Replies

Caribou flavoured condoms given away in Arctic

Around 15,000 condoms 'flavoured' with the musk of ox, caribou and arctic char have been given away at the Arctic Winter Games in Canada.

The condoms drive is to stop the spread of HIV and unwanted pregnancies among Inuits.

Health workers decided to distribute condoms based on traditional Inuit animals after talking to teenagers fascinated by flavoured condoms.

The Inuit-themed condoms have become a collectors item with the original batch of 2,000 snapped up.

But although the condoms smell of what the packaging claims, they aren't made to taste of it, reports the Canadian Press.

"It really started pretty much as a joke," said Todd Armstrong, HIV adviser for Pauktuutit, an Inuit women's organisation.

"Often when I'm giving talks up North kids are fascinated by the fact there are cherry or root-beer-flavoured condoms. We started saying we could have traditional-flavoured condoms.

"The animals that we highlighted were keys to survival in the past. Condoms are survival tools in our present life. By combining the past and the present, we were in fact protecting the future."

The Arctic games, held in Iqaluit, are for peoples across the world who live in polar regions.

Story filed: 12:46 Thursday 21st March 2002

MMMM MMMMM GOOD!


Ananova :

Prisoner injures back in urine protest

A convicted killer has injured his back after slipping on urine in his Australian prison cell during a 'dirty protest'.

Oliver Alincic covered his cell with urine after being disciplined for threatening a prison officer in jail in Brisbane.

A spokesman for Brisbane Corrective Services says Alincic has been treated for the injury.

Alincic was part of a 1997 break-out when prisoners shot their way out of the Sir David Longland Prison.

He was sentenced to life for murder in 1988, reports http://abc.net.au

Story filed: 12:15 Thursday 21st March 2002

Motorists in New Zealand were showered with sewage after a septic tank truck exploded. The force of the blast blew out the window of a nearby hotel and sent debris flying into parked cars. No-one was injured, but police closed the road for three hours while firefighters washed away a 50 metre trail of sewage. Drivers following the truck through Dunedin reported seeing steam coming from one side of the tank before it exploded. The truck was carrying a mix of liquid sewage and hydrogen peroxide, the Otago Daily Times reports. Joe Callahan says he was driving the truck back to base after cleaning out a sump when the accident happened. The back end of the truck, which can be removed for cleaning, exploded. Mr Callahan said: "There must have been a build-up of gas or something. There was just this loud boom. It threw the truck across the road. I had trouble keeping it straight."

The Ant & The Grasshopper

THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER CLASSIC VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER MODERN VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving. CBS, NBC and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing "It's Not Easy Being Green." Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing "We shall overcome". Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake. Al Gore exclaims in an interview with Peter Jennings that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share". Finally, the EEOC drafts the "Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper Act", retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that were appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients. The ant loses the case. The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow. The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.

'Buttball' Game Gets Firefighters In Hot Water

2 Littleton Firefighters Suspended

Updated: 8:53 a.m. EST March 22, 2002

http://www.mycfnow.com/sh/news/stories/nat-news-131786220020322-070324.html

LITTLETON, Colo. -- Two Littleton firefighters were suspended for an offensive game played at a fire station called "buttball," city officials said Thursday.

The penalty of the game required the person to lower his pants, place a rubber ball in a plastic glove and then place the ball between the butt cheeks while washing dishes.

Fifteen employees were investigated in September. Two were suspended for two days without pay and forced to attend a 16-hour class entitled "Leadership through Influence."

Littleton City Manager Jim Woods said the game at the department's flagship Station eleven began as a game to determine kitchen duty.

Firefighters would take turns throwing a small rubber ball at a set of wind chimes. The one who missed would have to do the dishes.

The penalty phase of buttball was added when command members weren't around.

Woods said that at no time was the city's firefighting service compromised.

"We are extremely proud of the service that our employees in Littleton Fire Rescue provide to the community. However, I am disappointed at the immature behavior displayed by a few of them. Clearly, some of them crossed the line," he said.

The investigation began on July 31 when one firefighter complained to the city about the offensive nature of the game.

The two firefighters were found in violation with several city policies including abuse of city time, offensive behavior, not portraying professionalism in all activities, and not using their positions wisely.