Odds & Ends

Dateline: Hungary—According to a report by the Hungarian Trades Union Federation, a supermarket chain has fired more than two dozen workers on the advice of a clairvoyant. Angry union bosses are demanding the staff be reinstated and say the bosses of the Penny Market chain were only looking for an excuse to cut staff. The report allegedly says that managers at the Penny Market took the personnel files of the employees to the clairvoyant and fired more than two dozen she psychically identified as thieves. The union says it is setting up special action groups to identify those who were psychically sacked.

Dateline: Texas—Man's best friend? Just ask the owner of J.D., a black Labrador retriever who landed his owner in some hot water last week. Police say J.D.'s owner, 25-year-old Matthew Porter, was playing Frisbee golf with two friends at a suburban Dallas-Fort Worth park last Monday when a police officer wandered by. The officer thought he smelled burning marijuana, so he asked the men for identification and began checking for outstanding warrants. For a moment, it looked like the officer wouldn't turn anything up. That's when J.D. came to the rescue, employing his innate retriever skills to wade into nearby Bear Creek and retrieve a plastic bag full of pot, which had apparently been tossed into the water. J.D. gave the bag to the officer who quickly charged the black Lab's owner with possessing drug paraphernalia. One of his companions was charged with marijuana possession. The third member of the party wasn't charged with anything and took possession of the canine narc. “People have been asking if we're going to recruit the dog for police work,” Grapevine police Sgt. Todd Dearing told reporters.

Dateline: South Carolina—Animal Rescue workers in Columbia have treated and released about 100 birds who got drunk and crashed into the windows of a local office building. The birds, cedar waxwings, were released last Tuesday in the Honeywell Wildlife Refuge. About 30 birds still remain with Carolina Wildlife Care. Two weeks ago, the entire migrating flock got drunk on fermented holly berries, became confused and crashed into the windows. Hundreds of the birds were injured. About half of them died. The remaining birds are expected to be released as a group, so they can continue their annual migration only slightly hung over.

Dateline: Georgia—Somebody's getting a failing grade. A 64-year-old driver's education instructor was run over by one of her students and pinned beneath the car for 15 minutes, officials in Stone Mountain said. Patricia Erwin, who has taught driving for 20 years, was working with the high school students on a drill that included pulling forward and backing up at slow speeds, said Kal Kelliher, the district's driver's education coordinator. Unfortunately, two cars driven by students on the DeKalb County Schools driver's education lot collided with one another, then one of the students backed into Erwin, running her over. She was hospitalized Friday in stable condition and underwent surgery for multiple broken bones.

Dateline: Idaho—Business owners in Boise have found a new way to draw customers to their strip club. Seems that a city law prevents full nudity in public unless it has “serious artistic merit.” So, on Art Club Nights, the Erotic City strip club charges customers $15 for a sketch pad, pencil and a chance to see completely naked dancers. The Boise City Council passed the “no nudity” clause in 2001. Since then, dancers at Erotic City have been forced to wear G-strings and pasties. Club owner Bill Teague got the idea for Art Club Nights when a customer asked if he could get in for free to sketch the dancers. Realizing that “art classes” were exempt from the law, Teague decided to invite his more artistic-minded clients to the club on Monday and Tuesday nights. In the two months since they began, Art Club Nights have drawn full crowds of 60 people, but no police citations.

Dateline: New York—Rick Pyburn had hoped that his life-sized cutout of a sheriff's patrol car would help slow down traffic near the Spring Hill Country Club in Albany. Unfortunately, the plywood patrol car was recently stolen. Last Sunday, Pyburn phoned the Benton County Sheriff's Office to report the theft. “I called them to say I was reporting a stolen patrol car,” Pyburn told the Corvallis Gazette-Times. The cutout was made by enlarging a photo on vinyl and then posting it on plywood. It was then put up in some bushes along Spring Hill Drive. The cutout was worth about $300, according to the sheriff's office report.