Mary Strey called police in Clark County, Wisconsin to report a drunk driver. What made this call so unusual was that she was reporting on herself! She told the dispatcher that someone was driving drunk on Granton Road. When asked if she was following that person, she admitted it was herself. Strey pulled over and waited for the responding officer, who gave her a Breathalyzer test which showed her blood alcohol level was .19. Strey is due in court over the matter in December. http://www.wtsp.com/news/watercooler/story.aspx?storyid=116662&catid=58

Fast Cat for the Fastest Man

Usain Bolt, who holds the world record for both the 100- and 200-meter sprint, adopted a cheetah named Lightning Bolt. But he isn’t going to make the cheetah into a house cat. Bolt paid $13,700 for adoption rights, and has pledged $3,000 a year for the cat’s upkeep at a wildlife center in Nairobi. The money helps to support the Kenyan Wildlife Services and their efforts to protect endangered species.

Father Reports Eagle Crime to Police

A sea eagle swooped down on the island of Väddö in Sweden and snatched a little girl’s pet rabbit on the night of October 24th. The girl was so inconsolable that her father phoned the local police department to report the crime.

The police however have decided not to launch a preliminary investigation as they were unable to find anything in the law books allowing for the indictment of large birds.

Calf Gets Prosthetic Legs

Nancy Dickenson of Ocate, New Mexico and her stepdaughter Martha found an 11-month-old calf on a neighbor’s ranch that was suffering from severe frostbite. The black angus heifer had lost the use of her back legs and hooves. What to do? Obviously, the answer is to give her prosthetic legs! Dickenson found the calf’s owner and bought her, then talked to veterinarians from Colorado State University, who agreed to help the calf they now called Meadow. Doctors and students at the veterinary school amputated Meadow’s back legs and fitted her with artificial limbs. Dickenson said her family will take on the costs, estimated to be thousands of dollars, because Meadow is now a pet. She is in no danger of becoming beef.

Man Shows Up at His Funeral

The family of 59-year-old Ademir Jorge Goncalves of Santo Antonio da Platina, Brazil identified his body after a fatal traffic accident. The funeral was held the next day, which is customary in Brazil. Imagine their shock when Goncalves himself appeared at the funeral service! Goncalves had spent the night drinking at a truck stop. A police spokesman said the body was disfigured and the family was upset, which may explain the misidentification. The victim has since been identified and the remains sent to the correct family.

Bird Drops Bread, LHC Shuts Down

You can’t make stuff like this up. A piece of a baguette dropped by a passing bird caused a shutdown at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The bread fell on some exposed machinery, which led to overheating in parts of the accelerator. The temperature spike would have caused the LHC to automatically shut down if it had been in operation at the time. The collider is scheduled to be reactivated later this month. The bread incident won’t affect those plans.

Woman Robbed by Tinky Winky

A man dressed as a purple Teletubby pulled a gun on a woman on the streets of London, Ontario just after midnight on Halloween. He made off with an undisclosed amount of cash.

The woman wasn’t injured but her misfortune wasn’t hers alone. A second man dressed in costume was later stopped in the area by police and questioned — but police had the wrong teletubby.

“He was deemed not to be the teletubby we were looking for,” Const. Kevin Lui said. “Unfortunately, Halloween provides (robbers) more cover than any other night.”

1. Nightshade

Atropa Belladonna is also known as deadly nightshade. The flowering plant is native to Europe and can grow up to ten feet tall if left to grow for years. Although all parts of the plant are poisonous, the shiny black berries are most poisonous. The words bella donna mean pretty woman in English. This name may have come from the use of belladonna to dilate the eyes in order to make a woman more attractive to men. Image by Flickr user peganum.

The alkaloid Atropine is one of the the active ingredient in nightshade. Atropine is used during surgery to regulate the heartbeat, decrease salivation, and paralyze muscles. In eye surgery, it relaxes the muscles and dilates the eye. Another drug found in nightshade is scopolamine, which has some of the same properties as atropine, and (in very dilute quantities) is also used for motion sickness and to combat drug addiction. Famous users of nightshade are not confirmed, but legend has it that when Agrippina the Younger hired the serial killer Locusta to kill the Roman emperor Claudius, she used nightshade. Before he became king in 1040, Macbeth supposedly used nightshade to poison an army of Danes who invaded Scotland.

2. Hemlock

Poison hemlock (conium maculatum) is a flowering plant with fleshly, carrotlike roots that can grow up to ten feet tall. This hemlock is no relation to the coniferous eastern hemlock tree in North America. All parts of the poison hemlock plant contain poison alkaloids. If ingested, conium will cause paralysis of various body systems. Paralysis of the respiratory system is the usual cause of death. Meanwhile, a victim can’t move but is aware of what is happening as the mind is unaffected until death is imminent.

The most famous case of hemlock poisoning was that of Greek philosopher Socrates in 339 BC. The 70-year-old was found guilty of heresy in a trial in Athens. His sentence was death by hemlock, and he had to drink the poison by his own hand. Socrates drank up, then walked around until he noticed his legs were heavy. As shown in this 1787 painting by Jacques-Louis David, Socrates was surrounded by students and adherents as he died.

3. Strychnine

Strychnine is made from seeds of the plant Strychnos nux vomica, found in Asia and Australia. The poison was first isolated from the plant in 1818 by two French chemists. Pierre-Joseph Pelletier and Joseph-Bienaimé Caventou, who also isolated quinine (used to treat malaria) from its source. Strychnine has been used as a homeopathic remedy (in very diluted form), a performance-enhacing drug for athletes, a slight hallucinogenic used to cut street drugs, and most commonly as rat poison.

Strychnine is an alkaloid (like hemlock or atropine) that paralyzes the victim and causes death by respiratory failure. There is no antidote for strychnine. Dr. Thomas Neil Cream killed at least seven women and one man, possibly many more, between 1878 and 1892 by giving them strychnine as medicine, both in the US and England. After serving ten years of a life sentence in America, he returned to London to continue poisoning his patients. Cream was convicted of murder in England and executed in 1892. Some have speculated that Cream might even be Jack the Ripper, but records indicate that Cream was in prison in the US when the Whitechapel murders occurred.

4. Curare

Curare is a mixture of various South American natural resources used for poison arrows and blowgun darts. One of the main ingredients is an extract of the plant Chondrodendron tomentosum.  Curare is used for medicinal purposes in a highly diluted form. The main poison is an alkaloid, which causes paralysis and death much in the same way as strychnine and hemlock. However, after the respiratory system becomes paralyzed, the heart may continue beating for quite some time.

Death by curare is relatively slow and horrific, as the victim is awake and aware but cannot move or even speak. However, if artificial respiration is performed until the poison subsides, the victim will survive. Indigenous tribes of the Amazon basin used curare-laden arrows to hunt game for food. Curare does not affect those who eat the animals who were killed by it. A slightly different recipe for curare is used when the intended target is human, such as that used during tribal war. Curare has also been adapted for use as a muscle relaxant during surgery.

5. Arsenic

Arsenic is a metalloid element, atomic weight 33. It occurs in small amounts in air, water, and soil, and in greater amounts in volcanic ash and in copper and gold mines. Because it kills insects, a compound called chromated copper arsenate, or CCA was used from the 1950s to 2003 to preserve pressure-treated wood. Arsenic has been used in medicines (it was once the indicated treatment for syphilis), chemical warfare, and as a pesticide. Various arsenic compounds are used to color paint and fireworks and as a semiconductor in integrated circuits. It is also used to harden metal for ammunition and the process of bronzing. Image by Flickr user James Laing.

Arsenic kills by inhibiting the production of necessary enzymes. Small amounts of arsenic ingested over time (possibly through drinking water) can raise the probability of cancer. Acute poisoning causes stomach cramps, diarrhea, confusion, convulsions, vomiting, and death. Murder by arsenic was popular in the Middle Ages as the substance was easy to procure and the symptoms of poisoning resembled those of cholera. Now, evidence of arsenic poisoning is easier to find. Chronic arsenic ingestion can be found months, even years later in the victim’s hair and fingernails. The most famous arsenic poisoners were the Borgia family in the Middle Ages. It was said that a little arsenic improved the taste of wine, and the gracious Borgias made sure their guests had the best-tasting wine possible.

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Body Anomaly Tattoos

Oh yeah, my cats would have a great time with this. Kids would enjoy it, too. But of course Think Geek was thinking about grown-ups kids like themselves when they came up with this. They suggest you get several and fly them all together in a swarm. That conjures up images of a real-life Space Invaders game. The remote can control two drones at once. Requires 6 AA batteries. I can think of three or four people in my family who would love to get a Mini HoverDrone for Christmas. Including myself. $19.99 at Think Geek.

(via Coolest Gadgets)

Dave Carroll of the band Sons of Maxwell who wrote the popular internet song United Breaks Guitars has become a spokesman of a sort for beleaguered airline passengers. Carroll flew United Airlines again on Sunday on his way to speak to a group of customer service executives. Then he spent an hour at the baggage claim because United lost his luggage! Carroll was told by a United employee that he had to stay in baggage claim, and a customs official told him he had to leave. The bag didn’t show up until Wednesday. Carroll said United was the only airline he could fly from Saskatchewan to Colorado Springs. The luggage was returned to him on Wednesday.

The Silverware Swallower

A Dutch medical magazine asked its readers to send in their stories of strange medical cases. One respondent told the tale of Margaret Daalman, who came in to the hospital 30 years ago complaining of a stomach ache. An x-ray found 78 forks and spoons inside her! It wasn’t the first time Daalman had been treated for her habit of eating cutlery. The photos and x-rays were not made public until now. Daalman went into therapy after the surgery and is said to be doing well today.

Murder Mystery Guests Fail to Spot Actual Crime

A church group staged a murder mystery dinner theater in Yeovil, England on Saturday night. They spent the evening looking for crime clues, but failed to notice that thieves had taken a large TV, laptop computer and the contents of a safe the night before. Elim Pentecostal Church was the victim of a break-in Friday that went unnoticed until Sunday, despite the crime-solving party. The crime was finally noticed by Reverend Howard Davenport, whose car had been vandalized at the church earlier in the week.

Revd Howard Davenport said: “In situations like this you have to laugh really!

“We were obviously disappointed that the church had been targeted twice in a week, but when I heard that it hadn’t even been noticed I had to smile.

“You’d have thought that eight wannabe detectives might have noticed a real crime a few metres from them only hours earlier!”

10-foot Shark Nearly Bitten in Half by 20-foot Shark

A 10-foot Great White Shark had been hooked already by a baited drum line off the coast of Queensland, Australia when it was attacked and bitten by a much bigger fish. Based on the bite marks, the attacker is presumed to be a 20-foot long Great White shark. Swimmers were warned away from the area of Stradbroke Island.

One-legged Man Held After One Shoe Goes Missing

A clerk at a shoe store in Maldegem, Belgium discovered that a single shoe was missing on Monday. A suspect came immediately to mind -a one-legged man who had been in the shop. Police were alerted and quickly apprehended an amputee who fit the store employees’ description. The shoe was recovered, and the suspect, a Russian asylum-seeker, was handed over to authorities.

Chihuahua Smuggled in Luggage

Customs officials at the Dublin Airport at first thought the x-ray showed a toy dog in the suitcase, but they opened it up and out popped a live puppy! A Bulgarian man on a flight from Madrid was trying to smuggle the young chihuahua. Bring a chihuahua into Ireland is not illegal, but imported animals must have a health certificate and paperwork to travel internationally. The puppy was handed over to officials and was placed in quarantine. The man was not detained, but a file is being compiled on the case.

Cop Allegedly Pulls Gun At Haunted House

36-year Baltimore police sergeant Eric Janik took a tour of a staged haunted house with his 9-year-old daughter and three other people. At the end of the tour, Michael Morrison, who was working in character at the attraction, jumped out at Janik to scare him with a chainsaw, Michael Meyers-style. Janik allegedly drew his service revolver and pointed it at Morrison’s chest. Morrison dropped the chainsaw, which had no chain. Janik later denied the incident, saying he pointed the gun at the ground. Witnesses say Janik had been drinking.

“Callers said he seemed to be very intoxicated. In fact, the people inside the House of Screams noted that. When he was being processed, two of the officers noticed his speech was slurred and there was a moderate odor of alcohol coming from his breath. He didn’t seem to be taking this quite as seriously as he should have been,” said Baltimore County police spokesman Bill Toohey.

Janik has been suspended from duty with pay while awaiting a hearing.