Province to lift clothesline ban

TORONTO, April 18 (UPI) -- The Canadian province of Ontario lifted almost all bans on clotheslines Friday in a bid to reduce the use of electric dryers, officials said.

For several decades, developers of subdivisions routinely inserted covenants into sales contracts banning clotheslines as being unsightly, but the Liberal provincial government decided to nullify most of them for environmental reasons, the Toronto Star reported.

Dryers account for 5-6 percent of Ontario's residential electricity demand, and an average machine consumes about 900 kilowatt-hours of energy each year that generates up to 1,600 pounds of greenhouse gases, the report said.

In line with the lifting of the ban, the Toronto Hydro utility launched a campaign to give away 75,000 retractable clotheslines for the next three weekends at four major retailers, including Wal-Mart and Home Depot, the newspaper said.

Oy! Contest Champion eats 35 DOZEN Oysters to set new record

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New Orleans (AP) - Patrick "Deep Dish" Bertoletti looked down at the litter of empty oyster shells in front of him and savored the sweet taste of victory. For Crazy Legs Conti, the bitter taste of defeat could be washed away only by beer. The 22-year-old Chicago resident took the title Saturday by slurping 35 dozen of the big bivalves in eight minutes.

"I could probably do a couple dozen more, especially if they were charbroiled," said Bertoletti, who holds the endurance oyster-eating record, having downed 53 1/2 dozen in 2007 before calling it quits. "Although they're great raw."

Major League Eating describes itself as a sports franchise that oversees all professional competitive eating events and competitive eating television specials. It puts on the annual Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest, as well as other events, such as the World Deep-Fried Asparagus Eating Championship and the National Sweet Corn Eating Championship.

Rules for the oyster tournament forced contestants to use forks, not lift the shells to their mouth, and to finish all the oysters from a tray before starting a new one.

Officials in striped shirts stood beside each contestant and flipped a counter as each dozen was consumed.

Many of the competitors wore gloves to handle the shells; all carried several bottles of water, cold drinks or beer to help them keep their mouths and throats lubricated.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Ooops!

Grandfathers Accidentally Switched At Hospital

LOS ANGELES—In yet another disturbing case of hospital negligence, two elderly grandfathers were accidentally switched at the Cedar-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and sent home with the wrong families, sources reported Monday.

Authorities have launched an investigation to determine how 89-year-old World War II veteran Samuel Kaminski was released to Walter Crowley's family, while Crowley, 86, was sent to Kaminski's home. Cedar-Sinai administrators said the mistake was discovered when Crowley was brought to the hospital for a routine checkup and doctors realized he had shrunk five inches since his last appointment, nearly six months prior.

Janice Redding, who has cared for Kaminski since November despite not being related to him, said she has still not recovered from the shock of hearing the news.

Hospital officials cited the similar-looking liver spots, blue cataract-laden eyes, and double-bypass scars in mixing up the elderly Crowley and Kaminski.

"You never expect something like this to happen to you," said Redding, who was informed by the hospital only last week that the man her family had called "Grandpa" for the past half year belonged to someone else. "To realize that you've been feeding, changing, and pushing a complete stranger around town this whole time—it's devastating."

Source: TheOnion.com