THIS is TRUE by Randy Cassingham
A weekly column of oddities from around the world

VIRAL MARKETING: Roger Freeman, an Encino, Calif., dentist and lecturer on infectious diseases, wants to start an epidemic. Well, not really: his new company is pushing a line of neckties with magnified pictures of diseases from microscope slides. “The gonorrhea tie is the best looking tie in the whole lot,” Freeman says, allowing that “The syphilis tie is gorgeous. The plague tie is pretty, [but] it’s sold out.” In addition, patterns showing tuberculosis, herpes, staphylococcus, AIDS, chlamydia, ebola, influenza and several other pathogens are available. Don’t want to wear your favorite disease around your neck? Matching underwear is also available. (Reuters) …Next year, he hopes to debut a new line of condoms.

FISHY REASONING: Bobbie Tanaka, manager of the Sumo Sushi restaurant in Irvine, Calif., vows not to bend to police pressure. The restaurant sponsors the “Sumo Lobster Hunt” where patrons pay $2 to use an arcade- style claw to grab a live lobster from a tank. A police animal control officer ordered the practice stopped on the grounds it was “in violation of the code of bad taste.” But after consulting her lawyer, Tanaka reinstated the dinner game, wondering aloud why police were bothering her about it. “You would think I was standing there beating ‘em with a stick,” she said. (AP) …Actually, that would probably be legal.

INSIDE JOB: A gang of four bandits armed with machine guns broke into a prison in Tremembe, Brazil, making away with the wages prisoners had earned in jobs both inside and outside the prison. The haul was a good one: 50,000 reals (US$28,000) in cash. “Money is money,” a police investigator said. “There are not too many places to rob.” But prison director Carlos Corade was incensed. “Bandits robbing convicts is just appalling,” he said. (Reuters) …Would you have felt better if they robbed widows and orphans, Sr. Corade?

DAS BOOTS: Police in Leipzig, Germany, have a problem with a 16-year-old boy. Police say the alleged neo-Nazi is responsible for kicking people with his heavy, steel-toed boots, and for good measure then beating them with chains. The unnamed boy has been banned from wearing his boots — and carrying knives, baseball bats and iron chains — for two years. “We consider this a suitable preventative measure toward firmly combating right-wing extremism,” said a Saxony state police spokesman. (AP) …Here’s a radical idea: let’s make assaulting people illegal.

I SEE THE LIGHT: The U.S. Department of Energy is funding a $5 million pilot project to turn sewage into electricity. “The idea is to use the stuff to produce energy rather than have it detract from our land by putting it into landfills and so on,” said Otis Mills, spokesman for the DOE’s Federal Energy Technology Center in Pittsburgh, Pa. “Initiatives like these prepare America for the next century. We’ll never run out of this stuff, obviously. We produce lots of it.” (Reuters) …And that’s just the government.

MY FATHER’S HOUSE: Officials from the Federal National Mortgage Association were almost speechless when Norman and Melissa Cameron told them why they didn’t plan to pay their $54,000 mortgage. “When I read it, I was taken aback,” said FNMA’s lawyer. Read what? The Camerons’ response to foreclosure proceedings on their Hartford, Conn., house: they claim God told them they didn’t have to pay. “It was our desire to be free from this mortgage debt,” the Camerons told the court overseeing the foreclosure. “Therefore we asked God our Heavenly Father in the name of Jesus Christ. He heard us and he freed us from this mortgage bondage.” (AP) …”Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.” –Matthew 22:21.

DOG DAYS: When nearly 100 Chinese migrants landed on Canada’s Vancouver Island, there was such an uproar about the influx of “illegal immigrants” that the government is considering deporting all of them back to China. All but one, that is: a dog that accompanied the group on their two-month ocean voyage will likely be allowed to stay. “She’s a very well-mannered, very nice dog,” reported a spokeswoman for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Victoria, though she adds the dog is “kind of frightened, kind of scared, kind of bewildered.” (Reuters) …Kind of like the immigrants must be.

YO QUIERO CHIHUAHUA: Mexico’s state of Puebla is worried about the area’s growing population of stray dogs, estimated to number 1.1 million. So state Health Secretary Jesus Lorenzo Aarun has set up a program to give out 5,000 packages of food in exchange for dogs, which will then be killed. (AP) …No! Don’t eat it! Don’t you know what Soylent Gray is?!

THE BIG PICTURE: While it may seem like you see a complex scene all at once, so-called “parallel processing”, your brain actually uses “serial processing” — your eye skips rapidly from one object to the next, says psychology professor Steven Luck of the University of Iowa in Iowa City. “This may seem counterintuitive because it doesn’t feel like we perceive only one object at a time,” Luck says. “But although it may seem that when you look at a scene, you are seeing the whole picture, each object in the scene commands your attention in rapid succession.” (UPI) …Your brain only thinks of one thing at a time, too.

PEACE AT LAST: “Lutherans OK Pact With Episcopalians” — AP headline

THIS WEEK’S HONORARY UNSUBSCRIBE goes to Raymond Vernon. Known as “the man who put the crunch in M&Ms” after figuring out how to add peanuts to the popular button-sized candies, Vernon was more notably a member of the team which developed the Marshall Plan, designed to foster “American assistance in restoring the economic infrastructure of Europe” after WW2. He also helped develop the International Monetary Fund and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and later taught international business management and international affairs at Harvard University. Vernon died August 26 from cancer. He was 85.

Joke of the Week A man is in a hotel lobby. He wants to ask the clerk a question. As he turns to go to the front desk, he accidentally bumps into a woman beside him and as he does, his elbow goes into her breast. They are both quite startled. The man turns to her and says, “Ma’am, if your heart is as soft as your breast, I know you’ll forgive me.” She replies, “If your penis is as hard as your elbow, I’m in room 1221.”

FAN LETTER OF THE WEEK:

Glad i got your attention!! Its true…I want to bury my head between your legs and lick you till you can’t take anymore! I am getting hornier each day as I search for a woman to try my first bi experience with! I have fantasized about this for a while now and can’t wait to meet the right woman to show me the way.I want my first time to be soooo special..*s*…we could meet for the day, weekend, whenever….as long as we could relax and enjoy our experience together. We could travel or you could travel (we would cover the expenses too!!)as long as it would be fun for all! I would only want to try this with my husbands participation though, because knowing he would be watching me have sex with another woman excites me as much as actually having the sex!…and the thought of watching him have sex with another woman really makes me hot too..*eg* and then to make it a long, passionate, wild, erotic time together we could play together all night till we dropped!!..*eg*..I want this! sooooo very badly…please be sincere, I am, and only e-mail me if you really are interested..*s*.

We are an attractive, married couple in our mid 30′s looking to expand our sex life with a first time experience. We are clean, fit, drug free, non-smokers looking for the same in a woman.I am just over 5 feet tall, honey complexion,black hair, great smile and am told that I am attractive, outgoing and have a fun personality. I am dripping with excitement over making this happen! I am polynesian (from Hawaii if you haven’t guessed) and my husband is white/Italian about 5’9″ and very muscular/athletic type. We hope you are interested and will contact us soon…*s*…I would like to exchange e-mails, maybe photos next and then…………….?????!!!*s*

Please…I hope there is someone out there who is serious….I am really serious about this and hope you are too..*s*..hope to hear from you soon!!!!