Thu Sep 4 — ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek anarchists stormed a supermarket on Thursday and handed out food for free in the latest of a wave of raids provoked by soaring consumer prices.

About 20 unarmed people, mostly wearing black hoods, carried out the midday robbery in the northern city of Thesaaloniki, police said.

Local media have labelled the raiders “Robin Hoods” following previous raids.

They take only packets of pasta, rice and cartons of milk which they drop in the middle of the street for people to collect, a police official said.

“They have never stolen money or hurt anyone. They ask people to remain calm but use ambush tactics, jumping over cash desks,” he said.

“When they attack without hoods, people are surprised to see that they are mostly women.”

The rising cost of living has replaced unemployment as Greeks’ main concern. Inflation is officially running at a 10-year high of 4.9 percent although many items have risen in price more sharply.

jay: yassou!

By Vanessa Miller
Daily Camera — Boulder, CO — A certified nurse’s assistant has been arrested on suspicion of indecent exposure after “mooning” two co-workers while on the job at the Frasier Meadows Assisted Living Center, according to Boulder police.

Two nurses told police that Suzanne Mueffelmann, 42, of Longmont, flashed her buttocks outside the room of a Frasier Meadows resident, according to an arrest report.

…

Since her arrest, Mueffelmann has lost her job with the senior care facility, said Dean Price, who owns the Boulder-Broomfield franchise.

…

The mooning incident occurred about 8 p.m. Feb. 27 while Mueffelmann was talking with the two nurses, Jessica Jarvis and Cleyfi Alvarado, in a common area outside her patient’s room, according to police.

Mueffelmann asked Jarvis and Alvarado if they knew what mooning was and told them, “I’ll make your night,” according to the report.

After she mooned them for a few seconds, Mueffelmann told police, “Jessica and Cleyfi appeared very startled and alarmed, and she immediately felt bad and felt that she may have crossed the line.”

When officers asked Jarvis and Alvarado about the incident, Alvarado said she was “very alarmed and scared.” Jarvis said she “felt uncomfortable with the incident” and “felt it was ‘weird and random,’” according to police.

Mueffelmann told another staff member that night that she had mooned their co-workers “to make them happier,” police said.

An officer reported that Mueffelmann later said it was a “strong misunderstanding,” and, “She hasn’t mooned since college, and she doesn’t plan on doing it again.”

jay: i’ll make your night? with mooning? those poor people. all three of them.

brought to my attention by jon

AP - RIVERDALE, Utah - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. apologized to a Muslim woman who said she was mocked because of her face veil.

“Please don’t stick me up,” a cashier told the shopper on Feb. 2, according to The Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Wal-Mart apologized Monday in a letter signed by Rolando Rodriquez, a vice president and regional general manager. It was released Tuesday by the council’s Nevada chapter.

jay: wait, larry david is a cashier at a wal*mart in utah?

AP — SOUTHWORTH, WA — A man trying to loosen a stubborn lug nut blasted the wheel with a 12-gauge shotgun, injuring himself badly in both legs, Kitsap County sheriff’s deputies said.

The 66-year-old man had been repairing a Lincoln Continental for two weeks at his home northwest of Southworth and east of Port Orchard and had gotten all but one of the lug nuts off the right rear wheel before getting frustrated Saturday afternoon, Deputy Scott Wilson said.

“He’s bound and determined to get that lug nut off,” Wilson said.

From about arm’s length, the man fired the shotgun at the wheel and was “peppered” in both legs with shot and other debris, with some injuries as high on his body as his chin, according to a sheriff’s office report.

“Nobody else was there and he wasn’t intoxicated,” Wilson said.

South Kitsap Fire and Rescue personnel treated the man at the scene before he was taken to Tacoma General Hospital with injuries Wilson described as “severe but not life-threatening.”

jay: i’m sorry, isn’t there a dead kennedy’s song that goes just like this? ah yes, ‘a child and his lawnmower’. i’ll let jello biafra take it from here:

Some clown in Sacramento was dragged into court
He shot his lawnmower
It disobeyed, it wouldn’t start
Might makes right, it’s the American way
They fined him $60 and sent him on his way

You know, some people don’t take no shit
Maybe if they did, they’d have half a brain left

AP - CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - A man was arrested after a government agent allegedly found him in an office building restroom lying next to an inflatable, anatomically correct doll with his pants down. Craig S. McCullough, 47, was charged Wednesday with indecent exposure, a misdemeanor.

[…]

McCullough was arrested, and Cedar Rapids police took him to the Linn County jail. His arraignment was scheduled later Friday, police spokeswoman Cristy Hamblin said.

[…]

McCullough’s criminal record includes a 2004 conviction for burglarizing Just For Me bridal boutique. Shortly after the burglary, police officers found McCullough in a nearby alley, carrying a mannequin wearing a bridal dress.

jay: are you sure it wasn’t andrew mccarthy? i haven’t seen him since the original mannequin. oh wait, yes i have. he was in weekend at bernie’s 2. also, nice headline pun and good choice of jail euphemism by the AP.

AP - SCRANTON, Pa. - Talk about a potty mouth. A Scranton woman who allegedly shouted profanities at her overflowing toilet within earshot of a neighbor was cited for disorderly conduct, authorities said.

Dawn Herb could face up to 90 days in jail and a fine of up to $300.

“It doesn’t make any sense. I was in my house. It’s not like I was outside or drunk,” Herb told The Times-Tribune of Scranton. “The toilet was overflowing and leaking down into the kitchen and I was yelling (for my daughter) to get the mop.”

Herb doesn’t recall exactly what she said, but she admitted letting more than a few choice words fly near an open bathroom window Thursday night.

Her next-door neighbor, a city police officer who was off-duty at the time, asked her to keep it down, police said. When she continued, the officer called police.

Mary Catherine Roper, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union in Philadelphia, took issue with the citation.

“You can’t prosecute somebody for swearing at a cop or a toilet,” she said.

jay: cop or a toilet! good one, aclu. also, i’d like to draw your attention to the worst first line ever. potty mouth? *groan* bad one, ap.

By KERY MURAKAMI

Seattle P-I — There’s a story going around South Lake Union, but a spokeswoman for Vulcan, Paul Allen’s development company, says it’s just an urban legend.

That aside, the story that the neighborhood’s streetcar line now under construction was called the South Lake Union Trolley until the powers that be realized the unfortunate acronym — SLUT — seems here to stay.

Officially, it’s now the South Lake Union Streetcar. But the trolley name already has caught on, and in the old Cascade neighborhood in South Lake Union, they’re waiting for the SLUT.

At the Kapow! Coffee house on Harrison Street, they’re selling T-shirts that read “Ride the SLUT.”

“We’re welcoming the SLUT into the neighborhood,” said Jerry Johnson, 29, a part-time barista.

jay: i’m sorry, what? his company is called ‘vulcan’? dork. oh, and the slut thing is funny.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.