Sunday, 8-20-06: In Kenosha, Wisconsin, a 21-year-old employee of a company that supplies chocolate ingredients was trying to loosen the chocolate and slid into the hopper. The chocolate was 110 degrees. Firefighters tried for two hours to get him out, but they didn't succeed till they thinned the chocolate with cocoa butter. Monday, 8-21-06: It's been emerging for a week or so now what the results of Israel's 34-day war in southern Lebanon are. Israel started planning this war five years ago, right after they pulled out of southern Lebanon. In the final stages of preparation, weirdly enough, Dick Cheney was heavily involved. The goals of the war were three: wipe out Hezbollah, destroy their caches of weapons, and create a buffer zone occupied by the UN. Then Israel got into it, and discovered they couldn't wipe out Hezbollah. Nor could they find and destroy their caches of weapons. So after 34 days they pulled out anyway, and they want the UN to go in and occupy a buffer zone. But no one wants to try to disarm Hezbollah, so it's not clear it's even going to happen. So what Israel accomplished was: creating a million short-term refugees (300,000 Israelies who fled south and 700,000 Lebanese who fled north), $3.5 billion dollars worth of damage to Lebanon, an oil spill into the eastern Mediterranean half the size of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, a Hezbollah that is stronger than before the war started, and rock-star status for their leader Nasrallah throughout the Arab and Muslim world. While generals in Israel are saying the war was a failure, and people are calling for investigations. Tuesday, 8-22-06: Oh, be still my heart! Paris Hilton's new album hits the stores today. It's called, "Paris." "I, like, cry when I hear it, it's so good," she said. "People go crazy. They love it. Everyone's like, who is this?" In local news, Rosie Sizer, our police chief, said yesterday that she favors relaxing the department's ban on visible tatoos. The police are also allowed one ear-ring stud per earlobe. Wednesday, 8-23-06: Scientists in Australia are asking farmers for ugly sheep. It's part of the Xtreme Sheep campaign to improve the wool. Farmers are asked to report lambs with uneven wool, bald patches, wrinkled skin and other irregularities to the Research and Development Institute. Thursday, 8-24-06: Dutch F-16s escorted a NW Airlines flight bound for India back to an airport in Holland, after the pilot radioed for help. 12 passengers were arrested for suspicious behavior, which consisted of them seeming to know each other and passing around a cell phone. Friday, 8-25-06: Owen Wilson, a famous actor, was being interviewed at Leicester Square on Tuesday when a woman outside a pub shouted his name. When he looked up, she raised her skirt and flashed him. "Wow, I kind of lost my train of thought with that one," he said. An 18-year-old woman in Austria escaped from 8 years of captivity, most of it in a small cellar. Natascha Kampusch was kidnapped on her way to school in 1998 and held in an underground room full of books. She was occasionally allowed to watch videos. Her mother almost had a nervous breakdown when the police told her. Her kidnapper killed himself a few hours after she escaped, by throwing himself in front of a train. Life & Style Weekly says that Paris Hilton has shacked up with oil heir Brandon Davis in LA. So much for her vow to give up sex for a year.... In local news, three 18-year-old women in Milwaukie will spend 5 years in prison for a home-invasion assault and robbery against a 19-year-old man that two of the women had dated. Wow! They got 2 men to bind Timothy Welker and bludgeon him with a liquor bottle, while they stood outside the house. "This was revenge," said a spokesman for the Sheriff's Office. After Welker was injured, one of the women rushed to the hospital in an attempt to hide her involvement by comforting him. Saturday, 8-26-06: The State Department is studying Israel's use of cluster bombs. It's legal under the Geneva Conventions to use them on soldiers, but not on civilians. Amnesty International's found widespread evidence of attacks on civilian villages. The bomblets frequently don't explode on impact, and southern Lebanon is littered with them. In local news, boy, I live in the wild west. A state trooper and a suspect in a string of robberies at rest sites were both wounded in a shoot out. The exchange of gunfire occurred at milepost 235 on Interstate 5, after a traffic stop. Trooper Russell Decker was shot though the foot. The suspect was shot multiple times and taken to the hospital. In more local news, police cited a 22-year-old woman for filing a false police report after claiming earlier in the week that she'd been kidnapped and raped. Elizabeth Brown later admitted she had a fight with her boyfriend, who had forgotten their anniversary, and made the false claim after the argument.