“For some of them, it seemed a great shame that nobody would give them any kind of recognition, and that was what really led to the birth of the Ig Nobels.”
Like their more sober counterpart, the Nobel Prizes, the Ig Nobels are split into several categories and all research is real and published.
Late for Work; Caught with Pants Down
Sun Media: The London Free Press: The crackdown on speeders is only in its first week, but Lambton OPP have already caught one man with his pants down — literally.
A 25-year-old Wallaceburg man is charged with careless driving after he was stopped for speeding Wednesday night and was found with his pants around his ankles, police said.
His vehicle was heading west on Petrolia Line in St. Clair Township, going 37 kilometres an hour over the limit.
Police said the man told them he was trying to pull his pants on because he was running late for work.
Man Paints with Ass
Video of Virginia Teacher, Stephen Murmer, Fired For “Butt Painting” -
He tried to hide his identity, even as his fame as a “painter” grew. But eventually YouTube caught up to Stephen Murmer. The high school art teacher at Monacan High School in Virginia was also an “abstract” artist called “Stan Murmur” who painted pictures by smearing paint on buttocks and genitals and pressing them against canvas. He was able to keep that quiet until an interview with his alter-ego found its way onto YouTube.com. Despite the fact that he tried to hide his identity with a towel on his head and Groucho Marx glasses, the jig was up and he was placed on administrative leave. Now the Chesterfield County School Board voted unanimously to fire Murmer saying that “teachers are expected to set an example for students through their personal conduct,” and apparently painting with your butt does not meet that standard. Watch the video and decide for yourself. (Washington Post)