The Milwaukee Post

18 • Milwaukee Post • July 26, 2013 NEWS OF THE WEIRD BY CHUCK SHEPHERD Animals of invention Although Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (the alleged 9/11 mastermind) was waterboarded 183 times among several extreme interrogation techniques, he and his CIA captors eventually reached a moderated state. In 2003, though still housed in a "black site" in Romania, "KSM" asked permission to design a household vacuum cleaner, and the highest echelons of the agency cooperated, according to a former senior CIA analyst, speaking to The Associated Press in July. In reality, when a detainee exhausts his intelligence value, the agency's main mission is to keep him "sane," in case he is later put on trial, and the vacuum cleaner project was thought likely to engage KSM, who, 15 years before the murders of nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, had earned a mechanical engineering degree from North Carolina A&T State University. The entrepreneurial spirit ■ The gourmet lollipop company Lollyphile announced its latest flavor in June: Breast Milk Lollipops (four for $10). Owner Jason Darling said it "slowly dawned on" him that his friends were "producing milk so delicious it could turn a screaming, furious child into a docile, contented one. I knew I had to capture that flavor." ■ The Rocket Fizz Soda Pop and Candy Shop franchisers, already with a lineup of sometimes-unappreciated flavors such as Buffalo chicken wing soda, briefly experimented in June with "ranch dressing" soda, a mistaken adventure that cofounder Rob Powells jokingly blamed on his business partner. ■ Brewmaster John Maier of Rogue Ales in Newport, Ore., pointed out that "wild yeasts" have been used in beer for centuries and thus (according to a June report on FoodBeast.com) his company's Beard Beer (from yeast of beards, including at one time, his own) should be regarded as a traditional brew. Science on the cutting edge ■ It was a special occasion in Surrey, England, in June as a rare plant prepared to bloom. The 3-foot-tall Puya chilensis, native to Chile, features neon-bright greenish-yellow flowers with blooms large enough to yield drinkable nectar, but its most startling distinction is its ability to nourish itself by trapping small animals in its razor-sharp spines, leaving them to decay. (At Britain's Wisley Garden, it is fed with ordinary fertilizer rather than animals.) ■ During a June debate in a House Rules Committee hearing on abortion legislation, U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess of Texas, himself an obstetrician/gynecologist, criticized a proposal to outlaw abortion at the 20-week limit (where a fetus is said to begin to feel pain), insisting on an earlier ban, at 15 or 16 weeks. "Watch a sonogram of a 15-week-old baby," said Burgess, "and they have movements that are purposeful. ... If they're a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs." Thus, "If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to think that they could feel pain?" ■ Physicians at Kwong Wah Hospital and Queen Elizabeth Hospital, publishing in the Hong Kong Medical Journal recently, described a 66-year-old man seeking relief from a swelling in his abdomen (after having had a sparse history with doctors). They concluded that the man was basically a woman and that the cause of the swelling was an ovarian cyst. The patient had both Turner syndrome, which causes women to lack some female features, and congenital adrenal hyperplasia, which boosts male hormones. (While females have two X chromosomes, and males an X and a Y, Turner syndrome patients have one X and no Y.) Animals in the news In June, Barbour County, W.Va., firefighters, called to a farm in Belington, rescued the horse "Rowdy," whose entire body was somehow trapped inside an industrial-sized tire. Rowdy's owner said she believes Rowdy had an altercation with some of the other horses. Perspective A staff report by Democrats on the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce released in June and using data from Wisconsin (because of the state's comprehensive record-keeping) found that taxpayers wind up paying out at least $75 million a year in "safety net" assistance to the state's Walmart workers (food stamps, Medicaid, school lunches, earned-income tax credits, etc.) allegedly because the company's wages and benefits are so meager. The report, an update on 2004 numbers that were less than half those found this time around, estimated that Walmart families accounted for more than 9,000 Wisconsin Medicaid enrollees. The $75 million, covering 75 stores, represents a low-end estimate with the high end about $130 million. People different from us Melanie Typaldos, 57, and her husband, Richard Loveman, 54, in Buda, Texas, are supposedly part of a growing trend of people keeping pet capybaras (giant, semi-aquatic guinea pigs that are the world's largest rodents, at more than 100 pounds). "Gary" sometimes lounges on the couple's marital bed and frolics in the above-ground pool the couple installed for him. Although Melanie and Richard keep other, more traditional, animals at their home (they told London's Daily Mail in June), Gary is, of course, the only one as large as a human but with the distinctive body and head of a rat. Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, FL., 33679 or by email to WeirdNews@earthlink.net. Travel hint HINTS FROM HELOISE BY HELOISE Revival for rusty tools Dear Heloise: I am writing to you to see if you can help me with a problem. My husband was a mechanic, and he has a lot of tools. He is now retired. I am going through his tools, and a lot of them have rust on them. I would like to clean them up. – Beverly in Florida You are going to love this easy and cheap hint. It's one of my favorite products: vinegar. Place small tools in undiluted white or apple-cider vinegar and let sit overnight or longer. Once they have soaked, scrub with a small brush, then rinse and dry well. – Heloise Dear Heloise: I have a separate wallet that I use when I travel. I go through my daily wallet and transfer only the necessities I will need to take with me on my trip. That way, I am not carrying everything with me, and if I lose my wallet, I am having to cancel and replace only a few things. – Steve in California Alarm clock follow-up Dear Heloise: Fluorescent green numerals on your alarm clock bothering you? Use a "newspaper" plastic bag. Cut to size for the face of the clock and tape in place. Try different colors of bags until you find the one that's best for your situation. I prefer the blue color. It's easy on the eyes, but still light enough to see the time through it easily . – A Reader in Pennsylvania Send a great hint to Heloise, P.O. Box 795000, San Antonio, Texas 78279-5000 or email to heloise@Heloise.com. Answers on Page 23

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