The Oddball News for 08-14-2008...

Grandma arrested for driving with child on roof

MARATHON, Fla. - Authorities say a grandmother was arrested for driving around the parking lot of a Marathon grocery store with her 3-year-old child sitting on the roof of the car.

The grandmother was released from jail 15 hours later.

The woman said Thursday she would never let anything hurt her granddaughter. She says she was driving at "snail-speed" and holding the child's leg.

Authorities say the woman told police she was giving the child some air and letting her have fun.

She faces charges of child abuse. The child is back with her mother.

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Wash. letter carrier going full kilt ahead

SEATTLE - A 6-foot-tall, 250-pound letter carrier is campaigning for the right to take off his pants. Dean Peterson wants the U.S. Postal Service to add kilts as a uniform option for men.

The idea was soundly defeated in July at a convention of his union, the 220,000-member National Letter Carriers' Association, so Peterson knows convincing management will be an uphill struggle, but at least he'll be comfortable in his kilt, or Male Unbifurcated Garment.

"In one word, it's comfort," he said.

With his build, Peterson said, his thighs fill slacks to capacity, causing chafing and scarring.

Peterson, 48, has Finnish and Norwegian ancestry but not Scottish. He began wearing kilts a couple years ago when his wife brought one back from a trip to Scotland. (A spokeswoman for Britain's Royal Mail said kilts are not allowed as part of its letter carrier uniforms.)

Now Peterson wears them everywhere — to one son's football games, the other son's concerts, shopping and gardening.

"It's the difference between wearing jammies to bed and wearing your work clothes to bed," he said.

Before the convention in Boston, Peterson spent his family's $1,800 economic stimulus tax rebate to mail about 1,000 letters and photographs of him wearing a prototype Postal Service kilt to union branches in every state, Guam and Puerto Rico.

"Unbifurcated Garments are far more comfortable and suitable to male anatomy than trousers or shorts because they don't confine the legs or cramp the male genitals the way that trousers or shorts do," he wrote. "Please open your hearts — and inseams — for an option in mail carrier comfort!"

The union's executive committee recommended disapproval, saying there was not enough demand for kilts to be worth the bother of the resolution, and delegates agreed by a large margin.

But Peterson said there are plenty of approved uniform items that very few mail carriers wear, including a cardigan sweater, vest and pith helmet. He said many convention delegates did express support after his resolution was voted down.

"I got so pumped up after being at such a low that I'm taking this to the next convention in 2010 in Anaheim, Calif.," he said.

Paul Lunde, left, Al Floyd,second from left, Debbie Dixon, David Gorden, second from right, and Dean Peterson, right, model prototype kilt uniforms for postal workers at the National Association of Letter Carriers' convention in July, 2008, in Boston, where Peterson introduced a resolution to add kilts to the U.S. Postal Service uniform choices.

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Spanish shopkeeper finds Homer Simpson euro

MADRID - A one euro coin has turned up in Spain bearing the face of cartoon couch potato Homer Simpson instead of that of the country's king, a sweetshop owner told Reuters on Friday.

"The coin must have been done by a professional, the work is impressive," he told Reuters.

The comical carver had not taken his tools to the other side of the coin displaying the map of Europe. So far, no other coins of the hapless, beer-swilling oaf have been found in circulation.

"I've been offered 20 euros for it," said Martinez.

Candy shop owner Jose Martinez shows an official Spanish 1 Euro coin with the face of Spanish King Juan Carlos (L) and another one altered to look like a face of cartoon character Homer Simpson in the northern Spanish town of Avile August 8, 2008. Martinez found the Homer Simpson coin in his shop's cash register while counting the days' transactions last week.

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Police reopen 7,000 cases after DNA error

CANBERRA - Australian police will re-examine 7,000 crimes solved through DNA evidence after a mistake forced detectives to free a suspect wrongly accused of murder.

"It's obviously an embarrassment and we would rather not be in this position," Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Simon Overland was quoted as saying in Australian media on Thursday.

DNA is supposed to be the most accurate method of proving guilt through evidence samples taken at crime scenes, with the likelihood of matching genetic markers among people said to be around one in 7 billion or greater.

Police last month said a DNA sample taken from the murder scene, where Margaret Tapp was strangled and her daughter Seana raped and later killed, matched Gesah after comparison with 400,000 other DNA profiles on a national database.

Gesah was arrested and faced court, but a later check found the DNA evidence used against him was taken elsewhere and mistakenly tested with samples from the Tapp murder scene.

Overland said every crime solved by DNA in the state since the testing technology was introduced 20 years ago would now be reviewed to check no other bungles had occurred.

"We need to refine our processes and our practices, and that is now happening as a result of this case," he said.

Victorian Law Institute spokesman Michael Brett Young said Gesah had been wrongfully painted as a villain because of police mistakes, possibly damaging public faith in the legal system at a time when corruption scandals were already undermining authorities.

"Really he's been convicted in the court of public opinion due to the actions of the police and the media," Young said on Thursday.

Criminal lawyers said the mistake would almost guarantee future challenges to the accuracy of police DNA evidence.

Murder victims Seana Tapp (L) and her mother Margaret Tapp, whose bodies were found in Melbourne in 1984. Australian police will re-examine 7,000 crimes solved through DNA proof after a mistake forced detectives to free a suspect wrongly accused of murder. Police in the southern city of Melbourne withdrew charges against Russell John Gesah, accused in July of the 1984 murders of the 35-year-old mother and her nine-year-old daughter.

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Envoys trade hugs and kisses at U.N

UNITED NATIONS - Ambassadors from the United States and Libya exchanged hugs and kisses at the U.N. Security Council on Thursday in an unusual public display of affection between former arch enemies.

A reporter asked Khalilzad if the show of affection meant that good relations between the two countries had reached a new high.

Washington's Afghan-born envoy said his Libyan colleague had just returned from a long absence and his son had gotten married. Khalilzad said it was a tradition to congratulate the groom's father and ask him if his pockets are empty.

"Because unlike in the United States, in the Middle East it is the groom's side that pays for all the expenses of the wedding," Khalilzad said.

The United States began restoring diplomatic ties with Tripoli after Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said in 2003 that he would abandon his nuclear, chemical and biological arms programs. Washington withdrew its ambassador to Libya in 1972.

Relations between the two countries reached a low in the late 1970s and 1980s, when Washington designated Libya a "state sponsor of terrorism" and former U.S. President Ronald Reagan referred to Gaddafi as the "mad dog of the Middle East."

In 1986, U.S. aircraft bombed Tripoli, Benghazi and the home of Gaddafi. Libya said more than 40 people were killed, including Gaddafi's adopted baby daughter.

But tensions remain as the countries try to work together on the 15-nationSecurity Council. Libya was elected to it last year after Washington dropped its opposition. Its term ends in December 2009.

Questions pertaining to Israel and the Palestinians are especially divisive.

Earlier this year in a speech to the council, another Libyan envoy compared the situation in the Gaza Strip to the Nazi Holocaust, prompting Khalilzad's deputy and other Western envoys to walk out of the council chamber in protest.

This is TheOldGuy reporting from