Strange Stuff

A fan of classic TV sitcoms apparently set a trap for an online identity thief—who fell for it hook, line, and remote control. A credit card number up for sale in an underground chat room that caters to crooks recently caught the attention of a security company monitor who suspected shenanigans because of the purported cardholder's name: "Herman Munster." More »

As if it didn't have anything else to do, the Israeli parliament is embroiled in a flap over an American skin mag. Maxim is about to publish an article on "the Women of the Israel Defense Force," featuring the Hebrew hotties in stages of undress some back home are calling unkosher. More »

In a garage in the exurbs of Chicago Tom Seefurth has labored quietly to develop, refine, bottle, and bring to market the ultimate beverage – pizza beer. With a head redolent with oregano, basil, tomatoes and, yes, garlic, he believes he has finally succeeded. And Seefurth has even found an outlet, albeit a sole one, for his elixir. More »

In Delcambre, La., showing your skivvies is about to come with criminal consequences, thanks to a new ordinance that prohibits residents from wearing low-hanging pants. Saggy-trousered offenders may be fined $500 and risk 6 months in jail. “They’re better off taking the pants off and just wearing a dress,” the mayor says of the low-riders. More »

A man suing his dry cleaners for $54 million had to ask the judge for a break yesterday when he broke down crying as he testified about his loss—a pair of pants. The DC Superior Court trial has attracted international attention even though the case now technically concerns consumer protection and a "Satisfaction Guaranteed" sign, not the pricey pants. More »

The credibility of fatwas, the religious rulings that guide daily life for Muslims, is being strained in Egypt, the New York Times reports.  A flap ensued recently when one authority ruled in favor of  drinking the Prophet Mohammed’s urine and another approved co-ed workplaces if the women breast-fed male colleagues to make them "family." More »

Cutting ties with the Catholic Church is, in theory, a relatively simple matter known as "debaptism." More and more Italians who aren't worried about the Vatican's formal stance on what it calls "an act of apostasy, heresy or schism" are finding the documents they need online. Wired considers the digital angle on an ecclesiastical process. More »

The UK is ignoring a vicious form of discrimination, the BBC reports—one based not on skin color but hair color. Britain's red-headed schoolkids face bullying, women feel stereotyped, and auburn-haired Britons report harassment with epithets like carrot-top, copper-top, ginger-nut, and even Ronald McDonald. More »

The childhood obesity epidemic has found its way to China—and will stop there, if the government's new dance requirement has the desired effect. Starting in September, mandatory classes will get millions of schoolchildren off their butts and onto the dance floor. Experts are developing routines for the curriculum, which will gain new moves every two years. More »

The priciest work of modern art ever created is on view at a London gallery, priced at just $100 million. Death-obsessed artist Damien Hirst cast a human skull in platinum and encrusted it with diamonds, creating a piece he calls "For the Love of God." He kept the original teeth, he tells Bloomberg, as "a reminder that it's real." More »

Stanford University officials evicted an 18-year old student  this week after discovering she was not enrolled at the school—despite living in several dorms, buying textbooks, and appearing to study for exams, the Stanford Daily reports. Azia Kim masqueraded as a sophomore majoring in human biology for eight months before a suspicious RA alerted the housing office. More »

An unknown scientist in the first century B.C. may have invented the world’s first computer. Discovered by Greek divers in 1900 on the bottom of the Aegean Sea near the island of Antikythera, the so called Antikythera Mechanism lay in the National Museum in Athens mistaken for an astrolabe until the late 1950s. More »

Chinese authorities have arrested a man said to have killed six women in order to sell their bodies to families seeking "ghost brides"  to marry their deceased sons. He and three other corpse traders are reputed to be members of an underground supply network prompted by  a growing demand for  afterlife spouses in rural areas, the Guardian reports. More »

Bob Barker, meet Gregg Miller. The outgoing "Price Is Right" host's signature sign-off is a plea to spay and neuter your pets. Miller sells prosthetic dog testicles. Kismet! Says one pet owner who ponied up for the phony cojones, "Mostly it was to make sure Dallas still felt like a man and other dogs wouldn't make fun of him." More »

Polish artist Pawel Althamer has placed a 70-foot long nude balloon in a plaza in Milan. It is a self-portrait of the artist.  In Italy such a sculpture is "nothing new."   A passing American commented that it "wouldn't fly" in the U.S. More »

Karl Szmolinsky sent giant rabbits to North Korea to alleviate hunger, and Kim Jong-Il ate them. The German rabbit farmer suspects that the twelve "German Grey Giants" he sent to the country were eaten at a birthday banquet for the dictator instead of being used in a breeding program as he'd planned. More »

Legendary rock guitarist and professional strange person Keith Richards—still alive against all apparent odds—admitted yesterday to snorting cocaine laced with his own father's ashes. "He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared," he told British music magazine NME. More »

A  nude chocolate Christ, sans loincloth, was pulled from a midtown Manhattan gallery yesterday after torrent of complaints from offended Catholics . Bill Donohue, head of the watchdog Catholic League, which orchestrated the protest, said the sculpture, intended for display during Holy Week,  was "one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever." More »

White House codger-in-residence Karl Rove debuted his hip-hop alter ego, "MC Rove," at last night's correspondents dinner, the Politico reports. Bush's embattled adviser shouted "I'm MC Rove" at comedian-appointed intervals, pretending gamely to have a sense of humor (and any idea how to win the black vote) as David Gregory and Ken Strickland of NBC News served as backup dancers. More »

Three high school girls in a New York City suburb were suspended for reciting the word "vagina" in an excerpt of the "The Vagina Monologues" during a school open-mic night. Faculty had instructed the 16-year-old honors students to delete the word, in deference to children in the audience, but the teens disobeyed orders, because, as one of the students put it, "we knew it was the right thing to do." More »