A Wisconsin man was a passenger in a car pulled over by police. Afraid of getting arrested for some unpaid traffic fines, he gave a fake name when asked. Eventually he had to admit his lie as he gave the name of a wanted murderer. - WTOP News, 5/5/08
New York State lottery officials closed down betting on the number 871 in March 2007 because too many people were playing it. 871 is the room number in the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D. C. where former Governor Eliot Spitzer met with the prostitute named Kristen. - The Week Magazine, 3/28/08
An Air National Guard pilot mistakenly dropped a 22 pound practice bomb on an apartment complex in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was supposed to be dropped on a practice field in Kansas. - New York Times, 3/15/08
Presidential candidate Barack Obama's staff thought it might be a good idea to show Obama bowling on a recent trip to Pennsylvania. Obama bowled a 37. - Boston Globe, 3/30/08
Wausau, Wisconsin police raided an " underage keg party" only to discover the kegs were filled with root beer. A total of 90 breath tests were given, but none turned up positive for alcohol. - MSNBC, 3/28/08
Wisconsin mother and college student Keely Givhan spent six days in jail for unpaid library fines. - LaCrosse Tribune, 3/2/08
The 2008 presidential election will be the first that finds two sitting United States Senators against each other. - The Week Magazine, 3/21/08
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station apparently have access to a gun. Every spacecraft carries survival gear for crash landings, and the Russian Soyuz has a kit that includes a gun. All space station crew members are aware of the gun's location - that worries some critics because astronauts work in tight quarters under a lot of stress. - WESH.com (Orlando, FL), 2/14/08
Metropolitan Detroit, Michigan public libraries now offer check-out of video games for all major console game systems. The hope is that more kids will discover the library. - Detroit Free Press, 2/17/08
The presidential candidates missed a lot of votes in the Senate in 2007. John McCain missed 57%, Barack Obama 40% and Hillary Clinton missed 27% of votes. - The Week Magazine, 2/22/08
In 1987, The Indiana State House passed Bill #246, which stated that the value of Pi was exactly 3.2, and sent the bill up to the Senate. Luckily, the Indiana Senate indefinitely postponed a final vote on this bill. - San Diego Union, 2/7/08
Only 6 miles out of every 1,000 miles of Interstate highways are repaired or maintained each year. - Wired Magazine, 2/08
Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich received only 2% of the vote in the 2007 New Hampshire primary. For some reason, he is paying $27,000 to recount votes. - Newsweek, 1/28/08
Venezuelan Interior Minister Pedro Carreno gave a speech denouncing capitalism while wearing Gucci shoes and a Louis Vuitton tie. - Reuters, 12/14/07
One of every three US dollars sent to Iraq ends up in the pockets of corrupt officials or Sunni and Shiite militias. - The Week Magazine, 12/14/07
The Pentagon is demanding that a soldier return part of his recruitment bonus since he didn't finish his commitment. Why didn't Jordan Fox finish his tour of duty? He was injured in a roadside attack in Iraq, losing sight in one eye and suffering back injuries. - CBS News, 11/21/07
The EPA has withdrawn its warning that New Jersey residents should eat squirrels no more than twice a week. - Washington Post, 10/31/07
Australian authorities claim their latest campaign against speeders is very successful. The campaign suggests that men who speed are compensating for having small penises. - MSNBC, 7/17/07
California will spend $9.9 billion on its prison system in 2007, while only spending $3.3 billion on its state university system. - The Week Magazine, 10/19/07
Cynthia Hunter spent 50 days in a Florida jail when police found a vial of a yellow substance in her purse. Hunter insisted that it was dried cat urine for her son's science experiment, but police didn't believe it as she had outstanding warrants for her arrest, including shoplifting and violating probation. Testing was done on the vial's ingredients, and the vial indeed did contain dried cat urine. - St. Petersburg (Florida) Times, 10/10/07
Smoking has been banned in all public establishments in Belmont, California - including individual apartments, townhomes and condominiums that share a common floor or ceiling with another unit. - San Mateo Daily Journal, 10/10/07
It seems like you see surveillance cameras everywhere these days. The town of Liberty, Kansas is installing a camera in the town park. Liberty has a population of 95 people. - The Week Magazine, 9/28/07
The Oregon DMV has asked a family to return their vanity license plates as they might be offensive. The plates UDINK1, UDINK2, and UDINK3 must be surrendered, much to the displeasure of Mike Udink and his family. - The Week Magazine, 10/5/07
Antonia Novello was the Surgeon General of the United States from 1990 to 1993. She was instrumental in bringing sanctions against tobacco companies. Her brother-in-law, Don Novello, was better known as the chain smoking Father Guido Sarducci on Saturday Night Live. - Discover Magazine, 10/07
Chicago police officer Thaddeus Martyka chased down a fleeing suspect. Martyka was riding a Segway, and had to push the Segway's speed up to the maximum 12.5 mph to apprehend the suspect. - Chicago Tribune, 9/3/07
United States Soldiers are now firing 1 billion bullets per year. This is causing a bullet shortage which affects police departments across the nation. - The Week Magazine, 9/7/07
The EZ Pass electronic toll-collection system is being used by divorce lawyers to prove that cheating spouses lied about their whereabouts. - USAToday, 8/10/07
A $400,000 US Department of Agriculture subsidy was paid to a single Illinois soybean and corn farm from 1999 to 2005. The farm owner had died in 1995. The total amount of federal farm subsidies paid to the estates of dead farmers in that same time period was over $1.1 billion. - Time Magazine, 8/6/07
Delcambre, Louisiana has passed a new law banning the wearing of extremely baggy pants. - The Week Magazine, 7/13/07
The Pentagon seriously considered developing a "gay bomb" which would leave enemies "helpless" as soldiers would be irresistibly attracted to one another. - Daily Telegraph, 6/15/07
Due to a shortage of cemetery space, the British government has announced that the dead will have to start sharing graves. - The Week Magazine, 6/15/07
Baltimore, Maryland county detectives performed a body cavity (including between the buttocks) search of a drug offender in the middle of a Baltimore car wash, right in front of the employees and patrons. - Baltimore Sun, 6/5/07
New Hampshire is the only state in the union that does not require adults to use seat belts while driving. A measure to make seat belt usage mandatory failed in the state legislature in early June 2007. - The Week Magazine, 6/15/07
There is a resolution in the Illinois state senate to make April 1 "Cheap Trick Day" to honor the rock band Cheap Trick. - Associated Press, 6/19/07
Authorities in Minnesota are defending their decision not to issue a gun permit to Carey McWilliams. McWilliams is blind. - Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 5/15/07
United States taxpayers now have a total debt of over $59,000,000,000,000 - which works out to be $516,000 per U.S. household. - USA Today, 5/29/07
According to official transcripts, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has spoken only 281 words since October 2004. - Detroit Free Press, 5/20/07
New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine was recently badly injured in an auto accident in which his SUV was racing through traffic at 91 miles per hour. "I hope the state will forgive me, and I'll work very hard to set the right kind of example," Corzine said. Reporters then clocked the SUV taking him home from the hospital at 70 miles per hour, 15 mph over the posted speed limit. - The Week Magazine, 5/11/07
April 2007's Montana Drought Advisory Committee meeting was cancelled due to snow and rain. - The Week Magazine, 5/4/07
Fitchburg, Wisconsin Mayor Tom Clauder was so upset when he saw a woman pull one of his campaign signs out of the ground near City Hall on election day that he chased the woman's car in his pickup truck. The woman was his opponent's wife. - Associated Press, 4/4/07
Missouri City, Missouri candidate for City Council Joe Selle was running unopposed, but didn't get any votes at all - not even one from himself. Selle himself forgot it was election day and forgot to vote. There were no votes cast in this election. - Associated Press, 4/5/07
The US military corps has 4,000 robots, which include "PackBots" which are involved in the search for Osama Bin Laden. These "PackBots" are made by iRobot, the same company that makes the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner. Unfortunately, Taliban fighters have discovered that they can disable the robots by flipping them over with a common ladder. - Discover Magazine, 4/07
Despite a 45-year-old trade embargo, the United States is still Cuba's top food supplier. - The Week Magazine, 4/6/07
How is the United States Postal Service handling the problem of long customer wait times at the post office? They are removing all the clocks from their facilities. - Chicago Tribune, 3/5/07
The FDA has approved a drug from Pfizer that will help dogs lose weight. - Reuters, 1/5/07
The Royal Mail of Britain has issued a festive holiday stamp which appears to show Santa Claus defecating down a chimney. - The Week Magazine, 11/17/06
Voters in Fresno, California had two competing school board candidates named Suzanne Dias on the ballot recently. - North County Times, 10/30/06
Vermont is paying private citizens about $10 an hour to provide home care to their own family members. - The Week Magazine, 11/3/06
The U.S. Postal Service has quietly started removing tens of thousands of street corner mailboxes because of lack of use. - Chicago Tribune, 10/13/06
The top-secret Homeland Security hot line phone (which all 50 of the nation's governors are to use in an emergency) has been deluged with telemarketing calls, so the number has been put on the National Do-Not-Call Registry. - USA Today, 6/15/06
26,500,000 Americans - about one of every ten Americans - has had their personal information compromised by the U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs. - Computerworld, 5/29/06
The San Francisco, California Board of Supervisors called for the impeachment of President George W. Bush. They also have demanded that Fox News dismiss Bill O'Reilly. - MSNBC, 3/3/06
Touring New Orleans last week, President George W. Bush met a man who had survived for days on canned goods before being evacuated to Utah. "Were you the only black man in Salt Lake City?" Bush asked. - Time Magazine, 3/13/06
The U.S. Congress is one of the few and possibly the most famous indoor workplace in the country where it's still legal to smoke. - Los Angeles Times, 2/19/06
The Pakistani supreme court has banned making, selling or flying kites. - Los Angeles Times, 12/11/05
President Bush asked Americans to curtail unnecessary travel at the same time he prepared for his seventh unnecessary trip to the Gulf Coast on Air Force One. These trips were mainly for photo ops so that he could look like he cared. Air Force One gets about 0.14 miles to the gallon. He could have saved Americans some 94,000 gallons and millions of dollars. He could also have set a good example for avoiding unnecessary travel. - San Jose Mercury News, 9/29/05
The US Patent Office is so backlogged that Apple is still waiting for its patent on the iPod. - USAToday, 9/20/05
The highway funding bill President George Bush signed in August 2005 is chock full of pet projects, like a 223 million dollar bridge in Alaska connecting a city to an island with only 50 inhabitants. - Yahoo News, 8/10/05
To stop costly lawsuits, school officials in Broward County, Florida have erected "No Running" signs in school playgrounds. Teeter-totters and swings have also been removed. - South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 7/18/05
A handful of Chicago drivers left their cars in free, legal parking spaces. When they returned, parking meters were installed and their cars were ticketed. - WCCO.com, 6/21/05
The Internal Revenue Service estimates that for the first time (in 2005), half of all individual returns were e-filed. The decline has led many post offices to close earlier than in past years. For example, none of the post offices in South Carolina stayed open late on tax day. - USA Today, 4/15/05
Officials in Rocky Mount, North Carolina think the best way to pay for a new statue of Martin Luther King is to sell the old one. The original statue was unveiled in June 2003, but local residents complained that it looked nothing like the civil rights leader. - Washington Times, 3/31/05
TSA employees (Airport security screeners) were injured on the job in 2004 at five times the rate of the rest of the federal workforce. They were injured four times as often as construction-industry workers and seven times as often as miners. Heavy baggage is blamed for the high injury rate. - USA Today, 2/23/05
Approximately 240,000 manhole and street drain covers were stolen in Beijing, China in 2004. - CNN, 3/15/05
