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The skinny

By Times Wires
Published January 18, 2008

Cheeseheads

Dad, son bond with taser gun on YouTube

A man from Waukesha, Wis., has been arrested on charges that he stole a Taser gun from a police officer. The only real "evidence," if you can even call it that, is a YouTube video of the man, 22, and his father, 41, taking turns "tasing" each other. The video was posted about a day after the gun went missing, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The man, whom police did not identify, had been in a minor car accident on Jan. 1, and police allowed him to sit in a squad car to warm up, and suspect he took it then.

Suspicious package

It's not a bomb, but a lot of excitement

People, understandably, get very upset when they find abandoned packages just sitting around humming and vibrating. So when a janitor at an apartment in Goteborg, Sweden, found just such a package in a garage, he called the bomb squad. The bomb squad responded, isolated the area and opened the package with bomb-disposal equipment. But there was no bomb. It was a sex toy. And it wasn't even vibrating anymore. "The package was vibrating when the janitor found it, but I think it had sort of died out by the time it was disarmed," police spokesman Jan Strannegard said. The item was taken into custody. "We don't really expect anybody to come asking for it," Strannegard said.

Moving violation

He drove slow, but he's still drunk

Ever since he lost his driver's license, Richard Gunn has been motoring around Dargaville, New Zealand, on his lawn mower. It became a big problem when he was caught driving with an alcohol level more than double the legal limit. He figured it was okay, since he was only going 5 mph. But it turns out that New Zealand has no caveat that allows unlicensed drunks to drive lawn mowers ... as long as they do it while driving slow. "I thought I was safe," he said. He faces jail time if convicted, and the lawn mower was impounded for 28 days.

Updates

Instant jury

Last week, a judge in Vermont was so desperate for a jury pool, he ordered officers to go hand out summonses on the street. Seemed weird enough. But now we learn that a court in Greeley, Colo., did exactly the same thing on Wednesday. KUSA-TV reports that when only 40 of the 200 people summoned by mail showed up, officials handed out 50 subpoenas to people who were just walking by. Maybe they saw the Vermont item and thought it was a great idea? Nope, they've done it three times in the past two months.

Space roaches

Researchers say that cockroaches conceived in space and born in October have developed faster and become hardier than terrestrial ones. The roach pictured here is a normal one, not a mutant Russian one. The scientists established that their limbs and bodies grew faster. "We have found out that the creatures run faster than ordinary cockroaches and are much more energetic and resilient," Dmitry Atyakshin said. Good work, guys.

Compiled from Times wire services and other sources by staff writer Jim Webster, who can be reached at jwebster@sptimes.com.

[Last modified January 18, 2008, 00:32:34]