A South Florida woman has celebrated her 106th birthday by throwing the starting pitch at a spring training game between the Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals.

Maude Newkirk received a standing ovation at Roger Dean Stadium after tossing the ball about a dozen feet toward Marlins catch John Baker on Thursday. Young relatives rushed to hug her.

The Georgia native is no stranger to baseball: Thursday was the seventh time she'd made a first pitch during spring training. She began the tradition upon turning 100.

Plainfield Township, Michigan -- An 82-year-old woman who accidentally crashed her car through the front window of a southwest Michigan salon stuck around afterward for an appointment to get her hair done.

Authorities said Marion Zock was parking her Ford Fusion on Thursday outside Classic Hair Design in Kent County's Plainfield Township, near Grand Rapids, when she stepped on the accelerator instead of the brake.

Two people were injured, including an employee who returned to work after treatment and a girl with a bruised arm.

Herme Chua got booed. Canh Oxelson is no longer getting the best tables at restaurants.

Think Tiger Woods is having problems? Try being one of his look-alikes.

"A lot of people just don't want to be associated with Tiger right now," Oxelson said.

For Oxelson and Chua, that means a steady flow of extra cash has dried up.

"I had to turn down a job that would have paid pretty well," Chua said. "It was an adult nightclub that wanted me to go to six cities in six nights. But I'm active in my son's school and help coach a track team. If the kids ever found out I was helping to promote adult nightclubs, it wouldn't be appropriate."

A city centre ground to a halt when one disgruntled taxpayer left his cement truck right outside the doors of a branch of Anglo Irish Bank.

The man jumped out of the truck after parking it on Forster Street in Galway, then left the engine running and locked the doors.

Slogans plastered across the truck included 'Anglo Toxic Bank' and '500K for golf' -- in reference to a review that found €208,000 was spent on golf balls and €218,000 on golf umbrellas over a three-year period.

The registration plates had been changed and had the simple slogan 'Bankrupt' emblazoned on them.

The business name over the cab had been covered up in red paint.

Orangeburg, South Carolina - Somewhere, someone is lamenting the one that got away.

A creative angler tried fishing for a bank deposit bag from a night drop slot Friday morning, police say.

"It's under investigation," said Capt. Ed Conner of the Orangeburg Department of Public Safety. "We'll be looking at the evidence to see if we can put a face with the image on video."

Employees of the First Citizen's Bank on Columbia Road told investigators that when they retrieved the night deposit bags from Thursday's drops, they discovered one bag sported a fishing hook. Some fishing line dangled from the hook.

Washington - President Obama, U.S. congressmen and their aides held an emergency four hour-long meeting Wednesday to decide what action to take to stem a sudden and unprecedented mass enlightenment of the US population that threatens to destabilize the Government and create a fiscal crisis.

Details have emerged that behind closed doors Obama received a number of private phone calls from his financial overlords. In no uncertain terms Obama was threatened to do whatever it took - leaving all options on the table - to get the American people back to sleep or face devastating consequences to his financial savings portfolio. It is rumored that amongst the threats, Obama would be forced to exchange his investment fund share holdings for shares in BP that were about to be dumped by forewarned insiders. Alarmed in the extreme, Obama packed his teleprompters away and starting signing a myriad of papers that were thrust in front of him.

Baghdad, Iraq - The top U.S. envoy to Iraq said Sunday that the appointment of a CIA-asset dictator-in-waiting was fantastic news for America's implementation of pretend democracy in Oil-rich lands and was very excited about adding an extra star to the Police-State-Spangled banner.

Former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's secular Iraqiya bloc won two seats more than Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's State of Law coalition, according to election officials.

U.S. ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill, reporting from the new $600 million US embassy in downtown Baghdad (just opposite Burger King), said the results suggest, "We can safely say that Iraq is now the 51st State of America."

"Voting has been a great distraction for the people from the total environmental ruin of this once great nation," Hill told SOTT.net in an exclusive interview. "We successfully changed the name of the war from 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' to the more accurate 'Operation New Colony', and to mark this occasion we are pleased to formally incorporate Iraq into the American Empire."

To commemorate the event, McDonalds fast food chain (which recently opened it's 17 billionth store) has designed a new highly addictive 'Iraqi freedom burger'.

"We feel the new Iraqi Freedom Burger TM with its mix of old Chinese newspapers, Denatonium and genetically modified high-fructose corn syrup will accurately reflect Iraq's bitter-sickly sweet recent history. Bitter from the point of view of the 1 million+ dead Iraqis who won't be able to enjoy the new burger, but sickly sweet from the point of view of the increase in McDonald's profits that those deaths have facilitated", the McDonald's spokes-clown said.

Cairo - A new audio message posted on Islamic websites, purportedly from al-Qaida leader Terrorist-in-Chief Osama bin Laden, calls on Muslims to wage jihad against the mainstream media and US and Israeli government officials for making them appear ridiculous.

The recording lamented the credulousness of Western infidels who believed the recent claims by the Western press that 'al-Qaeda' plans to use 'boob and butt bombs' in an effort to bring down Western civilization.

"Are citizens of Western nations so gullible that they believe we would blow up own asses? How the hell are we meant to scare the bejesus (praise be upon him) out of people and further both our own agenda and that of Western governments, if the CIA and MI5 insist on planting absurd stories about 'crotch' and 'boob' bombers in the press?? I mean seriously, this is getting ridiculous, it's not even fair," the message stated.

A CIA spokesperson, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak on the matter (but who decided to speak anyway because he had been drinking heavily) told this reporter: "Don't believe anything those dirty camel jockeys say, it's all true, they want to kill us and stop us from controlling the opium plantations in Afghanistan....eh.....I mean, they hate us because of our freezers and demolition balls," the intoxicated agent slurred before throwing up on a map of the Middle East.

I'm not one of those people who spends his whole life wishing things had turned out differently. Sure, the so-called "real world" can be a pretty cruel place sometimes, but why sit around all day worrying about the way things are when, with a little imagination, determination, and blinding denial, you can convince yourself that everything is great?

It may sound crazy, but I'm telling you, if you put your mind to it, you can make yourself believe just about anything!

Don't let annoying little hang-ups like logic, reason, or even reality stand in the way of what you want to be true. Your mind is the most powerful tool you have, and if you use it correctly, you'll be amazed at all the incredible things you can deny.

Cleveland - Police say a motorist fleeing officers in Cleveland abandoned his car and jumped a fence - landing in what turned out to be a prison yard.

Garfield Heights police say the chase started in that suburb early Monday over a traffic violation and reached speeds of 90 mph.