BUCHAREST (Reuters) - A cashier for Romania's state-owned railway has been asked to pay a month's worth of wages to receive government confirmation that she is alive.

Filoftea Popescu discovered when she applied for a passport that the Romania's People Registration Service had mistakenly declared her dead in November 2005, stripping her of all her rights as a citizen.

"I went to the police ... and I found out that I have no rights in the Romanian state because I died in 2005," the 55-year-old Popescu was quoted on Monday by daily Evenimentul Zilei as saying.

Romania is struggling to cut through vast red tape and complicated legislation to improve a bloated and ineffective administration in order to benefit from new membership in the European Union.

"A lawyer told me it costs me 500 lei (to obtain a court order). Why should I pay to prove I am alive?" Popescu said.

The People Registration Service admitted its error and said it fired the staff responsible.

But Popescu's family doctor is still reeling from the shock of seeing her at his office not long after receiving a copy of her death certificate from the state.

"When she came to my clinic, I lost my voice," said Nicolae Toboiu.

Goosey's Gabbings...

Well, at least this has been taken care of...now, if we could just get Cheney to pay to prove that he has a brain.

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SAND LAKE, Mich. (AP) - About 15 million gallons of partially treated sewage water disappeared from a 250,000 square-foot storage lagoon into a sinkhole, but officials don't know where it went after that.

Kent County utility operator Nathan Danenberg, who runs the sewage treatment system for Sand Lake, discovered the leak in the 8-foot-deep lagoon on Friday while taking samples. It wasn't clear when or why the leak occurred.

"I don't know if maybe there are old mines in the area," Danenberg told The Grand Rapids Press for a story published Tuesday.

"It's an odd case. A sinkhole gobbled up all the water and we don't know where it went... It seems to have just gone down into the earth.

"We don't smell anything and we don't see anything."

Mike Bolf, drinking water district engineer for the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, said the state would conduct tests on nearby municipal wells, which are downstream as groundwater flows. But the wells are believed deep enough to be protected by a natural clay or shale wall, he said.

The lagoon, lined with clay, is one of three that house sewage from the village during winter while it is treated with bacteria.

Goosey's Gabbings...

You just know there is some freaky-deaky guy at the end of some pipe somewhere going "OH YEAH!!! THIS IS MY DREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAM!!"

My feeling is that it was that stealing bastard Nessie. You gotta watch out for those Loch Ness creatures....

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A Chinese woman escaped jail after she cut off her husband's penis and threw it out of the window.

The man drove himself to hospital - but doctors couldn't reattach the organ as it had been eaten by a dog, reports Jinling Evening Post.

Yao Fengfang was given a three year suspended jail sentence after her husband, Li Gengbao, asked the judge to be lenient.

Li, a taxi driver in Nanjing city, said he wanted his wife to keep her liberty so she could look after him for the rest of his life.

Yao suspected her husband, of having an affair with his ex-wife and confronted him after seeing his taxi parked outside of her house.

On the way back home, Yao threatened to 'disable' his husband but he thought she was bluffing. Li went to bed early but he was woken at midnight by a sharp pain.

He said: "My wife was holding a large part of my penis, and I pleaded with her to send me to hospital immediately, but she refused firmly, and when I pleaded with her to give me back the cut penis, she threw it out of the window."

Li wrapped his wound with a pillow cover and drove his taxi to Nanjing City First Hospital.

The hospital carried out emergency surgery and sent staff to look for Li's severed penis, but found it had been eaten by a neighbour's dog.

Goosey's Gabbings...

Ahh, the legacy of Lorena Bobbitt. When reached for comment, the dog remarked, "It tasted like choked chicken."

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A peeping Tom has been banned from going out at night without a fluorescent jacket on.

Stephen Cooper, 24, has been ordered to wear the high-visibility clothing so he can be spotted by potential victims.

The pervert, who has pleaded guilty to voyeurism, received the order after being caught creeping into a woman's garden and staring through a crack in her curtains.

Cooper is awaiting sentence for the offence but in the meantime he has been ordered to don a bright neon coat whenever he ventures out after dark.

Cooper admitted the offence which took place on January 11. He was already on the Sex Offenders Register and the offence was the second time he had breached the conditions imposed on him.

Judge Peter Dedman made the bizarre ban at Southend Crown Court in Essex after adjourning sentencing while psychiatric reports are drawn up.

He said: "I think it is appropriate such an order should be made for the protection of the public in particular women alone, either at home or work or in the street, and also for his own protection to stop him offending.

"He has admitted being in someone's garden peering through the crack in the curtains in the hope of seeing something of a nature which would allow hime to reach sexual gratification."

The Sex Offenders' Prevention Order was drawn up between Cooper, from South Ockendon, Essex, and the Essex Police public protection team. But some have been outraged by the unusual order, saying it will mark him out as a sex offender.

Lesley Bates, a barrister who specialises in sex offence cases, said: "It is very difficult to see how making him wear a fluorescent jacket will prevent further voyeurism.

But, perhaps, more seriously, it appears to have failed to consider the potential consequences which are disproportionate to the benefits.

"It is tantamount to asking him to walk around wearing a sign saying, 'I'm a sex offender'."

Goosey's Gabbings...

This has me a little befuddled. One, because the man was referred to as "the pervert" in this article and that this is not a one-size-fits-all situation. I mean, he has to wear a fluorescent jacket at night because he's a peeping tom? Bates said it correctly that this does nothing other than to make the guy be more creative in how he "peeps"...Plus, what other things are being done for other sex offenders? Rapists have to be escorted everywhere at night? Pedophiles can't be within a mile of anyone under 18, with supervision? Somehow, something here just doesn't feel right...

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Woodinville High School's 64-0 fastpitch softball win over Franklin last week prompted the KingCo 4A coaches to meet Tuesday night to discuss ways to avoid any kind of repeat performance and led to some soul-searching by Woodinville coach Jim Weir.

"Baseball and softball have been part of my life since I was 7 years old," Weir said. "The last thing I want to do is disrespect any opponent, disrespect the game. What happened is unfortunate. I have been questioning myself these last four-five days."

"I have so much respect for this game," he added. "What hurts me the most is maybe I hurt that [respect]. That was not my intention."

Weir said he was "shocked" by the final score after the March 21 game ended. He said he was concentrating more on making sure his players were playing the game right and had lost count of the score.

"If anything positive can come out of this, it's that we can implement some new rules so this never happens again," Weir said.

The meeting, held at Juanita High School, was closed to the public but Tim Crowder, Juanita athletic director in charge of KingCo 4A fastpitch, said one proposal was to change the "mercy rule" — when a game is ended early because of a lopsided score.

A 15-run lead after three full innings would be the new standard, replacing a 10-run lead after five innings. Fastpitch games normally last seven innings, and state rules require a game to go at least five innings for it to be official.

Several other recommendations will be part of the overall plan presented to conference principals and athletic directors, who will make a final decision in the next few weeks. Crowder declined to comment on the other recommendations.

"Everyone's on the same page in terms of trying to do what's best for the kids and still compete," Crowder said.

Eight of 11 coaches attended the meeting and agreed unanimously on the recommendations, he added.

Another suggestion at the meeting involved moving Franklin to a full-time junior-varsity schedule for the rest of the season. The Quakers' struggling program has been beaten 30-0, 24-0 and 13-0 in its three other games.

But Crowder said Washington Interscholastic Activities Association rules prohibit such a move.

Franklin principal Jennifer Wiley said her school's softball team will have to learn how to define success for itself, apart from the scoreboard.

"Our program is about taking kids where they are and growing them from game to game," Wiley said. "We're not measuring success by wins and losses. ... Sometimes that puts us at the top of the heap, and sometimes it does not. There's so much more to athletics than winning, and we need to make sure we're cultivating all those things."

Wiley said there was no indication from her coaches or players at the game that Woodinville was running up the score. Weir said his team stopped being aggressive — hit-and-runs, taking extra bases, tagging up — after going up 7-0.

Weir isn't sure where the line should be drawn.

"At what point is it just too much? Twenty, thirty, forty runs?" he asked in a letter on the team's Web site. "If this game does anything positive, it will point out the inequities in our league, rules that need to be changed and the role umpires can take in such an unbalanced game."

Goosey's Gabbings...

That last synopsis and philosophy was a joke. Does this guy honestly believe that this can teach anyone anything other than the fact that his sportsmanship is basically so far gone that it takes being embarrassed by it to really make a difference?

I understand that there are situations where teams just can't compete, as it seems this team can't, but there's also a line where you trade dignity for out and out giving a psychological wedgie to these individuals. Give me a damn break here...

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Officers were stunned after seeing clips of the 34-year-old Edinburgh man driving at speeds averaging 112 mph.

The man is also seen doing wheelies and driving at 170mph in East Lothian at the end of last year.

Police traced the man after detailed study of the clips. A report is being submitted to the procurator fiscal.

Riding a Yamaha R1, he is said to have covered the distance between Longniddry and North Berwick in just seven minutes, at speeds averaging 112 mph in certain sections.

He is also said to have been seen accelerating from rest to high speeds in first gear, performing wheelies and flooring a Honda Fireblade motorbike to its maximum speed of 170 mph along St Germains, the dual carriage running between Prestonpans and Longniddry, on a wet day.

After detailed examination of the YouTube footage, Lothian and Borders Police officers and staff from the force's forensic computer unit were able to trace the man.

Ch Insp Kenny Buchanan of Lothian and Borders Police road policing branch said: "Driving at break-neck speeds along public roads is completely unacceptable and extremely dangerous.

'Serious consequences'

He said: "Allowing footage of it to be posted on a public website is a sure-fire way of getting caught.

"Thanks to the clips on the website, we were able to clearly identify the rider of the bike, and stop him in his tracks.

"We urge this to be a lesson to other drivers who foolishly believe that stunts like these are good entertainment.

"They are not, they are dangerous and could result in very serious consequences, certainly for yourself, if not some other innocent member of the public."

It is thought that this is one of the highest speeds ever recorded by Lothian and Borders Police.

Goosey's Gabbings...

Another day, another idiot posting himself on Youtube. Yey, you got a million dowloads. Yey, you got a huge ticket and face jail time.

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“We don’t want to dishonor the name of President Kennedy,” Lee said.

Goosey's Gabbings...

Not real sure why the quote from Lee was used as it was. Would he say that about some manholes that turned up missing when they installed them? "Sometimes when you're baking cakes, you break a few eggs?" Come on man....at least come up with something better than that (and maybe a little more manly for a "public works" director)

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