Bakery chief Renato "Ron" Turano of Burr Ridge, Illinois is running for senator in the Italian Senate.

How is this possible? Italy passed a new law allowing Italian citizens living abroad to choose their own senator!

The position would not be honorary. If elected, Turano would serve about half the year in Rome and draw a senator's salary, which he estimated would equal about $100,000 a year. He would have the same voting power as any other senator and expects that a lot of his work would be devoted to improving consular services, facilitating cultural exchanges and promoting U.S.-Italian trade.

You go, Ron!

Link ABC7 Chicago blurb | Chicago Tribune story

In this interesting photoessay, Brendan captured how thousands of Bangladesh workers take apart a supertanker by hand.

When the tide is high, vessels are driven at full speed toward the shore. Once the water recedes and the ships rest along the muddy beach, the salvage crews move in, emptying the vessels of everything on board.

Link

What can you make Donald do? Apparently anything you darn well please.

Neatorama reader Chris said:"Best time-waster I have seen in a while- tell him to bark or vomit."

Link (Thanks Chris!)

If you've never seen Eric Joisel's origami creations, you're in for a treat: http://www.artorigami.com/fr/gejoisel.htm (Thanks Tony Cabral!)

If you happen to be in Laguna Niguel, Orange County, California on Saturday, July 8, 2006 - here's something you can do: a mass "mooning" of Amtrak trains. (Sometimes, the train conductor will moon you back!)

Link

This one is from waaaay back, but very neat nonetheless! (via the famous Cellar Image of the Day archive - you'll spend hours looking through their awesome collection of pics!)

(via Wugsy)

Update 1/28/06: Turns out that this DIY water heater was made by Patryk Sielski from Warsaw, Poland. Patryk wrote:

I live in an academic hostel of Warsaw University of Technology. Unfortunately, we don't have hot water in our rooms, it's only in kitchen and toilet outside. This inconvenience caused me to think about hot water. Commercial heaters are to expensive to students, it's also a problem to assemble without temporary cutting off the water. Beside of that, the fuses would be immediately blown.

The cheapest device that have an electric heater is a cordless kettle. Some glue, a bottle and a pipe... voila! The hot water flows.

For more of Colette's cool and whimsical artwork, see: Link

For more of Josh Agle's excellent Shag art, see: http://www.shag.com/

Marie Rose, A Washington state woman reported missing by her husband, was later found dead suffocated under the clutters in her house.

"In some areas, clothes and debris were piled 6 feet high," said Police Chief Terry Davenport of the Shelton Police Department. "Officers were having to climb over the top on their hands and knees. In some areas, their heads were touching the ceiling while they were standing on top of piles of debris."

After 10 hours of searching, officers discovered the woman's body. Investigators Friday said she was smothered under the clutter.

Link

Robin Toom, 30, got stuck while hiding in his sister's washing machine when he was playing hide and seek!

"I just hopped in there, playing hide and go seek with the kids," the baker's assistant said yesterday from Townsville.

"I got in there and couldn't even get the lid down and the kids came in and said 'ha ha we found you'."

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17774855-13762,00.html

It turns out that books bound in human skin, though uncommon, aren't exactly rare:

A number of prestigious libraries -- including Harvard University's -- have such books in their collections. While the idea of making leather from human skin seems bizarre and cruel today, it was not uncommon in centuries past, said Laura Hartman, a rare book cataloger at the National Library of Medicine in Maryland and author of a paper on the subject.

An article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from the late 1800s "suggests that it was common, but it also indicates it wasn't talked about in polite society," Hartman said.

Link to story | Boston Anthenaeum's book | Not to be outdone, Harvard has several of 'em.