Posts from — March 2007

BEIJING — Researchers at a giant panda reserve in southern China have invented a new kind of high-quality paper made out of panda poop.

Liao Jun, a researcher at the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Base in Sichuan province, said the idea came to them after a visit to Thailand last year where they found paper made from elephant dung. They thought panda poop would produce an even finer quality paper, he said.

The base is currently in talks with several paper mills on how to turn the droppings of Jing Jing, Ke Bi, Ya Ya and dozens of other pandas at the base into reams of office paper and rolls of wrapping paper, said Liao.

They hope to have a product line available by next year, he said.

”We are not interested in doing this for the profits but to recycle the waste,” said Liao. ”It’s environmentally friendly. We can use the paper ourselves and also we can sell whatever is left over.”

The center’s 40 bamboo-fed pandas produce about 2 tons of droppings a day, but Liao said he was not sure yet how much paper would result.

What about squeamish customers who might consider the paper unsanitary?

”People won’t find it gross at all,” Liao said. ”They probably won’t even be able to tell it’s from panda poop.”

The Chiang Mai Zoo in northern Thailand already sells multicolored paper made from the excrement produced by its two resident pandas. Making paper there involves a daylong process of cleaning the feces, boiling it in a soda solution, bleaching it with chlorine and drying it under the sun.

JOKESTARTERS:

• Finally, I’ll have an excuse for my poor writing abilities – “this paper is shit!”
• So if these people are successful, there’s a good chance that next year I’ll be wiping my ass with toilet paper made of panda poop. Isn’t that redundant? Clearly this is a sign of the apocalypse when one wipes one’s ass with another animals excrement…

SOURCE:

• Boston Herald

NEW YORK — A New York artist is clearly on the fast-track to hell after creating a six-foot tall, anatomically correct nude sculpture of Jesus Christ out of chocolate.

Dubbed “My Sweet Lord” by its creator, said artwork has infuriated Catholics preparing to observe some of their holiest days of the year.

The 6-foot sculpture by Cosimo Cavallaro was to debut Monday evening, four days before Christians mark the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on Good Friday. The final day of the exhibit at the Lab Gallery inside Manhattan’s Roger Smith Hotel was planned for Easter Sunday.

“This is one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever,” said Bill Donohue, head of the Catholic League, a watchdog group. “It’s not just the ugliness of the portrayal, but the timing — to choose Holy Week is astounding.”

The gallery’s creative director, Matt Semler, said the Lab and the hotel were overrun with angry telephone calls and e-mails. The gallery was considering its options, he said.

“We’re obviously surprised by the overwhelming response and offense people have taken,” said Semler, adding that the Holy Week timing was a coincidence.

The artwork was created from more than 200 pounds of milk chocolate, and it features Christ with his arms outstretched. The Cavallaro creation does not include a loincloth.

A publicist for the gallery said the artist was not available for comment.

Cavallaro, who was raised in Canada and Italy, is best known for his quirky work with food as art: Past efforts include repainting a Manhattan hotel room in melted mozzarella, spraying 5 tons of pepper jack cheese on a Wyoming home and festooning a four-poster bed with 312 pounds of processed ham.

JOKESTARTERS:

• “Excuse me, Mr. Cavallaro, your ride is here.” “My ride? You mean a cab is here for me?” “Well…actually, it’s a Handbasket…”
• So someone’s upset about a chocolate, nekkid, anatomically-correct Jesus? Come on folks…do bunnies get upset when we blaspheme them? Loosen up. And have a piece of chocolate…
• Hey, wasn’t Isaac Hayes’ nickname in the 70s “Chocolate Jesus”? I smell (taste?) a lawsuit…

SOURCE:

• WFRV

CALGARY, ALBERTA — A pungent female passenger in Calgary who was booted from her local bus for wearing too much perfume is now demanding a public apology for the incident.

CTV News of Canada is reporting that Natalie Kuhn was ordered off a city bus on two separate occasions by a bus driver who complained her perfume was too strong and was aggravating his allergies.

Kuhn said the driver pulled over and started opening all of the windows just before kicking her to the curb a few blocks from her regular stop.

“I was humiliated and embarrassed,” the 25-year-old chiropractic assistant told CTV News.

Kuhn said she heard no complaints from the other riders.

“(The bus driver) stood up, looked at the other passengers and said, ‘Just so everyone knows, we won’t be going anywhere because of the excessive amount of perfume this woman’s wearing. I can’t operate this bus.’”

Kuhn called the city to complain while the driver paged his supervisor. A short time later, a transit employee arrived to escort her to her destination. Calgary Transit said an investigation is underway.

Kuhn said she’s been spraying on less perfume since the incidents, but she won’t stop wearing it.

JOKESTARTERS:

• A woman gets kicked off public transportation because she smells bad. She then demands a public apology. It’s nice to see that it’s not just the US justice system that’s working – things are going right in Canada too, eh?
• Hey lady…here’s a solution for your perfume addiction: try putting it in your purse, then applying it once you’re at your cubicle. That way, the rest of us don’t have to hold our collective breaths when you walk past.

SOURCE:

• Boston Herald

SEATTLE, WA — After receiving complaints from neighbors, Seattle Animal Shelter staffers found 110 parakeets Tuesday in a cage in the living room of a one-bedroom apartment.

“You could hear the noise from the street,” animal control officer Neil Deruyter said.

The birds were being kept in unsanitary conditions and were surrendered by their owner, an unidentified man in his 50s who had been collecting them for about five years.

The owner told the officers he previously tried to give the small birds to another shelter, but said he had been told only five would be kept and the rest would be euthanized.

The birds were given away to qualified adopters, the Seattle Animal Shelter said.

Deruyter said he could hear the chirps when he parked outside the apartment. Still, from the sounds, he figured there were about 50 parakeets.

“I was stunned to see there were 110,” he said. “There was a lot of feces and debris in the cage and a good layer of dust on everything.”

No animal cruelty charges were expected to be filed against the owner because of his cooperation, Seattle Animal Shelter executive Director Don Jordan said.

JOKESTARTERS:

• The authority’s first clue that something weird was going on was that the entire floor of the man’s apartment was covered in newsprint.
• In England men often “shack up with a bird” but 110? What is this guy, some kind of bestiality-lovin’ Mormon religious guy with many wives??

SOURCE:

• abc11TV

AUSTIN, TX — A handcuffed, detained woman managed to squeeze her body under a cage window of a Travis County Sheriff’s patrol car and drive it away. While still handcuffed.

According to the affidavit, a Travis County deputy pulled over the car of Candice Asdahl, 22, near the intersection of Ed Bluestein Blvd. and Loyola Lane after she failed to use her turn signal at a turn and during a lane change.

When the deputy approached her car, he said he saw her holding a “marijuana cigar,” which she then tried to hide and destroy. The deputy said he restrained her, handcuffed her and detained her for attempting to destroy physical evidence. He placed her in the back of his patrol car.

The deputy then went back to Asdahl’s car to look for evidence. While he was doing that, Asdahl brought her cuffed hands under and around her legs and feet, squeezed through the cage window that separates the front from the rear seats in the patrol car and drove the car away.

The deputy and another deputy followed her in another patrol car as she drove north on Highway 183 and onto other streets, sometimes exceeding 130 m.p.h. The deputies lost track of her around Highway 183 and Highway 290 West, but her whereabouts were tracked by an “automatic vehicle locator” in the patrol car.

Asdahl’s wild ride came to an end when she crashed the patrol car into an iron-rod fence at an apartment complex in the 6700 block of Berkman Drive and tried to flee on foot. Austin police found her about fifty yards away with the handcuffs still on.

Asdahl has been charged with escape from custody, a third-degree felony. Damage to the stolen patrol car is estimated at $2,500.

JOKESTARTERS:

• Hey, now we know Nicole Richie’s alias! Nobody else could be skinny enough to slide under one of those cop car cages.
• Obviously this female suspect was on “the grass.” I mean, how else can you explain this erratic behavior? Too bad she didn’t get the munchies though…that would’ve kept her from sliding under the cage thingy.

SOURCE:

• KEYE-TV