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Mike McElroy, explaining to the West Lake Hills, Texas, city council in August why he ought to be allowed to keep his pet donkey, Pearl, at his home despite regulations against it: “[This] is a great opportunity for our kids and other kids who come to see us to be able to recognize and identify manure, which will help them in the future. Children need, at an early age, to be able to identify manure.”
James A. Kowalski, following his conviction on child-sexual-molestation charges in Prince Frederick, Maryland, in July: “I can’t help myself. If I could stop, I would. It’s no fun being the slimy underbelly of human sexuality.”
In a prepared statement released in September the British firm Proteus International, manufacturer of a new chemical neutering drug for animals, said the product works by stopping sperm production. “It also shrinks the testicles,” the statement continued, “but arguably it is better to have shrunken testicles than no testicles at all.”
According to the sheriff in Martin, Ohio, two or more burglars unsuccessfully attempted to break into the safe at W&W Custom Applicators Inc. at four o’clock one morning in October. They rolled the four-foot-high, concrete-lined safe outside and used a front-end loader to smash it against the side of a building. The safe crashed through the wall but didn’t open. They smashed it against the side of a utility trailer with the same result. They then placed it on nearby railroad tracks so that a train could plow into it, but the Conrail train that came along simply pushed it out of sight along the tracks. The burglars fled, having managed only to loot the company’s petty-cash box.