Lie Detectors

Ken Alder, The Lie Detectors: The History of an American Obsession (New York: Free Press, 2007), p. 128.

[P]olice examiners regularly wring confessions by putting suspects on sham devices with contemporary flash. In the 1930s a high school principal in Newark, New Jersey, got students to confess to a mock lie box; and a policeman in New York City used a towel and a ticking alarm clock to get a youth to admit filching $10 from his parents. [...] In the 1980s cops were extracting confessions by putting a suspect's hand on a photocopy machine filled with paper printed with the word "LIE!"[*] In our era of cognitive science, cops have taken to placing the suspect's head in a colander with wires attached. Naivete of this sort among criminals may elicit a chuckle -- it got a big laugh in the U.S. Supreme Court -- but the joke is double-edged. Though some suspects may be duped into confessing to a mechanical placebo, cops and prosecutors are also locked in a self-fulfilling prophesy: deciding the fate of suspects on the basis of a doubtful test.

* David Simon, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991), 204. For recent practice and the laugh, see U.S. v. Scheffer, 523 U.S. 303 (1998), oral argument 11/3/97, at www.oyez.org.

http://www.oyez.org/cases/1990-1999/1997/1997_96_1133/argument

United States v. Scheffer (No. 96-1133) -- Oral Argument

Argument of Michael R. Dreeben

[...]

Mr. Dreeben: -- In investigations, the polygraph is an extraordinarily productive interrogation tool.

An enormous amount of confessions are given when a suspect either fails a polygraph or believes that a polygraph is about to smoke him out.

I have to say that in that sense there are examiners who believe that it is entirely reliable in this respect, and that it's a great interrogation tool because it's accurate.

There are other people who will say that, well, it's a great placebo.

There is a story of a police interrogation in a State system where the police put a colander on a suspect's head and wired it up to a Xerox machine, and then pressed a button that produced a picture, a little copy that said, you're lying, every time the suspect answered.

[Laughter]

The suspect confessed.

[Laughter]

So if a suspect believes that the polygraph is accurate and is about to catch him, then it will be very useful to do that.

[...]

Red Mercury in Border Beacons

http://www.kbc.co.ke/story.asp?ID=56962

Kenya Broadcasting Corporation
24 April 2009

PC refutes claims over Kenya-Uganda boundary interference

KNA

Rift Valley PC Hassan Noor Hassan has described as "absolutely false" reports that Ugandan soldiers had destroyed beacons marking the boundary between Kenya and Uganda in Pokot North District.

Hassan said what was said to be uprooted beacons were border markers that had toppled over due to soil erosion or that had been destroyed by vandals in the mistaken belief that they contained "treasure".

Treasure hunters have been known to demolish beacons in search of the elusive red mercury said to constitute part of the pillars to aid in aerial surveys. [...]

Wedding Dress Preservation Boxes

http://www.uexpress.com/dearabby/?uc_full_date=20090202

Dear Abby [Syndicated advice column]
2 February 2009

[Twenty-one years after the dry cleaners returned her supposedly cleaned wedding dress in a sealed box, a woman finally opens the box and finds it empty. "Please pass this on as a warning to future and current brides to check their wedding boxes!"]

http://www.uexpress.com/dearabby/?uc_full_date=20090423

Dear Abby [Syndicated advice column]
23 April 2009

DUPED BRIDES DISCOVER THEY WERE TAKEN TO THE CLEANERS

[More preservation box horror stories about what "appears to be a dirty little secret in the dry-cleaning industry."]

Sewing Machines Contain Red Mercury (Saudi Arabia)

http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSTRE53D48H20090414

Reuters
14 April 2009

Sewing machine frenzy in red mercury hoax

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi police are investigating the origins of a hoax that had hundreds of people believing that old sewing machines may bring fortune because they contained an elusive, and probably mythical, substance known as red mercury. [...]

http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentID=2009041435015

Saudi Gazette
14 April 2009

Red mercury’ rumors gain ground

By Abdullah Al-Maqati

DHULUM – Rumors that Singer sewing machines contain the so-called “red mercury” substance has sent prices skyrocketing around the Kingdom, with individuals flocking to markets to pay up to SR200,000 for a single machine. [...]

http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentID=2009041635223

Saudi Gazette
16 April 2009

Paying the price for red mercury mania

By Abdullah Al-Maqati

[...] Financial losses have not been the only upshot of the rumors. Friendships have also fallen by the wayside, and fights over sewing machines have sparked family disputes. [...]

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1&section=0&article=121632&d=17&m=4&y=2009&pix=kingdom.jpg&category=Kingdom~

Arab News [Jeddah, Saudi Arabia]
17 April 2009

Source of Singer hoax remains a mystery

Arab News

JEDDAH: The feverish search for Singer sewing machines driven by a superstitious notion that they possessed mysterious powers to fulfill every human wish has lost its tempo as the common man is slowly realizing that it is another ploy to dupe the naive public, particularly in Saudi Arabia and Jordan. [...]

http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentID=2009041935510

Saudi Gazette
19 April 2009

Divorce and bounced check is what they got

By Khalid Al-Jabri and Abdullah Al-Qarni

MADINA/AL-KHARJ – Even as the red mercury in Singer sewing machines rumors are dying down, the effects on the country’s social fabric are coming to light, though slowly. [...]

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=24&section=0&article=121770&d=22&m=4&y=2009

Arab News
22 April 2009

MP calls for anti-swindle law as ‘Singermania’ hits Bahrain

Arab News

MANAMA: Umm Ghanim is a 57-year-old grandmother who plans to say goodbye to her old, faithful Singer sewing machine now that “Singermania” has crossed the border from Saudi Arabia into Bahrain. [...]

The Eye of an Ox

http://ndpbeta.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/3367114?searchTerm=apocryphal

West Australian Times

12 November 1863, p. 3

Our Back Parlour
No. VII

[...] An English photographer lately took a photograph of the eye of an ox a few hours after death; and on examining the impression through the microscope distinctly perceived depicted on the retina the exact delineation of the stones with which the slaughter-house was paved, being the last object which affected the vision of the animal on bending down its head to receive the fatal blow. The consequence deduced from this somewhat apocryphal story is, that if the eyes of a murdered man be photographed a few hours after death the likeness of the murderer will be found on his retina, that being the last object he can have seen during the death struggle. [...]

[See also Veronique Campion-Vincent, "The Tell-Tale Eye". Folklore (1999)110: 13-24.]

1922 Pennies Contain Gold

http://ndpbeta.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/2383924?searchTerm=brighton+rumour+pennies+gold

The Canberra Times [Australia]

24 January 1935, p. 2

PENNIES AND A HOAX

Brighton lately witnessed the final scenes of an amazing hoax. A rumour was started at East Grinstead, Sussex, that a Brighton bullion dealer was offering 2s for 1922 pennies because they contained a small percentage of gold.

Scores of people carrying bags and sacks laden with 1922 pennies arrived at Brighton, and tramped for hours in search of the dealer before they could be convinced that they had been hoaxed. One man, a farm labourer, had changed nearly £1 from his week's wages into 1922 pennies and carried them 20 miles in a sack to Brighton.

Plastic Bottle Caps Collected

http://www.silive.com/news/advance/index.ssf?/base/news/1239431417175600.xml&coll=1

Staten Island Advance [NY]
11 April 2009

Hoax cons kindhearted students
Kids at several Island schools collect bottle caps for charity only to learn that its a scam

By AMISHA PADNANI
STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE

[...] Students at PS 46 in South Beach were thrilled when they learned that for every 1,000 plastic bottle caps they sent to a charity, a child with cancer would get chemotherapy treatment. In fact, they set up collection buckets right away. [...]

The students at PS 46 aren't the only ones on Staten Island to have fallen for the hoax; collection boxes were spotted at St. Joseph by-the-Sea High School in Huguenot, St. Clare's School in Great Kills and several doctors' offices. [...]

Free Condoms for Diaper Customers

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/complementary-condoms/

New York Times
13 April 2009

Freakonomics
The Hidden Side of Everything [Blog]

Complementary Condoms

By Daniel Hamermesh

[...] An acquaintance of mine reported the perhaps-apocryphal story that a major discount store is offering any customer who buys diapers in three different sizes a free package of condoms. [...]

Was Marilyn Monroe a Size 16?

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/fashion/article6044724.ece

The Times [London]
11 April 2009

Was Marilyn Monroe a size 16?

Sara Buys

There has been much debate about Marilyn Monroe’s vital statistics. [...] Contrary to received wisdom, she was not a voluptuous size 16 – quite the opposite. While she was undeniably voluptuous – in possession of an ample bosom and a bottom that would look at home gyrating in a J-Lo video – for most of the early part of her career, she was a size 8 and even in her plumper stages, was no more than a 10. I can tell you this from experience because a few weeks ago, I tried to try on her clothes. [...]

[See also Richard Roeper, Hollywood Urban Legends (2001), pp. 89-92.]

UMass Legends

http://www.dailycollegian.com/arts-living/toilets-circles-scooby-at-center-of-umass-urban-legends-1.1641030

The Daily Collegian [University of Massachusetts]
2 April 2009

Toilets, circles, Scooby at center of UMass urban legends

Maggie Freleng and Joe Stahl, Collegian Staff

[Walking through the campus's Grade Circle will be "detrimental to your grades." Laxatives are added to the food to combat food poisoning. The characters in the cartoon show "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!" were based on stereotypical students from the Five Colleges.]

Obama Still a Muslim

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1176/obama-muslim-opinion-not-changed

Pew Research Center for the People & the Press
1 April 2009

No Decline in Belief That Obama is a Muslim
Nearly One-in-Five White Evangelicals Think So

More than two months into Barack Obama's presidency, as many people incorrectly identify him as a Muslim as did so during the 2008 campaign. When asked about Obama's religious beliefs, 11% say he is a Muslim. In October, 12% said Obama is a Muslim, which was unchanged from earlier in the campaign. [...]

Rattlesnakes Introduced to Knox County, Ohio

http://www.mountvernonnews.com/Sports/09/04/03/Miller-dispells-rattlesnake-rumors-fishing-starting-strong

Mount Vernon News [OH]
3 April 2009

Miller dispells rattlesnake rumors; fishing starting strong

By Joe Huddleston

[...] Brent Theophilus of Mount Vernon asked the question of “Are rattlesnakes making a comeback in Knox County?” He stated that a friend saw someone he thought to be a ranger in the Bladensburg area introducing rattlesnakes to the area as part of a conservation effort. Knox County Wildlife Officer Mike Miller, when presented with the question, quickly dispelled the notion. [...]

Blowing up Don Cherry

Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2009 12:00:26 +0000
From: popbitch
Subject: Snouts and horses

POPBITCH
02.04.09 ISSUE 441

>> Jazz is the old/new rock and roll << Celebrity Parasites: the smack fluffer

The jazz great Don Cherry had a special nurse in his dying days. He'd pretty much used up all his available veins, so her job was to blow smack up Don's arse through a blow pipe. She apparently said it was one of the easiest jobs she'd ever had.

Allen Hynek's Watch

Chris A. Rutkowski, "Tests of Psychic Abilities." In John Robert Colombo, ed., Mysterious Encounters (Willowdale, Ontario: Hounslow Press, 1990, pp. 216-7.

There was at one time a Canadian television show called Beyond Reason, for which a panel of psychic "experts" (including an astrologer, clairvoyant, and two other "sensitives") would try to determine the identity of a hidden "mystery guest." On some episodes, some of the panel members would definitely appear to be able to divine the names of the guests; on other occasions, they were less than adept. [...]

The natural question arose as to how "secret" the mystery guests really were. After all, a bit of backstage bribery could enable a panel member to have inside information. The strictness of the security was noted when my friend Dr. J. Allen Hynek, the renowned astronomer and UFO investigator, was selected as a guest. Though he normally spoke with me when he visited Winnipeg, I only learned of his visit after the program had been taped. He told me to watch the show, as it was "very revealing." He also explained that the producers of the show had taken great pains to ensure no one knew he was in Winnipeg, and even gave instructions to the hotel operators not to reveal his presence to anyone who might have been inquiring.

The show was broadcast a few months later. On it, the panel members struggled with the mystery guest's identity, until it came to the turn of the clairvoyant. She held the guest's watch in her hand, and after only a few seconds said she felt "vibes" that the guest could only be Dr. J. Allen Hynek! It seemed truly amazing. But the next time Dr. Hynek was in Winnipeg, I asked him about the show. He explained how he had been approached by the producer just minutes before going on the air, and had been asked to give an item of jewelry or clothing for the clairvoyant to hold. Without thinking, he took off his watch, then proceeded to the booth where he was to be secreted. He realized he had made a mistake. He showed me the watch that he had given for use by the clairvoyant. It had been given to him as a gift, and was clearly inscribed: Allen Hynek.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris A. Rutkowski, A World of UFOs (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2008), p. 194.

One of Hynek's most bizarre TV appearances was on a Canadian show about psychic phenomena. It was kind of a quiz show where clairvoyants, astrologers, palmists, and other seers were challenged to identify a mystery guest hidden from view, asking questions based on the impressions they received about him or her. Hynek had been flown into the city secretly for the show, so I was surprised to hear he was in town when I was called after the show to drive him back from the television station. He explained that security had been tight to ensure no collusion was possible so that the psychics had no way of knowing the identity of the mystery guest in advance.

I was startled to learn that a clairvoyant had guessed that Hynek was the mystery guest. I was impressed by the show when it aired. Somehow, by simply holding Hynek's watch, she began intoning, "I'm sensing something about space...about stars...about communicating with other beings...this must belong to a famous UFO investigator...it must be Allen Hynek!"

When we next met, I asked him about the incident. He laughed and rolled up his sleeve, then took off his watch. He handed it to me. Etched into the back of the watch was an inscription from his wife: "To Allen Hynek, with love from Mimi."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[The canny "psychic" who identified Hynek was Irene Hughes, who appeared not to handle his watch during the show, contrary to Rutkowski's memory. That she took pains to declare that she had examined only his (presumably empty) wallet and not his watch leads one to conclude that she was aware of the inscription (which Rutkowski inconsistently described). Below is my rough transcription of an excerpt from the episode in question. -- bc]

http://archives.cbc.ca/science_technology/unexplained/clips/4344/

CBC Digital Archives

CBC game show with a paranormal twist

Beyond Reason
Broadcast Date: Feb. 21, 1977

[...]

Bill Guest: Irene, what do you pick up from our hidden visitor's personal objects?

Irene Hughes [holding a wallet and a piece of paper]: Well, first of all when I opened the box I have to tell you in this way. There were two objects in it so I took out the wallet because I had a terrible frightening feeling when I looked at his watch, so I didn't even take it out of the box. I've had that experience once before in my life. I feel that this man must have something to do with very unusual space, out of space things, in my mind, so I said Allan Hynek of UFOs! That's all I could think about, because... [Audience applause]... My heart is beating so fast right now I need a doctor, I think, really, because it was very frightening.

Allen Spraggett: I try not to wax too enthusiastic but that is a tour de force. That is really remarkable.

[...]

Bill Guest: Irene mentioned, Allen, that she did not want to open the box. I did not understand that too clearly. Can you explain that?

Allen Spraggett: Irene, did you mean that you had an uncanny feeling?

Irene Hughes: No, I opened, I opened the box, uh, there were two items, this [wallet] and a watch, and so I had a terrible feeling, I really did, and it was a feeling that I got when I was on a haunted house tour and we sort of encountered something of this nature in Iowa with, um, Brad Steiger. It was exactly the same feeling and so because of that I would not take the watch out, so I lay down on the cot with this [the wallet] holding it like this right here [against her chest] and I got all of these impressions and immediately wrote them down and I just said that he was a scientist of the highest degree, a math genius, lots to do with telescopes and documents, a consultant to Encounter of the Third Kind...[audience applause]... loves mystery....

Allen Hynek: I don't understand how you got all that.

Irene Hughes: It came right through this [wallet] very very clearly. It just really did as I held it on my solar plexus....

Killer SMS Rumors, Egypt

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jfZ5c-30tUCHkOiw-TRIcLGYhOkg

Agence France-Presse
25 March 2009

Egypt tries to hang up on killer SMS rumours

CAIRO (AFP) — The Egyptian government has sought to dispel rumours that a mobile phone text message "from unknown foreign quarters" is spreading around the country and killing those who receive it.

The extraordinary move by Egypt's health and interior ministries follows press reports that an SMS containing a special combination of numbers killed a man in the town of Mallawi south of Cairo.

"He died vomiting blood, followed by stroke, shortly after he received a message from an unknown phone number," the Egyptian Gazette reported on Wednesday. [...]

[For earlier reports, see this blog's "Deadly Phone Virus."]

Vampire Rumors at Boston School

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/03/boston_latin_of.html

The Boston Globe
26 March 2009

Boston Latin officials seek to quash 'vampire' rumors

By Martin Finucane and Maria Cramer, Globe Staff

A school administrator wants to set the record straight: There are no vampires at Boston Latin.

The headmaster of the prestigious exam school took the unusual step today of sending a notice to faculty, students, and parents saying that "rumors involving 'vampires'" had begun spreading through the building Wednesday, causing disruption and anxiety for a number of students. [...]

Merkins on Broadway

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03252009/gossip/pagesix/hair_for_real_161195.htm

New York Post
25 March 2009

Page Six [gossip column]

Paula Froelich

HAIR FOR REAL

IT'S the real thing when it comes to the full-frontal nudity in the revival of "Hair." A rumor floating around Broadway was that the actresses playing the unshaven '60s hippies in the rock musical were being fitted with pubic hairpieces so they wouldn't have to give up their Brazilian waxes. But a rep for the show, which opens Tuesday at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, says all hair will be strictly home grown. "It's all natural. There are no merkins in the show at all," he laughed. [...]

[This is one of those things that could be either a genuine rumor or a publicist's fiction.]

Security Scanners & Exploding Fish

http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2009/03/25/column.hotline.sto

Herald Times [Bloomington, IN]
25 March 2009

Hotline: Exploding fish at Wal-Mart?

by Rebecca Robbins

Lift up your fish through ye mighty gates

QUESTION: Standing in the check out lane at Wal-Mart, I overheard a conversation between a cashier and a woman buying aquarium fish. The cashier told the woman not to take the fish through the scanner that deactivates the anti-theft devices, because it will cause the fish to explode and die. Apparently when leaving the store you should raise the fish over your head while walking through the scanners. Is there any truth to this? [...]

S.H., Bloomington

[Wal-Mart and the scanner manufacturer deny it.]

Did Andre the Giant Try Out for the Redskins?

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dcsportsbog/2009/03/andre_the_giant_never_tried_ou.html

Washington Post
24 March 2009

D.C. Sports Bog [Blog]

By Dan Steinberg

Andre the Giant Never Tried Out for the Redskins

"After wrestling in Japan and Canada for a few years, the 27-year-old [Andre the Giant] came under the wing of Vincent K. McMahon and the World Wide Wrestling Federation in 1973," Andre's official WWE Hall of Fame bio reads. "Though the company would change dramatically, Andre would remain with the McMahon family for the next 20 years; he was even offered a contract by the NFL's Washington Redskins in 1974, but turned it down to stay in the ring." [...]

U-Boat in Solway Firth

http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/opinion/letters/u_boat_mystery_folklore_1_531237?referrerPath=opinion/

News & Star [UK]
25 March 2009

Letters

U-Boat mystery folklore

I have been reading about the German U-Boat which came up the Solway Firth during the First World War. I heard about it many years ago when I was very young.

My mother was then just 13-years-old at the time that she saw the German U-Boat come on the beach at Parton.

She told me that a German officer came on the shore and told the crowd that they were not going to harm them.

The big guns were firing shells at Haig Pit.

He told them that some German soldiers were working down the pit and that they had come to get them. They must have been prisoners of war.

I am 84 years old and I can still remember that far back.

H J THURSBY
Coronation Drive
Frizington

Teens Taking Cow Drugs for Abortions

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/41610652.html

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel [WI]
20 March 2009

Reports surface that teens are taking cow drugs for abortions

By Erin Richards of the Journal Sentinel

Veterinary and medical professionals in Wisconsin said Friday that they have been warned about a potentially alarming practice among the state's rural youth: teenage girls ingesting livestock drugs to cheaply and discreetly end their unwanted pregnancies. [...]

Text Messages: Student Will Be Shot (Delaware)

http://www.sussexcountian.com/news/education/x1331536531/Seaford-Woodbridge-students-receive-death-threat-texts

Sussex Countian [Georgetown, DE]
20 March 2009

Seaford, Woodbridge students receive death-threat texts

By Patrick Varine
Delaware State Police

WESTERN SUSSEX - Seaford-area schools are currently on Level 1 lockdown, according to the Delaware State Police, after a Seaford student received a text message threatening that they would be shot between 8 a.m. and noon. Police also said a Woodbrige High student received a similar message. [...]

http://www.sussexcountian.com/homepage/x2087807141

Sussex Countian [Georgetown, DE]
21 March 2009

DSP: Seaford woman, 19, started text-threat chain

By Submission
Delaware State Police

SUSSEX COUNTY - State police have arrested a total of four persons in relation to the threatening text messages that generated significant police presence in local schools in the Seaford and Woodbridge School Districts on Friday.

Moreover, DSP learned the incident was conspired amongst three persons after they learned of the Wal-Mart urban myth that circulated the area on Wednesday afternoon. The text messages threatening of a shooting first at Seaford, then Woodbridge, was done with an attempt to create a similar reaction within the community - with the ultimate goal to alarm people a shooting was going to occur in the schools. [...]

http://www.delmarvanow.com/article/20090325/DW01/903250339/-1/DW

delmarvanow.com
25 March 2009

Shooting, bomb threats hit schools
Four people charged in incident that resulted in lockdowns, dismissals, closures

By Terri Sanginiti
The News Journal

SEAFORD -- Schools throughout Sussex were put on lockdown following shooting threats in the western portion of the county and bomb threats in the east.

In Seaford, an adult and two juveniles were arrested Friday in connection with threatening text messages about a shooting at Seaford and Woodbridge high schools. The juveniles were students at Seaford High School, said state police Spokesman Sgt. Joshua Bushweller. [...]

Light's Fort Tunnel, Lebanon, Pa.

http://www.ldnews.com/news/ci_11968718

Lebanon Daily News [PA]
21 March 2009

Light’s at the end of the Tunnel
Believers, detractors still vying over legend

By BRAD RHEN
Staff Writer

[It is rumored that a tunnel exists under downtown Lebanon, Pa., connecting to Light's Fort, and which was used by residents to escape Indian attacks in the 18th and 19th centuries.]

Smoking Smarties Could Lead to Nose Maggots

[The WSJ reports on a children's fad in which the powder of crushed candies is blown from the mouth or nose, thus mimicking the exhalation of cigarette smoke. Oren Friedman, a nose specialist at the Mayo Clinic, cautions that a habit of "smoking Smarties" could result in "infections or even worse, albeit rare, conditions, such as maggots that feed on sugary dust wedged inside the nose."]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123750945477390601.html

Wall Street Journal

20 March 2009

Just Say No....to Smarties? Faux Smoking Has Parents Fuming

Crush Candy, Suck In Dust, Blow Out Puffs; Schools Fear It'll Make Cigarettes Cool

By DIONNE SEARCEY

Wal-Mart Gang Initiation

[A Wal-Mart gang initiation rumor has spread across the U.S. in the past couple of days. Check out Google News for scores of reports from Florida to Hawaii. The following article describes how the rumor got Alfred Saurage arrested when the guns right advocate refused to remove his .45 after entering a Ruston, La., Wal-Mart, scaring the bejesus out of store workers and shoppers. -- bc]

http://rustonleader.com/news.php?id=5061

The Ruston Daily Leader [LA]

19 March 2009

Tech student arrested at Wal-Mart
Text message about gang violence stokes concerns over student's gun

Nick Todaro, Reporter

Pension Claim for Corpse in Wheelchair

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=15&art_id=nw20090318094825528C758682

The Independent Online [South Africa]
8 March 2009

'Dead man' claim pension money

Johannesburg - Three women allegedly strapped a dead man to a wheelchair to claim his pension money from the Post Office, Beeld newspaper reported on Wednesday. [...]

The Curse of Colonel Sanders

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20090311p2a00m0na006000c.html

Mainichi Daily News [Japan]
11 March 2009

Tigers fans hope discovery of long-lost fast-food icon will lift 'Curse of Colonel Sanders'

A statue of Kentucky Fried Chicken's Colonel Sanders tossed into Osaka's Dotonbori River some 24 years ago by rowdy Hanshin Tigers fans has been discovered. […]

The Hanshin Tigers have not won the Japan Series since 1985, a fact attributed by some to the "Curse of Colonel Sanders." […]

Starbucks Logo = Queen Esther

http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD227609

The Middle East Media Research Institute
10 March 2009
Special Dispatch - No. 2276

Egyptian Cleric Safwat Higazi Calls to Shut Down Starbucks in the Arab and Islamic World, Saying: Their Logo is the Jewish Queen Esther

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1236676913500&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

The Jerusalem Post
11 March 2009

Egyptian cleric blasts Starbucks for 'Queen Esther' logo

By JPOST.COM STAFF

As Jews around the world are celebrating Purim, one Egyptian cleric has used the holiday to launch an attack against Starbucks, claiming that the woman in the logo of the international chain is Queen Esther, and her presence warrants a boycott of the company throughout the Arab world. […]

Children Found in Cargo Container (Trinidad & Tobago)

http://guardian.co.tt/news/general/2009/03/04/children-container-hoax-shuts-down-port

The Guardian [Trinidad and Tobago]
3 March 2009

Children in container hoax shuts down port

There was a complete shutdown of the Port-of-Spain Port yesterday as rumours spread throughout the country that a container with missing children had been discovered. The airwaves of radio and television stations, along with newspaper newsrooms, were buzzing with activity, as concerned people called about the rumours. […]

http://guardian.co.tt/news/general/2009/03/06/telecom-body-launches-probe-children-container-hoax

The Guardian [Trinidad and Tobago]
6 March 2009

Telecom body launches probe into children in container hoax

http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/0,96278.html

Newsday [Trinidad and Tobago]
7 March 2009

Police: Ignore children in container email

By NALINEE SEELAL

Police have again dismissed persistent rumours of children being found in a container as untrue and said an email being circulated that the report was not a hoax was a mischievous plot. […]

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_news?id=161448686

Trinidad and Tobago Express
7 March 2009

PM slams media on 'container hoax'

Juhel Browne

Lord Mandelson: Custard or Guacamole?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5856186.ece

The Times [London]
6 March 2009

Protester throws green custard in the face of Lord Mandelson and walks away

Nico Hines

A female protester hurled green custard into the face of Lord Mandelson today before calmly walking away and evading arrest in an embarrassing security breach. […]

Lord Mandelson later treated the attack with a light touch. “Custard, was it? Not guacamole or mushy peas?” he asked, alluding to the apocryphal Westminster tale in which he once walked into a fish-and-chip shop in northern England and mistook the traditional processed pea dish for a more continental avocado dip. […]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7928328.stm

BBC News
6 March 2009

Mandelson: 'Guacamole or mushy peas?'

The Business Secretary Lord had green custard thrown in his face by a protester as he arrived at a summit on creating a low-carbon economy in London.

After cleaning up, he gave his reaction to the incident.

[Video clip]

[On the legend that Mandelson once mistook mushy peas for guacamole, see Paul Screeton, Mars Bar & Mushy Peas (Heart of Albion Press, 2008), pp. 38-48.]