| November 25, 2008 | -
Ann Coulter had her mouth wired shut.
| Source:
Huffington Post
|
| September 4, 2008 | - A British teenager's head swelled to the size of a soccer ball after she consumed a Baileys-chili-tequila-absinthe-ouzo-vodka-cider-and-gin cocktail.
| Source:
BBC
|
| August 23, 2008 | - At the court-martial of Army Lt. Col. Steven Jordan, the only officer to be charged in the Abu Ghraib scandal, witnesses for the prosecution said that Jordan did not “sign off on anything,” and that he had “nothing to do with the interrogations,” and “nothing to do with those detainees being abused.” The prosecution later rested its case.
| Source:
IHT
|
| July 13, 2008 | - The Green Party selected Cynthia McKinney, the first African-American woman elected to Congress from Georgia, as its 2008 presidential nominee.
| Source:
ABC
|
| May 31, 2008 | - The family of a former chemist for Procter & Gamble who designed the Pringles potato-chip can buried a portion of his ashes in a Pringles can.
| Source:
Cincinnati Enguirer
|
| April 28, 2008 | - All three candidates taped messages for World Wrestling Entertainment's “W.W.E. Raw”: Clinton declared herself “ready to rumble” for the American people; Obama, echoing former wrestler Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, asked, “Do you smell what Barack is cooking?”; McCain, speaking with a surly tone, equated the Iraq war with a wrestling match and said that Americans “do not watch wrestling because we're 'bitter,'” but rather because “wrestling is about celebrating our freedom.”
| Source:
New York Times
|
| April 24, 2008 | - C3, the firm that developed Disneyland, announced plans to build a $500 million amusement park in Baghdad.
| Source:
Times
|
| February 12, 2008 | - Patty Hearst attended the Westminster Kennel Club dog
show with Diva, her French bulldog. “When people find out it's me,” said Hearst, a veteran of the Symbionese Liberation Army, “it's like it doesn't make sense.”
| Source:
Star Tribune
|
| October 29, 2007 | - Self-proclaimed real-life superheroes such as “Red Justice” and “Direction Man” gathered for an anonymous meeting in Times Square. “I don’t have many friends," explained “The Super,” who fixes faucets in a cape.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 13, 2007 | - Guru Sri Chinmoy, author of 1,500 books and organizer of the Self-Transcendence 3,100, the world’s longest footrace, died of a heart attack.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 25, 2007 | -
Nike unveiled the Air Native, a sneaker that has a larger fit for the distinct foot shape of American Indians and features several “heritage callouts,” including sunrise patterns, feather designs, and stars representing the night sky.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| July 8, 2007 | - President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin rode Segway scooters together.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| June 22, 2007 | -
Six Flags closed eight thrill rides across the country after a teenage girl in Kentucky had her feet severed on the Superman Tower of Power.
-
Six Flags closed eight thrill rides across the country after a teenage girl in Kentucky had her feet severed on the Superman Tower of Power.
| Source:
AP via Wave3 Louisville, KY
|
| June 21, 2007 | - Authorities in New Zealand prevented a couple from naming their baby “4real” because the name included a numeral.
- Authorities in New Zealand prevented a couple from naming their baby “4real” because the name included a numeral.
| Source:
AP via CNN
|
| May 25, 2007 | - Historic cemeteries across the United States were attempting to attract new customers through dog parades, jazz concerts, designer mausoleums, and Renaissance faires.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| April 17, 2007 | -
Republican presidential candidate Tommy Thompson gave a speech at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. “I'm earning money,” he said, referring to his life in the private sector. “You know that's sort of part of the Jewish tradition, and I do not find anything wrong with that.”
| Source:
Haaretz
|
| April 13, 2007 | - A study found that students who participated in federally endorsed sexual abstinence
programs were as likely to have sex as those who did not. “This report confirms that these interventions are not like vaccines. You can't expect one . . . small dose to be protective all throughout the youth's high school career,” said the commissioner of the Family and Youth Services Bureau.
| Source:
AP via CNN
|
| March 27, 2007 | - A Nepalese teenager believed to be a reincarnation of the Buddha began a three-year meditation in a concrete bunker.
| Source:
AFP via Yahoo!NEWS Singapore
|
| March 21, 2007 | -
Al Gore returned to Capitol Hill to testify that global warming is a planetary emergency. Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts called Gore a prophet, and Rep. John Dingell of Michigan addressed him as “Mr. President.” Joe Barton of Texas, the leading Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, told Gore he was “totally wrong” and that, if need be, Republican lawmakers would stay late for an “all-out cat fight” with Democrats. Ralph Hall, also of Texas, speculated that Gore's attack on the energy industry could result in war “when and if OPEC nations abandon the U.S.A.,” and Roscoe Bartlett (R., Md.) said that he thought it was “probably possible to be a conservative without appearing to be an idiot.”
| Source 1:
AP vie Breitbart
Source 2:
Huffington Post
|
| February 17, 2007 | -
Britney Spears
shaved her head.
| Source:
AP via CNN
|
| February 13, 2007 | -
Richard Branson offered a $25 million prize to anyone who can remove a billion tons of carbon dioxide per year from the atmosphere.
| Source:
NYT
|
| February 6, 2007 | -
Rudy Giuliani officially declared his candidacy for the presidency of the United States.
| Source:
CNN
|
| January 27, 2007 | - The Bush Administration suggested that scientists find ways to counteract greenhouse-gas emissions by blocking out the sun. “Possible techniques include putting a giant screen into orbit,” read one newspaper's paraphrase of the suggested U.S. recommendations. “[Or] thousands of tiny, shiny balloons.”
| Source:
Guardian
|
| January 25, 2007 | - At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Adel Abdul Mahdi, the Vice President of Iraq, called the occupation of Iraq an “idiot decision.”
| Source:
Reuters
|
| November 30, 2006 | - The Center for the Digital Future announced that the average Internet user will make 4.6 “virtual pals” this year.
| Source:
BBC
|
| November 28, 2006 | - Matt Lauer, host of the Today Show, declared the onset of civil war in Iraq. Lauer's former co-host and current CBS anchor Katie Couric refused to agree with Lauer, insisting instead that Iraq had only slipped “ever closer” to civil war; ABC's Charles Gibson, another former morning television host, said, “You can call it anarchy, you can call it chaos, you can call it civil war . . . "
| Source:
Boston Globe and Newsbuster.org
|
| November 22, 2006 | - In Washington, D.C., President George W. Bush
pardoned two turkeys, Flyer and Fryer.
| Source:
AP via local6.com
|
| November 20, 2006 | - Across the United States, violent fights broke out among people waiting in line to buy a Playstation 3, even though reviewers said that the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii were better gaming consoles.
| Source 1:
MSNBC
Source 2:
Engadget
Source 3:
The New York Times
|
| November 9, 2006 | - The walls of a prison in Missouri were painted pink and accented with stenciled teddy bears. “We made it like a day care,” explained Sheriff Mike Rackley.
| Source:
CourtTVNews
|
| October 30, 2006 | - In Beijing, volunteers giving out free hugs were detained by police. “Embracing is a foreign tradition,” said one citizen. “Chinese are not accustomed to this.”
| Source:
Reuters via Yahoo! News
|
| October 18, 2006 | - A Massachusetts
elementary school
banned
tag.
| Source:
CBS News
|
| October 10, 2006 | - Right-wing columnist Christopher Hitchens confessed that he had eaten a dog.
| Source:
Daily Mirror
|
| October 9, 2006 | -
Google announced that it would buy YouTube for $1.65 billion.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| October 4, 2006 | -
Britain's Prince William played bingo.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| September 22, 2006 | -
Paris Hilton gave a homeless man $100.
| Source:
The Superficial via Nerve.com
|
| September 22, 2006 | -
Michael Jackson was considering opening a leprechaun-themed
amusement park in Ireland.
| Source:
MSNBC
|
| September 20, 2006 | -
Ted Turner called the Iraq war one of the “dumbest moves of all time.”
| Source:
CNN
|
| September 17, 2006 | - A British man died when he fell off a cliff while flying his kite.
| Source:
The Guardian
|
| September 13, 2006 | - In Indonesia gray mud seeping from the ground had inundated an area the size of Monaco; the chief of the hamlet of Kedungbendo met with psychics for advice. “Moses had a stick to part the sea,” explained Haji Hasan. “So, probably there is someone with powers out there who could help.”
| Source:
Reuters
|
| September 5, 2006 | -
Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, died after a stingray stabbed him in the heart.
| Source:
NEWS.co.au
|
| August 28, 2006 | - In Russia a participant in a sex-doll
river-rafting
race was disqualified for sexually abusing his rafting apparatus. “I think,” said the man's friend, “it was an expression of his great desire to win.”
| Source:
MOSNEWS.COM
|
| August 24, 2006 | -
F.D.A. representative Dr. Janet Woodcock said that selling the Plan B contraceptive over the counter would transform it into an “urban legend” that would tempt adolescents to create “sex-based cults.”
| Source:
New York Times
|
| August 14, 2006 | - It was reported that NASA had lost the original high-resolution tapes of the July 1969 moon landing.
| Source 1:
AOL Log Search
Source 2:
The Independent
|
| July 31, 2006 | - Hot weather killed 141 people (as well as 25,000 cattle and 700,000 fowl) in California, at least 170 people in France, Italy, and Spain, and dozens of racing dogs in Oregon, and shut down MySpace.
| Source:
CBS
|
| July 27, 2006 | - Threatening letters sent to federal officials by Donald Ray Bilby, 30, who is currently serving time for auto theft in Trenton, New Jersey, included his full name, signature, and inmate number.
| Source:
Mail and Guardian
|
| July 23, 2006 | - Two people in England were killed by a giant inflatable sculpture named Dreamscape.
| Source 1:
USAgNet.com
Source 2:
AFP via Taipei Times
Source 3:
Cape Times
Source 4:
local6.com
Source 5:
local6.com
Source 6:
BBC
|
| July 19, 2006 | - President George W. Bush issued his first executive veto, striking down a bill that would have expanded federal research involving embryonic stem cells.
| Source:
NY Times
|
| July 14, 2006 | - A German man, on trial for robbery, was caught stealing from the judge during his hearing.
| Source:
Reuters via Yahoo! News
|
| July 7, 2006 | - New research confirmed that smoking and obesity increase the risk of erectile dysfunction.
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
Reuters
|
| July 5, 2006 | -
North Korea launched six rockets over the Sea of Japan, including a Taepodong-2 intercontinental ballistic missile, which apparently was aborted after just 40 seconds. One thing we have learned, said President George W. Bush, who strongly dislikes North Korea's Dear Leader Kim Jong Il, “is that the rocket didn't stay up very long.” The president, who expressed annoyance when a reporter pointed out that Kim Jong Il had on all accounts increased his nuclear potency since Bush took office, claimed that his antimissile system, which has failed repeated tests, had a “reasonable chance” of intercepting the Taepodong.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| July 5, 2006 | - “I'm going to make you this promise,” President George W. Bush
told a crowd of soldiers in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, “I'm not going to allow the sacrifice of 2,527 troops who have died in Iraq to be in vain by pulling out before the job is done.”
| Source:
New York Times
|
| July 5, 2006 | - A megachurch called the World Overcomers congregation in Memphis, Tennessee, unveiled a 72-foot-tall replica of the Statue of Liberty (with the Ten Commandments under one arm, a tear on her cheek, and “Jehovah” inscribed on her crown) holding a cross of gold.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| June 30, 2006 | -
David Hasselhoff hit his head on a chandelier while shaving.
| Source:
AP via AOL News
|
| June 20, 2006 | - The theme of the 2006 World Refugee Day was hope.
| Source:
VOA via Google News
|
| June 19, 2006 | - In Iraq an Islamic militant group claimed that it had kidnapped two U.S. soldiers, 23-year-old Kristian Menchaca and 25-year-old Thomas L. Tucker. The Army sent 8,000 Iraqi and U.S. troops, supported by fighter jets and drones, to search for the missing soldiers.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| June 14, 2006 | - In Thailand a man killed two soccer fans because he was annoyed by their cheering.
| Source:
USA Today
|
| June 2, 2006 | - A U.S. soldier was sentenced to 90 days' hard labor for threatening a prisoner at Abu Ghraib with a dog in 2003. “You can . . . end up losing the whole dang war,” said the prosecuting attorney, “basically for boneheaded decisions and misjudgments.”
| Source:
The Washington Post
|
| May 30, 2006 | - It was declared that Batwoman will be a lesbian.
| Source:
BBC
|
| May 26, 2006 | - A Sherpa stood naked on the summit of Mount Everest.
| Source:
Indobase
|
| May 24, 2006 | - In Ontario, Canada, a man was arrested ten minutes after stealing a hand-held vagina. "He had used it," said a constable.
| Source:
AZCentral.com
|
| May 17, 2006 | - In Alaska an elephant named Maggie was refusing to use her $100,000
treadmill.
| Source:
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
|
| May 17, 2006 | -
Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly warned that "many far-left thinkers believe the white power structure that controls America is bad."
| Source:
Media Matters
|
| May 16, 2006 | - A patent was filed for a Pentagon-funded "controllable launcher for propelling a payload" that can shoot SWAT teams onto the roofs of tall buildings.
| Source:
The Register
|
| May 5, 2006 | - In Valparaiso, Indiana, a deaf man got into a fight with a man with two prosthetic legs; police later arrested the deaf man via a note.
| Source:
Breitbart.com
|
| May 4, 2006 | - In New York City, an Italian tourist was attacked and suffered a broken arm after he sat down on a motorcycle that was parked outside the local Hells Angels clubhouse.
| Source:
The New York Post
|
| May 1, 2006 | - A 1918 letter emerged that appears to show that the members of the Yale
Skull and Bones society stole the skull of the Apache leader Geronimo from its grave, and may have used it in rituals.
| Source:
Yale Alumni Magazine
|
| April 29, 2006 | - A Liverpool, England, man was sentenced to 100 hours of community service for getting drunk and singing "YMCA" on a flight from Florida to Manchester while his wife wept and comforted their three children. "He makes no excuses," said the man's lawyer, "for his loutish, idiotic behavior."
| Source:
Mirror.co.uk
|
| April 26, 2006 | -
President Bush named Tony Snow, a Fox News host, as the new White House press secretary.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| April 24, 2006 | - In Loreto, Mexico, a 17-year-old boy was killed at a horse race when he attempted to stop a horse from reaching the finish line by jumping in front of it.
| Source:
AZCentral.com
|
| April 16, 2006 | - Prince Albert of Monaco reached the North Pole.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| April 12, 2006 | - In Athens, Georgia, several agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms briefly detained a University of Georgia student who was dressed as a ninja. “Seeing someone with something across the face,” said a special agent, “from a federal standpoint—that's not right.” The student said he was leaving a pirate vs. ninja event.
| Source:
RedAndBlack.com
|
| April 11, 2006 | - A member of MiniKiss, a KISS tribute band made up of dwarves, denied that he had tried to sneak past security at a Las Vegas concert of Tiny Kiss, a KISS tribute band made up of three little people and a 350-pound woman.
| Source:
The Los Angeles Times
|
| April 10, 2006 | - The Bush Administration continued to plan a major air attack on Iran; a highly placed government consultant said that President George W. Bush believes that "saving Iran is going to be his legacy."
| Source:
The New Yorker
|
| March 21, 2006 | - It was revealed that prior to the U.S. invasion, Iraqi foreign minister Naji Sabri had, for a fee, provided the United States with detailed assessments of Iraq's military capabilities. Sabri's assessments of Iraq's nuclear and biological weapons capabilities proved, in hindsight, to be far more reliable than the CIA estimates used to justify the invasion; the CIA had no comment on why the data was ignored.
| Source:
MSNBC via Commondreams
|
| March 3, 2006 | -
Condoleezza Rice appeared on television lifting weights and stretching at the gym. "You'd be surprised," she said, "how many places around the world have gyms or exercise machines."
| Source:
NBC News via Wonkette
|
| February 5, 2006 | - At least 7,600 U.S. soldiers had been severely wounded serving in Iraq. "I can drink beer out of my leg," said Matthew Braddock, a 25-year-old National Guardsman who lost his left foot and nine inches of his left leg to a mine in northern Iraq. "How many people can do that?"
| Source:
Time
|
| February 4, 2006 | - A man ate 173 chicken wings in Philadelphia.
| Source:
AP via Yahoo! News
|
| February 2, 2006 | - Representative John Boehner (R., Ohio), who belongs to a male-only golf club, whose political-action committee took money from Jack Abramoff but did not return it after Abramoff was indicted, and who in 1995 handed out checks from tobacco-company lobbyists on the House floor, was elected via instant runoff voting to replace Tom DeLay as House Majority Leader. The Republican Party, said Boehner, "must act swiftly to restore the trust between Congress and the American people." Boehner also said that he had "a very open relationship with lobbyists in town." "We are," said Representative Michael Oxley (R., Ohio), "somewhat tilting at windmills."
| Source 1:
The New York Times
Source 2:
Bloomberg.com
Source 3:
The Nation via Yahoo! News
Source 4:
Sign On San Diego
|
| January 30, 2006 | - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced that the United States would cut off aid to Palestine if Hamas assumed power without changing its policies. "I've asked why nobody saw it coming," said Rice, even though publications like The Guardian and the The New York Times had, since at least 2003, published regular reports on the increasing popularity of Hamas in Palestine. "It does say something about us not having a good enough pulse."
| Source 1:
CNN.com
Source 2:
The New York Times
Source 3:
Gawker.com
Source 4:
The Guardian
|
| January 25, 2006 | - Several women in Missouri were sick with infections after receiving tattoos from a door-to-door tattoo salesman.
| Source:
TheKansasCityChannel.com
|
| January 18, 2006 | - The French
face-transplant patient was smoking through her recently grafted-on lips.
| Source:
MSNBC
|
| January 13, 2006 | -
Pat Robertson apologized to Ariel Sharon's son, Omri, for being “inappropriate and insensitive” when he said that Sharon's illness was God's punishment. It remained unclear, however, whether Robertson would once again be permitted to build a theme park by the Sea of Galilee.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| November 30, 2005 | - The White House put up nearly 600 feet of garland and erected an 18-and-a-half-foot fir tree decorated with tulips and azaleas in honor of this year's Christmas theme, “All Things Bright and Beautiful.”
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| November 24, 2005 | - Former Canadian Minister of Defense Paul Hellyer called on Canadian Parliament to hold hearings on the best way to deal with extraterrestrials. “I'm so concerned about what the consequences might be of starting an intergalactic war,” said Hellyer, “that I just think I had to say something.”
| Source:
PRWeb
|
| October 28, 2005 | -
Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination to the Supreme Court.
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| October 28, 2005 | - An Oregon woman won $1 million in the lottery, but was discovered to have purchased the winning ticket with a stolen credit card. If convicted, she will not be able to collect any prize money.
| Source:
CNN
|
| September 29, 2005 | - President George W. Bush nominated Harriet Miers, a White House lawyer who has never been a judge, to the Supreme Court. Miers has allegedly described Bush as "brilliant."
| Source:
David Frum’s Diary/NRO
|
| August 31, 2005 | - President Bush decided to end his month-long vacation two days early and return to Washington, D.C. During his trip, Air Force One flew low over New Orleans. “This was a natural disaster,” said Bush.
| Source 1:
The Washington Post
Source 2:
The Village Voice
|
| August 26, 2005 | - In Brooklyn, New York, a recurring hip-hop party night called "Kill Whitie," marketed to white people, was under criticism as racist. Fans of the party, which offers free admission to anyone with a bucket of fried chicken, defended the event as "funny."
| Source:
MSNBC
|
| July 22, 2005 | -
Michael Jackson announced that he would build another Neverland near Berlin.
| Source:
The Guardian
|
| July 18, 2005 | - Investigations into the expenses of former Tyco executive Dennis Kozlowski revealed that Kozlowski had once held an extravagant
bachelor party for his son-in-law. “It wasn't like a three-ring circus,” said the son-in-law's father. “It was a nice party. There was only one dwarf.”
| Source:
New York Daily News
|
| July 11, 2005 | - It cost $75 to bleach
your
anus in Los Angeles.
| Source:
The Village Voice
|
| July 3, 2005 | - A Japanese man recited 83,431 digits of pi.
| Source:
Japan Today
|
| June 25, 2005 | - At the U.S. Justice Department, the $8,000 modesty curtains used to cover the bareness of the statues of Majesty of Justice and Spirit of Justice were removed, once again exposing an aluminum nipple.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| June 14, 2005 | - A British man pleaded guilty to unloading a fire extinguisher into his friend's anus. “It was just horseplay that went wrong,” said the man's lawyer.
| Source:
The Daily Record
|
| June 8, 2005 | -
Paul Anka
released an album on which he sings "The Lovecats" by The Cure and "Eyes Without a Face" by Billy Idol.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| June 3, 2005 | -
Berlin police, acting on a kidnapping tip, stopped a car and pulled a man from the car's trunk; it turned out the man, wearing only a thong and collar, was a voluntary sex slave.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| May 30, 2005 | -
Disney digitally reduced the size of Lindsay Lohan's breasts to make a film called Herbie: Fully Loaded less offensive.
| Source:
Hollywood.com
|
| May 24, 2005 | - Officials in Zurich decided that a massive teddy bear in bondage regalia could not be put on display as part of the city's “Teddy-Summer” project.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| May 6, 2005 | - The Kansas state school board began four days of hearings on how to teach the origin of life; all of the witnesses in the hearing were opposed to teaching evolution.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| May 1, 2005 | - Laura Bush told jokes at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner. She accused her husband of attempting to milk a male horse and compared her mother-in-law to a Mafia don. “I am a desperate housewife,” she said.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| April 28, 2005 | - George W. Bush gave his fourth prime-time news conference and took a firm stance against North Korea. “Perhaps Kim Jong Il has got the capacity to launch a weapon,” he said. “Wouldn't it be nice to be able to shoot it down?” North Korea then fired a missile into the Sea of Japan.
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
VOA
|
| April 24, 2005 | - The Venezuelan government announced “Operation Dulcinea,” which will distribute one million copies of the novel Don Quixote to the public. “We're still oppressed by giants,” said the Venezuelan minister of culture.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| April 22, 2005 | - Many people thought that a stain on a wall in Chicago was actually a miraculous apparition of the Virgin Mary.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| April 16, 2005 | - The $90 million Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum opened in Springfield, Illinois. It features special effects created by Stan Winston Studios--which did the effects for Jurassic Park--and a life-sized model of Navy Secretary Gideon Welles with a terrible toupee.
| Source:
LATimes.com
|
| March 30, 2005 | - Developers in England were about to start construction on Dickens World, a $113 million theme park that will offer an Ebenezer Scrooge ride and Dickens characters on ice.
| Source:
SEEDA
|
| March 30, 2005 | - In Shanghai, a man stabbed and killed another man for selling their jointly owned imaginary
cyber-sword without sharing the proceeds.
| Source:
ABC News
|
| March 24, 2005 | -
New Yorkers were bothered by the delays in their subway service, which are often announced via old, half-broken loudspeakers making pronouncements like: "Ladies and gentlemen, because of a brflig fraptail at 116th Street, the uptown 6 train will frip deet brak croob.”
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 23, 2005 | -
Ozzy Osbourne said that in times of loneliness he talks to his knees.
| Source:
Ananova.com
|
| March 13, 2005 | - Online gamers were outsourcing the hard parts of video-game playing to Romania.
| Source:
The Guardian
|
| March 10, 2005 | - A new service, Talktoaliens.com, allowed people to send messages directly into space via telephone for $3.99 a minute.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| March 10, 2005 | - Dan Rather left the CBS Evening News. “Courage,” he said.
| Source:
CTV
|
| March 4, 2005 | - A very rich man flew
solo around the world in sixty-seven hours.
| Source:
The Guardian
|
| March 1, 2005 | - Three anonymous donors gave $3 million to resurrect the cancelled TV show “Star Trek: Enterprise.”
| Source:
TrekUnited.com
|
| February 28, 2005 | - The Israeli army denied high-level security clearance to soldiers who play Dungeons & Dragons.
| Source:
YNet News
|
| January 26, 2005 | - Condoleezza Rice was sworn in as secretary of state, despite Senator Mark Dayton's objection during her confirmation hearing that "I really don't like being lied to repeatedly, flagrantly, intentionally."
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| January 19, 2005 | - and Condoleezza Rice was thinking that the tsunami presented a "wonderful opportunity" for the U.S. to make friends in Asia.
| Source:
Los Angeles Daily News
|
| December 23, 2004 | - A man in Calcutta was killed when his co-workers at a rubber factory playfully inserted the tube of an air pump into his anus.
| Source:
Telegraph India
|
| December 15, 2004 | - United States military officials couldn't explain the failure of the most recent missile shield test, but maintained that it was "a very good training exercise."
| Source:
Guardian
|
| December 15, 2004 | - and an Australian man nearly died after his "jug helmet," a beer-drinking device made from a hose and a power drill, malfunctioned.
| Source:
The West Australian
|
| November 4, 2004 | - American soldiers admitted to watching Iraqi looters haul off tons of explosives from the Al Qaqaa ammunition depot.
| Source:
Los Angeles Times
|
| November 4, 2004 | - A poll taken just before the election showed that 75 percent of Bush supporters still believe that Iraq either was a close ally of Al Qaeda or was directly involved in the September 11 attacks.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 28, 2004 | -
President Bush suggested that the missing explosives from the Al Qaqaa military facility might have been removed before the invasion, and he claimed that by criticizing him John Kerry is "denigrating the action of our troops."
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| October 28, 2004 | - Several news agencies confirmed that their embedded reporters were present at the facility with American troops and that they saw boxes labeled as explosives; KSTP Television in Minneapolis broadcast footage taken at Al Qaqaa of boxes of high explosives. KSTP also photographed the seal of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which indicates that the explosives were known to be associated with Iraq's former nuclear program.
| Source:
KSTP.com
|
| October 24, 2004 | - The interim Iraqi government officially notified the International Atomic Energy Agency that 380 tons of extremely powerful HMX and RDX explosives that American forces simply failed to secure have disappeared from a former military facility called Al Qaqaa. The explosives can be used to destroy buildings, arm missile warheads, and detonate nuclear devices, and it was generally conceded that the Al Qaqaa cache, which was under seal by the IAEA prior to the U.S. invasion, is the most likely source of the explosives used in the extremely effective roadside and suicide bombs that have been the primary weapon of the Iraqi insurgency. The Department of Defense has known about the loss of the explosives for more than a year.
| Source:
The Nelson Report
|
| October 24, 2004 | - A National Guard jet accidentally bombed a hiking trail Pennsylvania.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| October 10, 2004 | - A nineteen-year-old Singapore man set a world record for the number of hamburgers he could stuff in his mouth. "I'm on top of the world right now," he said," because everyone's going to know that I can shove more than three burgers in my mouth."
| Source:
Associated Press
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| September 15, 2004 | - Many of those governors praised Putin's plans; few politicians dared criticize them. Colin Powell expressed "concerns."
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New York Times
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| August 29, 2004 | - Demand for buttock augmentation surgery was on the rise.
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Telegraph
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| August 11, 2004 | - President Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan ordered the construction of a palace of ice.
| Source:
BBC
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| July 22, 2004 | - A woman in South Africa
accidentally put a 100-year-old gold coin into a Cape Town parking meter.
| Source:
Reuters
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| May 22, 2004 | - A former Iraqi prisoner described being sodomized with a nightstick; another said he saw a prison interpreter raping an Iraqi boy as a female soldier took pictures.
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New York Times
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| March 9, 2004 | - A Georgia woman was arrested for trying to pass a fake $1 million bill at a Wal-Mart.
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Associated Press
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| February 11, 2004 | - The British Medical Association reported that smoking increases the risk of impotence, infertility, cervical cancer, miscarriage, stillbirth, sudden infant death syndrome, low birth weight, placental complications, and cleft palate.
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New Scientist
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| February 10, 2004 | -
Bill O'Reilly of Fox News apologized on national television for his uncritical support of the Bush Administration's claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. "I was wrong," he said. "I am not pleased about it at all and I think all Americans should be concerned about this."
| Source:
San Diego Union-Tribune
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| January 22, 2004 | - An expert panel that was asked to review a Pentagon-funded Internet voting system declared that the system was fundamentally flawed. "Using a voting system based on the Internet," said one of the experts, "poses a serious and unacceptable risk for election fraud." The Pentagon nonetheless said that it "stands by" the program, which will be used in several primaries this year. "We feel it's right on," said a spokesman, "and we're going to use it."
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New York Times
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| January 14, 2004 | -
President Bush ordered NASA to build a permanent base on the moon and and to make preparations to send men to Mars; NASA responded by abandoning future maintenance missions for the Hubble Space Telescope, thereby condemning the telescope to a premature death.
| Source:
Space.com
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| January 13, 2004 | - King Mswati III of Swaziland ordered nine palaces to be built for his wives, even though many people in his country are starving.
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Associated Press
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| January 4, 2004 | - A new program (called the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology system, or US-VISIT) was launched to photograph and fingerprint every foreigner who needs a visa to enter the United States. "The system," said one expert, "seems to presume that most terrorists are fools."
| Source:
NY Daily News
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| December 31, 2003 | - In response to the mad-cow crisis, the United States Department of Agriculture banned the human consumption of cow brains, skulls, spinal cords, vertebral columns, eyes, and nerve tissue from cows older than 30 months. Downer cows may no longer be eaten by humans, though they will be boiled down and fed to chickens and pigs, and younger cow brains may still be eaten.
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