According to a Knoxville local news station article, a man went to the county courthouse to pay his fine for public intoxication. Turns out he was drunk, and ended up passing out while waiting in his seat. To make things even more interesting, he had brought his pet scorpion with him. Apparently while he was passed out, it leaped out of his hand and got loose in the office. Several people thought it was merely a toy until it started running around. The assistant prosecutor heard the county clerk scream and ran in and cornered the scorpion and caught it. The drunken man was charged, yet again, for public intoxication.

I came across a link to the Gallery of Regrettable Food which digs up some of the more bizzare recipes introduced in the post-depression era from old cookbooks. As the site says:

"They're not really recipe books. They're ads for food companies, with every recipe using the company's products, often in unexpected ways. (Hot day? Kids love a frosty Bacon Milkshake!) There's not a single edible dish in the entire collection. The pictures in the books are ghastly - the Italian dishes look like a surgeon got a sneezing fit during an operation, and the queasy casseroles look like something on which the janitor dumps sawdust. But you have to enjoy the spirit behind the books - cheerful postwar perfect housewifery is taught in every book. Sure, you'll fall short of the ideal. But what's an ideal for if not to show up your shortcomings?"

Some of the recipes: Cooking with 7-Up, Fun with Coffee, Cooking with Dr. Pepper, Banana-rama, and many others. And with captions like: "Let's ignore the phallic implications of bananas" and "Add Seven-Up! You know, the one with that famous flavor. The one no one can really define, other than to say 'it’s the stuff you either drink when you have the pukes, or because you’re at a party at some kid’s house and he has weird parents who don’t have normal stuff.'," this site's hilarious.

In more gas news, Miami's local news is reporting that an email describing a gas shortage in the wake of the Katrina disaster launched a crazy dash in Miami-Dade County. The email had said that gas would stop being sold at midnight, and would not be sold for 2 to 3 days following that. Gas stations had long lines as people frantically tried to fill gas before the "deadline." One of the gas stations even temporarily ran out of gas.

"Officials said that there was plenty of gasoline in the state and companies are making plans to get it from the northeast and overseas.

But Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings said there still could be some areas that run short.

Jennings said people shouldn't cancel travel plans for the Labor Day weekend, but they need to be careful about doing pointless driving around."

According to CNN/Money,

"Consumers can expect retail gas prices to rise to $4 a gallon soon but whether they stay there depends on the long-term damage to oil facilities from Hurricane Katrina, oil and gas analysts said Wednesday.

'There's no question gas will hit $4 a gallon,' Ben Brockwell, director of pricing at the Oil Price Information Service, said. 'The question is how high will it go and how long will it last?'

OPIS tracks wholesale and retail oil prices and provides pricing information for AAA's daily reports on fuel prices.

Brockwell said with gasoline prices now exceeding $3 a gallon before even reaching the wholesale level, it 'doesn't take a genius' to expect retail prices to hit $4 a gallon soon.

'Consumers haven't seen the worst of it yet,' Brockwell said.

Katrina forced operators to close more than a tenth of the country's refining capacity and a quarter of its oil production, which sent gasoline prices surging."

At least we'd still be paying a whole lot less than Amsterdam. Towards the end of the article, some other guy's research suggests the prices would level off around $3.50, then eventually go back down.

Cingular is expected to announce next week a new phone that is made by Motorola that uses iTunes, according to The Financial Times.

This effectively lets you have a wireless iPod, with the ability to purchase and download songs from anywhere. Much of the features are still speculation, since there hasn't been an official release yet, but Apple is hosting a big, secretive "major music-news related event" on Sept. 7th, and this is likely the reason.

(Also in the Apple Rumor Mill: iPods with video capabilities, and iPod Shuffles with larger capacity are coming soon)

A surgeon punched a patient who wiggled while under local anesthesia and was yelling for the operation to stop, and also yelled at him to "Stay still!" and "Shut up!" according to Yahoo.

Funny line: "The doctor didn't speed up the patient's recovery." Oh, really? I wonder why. Maybe because he punched the patient in the forehead and they had to stop the operation.

The report said the patient needed five days for his forehead to heal.

Oh, those Philippines with their "disruptive last-minute holidays." Yahoo's got an article about how firms in the Philippines are upset with the government flip-flopping about which days to consider national holidays and making decisions at the last minute:

"'A good business environment requires predictability,' The Foreign Chambers of the Philippines said in a statement, as it urged the government of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to maintain a fixed schedule of holidays.

'The nation's holiday schedule should be fixed in advance and followed without capricious change, as has unfortunately become too frequent a practice in 2005,' the business lobbying group, which represents seven foreign chambers, said in a statement

Conflicting announcements by the government this weekend over whether to declare a public holiday the National Heroes Day -- which fell on a Sunday -- left many people and business houses confused.

On Friday, government said the day after the National Heroes Day will be a working day, but later declared it a holiday.

On Sunday, a last-minute statement said government offices and schools would be closed, but businesses will be opened.

Besides the August 29 holiday declaration, the chamber also cited three other 'disruptive last-minute holidays' on July 25, June 13 and May 2."

There's an article over at boingboing.net about a FOX News contributor giving out a family's address on-air and claiming they were terrorists responsible for the July 7th London attacks:

"Fox News nutbag contributor and former US prosecutor John Loftus read the address of a 'terrorist' residence in California on-air. Oh, wait -- whoops -- no terrorist home, just an innocent family of five who are now the target of angry threats. Since the report aired on Fox News on Aug. 7, people have shouted profanities at Randy and Ronnell Vorick and spray-painted 'terrorist' (spelling it 'terrist') on their property.

John Loftus, a former federal prosecutor who appears on Fox News' 'Inside Scoop with John Loftus,' gave out the address during the broadcast. He said the home belonged to Iyad Hilal, whose group, Loftus said, has ties to those responsible for the July 7 bombings in London. But Hilal moved out of the house about three years ago.

The couple sought a public apology and correction.

'John Loftus has been reprimanded for his careless error, and we sincerely apologize to the family,' Fox spokeswoman Irena Brigantes said.

Loftus told the Los Angeles Times last week that 'mistakes happen. ... That was the best information we had at the time.'"

Apple is going up against the major record labels, who are demanding a price increase in songs, changing iTunes current 99 cents for all songs pricing model, according to The New York Times.

"The music from iTunes is supplied mainly by four major companies, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, Universal Group and EMI Group.

Sony BMG Entertainment and Warner Music Group intend to force iTunes to introduce a new pricing scheme. A hot new single, for example, could sell for a $1.49, while a golden oldie could go for substantially less than 99 cents.

iTunes Japan was started without songs from Sony BMG Music Entertainment or Warner Music Group, which may be just a sign of an imminent conflict. "

Much to Comedy Central's surprise, the UK's Channel 4 wanted a syndication deal to air The Daily Show as part of their new digital channel More4, Yahoo reports.

The show is already shown internationally in a "weekly digest" format on CNN international, but not in its entirety.