WhiteBoard News for Friday, September 27, 2002

Sydney, Australia (Reuters):

Australia's looming bushfire season claimed its first victim Thursday -- anti-U.S. demonstrators who tried to burn an American flag in Sydney. 

"No, you can't do that, there's a total fire ban," a police officer said as he yanked the flag from two protesters who had set a corner of the flag afire with a lighter. 

The demonstration of several dozen people against a possible U.S. military offensive in Iraq fizzled. 

After one of the driest winters on record, and with the El Nino weather event promising to bring more drought and heat, Australia is bracing for another ferocious bushfire season. 

Fire bans were imposed in New South Wales state. 

No fires can be lit in the open. Electric or gas barbecues can only be used within 65 feet of a home and must be supervised by "responsible adult" with running water at hand. 
============

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (AP):

Hardy stomached men from around the country will scarf sheep's entrails for a chance to be named "haggis king." 

The haggis eating contest Friday is part of Bethlehem's Celtic Classic Festival. The winner will be the first to finish a pound and a half of the Scottish dish, a mix of sheep's organs, oats and spices. 

Tensions are high this year as two former champions prepare to go head to head. Steve Cunningham, of Bethlehem, and Peter Stefchak, of Anchorage, Alaska, have both won twice. 

Stefchak said his training regimen includes starving himself for 24 hours before the contest. 

Of the haggis, he said, "It sounds awful, but it actually has a light liver taste." 

Cunningham said he is confident. His son will enter with him. 

Patrick, 14, finished the haggis first last year. But he didn't win overall because the rules require children to eat less. Cunningham said he has a special technique for getting it down, but hasn't told anyone except his son. 

"Blood is thicker than haggis," he said. 
===========

LaSalle, Illinois (AP):

Police say a suspected bank robber wanted to get away in style. 

John Pope, 39, ordered a limousine to pick him up from his hotel in Moline after he robbed a bank Tuesday in the western Illinois community, police said. 

Unfortunately for Pope, his driver was a retired police officer. 

The driver, Don Madsen, of Moline, tipped off police that he had a suspicious passenger when he picked Pope up from the hotel. Madsen later got a call on his cell phone from one of his old colleagues, who warned that his passenger was suspected in a bank robbery. 

Madsen used cryptic language to indicate his location and state troopers found him at a LaSalle truck stop where they arrested Pope. 

Pope is accused of robbing a Moline bank just before he paid Madsen $335 in cash for a ride to Chicago. He is being held at the Rock Island County Jail on an armed robbery charge. 
==============

London, England (Reuters):

As the main political parties hold their weighty annual conferences, the official lunatic fringe is meeting in the Dog and Partridge pub for a very different convention. 

The Official Monster Raving Loony Party has been bringing flamboyant madness to the political scene for almost 20 years, and this year's annual conference in the genteel Hampshire town of Yateley, is no exception. 

Friday saw a "cabinet" reshuffle. "That basically consisted of us all standing in a cabinet and being shuffled. It fell to bits so now there's a cabinet split," leader Alan "Howling Laud" Hope told Reuters by phone from the pub, where he is the landlord. 

The Loony Party -- called "Official" to distinguish it from what the party calls the "unofficial loony" ruling Labour and opposition Conservative and Liberal parties -- was founded by the late David "Screaming Lord" Sutch in 1983. 

Intending to rattle the self-importance of mainstream parties, one-time rock musician Sutch in his trademark top hat and leopard-skin coat contested 39 elections, and lost them all. 

But he delighted a public increasingly disillusioned with politics, adopting unlikely policies and the slogan: "Vote for Insanity -- You know it makes sense!" 

On Friday, the party's manifesto collator, who delights in the name of "R.U. Seerius", was mulling a variety of proposals in preparation for a general election in 2005. 

"Whereas in other parties you have to be a member, with us anyone can send one in," Seerius told Reuters from the pub where some 30 loyal members have been meeting since Thursday with a determined lack of agenda. 

Policies included improving rail safety by tying a cushion to the front of trains and teaching paintball in schools. 

But Loony policies do exist on more serious issues. 

"We're not going to join the euro," Seerius said, referring to the debate over whether Britain should join Europe's single currency. "We're going to invite all the other countries to join the pound." 

But among past proposals such as turning Europe's 1980s butter surplus -- or "butter mountain" as it was known -- into a ski slope, some came to look less silly as time went on. 

Lowering the voting age from 21 to 18, legalising commercial radio in Britain and the abolition of dog licences were Loony policies that made it onto the statutes. 

Sutch committed suicide in 1999, shocking a public who had only seen his buffoonish side. 

"He was nothing like you imagined. He didn't drink, he didn't smoke, he didn't swear," said Hope. 

"He was very, very quiet, he was a gentleman," he added, saying he would carry on Sutch's tradition with this year's conference -- "a giant step backward for mankind". 
==============

Belo Horizonte, Brazil (Ananova):

An escaped prisoner flagged down a bus to make his getaway only to find it was full of policemen looking for him.

Sergio Vilas Boas escaped from a police station in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and stopped the first bus he saw.

But it was owned by the city's police station and was being used by officers trying to track him down.

Vilas Boas was being held, awaiting trial, after he was arrested at a football match where he was caught allegedly carrying three handguns.

He made his escape after asking to make a phone call and then overpowering the police officer who was guarding him.

O Estado de S Paulo Online reports that the bus was full of "many policemen" who immediately arrested and handcuffed him.
=============

Chow
SuperChef
www.joeha.com