Curses, foiled again

A sheriff’s deputy in Okaloosa County, Fla., arrested a 27-year-old driver after pulling her over for an improper taillight because she couldn’t spell her name. She said she was Coronica Jackson, but spelled it C-o-r-i-c-a. Her passenger nudged her, and she respelled it C-o-r-n-a-i-c-a. Then the passenger told the deputy it was C-o-r-o-n-i-c-a. He checked the name in his computer, but the photo didn’t match that of the driver, so he asked her to sign her name. She wrote “Coninani Junise,” which was nowhere close to that in the computer system. (Northwest Florida’s Daily News)

Privatization follies

Italian contractors helping train Afghan police recruits solved the mystery of why the trainees couldn’t shoot straight while being taught by U.S. government contractors. The Italians noticed the Americans, who were paid $6 billion to train the Afghans, had never adjusted the sights on their AK- 47s and M-16s. During the eight years contractors from DynCorp International were allegedly training recruits, the death rate for Afghan police officers rose from about two dozen a month to around 125. “We’re paying somebody to teach these people to shoot these weapons, and nobody ever bothered to check their sights?” said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D- Mo., who chaired the Senate committee investigating contractor oversights. “It is an unbelievable, incompetent story.” (McClatchy Newspapers)

Bum bomb

A California Highway Patrol officer who questioned Steven Ferrini, 60, for parking illegally at 4:30 a.m. found drugs and arrested him. A subsequent search found “a suspicious wire, with an onoff switch” in the man’s front pocket leading to his anal cavity, according to a police report. When “the subject began to explain his knowledge of explosives and bomb-making,” officers called the El Dorado County Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team and evacuated the South Lake Tahoe office. The bomb squad determined the device was not a bomb but an anal vibrator. (Tahoe Daily Tribune)

Problem solved

The Japanese automation firm Super Faiths has developed recycling machines that turn used diapers, mostly those used by incontinent adults, into fuel for biomass boilers and stoves. The SFD Recycle System machines can handle up to 1,102 pounds of diapers a day. They automatically shred, dry and sterilize used disposable diapers and turn them into bacteria-free material for making fuel pellets, which can be used to help heat roads, homes or water. (CNET)

Compiled from the nation’s press by Roland Sweet. Authentication on demand.