xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx

Feb 23, 2004 12:00 AM

Article Tools

Bookmark

Most Popular

Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.

George Duncan was finally fired by the New York Department of Corrections in November, after having taken 744 "sick" days in 15 years (for spikes of high blood pressure), none of which were ever authenticated by doctors examining Duncan afterward.

The city of Vicksburg, Miss., took a step to alleviate a problem with employees' illnesses: Henceforth, city workers will be expected to give 48 hours' notice before taking sick days.

A 41-year-old California mayor who was cited for having illegally tinted car windows filed a complaint against the ticketing officer for continually referring to him as "dude" (Arvin, Calif.).

In a November report, The New York Times revealed that the highly touted Houston school district (praised as exemplary by President Bush and the district's former superintendent Rod Paige, who is now U.S. secretary of education) used apparently highly stylized statistics to show its widely admired low dropout rates and campus crime rates. A subsequent school district audit found that "thousands" of dropouts had been left out of the earlier record, and the Times further found that the district's principals had reported only 761 campus assaults in four years while the schools' own police officers reported 3,091.
Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679 or Weird@compuserve.com
Copyright © 2001 by Chuck Shepherd

NEWS OF THE WEIRD

Want to use this article? Click here for options!
© 2008 Penton Media Inc.

blog comments powered by Disqus

Online Resources

Free Webinar: Secrets for Maximizing Your Contract Management Process

Learn duringIBM and Info Trends' LIVE Webinar October 28, 2pm ET. Contracts are a critical source of information to an ever-larger number of employees and business processes, but how do you make them work better for you? Join our featured speakers as they explain six key ways to improve your contract process. Register Now.

More Webinars

News

Safety group honors MSA’s Feldstein

Joseph Feldstein, manager of Pittsburgh-based MSA’s fall-protection technical services, has been honored with a distinguished service award from the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE), a professional safety organization with 30,000 members.... ... Read Now.

More News

Videos

1600 Turbo Wide-Area Mower

John Deere's 1600 Turbo Wide-Area Mower has all power (112 foot-pounds of torque) can be driven to center deck alone for mowing exceptionally tall or wet grass... Watch Now.

eNews

Maryland County Aims to Juice Up Energy Efficiency in its Buildings

Prince George's County in Maryland has inked a deal with Pepco Energy Services that could provide more than $4 million in energy savings for county facilities over the 14-year life of the project... Read Now.

Government Deck

Using patent-pending technology, GovPro eCards is the fastest way to bring you the latest products from the government marketplace. Government Deck features ten or more new services focused products from various manufacturing companies. Click directly to the company's website to view product details and specs.

View Now

Get a Job!

More Needles. Less Haystack. ™

Whether you're a government agency with open positions or a job seeker looking for work in the government, the Government Job Zone should be your first stop in your job search.

Search Now

RSS

Get the latest product news and information from Govpro.com with RSS - or Real Simple Syndication! Govpro.com headlines are delivered directly to your RSS newsreader as soon as they are available.

More Rss