Alabama golfers get back-to-back aces the hard way

MUSCLE SHOALS, Ala. – Pierre Fournier and Ken Osborne hit back-to-back holes in one — just not necessarily in that order. Playing in the same five-person group, Fournier teed off first, but his ball landed some eight feet past the hole, rolled back to the cup and didn't go in until after Osborne's had gone in. The two Muscle Shoals golfers managed that bizarre feat at Cypress Lakes Golf and Country Club recently on the 112-yard par 3 12th hole.

Osborne, Fournier and playing partner Jim Stansell saw Fournier's ball stop just behind the hole. Osborne's shot also landed on a slope behind the hole and spun back.

Stansell said he did not think Osborne's ball knocked in the other ball. In that case, United States Golf Association rules would have required Fournier to replace his ball as close as possible to its original position.

"It's the craziest thing I've ever seen on the golf course," Stansell told the TimesDaily in a story Friday. "I couldn't tell if the wind blew it in or what, but I never saw Ken's ball touch it."

After the round, they told their tale to club professional Bill Castle, who made a phone call to get a definitive ruling.

Without witnesses or evidence that Fournier's ball was nudged into the hole, it officially goes down as an ace.

"Had mine gone in first and then Ken's, I'd have said, 'Oh my gosh, are we going to get drunk,' " Fournier said.

"I knew that if his ball hit mine, my hole-in-one wouldn't count," he said. "I knew that, and I play by the rules."

Fournier estimates that at least 90 seconds passed between the time Osborne's shot and his own ball fell into the cup.

Flight delayed by search for ashtray

LONDON, May 30 (UPI) -- A British Airways flight was delayed for 25 minutes at London's Heathrow Airport as crews searched for a replacement bathroom ashtray, officials said.

After passengers were told the crew needed to find a "vital" part before taking off, it turned out the important piece was an ashtray to replace one that was missing, even though smoking on the aircraft was banned, the Daily Mail reported Saturday.

A new ashtray was eventually found after much searching, during which the flight's captain allegedly suggested the crew "rob" another plane of its bathroom ashtray.

A British Airways spokesman told the British tabloid the flight had to be delayed because all planes in Europe are required by law to have ashtrays.

"It is a legal requirement, under air navigation orders, to have ashtrays because while smoking is not permitted on flights, if someone were to light a cigarette on board there must be somewhere to safely extinguish it," the spokesman said.

High-roller has bad feng shui in US casino

TAIPEI (AFP) – A Taiwanese man who lost two million US dollars in Las Vegas is threatening to sue the casino for using feng shui to cause his losing streak, a report here said.

The man, surnamed Yuan, alleged that the Venetian dug a one-metre (40-inch) square hole on the wall of the presidential suite he was staying in April last year and covered it with a black cloth, said Apple Daily.

The casino also put two white towels in front of Yuan's suite and turned on two large fans facing his room without notifying him, it said.

Yuan claimed that his luck turned bad after discovering the arrangements and that he went from winning 400,000 dollars to losing two million, the report said.

"We Chinese drape black and white cloths only when there is a death in the family. It is such a taboo for regular people, let alone for the gamblers," he was quoted as saying.

Yuan filed a complaint against the Venetian after returning to Taiwan and demanded the cancellation of a two-million-dollar debt to the casino, half of it on credit, it said.

The casino has promised to refund him 100,000 dollars in cash and the same amount in chips, the paper said, without explaining why it had agreed to this.

Yuan had notified the Venetian through his lawyer of his intention to sue for feng shui sabotage if the casino fails to come up with a "reasonable solution," it said.

Feng shui, or wind and water, is an ancient Chinese belief that seeks to channel good and bad psychic energy through the arrangement of furniture and ornaments.

There are some common feng shui taboos among Taiwanese gamblers, such as bringing a hair brush to a gambling table as "brush" is a homophone of "lose," the report said.

Homely beetle named for Stephen Colbert

WASHINGTON, May 8 (UPI) -- Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert has been honored, sort of, by having a beetle named after him, U.S. entomologists said.

Agaporomorphus colberti is a bulbous, brown, not particularly attractive diving beetle found in Venezuela, The Washington Times reported Friday.

Colbert last year asked the science community to name something other than a spider after him, his top choices being a giant ant or a laser lion, said Quentin Wheeler, an entomologist at Arizona State University.

"While those would be cool species to discover, our research involves beetles, and they are way cooler than a spider any day," Wheeler said.

For his 45th birthday May 13, Colbert was sent a framed print of Agaporomorphus colberti along with a card showing a beetle scaling a cupcake, Wheeler said.

In 2005, Wheeler and biologist Kelly Miller, of the University of New Mexico, named three North American beetles after then President George W. Bush, Vice President **** Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld - Agathidium bushi, A. cheneyi and A. rumsfeldi.
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Chile police find suitcases made of cocaine

SANTIAGO, Chile – Police say two suitcases carried by a woman who was about to fly from Chile to Spain were made of cocaine. Detective Leandro Morales at the Santiago airport says the drug "was not hidden in the luggage. This time the suitcases were the drug." Morales tells The Associated Press that the suitcases were made of a substance combining cocaine with resin and glass fiber.

He said Tuesday a "chemical process" could be used to separate out the drug.

The officer says the suitcases were heavier than their contents.

The 26-year-old Argentine woman was arrested.

Car loses all four wheels on highway

ZURICH (Reuters) – A car traveling on a motorway in Switzerland lost all four wheels simultaneously, coming to an immediate halt in the middle of the highway, police said on Saturday.

The car had just stopped and the passengers had changed from winter to summer wheels themselves, a common task in Switzerland where there is plenty of snow in winter, but used the wrong nuts when mounting the new set.

"When they then drove back on to the motorway, all of the wheels disconnected," St Gallen cantonal police said in a statement. "Luckily, no one was injured and no other vehicle was damaged."

Robbers ran out of gas

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla., June 3 (UPI) -- Police in Florida said a pair of bank robbers were arrested after their getaway car ran out of gas while driving away from the scene of the crime.

Daytona Beach Police Chief Mike Chitwood said Jason Warren Dietrich, 35, and Randall Fredric Walker, 38, abandoned Dietrich's green Jeep Cherokee after it ran out of gas a few blocks from the Riverside National Bank, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reported Wednesday.

Police said they traced Dietrich's vehicle back to his home and Walker was arrested after his name was mentioned during Dietrich's arrest. Walker, who allegedly carried out the bank robbery while Dietrich waited in the car, was found to be in possession of the bank's money.

Dietrich was charged with principal to bank robbery and Walker was charged with bank robbery. They were each jailed in lieu of $20,000 bail.

Mom accused of duct-taping daughter's boyfriend

ADELANTO, Calif. – Authorities arrested a woman for allegedly trying to kidnap her daughter's boyfriend and haul him away to Northern California. A sheriff's spokeswoman said Tuesday that two women went to the young man's home on Saturday afternoon and tried to tie him up with duct tape.

The victim told authorities the women said they were taking him to get him away from one of the women's 21-year-old daughter. Authorities said both women were arrested on suspicion of attempted kidnapping.

Officials said the girlfriend was later arrested for investigation of dissuading a witness and extortion for allegedly trying to get her boyfriend to recant his statements on the kidnapping to authorities.

You folks do realize that it's perfectly acceptable to comment in here right??? lol

Nev. brothel hopes male prostitutes boost business

LAS VEGAS – The owner of a Nevada brothel suffering from the recession thinks she has been ignoring about half the market — the half that prefers men.

Bobbi Davis is looking for male prostitutes to help expand the clientele at the Shady Lady Ranch, her small roadside brothel about 150 miles north of Las Vegas.

"We've had requests for men in the past, and there's nothing else like this out there," she said.

Indeed, the 25 legal brothels scattered throughout 10 rural Nevada counties are staffed by women and cater to men. The Shady Lady, however, isn't the only one thinking about hiring male prostitutes.

Nevada Brothel Association lobbyist George Flint says other brothels have approached him with the idea lately to drum up business.

Like Nevada's gambling, hotel and convention industries, the prostitution business has hit hard times. Flint estimates that bordellos have seen a roughly 50 percent drop in revenue since the economy turned sour.

"Business is so bad right now, I think brothels would do anything to survive. Disposable income is just in short supply at the moment," he said.

Former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss recently planned to open "Heidi's Stud Farm" near Pahrump, but gave up the effort this year after being arrested on felony drug charges.

Flint says other brothels have offered male prostitutes over the years, with little success. He argues that the business model for a brothel that caters to women just doesn't pencil out.

"Seducing a woman and seducing a man in a brothel environment are different things completely. One can take a few minutes, the other can take hours. It wouldn't make money," he said.

Davis agrees that women customers could differ significantly from men, though she plans at least initially to keep her current prices for services — $500 for two hours, $800 for three.

"That may change. We're figuring that women may want a longer period of time, maybe a little more romance. They're not quite like men in that respect," she said.

Davis said the requests she has received for male prostitutes have come mostly from women, but that she also would welcome business from men seeking men.

"I can't discriminate, nor would I want to," she said, adding that it would be up to prostitutes to decide whether they entertain any particular guest.

Licensing male prostitutes might be a problem. State law allows for legal prostitutes of both genders, but the health codes that regulate the business largely are written to apply to female prostitutes. That includes a requirement that the working girls have mandatory cervical exams.

"It's kind of hard to do that with a man," Davis said.

Nye County Sheriff Tony DeMeo, whose office administers work cards for prostitutes, said he's aware of Davis' plan and has sought legal advice from the district attorney.

Meanwhile, Davis is drawing up her help wanted ad. She said she'll be looking for one or two men "in good shape, in their mid-30s to 50s." Asked about the age range, she notes that's another way women differ from men.

"Look at George Clooney, he's 50 and he's still considered a very sexy man. Women don't consider a man washed up by the time he's 50," she said.

Prostitution is outlawed in five Nevada counties, including in the Reno and Las Vegas metropolitan areas, but brothels have operated legally elsewhere in the state since 1971.

Widow's donation of WWII shell spurs shutdown

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - A military museum near Columbus, Ohio, got more than it bargained for when the widow of a World War II veteran tried to donate an artillery shell.

Officials evacuated six businesses and temporarily shut down a road Thursday as firefighters, police and a bomb squad checked out the 18-inch long shell.

Warren Motts, who runs the Motts Military Museum in Groveport, called firefighters after the 90-year-old woman dropped off the shell.

The woman said her deceased husband had been given the shell as appreciation for his service during World War II and she thought the museum might like it.

Authorities confirmed there was no danger. Motts says the museum will definitely keep the shell.

'Hooker For Jesus' Marries Rock Musician

LAS VEGAS, June 6 (UPI) -- "Hooker For Jesus" Annie Lobert and Oz Fox of the Christian heavy metal band Stryper have gotten married in Las Vegas in a webcasted ceremony.

Lobert, 41, who says she found Jesus after working for 11 years as a highly paid call girl, wore a strapless white gown Friday as she wed Fox, 47, the longtime lead guitarist for Stryper, CNN reported.

Lobert founded Hookers for Jesus, which she describes as "an international, faith-based organization that addresses the realities of human sex trafficking, sexual violence and exploitation linked to pornography and the sex industry," the U.S. broadcaster said.

She has told interviewers that she gave up prostitution after overdosing on cocaine and now spends much of her time on Las Vegas streets handing out Bibles to prostitutes and urging them to reform their ways.

Reasonable Consumer Would Know "Crunchberries" Are Not Real, Judge Rules

On May 21, a judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California dismissed a complaint filed by a woman who said she had purchased "Cap'n Crunch with Crunchberries" because she believed "crunchberries" were real fruit. The plaintiff, Janine Sugawara, alleged that she had only recently learned to her dismay that said "berries" were in fact simply brightly-colored cereal balls, and that although the product did contain some strawberry fruit concentrate, it was not otherwise redeemed by fruit. She sued, on behalf of herself and all similarly situated consumers who also apparently believed that there are fields somewhere in our land thronged by crunchberry bushes.

According to the complaint, Sugawara and other consumers were misled not only by the use of the word "berries" in the name, but also by the front of the box, which features the product's namesake, Cap'n Crunch, aggressively "thrusting a spoonful of 'Crunchberries' at the prospective buyer." Plaintiff claimed that this message was reinforced by other marketing representing the product as a "combination of Crunch biscuits and colorful red, purple, teal and green berries." Yet in actuality, the product contained "no berries of any kind." Plaintiff brought claims for fraud, breach of warranty, and our notorious and ever-popular California Unfair Competition Law and Consumer Legal Remedies Act.

Under the UCL, courts have held that a plaintiff must show that a representation was "likely to deceive a reasonable consumer." [As a disclaimer, I should tell you that my firm represents defendants in UCL cases (among others).] Actual fraud claims, and warranty claims, are harder to prove, so if Sugawara didn't win on the UCL claims, she would be leaving without even any lovely parting gifts. And she did not:

In this case . . . while the challenged packaging contains the word "berries" it does so only in conjunction with the descriptive term "crunch." This Court is not aware of, nor has Plaintiff alleged the existence of, any actual fruit referred to as a "crunchberry." Furthermore, the "Crunchberries" depicted on the [box] are round, crunchy, brightly-colored cereal balls, and the [box] clearly states both that the Product contains "sweetened corn & oat cereal" and that the cereal is "enlarged to show texture." Thus, a reasonable consumer would not be deceived into believing that the Product in the instant case contained a fruit that does not exist. . . . So far as this Court has been made aware, there is no such fruit growing in the wild or occurring naturally in any part of the world.

The court, Judge Morrison England, Jr., also pointed out that the plaintiff acknowledged in her opposition to the motion to dismiss that "[c]lose inspection [of the box] reveals that Crunchberries . . . are not really berries." Plaintiff did not explain why she could not reasonably have figured this out at any point during the four years she alleged she bought Cap'n Crunch with Crunchberries in reliance on defendant's fraud.

Finally, the court held that while a first-time loser on a motion to dismiss would typically get a chance to amend the complaint, this one wouldn't:

In this case, . . . it is simply impossible for Plaintiff to file an amended complaint stating a claim based upon these facts. The survival of the instant claim would require this Court to ignore all concepts of personal responsibility and common sense. The Court has no intention of allowing that to happen.

Case dismissed.

Judge England also noted another federal court had "previously rejected substantially similar claims directed against the packaging of Fruit Loops [sic] cereal, and brought by these same Plaintiff attorneys." He found that their attack on "Crunchberries" should fare no better than their prior claims that "Froot Loops" did not contain real froot.

Nearly nude gardeners face eviction

BOULDER, Colo., June 7 (UPI) -- The nearly naked gardeners of Boulder, Colo., say they want the freedom to garden in their front yard wearing nothing but thongs and pasties.

The married couple, Catharine Pierce, 51, and Robert Pierce, 58, aren't breaking the law by tending to their flowers while wearing next to nothing -- as long as their genitalia are covered. But their landlord may define the Pierces' nearly nude outdoor activities as a nuisance and have them evicted from their rental home, The (Boulder) Daily Camera reported Sunday.

The owner of the house is Boulder Housing Partners, which administers the city's affordable housing program. Executive Director Betsy Martens acknowledges defining the word "nuisance" is tough.

"This is not a legal issue, it's a community issue. We try and balance the needs of the whole community," she said.

But the couple asserted the landlord is infringing on their basic rights.

"We want our freedom," Robert Pierce told the Daily Camera. "We want exactly what the law gives you, and we don't want to be harassed about it.

House boarded up with resident inside

MINNEAPOLIS, June 8 (UPI) -- A Minneapolis man said he was preparing to leave his foreclosed home for the last time when contractors boarded up the house with him still inside.

Ted Poetsch, 53, said he was finishing packing and loading his cat into its carrier May 12 when he heard drilling coming from the frame of his front door, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported Monday.

Poetsch, who walks with a cane, said he descended the home's stairs to find the contractors had already completed boarding up the house without making sure there was nobody inside.

City officials said Poetsch had been warned the contractors were coming that day, but they admitted boarding him up inside was a mistake that was unprecedented for the city.

Poetsch said he escaped his house-turned-prison with the help of his one-time lawyer, Josh DuBois.

what the hell do you mean crunchberries are not real fruit


I have seen the crunchberry bushes on T.V.

Fisherman reels in live missile

CLEARWATER, Fla., June 9 (UPI) -- A Florida fisherman said an 8-foot-long missile that became ensnared in his long line while fishing in the Gulf of Mexico was turned over to authorities.

Solomon Rodney, 37, said he assumed the missile was inactive or already exploded because of a hole in its side so it rode atop his boat for 10 days before he returned to shore and turned it over to a bomb squad from MacDill Air Force Base, the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times reported Tuesday.

Rodney said he was surprised to hear the missile was live.

"If it was going to explode, it was going to explode a long time ago," he said after the missile had spent 10 days on his boat.

"This is a live air-to-air missile," Pinellas County sheriff's spokeswoman Marianne Pasha said Monday. "It is 8 feet long, and the MacDill team is dismantling it."

Rodney said the MacDill team told him not to bring anymore missiles home from his fishing trips.

"They told me if you find another one, just let it go," he said.

Heyyyyy....I have TOO!!!!

Man accused of urinating on people at festival

FERNDALE, Mich. – A 31-year-old Detroit man faces a misdemeanor assault and battery charge after allegedly urinating on several people during an annual gay pride event. The Daily Tribune of Royal Oak reported the man had been drinking and was upset that he was splashed with water aimed at street dancers Sunday during the Motor City Pride Festival.

Police Lt. William Wilson said "he may have wanted to take revenge," turned and urinated on the leg of a man standing next to him.

The Detroit Free Press reports two other people were sprayed in the process.

The man is to be arraigned June 23.

22 days without a post??? Man. I really should be punished.

College student tries to steal jail computer

KALAMAZOO, Mich. – Western Michigan University student William K. Bradley was sentenced for larceny in a building. He stole a computer. From the Kalamazoo County jail. Where he already was serving a sentence in a different case.

Kalamazoo County Circuit Judge Gary Giguere Jr. sentenced Bradley on Monday, telling the Kalamazoo resident his jailhouse theft was "the dumbest crime I've heard today" and "may be in the top half-dozen in my career."

Bradley, who has racked up six felonies and four misdemeanors by the age of 25, agreed with the judge, saying, "I'm not the best criminal."

Bradley asked for home arrest, but Giguere instead ordered him back to jail for six months.

Western spokeswoman Cheryl Roland tells the Kalamazoo Gazette Bradley is a sophomore at the university.