Humor
Selections from Comic Relief, October? 1996:

Facts:
The percentage of promises that President Clinton "meant to keep" that he has kept, according to George Stefanopoulos: 100

Farm subsidies received by the Montana Freemen since 1985: $676,082

Fine levied on a Swedish couple for naming their son Brfxxxcccxxmnnpcccclllmmnprxxwclmnckssqlbblll6: $746

Estimated cost of sealing the US-Mexican border with a replica of the Great Wall of China: $45,000,000,000

Ratio of Americans who die from smoking-related illnesses each year to those who die as a result of illegal-drug use: 21:1

Bob Dole rhetoric: "Bob Dole envisions an America that is different, maybe. Bob Dole is totally opposed to our quality of life becoming worse. A vote for Bob Dole is a vote in favor of our country becoming better, somehow."

Weird News:

Bonnie Booth, 38, was hospitalized in Muncie, IN, after shooting herself in the foot while using a shotgun to try to remove a callus. "She told investigators she drank a gallon of vodka and two or three beers and tried to shoot the callus off her foot," police captain Baird Davis said. "She told officers she had already tried to cut off the callus with a razor, and it didn't work. She was afraid it was getting infected because it hurt real bad."

Hungarian authorities investigating the death of Juliana Farkas, 80, concluded she bent into a barrel of sauerkraut that was in a shed to scoop out a portion, was overcome by the pungent fumes, fell in and drowned. Police said the liquid in the barrel was 12 inches deep.

Diane Smith, the Texas Department of Agriculture's assistant commissioner for marketing and agribusiness development, whose job is to promote Texas beef, confirmed that she is a vegetarian, and has been for 14 years. "It has nothing to do with my work," she said. "It's a personal preference."

After Robert Barbers was appointed the Philippine’s top crime fighter, he promised to make the streets of Manila safe from criminals. His first act was to send his whole family to live in the United States.

Blackbirds in the English town of Gulsborough have learned to imitate the wailing sirens of car alarms. The noise regularly awakens townspeople, according to bartender Donald O'Shea, who said he discovered the phenomenon when he rushed out at dawn to confront car thieves, but found only a bird in mid-song.

After Telekom Malaysia had 900 of its 3500 pay phones stolen in the state of Sabah on Borneo Island, investigators discovered that fishermen were using them as bait. Company official Ahmad Zaini Mohammad Amin explained the commercial fishermen cut off the handsets, connected them to hig-power batteries and lowered them into the water. Electricity passing through the microphones produced a high-pitched sound that attracted fish into their nets.

William Shatner is remodeling his Los Angeles house, according to Buzz magazine, which reported he has designed his bathroom to look like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.

Astronomers at Australia's Parkes Observatory were hopeful they had made contact with intelligent life elsewhere in the universe after their radio telescope began picking up a distinctive radio signal every evening about dinner time. They later discovered the signal was coming from their microwave oven downstairs.

Police in Sandusky, OH, charged Lowell Altvater, 80, with negligent assault for firing a shotgun at what he said he thought was a rat in his barn. It was actually his wife's hat, which she was wearing. Three years earlier, Altvater had fired at what he thought was a rat in the barn, but it turned out to be his own leg.

In Lancaster, SC, Richard Gardner, 23, was nailing some molding at his mother-in-law's house but didn't have a hammer, so he used a .25-caliber handgun that he thought was empty. He shot himself in the hand and his wife in the stomach.

Workers at the Delaware Correctional Center preparing an outdoor gallows for the first execution by hanging in 50 years affixed nonskid safety strips to each of the 23 steps so convicted murderer Billy Bailey wouldn't slip as he climbed to the noose.

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Updated 22 May 1997