Daily Rotten Archives January 2, 2003 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 Buddy can you spare me a kidney? Sydney Morning Herald | Submitted by: wingnut "Oscar Landicho was a deeply religious man but two years of daily prayer had not brought him the new kidney needed to restore his health.So Mr Landicho resorted to earthly means and returned to his native Philippines, where he paid $6800 to an impoverished donor in exchange for one of her kidneys. "You need only one healthy kidney to live...My conscience is clear." And so is my piss. Read article... Common House Sparrows now uncommon Christian Science Monitor | Submitted by: Dr. Zero "Common house sparrows, symbols of European city life, have almost disappeared from some of the Continent's capitals, and nobody has the slightest idea why... The mystery of the sparrow's disappearance from so many European cities is all the more baffling because the bird is still found in normal numbers in other metropolitan areas, such as Berlin." Read article... Queen's fortune smaller than previously thought Globe and Mail | Submitted by: Ann Onymous "Contrary to popular belief, the Queen did not inherit a vast sum of money from her father, King George VI, records released Wednesday showed. The Queen asked the British government in 1972 to review its annual payment to the royal household. The government commissioned a report on the matter, one of a number of records the Public Record Office has declassified. "It is quite clear that, far from being 'the richest woman in the world,' the Queen is not, in terms of disposable assets, even the richest person in the U.K.," the 30-year-old report said... It said her "private fortune" was considerably smaller than the combined assets of The Beatles, who were enjoying huge success at the time." Read article... Schmuck finds Robert Redford's credit card Provo Daily Herald | Submitted by: Provo Masturbator "The man, whom police did not identify, found Redford's credit card at a gas station parking lot in Orem on Saturday. When he called the Redford-owned Sundance resort to notify them he had the actor's card, resort employees called Redford to verify his card had been lost... The man then received a phone call from Kenneth Johnson, head of the resort's security, who offered him free ski passes and dinner for two if he would return the card. The man told Johnson he wanted memorabilia signed by Redford instead." Read article... Grandma into diamonds CNN | Submitted by: Mikya "The cremated remains of 80-year-old Edna MacArthur from Alberta have been presented to her family in the form of a diamond stone, the first delivery of this kind in the world, a funeral services official claimed Tuesday. The 1/4 carat diamond was presented Monday to MacArthur's granddaughter, Tracey Somerville, and Tracey's mother, Teresa, who used to keep the cremation urn in their living room, Crawford said" Read article... Introducing Mecca-Cola New York Times | Submitted by: Any Mouse "Tawfik Mathlouthi, who runs a radio station for France's Muslim minority, has come up with an idea: to create a competing product to Coke that would satisfy the needs of Arab speakers in Europe and elsewhere for soft drinks, while providing jobs and economic growth." Read article... Cyclone wipes out 2 Pacific islands Times | Submitted by: whitetrashrepublic.com "Fears are growing for the safety of the 3,000 residents of two of the most remote inhabited islands in the South Pacific. Tikopia and Anuta, in the Solomon Islands, are believed to have been devastated by hurricane-force winds. Radio contact was lost after cyclone Zoe reached the maximum category five as it swept across the region, generating 200mph winds and 30ft waves." Read article... Man parks, leaves lights on, gets $28 ticket Seattle Times | Submitted by: Mr Frog Apparently Seattle police have already caught all the murderers, thieves, and rapists: "On Seth's parking ticket, he's cited for "Lights, parked vehicle." The part of the city code cited doesn't explicitly say anything about leaving a parked car's lights on, but rather details how a vehicle's lights need to be properly working (which Seth says his were)." Read article... Little old lady from Pasadena Pasadena Star-News | Submitted by: Lowen "She stepped on the gas (rather than) the brake. The car lurched forward and went through the front plate-glass windows,' said Lt. David Richter of the Pasadena Police Department. "It was just one of those things where I don't think her reaction time was quick enough to stop.'" Read article... Smile, God loves you Kansas City Star | Submitted by: lemmiwinks The leaders of a Kansas City, Kan., storefront church were charged Tuesday with murdering their adopted 9-year-old son and with abusing three other adopted children.... Wyandotte County Coroner Alan Hancock said in an interview that Brian's mouth had been taped shut and that something like a sock had been stuffed in it. He said there were signs that Brian had vomited and that he had been bound around the chest with a belt... The boy died of asphyxiation." Read article... Finnish Prisons rule New York Times | Submitted by: Mr. Black "I know this system sounds like a curiosity," said Markku Salminen, a former beat patrolman and homicide detective who is now the director general of the prison service in charge of punishments. "But if you visit our prisons and walk our streets, you will see that this very mild version of law enforcement works. I don't blame other countries for having harsher systems because they have different histories and politics, but this model works for us." Read article... Socialite attends her own funeral Guardian | Submitted by: Ann Onymous "The former actress and ex-wife of the actor Dennis Hopper is a healthy 65, but likes being in control and wanted to enjoy the one party that everybody else misses. Ms Hayward, now married to the band-leader Peter Duchin, got the idea 15 years ago after a funeral made memorable by a particularly moving performance of Verdi's Requiem Mass." Read article... But can he speak Bonobo? BBC | Submitted by: Ann Onymous "Kanzi, an adult pygmy chimp, is kept at Georgia State University in Atlanta, and, like many other primates, can communicate by pointing at symbols. However, researchers recently noticed that he was also making gentle noises while he interacted with humans. By studying many hours of videotape, Dr Jared Taglialatela and Dr Sue Savage-Rumbaugh spotted four distinct sounds that accompanied particular actions, corresponding to "banana", "grapes", "juice" and "yes". Read article... How low can Dow go? Greenpeace | Submitted by: kade "In a stunning example of corporate insensibility, Dow Chemical, the worlds largest chemical company, and new owners of Union Carbide is to sue survivors of the 1984 Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal, India. While the site of the disaster lies covered in toxic waste and survivors struggle with continuing ill health and deadly pollution from the site, Dow has decided to add to their woes with a Indian lawsuit." Read article... Would the real Jack Ass please stand up? New Yorker | Submitted by: Any Mouse Followup to earlier story: "Having been unable to find a lawyer willing to work for him without payment upfront, Jack Ass (formerly Bob Craft) has filed the paperwork himself, and sued Viacom, Inc. for "plagiarizing" and "defaming" his name with "a TV show and a movie depicting young men who, among other things, snort lines of wasabi and pee on snow and eat it." Read article... Disabled dad dies a dog's death Mainichi Daily News | Submitted by: Captain Prozac "Mutsuo was clad only in pajamas. A dog's chain had been wrapped around his neck and wound two or three times around the streetlight. He'd been sat on an upturned bucket. Rigor mortis had already set in by the time paramedics arrived on the scene." Read article... Orangutans masturbate using sticks! New York Times | Submitted by: GM Boink "In some forests, orangutans had a characteristic way to hunt and kill a beast known as the slow loris or extracting seeds from the stinging fruit of the Neesia tree. In other forests with the loris and Neesia, orangutans never took those meals. And although in two forests, orangutans enjoyed masturbation using sticks, elsewhere such behavior was unheard of." Read article... Canada marijuana law struck down Canadian Broadcasting | Submitted by: twoism "Canada's law on possession of small amounts of marijuana is no longer valid, an Ontario judge ruled Thursday... Windsor Justice Douglas Phillips made the decision as he dismissed two drug charges against a 16-year-old local boy. Parliament has failed to address problems with Canada's marijuana laws, Phillips said in his ruling." Read article... The joys of TV judgeship Guardian | Submitted by: Ann Onymous "You can date the true success of the fake judges to the OJ Simpson trial," says Jeffrey Toobin, CNN's legal analyst and a staff writer on law for the New Yorker magazine. "Basically, both the public and the TV industry discovered that courts were great entertainment, and they decided they could just continue to manufacture these dramas several times a day." This is literally true: Judge Judy justice is speedy justice, doled out 10 cases at a time in marathon taping sessions in Los Angeles (though, as Sheindlin has pointed out, she would frequently hear more per day as a real judge in New York)." Read article... Grab That Sarong! News Corporation | Submitted by: Dirty Sammy "The Prime Minister, in an apparently ironic response to a controversial court judgement, has advised the public to seize the sarongs of flashers and leave them naked, so that the wrap-around cloth can be used as evidence, local media reported today." Read article... Sex makes your brain grow Globe and Mail | Submitted by: Ann Onymous Roll over, baby, and grow my mind: "Mating triggers the development of new neurons in the smell centre of the brain, a finding researchers hope will provide clues on how to trick other parts of the vital organ to repair themselves after injuries caused by strokes or head traumas. The possibility hinges on the discovery that a naturally occurring hormone called prolactin, production of which surges after sex and during pregnancy, prompts stem cells in the brain to produce new neurons in the brain's olfactory bulb." Doesn't that just make you horny? Read article... Fun to be a pig killer News Corporation | Submitted by: Dirty Sammy "Guns are no longer the fashion in the piggin' game. A man or a woman with a large knife and a pack of dogs is the go. Nicky Davenport, 24, also from Katherine, was one of six female entrants in this year's five-day hunt. "They take a bit of catching," says Ms Davenport, who failed to make it for the final weigh-in after her hunting party was waylaid by multiple punctures. She also lost her boyfriend in the bush for five hours." Read article... Sloshed idiot bulldozes his own pub News Corporation | Submitted by: Dirty Sammy "Customers said Tyrell had barged his way into the pub, demanded a drink and "went bananas" when staff refused, saying they were closing for the night, the paper said... Reports of the destruction of the pub which had been in the hands of the same family for 177 years until it was sold to Tyrell, brought outrage from the Campaign for Real Ale society (Camra)." Read article... Tolkien translation of Beowulf "discovered" News Corporation | Submitted by: ganubis "An assistant professor of English at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, Dr Drout was researching Anglo- Saxon scholarship at the Bodleian, and asked to see a copy of a lecture on Beowulf given by Tolkien in 1936. It was brought to him in a reading room in a large box. Professor Drout, who reads Anglo-Saxon prose to his two year old daughter at bedtime, said: "I was sitting there going through the transcripts when I saw these four bound volumes at the bottom of the box." Read article... and This article... The massively parallel narq Washington Times | Submitted by: Techwriter "Montgomery County police said yesterday that they will use tens of thousands of tips from the October sniper hunt to track down those who violate Maryland gun laws... The mission will be carried out by a task force of county and state police officers, as well as federal agents of the Secret Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms." If Maryland laws are what they're protecting, why are federal agents of the Secret Service and BATF involved? Read article...