WhiteBoard News for Wednesday, May 28, 2003

New York, New York (AP):

It could have been a cat-astrophe, but Meow Mix chief executive officer Richard Thompson is recovering with his sense of humor intact after being bitten by a Rottweiler. 

The encounter happened just as Thompson is about to launch "Meow TV," a half-hour, feline-friendly comedy on cable's Oxygen network that features cat yoga, cat haiku and sporadic video of squirrels and fish. 

Thompson said he was walking on the Upper East Side about a week ago when the dog bit him on his backside. His wound was bandaged at a hospital, and Thompson said Friday he's still finding it difficult to sit comfortably. 

"He was hungry," Thompson joked in an interview with The Associated Press. 

"I'm still convinced the dog knew who I was `Top Cat' of the Meow Mix Co. and he didn't get invited to the `Meow TV' opening," he said. "I think the dogs had a conspiracy against me." 

Thompson said he filed a police report about the dog, which was on a leash and with its owner, but he expects nothing will come of it. 
===============

Krommenie, The Netherlands (Ananova):

A 44-year old Dutch motorist has stunned traffic police by drinking so much that their breathalyser crashed.

The man, from Krommenie, had so much alcohol in his breath that the machine in Wormerveer first refused to work and then showed out of range.

Some time later a police doctor gave the man, who has not been named, a blood test which showed the driver had seven times too much alcohol in his blood.

Police, who had flagged the motorist down for erratic driving, say he claimed to have only drunk "four beers".

A courts in Haarlem has since sentenced the man to a 15-month driving ban, a £600 fine and a two-week suspended jail sentence.
==============

San Antonio, Texas (Reuters):

Two Texas prison inmates have received permission to marry even though they have never met and cannot honeymoon until at least 2036, officials said on Friday. 

Diane Zamora, 25, and Steven Mora, 27, were sent a marriage license application after the Texas Attorney General's office ruled they could become husband and wife despite their unusual circumstances, Bexar County Clerk Gerry Rickhoff said. 

Once the application is completed and approved, they can marry stand-ins at ceremonies at their separate prisons, which are 130 miles apart, officials said. 

Zamora is a former U.S. Naval Academy midshipman who along with then-boyfriend David Graham, an Air Force Academy cadet, was sentenced to life in prison in a high-profile trial for the 1995 murder of a 16-year-old girl who was her romantic rival. 

She will not be eligible for parole until 2036, Texas prison spokesman Larry Fitzgerald said. 

Prospective spouse Mora is scheduled to leave prison next March upon completion of a four-year sentence for threatening someone who helped put him in prison on an earlier charge. 

The two have not met, but began writing letters to each other after Mora saw Zamora on television, Mora's sister Monica Cisneros told the San Antonio Express News. 

Cisneros said they had seen each other once from a distance when Zamora passed through Mora's prison in Huntsville, Texas, on her way to a medical appointment. 

Zamora is in a prison near the central Texas town of Gatesville. 

Fitzgerald said Mora, as a convicted felon, would have to get the warden's permission to visit Zamora after his release. 

Because Zamora is in a maximum security prison, no physical contact would be allowed, he said. 

Even in lower security prisons, only a hug and kiss on the cheek are permitted. 

"There are no conjugal visits in Texas prisons," Fitzgerald said. 
===============

Chow
SuperChef
www.joeha.com