LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Having made a fortune off bare-breasted women, “Girls Gone Wild” founder is setting his sights on selling another type of breast.

A restaurant chain under the “Girls Gone Wild” brand name is being planned by Joe Francis, whose Mantra Films Inc.’s has built a $100 million business videotaping and selling the DVDs featuring young women exposing their breasts.

“This is going to be about fun, lifestyle, youth, sun. It’s about everything ‘Girls Gone Wild,”‘ Francis said. “It’s going to be sexy without being sexual.”

dan: awesome. will roofies be on the menu, or will they just be sold out of a vending machine in the men’s room? i’m not actually kidding, by the way.

jay: i can hear your seriousness. the ggw menu will be sort of like the secret menu at in-n-out burger. when you order for your date, it’ll go something like, “and my lady friend here is interested in a chicken sandwich with a side of fries and a vanilla ‘rape-kit’ shake.” she’ll be none the wiser.

dan: i know there’s a milkshake joke in here somewhere, but i don’t feel
like wading through the sweat and vomit to get there.

AP — BOULDER, Colo. — Former child star Brian Bonsall, who played Andy Keaton in “Family Ties,” was arrested on charges of assaulting his girlfriend, police said.

Bonsall was arrested Wednesday after his girlfriend told police he poured an alcoholic drink on her face while she slept, put her in a choke hold and threw her onto a bed when she tried to leave, authorities said.

Bonsall told investigators he pushed the woman down in self-defense after she cut his arm and face with a steak knife, but she denied that, police said.

jay: um, did he have cuts or what? tell me more, associated press! we need to know what happened to little tow-headed andy ‘choke-hold’ keaton! choke hold!

dan: my first thought was to look for a family ties curse, but there’s not much there there. justine bateman hasn’t done much since “satisfaction,” but she’s still got jason’s success to hitch her wagon to. and wikipedia tells me that tina yothers “holds the record…for second highest weight loss…in the history of [celebrity fit club].” so i don’t know what bonsall’s problem is.

Seattle PI — BAINBRIDGE ISLAND — The plot hatched as such things often do, in minds made desperate by fear. It involved chemistry, strategy and notions of a clean getaway.

The victim? An unsuspecting sixth-grade teacher. The weapon? Strawberry lip gloss.

In a caper worthy of Wile E. Coyote’s finest failures, two 12-year-old girls from Bainbridge Island are accused of attempting to elude punishment for a tardy assignment Thursday by poisoning their teacher, Kasey Jeffers, with a flavored lip balm they knew would make her ill.

Jeffers, 58, is violently allergic to strawberries — common knowledge at Sakai Intermediate School, according to police, who arrested the youths on suspicion of assault after they were accused of coating the rim of their teacher’s coffee cup and water bottle with strawberry lip gloss.

“They had discussed using real strawberries but decided that would be fatal and this would just make her sick enough to leave school, which was what they wanted,” said Mark Duncan, the island’s deputy police chief. “It’s 12-year-old thinking at its finest.”

“Apparently, even synthetic strawberry flavor can cause a reaction like this,” said Duncan. “It smells the same and tastes the same because, chemically, it’s close to the same thing.”

jay: actually, it doesn’t seem like an unsound plan once you remove the morally-bankrupt part of it: shoot to wound, not to kill; take the weekend to work on your paper. who would have even thought that the chemical composition would be similar? not me.

By DEREK GATOPOULOS, Associated Press Writer

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — The Greek government suspended play in all professional team sports for two weeks Friday after a fan was killed in a riot before a women’s volleyball match.

The ban, which covers soccer, basketball, volleyball and other sports, will last until April 13.

A man was killed and seven others were hospitalized Thursday when fans from rival women’s volleyball clubs Panathinaikos Athens and Olympiakos Piraeus fought near Athens.

jay: wait, women’s volleyball? dudes were juiced up enough before a women’s sporting event to kill someone? though maybe this wasn’t actually about women’s volleyball? it’s funny to think about people rioting before a wnba game here. it means they’d have to a) know that the wnba is still around b) show up and c) care.

by David Ljunggren — OTTAWA (Reuters) — The first stage of Canada’s controversial annual harp seal hunt is likely to be scrapped…

jay: whoo hoo!

…because the ice floes where pups are born have broken up and many animals have drowned, officials and animal rights activists said on Tuesday.

jay: oh. my. god. boooo. i was so amped when i saw the headline thinking that there was some kind of hidden benefit to climate change. alas, no. it’s kind of worse.

dan: and hear i thought it meant that they just couldn’t keep the PBR cold enough to make it an event.

A woman peers between the gates to the ocean-front home of the late Anna Nicole Smith in Nassau, Bahamas, February 24, 2007. (Hans Deryk/Reuters)

jay: why does this picture strike me as exactly right? is it the weight? is it the tacky? or is it that our generation finally got our elvis? something about a heavy-set woman in front of a rusted gate reminds me of a low-rent graceland.

AP — SUPERIOR, Wis. — A 20-year-old man received probation after he was convicted of having sexual contact with a dead deer. The sentence also requires Bryan James Hathaway to be evaluated as a sex offender and treated at the Institute for Psychological and Sexual Health in Duluth, Minn.

“The state believes that particular place is the best to provide treatment for the individual,” Assistant District Attorney Jim Boughner said.

He was found guilty in April 2005 of felony mistreatment of an animal after he killed a horse with the intention of having sex with it. He was sentenced to 18 months in jail and two years of extended supervision on that charge as well as six years of probation for taking and driving a vehicle without the owner’s consent.

Hathaway pleaded no contest earlier this month to misdemeanor mistreatment of an animal for the incident involving the deer. He was sentenced Tuesday in Douglas County Circuit Court.

“The type of behavior is disturbing,” Judge Michael Lucci said. “It’s disturbing to the public. It’s disturbing to the court.”

jay: <<speechless>>

dan: okay, equally speechless, or almost speechless, but then there’s this: that’s a crime?! i mean, you can kill a deer, right? that’s not a crime. not with a license anyway. and one assumes that there’s no law (federal or local, as opposed to natural law) against buying some ground beef and diddling it. so, um, where’s the regulatory violation?

sorry. i find this young man to be way freaky. i’m just not sure how he’s a lawbreaker.

Niagara Falls, N.Y. (AP) — A man apparently trying to sneak into the United States was rescued from an ice floe less than a mile upstream from Niagara Falls, authorities said.

Guards from Ontario Power Generation said they heard the man screaming for help at about 4:30 a.m. Saturday near the company’s water intakes near Chippawa, Ontario.

“If he hadn’t been discovered,” said Peter Larsen, a control operator at the intakes, “he would have gone through one of those gates and then very likely could have been swept over the falls.”

Rescuers in boats plucked the shivering man from the ice floe and got him ashore.

Authorities said the unidentified 42-year-old man had an inflatable air mattress with him and was apparently trying to get to the United States. The ice chunk he was on apparently broke loose.

The man was treated for mild hypothermia before being charged by Canadian immigration authorities.

jay: um, am i sensing a theme here? either the associated press is really into ice floe stories lately, or spring is the wrong time to stand on blocks of ice. or both. yes. both.

from the la times sunday magazine:

Patrikios says the letters have made him think more deeply about his own future. He wonders, for instance, what Future Patrikios will think of his decision to cover his body with tattoos. “I feel like the past is written all over me,” he says. “I used to be punk rock and tattooed. And the tattoos are still there. Then you get older, get an Amazon job and do yoga and buy $100 running shoes.”

Still, he adds, he has no regrets. Nor does he expect to have any when the future arrives. He’s confident that in 30 years he’ll be happy, retired, studying Ashtanga yoga and running marathons. “Everything I do now is based on the goal of being a really good long-distance runner until I’m 80.”

jay: total dildo whose soul is being fought over by four different cults.

pdf of the article available here

AP - NEW YORK - Naomi Campbell has cleaned up her act — by getting down and dirty. The catwalker was released Friday from a garbage truck garage after completing five days of community service for assaulting her maid.

The 36-year-old supermodel had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault for throwing the phone at her maid about a year ago in Campbell’s Park Avenue apartment over a missing pair of jeans.

Her maid, Ana Scolavino, required four stitches to her head, since the phone apparently was crystal-encrusted.

jay: wait, hahaha. what? i knew about the assault but why is this the first i’m hearing about the crystal-encrusted phone? oh man.

dan: hang on, you missed this part:

(CBS) NEW YORK Supermodel Naomi Campbell, wearing black stilettos and slinging combat-style boots over her shoulder, traded the catwalk for community service at a sanitation garage on Monday.

Campbell, walking with a perky bounce, arrived at the Manhattan District 3 Garage at Pier 36 on the Hudson in a black SUV at around 8 a.m.

dan: she showed up for trash detail in stilettos and walking with a “perky bounce.” i love that. all that’s missing was a newsboy-type cap and a fitted coat. Oh, wait:

Her ensemble also included chocolate brown pants, a short fitted coat with a flared bottom, dark sunglasses and a newsboy-type cap over a short hairdo.

dan: who says journalism is dead?!

BEIJING/LONDON (Reuters) - China is on course to overtake the United States this year as the world’s biggest carbon emitter, estimates based on Chinese energy data show, potentially pressuring Beijing to take more action on climate change.

China’s emissions rose by some 10 percent in 2005, a senior U.S. scientist estimated, while Beijing data shows fuel consumption rose more than 9 percent in 2006, suggesting China would easily outstrip the U.S. this year, long before forecasts.

jay: we outsource a ton of our manufacturing to china and then bitch when their carbon emissions rise? seems to me that it’s only fair to keep the u.s. on the hook for at least some of it, like maybe right after we acknowledge that carbon emissions are actually bad.

In this undated photo released by American Bird Conservancy, a man shows a rare bird named in its own genus, ‘Xenoglaux,’ meaning ’strange owl,’ due to the long wispy feathers or whiskers that stream out from its reddish-orange eyes in Peru’s jungle, January, 2007. An extremely rare species of owl discovered in 1976, and known only from a few specimens caught in nets after dark, has been seen in the wild for the first time, the American Bird Conservancy said Thursday.(AP Photo/American Bird Conservancy/Asociacin Ecosistemas Andinos)

jay: tell me this thing doesn’t look like grandpa munster.

nytimes.com — BATH, Ohio, March 15 — Doug Weintraub loves showing off his new $60,000 fireplace. It is in his backyard, with a chimney, built by a stonemason from Ukraine, that stands 16 feet tall.

Doug and Janis Weintraub had a fireplace with a 16-foot-tall chimney built outside their home in Bath, Ohio.

Beside the hearth is a cubby stocked with firewood “just for looks,” Mr. Weintraub said. As he pressed the “on” button of a remote control, a hissing sound could be heard, then the gas-burning fireplace sprang to flame, visible from inside the house.

Mr. Weintraub, a technology investor, then cranked up the volume on the fireplace’s built-in stereo system, and a meandering saxophone riff reverberated off his $2 million home and across the neighborhood. The Weintraubs said they considered building a waterfall into the fireplace, but decided that might be too extravagant.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Mr. Weintraub said.

jay: no, actually, it’s not. you’re a dildo. wait, let me be more specific. you’re an incredibly wasteful nouveau-riche dildo, even without the waterfall. i know it, the reporter knows it, and to at least a small degree, you know it, too.

A teenager got an unexpected, terrifying ride down the Mississippi River on a giant slab of ice that broke off as he stood along the shoreline.

Amos Benjamin Cohen, 19, stood frozen with fear as the six foot by 15 foot ice chunk swirled in the water, floating toward shore then drifting back to the middle of the river, witnesses and rescuers said.

A rescue team from the Anoka-Champlin Fire Department sent three firefighters in survival suits into the water. As Cohen approached, one of the firefighters managed to hop up onto the ice with him. The other two pulled them to safety, Fire Chief Charlie Thompson said.

jay: it’s like that polar bear in the al gore movie, only it turns out ok. yay!

MUNDELEIN, Ill. - Golf course workers uncovering the tees for the season discovered a human skull at a suburban Chicago club and found bones nearby in the fairway, authorities said.

“It was laying there, right in the middle of the fairway,” [Lake County Forest Preserve Police Chief John] Galford said.

He said the identity and gender of the person had not been determined, but the skull had some distinguishing marks: a partial set of dentures, two of the teeth are gold, some of the teeth have a star pattern on them, and one of the front teeth has a golden “R” on it.

jay: if i had to guess, i’d say that he was probably a member of the peaceable Golden “R” tribe that roamed golf courses in the chicago suburbs before the settlers came and pushed his people out west to iowa. i mean, if i had to guess.