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by Chuck Shepherd

October 08, 2009

STRANGE STRIP

Beneath the luxury hotels on the Las Vegas Strip is a series of flood tunnels that are home to dozens of people who work odd jobs such as hustling leftover change in casino slot machines. A correspondent for London’s The Sun gained the trust of a few and even photographed their “apartments” for a September dispatch, showing well-stocked quarters, with scrounged appliances and furniture and even one makeshift shower rigged from a water cooler. “Amy,” who has lived in the tunnels with her husband, “J.R.,” for two years, said she “love[s]” the Vegas lifestyle and appears in no hurry to leave her setup. “Kathryn” (who lives with boyfriend “Steven”) also appears content except, she says, for the fragrance, the black widow spiders and the periodic rush of water through her home (threatening any “valuables” not stacked on crates).

THE BIG CREDITOR IN THE SKY

David Cerullo came to prominence after purchasing the television studios abandoned by Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker and established what is perhaps the boldest of all Christian “prosperity gospel” ministries (that pays him an annual base salary of $1.52 million). With his father, semi-retired Pentecostal preacher Morris Cerullo, he assures followers that the more they give, the more God will return to them. In a recent TV spot, Morris, speaking first in tongues and then addressing the currently credit-challenged: “When you [donate], the windows of heaven...open for you...100 fold.” (The on-screen message: “Call now with your $900 offering and receive God’s debt cancellation!”)

DON’T TELL THE LC

The cheap-drink Tuesday night special at the Attic bar in Newcastle, England, in early September was a money-back guarantee at the end of the night to anyone who could still legally drive (measured by the bar’s breathalyzer), with the evening’s most-alcohol-saturated customer drinking free the following week. The Newcastle City Council soon convinced the bar it was a bad idea.

HOMELAND INSECURITY

The Department of Homeland Security (relying on a study later termed by the Government Accounting Office to have been rushed and flawed) decided in January that the best place for its new $700 million research facility on infectious diseases would be in Kansas, which happens to be in the heart of America’s “tornado alley.” The GAO report, leaked to the Washington Post in July, claimed the risk of accidental release of dangerous pathogens is far greater than the department assumed.

HIS WIFE HAS A PLATINUM DIAPHRAGM

Canadian medical appliance manufacturer X4 Labs, which sells a penis-elongating traction device for around $400, disclosed in August that it is making a solid gold version on contract for a Saudi businessman. The buyer claimed he required gold only because of allergies, but then also ordered it ornamented with diamonds and rubies, according to an August Agence France-Presse report. X4's cachet as a medical-appliance supplier is expected to get the device past Saudi customs, which normally bans sex toys.

INCOMPETENT CRIMINALS

Ricky Dale Ford was jailed in September in Conway, Ark., accused of stealing an all-terrain vehicle. While joyriding, Ford had accidentally hit a beehive, and when police found him in nearby woods, he was “barely breathing,” one officer said, having been stung more than 100 times. Maui Time Weekly, Chuck Shepherd