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MSN-Mainichi Daily News, via BoingBoing, reports:

The tomato, which is about 10 centimeters in diameter and weighs about 150 grams, is of the regular “Momotaro” variety, but is about three times the normal size. It was harvested in Yawata from a field owned by 61-year-old farmer Kiyoshi Ueda.

Roger Tinkoff, left, tends to Nick Sanders’ cut after a fight at the Gentleman’s Fighting Club. (Jeff Chiu, AP)

MENLO PARK, Calif. (AP) — They may sport love handles and Ivy League degrees, but every two weeks some Silicon Valley techies turn into vicious street brawlers in a real-life, underground fight club.

Kicking, punching and swinging every household object imaginable — from frying pans and tennis rackets to pillowcases stuffed with soda cans — they beat each other mercilessly in a garage in this bedroom community south of San Francisco.

Then, bloodied and bruised, they limp back to their desks in the morning.
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an estimated 70,000 cans: 24 beers a day for 8 years

John Hollenhorst, KSL, reports:

A seemingly unbelievable mess discovered last year in an Ogden townhouse has suddenly become an Internet legend.

It’s all TRUE!
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Foreign tourists are introduced to street children at New Delhi railway station. Photograph: Amit Bhargava/Corbis

The Observer, reports:

Clearing his throat theatrically as he gets ready to reveal a highlight of the tour, group leader Javed stops halfway up the staircase to platform one and points through the railings to a dark alcove beneath the footbridge over the tracks.

‘This is where the street children sleep,’ he says, smiling at the cluster of tourists who are craning forward to hear his voice above the roar of the trains below. A small boy climbs out from the hole, steps across the corrugated iron roof and balances himself on a ledge on the other side of the bars, staring back at the visitors, perplexed.
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Richard Morin, Washington Post, via BoingBoing, reports:

“I’m too ugly to get a job.”

– Daniel Gallagher, a Miami bank robber, after police captured him in 2003

The hapless Mr. Gallagher may have been ugly, but he was also wise.

Not only are physically unattractive teenagers likely to be stay-at-homes on prom night, they’re also more likely to grow up to be criminals, say two economists who tracked the life course of young people from high school through early adulthood.

“We find that unattractive individuals commit more crime in comparison to average-looking ones, and very attractive individuals commit less crime in comparison to those who are average-looking,” claim Naci Mocan of the University of Colorado and Erdal Tekin of Georgia State University.
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Richard Owen in Rome, The Times Online (UK), reports:

THE Vatican has been accused of trying to cash in on the Pope’s words after it decided to impose strict copyright on all papal pronouncements.

For the first time all papal documents, including encyclicals, will be governed by copyright invested in the official Vatican publishing house, the Libreria Editrice Vaticana.

The edict covers Pope Benedict XVI’s first encyclical, which is to be issued this week amid huge international interest. The edict is retroactive, covering not only the writings of the present pontiff — as Pope and as cardinal — but also those of his predecessors over the past 50 years. It therefore includes anything written by John Paul II, John Paul I, Paul VI and John XXIII.

The decision was denounced yesterday for treating the Pope’s words as “saleable merchandise” and endangering the Church’s mission to “spread the Christian message”.

A Milanese publishing house that had issued an anthology containing 30 lines from Pope Benedict’s speech to the conclave that elected him and an extract from his enthronement speech is reported to have been sent a bill for €15,000 (£10,000). This was made up of 15 per cent of the cover price of each copy sold plus “legal expenses” of €3,500.
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Paul Ford, Harper’s writes:

The number of people killed by the Indian Ocean tsunami rose to 230,000. A study showed that 310,000 Europeans die from air pollution each year, and the U.N. predicted that 90 million Africans will have HIV by 2025. An international task force of scientists, politicians, and business leaders warned that the world has about 10 years before global warming becomes irreversible. The U.S. Congress officially ratified President George W. Bush’s election victory after a two-hour debate over voting irregularities in Ohio. Terri Schiavo, Johnnie Cochran, Frank Perdue, Mitch Hedberg, Arthur Miller, Saul Bellow, and the pope died, as did the man who wrote the theme song to “Gidget.” An Australian tortoise named Harriet turned 175. General Motors was spending more for health care than for steel, and an increasing number of Americans were heating their homes with corn. El Salvadoran police arrested 21 people for operating a smuggling operation and seized 24 tons of contraband cheese. NASA announced that it wanted to return to the moon.

A study found that the worldwide percentage of land stricken by drought has doubled within the last 30 years. The Jordan River was filled with sewage, and the last of Gaza’s Jewish settlers left their homes on armored buses. Terrorists in London set off bombs on four trains and a bus, killing 52 people; President Bush condemned attacks on innocent folks by those with evil in their hearts. A 13-year-old boy in Kalamazoo accidentally burned down the family meth lab. New Orleans flooded after levees broke in the wake of Hurricane Katrina; many evacuees were not allowed to take their pets with them. “Snowball!” cried a little boy after police took away his dog. “Snowball!” At least 42,000 people died in an earthquake in Pakistan. It was announced that Cookie Monster would cut back on cookies. Authorities in Malaysia arrested 58 people who worship a giant teapot. Poor people rioted in France.

In North Carolina Kenneth Boyd became the 1,000th prisoner executed since the United States reintroduced the death penalty in 1976. A 1,600-inmate faith-based prison opened in Crawfordville, Florida. Police began random bag checks of subway passengers in New York City. It was revealed that the CIA had set up a secret system of prisons, called “black sites,” around the world; it was also revealed that the National Security Agency was spying on Americans without first obtaining warrants. Journalist Judith Miller was released from jail and said she wanted to hug her dog. U.S. Congressman Tom DeLay was arrested; U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was indicted. The Pentagon admitted to using white phosphorus during the 2004 attack on Fallujah, Iraq, and allocated $127 billion to build a robot army. The total number of American soldiers killed in the Iraq war rose to 2,174, while the total number of Iraqi civilians killed rose to 27,636. “We are all waiting for death,” said an Iraqi soldier, “like the moon waiting for sunset.” The U.S. Defense Department, in violation of the federal Privacy Act, was building a database of 30 million 16- to 25-year-olds. The Department of Homeland Security announced that it had wasted a great deal of money and needed much more. Starbucks came to Guantanamo Bay. Scientists began work on a complete, molecule-level computer simulation of the human brain. The project will take at least ten years.

LEE BOWMAN, Scripps Howard News Service, reports:

That traditional shot in the heinie may be doing less and less good as people become plumper, according to a new study presented Monday.

“Our study has demonstrated that a majority of people, especially women, are not getting the proper dosage from injections to the buttocks. There is no question that obesity is the underlying cause,” said Dr. Victoria Chan, a researcher at the Adelaide and Meath Hospital in Dublin, Ireland.

Her study found that as few as one in 10 women and six in 10 men may be getting proper doses from injections because the needle can’t reach the target zone.
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Andrew Wolfson (), The Courier-Journal, via BoingBoing, reports:

On May 29, 2002, a girl celebrating her 18th birthday — in her first hour of her first day on the job at the McDonald’s in Roosevelt, Iowa — was forced to strip, jog naked and assume a series of embarrassing poses, all at the direction of a caller on the phone, according to court and news accounts.

On Jan. 26, 2003, according a police report in Davenport, Iowa, an assistant manager at an Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill & Bar conducted a degrading 90-minute search of a waitress at the behest of a caller who said he was a regional manager — even though the man had called collect, and despite the fact the assistant manager had read a company memo warning about hoax calls just a month earlier. He later told police he’d forgotten about the memo.

On June 3, 2003, according to a city police spokesman in Juneau, Alaska, a caller to a Taco Bell there said he was working with the company to investigate drug abuse at the store, and had a manager pick out a 14-year-old customer — and then strip her and force her to perform lewd acts.

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Maggie Mulvihill and Dave Wedge, Boston Herald, report:

BOURNE – Hurricane Katrina evacuees hastily handed $2,000 in federal relief money last month have been living it up on Cape Cod, blowing cash on booze and strippers, a Herald investigation has found.

Herald reporters witnessed blatant public drinking at a Falmouth strip mall by Katrina victims living at taxpayer expense at Camp Edwards on Otis Air Force Base. And strippers at Zachary’s nightclub in Mashpee, a few miles from the Bourne base, report giving lap dances to several evacuees.

“They were tipping me $5 a pop,'’ said a Zachary’s dancer named Angel. “I told them I felt bad taking their money. But I still took it.'’

Another dancer said a large group from the military base was in Zachary’s recently and she gave lap dances to several of the victims.
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A monk shows how he can collect alms and remain protected in a prototype “monkmobile,'’ developed to protect Buddhist monks in predominantly Muslim southern Thailand from attacks in Bangkok. The vehicle was developed by Precipart Co, Ltd. Company owner Major Songphol Eiamboonyarith has developed an array of devices, including orange-colored bulletproof vests for monks and everyday items that can fire rubber bullets, such as umbrellas and microphones. (PHOTO: EPA via Taipei Times)

Brian Faler, Special to The Washington Post, reports:

Democratic lawmakers and civil rights leaders denounced conservative commentator William J. Bennett yesterday for suggesting on his syndicated radio show that aborting black children would reduce the U.S. crime rate.

The former U.S. education secretary-turned-talk show host said Wednesday that “if you wanted to reduce crime, you could — if that were your sole purpose — you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.” Bennett quickly added that such an idea would be “an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do.” But, he said, “your crime rate would go down.”
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Candice Jameson, 21, holds her umbrella as she celebrates Sunday’s Decadence Parade in New Orleans’ historic French Quarter. (RICK BOWMER / AP)

ALLEN G. BREED, Associated Press, reports:

NEW ORLEANS — In the absence of information and outside assistance, groups of rich and poor banded together in the French Quarter, forming “tribes” and dividing up the labor.

As some went down to the river to do the wash, others remained behind to protect property. In a bar, a bartender put near-perfect stitches into the torn ear of a robbery victim.

While mold and contagion grew in the muck that engulfed most of the city, something else sprouted in this most decadent of American neighborhoods - humanity.

“Some people became animals,” Vasilioas Tryphonas said Sunday morning as he sipped a hot beer in Johnny White’s Sports Bar on Bourbon Street. “We became more civilized.”
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Police officers gather evidence next to the body of one of two Wal-Mart employees who were shot to death, while collecting shopping carts, in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart Supercenter, Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2005, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Roy Dabner)

The Associated Press reports:

GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) — Two Wal-Mart employees were shot to death Tuesday as they gathered shopping carts in the parking lot of one of the retail stores in suburban Phoenix, and police later arrested the suspected gunman.

The shootings occurred in the middle of the parking lot, about 75 yards from the store entrance. At one point, a body could be seen in one of the corrals used for collecting shopping carts.

Hours later, police spokesman Mike Pena said a suspect had been arrested without incident in a retirement community in nearby Peoria.
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Stacy Driver, shown with his father, Huey, in this family photo, died Sunday in the custody of Wal-Mart employees after they struggled to detain him in handcuffs for suspected shoplifting.

ROBERT CROWE, Houston Chronicle, reports:

Driver, of Cleveland, was chased by employees after he left the store in the 6600 block of FM 1960 East with items they said he stole. Four employees in the Atascocita Wal-Mart wrestled Driver — who was shirtless at the time — to the ground and struggled with him on the hot pavement for 10 to 30 minutes, witnesses said. He stopped breathing and later died at a Humble hospital.

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At about 11:30 or so, I was standing behind the stage talking with someone when I noticed a helicopter pulling over one of the mountain tops. I jokingly said “Oh look, here comes big brother” to the person I was with. I wasn’t far off.

The helicopter dipped lower and lower and started shining its lights on the crowd. I was kind of in awe and just sat and watched this thing circle us for a minute. As I looked back towards the crowd I saw a guy dressed in camoflauge walking by, toting an assault rifle. At this point, everyone was fully aware of what was going on . A few “troops” rushed the stage and cut the sound off and started yelling that everyone “get the fuck out of here or go to jail”. This is where it got really sticky.

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Jackie Frank, Reuters, reports:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Conservative U.S. evangelist Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, but top U.S. officials denied on Tuesday that any such illegal act was being contemplated.

Venezuelan officials said Robertson’s remarks were “a call to terrorism,” and demanded President George W. Bush condemn his political ally and fellow Christian conservative. But Chavez, who was winding up a three-day visit to communist ally Cuba, told reporters he didn’t care about Robertson. “I don’t even know who this person is.”

Robertson, the founder of the Christian Coalition and a presidential candidate in 1988, said Chavez, one of Bush’s most vocal critics, was a “terrific danger” to the United States and intended to become “the launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism.”

“We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability,” Robertson said during Monday broadcast of his religious “The 700 Club” program.
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RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, Associated Press Science Writer, reports:

(08-22) 14:07 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) –

Asians and North Americans really do see the world differently.

Shown a photograph, North American students of European background paid more attention to the object in the foreground of a scene, while students from China spent more time studying the background and taking in the whole scene, according to researchers at the University of Michigan.
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Pia Sarkar, Chronicle Staff Writer, reports:

For all the criticism that Wal-Mart receives for its low wages and minimal health benefits, the retail giant says more than 11,000 people in the Bay Area are clamoring to get a job at its new Oakland store.

The country’s largest employer plans to welcome customers into its 148, 000-square-foot store on Edgewater Drive next Wednesday, and it says it already has filled 350 of its 400 openings.

Wal-Mart has accepted more than 11,000 applications from Bay Area job seekers, marking the largest volume of interest it has received at any of its Northern California stores, said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Cynthia Lin.

“I needed a job ASAP, and they had their doors open,” said Virginia Ford, 19, of Oakland, who had applied for 25 jobs in three months before she landed one as a cashier at Wal-Mart in Oakland on Tuesday.

Stephen Levy, an economist for the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy, said the pent-up demand for work reflects the Bay Area’s slow recovery from the dot-com crash.
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Photograph by China Newsphoto/Reuters/Corbis

National Geographic via BoingBoing:

August 16, 2005—Speeding from the scene of the crime, a Chinese boy tows a floating plastic bag of stolen natural gas last week. Flouting a government ban, farmers around the central Chinese town of Pucheng frequently filch gas from the local oil field.
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Ad By Pizza Restaurant In New Zealand Named ‘Hell’s Pizzas’

The BBC reports:

Sir Paul McCartney has suggested late Beatles bandmate George Harrison helped him write a song for his latest album from beyond the grave.

Sir Paul said he wrote Waiting For Your Friends To Go with help from Harrison, who died in 2001.

“I just got this feeling, this is George,” he told Tom Robinson on BBC digital station 6 Music. “I was like George - writing one of his songs.”

“It just wrote itself very easily because it wasn’t even me writing it.”
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A family eats at a toilet-themed restaurant in southern Taiwan city of Kaohsiung June 29, 2005. The Martun, or toilet in Chinese, restaurant in Kaohsiung boasts lengthy queues on weekends as diners wait for a toilet seat in its brightly colored tile interior. Food arrives in bowls shaped like Western-style toilets or Asian-style ’squat pots’. (REUTERS/David Lin)

Reuters, via BoingBoing, :

TAIPEI (Reuters) - It may take a strong stomach to eat curry or chocolate ice cream out of a toilet bowl, but a commode-themed restaurant in Taiwan does booming business serving up just that.

The Martun, or toilet in Chinese, restaurant in the southern port city of Kaohsiung boasts lengthy queues on weekends as diners wait for a toilet seat in its brightly colored tile interior.

Food arrives in bowls shaped like Western-style toilets or Asian-style “squat pots.”
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BoingBoing reports:

The Food Marketing Institute has ranked the fifty most frequently shoplifted products snatched by organized retail thieves. Organized retail theft (ORT) is “separate and distinct from petty shoplifting in that it involves professional theft rings that move quickly from community to community and across state lines to steal large amounts of merchandise that is then repackaged and sold back into the marketplace.” The Top 10 shoplifted items:

#1 Advil tablet 50 ct
#2 Advil tablet 100 ct
#3 Aleve caplet 100 ct
#4 EPT Pregnancy Test single
#5 Gillette Sensor 10 ct
#6 Kodak 200 24 exp
#7 Similar w/iron powder - case
#8 Similar w/iron powder - single can
#9 Preparation H 12 ct
#10 Primatene tablet 24 ct

The Associated Press reports:

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Police say three lions rescued a 12-year-old girl kidnapped by men who wanted to force her into marriage, chasing off her abductors and guarding her until police and relatives tracked her down in a remote corner of Ethiopia.

The men had held the girl for seven days, repeatedly beating her, before the lions chased them away and guarded her for half a day before her family and police found her, Sgt. Wondimu Wedajo said Tuesday by telephone from the provincial capital of Bita Genet, some 560 kilometers (348 miles) west of the capital, Addis Ababa.
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