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by Chuck Shepherd

November 26, 2009

IRAQI MILITARY INTELLIGENCE

The first line of “defense” at the 400 Iraqi police checkpoints in Baghdad are small wands with antennas that supposedly detect explosives, but which U.S. officials say are about as useful as Ouija boards. The Iraqi official in charge, Maj. Gen. Jehad al-Jabiri, is so enamored of the devices, according to a November New York Times dispatch, that when American experts repeatedly showed the rods’ failures in test after test, he blamed the results on testers’ lack of “training.” The Iraqi government has purchased 1,500 of the ADE 651s from its manufacturer, ATSC Ltd. of the UK, at prices ranging from $16,000 to $60,000 each. The suicide bombers who killed 155 in downtown Baghdad on Oct. 25 passed two tons of explosives through at least one ADE-651-equipped checkpoint.

WHAT IS THE SOUND OF ONE STATUS UPDATING?

Jigme Wangchuk, 11, was a student at St. Peter’s School in Boston when he was enthroned in November by a Buddhist sect in India’s Darjeeling district as its high priest, covering territory extending to neighboring Nepal and Bhutan. He will live in seclusion in his monastery, except for contact with Facebook friends he made while in Boston.

NOW ABOUT THOSE TOILET SEATS…

An unprecedented toilet-building spree has taken hold in India over the last two years, spurred by a government campaign embraced by young women: “No Toilet, No Bride” (i.e., no marriage unless the male’s dowry includes indoor plumbing). About 665 million people in India lack access to toilets, according to an October Washington Post dispatch.

FLYING BUNNIES!

The town of Waiau, New Zealand, had once again planned an annual rabbit-carcass-tossing contest, to a chorus of complaints from animal rights activists concerned that children not associate dead animals with fun. (In New Zealand, rabbits are crop-destroying pests, doing an estimated $16 million in damage annually, but nonetheless, the town canceled the contest.)

PAINFUL IRONY

Daredevil Scottish stunt bicyclist Danny MacAskill, whose electrifying feats are featured on popular YouTube videos, suffered a broken collarbone in October when he tripped on a curb while out for a walk in downtown Edinburgh.



CRIMINALLY GOOD HEALTH CARE

Britain’s High Court ruled in September that inmate Denis Roberts, 59, a murderer, was entitled to free surgery to remove a birthmark, while the National Health Service in August granted a free prescription for Viagra to recidivist sex offender Roger Martin, 71, whose latest conviction, last year, involved an 11-year-old boy.

WHEN JEBEDIAH MET SALLY

“Bonnet books” are a “booming new subcategory of the romance genre,” reported The Wall Street Journal in September, describing “G-rated” Amish love stories that sell well among outside readers but have found an even more avid audience among Amish women themselves. The typical bestseller is by a non-Amish writer, perhaps involving a woman inside the community who falls in love with an outsider. In one book described by the Journal, the lovers “actually kiss a couple of times in 326 pages.”



SILVER LININGS

The epic drought that hit central Texas this year, causing a 30-foot drop in the water level of Lake Travis near Austin, also helped police solve three stolen-vehicle cases. Of the three exposed at the bottom of the lake in July was one, with key still in the ignition, missing since 1988. (2) Emergency-room doctors writing in the Archives of Surgery in September reported that light alcohol-drinkers survived brain injuries better than either non-drinkers or heavy drinkers.