News of the weird

From the Anchorage Press comes News of the Weird... and here are some snippets from this week's version:

Kapila Pradhan [has] been living in a tree for the past 15 years in a village in Orissa state in India. He sought solitude after a fight with his wife, according to a January BBC News dispatch.

I do NOT want to know what THAT fight was about... but, may I ask your opinion as to who was the winner?

Arrested in February in Town Creek, Ala., on drug-related charges: University of North Alabama basketball player Reprobatus Bibbs ("reprobate," in the dictionary, is "morally depraved" or "beyond hope of salvation").

And what drugs was his mother on when she picked out THAT name?

A teenager lost control of his car in Kettering, Ohio, in March, and smashed into a house, causing major damage. According to police, he had swerved to avoid hitting an albino squirrel.

I still hate squirrels. This is just more evidence of their nefarious schemes. Whenever I'm at someone's house and they have one of those obnoxious squirrel figurines on a bric-a-brac shelf, I want to pick it up and hurl it through a window. Vile, wicked creatures, squirrels.

Russian president Vladimir Putin apparently surprised diplomatic observers in Britain in January when he declined to expel four U.K. diplomats who had been accused of espionage. Reasoned Putin, according to a January dispatch in Britain's Guardian, these four weren't smart enough to avoid getting caught, and if he expelled them, the U.K. would just send replacements who are more clever.

Whatever might be said of Pooty-Putin, the man has a lick or two of common sense from time to time. If we could just get him to quit arming Iran, China and North Korea though...

And finally:

The latest recycling laboratory breakthrough that makes possible the conversion of manure, urine or methane gas into a new energy source, as was Japanese professor Sakae Shibusawa's March announcement that, by pressure and heat, he can produce an ounce of gasoline from 5 pounds of cow dung.

Now we know what they'll be doing with all of CBS' Dan Rather archives... heck, the network news divisions of the Big Three have to find new sources of revenue these days.