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Will Q. pointed to a Sky News article about a gathering of Santas gone awry, and I ended up following several links to assorted News of the Weird-type items. (Given my recent comments about link text, I should note that I'm not being careful about it in this entry; too groggy.)

• "The world's biggest gathering of Santa Clauses has ended in a mass brawl."
• "Two Buddhist monks have been disrobed after being caught on a night out in Thailand." (Words like "defrocked" and "disrobed" always make me think religious figures are stripped naked when their religious posts are taken away.)
• "South Korea has shelved a plan to replace the English word for condom with a Korean word—because [the word they chose] was too similar to people's names."
• Coast guard rescues action figure.
• Scotland wins World Cup in elephant polo.
• Amsterdam Gay Pride parade organizers call for more nudity in parade. (This item is actually from 2003; old news.)

Oh, and here's an item not from Sky News: Garrison Keillor sings an "unnervingly catchy tune" (as an Observer article puts it) in an animated Honda ad (5MB Flash movie), all about how old diesel engines are bad but Honda's new diesel engine is better. "Hate something, change something, make something better," says the chorus. (Thanks, Aaron!)