Weird News Yet Again

The news just keeps getting weirder…

What does one look for in a mate?
TORONTO (Reuters) - When it comes to romance, women prefer someone who tickles their funny bone while men opt for those who catch their eye, according to an international survey released on Wednesday.
The survey, conducted in 16 countries by Canadian romance publisher Harlequin Enterprises, asked men and women on six continents about traits they liked or disliked and how they went about trying to meet Mr. or Ms. Right.
The poll revealed differences between countries in the way people tried to impress the opposite sex.
Australians and British men frequently admitted drinking too much, while about half of German and Italian men said they had lied about their finances. Spaniards were the most likely to use sex to catch someone's attention.
Eighty percent of Brazilian and Mexican men said they had lied about their marital or relationship status, as did 70 percent of German women, the survey said.
When it came to meeting that special someone, a majority of respondents preferred to rely on friends for introductions. The Internet was not a popular hunting ground except in Portugal, where about half the surveyed men and women opted to find people online.
Both Spain and France suffered a gender gap. Thirty percent of Spanish men, but no Spanish women, looked for love online. In France, 40 percent of men but only 10 percent of women attended parties, bars and clubs to meet someone, but they did have one thing in common: both sexes rated looks as more important than their counterparts in other countries.
When it came to that first meeting, a majority of men polled said beauty was more important than brains, while women put a sense of humor at the top of their list.
Physical attraction was the top priority for men in France, Brazil, Greece, Japan and Britain. And while 40 percent of Portuguese men rated intelligence over looks in a first encounter, no Australian men did so.
In the United States and Canada, humor was considered the most important trait by both men and women, getting 63 and 73 percent of the vote respectively.

I guess the spell doesn’t work forever…

TOKYO (Reuters) - Police found a stun gun and tear gas Friday at the Tokyo home of a man who said he persuaded 11 younger women to live with him by chanting a spell, media reports said.
Police suspect he used the weapons to prevent the women, mainly in their 20s, from leaving, the reports said.
Hirohito Shibuya, 57, was arrested Thursday for allegedly threatening a 20-year-old woman who was reluctant to join the commune by telling her that if she left she would be turned to mincemeat, they said.
He denied threatening the woman, Kyodo news agency said, adding that he also allegedly told her he was a former senior officer in Japan's military with secret agents around him.
Shibuya, a bald, rotund man with bags under his eyes, has attracted heavy media attention this week after claiming he chanted a spell to attract the women.
He had married and divorced several of the women, who continued to live with him, the reports said.
Asked what the incantation was, he told a newspaper: "When you say it, even unattractive men become attractive. But I won't say it because if I do, I'll die."
Police confiscated several books on hypnosis from his home, Kyodo said
Remembering traditions does not mean living them everyday…

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwean twins who became media celebrities for appearing in public wearing nothing but traditional African goatskin loincloths have been detained pending trial for indecent exposure.
Harare magistrate Mishrod Guvamombe also ordered the 22-year-old brothers, dubbed the "Terrible Twins" by local newspapers, to undergo psychiatric evaluation, the official Herald newspaper said Friday.
The men, Tafadzwanashe and Tapiwanashe Fichani, raised eyebrows last month when they went to an upscale Harare shopping mall clad only in brief loincloths -- leading several shocked shoppers to call the police.
The twins said they were making a statement by appearing in traditional African clothing dating back to pre-colonial times.
State prosecutors disagreed and lodged a case of indecent exposure against them, a position the Herald said was backed by the head of Zimbabwe's National Traditional Healers' Association.
"We have failed to see how their actions conform to our culture," association president Gordon Chavunduka told the newspaper. "Dressing of that nature is now reserved for special traditional and cultural occasions, not everywhere."
The twins were denied bail and ordered back to court for trial on February 2.