WASHINGTON (AP) — Karl Rove, your car is ready.

White House pranksters wrapped Rove’s Jaguar in plastic wrap on the private driveway next to the West Wing. Rove’s car is easily recognizable because of its ”I love Barack Obama” bumper sticker and the twin stuffed-animal eagles on the trunk. Oh, and there’s a stuffed-animal elephant on the hood.

Rove, the top White House political strategist who recently announced his resignation, left his car on the driveway while visiting Texas and traveling with President Bush. He was due back in Washington Wednesday evening.

jay: so someone inside the white house did this? funny. kinda. the ‘i love barack obama’ sticker is a nice touch. though i can’t help feeling like this is a publicity stunt (to distract from the idaho glory-hole dude?). i also can’t help feeling like i’m becoming too cynical for my own good.

dan: how about larry craig, does he have a bone? is that why his stance is so wide?

AP - TOKYO - Lose a game of chess to a computer, and you could bruise your ego. Lose an arm-wrestling match to a Japanese arcade machine, and you could break your arm.

Distributor Atlus Co. said Tuesday it will remove all 150 “Arm Spirit” arm wrestling machines from Japanese arcades after three players broke their arms grappling with the machine’s mechanized appendage.

“The machine isn’t that strong, much less so than a muscular man. Even women should be able to beat it,” said Atlus spokeswoman Ayano Sakiyama, calling the recall “a precaution.”

“We think that maybe some players get overexcited and twist their arms in an unnatural way,” she said. The company was investigating the incidents and checking the machines for any signs of malfunction.

Players of “Arm Spirit” advance through 10 levels, battling a French maid, drunken martial arts master and a Chihuahua before reaching the final showdown with a professional wrestler.

jay: i’m trying to figure out what would be more emasculating than being beaten at an arm-wrestling match by a chihuahua and i’m not coming up with much.

By CARA RUBINSKY
AP - NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Two people who sprinkled flour in a parking lot to mark a trail for their offbeat running club inadvertently caused a bioterrorism scare and now face a felony charge.

The sprinkled powder forced hundreds to evacuate an IKEA furniture store Thursday.

New Haven ophthalmologist Daniel Salchow, 36, and his sister, Dorothee, 31, who is visiting from Hamburg, Germany, were both charged with first-degree breach of peace, a felony.

Police fielded a call just before 5 p.m. that someone was sprinkling powder on the ground. The store was evacuated and remained closed the rest of the night. The incident prompted a massive response from police in New Haven and surrounding towns.

Daniel Salchow biked back to IKEA when he heard there was a problem and told officers the powder was just harmless flour, which he said he and his sister have sprinkled everywhere from New York to California without incident.

“Not in my wildest dreams did I ever anticipate anything like that,” he said.

Mayoral spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga said the city plans to seek restitution from the Salchows, who are due in court Sept. 14.

“You see powder connected by arrows and chalk, you never know,” she said. “It could be a terrorist, it could be something more serious. We’re thankful it wasn’t, but there were a lot of resources that went into figuring that out.”

jay: i think it’s safe to assume that if something doesn’t fit within your small area of knowledge that it’s definitely terrorism. well done, new haven.

EDINBURGH (AFP) - A dwarf performer at the Edinburgh fringe festival had to be rushed to hospital after his penis got stuck to a vacuum cleaner during an act that went horribly awry.

Daniel Blackner, or “Captain Dan the Demon Dwarf”, was due to perform at the Circus of Horrors at the festival known for its oddball, offbeat performances.

The main part of his act saw him appear on stage with a vacuum cleaner attached to his member through a special attachment.

The attachment broke before the performance and Blackner tried to fix it using extra-strong glue, but unfortunately only let it dry for 20 seconds instead of the 20 minutes required.

He then joined it directly to his organ. The end result? A solid attachment, laughter, mortification and … hospitalisation.

“It was the most embarrassing moment of my life when I got wheeled into a packed AE with a vacuum attached to me,” Blackner said.

“I just wished the ground could swallow me up. Luckily, they saw me quickly so the embarrassment was short-lived.”

jay: sorry, what? i’m a little unclear as to where the embarrassment line is here. is it the context? festival vs hospital? vacuum-on-cock (the next town over from stratford-upon-avon) for money isn’t embarrassing but vacuum-on-cock not for money and in the hospital is embarrassing. money or context? sadly, the demon dwarf changed two variables so it makes it hard to do good science.

Modesto, Calif. (AP) — Authorities are investigating whether a bowling ball-sized chunk of ice that crashed through the roof of a home and struck a 10-year-old boy Monday came from a passing airliner, police said.

Carlos Mendez received a bump on the head and was frightened by the frozen flying object, but otherwise uninjured, said his mother, Corrina Vargas. They and seven people inside the house across the street from Modesto City-County Airport fled when the ice broke through the living room ceiling, she said.

Police and firefighters cordoned off the home and collected the remaining shards of the brown and white ice, which punched a three-foot-wide hole in the roof, said Modesto Police Department spokesman Craig Gunlach.

“There is no indication it was anything but an accident,” he said.

jay: you mean, it wasn’t a sign from god? or a sign from terrorists? or a sign from terrorist god? you seem pretty confident for a small-town police spokesman.

dan: brown and white ice. from an airplane? ew.

jay: yeah man, dude got tooken out by a poopcicle.

KING5.com — VANCOUVER, Wash. – Authorities arrested eight suspects and seized a half pound of suspected methamphetamine and another half pound of heroin today in Vancouver, Wash. as part of “Operation Methopotamia.”

The two-year investigation into drug trafficking is lead by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the United States Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, in cooperation with other law enforcement. Two dozen people have already been charged in state or federal court in connection with the investigation.

jay: you know how i know this? because they came up with the best. drug. pun. ever. methopotamia! haha. what’s next? operation bike methenger? operation methozoic era? operation methage parlor? actually, i think they got the best one. damn you, dea. how dare you out-pun me!

dan: they’ve always done this. couple years ago, they busted a half-dozen junkies in boise in “operation heroin-dianapolis.” before that, it was a bunch of speed freaks in arizona, and they called it “operation crystal ball…and strike!” and i remember in high school, the dea did a big raid on a local head shop they called “the taking of the pel-hash 1-2-3.” i think it’s probably a good way to rally the troops.

dan: also: seven dealers in pittsburgh and a shoebox full of mdma. they called it “operation: the ecstacy and the agony!”

dan: and: one dreadlocked deadhead in the astrodome parking lot. they called it “operation: shrooms with a view…in prison!”

dan: plus: three pot farmers in virginia city, maryland. they called it “operation: don’t hide it, divide it!”

AP - ASHLAND, Ky. - Laughter might be unexpected in a liquor store where a robbery just occurred. But that’s how employees responded to the “Duct Tape Bandit” who hit Shamrock Liquors in Ashland and fled nearly empty handed.

A man who had his head wrapped in duct tape to conceal his identity walked into the store last Friday, police said.

Store manager Bill Steele had some duct tape of his own, but his was wrapped around a wooden club that sent the robber fleeing, according to a report by WSAZ-TV in Huntington, W.Va.

Store employee Craig Miller said he chased the man to the parking lot, tackled him and held him in a choke position until police arrived, the station reported. An unidentified customer also helped, police said.

Kasey G. Kazee, 24, was charged with first-degree robbery. Kazee, in an interview with the TV station, denied he was bandit who robbed the store of two rolls of change.

jay: the picture is so rad. what a fucknut.

dan: he says he didn’t do it. he was tackled outside the store with duct tape around his head, but he says it was some other guy with duct tape around his head. which, i mean: kentucky.

TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese biker failed to notice his leg had been severed below the knee when he hit a safety barrier, and rode on for more than a mile, leaving a friend to pick up the missing limb.

The 54-year-old office worker was out on his motorcycle with a group of friends in the city of Hamamatsu, west of Tokyo, on Monday, when he was unable to negotiate a curve in the road and bumped into the central barrier, the Mainichi Shimbun said.

He felt excruciating pain, but did not notice that his right leg was missing until he stopped at the next junction, the paper quoted local police as saying.

The man and his leg were taken to a hospital, but the limb had been crushed in the collision, the paper said.

jay: this might just be the toughest man alive. or the drunkest. they didn’t say.

dan: not the toughest man alive, that’s rulon gardner. this is just a scatter-brained old desk-jockey. good thing he had his leg sherpa with him.

AP — VANCOUVER, Wash. — At this rate, Cindy Werner just shouldn’t own a Subaru.

Werner’s 2004 Subaru Outback was crushed on Friday when a 44,000-pound metal silo came tumbling off a tractor-trailer truck, down an embankment and landed on Werner’s car along Southeast 23rd Street in this city just across the Columbia River from Portland.

Werner had been out on a bike ride, and came back to find the damage to her car. She told Portland television station KATU that it was the second Subaru she’d lost in six months. Her other car had been stolen and burned.

jay: the thing you probably don’t know about the pacific northwest is that the probability of something falling off a truck and crushing a subaru outback is lower than something falling off a truck and not crushing one.

AP — CHICAGO — A parking ticket topped the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile after it was left parked illegally on a downtown Chicago thoroughfare.

The 27-foot fiberglass sausage was ticketed Thursday morning after its driver parked it on Michigan Avenue and left it on the side of the six-lane road with the hazard lights blinking.

A police officer ticketed the vehicle and radioed for a tow truck, but the car’s driver and passenger returned before the truck arrived.

“The situation was resolved without the use of ketchup, which in Chicago is a big thing,” said Matt Smith of the city’s Streets and Sanitation Department.

Smith said a city tow truck could have done the job, if necessary.

“We have access to tow trucks that could have handled a Polish sausage, not just a hot dog,” Smith said.

jay: the yuks just keep on coming at the sanitation department, huh? god. this story ruined my morning, so i figured i’d pass it along.

Seattle Times — Prosser, Benton County — Turns out, even beheaded rattlesnakes can be dangerous. That’s what 53-year-old Danny Anderson learned Monday night, when a 5-foot rattler slithered onto his Central Washington property, about 50 miles southeast of Yakima.

Anderson and his 27-year-old son, Benjamin, pinned the snake with an irrigation pipe and cut off its head with a shovel. A few more strikes to the head left it sitting under a pickup truck.

“When I reached down to pick up the head, it raised around and did a backflip almost, and bit my finger,” Anderson said. “I had to shake my hand real hard to get it to let loose.”

His wife insisted they go to the hospital, and when they arrived 10 minutes later, Anderson’s tongue was swollen and the venom was spreading. He then was taken by ambulance 30 miles to a Richland hospital to get the full series of six shots he needed.

Anderson was in the hospital until Wednesday afternoon.

jay: it’s kind of a bummer when you think you do everything right and your tongue still winds up swollen. eastern washington, represent.

NO REAL THAN YOU ARE

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A giant, smiling Lego man was fished out of the sea in the Dutch resort of Zandvoort on Tuesday.

Workers at a drinks stall rescued the 2.5-metre (8-foot) tall model with a yellow head and blue torso.

“We saw something bobbing about in the sea and we decided to take it out of the water,” said a stall worker. “It was a life-sized Lego toy.”

A woman nearby added: “I saw the Lego toy floating towards the beach from the direction of England.”

The toy was later placed in front of the drinks stall.

jay: drinks stall?! this is like the end of ‘raiders of the lost ark’ where those government dudes put that ark in a warehouse even though indiana jones had just spent the last two hours trying to get it.

by Delfin Vigil, SF Chronicle Staff Writer

A woman competing in the 1.5 mile Alcatraz Challenge Aquathlon swim race died today of undertermined causes, according to authorities.

The San Francisco Medical Examiner identified the woman as 51-year-old Sara “Sally” Lowes of Houston. Lowes was pronounced dead at 9:32 a.m. after being pulled from the water. An autopsy will be conducted to find the cause of death.

Her body was discovered floating in the bay near Crissy Field beach and was recovered by the Marin County Sheriff’s patrol boat. Efforts to revive her were not successful, according to U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Jackson.

With a motto of “Swim or Die!,” the Annual Alcatraz Challenge Aquathlon and Swim is a 1.5 mile course that begins at Alcatraz and finishes at the East Beach of Crissy Field, according to race director, Gary Emich. Today’s was the 27th annual race.

It was the first death of a participant in the Alcatraz Challenge since the USA Triathlon Association-sanctioned race began in 1981, Emich said.

Of the “Swim or Die!” motto, Emich said: “It’s been a tongue-in-cheek motto for years because the Alcatraz races are exceptionally safe. Thousands and thousands have participated safely since 1981.”

jay: something tells me that 2007 will be the last year that ’swim or die!’ is uttered at this race.

AP - PROVO, Utah - Former child star Gary Coleman was cited for disorderly conduct after witnesses said they saw him in a heated argument with a woman in a parking lot.

Coleman, 39, and the woman were in his vehicle discussing their relationship Friday night when two people saw him hit the steering wheel with his hands, Capt. Cliff Argyle said.

“Mr. Coleman was very excited and loud. … At one point he exited his vehicle, waving his arms, yelling and screaming,” Argyle said. “Vehicles were unable to exit the parking lot because of Mr. Coleman’s actions.”

jay: gary coleman in the news again for nothing blah blah. here’s where it gets good:

Coleman moved to Santaquin, about 55 miles south of Salt Lake City, in 2005, around the time he starred in “Church Ball,” a comedy based on basketball leagues formed by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

jay: huh? i did the research for you. the movie 1) bombed and 2) also starred fred willard. really. fred willard, gary coleman and kareem abdul-jabbar (not kidding) in a movie about mormon cagers. and it sucked (according to both imdb and netflix). see for yourself.

People wait in line to visit an upside-down house built at the Centre of Education and Promotion of the Region in the village of Szymbark, northern Poland July 31, 2007. The upside-down house created by Daniel Czapiewski is supposed to describe the times of the former communist era and the present times in which we live. REUTERS/Peter Andrews (POLAND)

jay: this thing is pretty rad. i don’t know if i would have picked up the communist thing. still though, nice job.