Happy worms
Coll Bell, a New Zealander who invented a composting toilet supposedly superior to a septic system and who wanted permission from the Auckland Regional Council to install one at a campground, said an ARC bureaucrat had queried him on whether the worms he uses would be traumatized by the volume of work required in the annual two-week period of intense campground use. Coll told Agence France-Presse in December that vermiculture expert Patricia Naidu had assured him that the worms would be “happy.”

Happier goats
Carol Mendenhall told reporters in December that among the police citations she had recently received for a disturbance at her home in Dibble, Okla. (pop. 282), was one for allowing her four goats to have sex in her front yard in public view, which was illegal in Dibble. She admitted that her billy goat, Adam, had been attending to three females who were in heat at the same time. (The city council has since repealed the ordinance, following a campaign Mendenhall conducted.)

Diaper Dandies
Police in Mount Lebanon, Pa., said in December that no illegal acts were involved, but some parents still want to know why the nondenominational Christian Mount Lebanon Young Life club had staged a teenagers’ social event during which boys wore adult diapers, bibs and bonnets and sat in girls’ laps while being spoon-fed. Said youth minister O.J. Wandrisco, the skits were not “dirty,” but “to break down the walls and let (the kids) have fun.” A previous skit involved, according to a parent, kids eating chocolate pudding out of diapers.

Dying Divas
Marjorie Kelley, 50, called 9-1-1 in Sarasota, Fla., in January after feeling chest pains, but she requested that no sirens or lights be used by the ambulance. When EMTs arrived using sirens and lights, Kelley reportedly jumped up and chased them down the street, wielding a rolling pin, according to WWSB-TV.

Quoth the Idiot
Ronald Stach, 41, climbed to the roof of the Canton Station bar in Baltimore on Dec. 11 and remained until Christmas Day, protesting the poor showing of the Baltimore Ravens football team. Stach called attention not just to the Ravens, but also to himself, and thus inadvertently alerted his former wife as to his whereabouts so that she could renew her years-long quest for at least $40,000 in back child support. Kelly Stach said she was especially incensed at a TV interview in which Ronald lamented how much money he had spent on Ravens memorabilia. Shortly after that, a second woman came forward, claiming Ronald also owed her $12,000 in back child support.

Besotted with Buttocks
In November, Ugandan activists of Rwandan descent complained to the Parliament that the government was discriminating against its women, in that passport-application officials single them out to verify their Ugandan nationality based on the whether their derrieres and legs are sufficiently large. According to a columnist for the newspaper East African, “Uganda is a society that’s besotted with women’s buttocks like few other places are.”

Holy Snip
Writer David Farley said he is investigating the 1983 disappearance of the “Holy Prepuce,” a patch of the foreskin of Jesus and supposedly was the only body part he might have left on Earth. Until it went missing, it was the centerpiece of each January’s Feast of the Holy Circumcision at the Church of the Most Holy Name of Jesus in Calcata, Italy. There are several theories about its disappearance, one of which is that it was swiped on orders from the Vatican, which was troubled by the attention it had historically received, according to a December Religion News Service dispatch.

What’s in a Name?
Killed by early-morning gunshots in a club in Greensboro, N.C., in December: Mr. Born God Supreme Thompson. Arrested and charged with groping two women in Springfield, Ill., in December: Larry Letcher, 24. The loser of a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling in December that sought to suppress child pornography found on his computer by a Circuit City repair technician: Kenneth Sodomsky.

Spectacular Errors

In November, a 77-year-old man in Jacksonville, intending to help his daughter by riding his bicycle to Long Branch Elementary School to pick up her 4-year-old son (his grandson), arrived back home with a kid on the bike but did not realize that he had picked up the wrong boy. Said the picked-up kid’s frantic mother, “(The two boys) don’t even look alike.”

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Close but No Cigar

The 2,600 members of the Minnesota National Guard returned recently from extended duty in Iraq, which was reportedly the longest consecutive deployment of any outfit (22 months, counting extensions). However, the Guardsmen still do not qualify for government education benefits. The law allows the benefits only for those on “active duty” at least 730 days, but the Minnesota Guard’s orders (as well as some other outfits’ orders), were specifically written for “729 days.” (more…)

Fine Points of The Law

Louisiana prosecutors want the death penalty in the first trial for accused serial killer Sean Gillis, but to get that for an individual murder, state law requires an “aggravating circumstance” beyond the murder, such as kidnapping or robbery. At an August hearing, a prosecutor said Gillis had actually “robbed” his first victim, in that he had absconded with one of her arms and part of a leg. Gillis’ lawyer argued that that was not “robbery,” in that those parts were merely “left over” from the homicide. (more…)

Video Nation

As a 27-year-old woman lay dying from a stab wound incurred at a Wichita, Kan., convenience store, in June, at least five customers stepped over her to enter the store, including one who stopped to photograph her on a cell phone camera. (more…)

Not My Fault

Amy Mueller filed a lawsuit recently against Samy’s Bar and Grill in Joliet, Ill., after she willingly tried to climb onto the bar to dance in May 2006 but fell and broke her ankle. Samy’s should have had a “ladder” or other climbing aid, said Mueller’s lawyer.

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