PITTSBURGH -- A woman who claimed she was trying to cheat on a drug test was behind a bizarre incident in which a frightened convenience store clerk thought she had microwaved a severed penis, police said.

The clerk at the store outside Pittsburgh actually microwaved a male prosthetic device, police said.

The incident unfolded last week when a man and a woman entered the store and the man asked the clerk, "Can you microwave something for me? It's a life-or-death situation," according to an account the woman later gave police.

The man wrapped the object in paper towels and had the clerk microwave it, said McKeesport police Chief Joseph Pero.

When it was finished, the clerk handed the item back to the man and saw what she thought was a severed penis, Pero said.

The female customer told police she was applying for a job and was required to take a drug test. She said the man had filled the device with his urine, which she planned to submit for the test, Pero said.

According to the woman, the couple stopped to warm the device so the urine would "pass the body temperature test," Pero said.

Police weren't sure why the urine was stored in a device mimicking male genitalia.

It's all so special.

Michael Morales, whose execution was indefinitely delayed last week, was convicted of her murder. It was established at trial that Morales, a gang member, had killed Winchell as a favor to his cousin, Rick Ortega. The Modesto Bee reported that Ortega, who knew Winchell's boyfriend, persuaded the girl to take a drive with him. When Winchell entered the car, she was introduced to Morales, seated in the back seat. The three joked and chatted for a while, Terri believing that they were going to look for jewelry for her best friend. But Ortega turned off onto a country road. Morales then reached around the front seat with his belt and began to strangle Terri. She struggled and screamed for Ortega to help her, but he simply continued to drive. (Ortega is now serving a life sentence.)

After about 15 seconds, the belt broke. Morales then pulled out a hammer and began smashing the girl's skull. He hit her 23 times. When she ceased to struggle, Morales told Ortega to pull over and return in 15 minutes. He dragged Winchell from the front seat and onto the ground. He then raped her. He started to walk back to the meeting point with Ortega but then thought better of it and went back to the girl. He stabbed her four times in the chest.

He is definitely deserving of leniency (derisive snort). North: The White House sucks at getting their message out. No shit....

Over the years, a number of writers have visited President Bush, including Natan Sharansky, Bernard Lewis and John Lewis Gaddis. And while the meetings are usually private, they rarely ruffle feathers.

Now, one has.

In his new book about Mr. Bush, "Rebel in Chief: Inside the Bold and Controversial Presidency of George W. Bush," Fred Barnes recalls a visit to the White House last year by Michael Crichton, whose 2004 best-selling novel, "State of Fear," suggests that global warming is an unproven theory and an overstated threat.

Mr. Barnes, who describes Mr. Bush as "a dissenter on the theory of global warming," writes that the president "avidly read" the novel and met the author after Karl Rove, his chief political adviser, arranged it. He says Mr. Bush and his guest "talked for an hour and were in near-total agreement."

"The visit was not made public for fear of outraging environmentalists all the more," he adds.

Iraqis under curfew, it was interesting to listen to war critics salivate at the prospect of  civil war. Hopefully that can be averted.



Alistair Cooke's remains carved up and sold to transplanters in "organlegging" ring:

 The owner of a biomedical supply house and three others were charged with selling body parts for use in transplants in a scheme a district attorney called "something out of a cheap horror movie."

As sectarian violence flared, authorities placed security forces on high alert and extended curfew hours in Baghdad and several other cities.

Contrast the reaction in Iraq to the reaction to similar occurences here.  

Wait, yesterday he didn't know about the deal. Today he had a "secret plan", tomorrow, we'll probably find out he briefed Congress. Just a prediction. What's interesting to watch is those who are against racial profiling (democrats) suddenly begin racial profiling: "You can't let these people run our ports, they're Arabs!"



This is funny! Poor Teddy...

Hey, Barney.  Here's a basic fact of life for you to chew on. It is true that the rich keep getting richer ... and that is because they keep doing the things that made them rich. Ditto for the poor.  You should be bright enough to figure that out for yourself.

The word "torture" is no longer a word used to describe treatment of a prisoner.  It is now a word used as a weapon against the United States and its efforts to fight Islamic radicals.

This morning I listened to Robin Oakley, the British political editor for CNN, talk about the findings of this phony UN body.  Oakley said: "Now we're going to see pressure to have the U.S. close Guantanamo."  So, what else is new?  Oakley also mentioned the light and the temperature, but he never mentioned force feeding.   That's right ... force-feeding  One of the elements of torture mentioned by the U.N. at Guantanamo was the force-feeding of detainees who are un hunger strikes.  So, according to the U.N., if a detainee tries to kill himself, and you take a measure to save his life, that constitutes torture.  

Message:  Don't take anything the U.N. or the U.N. Human Rights Commission has to say about torture seriously.  

Greeted with yawn.

Washington D.C.- Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D) Nevada, mistakenly ingested an RU 486 tablet, the controversial "morning after pill" while on vacation in Ghana last year and had to have 7 to 9 feet of intestine forcibly re-inserted through his rectum by a local witch doctor say sources close to the Senator.

The Senate Minority leader was quick to blame the Bush Administration, the Bush Tax Cuts, lack of universal health care, the NSA, the CIA, Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove, Wolfowitz, Art Bell, No Child Left Behind, the "Republican Culture of Corruption", Halliburton and Jack Abramoff who financed the trip. Boy George was unavailable for comment.

The field of social psychology has long been focused on how social environments affect the way people behave. But social psychologists are people, too, and as the United States has become increasingly politically polarized, they have grown increasingly interested in examining what drives these sharp divides: red states vs. blue states; pro-Iraq war vs. anti-Iraq war; pro-same-sex marriage vs. anti-same-sex marriage. And they have begun to study political behavior using such specialized tools as sophisticated psychological tests and brain scans.

That study found that supporters of President Bush and other conservatives had stronger self-admitted and implicit biases against blacks than liberals did.

 It's not my fault, it may be genetic. This is truly an incredible discovery. In fact the scientists who conducted this study are so repulsed by their findings that they have been life long contributors to democrats, (you know, the good guys).

 Nosek and Harvard psychologist Mahzarin Banaji had given campaign contributions to Democrats.

I'm waiting for breakthroughs in medication that can help  cure me of this affliction. Then, when fully cured, these very same scientists can run tests on me by presenting me with photos or information about Condoleeza Rice,Colin Powell, J.C. Watts, Shelby Steele, Michael Steele, Thomas Sowell, Lynn Swann, Clarence Thomas, Walter Williams and Ward Connerly and the only thoughts that will spring into my head will be correct thoughts like "Republicoon", "Oreo Cookie" or the time honored "Uncle Tom." Cartoons like this will not make me angry...

...then and only then will I be assimilated and fully whole.

Super Bowl Pick:

This is difficult for me because there are people on both teams who are "different" than myself. I am going to take the Steelers even though I want Seattle to win. The AFC is the superior conference right now (don't read anything into that) and Pittsburgh has had the more difficult road and are more battle hardened. The Steelers will take the Lombardi trophy. I should actually root for Pittsburgh because Seattle is a hotbed of liberalism and Pittsburgh tends to have more roughneck, brain dead, backward thinking sheeple who work in the steel and mining industries and beat their foreheads with planks and there are many among them whose eyes are too close together, like Bush.

"The Republican Party would have the American flag and the swastika flying side by side," he charged.

Republican scandal deepens.