Iowa GOP platform calls for no activities on Wednesdays.

From Raw Story:

The Iowa Republican Party is seeking to establish a "no-activities night" every Wednesday in the state.

"We support the establishment of a no-activities night on Wednesdays," reads section 4:33 of its platform.

The unique declaration is sandwiched between clauses stating a commitment to allowing Bibles in schools and supporting the right to teach one's kids how to drive.

It's unclear what activities will be off limits on Wednesdays, seeing as how some activities are necessary for survival.

The penalties for engaging in activities on Wednesdays is not stated, nor does the Iowa GOP specify whether the unacceptable activities will involve being indoors or outdoors, or the methods by which they will be enforced.

Coozer-Bits.

Funny: Celebs and their animal look-a-likes.

D'oh: 5 things to do before losing your wallet.

Cthulhu Watch: Scientists tap into Antarctic octopus venom.

Science: We might be inside a black hole.

Sad: New York to kill 170,000 geese.

Dorky: Pics from Comic-Con.

Darth Vader robs Long Island bank.

From the NY Post:

Luuuuuke, I am your robber!

Times sure must be tough on the Death Star these days, as Darth Vader yesterday stooped to holding up a Long Island bank, cops said.

A robber dressed up as the "Star Wars" villain for a heist that likely netted enough cash to fill up a TIE fighter with gas for a couple of days.

As he robbed the Setauket Chase branch, the Sith Lord brandished a weapon for a more civilized age -- a semiautomatic handgun.

There was no telling whether he needed to use the force to make bank employees comply, cops said, but at one point, the Vader invader kneeled as if speaking to the Emperor and aimed his gun.
"He immediately displayed a gun and demanded cash from the teller," said Suffolk County Detective Sgt. William Lamb.

Apparently Darth's normal costume was out for cleaning, since the robber was caught on tape wearing a blue cape and camouflage pants when he showed up at the branch on Route 374 at 11:30 a.m.

After grabbing his cash, Vader escaped on foot through a parking lot.

"All of a sudden, I saw this guy with a mask, and he was running very fast by the window," said Louie Lin, a worker at a nearby Chinese restaurant. "It was pretty crazy. He had the whole outfit on."

Michael Aloisio, who works at another nearby restaurant, also saw Vader run by.

"I thought it was pretty comical, but I guess this guy was pretty serious about needing some money," he said.

"I always liked 'Star Wars,' but I never liked Darth Vader."

Cops found the fallen Jedi's lack of respect for the law disturbing.

"I'd say it's very unusual," Lamb said.

Police wouldn't say exactly how much money Vader got, but a photo showed a Alderaan-sized wad of cash in his hand.

A police source said Suffolk officers couldn't stop talking about the encounter with the dark side.

"The jokes are starting already," the source said. "The one where he's back up in the Death Star is the best so far."

Coozer-Bits.

Lame: 22,000 NYC cabbies ripped off passengers.

TV: 100 things we'll miss about LOST.

Ha: Funny test answers.

Sports: Phillies fan arrested for purposely vomiting on cop.

RUW: Computers can now detect sarcsam. Why, that's just greeeeat.

Health: Caffeine counteracts cognitive decline.

Awesome: Video gamers can control dreams.

Physics professor writes open letter to Hot Tub Time Machine.

Great letter from a real professor. Click here to read the whole thing.

Dear Sirs:

As a noted time-travel expert, I looked forward to your new film, "Hot Tub Time Machine" with great anticipation. Of course, one expects a fair amount of artistic license in movies. For example, even in 1985, the most energy efficient flux capacitors could be powered at far less than 1.21 Gigawatts of electricity. It is also wholly understandable that you have ignored (or are perhaps ignorant of) the vast literature on time machine design and have therefore built yours around a hot tub, which has been shown to be unstable, rather than around the more conventional wormhole. Further, you exhibit an admirable attention to detail on many particulars. Following on the Terminator model, you correctly realize that time travel may only be undertaken while in the nude.

However, I cannot stand idly by as you subject your characters to a number of inviolable paradoxes. Considered from least to most egregious:

1. Predestination Paradoxes. In models of time travel with a single timeline, a traveler who has already experienced the past has no choice but to repeat his/her actions. It is troubling to me that you address predestination in matters of only the most trifling detail, such as whether John Cusack is destined to get a fork in the eye or the fate of Crispin Glover's arm, all while allowing gross details of history to be changed with impunity. Tinkering with history isn't a matter of "close enough." Once things are changed, however slightly, they're changed for good.

Your characters, showing better temporal intuition than you, yourselves, comment on this point, and warn of the "Butterfly Effect." A couple of observations are in order. First, the movie of that name was unspeakably terribly, and you do yourself and your characters a disservice to speak of it approvingly. Secondly, the changes wrought in the past would have so changed the future that any foreknowledge would quickly become worthless. If you don't make your fortune in the first couple of days, it's already too late. The alternate future you will have created will likely have everyone running around in goatees and building doomsday devices.

April Fools "news" items across the web...

The Guardian: Labour Party to rebrand Gordon Brown as tough alpha male.

PC World: Sudden PC acceleration causing injuries.

Starbucks: Responding to consumer demand, Starbucks introducing two new sizes: the Plenta and Micra.

ThinkGeek: Some funny new products. (I would totally buy "My First Bacon")

ReadJunk: James Cameron to helm Batman 3.

Marvel: Introducing... Hulkpool.

SF Chronicle: Obama clears way for oil drilling off US coasts. Oh wait, that's true.

College campus offers pr0n for Bibles.

From FOX News, dispensers of much Bible porn:

A Texas college campus is locked in a fierce debate after a group of students launched the "smut for smut" campaign, trading bibles and other religious texts for porn, MyFoxSanAntonio.com reported.

Atheist students at the University of Texas at San Antonio announced that any student over the age of 18 will receive pornographic materials if they trade in religious materials, according to MyFoxSanAntonio.com.

Leaders of this atheist campaign allege that porn is no worse than what's written in religious texts.

A university spokesman says that this controversial cause is completely legal, though he admits a majority of the students on campus do not agree with it, according to MyFoxSanAntonio.com.

The group will continue its activities on campus through the middle of the week, according to the site.

Coozer-Bits.

Funny: Pelican attacks weatherman.

Politics: Falkland War 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Cthulhu Watch: Why an octopus is more awesome than your mom.

Hero: Stranger saves woman who fainted on subway tracks.

D'oh: Always spell check your tattoos.

Gross: Garbage collector sues after swallowing medical waste at clinic.

Duh: Human genome mess ruins the case for a caring, intelligent God.

Woman forced to show ID to buy quiche.

This is why I only get prescription-strength quiche. From Ananova:

A 24-year-old Warwickshire woman was asked for proof of her age when she tried to buy a slice of quiche from Tesco.

Christine Cuddihy, 24, thought the cashier was joking when she refused to let the sale go through because she 'looked under 21'.

Eventually, as the shoppers queueing behind her grew restless, the embarrassed office worker had to produce her driving licence to prove her age.

"The girl told me: "You don't look over 21. I need to see some proof of age"," Ms Cuddihy told the Daily Mail.

"I told her I was certain the proof of age laws do not apply to quiche but she just said: "We have to be really strict now and this applies to quiche bought over the counter".

"It was very embarrassing, what on earth is dangerous about a slice of quiche? It was rush-hour and the shop was really busy. I was so insulted that they thought I couldn't be trusted with a harmless snack."

The incident happened at the Tesco store in Cannons Park, Coventry. Miss Cuddihy, from nearby Leamington Spa, was on her way home from work when she popped in to buy the quiche for her supper.

Tesco has apologised for the incident. A spokesman for the supermarket said shoppers did not have to prove their age to buy quiche.

Woman hit with falling moose head.

Where's Basil Fawlty when you need him? By the way, the last two lines of this piece are priceless. From NY Daily News:

A Manhattan woman has sued a lower East Side restaurant, claiming she was conked in the head by a moosehead that fell off a wall.

Raina Kumra, 32, sued White Slab Palace, a Scandinavian-inspired hipster hangout on Delancey St., for an unspecified amount, charging the owners were "grossly careless" in mounting the taxidermy wildlife.

"It was the bar's fault," Kumra told the Daily News Tuesday. "I was injured and in an embarrassing way."

The 150-pound moosehead with antlers spanning over 3 feet was the centerpiece of the restaurant's back party room.

In a suit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, Kumra said she was standing under the moosehead about 1 a.m. on Oct. 4 when it came dislodged and crowned her.

Named in the suit is Annika Sundvik, a Manhattan art gallery owner who opened White Slab Palace in February.

The restaurant "had a duty to provide ... an environment free from falling objects," the suit charges.

Kumra said she suffered a concussion when clobbered on the head in the party room packed with patrons.

Since the incident, Kumra has lost cognitive skills and suffered chronic neck pain, fatigue, dizzy spells and anxiety from mounting medical expenses, the suit says. Sundvik, who also owns Good Bar & Grill in Chinatown, did not immediately return calls for comment. A manager at the restaurant refused to comment, saying she hadn't heard of the suit.

Meanwhile, Richard Santomauro, owner of Wildlife Taxidermy in Wall, N.J., insisted Kumra was not hit by a moosehead.

"That's a caribou," he said after viewing a photo of the stuffed head.

UK radio DJ sacked for interrupting Queen's speech.

From The Guardian:

A radio DJ has been sacked after interrupting the Queen's speech on-air, telling listeners: "Two words: Bor-ing."

Stand-up comic and radio presenter Tom Binns made the comments during a Christmas Day show on Birmingham radio station BRMB.

The station took a feed of the Queen's annual address by mistake and Binns – who was working alone in the studio – took the decision to take it off air.

Binns then made a joke about the French royal family being beheaded and introduced the next song, Last Christmas by Wham!, with the words "from one Queen to another..."

The station's parent company Orion Media said a "small number" of listeners complained and confirmed that Binns would not be working for them again.

The Queen used her Christmas message to the nation to express her sadness at the loss of UK troops in Afghanistan in the bloodiest year for British forces since the invasion in 2001.

NJ Transit bus stolen from mall.

From MSNBC:

A thief who stole a New Jersey Transit bus from a northern New Jersey mall remained at large Saturday afternoon, authorities said. The bus, which runs on the No. 73 line between the Livingston Mall and Newark, was taken from the mall's parking lot at about 7:30 a.m., said Dan Stessel, an NJ Transit spokesman.

It was found undamaged about 25 minutes later, parked about four miles away in the area of the Turtle Back Zoo in West Orange. Stessel said the bus driver, whose name was not released, was on a layover before starting a return trip to Newark and went inside to use the mall's restroom. When the driver returned to the parking area, the bus was gone.

Hedgehog joke wins comedy prize.

I guess the porcupine joke was too prickly. From BBC:

Comedian Dan Antopolski has won a prize for the funniest joke of this year's Edinburgh Fringe.

The funnyman, who has previously been nominated for the Perrier award, picked up the trophy from TV channel Dave.

Nine comedy critics sat through thousands of jokes before choosing 27 for viewers to vote on.

The winning joke was a one-liner from 36-year-old Antopolski's show Silent But Deadly - "Hedgehogs. Why can't they just share the hedge?"

Wienermobile crashes into house.

Here's some news you might relish:

One southern Wisconsin homeowner is probably not in love with the Oscar Mayer wiener. The famed hot dog's Wienermobile crashed Friday into the deck and garage of a home in Mount Pleasant, about 35 miles south of Milwaukee.

Police said the driver was trying to turn the Wienermobile around in the driveway and thought she was moving in reverse. But she instead went forward and hit the home. It sat in the driveway as if it were stuck in the garage Friday afternoon.

No one was home and no one was injured. No citations were immediately issued.

Both the home and vehicle suffered moderate damage, which Oscar Mayer spokeswoman Sydney Lindner says insurance will cover.

More here.

Parrot steals tourist's passport.

From Breitbart:

A cheeky New Zealand parrot -- perhaps with a desire to spread its wings further afield -- has pinched a Scottish man's passport in a bag snatch.

The passport was in a brightly coloured courier bag in the luggage compartment of a bus heading into the popular tourist destination of Milford Sound in the Fiordland region of the South Island, the Southland Times reported Friday.

The kea, the world's only alpine parrot, struck when the bus stopped and the driver was busy in the luggage compartment. When the driver turned around the startled kea flew away with the passport.

The bird was last seen heading into thick forest and the British passport's owner doesn't expect to get it back.

"Being Scottish, I've got a sense of humour so I did take it with humour but obviously there is one side of me still raging," said the man, who did not want to be named.

"My passport is somewhere out there in Fiordland. The kea's probably using it for fraudulent claims or something."

Apple removes Baby Shaker game.

From BBC:

Apple has apologised for a "deeply offensive" iPhone application called Baby Shaker, which made a game of quieting crying babies by shaking them.

It removed the $0.99 (£0.59) game from its iTunes Store on Wednesday, two days after it went on sale.

It sparked outrage from children's groups and brain injury foundations.

The aim of the game was to quieten babies by shaking the iPhone until a pair of thick red Xs appeared over each eye of a baby drawn in black and white.

Star Wars vs. Snatch.

Amazing mashup. Warning - profanity.

Monty Python prop causes bomb scare.

It's only a flesh wound. From Ananova:

Bomb disposal teams were called in and buildings evacuated after a Monty Python film prop was mistaken for a hand grenade.

Water company engineers spotted the object when they lifted up a fire hydrant cover on a street in Shoreditch, east London.

The road was cordoned off and a nearby pub was evacuated amid fears that the "grenade" could explode, reports the Daily Telegraph.

But after nearly an hour, bomb experts realised it was in fact a copy of the 'Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch' used by Eric Idle to slaughter a killer rabbit in Monty Python And The Holy Grail.

Google Street catching people coming out of sex shops, vomiting.

By the way, I never pick my nose in public anymore. From the London Paper:

GOOGLE was forced to remove dozens of London images from its new Street View image service today after sparking major concerns over personal privacy and security.

Parts of London have been “blacked out” after scores of complaints from homeowners and people captured by Google’s cameras complained.

Among the images withdrawn are one photo of a man vomiting outside a pub in Shoreditch, and another leaving a Soho sex shop.

A picture of a man being arrested in Camden has also been pulled.

Blacked out areas have been replaced with a message saying: “This image is no longer available.”

However, it is still possible to view the contentious images by changing the position from which it is viewed.

Ron Paul nearly seduced by Sacha Baron Cohen.

Spoilers in the extended. The scene sounds hilarious.

Presidential candidates will do almost anything for publicity. But Ron Paul's appearance in Sacha Baron Cohen's upcoming Bruno movie suggests he draws the line at making sex tapes with gay Austrian TV hosts.

In a five-minute scene, comedian Cohen tries—and fails—to seduce the Texas congressman and former Republican presidential candidate in a Washington hotel room. A spokeswoman for Paul confirmed the appearance but declined to discuss details, which were provided by two people who attended a test screening last week.