20081221

Officer asks for ID, receives bag of marijuana

A police officer investigating why a car was stopped in the middle of College Boulevard at 4 a.m. on Dec. 14 found the driver and his passenger either asleep or unconscious. The car smelled of alcohol and vomit, he noted in his report.

The officer managed to wake the driver, but could not rouse the passenger. He finally took her pulse to make sure she was OK, according to the report.

The driver handed the officer his license upon request. When the officer asked for the passenger's identification, the driver handed over a small coin purse with a bag of marijuana in it.

The officer asked again for identification and the driver gave him the passenger's open purse, which had a marijuana pipe clearly visible inside of it.

Both of the individuals were arrested for possession of marijuana and possession of narcotics equipment.

20081109

Obama name craze for Kenya babies

Mothers in Kenya have marked Barack Obama's historic win in the US presidential elections by naming their newborns after him and his wife.

More than half of the babies born in a Kisumu Hospital on the day after the election were named either Barack or Michelle Obama.

Kisumu is close to the village where Mr Obama's father was born and raised and Mr Obama is a local hero.

The region erupted in celebration after he won the race for the White House.

Out of 15 babies born in the New Nyanza Provincial Hospital in the western city of Kisumu on Wednesday, five boys were named Barack Obama and three girls were called Michelle.

Pamela Adhiambo, who gave birth to twins – a boy and a girl - on the night after the elections, named them Barack and Michelle Obama.

"I made up my mind to name them long before the elections, and even if Obama had not won, I would still have done the same," she said.

Some of the mothers said they admired the couple and hoped that their children would be inspired to reach for great heights by sharing the names.

Mrs Adhiambo said she hoped the names would motivate her children to work hard and achieve as much as the Obamas.

She invited Mr Obama and his wife to come and visit their twin namesakes.

20081105

Boxers or briefs? Dallas thief picks 130 panties

A man has proven that you can never have too much underwear when he stole more than 130 pairs of panties from a Victoria's Secret store.

The Dallas Morning News reported online Tuesday that a man snatched $1,067 worth of underwear from a table at the Dallas store Monday.

A police report says a female accomplice held open the door during the theft and both sped away in a green car.

The report did not indicate what styles or sizes were stolen.

20081101

Murderers in the Money

Murderers in the Money: Reggie Townsend, 29, serving 23 years in a Wisconsin prison for reckless homicide against an 11-year-old girl, won $295,000 from a jury in September as compensation for a two-month confinement with only a "wet, moldy and foul smelling" mattress to sleep on (about $4,900 per unpleasant night). [TheSmokingGun.com, 9-19-08]

20081029

The woman in red drives the men crazy, study finds

If a woman wants to drive the men wild, she might want to dress in red.

Men rated a woman shown in photographs as more sexually attractive if she was wearing red clothing or if she was shown in an image framed by a red border rather than some other color, U.S. researchers said Tuesday.

The study led by psychology professor Andrew Elliot of the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York, seemed to confirm red as the color of romance -- as so many Valentine's Day card makers and lipstick sellers have believed for years.

Although this "red alert" may be a product of human society associating red with love for eons, it also may arise from more primitive biological roots, Elliot said.

Noting the genetic similarity of humans to higher primates, he said scientists have shown that certain male primates are especially attracted to females of their species displaying red. For example, female baboons and chimpanzees show red coloring when nearing ovulation, sending a sexual signal that the males apparently find irresistible.

"It could be this very deep, biologically based automatic tendency to respond to red as an attraction cue given our evolutionary heritage," Elliot, whose findings appear in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, said in a telephone interview.

The study involved more than 100 men, mostly college undergraduates, who were shown pictures of women and asked to rate how pretty they were, how much the men would like to kiss them and how much the men would like to have sex with them.

Men were shown a woman, with some of the pictures bordered in red and some bordered in white, gray or green. Even though it was the same picture of the same woman, when she was framed in red the men rated her as more attractive than when she was bordered by another color.

Men were then shown photographs of a woman that were identical except that the researchers digitally made her shirt red in some versions or blue in others. And once again, the men strongly favored the woman in red.

The men also were asked, "Imagine that you are going on a date with this person and have $100 in your wallet. How much money would you be willing to spend on your date?" When she was clad in red, the men said they would spend more money on her.

The researchers noted that the color red did not alter how men rated the women in the photographs in terms of likeability, intelligence or kindness -- only attractiveness.

The researchers then had a group of young women rate whether the pictured woman was pretty. Red had no impact on whether women rated other women as pretty, they found.

Gay men and color blind men were excluded from the study.

20081024

Men nabbed after playing 'chicken' with police car

Three Oklahoma City men were arrested after playing "chicken" with a police car. Police said a 23-year-old man drove his car at the oncoming patrol car driven by Capt. J.D. Reid and didn't move until Reid swerved out of the way. Reid then chased the car until it crashed. The driver was found inside the car, another 22-year-old man was found lying outside the vehicle and a third man was found hiding behind a traffic sign.

Two of the men were hospitalized and the third was treated and taken to the Oklahoma County jail where he's being held without bond.

Police say the driver apparently decided on a whim to play chicken car and didn't realize the car was a police car.