Humor
The Best of Comic Relief, March 1997

The Truth behind Compuphonics:
PCMCIA = People Can’t Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms
ISDN = It Still Does Nothing
APPLE = Arrogance Produces Profit-Losing Entity
IBM = I Blame Microsoft
CD-ROM = Consumer Device Rendered Obsolete in Months
OS/2 = Obsolete Soon, Too
SCSI = System Can’t See It
DOS = Defunct Operating System
WWW = World Wide Wait

Actual Newspaper Headlines:
Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says
Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers
Farmer Bill Dies in House
Is There a Ring of Debris around Uranus?
Stud Tires Out
Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over
British Left Waffles on Falkland Islands
Lung Cancer in Women Mushrooms
Eye Drops off Shelf
Teacher Strikes Idle Kids
Reagan Wins on Budget, But More Lies Ahead
Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim
Shot Off Woman's Leg Helps Nicklaus to 66
Enraged Cow Injures Farmer with Ax
Plane Too Close to Ground, Crash Probe Told
Miners Refuse to Work after Death
Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant
Stolen Painting Found by Tree
Two Soviet Ships Collide, One Dies
Drunken Drivers Paid $1000
84 War Dims Hope for Peace
If Strike isn't Settled Quickly, It May Last a While
Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures
Enfields Couple Slain; Police Suspect Homicide
Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge
Deer Kill 17,000
Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead
Man Struck by Lightning Faces Battery Charge
New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group
Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft
Arson Suspect is Held in Massachusetts Fire
British Union Finds Dwarfs in Short Supply
Ban On Soliciting Dead in Trotwood
Lansing Residents Can Drop Off Trees
Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half
New Vaccine May Contain Rabies
Man Minus Ear Waives Hearing
Deaf College Opens Doors to Hearing
Air Head Fired -- Steals Clock, Faces Time
Prosecutor Releases Probe into Undersheriff
Old School Pillars are Replaced by Alumni
Bank Drive-in Window Blocked by Board
Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors
Some Pieces of Rock Hudson Sold at Auction
Sex Education Delayed, Teachers Request Training
Include your Children when Baking Cookies

The Facts and Nothing But the Facts:
Estimated number of land mines removed and demolished worldwide in 1995: 200,000
Estimated number laid: 2,000,000
Chance that a country to which the U.S. sells arms is cited by Amnesty International for torturing its citizens : 1 in 2
Rank of arms trading, illegal drug trafficking, and oil production among the world's largest industries : 1,2,3
Kilos of heroin found on Colombian President Emesto Samper's official plane last September : 8
Amount that Wanted, a British n/ game show, pays contestants for each day they elude a team of former KGB agents : $1,560
Weeks after Russian president Boris Yeltsin had a heart attack last summer that the CIA found out about it : 11
Amount the U.S. Defense Department admits it has "lost track of": $18,000,000,000
Number of zip codes in the Pentagon : 4
Percentage of Americans who say that "government" is the biggest obstacle to middle class prosperity : 28
Percentage who say that "corporate greed" is : 48
Portion of global trade that consists of transactions between two divisions of the same corporation : 1/3
Amount of the trade surplus the U.S. had with Mexico the year NAFTA was passed : $1,700,000,000
Estimated amount of the trade deficit the U.S, has with Mexico today : $17,200,000,000
Percentage of Mexicans who say that their country is not experiencing a "crisis" : 2
Number of ethnic restaurants Bill Clinton sampled at last July's Taste of Chicago : 8
Estimated number of Americans hospitalized last year for injuries involving the ingestion of Christmas ornaments : 687
Average change since 1940 in IQ test scores worldwide, in points : +20
Points by which Washington Monthly editor Charles Peters says his IQ exceeds that of John F. Kennedy : 25
Ratio of Playboy Playmates who "most admire" Albert Einstein to those who most admire Sammy Davis Jr.: 5:13
Average number of times each day NASA employees access Penthouse's Web site : 157
Ratio of RAM needed to run the Space Shuttle's onboard computers to that needed to run WordPerfect for Windows 95 : 1:8
Number of the 550 computer-science faculty members at the nation's 25 highest-ranked universities who are black:0
Chance that an American executed since the 1976 reinstatement of the death penalty was a white who killed a black : 1 in 100
Percentage change in the homicide rate in Canada since the 1976 abolition of the death penalty there :-27
Number of people sentenced under California's three-strikes law for murder or rape : 65
Number sentenced for petty theft or drug possession : 5,900
Days an Ohio public school suspended a 14-year-old girl last October for giving a Midol tablet to her classmate : 80
Hour that "voracious criminals go to bed." according to Bob Dole : 6 am
Time at which Americans are most likely to have sex : 10:34 pm
Length of the average sex session, including foreplay. in minutes : 33.24
Average number of additional minutes women say they would like each session to last : 12
Amount a London insurance firm will pay clients who can prove they were impregnated by God : $1,500,000
Number of times California has prosecuted Ubiquitous Perpetuity God, formerly Enrique Silberg. for indecent exposure : 3
Number of people on the Omaha, Nebraska, Public Library's waiting list to check out Madonna's book Sex : 230
Number of its employees the Library of Congress has forced to take psychological exams since 1990 : 27
Percentage of Americans who believe that the government is concealing evidence of alien visitations : 49
Chance that an American is "really intrigued by the underlying causes of bad weather" : 1 in 2
Chances that a Briton is : 2 in 3
Amount of sunlight that hits the Earth each second, in pounds :4.3

Weird News:
A Saudi religious court sentenced a man to 200 lashes and six months in prison for wearing a dress to a wedding party in the city of Hael. The man reportedly dressed as a woman to get a surreptitious look at women he might want to marry.

When two men tried to rob the Norwegian postal service's cash transport between the northern towns of Bodoe and Narvik, they were surprised by 30 heavily armed police, a helicopter and a fleet of police cars waiting for them. Authorities explained the pair, Swedes in their mid-30s, had drawn up careful plans for the robbery but lost them. Police found the plans in an unclaimed suitcase left at Oslo's Fornbu Airport, then kept tabs on the men for nearly six months, waiting for them to strike.

Two men planning a bank robbery in Philadelphia spent so much time casing the place while planning their crime that they aroused tellers' suspicions. FBI spokesperson Linda Vizi said that when the 22-year-old men finally did rob the bank, 20 law-enforcement officers were staking out the bank, waiting to arrest them. One of the robbers was injured when dye capsules in the money bag exploded.

In Dade County, Fla., Al and Steven Rubin, a father and son who are Jewish, received stiff prison sentences for committing anti-Semitic vandalism and then making money for repairing the damage.

In Brazil, Nathon do Nascimento was fishing in a river near the remote Amazon city of Belem when a 6-inch-long fish suddenly leapt out of the river and into his mouth, lodging in his throat. Two other fishermen tried to help him, but by the time they got him to a local hospital, he was dead.

Two race horses died at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., when they collided head-on.

Melany Paula Campos, 60, who shared a home in Los Angeles with her sister and some 40 dogs, was found dead beneath four large bags of dog food. Scott Carrier of the coroner's office said the heavy bags apparently smothered Campos.

In the Spanish port of La Coruna, an estimated 100,000 tons of garbage the height of a 14-story building tumbled down a hillside at the municipal dump. The avalanche buried Joaquim Serantes, 52, who had been washing his car below. Carlos Munoz, environment officer of the regional Galician government called the dump "a living organism which moves on its own due to fermentation and other phenomena. We have to worry about what has been thrown in there in the past 22 years. Only now is it showing its ugly face."

A Maersk airlines BAC 1-11 jet from Birmingham, England, to Milan, Italy, was forced to make an emergency landing in May after the co-pilot, who had been flying professionally since 1989, broke into a sweat and admitted to the pilot that he was afraid of heights.

Five employees of Mesa Airlines, including three pilots, were fired after one of the pilots made the one-hour flight from Casper, Wyo., to Denver in the airplane's toilet.

When Joseph Michael Jackson of Winchester, Va., turned 2 in September, he weighed in at 65 pounds -- more than twice as much as the average 2-year-old. The Washington Post reported Joseph wears size-l0 shirts and, since diapers don't fit him, adult incontinence briefs. Pediatrician Scott Cannon said the boy's already voracious appetite only gets bigger because he has easy access to even more food, noting, "The attitude of the parent is proud that he's bigger than everyone else." He warned "this is more than an oddity. It's a medical problem." Admitting that Joseph does sometimes have "occasional" slices of pizza and hot dogs, his mother. Amanda Snyder, 19, insisted he eats "not much more than other kids."

Less, certainly, than l7-month-old Zack Strenklert of Bloomingburg, NY. Earlier this year, doctors warned his parents to put him on a diet when he weighed in at 68 pounds.

Researchers at San Diego's Neurosciences Institute confirmed that chocolate contains cannabinoids, chemical compounds that can mimic the effects of marijuana by triggering euphoria in the brain. "We are talking about something much, much, much milder than a high," researcher Danielle Piomelli insisted. To produce any marijuana-like effect, in fact, Christian Felder of the National Institute of Mental Health estimated a 130-pound person would need to eat 25 pounds of chocolate in one sitting.

Mario di Carlo, president of Rome’s city-owned garbage collecting company, has asked a number of leading Rome and Milan fashion houses to design stylish uniforms for garbage collectors and street sweepers. He explained that the trash collectors, who now wear drab green overalls, should cut a "bella figura" (good image) with the millions of tourists expected to visit the capital for the start of the third millennium in 2000.

A Missouri company has begun marketing plastic replacement testicles for neutered dogs. The jelly bean-shaped Neuticles come in five sizes, ranging in price from $28 for an extra-small pair to $32 for large. They are implanted into the scrotum in a two-minute procedure immediately after the natural testicles are removed. The inventor, Gregg Miller of Buckner, MO, said Neuticles were implanted in 817 American dogs in the six months since their introduction in March. He insisted that with Neuticles, "the dog looks the same. He feels the same. He doesn't even know he's been neutered."

Eduardo Sierra, 35, a Spanish businessman on a trip to Stockholm, stopped at a church and found it empty except for a coffin containing the remains of a man. Being a devout Catholic, Sierra prayed for the deceased for 20 minutes, then signed a condolence book leaving his name and address. He noticed he was the first to sign. According to the Hamburg, Germany, Bild newspaper, several weeks later Sierra received word that he was a millionaire. Bild said Jens Svenson, the man he had prayed for, had no close relatives and had specified in his will that "whoever prays for my soul gets all my belongings."

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Updated 21 May 1997