Crime tips from the Food Network

Shock jock Howard Stern reportedly is helping auction off the virginity of a 22-year-old San Diego woman who’s trying to raise money for college. In a related story, Sarah Palin denies this is how she was able to pay for attending five colleges in six years.

Max and Benny's restaurant in Northbrook, Illinois, conducted an informal survey and found that cookies featuring the likeness of Barack Obama have been vastly outselling ones bearing the face of John McCain. And both are being outsold by Sarah Palin wearing chocolate moose-hunting gear.

Intelligence officials are watching signs that North Korea's dictator Kim Jong Il may be gravely ill, possibly from a stroke. President Bush wanted to send him a ‘get well’ card but couldn’t find one with a picture of a chimpanzee giving CPR to a bad hairpiece.

Police in Fresno, California, arrested a man who broke into the home of two farm workers, stole money, rubbed one with spices and whacked the other with a sausage before fleeing. That’s what happens when you’re new to the United States and get your crime tips from the Food Network instead of CSI:Miami.

Researchers from a security firm disguised themselves as fire inspectors, exterminators or government safety monitors and were able to slip past tellers in nearly 1,000 bank branches and steal confidential data about customers. One got caught, but that was after he stopped to cash in a roll of nickels and only had two forms of ID.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized to Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion after a conservative website showed a cartoon of a puffin pooping on him. The cartoon is now in Alaska where Republican artists are attempting to turn Dion into Barack Obama and the puffin into a flying moose.

Colonel Harland Sanders' secret list of 11 herbs and spices was removed from KFC's corporate offices for the first time in decades while the company beefed up protection for the famous recipe. Security was so tight, guards armed with flamethrowers warned that anyone trying to steal the original recipe would end up extra crispy.

South Korean scientists say Snuppy, the world's first cloned dog, has become a father after the world's first successful breeding of cloned canines. They don’t quite have all the bugs worked out yet because the puppies sniffed they own butts and licked each other’s private parts.

A Scottish man who was mistakenly told by doctors he was dying and gave away his life savings is planning to sue the hospital. Coincidently, President Bush had originally planned to do this with Warren Buffet as a way to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

A woman in Dallas says she turned to the Chinese principles of Feng Shui to balance the spiritual forces in her home and prevent another car from ramming it. But just to be on the safe side, she’s also using the Chinese principle of building a wall around her house.

Belichick has a cheerleader ready to step in

In an interview in Rome, Vice President Dick Cheney said there’s nothing stopping Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin from being an effective vice president. Too bad he didn’t mention which country he was referring to.

It looks like New England Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady may miss the rest of the season due to an injury suffered in the first game. Luckily, coach Bill Belichick is a big fan of John McCain and has a cheerleader ready to step in.

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama held his daughters' hands and escorted them to their first day of school. Talk about embarrassing. One of their friends asked him a question and they found out he’s not smarter than a fifth grader.

Comedy Central announced that Stephen Colbert’s DNA will be digitized and sent to the International Space Station. John Edwards was hoping to have his DNA sent into space too, but NASA wouldn’t allow him to put it inside a cute female astronaut.

Proving that you should never throw anything away, the new hurricane heading for the Gulf of Mexico has caused oil prices to rise enough that Exxon is asking Republicans if any of them still have any buttons that say “I Like Ike.”

President Bush hosted his last T-ball game on the South Lawn over the weekend. Bush caused quite a scare among the young players when he forgot to tell them he was talking about baseball when he said, “I hope you all get drafted someday.”

Jim Zorn, the new head coach of the Washington Redskins, spent a few hours bike riding with President Bush over the weekend. Bush gave Zorn a few plays to run and, just like with the surge, he warned Zorn not to listen to any of his coaches.

JetBlue Airways is auctioning off more than 300 roundtrip flights and six vacation packages this week on eBay. If you’re the winning bidder, you’re advised to take the trips before JetBlue is up for auction on eBay.

A geneticist from Texas A&M University is studying the bison herd at Camp Pendleton in California to determine if the animals are genetically pure. He’s especially interested in a small group that have blonde fur and can raise one hoof straight out in a salute.

The Ohio State University Medical Center will be the site next month of a conference focusing on personalized healthcare. Sounds fishy. The conference is on the same weekend as a big home football game and all of the health care providers have seats on the field near the team doctor.

Actor Will Smith reportedly plans to star in the film "The Last Pharaoh" which is based on the story of Taharqa, the pharaoh who battled Assyrian invaders starting around 677 B.C. Since the movie is scheduled for a July 4th release, Will is changing the story to have the pharaoh be able to fly and have the Assyrians invade from their base on Jupiter.

In an odd coincidence, a 40-year-old New York musician named John McCain has been told he looks like Barack Obama. In an even odder coincidence, his wife wants a $313,000 outfit to wear to an Usher concert.

Police in Utah say actor Gary Coleman hit a pedestrian with his truck after arguing with him in a local bowling alley. The argument started when Coleman bent over near the ball return and the man stuck his fingers in his ears and mouth.

Keith Richard calls it “an eye-opener.”

The University of Idaho football team has decided to remove the letter “I” from the buttocks region of players' new pants following a season-opening 70-0 loss to the Arizona Wildcats. Rthe team will play its next game with no logo, but if they lose like that again, the coaches should replace the “I” with a bull’s-eye and start kicking some butts.

John McCain’s legal staff is hard at work. After watching a short person who flies stand next to a taller one who likes to talk about moose, they’re working to suppress all references to Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Experts are saying the government plans to take over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could amount to the largest financial bailout in the nation's history. It’s so big, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is trying to get Ed McMahon to deliver the check.

President Bush took a tour of the Gettysburg National Military Park over the weekend. He’s suddenly become a fan of the Gettysburg address after Republicans responded so favorably to the short speech he gave at the convention.

Visitors to a zoo in Tokyo are shocked to see polar bears that have accidentally turned green due to an overgrowth of algae in their water pond. A similar thing is happening in Alaska, only the polar bears there are getting green on purpose so they can hide in the grass from Sarah Palin.

It’s tough to find anyone who liked the first commercial Jerry Seinfeld did for Microsoft. Bill Gates is so embarrassed, he’s gone undercover by getting a good haircut.

Police in Australia have placed a one-case-of-beer-per-adult-per-day limit for the three-day festivities surrounding the upcoming Bathurst 1000 scheduled for the second weekend in October. In support of their Down Under buddies, thousands of NASCAR fans are offering to fly to Australia as part of a Rent-An-Adult-For-A-Day program.

Chris Coleman, mayor of St. Paul, Minnesota, hit a hole-in-one in his first golf outing after the close of the Republican convention in his city. Sarah Palin immediately took credit for it because he was using the moose-rifle grip she showed him.

Veterinarians in China say an Asian elephant that had become addicted to heroin is being transferred to a wildlife sanctuary after three years of detoxification. They cured the elephant by giving it five times the normal human dose of methadone every day, or as Keith Richard calls it, “an eye-opener.”

Producers of the popular Fox series “24” say shooting will be delayed 18 days while one of the scripts is being polished. Rumor has it this will be the first time in the show’s history Jack Bauer is rescued by a female vice president firing an assault rifle from the back of a moose.

Continental Airlines is the latest air carrier to begin charging economy-class passengers $15 for checking a single bag. And before you get any ideas, they will also charge $15 if you’re wearing so many clothes that you need a seatbelt-extender.

She sold a house to pay for her dress

The booking agent for John Edwards says he's canceled all public commitments until after the November U.S. elections. If you already had Edwards booked and you’re looking for a replacement who gives a similar speech, you might want to call Levi Johnston.

According to the Labor Department’s latest figures, the nation's unemployment rate zoomed to a five-year high of 6.1 percent in August as employers slashed 84,000 jobs. The report was incomplete because many of those jobs belonged to poll-takers.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey caught the driver of a tractor-trailer who rigged the front license plate of his vehicle so that it would disappear as he drove through toll plazas, allowing him to avoid paying the $40 fee. He’ll be charged with toll evasion, license plate destruction and giving other drivers a good idea.

Vanity Fair magazine reports that the outfit Cindy McCain wore for her speech at the Republican convention cost an estimated $313,100. No wonder her husband doesn’t know how many houses he owns. She sold one of them to pay for her dress.

Lobbyist Jack Abramoff was sentenced to an additional four years in prison for his role in the Washington corruption scandal. Hoping to salvage his career once he gets out, Abramoff asked the judge if he could serve those four years in the Hanoi Hilton.

Bob Woodward's latest book on President Bush reveals that the U.S. has spied on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other Iraqi leaders. According to al-Maliki, this explains why the pizza parlor always seems to know what he’s calling to order.

A UPS driver in East Texas has recorded one million accident-free miles on the delivery van he’s been driving for the past 22 years. That total includes a number of high-speed chases by jealous FedEx drivers.

A guitar that Jimi Hendrix set on fire during a concert in London was sold at auction recently for $497,500. What a waste. That money should have been spent on bribing most of today’s players to burn their guitars for good.

According to a new federal science report, smog, soot and other particles often seen hanging over Beijing add to global warming and may raise summer temperatures in the U.S. by three degrees in about 50 years. President Bush doesn’t believe the report but, to be on the safe side, he’s pushing for Beijing to be named the permanent host of the Summer Olympics so it eliminates all cars and factories.

British scientists have developed a new crime-fighting technique that allows police to lift fingerprints from bullets even if a criminal has wiped down a shell casing. There goes Dick Cheney’s plans to go fox-hunting in London.

The Fish and Wildlife Service says it’s too late to recall the “duck stamps” affixed to cards carried by hunters licensed to hunt ducks that contain a misprinted number belonging to a phone-sex line. Ducks are hoping this will give hunters something else to do besides shooting ducks.

U.S. Coast Guard officers were called to stop a pilot-less boat from spinning in circles at Virginia Beach after its two occupants fell overboard. Do you know what sailors call a pilot-less ship going around in circles? Congress.

The Journal of Sexual Medicine reports that trained sexologists can spot women who have frequent orgasms by the way they walk. This is no big secret. Women who have frequent orgasms walk fast, especially if they’re just leaving a sex toy shop.

A George Hamilton wing

Sports reporters in Orlando say they were shocked when they dialed a number for a teleconference with the University of Central Florida’s football coach and got a phone sex line instead. I think I speak for all football fans when I say, “Yeah, right.”

A scientist at the University of Tokyo conducted a test using apples dropped in a bucket and found that elephants, besides having a good memory, are also good at counting and basic math. He also found that elephants who are told they got the wrong answer are good at stomping on scientists.

Police in Germany are looking for a skateboarder who used a boost from a motorcycle to travel 62 mph down the Ulm-Stuttgart motorway. If I’m not mistaken, that’s also the Republican Party’s plan for creating new fuel-efficient vehicles.

Coca-Cola announced a promotion tied to the new James Bond movie that will temporarily rename Coke Zero to Coke Zero Zero Seven. The cans will have a special label warning that, in spite of what Bond says, the drink should not be shaken.

According to a new study conducted at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, more than 25 percent of the students surveyed reported symptoms of addiction to tanning. It’s getting to be such a problem, the Betty Ford Clinic is planning to open a George Hamilton wing.

Police in Athens-Clarke, Georgia, arrested a 23-year-old woman who they say started mooning motorists after she received a ticket for jaywalking. Motorists were begging the cop to give her a ticket for illegal parking so she’d go topless too.

A Maryland country commissioner has proposed a law that would ban sex between state elected officials and their employees unless they’re married. Sounds like a great way to get rid of incumbents in states that don’t have term limits.

In Major League Baseball’s first use of instant replay, umpires ruled a home run by Yankee Alex Rodriguez was fair. In the second use of instant replay, the umpires ruled that a hot dog vendor shortchanged a customer while everyone was waiting for the first ruling.

Police in Port St. Lucie, Florida, are looking for a cross-dressing man who snatched a 74-year-old woman's purse and left behind a condom filled with water he had been using as a fake breast. Apparently the cross-dresser was trying to look like another 74-year-old woman.

An Illinois man is free on bond after being accused of setting another man's pants on fire while drinking and camping in the backyard. He’s hoping to convince the jury that the accuser is lying and that’s what ignited his pants.

NASA announced the creation of the Carl Sagan Postdoctoral Fellowships in Exoplanet Exploration to help find new astronomers to carry on Sagan’s work. Applicants for the fellowship are requested to submit a resume, their college transcripts and a recording of them saying “billions and billions and billions.”

David Spade's publicist confirmed the actor has a new baby daughter, his first child, with Playboy Playmate Jillian Grace. You can tell the girl is Spade’s daughter because none of the other babies in the nursery like her.

They’ve gone from Dulles to dullest

Coca-Cola is hoping to expand its operations in China with a $2.5 billion bid for a major Chinese juice maker. Four out of five Chinese female gymnasts had this juice in their sippy cups at the Olympics.

Vice President Dick Cheney is on a weeklong trip to the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine. Talk about a tough trip. The leaders of those countries all told Cheney they’d prefer to wait and talk with John McCain’s Russia expert, Sarah Palin.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is visiting Libya this week, making her the first secretary of state to visit Libya since John Foster Dulles in 1953. She may wish she hadn’t brought that fact up because the Libyans are already saying they’ve gone from Dulles to dullest.

R&B singer Usher is planning a “One Night Stand” concert tour that will be for women only. He plans to sing every song twice … once for the women in the seats and once for the ones waiting in line to use the ladies rooms.

In Los Angeles, a man accused of ramming a car into the Playboy Mansion's gates twice in a week pleaded not guilty to felony vandalism charges. Hugh Hefner wasn’t home either time and his girlfriends say that’s the most ramming that’s gone on at the Playboy Mansion in years.

Residents of Hoschton, Gerogia, claim they have broken the world record for scarecrows by setting up 4,800 of them in their town. This also breaks the record for the town with the most tributes to Joan Rivers.

A 60-year-old man in Gateshead, England, says he was able to fight off a samurai sword-wielding attacker by striking him in the head with his walking stick. He’s already been contacted by NBC to recreate the incident on “Saturday Night Live.”

In response to complaints by animal rights groups, the British Ministry of Defense is looking for alternatives to the bear skins used in the famous hats worn by the royal guards. Why don’t they ask Donald Trump where he gets his?

Organizers of the annual stiletto heel race in Sydney, Australia, said 265 contestants in heels of at least 3 inches ran in the 100-meter race, and the winner was a national champion in the under-20s 400-meter hurdles. Well, they think she was the winner. The judges couldn’t watch because they were afraid the high-heeled runner would think she was hurdling and poke their eyes out.

A scientist from Imperial College London says he's discovered that some of the microscopic meteorites making up "cosmic dust" originate from an ancient asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars. This may put to rest the previous theory that cosmic dust originated from under a giant bed orbiting Neptune.

Scientists at Stanford say they have created robotic helicopters that can teach themselves to fly by “watching” other helicopters. Unfortunately, after a few hours of watching, the helicopters all end up hovering over the same traffic jam.

According to a study in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, researchers have found that children burn more than four times as many calories a minute playing an active video game than playing a seated game. And they burn eight times as many calories if you take the game controller, throw it out the window and make them bring it back.

The Do-Over-Er

Scholastic, the U.S. publisher of “Harry Potter,” is hoping the next big thing will be “The 39 Clues,” a planned 10-volume set about two kids and their worldwide search for the secret to their family's power. Scholastic is hoping to get the first one out before the market is saturated with similar books about the Palin kids.

The lawyer who conducted it says Sarah Palin underwent a “`full and complete” background examination before John McCain chose her as his running mate. That’s the lawyer I want if I’m ever sued. Not defending me … defending the other party.

More bad news for Sarah Palin. Today, her children Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper and Trig asked to have their names changed to Greg, Marcia, Jan, Cindy and Bobby.

A memo has been discovered in which his legal admits that former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales mishandled highly classified notes about a secret counter terror program and may have even taken them home. Gonzales is hoping to convince investigators he was just taking the notes home to compare them with what Jack Bauer was doing on “24.”

President Bush says the government responded “a lot better” to Hurricane Gustav than it did to Hurricane Katrina. President Bush has officially gone from “The Decider” to the “Do-over-er.”

A man nicknamed “Humble Bob” stuffed himself with 11.5 pounds of a Cincinnati, Ohio, specialty called chili-spaghetti in 10 minutes to win an eating contest. After the chili-spaghetti started digesting, he got a new nickname: Rumble Bob.

London's Victoria and Albert Museum paid $92,500 for the original artwork for The Rolling Stones' famous “lips” logo inspired by Mick Jagger’s mouth. The artist is now working on a current version that shows Jagger’s lips, tongue and favorite shade of PolyGrip.

A Michigan couple got married at the funeral home where the groom is a funeral director. To show the location of the wedding didn’t creep her out, the bride brought the groom’s latest customer as both something old and something blue.

Officials in London say a major overhaul of Heathrow Airport Terminals 1 and 2 will not be finished in time for the 2012 Olympics. This is good news for Michael Phelps. While his opponents’ flights are delayed, he plans to fly to France and swim across the Channel.

England’s Tesco grocery store chain Tesco says the grammar police have forced it to replace the “ten items or less” signs with ones that say correctly “up to ten items.” However, customers standing in the line will still be able to use any grammatically-incorrect four-letter words to point out cheaters.

A man who declared his own nation in Nevada called Molossia says his soon-to-be-ex-wife's recent move to Texas has forced him to ban all Texas products from his country. Coincidentally, this was also John McCain’s alternate plan for keeping President Bush from the Republican convention.