PROVIDENCE, R.I. - State police say they arrested a man early Tuesday whose blood alcohol level was 0.491 percent — the highest ever recorded in Rhode Island for someone who wasn’t dead.

Stanley Kobierowski was taken to a hospital, put in the detoxification unit and sedated, said Maj. Steven O’Donnell. He was arraigned Tuesday on charges of driving while intoxicated and resisting arrest, and he was released after promising to appear Friday at a court hearing.
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NEW YORK, July 21 (Reuters) - A New Jersey man trying to exterminate insects in his apartment blew it up instead, the New York Daily News reported on Monday.

Isias Vidal Maceda was unhurt in the incident, but 80 percent of his apartment was destroyed, Eatontown, New Jersey police told the newspaper.

The accident occurred as Maceda was spraying for pests in his kitchen. Somehow the bug spray ignited a blast that blew out the apartment’s front windows and triggered a fire that quickly spread, the newspaper said. (more…)

If you’re looking to plan a vacation sometime in September or October, might I suggest Schultz’s Country Barn in Wisconsin? I mean, you could go somewhere where you don’t need a parka and a ski mask, but ask yourself this: Where else can you pay tribute to Brett Favre and corn at the same time?

Of course, the people at the Schultz Country Barn put this plan in motion before any of the current “Waaah, I can’t make a decision” controversy came into existence. Not nearly as many Wisconsiners are eager to thank Brett Favre now, but fortunately, the Schultz people left room to carve, “FOR STABBING US IN THE BACK, EGOMANIAC” under the “THANKS.”

More info on the great Brett Favre ‘08 Corn Maze can be found here.

NEW YORK - A Broadway mogul whose wife trashed him in a widely viewed Internet video was granted a divorce from her Monday.

A Manhattan judge gave Philip Smith a divorce from Tricia Walsh-Smith on the grounds of cruel and inhuman treatment.

Walsh-Smith lashes out against Smith in the tearful and furious YouTube video, which has attracted more than 3 million hits. She makes embarrassing claims about their intimate life and then calls his office to repeat those claims to a stunned assistant. (more…)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - San Francisco voters, never thrilled with George W. Bush, may give the U.S. president a parting shot in November by naming a sewage plant after him. (more…)

MIT’s FreeCulture club has started “YouTomb” — a graveyard for youtubes taken off the Internet due to copyright complaints.

YouTomb is a research project by MIT Free Culture that tracks videos taken down from YouTube for alleged copyright violation. More specifically, YouTomb continually monitors the most popular videos on YouTube for copyright-related takedowns. Any information available in the metadata is retained, including who issued the complaint and how long the video was up before takedown. The goal of the project is to identify how YouTube recognizes potential copyright violations as well as to aggregate mistakes made by the algorithm.

Link

Shoplifting teen not fast enough for this undercover mall security guard.

Defendant Curses at Judge & Prosecutor, A shouting match at the Sedgwick County Courthouse took place Thursday afternoon during one man’s sentencing.

Michael Gaines, who is H-I-V positive, was convicted of battery for spitting in the face of two deputies while in the Sedgwick County Jail. (more…)

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A newborn red panda rejected by its mother in Amsterdam’s Artis zoo has been adopted by a domestic cat, the zoo said Friday.

The cat is nursing the red panda, currently about the size of a kitten, along with her own four kittens, the zoo said.

The red panda was born on June 30 and rejected by its mother soon afterwards. Red pandas look like raccoons and when fully grown are slightly larger than a domestic cat — substantially smaller than the black and white giant panda. (more…)

BEIJING - Canine cuisine is being sent to the doghouse during next month’s Beijing Olympic Games.

Dog meat has been struck from the menus of officially designated Olympic restaurants, and Beijing tourism officials are telling other outlets to discourage consumers from ordering dishes made from dogs, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Friday. (more…)

ST PETERSBURG (Reuters) - A Russian woman in St Petersburg killed her drunk husband with a folding couch, Russian media reported on Wednesday.

St Petersburg’s Channel Five said the man’s wife, upset with her husband for being drunk and refusing to get up, kicked a handle after an argument, activating a mechanism that folds the couch up against a wall. (more…)

New Yorkers get double vision as pranksters turn a subway car into a human mirror.

BALTIMORE - FedEx prides itself on reliability. But a mistaken delivery tipped off police to a 200-pound shipment of marijuana that someone tried to send from Pembroke Pines, Florida to Baltimore via the shipping company.

Police tell The (Baltimore) Sun they learned about the shipment when it was delivered Tuesday to the wrong resident.

Authorities posed as FedEx employees and arrested the shipment’s intended recipient, 30-year-old Richard Gwatidzo. (more…)