WhiteBoard News for Tuesday, December 16, 2003
London, England (Ananova):
The Guinness Book of Records has created a new book category after a US scientist made the world's largest book.
Michael Hawley of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology compiled the tome about the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan.
The Guinness Book of Records say Bhutan: A Visual Odyssey Across the Kingdom is the biggest ever made.
It weighs 133 pounds, measures 5ft 7ins and has 112 pages. Mr Hawley used enough paper to cover a football field and about one gallon of ink.
He's charging $10,000 for each copy, with the money going to his Friendly Planet charity which has built schools in Cambodia and Bhutan.
================
Munich, Germany (Ananova):
A German shoplifter felt so guilty they posted their haul to the police and asked officers to return the stolen goods to shops.
And they enclosed letters to the heads of each store apologising and advising them to put up more cameras and employ more store detectives.
The parcel was posted to Darmstadt police station with the sender's address: "Mea Culpa, Honest Street, 1".
It contained cosmetics, CDs, chewing gum and other stolen goods - all packed in separate plastic bags for each shop.
In a covering letter to police, the shoplifter wrote: "Dear police, I stole these things in the past months. I'm genuinely sorry and would like to send these things back to the stores."
Police say they will return the goods but would have preferred the sender to have given their real name.
================
Adelaide, Australia (Reuters):
An Australian who called police to report thieves were trying to break into his home and steal his cannabis plants wound up getting arrested himself.
Police called to a house in Adelaide, capital of the state of South Australia just after midnight discovered four men trying to steal the plants, which were being grown in two rooms there.
They arrested the men -- and the 23-year-old homeowner, who was later charged with illegally growing 16 cannabis plants.
"He was calling from underneath his bed," a police spokesman told Reuters. "I don't know what he was thinking. Perhaps he was smoking too much of his own product."
=================
Barrie, Canada (Ananova):
A 41-year-old Canadian man who pretended to be a police officer and inadvertently pulled over a real detective for speeding has been sentenced to six months in jail.
James Winton, of Barrie, pleaded guilty to impersonating a police officer and was also sentenced to two years probation and a judicial request for psychiatric counselling.
The Barrie court heard Constable Jarrod Hunter was off-duty and out driving with his father-in-law in June when he saw a white Neon with flashing red strobe lights on a county road in New Lowell.
He became suspicious and asked his father-in-law to deliberately pass the car, court heard. Within seconds the red lights flashed again and the pair were signalled to pull over.
Wearing dark sunglasses, Winton strutted over to give the men a warning that they were speeding, but Hunter got out of the car and said: "Let me see your tin."
When the man didn't understand, Hunter pulled out his authentic police badge and slapped it on the trunk saying: "Your badge - I want to see one of these."
The man said he forgot it at home, but insisted he was an officer for Peel Region. Hunter reached inside the Neon, took the keys from the ignition and called police.
A search of Winton's boot turned up a semi-automatic gun, several hundred rounds of ammunition, a pocket criminal code, holster and make-believe police jackets, reports the Toronto Sun.
=============
Chow
SuperChef
www.joeha.com