Strange things happen in the 700 miles of mostly wet wilderness that comprise the Okefenokee Swamp.

Locals here cheerfully trade stories of being pursued by odd glowing orbs of green light, alien abductions and encounters with the Pig Man, a Southern version of Bigfoot. These mysterious meetings purportedly occur both deep within the swamp and along the dark and lonely roads that border it.

"Your technology can't be counted on in the swamp," said guide Milford Simpson. "Signals get scrambled, electronics go screwy. Mother Nature kicks technology's butt in here."

ATLANTA (DPI) - Presidential candidate Howard Dean angered Democrats by calling for the party to stop ignoring, in his words, "illiterate, Southern boobs." "For too long, we have left the knuckle-dragging, redneck morons with the impression that they're not wanted in the Democratic Party," said the former Vermont governor. "If we want to win elections, we're gonna need the vote of every racist goober we can find, so I say, let's address the concerns of the backwater trash, using small words and speaking as slowly as necessary to get those drooling hicks to understand." Members of his party have criticized Dean's approach, especially his decision to buy air time for his campaign on UPN.

(Reported by Slick Sharkey)

Washington, D.C. - In a move that turned the political world upside-down, Congress announced today that instead of having a traditional presidential election next November, candidates will compete on the popular reality game show "Survivor", winner take all.

"The 2000 election was an embarrassing joke," said Senator Patrick McGroin, "We've decided to avoid looking like fools again and simply use 'Survivor' to decide the next president."

The show will pit ten candidates against each other in what is traditionally a post-merge situation on the show, where every individual fights for him or her self...

Warner Bros has taken the unusual step of offering refunds to moviegoers who present a Matrix Revolutions ticket stub at any theater showing the release.

A studio spokesman explained the program. “We realize that there are patrons out there who don’t ‘get’ Matrix Revolutions. Like any product producer, we take responsibility for our product, and we’re willing to suck one up when it, well, sucks.”

Movie critic Roger Ebert was ambivalent about the refund program. “Don’t get me wrong—I like the idea of studios taking responsibility for churning out crap. But this is special. This is Matrix. What I’d really like so see them do is suck it up, go back to the drawing table, and write a pair of sequels that are worthy of the original. I think the fans deserve it and we ought to demand it.”

Matrix Fan Jeremy was also ambivalent. “I paid eight bucks for my ticket. Yeah, the plot totally stank, but the effects were killer, and the fight scenes totally wrocked. So I’m just going to ask for four bucks back.”

Southern drawls have thwarted voice recognition equipment used by the Shreveport Police Department to route non-emergency calls.



A switchover to a lower-tech, touch-tone system — in which callers hear a voice recording they can respond to by pressing a different number for each division — is scheduled for Monday, said spokeswoman Kacee Hargrave.


The voice-recognition system asked people to name the person or department they wanted. More often than not, the system just didn't understand, and they wound up at the wrong place, said Capt. John Dunn, who oversees police communications.


"In Louisiana, we have a problem with Southern drawl and what I call lazy mouth. Because of that, the system often doesn't recognize what (callers) say," he said...

Knocking the stuffing out of each other may also set a record if Oregon State University students are recognized for what they hope was the largest pillow fight in history.



Unofficially, 766 people showed up at Oregon State on Friday to take part in the jumbo pillow fight in hopes of topping the Guinness Book of Records mark set by 645 people who staged a mass pillow brawl in Garnett, Kan., last June.


"It's awesome to see part of OSU's community come down and do this," said Lige Armstrong, a 21-year-old liberal studies major from Hawaii who organized the event as part of a class project...

Former standup comic Wil Watson has a lesson for teachers: make your job a laughing matter.


The former comedian who calls himself a "laughologist" gave a lesson in levity to about 250 educators Thursday, saying a few well-placed yuks can relieve classroom stress, engage students and defuse grouchy colleagues.


The 90-minute session, one of dozens of professional development seminars at the New Jersey Education Association's annual meeting, drew more people than the Atlantic City Convention Center meeting room could hold...

A man described by authorities as a known sexual predator was chased through the streets of South Philadelphia by an angry crowd of Catholic high school girls, who kicked and punched him after he was tackled by neighbors, police said on Friday.



Rudy Susanto, 25, who had exposed himself to teen-age girls on as many as seven occasions outside St. Maria Goretti School, struck again on Thursday just as students were being dismissed, police said.


But this time, a group of girls in school uniforms angrily confronted Susanto with help from some neighbors, police said. When Susanto tried to run, more than 20 girls chased him down the block. Two men from the neighborhood caught him and the girls took their revenge.

There were defiant vibes around the UN today as it passed a resolution to bring the Father of Christmas, aka Santa Claws, to an International Court of Justice. The resolution is aimed at Santa’s sinfully unfair delivery of presents to the world. With the USA, Japan and Europe making up 95% of Santa’s deliveries, it is clear that Santa is a real Scrooge when it comes to the rest of the World.

A National Geographic article last Christmas gave a report on Abdul Aggabooboo age 9 from Chad. It reported about Abdul’s dreams of following in the footsteps of Africa’s finest steeple chasing Olympians. He wrote to Santa, at the cost of a week’s wages for a stamp, requesting a pair of cheap branded trainers. When Christmas day came Abdul was cruelly left a pencil without the rest of the paraphernalia one would expect e.g. sharpener, paper or an eraser. Ironically, in a bitter twist, some fat kid in Texas got 5 pairs of Nike trainers specially designed for steeple chasing.

A 43-year-old man faces charges after he smashed a bird-feeder and threw a pumpkin through the window of a house where his young son said he didn't get any Halloween candy.



Police reports show the man was taking his son trick-or-treating about 6:30 p.m. Friday when the child went to a house where a woman was passing out candy.


The boy returned to his father crying, saying he didn't get any candy.


The man confronted the woman, who said she had given the boy candy. The father and son left, but returned a few minutes later