Don't Panic! Lighten Up!S


Einstein

Never, Never Spit Gasoline While Smoking

Berlin, Germany - A German man in the northeastern town of Gross Godems was being treated for serious burns Monday after accidentally setting his apartment ablaze when he mixed up a bottle of gasoline with alcohol, police said.

Mail

Pennsylvania Man Apologizes for Vulgar Check

Doylestown, Pennsylvania - A man who wrote a vulgar message on the memo line of a check he used to pay a $5 parking ticket has apologized in writing, leading police to drop a disorderly conduct charge against him.

Star

Cat 'speaks Chinese'



©Unknown

A Chinese grandmother claims her cat can talk. Granny Lv, 70, of Changchun city, says Mimi has become a local celebrity because he can speak Chinese.

Cowboy Hat

New Bush Coins - The Petroleum standard


Crusader

Canadian artist's "obscene jesus" arouses religious groups

Terence Koh, the provocative Canadian darling of the New York art scene, has aroused controversy in Britain after a top gallery displayed one of his sculptures showing Jesus with an erect penis.

©Andrew H. Walker, Getty Images
Terence Koh has generated outrage but also acclaim in London and New York.

Smiley

US: Shouting Macaw scares off burglar at pet store

Watch dogs are a pretty common first line of security for U.S. homes and businesses. Watch birds not so much. But that didn't stop Merlin, a seven-year-old blue-and-gold macaw who scared off a burglar at a Massachusetts pet store this week.

Intruders smashed the front window of Pet Palace in Leominster, about 45 miles west of Boston, and as they entered the store the bird began to shout, said store manager Lori Oltman on Thursday.

Bell

Greek priest given suspended sentence for loud bell

A Greek Orthodox priest was given a suspended 70-day sentence after residents complained he rang his church bell too loudly and too often, national television reported on Friday.

Residents of a nearby resort town filed a lawsuit against the priest of the Assumption Church on Mount Pelion in Central Greece.

Court-appointed specialists measured the noise, and found that the volume exceeded the maximum permissible level set out by Greek law.

People

Twins Unwittingly Got Married in Britain

London - Twins who were separated at birth got married without realizing they were brother and sister, a lawmaker said, urging more information be provided on birth certificates for adopted children. A court annulled the British couple's union after they discovered their true relationship, Lord David Alton said.

Sherlock

'Priest' with 7.7 lbs of coke arrested

Amsterdam - A man claiming to be a Catholic priest was arrested Friday at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport after he was caught carrying 7.7 pounds of cocaine under his robes, a spokesman for Dutch border police said.

The suspect, whose identity was being traced, initially refused to undergo a routine body check "for religious reasons," spokesman Robert van Kapel said.

Bizarro Earth

Phobia catalogue reveals bizarre list of fears

It is enough to give someone an irrational fear of long and faintly improbable-sounding words.

A catalogue of unusual phobias reveals that the fear of long words is known as hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.

The condition, sometimes shortened to sesquippedaliophobia, can leave sufferers with shortness of breath, rapid breathing, an irregular heartbeat, sweating, nausea, and overall feelings of dread.

Among the bizarre crippling dreads listed on changethatsrightnow.com are the ridiculous sounding zemmiphobia, or fear of the great mole rat, and alektorophobia, or a fear of chickens.

Those with lutraphobia fear otters, those with globophobia fear balloons and those with pteronophobia fear of being tickled by feathers.