Weird News Thread ....

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - A Brazilian man who went to a clinic to have an aching ear checked ended up having a vasectomy after mistakenly believing that the doctor had called his name.
A manager at the Doctor Jose Carlos de Espirito Santo clinic in the town of Montes Claros in southeastern Minas Gerais State told Reuters on Wednesday Valdemar Lopes de Moraes, 39, entered the vasectomy room when Aldemar Aparecido Rodrigues' name was called.

"He was called by the full name and yet thought it was him. But the strangest thing is that he asked no questions when the doctor started preparations in the area which had so little to do with his ear," Vanessa Guimaraes said.

"He later explained that he thought it was an ear inflammation that got down to his testicles," she added.

De Moraes, a farmer who has two children, did not want to reverse the operation, performed last week, and showed up for an ear exam on Wednesday at the same clinic.

"A local newspaper said he is going to sue us, but he did not tell us about any claims," Guimaraes said.

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LONDON (Reuters) - A persistent beggar, who has been arrested dozens of times, has been banned from begging in Manchester city center for two years.
Drug addict Leonard Hockey, who regularly begged next to a car park pay machine, could face jail for contempt of court if he breaks the injunction, which was sought by Manchester City Council and Greater Manchester Police.

Media reports said 51-year-old Hockey had been arrested 97 times and had a $35,000-a-year drug habit.

"This man isn't homeless and he's a nuisance," a council spokeswoman said. "We hope this means he is able to move on and get a new start in life because money given to beggars goes to drink and drugs."

Hockey's solicitor Ben Taylor said his client would be appealing the Thursday decision.

"My client is very disappointed that the court has concluded that begging at a car park pay station is a nuisance. He is not aggressive, he's not threatening and he just sits there and asks for change," said Taylor.

"We are going to try and pursue an appeal."

The council spokeswoman said it hoped Hockey would seek treatment for his addiction rather than resort to begging.

"There is no reason for people to beg. There is a range of treatments and projects that we work with to help people and we'd like people to give money to these projects rather than direct to beggars," she said.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fourteen Ohio teen-agers trying to get a free "high" off plants out of their gardens ended up in the emergency room, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.
The youngsters evidently thought they could get stoned by eating the seeds of a local plant called the moonflower but did not realize they were toxic, the CDC said.

"Plants with large fragrant flowers that bloom at dusk are referred to as moonflowers," the CDC said Thursday in its weekly report on death and illness.

There are several species, some of which are toxic, including Datura stramonium, commonly known as jimson weed.

The teen-agers in the Akron and Cleveland area ate the seeds of Datura inoxia, one of the toxic species.

"This may represent a new trend of substance abuse in this area," the CDC said.

The children, with an average age of 17, were all lucky in that they got medical help. They had dilated pupils, rapid pulse, hallucinations and an inability to urinate.

They were treated and their symptoms disappeared after 24 to 48 hours.

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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (Reuters) - A New Mexico man was charged with beating a woman to death with a lead pipe because he did not want to share his Budweiser beer with her, according to court documents.
Charles Lee Vennevy, 26, was charged with killing 41-year-old Yvonne Garcia and beating her male companion last Monday night before leaving them for dead in downtown Albuquerque. Vennevy is in custody and bail was set on Wednesday at $1 million cash, according to a criminal complaint obtained on Thursday.

According to the complaint filed, Vennevy was drinking beer with friends. Garcia approached the group wanting to drink with them, and was turned away. She returned later with a friend, and a fight ensued over the beer.

While Garcia "was on all fours looking at the ground," Vennevy is suspected of kicking her in the face with his steel-toed work boots, then hitting her over the head with a lead pipe. He is also suspected of attacking her companion, the complaint said.

Garcia was found by a security guard and later pronounced dead at the scene. Her male companion was treated and released from a nearby hospital, having lost his left eye after being struck with the pipe.

Vennevy was charged with murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, and tampering with evidence.

[Jolie Rouge]

Surprising Risk If You're NOT In the Sun

http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news...n/toolittlesun

Stay in the sun too long and you increase your risk of skin cancer, but you may also decrease your risk of multiple sclerosis.

New research published in the British Medical Journal concludes that people who don't get enough sun, especially when they are children and teenagers, run a significantly higher risk of getting multiple sclerosis as adults. Conversely, those who get lots of sun as kids seem to be better protected from the disease, according a study conducted by Dr. Terry Dwyer of the University of Tasmania.


How much sun is needed?

First, it's winter sun that counts--not summer. Kids ages 6 to 15 should get one hour of sunshine each weekend day and holiday in the winter to get the most benefit, reports the BBC News Online.

A disease of the nerves, multiple sclerosis can lead to a lack of muscle control and muscle strength, blurry vision, issues with balance, and numbness. It's cause is unknown. But doctors noticed that people who live in parts of the world that get less sun, especially areas further from the equator, have a higher incidence of the disease. That made them wonder if lack of sunlight might be a contributing factor to MS.

The study:

Using volunteers from Tasmania, an area that gets little sunlight in the winter and has a high incidence of MS, Dwyer and his team of researchers compared 136 people under age 60 who had the disease with 272 people who did not have it. They questioned the volunteers about their sun exposure, including whether they used sunscreen and whether they took vitamin D supplements between the ages of 10 and 15. (Previous research has shown that vitamin D may protect against multiple sclerosis.)

The results:

High sun exposure from the ages of 6 to 15--when the immune system is still developing--provided a 70 percent drop in the multiple sclerosis risk. Exposure to winter sun offered more protection than summer sun. Those who had the greatest skin damage as a result of that sun exposure also had the greatest reduction in risk of acquiring multiple sclerosis. In addition, the researchers determined that people with fair skin had a greater risk of developing MS earlier in life.

Why does the sun offer protection from MS?

The researchers speculate that there is a link between MS and insufficient ultraviolet radiation or vitamin D. Still, research leader Dwyer insists we still need to wear sunscreen. Unprotected exposure to the sun at any age is never warranted.

[Jolie Rouge]

U.S. News Ranks Colleges: Tie For No. 1

The much-watched U.S. News & World Report annual ranking of U.S. colleges and universities has been released with a tie in the No. 1 spot between Harvard and Princeton.

Top 10 colleges:

1. Princeton University

1. Harvard University

3. Yale University

4. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

5. California Institute of Technology

5. Duke University

5. Stanford University

5. University of Pennsylvania

9. Dartmouth College

9. Washington University in St. Louis


The top rated state universities are the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Virginia, both tied at No. 21. Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., is noted as the best liberal arts college in the United States.

The U.S. News & World Report rankings are closely watched and very controversial. The complex formula used for years--but stopped as of this ranking--included something called "yield." That reflected the number of students who accepted the school's offer of admission. To increase the yield rate, many colleges have upped the number of students they accept in early decision, which limits the number they can accept later. This has created more pressure on high school seniors, something guidance counselors have deplored. Now U.S. News has agreed not to use yield as part of the formula, which still includes graduation and retention rates, faculty resources, and more.




Party hearty! The nation's No. 1 party school is...

...the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado.

That's the word from the Princeton Review's annual college rankings based on a 70-question survey completed by 106,000 students on campuses nationwide. And while all college administrators vie to have their school be considered the one with the best academics--top honors go to Yale University this year--or the one with the best academic bang for your buck--that would be Marlboro College in Vermont--none of them want the title of No. 1 party school.

Conscientious grown-ups, namely university presidents, medical experts, and parents who pay hefty tuition bills to these schools, deride this particular ranking as irresponsible and unscientific. Meanwhile, students cheer when their school is recognized as a party-hearty place to be.


The top 10 party schools for 2004 are:

University of Colorado

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Indiana University

University of Illinois

Washington and Lee University

University of Texas-Austin

The University of the South

DePauw University

Saint Bonaventure University

University of Florida


On the opposite end of this scale are the top 10 stone-cold sober schools:
Brigham Young University

Wheaton College

United States Naval Academy

United States Air Force Academy

Grove City College

Calvin College

Bryn Mawr College

Simmons College

Mount Holyoke College

Wellesley College


In a news release announcing the list, the Princeton Review said that the "party school" category is based on survey questions focusing on the amount of alcohol and drug consumption, the amount of time students spend--or don't spend--studying, and the popularity of fraternities and sororities. This is the only college ranking list that is based solely on student ratings of their schools and reports of their experiences at them.



No. 1 schools in other categories you won't find on most lists:


Best Professors: Middlebury College

Toughest College to Get Into: U.S. Military Academy

Students Most Satisfied With Financial Aid: Knox College

Most Beautiful Campus: University of California at Santa Cruz

Best Campus Dorms: Loyola College

Best Campus Food: Bowdoin College

Biggest Fraternity and Sorority Scene: DePauw University

Happiest Students: DePaul University

Most Religious Students: Brigham Young University

Campus Race/Class Relations Friendliest: McGill University

Gay Community Most Accepted: New York University

Students Lean Most to the Right (Politically): Washington and Lee University

Students Lean Most to the Left: Bard College

Students Most Supportive of College's Sports Teams: University of Notre Dame



The complete listing is in "The Best 351 Colleges: 2004 Edition," which also has two-page profiles on each college with information on academics, student body, campus life, admission, and financial aid.

[Jolie Rouge]

Why We Always Have Room for Dessert


It's called the "restaurant phenomenon." You can eat everything from soup to nuts--with appetizers and a huge entrée in between--but when the server waves that dessert tray before your eyes, suddenly you're not so stuffed. Why is it that we always seem to have room for dessert? Using brain scans, researchers from the Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience at University College London have figured it out. "This is specific satiation. You are full of one thing but not another," lead researcher Dr. Jay Gottfried explained to Reuters.


Thirteen volunteers were told to perform simple computer tasks while they underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging. They were shown abstract, computer-generated images and at the same time smelled either vanilla ice cream or peanut butter. They were asked to rate the smells, but unconsciously they started to associate the computer images with the smells. Then they were given either peanut butter or ice cream to eat. The MRIs showed that after eating the food, the brain's strong emotional response to that food was weaker. "Instead of using a bell and meat powder, which is what Pavlov originally used, we used visual pictures of little intrinsic significance and coupled those to food smells," Gottfried explained to Reuters.


This tells us two things:
Why diets can fail and how the brain learns.

"If every time you drove past a McDonald's and saw the golden arches, you felt compelled to go inside and get a Big Mac, this would be destructive after time," he told Reuters. So something must tell the brain when to respond and when not to. This involves more than just food. Gottfried added, "Whether we are talking about food or sex or even things on the aversive scale such as dangers and threats and predators, the brain also needs to know how to update...and modulate these associations so you don't get stuck in a rut." The findings were published on Friday in the journal Science.

[Jolie Rouge]

Kournikova Shows Off Her Intimate Side


That whole tennis thing just never really worked for Anna Kournikova. But the Russian beauty who struggled to win on the court knows she has winning looks and will exploit that with her new business venture: bras. Specifically, the Anna Kournikova Multiway sports bra by Britain's Shock Absorber Inc. The ad slogan will be: "Only the ball should bounce." CNN/Money reports that Kournikova's new sports bra will be sold exclusively at Amazon.com--but just for the first month.


Kournikova will earn royalties on the sales of the bra, which retail for $38.50. Amazon.com announced in a Business Wire news release that through September 7, it will donate 10 percent of the purchase price of every Multiway sports bra to the Harlem Junior Tennis Program, a New York-based non-profit organization dedicated to providing tennis instruction and educational programs to over 400 kids annually, ages 7 to 18.


Specifically designed for athletes, the bra offers "maximum comfort for high-impact sports," says Amazon. It's seamless and is invisible under clothing. The straps can be worn as a racer back or regular back.

[Jolie Rouge]

Man, 102, Seeks Wife for Good Times


http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...d&idq=/ff/stor y/0002%2F20030821%2F083078834.htm&sc=reodd

ROME (Reuters) - Active 102-year-old Italian looking for love and marriage. Promises can still deliver the goods.

Centenarian Salvatore Bordino, a father of five who is an avid clay-pigeon shooter, can't understand why he is having trouble finding wife number three.

"I have a house, a pension and I can carry out all my manly duties," Bordino, who lives on his own in the southern Italian region of Calabria, told online newspaper Il Nuovo on Wednesday.

"I'm looking for a beautiful woman, who is in the best of health. I still haven't called it a day on certain activities."



08/21/03 08:30

[Jolie Rouge]

'Queer Eye' Fury: Someone's In Trouble

Uh oh. Trouble in paradise. "Queer Eye For the Straight Guy," the sleeper TV hit of the summer, has drawn the ire of the New York Port Authority. Tuesday night's straight guy target for the "Queer Eye" makeover was a Port Authority police officer.

And now he's in trouble, according to The New York Daily News.

Officer John Verdi just wanted a new image and tips on how to impress his girlfriend. He got a pedicure, his pale feet were sprayed so they would look tan, and he learned how to make a quiche for his vegetarian girlfriend.

His bosses are not amused. The main problem is that Verdi allowed his uniform to make an appearance on the show--on someone else's body.

The five gay style and fashion consultants descended on Verdi's Staten Island apartment, and as part of the mayhem, fashion expert Carson Kressley and interior designer Thom Filicia each wore Verdi's shirt--in full view of the camera. Kressley even joked to Verdi while he was wearing the shirt: "Cuff me! Cuff me!" Verdi should have first gotten clearance from Port Authority officials to even say he was a police officer on television, and he should never have allowed a civilian to wear his uniform.

All the Port Authority would say, somewhat ominously, is, "We are looking into the matter."

Meanwhile, the Port Authority Benevolent Association is taking Verdi's side. "It was good entertainment,'' Port Authority Police Benevolent Association President Gus Danese told the Daily News. "What he did, he did on his own time. He didn't portray the Port Authority in a bad light. It was harmless." It's not yet known if disciplinary action will be taken.

Guess what the Fab Five are up to next?

They'll guest star as themselves on the NBC comedy "Good Morning, Miami." Look for them on the second episode of the new season on Oct. 7. The "Queer Eye" guys will meet "Miami's" Dylan and Jake in New York, where the couple moves, and will transform their little studio apartment into a nice living space.

--------------

What's the key to "Queer Eye's" raging success? You may be surprised by the answer ...

http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/TV/0...eye/index.html

'Queer Eye' hosts: Key to show 'tough love'
Thursday, August 7, 2003 Posted: 12:22 AM EDT

NEW YORK (CNN) -- "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" is the latest sleeper hit reality TV show on cable's Bravo network. The premise is simple -- five gay men with great taste help make over one straight man whose taste is, well, undeveloped.

Two of the fab five, design doctor Thom Filicia and fashion savant Carson Kressley, sat down with CNN's Anderson Cooper to talk about their hip new show.

COOPER: You can't imagine the excitement in the building when word filtered out you that you guys were coming on tonight.

KRESSLEY: That's so bizarre.

FILICIA: We're not Janet Reno.

KRESSLEY: Thom looks like her before the makeup. I dress like her.

COOPER: I imagine your lives have just completely changed. This thing is a huge hit. The audiences -- I mean, more and more people are watching it every week. You have -- you have a design firm.

FILICIA: I do, in New York.

COOPER: And you were actually sort of stuck in an elevator with someone, and that's how you got the job?

FILICIA: Yes, I was stuck in the elevator in my office building in Soho for about 45 minutes with a talent manager, and we just got to talking.

COOPER: You really come to know someone when you're stuck in an elevator. You really do.

FILICIA: About 45 minutes with my dog and about three other people, taking out the roof of the elevator with the fire department. And she...

KRESSLEY: If the fire department gets involved, then it's really a party.

FILICIA: It was a party. It's not a party until the fire department shows up.

COOPER: And how did you get involved?

KRESSLEY: One of my coworkers at Ralph Lauren heard about the show in a cab on the radio, and called me up when she got back to the office, said, "Carson, you have to call Bravo. They're doing a show. You're perfect for it." So I made some phone calls, called Bravo, and they're like, we don't know what you're talking about. I made some more calls, and finally hooked up with a production company.

COOPER: You're looking stylish here. The feet surprise me, though.

KRESSLEY: Yes, little flip-flops.

COOPER: Sure.

KRESSLEY: You know, I like to -- you know, I'm taking like, you know, couture here, Ralph Lauren purple label, throw on a flip-flop, makes it fun.

COOPER: The key to the show, it doesn't come off as mean, which I think maybe a lot of people anticipated, that's probably very important for both of you.

FILICIA: Absolutely. Yes. We certainly don't want...

KRESSLEY: We think mean people suck.

FILICIA: Yes, we do. Mean people are no fun. No, that's not at all where we're coming from. When we first sort of break in or bust into the house, if you will, it is -- there's some tough love.

KRESSLEY: The shock and awe, and there's some tough love. We tell them things they probably don't want to hear.

COOPER: Shock and awe, you brushed up on your news.

KRESSLEY: We did. Yes. We're all fired up.

FILICIA: But it's -- when we go in, that's sort of our -- that's our way of sort of connecting with him. We're as self-deprecating about ourselves as we are laughing at ourselves, as well as laughing at him.

COOPER: Do you find that people actually -- I mean, that their lives are changed, that the style really sticks?

FILICIA: Absolutely.

COOPER: That the apartments stay looking great and the clothes remain?

KRESSLEY: Well, I hope so.

FILICIA: We haven't done any drive-by inspections on the apartments. We haven't peeked in any windows.

KRESSLEY: But we have seen a couple of guys at our premiere...

FILICIA: At premieres and out on the street.

KRESSLEY: And running into them just in the city, and they're totally -- they've embraced it, they love it. They really -- they wanted to make the change. That's kind of why they called us. Aside from the free couch.

COOPER: The stuff they get is amazing.

FILICIA: It's amazing.

KRESSLEY: Amazing stuff.

FILICIA: And I think -- they're very excited about it, very excited about the change.

KRESSLEY: It's also very doable. We call it a make better show, because we're not going to make them over and totally change them and give them things that don't really apply to their lives.

COOPER: Let me ask each of you, have you had one that's really stood out that was your favorite episode?

KRESSLEY: I think John was pretty amazing.

FILICIA: I think John had a great conclusion.

COOPER: That was the guy who wanted to get married.

KRESSLEY: Right.

FILICIA: Get together, get engaged.

COOPER: And he cried at the end?

KRESSLEY: He did.

FILICIA: Well, right when we were leaving.

KRESSLEY: When we were going to leave.

FILICIA: When we were leaving, he got a little choked up. Which, you know, we always sort of feel that way when we're leaving.

COOPER: So now, I know -- when you're a fashion expert as you are, do you find yourself sort of constantly looking at everyone and thinking at least internally about what they should do better? I know you mentioned to me I should wear a little...

KRESSLEY: A little pocket square.

COOPER: A little pocket square.

KRESSLEY: Sometimes I do, sometimes I'm at the deli getting coffee, and I look down, and I'm, oh, no, you didn't. I tap them on the shoulder, give them a little friendly advice, and they usually call the police.

COOPER: Thom, any ideas for the set here? I'm not sure what the set is really ...

FILICIA: I have to say, I think actually, the set looks great. When you're watching on television, it looks great. It's very cool in person. It's kind of like "Battlestar Galactica" meets like the Italian furniture fair.

COOPER: That's funny, because that is the look they were going for.

FILICIA: Is it?

COOPER: Yes.

FILICIA: I think I would get rid of what I would call the Chiclet sofa pillows. But other than that, I think -- does it work for you? I mean, that's the most important. How does it work?

COOPER: We can lose the pillows. That's no problem.

FILICIA: All righty.

COOPER: I'm a huge fan of the show, and I appreciate you both coming in.

KRESSLEY: We're a huge fan of yours.

COOPER: I bet you say that to all the hosts.

KRESSLEY: I'm a real news junky. I can't get enough of that Boutrous Boutrous-Ghali.

COOPER: He's no longer, you know, running the U.N., but that's all right.

KRESSLEY: OK.

[the fugative]

Chuck Shepherd

Published August 14, 2003

Dick Baker, 52, a Disney fanatic and principal of a private school in Largo, Fla., has been under pressure to resign after revelations by the St. Petersburg Times that he took middle-school-age girls (his chosen "princesses") on dozens of overnight trips to the Disney World resort, during which he supplied them with Disney-themed costumes and swimsuits (and wore his own Disney pajamas). One princess made 81 trips. Baker's friends and neighbors, all the princesses and most of the parents support him, calling a recent police investigation (completed with no charges being filed) a witch hunt, but enough other people were puzzled by Baker's frequent hugging and tickling of the girls, plus his Disney obsession, to call for his resignation.

• In June, Milwaukee police officer Robert Henry, 34, was awarded lifetime disability benefits because of work-related stress, which he said was caused by the department's decision to fire him for roughing up a misdemeanor suspect in a 2002 incident caught on videotape. (He was reinstated on appeal, but shortly after that filed for disability.) Henry, who had a total of four years' service, will receive $23,000 immediately, then $39,000 a year for 29 years, after which he will collect his standard pension.

People different from us

• Police in Westerly, R.I., arrested Robert Brayman, 51, and his disciple Hobart Livingston in July and charged Brayman with commissioning Livingston to build a pipe bomb to kill a woman whom Brayman was stalking. According to police, Livingston believes Brayman has spiritual powers and submits himself nearly totally to Brayman, including having paid Brayman more than $13,000 over a three-year period for protection of actress Natalie Portman, who Livingston believes is in danger from creature-implanted eggs that might otherwise hatch without Brayman's guardianship. Among the exercises Brayman uses to upgrade Livingston's avoidance of evil spirits: having Livingston try to dodge BBs fired by Brayman at a local cemetery.

• According to the Associated Press, lightning struck the steeple at the First Baptist Church in Forest, Ohio, on July 1 just as a guest evangelist was beseeching God for a sign from above. And, although it's not quite the rocket ship of the urban legend, a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter is being configured with a 39,000-horsepower jet engine by a team of retired aircraft mechanics in Pierce County, Wash., to challenge the world land-speed record, according to a June story in the Tacoma (Wash.) News Tribune.

Latest religious messages

• In June, the family of the late Ben Martinez sued the Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe, N.M., because a priest had castigated lapsed-Catholic Martinez during his funeral, telling guests that the Lord "vomited people like Ben out of his mouth to hell." (The priest, the Rev. Scott Mansfield, has since moved to another parish.) And Cheryl Bartges has not yet filed a lawsuit but did tell WABC-TV in New York City in July that her late father suffered grievously in the hours before his death because a priest sent from the Diocese of Rockville Centre (N.Y.) to administer last rites refused to do it, after an argument about the Catholic church's culpability in the child-molesting scandals.

• The Rev. Thorkild Grosbold was suspended in June from his Lutheran church in Tarbaek, Denmark, after he declined to retract his statements to a newspaper that he doesn't believe in a "physical God," or an afterlife, but believes instead that God is only a constant moral force; Denmark is a highly secular nation, but church leaders say that pastors still must believe in an actual God. And in Tulsa, Okla., evangelist Carlton Pearson recently expanded his "Gospel of Inclusion" (providing for universal salvation) to make clear that even Satan would be admitted to heaven if he apologized; the resurrection of Jesus, Pearson says, shows that hell is only a temporary condition, not a place.

Unclear on the concept

• Darrell Krumnow, 29, pleaded guilty in Waco, Texas, in March to taking so-called "upskirt" photographs of a 19-year-old female clerk at Richland Mall. Krumnow was caught because he used a flash, which caught everyone's attention.

• In July, a judge in Sacramento overruled a defense by two California Highway Patrol officers and decided that the lawsuit against them could proceed (by relatives of a man who accidentally fell down a gorge adjacent to Interstate Hwy. 5 and who died because no one called for help). The officers contended that although they knew the man had fallen, law enforcement officers are under no obligation to help if they had nothing to do with the original fall.

• Australian biologist Mark Elgar, writing in Nature magazine, described the tiny male Zeus bug as having the idyllic work-free life, with food, transportation (piggy-back) and unlimited sex being eagerly provided by the female Zeus (though Elgar said he is baffled at how the male got so lucky).

• A 23-year-old man who opened the passenger door of a pickup truck to urinate (even though the truck was zooming along Houston's Southwest Freeway at the time) fell out and was fatally run over (June).

• Also, in the past month: A courthouse in Henrietta, Texas, had to be closed for a week, as judges, lawyers and employees were attacked by an infestation of fleas. Two mortuary workers in Harare, Zimbabwe, were charged with renting out corpses to motorists so they could go to the head of gas-station lines, since hearses get preferred treatment.