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Did you celebrate World Toilet Day? The recent holiday is a good reminder to rejoice as you read this article on your phone, maybe even while sitting comfortably on a modern, porcelain toilet, which flushes with water so crystalline clean you could, in hard times, drink it without too much fear of dying. (We do not recommend doing that, by the way.) Going to the toilet wasn't always such a pleasant, risk-free experience for everyone, and even today, many people in America still go without proper sanitation. As recently as 1990, the rural stereotype of dropping trou in a shack...

OSAKA, Japan, Video from a toilet-themed exhibition at a Japanese museum shows schoolkids donning poop hats and sliding down an enormous commode. The giant toilet, which was part of the Miraikan museum's "Toilet!? - Human Waste & Earth's Future" exhibit in Osaka, allowed children to learn about toilets and how they work by sliding into a giant replica toilet while wearing hats designed to resemble human feces. The exhibition, which has since ended, also included interactive educational materials about the nature of feces and the impact of human and animal waste on the environment. "You will develop a completely new...

Kelly Osbourne is admitting she “f—-d up” big time. On Tuesday’s episode of “The View,” Osbourne made an inflammatory comment about Latinos while trying to bash presidential candidate Donald Trump. Discussing his proposed immigration policy, Osbourne blurted out, “If you kick every Latino out of this country, then who is going to be cleaning your toilet, Donald Trump?” Immediately afterward, an unsettled feeling came over the panel and it appeared as though Osbourne realized she had just put her foot in her mouth. Osbourne later told Page Six, “I want to start by saying I always take responsibility for my...

Non-Muslim students were told to drink their own urine from the toilet by the assistant principal at a Malaysian school.

Smash the patriarchy! New York police allegedly arrested two men for “manspreading” (sitting with their legs far apart) on the subway, according to a report entitled “That’s How They Get You” released by the Police Reform Organizing Project. “On a recent visit to the arraignment part in Brooklyn’s criminal court, PROP volunteers observed that police officers had arrested two Latino men on the charge of ‘man spreading’ on the subway, presumably because they were taking up more than one seat and therefore inconveniencing other riders,” the report states.

LEBANON, TN (WSMV) - (video at link) If a Lebanon inventor has his way, the bathroom experience may never be the same. Dave Reynolds thinks toilets should glow in the dark, and he's not joking. "I kept telling this story over and over to people and they laughed," Reynolds said. "And I said, 'One day you're not going to laugh at me. One day you're going to go to the bathroom and think of me.'" For Reynolds, a glow-in-the-dark toilet just makes sense. "Not right now, but at 3 in the morning, that's when it comes together," he said. "When...

In 1965, the aircraft carrier USS Midway was bombing Vietnam. VA-25, an attack aviation unit of the Navy, operated from the Midway. In October, one of the toilets on the ship cracked. The crew planned to dispose of it. Commander Bill Stoddard, the executive officer of VA-25, came up with a novel way to get rid of the toilet. To celebrate the six millionth pound of ordnance dropped by his unit, Cdr. Stoddard had the toilet painted with the "Fist of the Fleet" emblem of his unit. It was then loaded onto his Skyraider. Cdr. Stoddard dropped it on a...

Police are now tracking down a woman suspected of stuffing her own baby into the water tank of a toilet, at a Bulacan hospital sometime last week. Hospital staff discovered the baby following complaints of a foul smell from the restroom of the emergency room, GMA News' Susan Enriquez reported on "24 Oras." The baby was found in the toilet of the Nazarenus College and Hospital Foundation Inc. in Meycauayan, Bulacan. "Nang nakita namin ang fetus almost one week na siyang patay," said PO3 Eric Ortua of the Meycauayan police. Initial investigation showed the baby's umbilical cord had been pulled....

A tyrannical French law that outlawed toilets in kitchens and living rooms across the country was finally and mercifully overturned over the weekend. Progress. The law, according to Minister of Housing Sylvia Pinel and Minister of Ecology banned “the prohibition of direct communication between the [bathrooms] and kitchens and living rooms.” By extension, it also banned pooping while you cook (perhaps while smoking poop cigarettes). And that’s called fascism. The ministers claimed they were getting rid of the law in order to simplify regulations, though we all know it’s so that, starting December 1 when their decree goes into effect,...

I probably would have missed this story were it not for Maggie Gallagher at The Corner. It seems that the good people on the appeal board considering a case at Atherton High School (part of the Jefferson County public school system) have determined that you can use the girls’ bathrooms, locker room and showers if you say you’re a girl. No physical required. A transgender teenager, who was born male but identifies as a female, can continue to use a women’s restroom and locker room at a Jefferson County Public School. In a 5-to-1 vote, an appeal board upheld...

SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah elementary school teacher who was carrying a concealed firearm at school was struck by fragments from a bullet and a porcelain toilet when her gun accidently fired in a faculty bathroom on Thursday, officials said. The sixth-grade teacher at Westbrook Elementary School, in the Salt Lake City suburb of Taylorsville, was injured when the bullet struck a toilet and caused it to explode, Granite School District spokesman Ben Horsley said. Authorities initially thought the teacher had accidently shot herself. They now believe she was injured when the bullet and toilet fragments struck her lower...

XINXIANG CITY, China (KTRK) -- A cellphone dropped into a public toilet led to the deaths of two people and several injuries following a strange series of events. According to the South China Morning Post, a woman visiting with her husband's family in Xinxiang City, China went to use the public open-pit toilet. She then accidently dropped her brand new $320 cellphone into the sewage-filled hole.

The danger faced by women going to the toilet outdoors in rural India was made clear last month when two girls were ambushed, gang-raped and hanged from a tree. But defecation outside is normal for most Indian villagers - so how do they manage?

Soccer riots in Brazil claimed the life of a man who was killed by a toilet bowl thrown from the stands at Arruda Stadium, the latest scene of fan violence that has plagued the country in the lead-up to next month's World Cup. Globoesporte of Brazil reported that rioters ripped three tiolets from the stadium bathroom and tossed them from the stands during Friday night's 1-1 draw between Santa Cruz and Parana. One of the toilets struck a fan identified as 26-year-old Paulo Ricardo Gomes da Silva, killing him instantly.

I remember about 10 years ago, I was watching a National Geographic show about a hunter-gatherer tribe in Papua New Guinea. The men were running around in loincloths with spears, hunting animals, making offerings to the gods — you know, typical primitive-tribe stuff. But okay, I don't judge... we're all descended from people like that. ......................................................... I suspect that the real reason we don't adopt Japanese toilets is the very fact that people are so eager to give reasons not to. We've grown used to the idea that everything good is invented in America. If it wasn't invented here, it...

For most Americans, toilet paper is an absolutely necessary grocery list item, but some women are opting out for both economic and environmental purposes. In a HuffPost Live discussion, bloggers Angela Davis, Kathleen Quiring and Makala Earley explain why they've decided to go paperless, revealing that it's not as messy or unhygienic as it may sound. 'It is definitely possible,' insists Mikala, who says she and her husband stopped using toilet paper about a year ago. 'It is almost seen as a necessity [and] it doesn't have to be, and it's been a lot of fun to learn how to...

A 20-year-old man accused of attacking his uncle with a toilet seat lid wound up in a pile of trouble, according to a recently released St. Lucie County Sheriff's report. Troutman told a deputy Jan. 9 that his 48-year-old uncle was "mocking" him so he hit him in the head with the toilet seat lid, the report states.

Workers at a Turkish restaurant in Saudi Arabia were caught on camera preparing shawarma meat inside the toilet at the restaurant. A Saudi who was at the restaurant for a meal used his mobile phone to publicise the act and report the restaurant to health authorities. Sabq newspaper said authorities are studying the film before taking any measures to fine or shut down the restaurant in the northwestern town of Tabuk. Saudi authorities shut down a local restaurant after its workers were caught crushing garlic with their feet to prepare it for meals for its customers. A Saudi man who...

An Alabama woman got more than she bargained for after she tried to clear toilet paper from her yard by setting it on fire and accidently burned down her house. Cheryl Crausewell's home and yard in Dora were TP'd by neighborhood kids on Saturday and the nightmare began when she and her son tried to quickly clear the paper from a tree with fire on Monday. A bit of the flaming toilet paper leaped from the tree, charred most of her yard, whipped around to a backyard barbecue propane tank and eventually engulfed the entire home. Crausewell suspects the propane...