Houston, I have a problem and I can’t get up!

Scientists working with NASA to help astronauts regain balance after extended flights in zero gravity say they've found a way to use the research to help elderly people avoid dangerous falls. The tough part is getting the elderly to say, “Houston, I have a problem and I can’t get up.”

A Bakersfield, California, woman is facing charges that she counterfeited money and identification cards after her 10-year-old son turned her in to authorities. That’s what happens when a parent focuses on her own needs instead of her child’s request to make him a fake report card.

John McCain is being criticized for a television ad comparing Barack Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. No one is more upset than Barack, who says now paparazzi are trailing him constantly to see if he wears underwear.

Barack Obama says he’s offended by the lyrics of a song by Ludacris that are offensive to Hillary Clinton, John McCain and President Bush. McCain’s camp says this is further proof that Obama is out of touch with the music patriotic Americans enjoy, like “Bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran.”

Researchers studying a mechanical brass calculator used by the ancient Greeks to predict solar and lunar eclipses now believe it was also used to set the dates for the first Olympic games. What’s even more exciting, they think the brass cup it was found with was used for the first Olympic drug tests.

European scientists using synchrotron X-rays from a particle accelerator found a portrait of a peasant woman Vincent Van Gogh painted and then covered up with another work called “Patch of Grass.” I used that same technique and found out my painting of dogs playing poker actually covers up a painting of cats playing poker.

A former senator in Germany says a sculpture of a crucified frog on display at an art museum is a public obscenity. It was inspired by an early work of Monty Python called “The Life of Hoppy.”

Members of Our Lady of Refuge Catholic Church in Brooklyn raised money and bought a Big Ass Fan to cool off their church. Parishioners upset with the brand name are petitioning to get a new label that reads: “The Big Ass That Jesus Rode Into Jerusalem Fan.”

Police in Fort Worth, Texas, stopped a man who pretended to be a stranded out-of-gas motorist and was scamming sympathetic drivers into bringing him free gallon cans of gas. Wait a minute! Isn’t that the Republican energy plan?

Exxon Mobil reported second-quarter earnings of $11.68 billion Thursday, the biggest quarterly profit ever by any U.S. corporation. Executives at the company celebrated at a party that featured a woman dressed like President Bush jumping out of a cake.

Marathon Oil is considering splitting its oil and gas production business and its refining and marketing operations into separate entities. Because of their size differences, they’ll be called 10K Oil and 20 Miles Oil.

Scientists in Wales studying marine fossils say they've determined that the Antarctica of 40 million years ago had warmer seas and little or no ice. When he heard the news, President Bush nominated them for the Nobel Prize.

According to the journal Nature, U.S. scientists have created a nanoelectromechanical scale system sensitive enough to measure the mass of a single atom of gold at room temperature. The first customer for the scale is expected to be a restaurant catering to supermodels.

“Psst! The Good Stuff Is Over Here!”

The House Judiciary Committee voted this week to cite former top White House aide Karl Rove for contempt of Congress. To paraphrase John Kerry, what’s it like to be the last man to hold Karl Rove in contempt?

Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong have ended their feud and are planning to reunite for their first comedy tour in more than 25 years. The tour will be called “Hey, What’s That Smell?” Coming soon to a theater near you: “Harold And Fumar Go Looking For Other Work.”

Barack Obama says that as president he would order his attorney general to scour White House executive orders and expunge any that “trample on liberty.” President Bush isn’t worried. He says he’ll just sign an executive order that says no future presidents can overturn his executive orders.

Dunkin' Donuts has unveiled a new menu healthier items called DDSmart. Donuts and pillow-sized muffins will be moved to a different menu called “Psst! The Good Stuff Is Over Here!”

Jerry Lewis’ manager says the handgun police confiscated from his client’s handbag at the Las Vegas airport was a hollowed-out prop gun that Lewis sometimes twirls during his show. Usually right after someone says, “I thought you were dead!”

A lawmaker in India sacrificed more than 200 goats and four buffaloes at a temple to thank a goddess for delivering victory to the prime minister's government last week. John McCain wanted to offer a similar sacrifice, but Cindy doesn’t trust him alone with any other goddesses.

Scientists say a chunk of ice spreading across seven square miles has broken off a Canadian ice shelf, but they hesitate to blame global warming. First they have to rule out the possibility that the crack was caused by thousands of northern Canadians jumping up and down while watching a televised hockey game.

The latest Hollywood rumor is that actress Kate Hudson and 7-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong have ended their three-month relationship. Apparently the problems started when Kate rejected the $10,000 bike Lance got for her because it didn’t have a bell on it.

According to an article in the Journal of Happiness Studies younger women are happier as younger adults than men, but older men are happier later in life. Especially older men whose significant other is a happy younger woman.

More bad news for Republican Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska who is charged with seven felony counts of making false statements on his Senate Financial disclosure forms. Today his lawyer told him that the only character witnesses he could find won’t be out of jail in time for the trial.

The new Broadway production of Lerner and Loewe's musical “Brigadoon” has been postponed. Disappointed fans were instructed to toss a rock in any direction and follow it to the nearest high school drama club.

Police in College Hill, Ohio, arrested a man for taking 32 deodorant products from a Walgreens store. He was charged with breaking-out-in-a-sweat-and-entering.

Isn't Manscara a comic book superhero for feminists?

A 44-year-old woman in Canada gave birth to her 18th child this week. She’s been to the maternity ward so often, her doctor dresses like a hockey goalie.

A Georgia woman has agreed to adopt a six-legged deer rescued after being attacked by a dog. Can you blame the dog? A deer with six legs to hump is like a doggie orgy.

While swimming in Mexico, American Idol host Ryan Seacrest says he was bitten by a shark and has three holes in his toe to prove it. According to Simon Cowell, that’s not a shark attack -- it’s a high school production of “Jaws.”

The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced that the number of homeless in the United States decreased about 12 percent between 2005 and 2007. Leave it to the federal government to put a positive spin on the fact that homeless people are now living in houses abandoned due to foreclosures.

A high-end British store called Superdrug announced a line of makeup geared exclusively toward men, with products such as “Guy-liner” and “Manscara.” Wait a minute. I thought Manscara was a comic book superhero for feminists.

According to the latest poll by the Princeton Review, the University of Florida has passed West Virginia University as the No. 1 party school in the U.S. You know you’re attending a party school when the on-line students post pictures of themselves passed out in front of their computers.

Former "Charlie's Angels" co-stars Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith will reunite on the hairstyling competition show "Shear Genius," with Smith as host and Jackson as a judge with comedienne Sandra Bernhard. Wouldn’t that be two Charlie’s Angels and one Hell’s Angel?

Miley Cyrus said in an online interview that the upcoming season of “Hannah Montana” might be its last. It’s hard to tell who’s crying louder: tweenage girls, Disney executives or Billy Ray Cyrus.

Amy Winehouse is doing OK after an overnight hospital stay to treat what her spokesman said was an adverse reaction to medication. Her visit was paid for by a blood sample which the hospital says has a street value of over $50,000.

Alaska’s Senator Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican senator, has been indicted on seven counts of making false statements. When asked to comment, President Bush said he hasn’t trusted that cat Stevens since he quit singing and became a Muslim.

One of the candidates running for mayor in Fairhope, Alabama, is a 7-year-old yellow Labrador retriever named Willie Bean Roscoe P. Coltrane. It’s apparently legal for a dog to run for mayor of Fairhope because his candidates are already scouring the Internet for videos of him getting hosed down in a front yard for doing the nasty.

Barack Obama met with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to discuss the U.S. economy and Obama's proposals to bolster it. As usual, John McCain complained that the media covered Obama’s meeting with Bernanke and not his trip to a piggy bank factory in Des Moines.

Sunbathers at a German nude beach on the Polish border are complaining that Polish beachgoers are standing on their side and staring at them. Luckily, the Poles scatter as soon as the German nudists put on their tank tops and yell “Invasion!”

The New Adventures Of Old Talk Show Hosts

Barack Obama says he wants a vice president “who's willing to tell me where he thinks or she thinks I'm wrong.” Sounds like the perfect job for John McCain.

Barack Obama is laying off of basketball for a few days after seeing a doctor at the University of Chicago Medical Center about his sore hip. There’s no truth to the rumor he actually hurt his hip kicking himself in the rear for not capturing Osama bin Laden while in Afghanistan.

Celebrity chef Rachael Ray has launched a charity-driven line of dog foods based on recipes she has created for her pit bull, Isaboo. It’s not one of her famous 30 minute meals since any dog who can actually waits 30 minutes for dinner is probably dead.

In Japan, men who need to cool off from the summer heat are grabbing a cold, refreshing can of “Surging Eel,” which is made from the head and bones of eels, plus five vitamins. You know, I suddenly have this fear of reading the label on my can of Red Bull.

Despite severe traffic restrictions and factory shutdowns, the air over Beijing is still heavily polluted less than two weeks before the Summer Olympics. Chinese officials are trying to figure out a way to convince tourists, athletes and the media that it’s actually a new trendy invention called “Flavored Air.”

Times Square’s famous Naked Cowboy was arrested in San Francisco for doing what he does legally at home - singing on the street in his underwear. This being San Francisco, apparently he was over-dressed.

A woman in Houston claims she can train cats to respond to simple commands by learning what motivates them and finding the right reward. In my experience, what motivates cats is the chance to watch humans get frustrated trying to train them something, which is also its own reward.

A lack of funds has forced a Canadian artist to give up his plan to release a giant helium-filled banana blimp over Texas. No one was more disappointed to hear this news than the millions of Texans with guns.

Jackelyn Rollins, a 56-year-old New Jersey mother of three, says she is determined to earn a spot on the upcoming season of “Make Me a Supermodel.” No one has the heart to tell her it’s about youth and looks, not who can beat up Naomi Campbell.

Reports out of Hollywood hint that Rosie O'Donnell is in advanced negotiations to host a Sunday night variety show on NBC. I think it’s going to be called “The New Adventures of Old Talk Show Hosts.”

The hosts for this year’s Emmy Awards are the five nominees for top reality show host: American Idol's Ryan Seacrest, Project Runway's Heidi Klum, Dancing with the Stars' Tom Bergeron, Deal or No Deal's Howie Mandel and Survivor's Jeff Probst. The stage is big enough but they may have to raise the ceiling to fit the egos.

Three giant pandas gave birth to a total of four cubs, all delivered within 14 hours of each other, at a breeding center in southwest China. Combining Chinese and American traditions, the mother of the twin pandas named them Knox Léon- Knox Léon and Vivienne Marcheline-Vivienne Marcheline.

To Beer Or Not To Beer

Cleveland native Drew Carey narrated Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night's Dream” in a concert by the Cleveland Orchestra. He was supposed to do Hamlet, but couldn’t stop saying, “To beer or not to beer, that is the question.”

California is the first state to ban restaurants from using oil, margarine and shortening containing trans fats. If they were filming it today, one of my favorite movies would have to be called “My Thin Vegetarian Greek Wedding.”

Heather Mills celebrated her divorce from former Beatle Paul McCartney by spending almost $500,000 to take 20 friends on an outing to Richard Branson's private island in the Caribbean. That’s unbelievable. Who knew she still had 20 friends left?

Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones celebrated his 65th birthday over the weekend. He spent the day trying to figure out what to do with the gift he got from Keith Richards … smoke it, snort it or put it in a vase with water.

Maria von Trapp, a member of the family that inspired “The Sound of Music,” visited her family home in Austria for the first time in more than 50 years. You could tell it brought back memories because she went nuts in the kitchen stomping on a bottle of Adolf’s Meat Tenderizer.

A Rice University physics professor says gamma radiation and radon gas produced by uranium-rich stones used to make some granite counter tops could cause cancer in humans. When they heard the news, hundreds of nuclear engineers in Iran headed for the nearest Home Depot.

Former NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell, who walked on the moon in the Apollo 14 mission, says he is still "totally sure" life exists elsewhere in the universe and Earth governments have tried to hide the existence of aliens and UFOs. Sounds like he’s still frustrated about being on an Apollo mission that didn’t get a movie made about it.

A French publisher fined for calling a police officer a "connard" has founded a group aimed at repealing the French law against insulting public employees. Sure it sounds unfair, but those fines are why France has universal health care and no national dept.

A traveler stopped for trying to check in a dwarf in a suitcase at the airport in Stockholm, Sweden, was actually part of a prank television show. After seeing Mini-Me’s home video on the internet, security officials weren’t sure if it was a dwarf or a sex toy.

A new study of SAT scores found that, contrary to popular belief, girls are just as good at math as boys. What’s the big surprise here? Have you ever met a man who could figure out the math of women’s clothing sizes?

A clip from the upcoming Terminator sequel - “Terminator Salvation” - was unveiled at Comic-Con in San Diego and the director hinted that Arnold Schwarzenegger could be back. Ironically, this time he’ll travel back to 1776 to terminate whoever came up with the idea that foreign-born citizens couldn’t become President.

There goes an entire CD of classic country songs

Simon & Schuster is suing Foxy Brown and Lil' Kim because they were paid advances for books they never delivered. Actually, both submitted 500-page manuscripts which were reduced to 10-page booklets after editing out the F-words.

The WNBA suspended Detroit assistant coach Rick Mahorn and 10 players who participated in the big fight between the Detroit Shock and the visiting Los Angeles Sparks. To give you some idea how shorthanded that leaves the teams, the Shock’s next game will feature an all-Asian starting lineup.

NASA scientists studying the mysterious Northern Lights, or aurora borealis, believe they’re caused by magnetic explosions about one-third of the way to the moon. The magnetic explosions are not dangerous, although astronauts on the space station say they’re strong enough to pull off the magnets holding their schedules on the refrigerator door.

The China Internet Network Information Center China says has more people surfing the Web than US., with 253 million Chinese people online to 223.1 Americans. Americans still outnumber the Chinese in downloading porn, 223.1 million to zero.

Tourists and New Yorkers can now go for balloon rides over Central Park in a tethered helium balloon that rises up 30 stories. The ride is completely safe as long as you don’t use it as an opportunity to spit on pigeons.

Country singer Chris Cagle was found not guilty of domestic violence after his girlfriend refused to testify against him. There goes an entire CD of classic country songs.

Hasbro. the company that owns the North American rights to the game Scrabble, sued RJ Softwares, the creators of the popular and similar Facebook program Scrabulous for copyright and trademark infringement. If found guilty, RJ Softwares could end up paying Hasbro a million dollars … three million if they land on a triple-fine score.

More than 50 dissident Catholic groups published an open letter to Pope Benedict saying the Church's ban on contraception has been "catastrophic" and urging him to lift it. The groups want the pope to do something before Billy Joel stops singing “Catholic girls start much too late” and their followers lose interest.

While visiting the pope’s summer residence in Italy, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki invited Pope Benedict to visit him in Iraq. Benedict will probably turn him down since it’s tough for even the pope to follow Barack Obama.

Federal Election Commission reports show that Barack Obama's campaign has received roughly 10 times more money from declared U.S. donors living in Europe than John McCain. Barack is so popular in France, he’s being considered to play the lead in “The Jerry Lewis Story.”

A woman in England hired a 3D art expert to mow a reproduction of the Mona Lisa on her front lawn. Just like the real thing, it’s hard to tell if the grass Mona Lisa is smiling or suffering from fertilizer burn.

Some 230 union gravediggers in Toronto have gone on strike. Their demands include more breaks, better health insurance and Halloween off.

Pamela Anderson's new reality show: "Big Bra-ther"

Here’s how popular Barack Obama is in Germany. His name was put on their “suspected terrorist” list so hundreds of female security guards at the airport could frisk him.

More bad news for John McCain. He’s the one with the connection to the beer industry but Germany honored his opponent with a new brew called Bock Obama.

Australian actress Mia Wasikowska is reportedly going to play Alice in Tim Burton's big-screen version of “Alice in Wonderland.” Amy Winehouse wanted the role, but dropped out when she was told the pills to make Alice bigger or smaller wouldn’t actually work.

Pamela Anderson will star in new reality show. I think it’s called “Big Bra-ther.”

McDonald's is running ads in China supporting China’s Olympic athletes. I don’t speak Chinese, but by following the pictures I think the jingle is: “Two all-beef egg rolls, soy sauce, bok choy, beans, tofu, wontons, on a rice flour bun.”

Ford Motor Company lost $8.67 billion in the second quarter. Ford is in such bad shape, it plans to retool an SUV plant in Michigan to make license plate holders for Toyotas and Hondas.

Japanese and Mongolian scientists have successfully recovered the complete skeleton of a 70-million-year-old young dinosaur called a Tarbosaurus. The finding of the fossils of such a young dinosaur saddened President Bush because it could have grown up to become a barrel of oil.

Government scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey estimate that about 90 billion barrels of oil and nearly a third of the world's undiscovered natural gas remain untapped under an area north of the Arctic Circle. You can tell the Bush administration plans to drill for this oil because it’s spreading rumors that Santa has moved to the South Pole.

About 2 million Americans got a raise this week as the federal minimum wage rose by 70 cents to $6.55 an hour. The only place most stores expect to see the effects of this increase is in their ‘take-a-penny, give-a-penny’ cups.

A family court judge in New Zealand ordered the parents of 9-year-old girl to change the poor kid’s name to something other than Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii. It’s a good thing she’s a girl because the boy’s name the parents had picked was Lance Does The Chicken Dance From France.

Amazon.com announced that its second-quarter earnings more than doubled and CEO Jeff Bezos said increased fuel prices may give it a “relative advantage” over other retailers. He also said that Amazon customers who liked its second-quarter numbers might also like reading its financial statement on a new Kindle.

According to a report in the journal Human Reproduction, eating a half serving a day of soy-based foods could be enough to significantly lower a man's sperm count. That explains why the NBA is hoping to clean up its reputation by asking players to eat more soy.

Despite his terrible popularity poll numbers, President Bush's photograph remains popular on the walls of U.S. senators in Washington, with 27 senators from both parties displaying his picture in their offices. The other 73 senators have Bush’s picture in their filing cabinets under “P” for “paper airplane materials.”

A new coffee drink called Café Oil Lait?

Researchers at the University of Southern California are developing a robot for autistic children because some of them relate better to mechanical devices. For example, they built a prototype that looked like Michael Savage and the autistic children immediately removed its batteries.

Three players and a coach were ejected in a televised bench-clearing brawl during a WNBA game between the Detroit Shock and the Los Angeles Sparks. The league is looking at the tape to determine if the fight may have been caused by a guy holding a camera who said he was from “Girls Gone Wild.”

An ABC-TV outlet in Houston released a video taken at a political fundraiser showing President Bush explaining the nation’s economic problems by saying, “Wall Street got drunk.” Luckily, the camera was turned off before Bush demonstrated how Wall Street grabbed the porcelain stock market and upchucked the banking industry.

Marine experts say the “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico off the Texas-Louisiana coast this year is likely to be the biggest ever and last longer than ever before. The Bush administration has promised to help restore plant and animal life to the dead zone so it can kill it off again with offshore drilling.

A Minnesota high school teacher won $1,000 and a cruise for lasting 20 hours on a roller coaster ride at the Mall of America. I call foul. Not getting sick on a roller coaster is easy for someone who’s used to the smell of high school gym lockers.

About 29 miles of the Mississippi River at New Orleans was closed after a tugboat pushing a barge and a 600-foot tanker crashed, causing diesel to leak into the water. Always ones to make best of a bad situation, New Orleans restaurants immediately created a new coffee drink called Café Oil Lait.

State police in Rhode Island arrested a man on charges of DWI whose blood alcohol level was 0.491 percent - the highest ever recorded in Rhode Island for someone who wasn't dead. This guy was so drunk, he asked the cop who stopped him to unscrew the top so he could climb out of his pickle jar.

A woman in central Indiana was taken to the hospital after she accidentally stabbed herself in the foot with a 3-foot-long sword while performing a Wiccan good luck ritual in a cemetery. She pulled the sword out herself and took it to the hospital in case any of the nurses tried to wash off the blood by dousing her with a bucket of water.

According to a new study, the little blue anti-impotence pill Viagra may help some women on antidepressants have better sex. Especially if they share half with their partner.

Chinese officials are setting up specially designated zones in Beijing for protesters during next month's Olympics. Protesters who can’t find the zones on the map should just walk in the direction the tanks have their guns pointed in.

Jordan’s King Abdullah got behind the wheel of his limo and drove Barack Obama to the airport after his visit. Don’t get too excited. If he was a really good friend, Abdullah would have offered to help Barack move his stuff from Chicago to Washington after the election.

No One In England Gives A Rat's Behind

The FDA is warning consumers to avoid fresh jalapeno peppers after finding salmonella bacteria on one in Texas. People who miss eating raw jalapenos are advised to show off their masculinity by purchasing a sports car instead.

Wachovia Corp. announced it lost $8.86 billion in the second quarter and as a result is cutting 6,350 jobs. Most of the laid-off workers will be replaced by state-of-the-art ATMs equipped with a shaking head for turning down loans and a voice box for saying “Next ATM, please.”

A court in California sentenced two men to prison for setting their passed-out drinking buddy's crotch on fire back in January. Being a typical guy, the victim still wears the burnt shorts because it was his favorite pair.

A pastor in Kokomo, Indiana, brought his dirt bike to a Sunday church service to demonstrate the concept of unity and ended up losing control and wiping out the first row of pews. Fortunately, no one was hurt and he has a topic for this week’s sermon: “Why Jesus rode a donkey instead of a dirt bike.”

Serbian officials say captured war criminal Radovan Karadzic grew a long, white beard to conceal his identity and hid in sight in Belgrade. When asked to comment, Karl Rove said he’s growing his beard to play Santa at Christmas.

More bad news for Batman star Christian Bale, who was arrested in London for allegedly assaulting his mother and sister. Now his butler Alfred is accusing him of deliberately smoking in the Batmobile and making him vacuum out the butts.

About 10 members of OpenCarry.org, a club advocating open-carry policies for handguns, were allowed to bring their guns when they visited a Boise, Idaho, zoo. Zoo officials say it’s the first time in zoo history not a single monkey flung poo at a visitor.

A New York man is fighting his apartment's co-op board which asked him to remove an American flag he hung on his door after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. John McCain has offered to show his support by wearing the entire door on his lapel.

Firefighters in Vancouver, Washington, were able to rescue a cat that had lodged its head inside a mason jar. THey’re not saying how they did it, but it involved petroleum jelly, the jaws-of-life and a firefighter who does Rottweiller impressions.

Actor and Illinois native Bill Murray is scheduled to jump out of a plane with the U.S. Army's Golden Knights at next month's Chicago Air and Water Show. To make sure Murray lands on the right spot on the ground, it will be covered with a large picture of his ex-wife.

British scientists at Leeds Dental Institute say they’ve developed ways to repair cavities without a dentist drill and to remove plaque without a toothbrush. As expected, no one in England gives a rat’s behind.

According to a new survey published in the Archives of Dermatology, women are more likely than men to remove tattoos, usually motivated by the social stigma and negative comments. While women have it done surgically, men are more likely to try to lick off their tattoos to win a bar bet.

Honda, We Have A Problem!

Texas regulators have approved a $4.93 billion wind-power transmission project to develop wind energy in the state. Unfortunately, most of the Texas wind energy will go to powering the state’s oil pumps.

Barack Obama banned copies of the New Yorker with the controversial cartoon of him on the cover from his plane. He also asked the pilot and co-pilot to stop fist-bumping every time the plane landed safely.

All-Pro lineman Jason Taylor, runner-up on Dancing With The Stars, was traded from the Miami Dolphins to the Washington Redskins. Miami got two future draft picks and Dancing With The Stars winner Kristi Yamaguchi as a backup head cheerleader.

Starting in September, Howie Mandel will host a daily half-hour syndicated version of “Deal or No Deal” with a top prize of $500,000 plus a $10,000 weekly prize for the viewing audience. This is great news for a small Hollywood employment agency, “Women Who Can Walk And Carry Briefcases At The Same Time.”

Salim Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, pleaded not guilty in the first U.S. war crimes trial since World War II. Hamdan is hoping to eventually plea-bargain his charge down to DWOTWWITBS: Driving While Oblivious To Who Was In The Back Seat.

A federal appeals court threw out the FCC’s $550,000 indecency fine against CBS for the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show that ended with Janet Jackson's famous “wardrobe malfunction.” The judge got a call from Janet Jackson thanking him for keeping her name in the news without having to dangle a baby off of a balcony.

The World Santa Claus Congress is underway in Copenhagen, Denmark, with 136 Kris Kringles from around the world in attendance. The most popular seminar was one on dealing with what to tell kids who ask them to haul gallons of gasoline down the chimney.

A spa in Alexandria, Virginia, is offering an unusual pedicure where you place your feet in a water tank and have tiny carp nibble off the dead skin. It’s so popular, the owner is now training a school of tiny flying fish to do facials.

Showtime is planning a new TV reality series called “Lock N’ Load” which will use a hidden camera to tape customers shopping for firearms at a gun store. And to prevent rifle rage, the host will pop up singing the cute jingle: “Smile! You’re on Handgun Camera!”

Brothels in Sydney reported a 20 percent increase in business during Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Australia. Not surprisingly, the local churches also reported a 20 percent increase in confessions.

NASA officials have begun negotiations to purchase several unmanned cargo spacecrafts from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. If anything goes wrong with them, we’ll hear this message: “Honda, we have a problem.”

Chinese officials say they're increasing efforts to crack down on ticket scalping at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing. I’m not implying that China has human rights problems, but isn’t it a little severe to punish scalpers by scalping them?

Bees In Tiny Cement Shoes?

Bad news for John McCain. Half the people who saw “Dark Knight” over the weekend thought they were going to see a documentary on Barack Obama.

Even though the tomato salmonella scare is over, a new poll found that nearly half of consumers have changed their eating and buying habits in the past six months because they're afraid they could get sick by eating contaminated food. The other half is hoping to get just sick enough to file a lawsuit.

In his final sermon at the World Youth Day festival in Australia, Pope Benedict XVI challenged young people to fight against materialism. This came as a big disappointment to the thousands who were there only to buy a limited-edition Pope Benedict bobblehead doll.

Barack Obama met Sunday with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a man Obama has criticized for not doing enough to rebuild his war-torn country. Too bad he can’t have the same kind of meeting with President Bush.

Village leaders in the south Chicago suburb of Lynwood passed an ordinance that will give $25 fines to anyone showing three inches or more of their underwear in public. The law was delayed while the leaders checked the fine print to make sure it didn’t include women.

A man in Arkansas is sending the Smithsonian Institution a set of Siamese twin barn swallows joined at the hip that he found in his yard. He turned down an offer of $100,000 from KFC which wanted to use the birds to develop a chicken with twice as many legs and thighs.

Over the weekend, drivers on the New Jersey Turnpike were attacked by thousands of honeybees that swarmed from a beehive that fell off of a truck. They were brought under control by a New Jersey beekeeper who threatened them with tiny cement shoes.

A dwarf planet orbiting beyond Neptune has been designated the third plutoid in the solar system and given the name Makemake after a Polynesian god of fertility. Since it can never grow up to be a real planet, maybe they should have named it after a god of futility.

According to a study published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, loud music in bars makes customers drink more. This is true even if it’s loud opera music, which causes bar patrons to drink faster so they can throw their glasses at the jukebox.

With the new truth-in-menus law in effect, many New Yorkers are shocked to find out a Big Mac, medium fries and a medium soda totals 1,130 calories. The good news is, the smell of the fries wipes out the shock every time.

Maine health officials are advising consumers to avoid eating lobster tomalley - a soft green substance found in the body of the lobster - after tests revealed high levels of toxins in some lobsters. There goes one episode of a half-dozen reality shows.

Actor Verne Troyer, who played the villain Mini Me in the "Austin Powers" movies, has dropped his lawsuit over a sex tape after the suit's defendants agreed not to market the video. The adult film distributor will also have to destroy all posters promoting the film as “Shallow Throat.”

NASA has contracted with an Ohio State University Medical Center project to obtain cadavers to create technology for the Orion shuttle. It’s for an experiment to figure out what to do with guest cosmonauts who have too much freeze-dried vodka.

Weapons of Moss Destruction

The Southwest Freeway through Sugar Land, Texas, was shut down for eight hours while workers cleaned up 5,000 gallons of molasses spilled when a tanker truck overturned. When it heard there was 5,000 gallons of something blocking a Texas road, FEMA sent 500 ten-gallon hats.

Despite protests by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the Army shot live pigs and treated their gunshot wounds in a medical trauma exercise at a base in Hawaii. The Army didn’t want to use the pigs, but the PETA members refused to run.

Police in Denton, Texas, won’t file charges against a clerk whose parents and husband were charged with robbing the pizza restaurant where she worked because she knew nothing about it. She figured out who the masked robbers were when they said they were just getting back for all those pizza coupons she gave them for Christmas and birthdays.

Fire investigators say a blaze that destroyed a home in Mendota Heights, Minnesota, recently was caused by a flowerpot that spontaneously combusted after sitting in the sun for several hot days. Let’s hope terrorist don’t find out about this and start developing Weapons of ‘Moss’ Destruction.

London police arrested a man on suspicion of carrying out a series of sex attacks on sheep over a two month period. At least it wasn’t bovines, because that would mean he’s suffering from Mad About Cows Disease.

According to researchers at the University of Illinois, watching television news contributes to negative stereotyping. It’s not just the news. I don’t know of a single person who watches TV and doesn’t have negative feelings towards purple dinosaurs.

A study to identify America's Most Walkable Neighborhood named San Francisco as the most walkable of the 40 largest U.S. cities, with New York finishing second. New York would have finished ahead of San Francisco, but the study counted skipping as walking.

Uppsala, Sweden, is hosting the World Championship of footballgolf, where golfers kick soccer balls into holes. It was supposed to be held in January 2009, but the players demanded to do it now before Tiger Woods’ knee healed.

A measure to name a city sewage plant for President George W. Bush has qualified for the November ballot in San Francisco. They should combine the sewage plant with the Bush Library since the bathroom is where the president does all of his reading.

The FDA has lifted its warning about certain tomatoes linked to a salmonella outbreak. This is good news for Secret Service agents who were concerned about catching salmonella if they had to throw themselves between the president and a tossed rotten tomato.

The owner of the Laugh Factory in L.A. wants Jesse Jackson to pay a $50 fine like the Reverend demanded from comics using the N-word after Michael Richards caused a stir by saying it in his act two years ago. Actually, he’d make more money if he charged Jackson a nickel every time he said “Barack who?”

(c) 2008 Paul Seaburn

Barack hangs around with dumbbells?

Doctors at the Cleveland Clinic have developed a procedure for kidney donors that leaves them nearly scar-less by removing the organ through the belly button. And to convince more teens to become donors, they’ll throw in a polished kidney stone set in a navel ring.

Bob Costas will be in Beijing covering his seventh Olympics and NBC announced he’ll be doing more work outside the studio. First they had to assure Bob that Beijing’s polluted atmosphere wouldn’t damage his hair.

A McDonald's franchisee in Las Vegas has been ordered to pay a $1 million fine after pleading guilty to felony immigration offenses for giving false Social Security numbers to illegal aliens. The illegal aliens were caught when they kept asking customers if they wanted refried fries.

A judge in Saratoga Springs, New York, ordered a 19-year-old man to write an apology to the city for dressing in a 6-foot penis costume at a high school graduation. The man is now in a bidding war over which presidential convention he’ll attend.

Steve Martin's Working Wildlife of Los Angeles - Hollywood's sole supplier of orangutans for movies - has decided to quit renting them out and send six of them to an Iowa sanctuary. What’s even worse, there’s a severe shortage of actors who act like apes since Andy Dick was arrested.

While visiting Australia, Pope Benedict XVI said that the world's natural resources are being squandered in the pursuit of “insatiable consumption.” Many Catholics were disappointed that his list of the world’s natural resources didn’t include altar boys.

Democrat Barack Obama raised $52 million in June, more than twice as much as Republican John McCain. That’s so much money, Jesse Jackson now refers to the part of Barack he wants to cut off as the “crown jewels.”

Reporters following Barack Obama on the campaign trial say that during one 24-hour period this week, the candidate worked out at a gym five times. According to the McCain campaign, this is proof that Obama has flip-flopped from socializing with intellectuals to hanging around with dumbbells.

Former President Bill Clinton's foundation has signed pricing agreements with several suppliers involved in making a malaria-fighting drug in an effort to stabilize the drug’s price. Hillary still isn’t sure if Bill is serious about fighting malaria or is just using it as an excuse to ask women to show him their mosquito bites.

A Berlin-based publisher is getting criticism for a new children’s card game that includes images and information on Adolf Hitler, Francisco Franco, Joseph Stalin and other famous tyrants. No Americans made the game, although a picture of Rudy Giuliani in drag was rumored to have been in the running for the Old Maid.

Residents of Pinellas Park, Florida, were shocked after a recent rain when they spotted a group of about 30 walking catfish traveling through their neighborhood. The walking fish disappeared as quickly as they showed up and were presumed to have been caught and eaten by local creationists.

(c) 2008 Paul Seaburn