Watercooler Stories

Porn previews aired on kids' channels

CARY, N.C., March 18 (UPI) -- Officials with Time Warner Cable in North Carolina apologized for Playboy Channel preview programming mistakenly aired on two channels aimed at children.

Keith Poston, a spokesman for the cable company, said an equipment failure led to the adult-programming previews being shown on the Kids on Demand and PreSchool On Demand channels Tuesday in parts of Cary, Garner, Morrisville, Wilson, Goldsboro, Willow Spring and Johnston County, WRAL-TV, Raleigh, N.C., reported.

"Basically, we had a piece of equipment fail and what happened is some previews for the Playboy Channel actually got diverted into the preview box on our Kids on Demand (Ch. 252) and our PreSchool On Demand (Ch. 555)," Poston said.

He said the programs aired between 6:15 and 8:15 a.m.

"It took about an hour or so once we were notified of the problem to actually get it fixed," Poston said. "It was a technical glitch and unfortunately it hit at the worst possible time on the worst possible channels."

He said the Playboy previews were only visible to a small number of customers while most homes -- and the company's monitors -- had black screens during the affected hours.

"It was a small number of customers," Poston said, "But one's too many."

"We're very, very sorry it happened," he said.

Legislator: Picture switch just a joke

OKLAHOMA CITY, March 18 (UPI) -- A Republican state legislator in Oklahoma says he switched the portraits of President Obama and Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry as a joke.

After the portraits were shuffled last week, House Speaker Chris Benge, a Republican, took steps to ensure it could not happen again, The Oklahoman reported. He ordered all portraits hanging in the House chamber to be secured with bolts.

Under orders from Benge, Rep. Lewis Moore released a statement Tuesday.

"I moved the pictures," Moore said in a statement. "I apologize if my intent was misinterpreted."

In a telephone interview with the newspaper, Moore just said he was trying to lighten the atmosphere during a contentious time.

"Why are you guys making such a big deal about something that was just a joke?" he asked. "It was totally to kind of ease the pressure off of what was otherwise kind of a really nasty day. It wasn't meant in any harm whatsoever."

He made the switch before the House voted on a measure criticizing Obama's healthcare plan.

Disbanded police leave 58,000 rounds

PEWAUKEE, Wis., March 18 (UPI) -- Officials in a Wisconsin city that disbanded its police department late last year said officers left behind 58,000 rounds of ammunition.

Pewaukee officials said the Police Department left behind 58,000 rounds of handgun, rifle and shotgun ammunition when it disbanded at the end of 2009, and administrators said they were looking into why so much ammunition was required for a 25-officer force, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

"It seems like it is way in excess of what you would need," Mayor Scott Klein said. "It begs the question of why it got up to so much and why would you continue to purchase it."

A Waukesha County sheriff's lieutenant said a department of the city's size would require less than 11,000 rounds of ammunition a year.

Former police officer Robert Kraemer said the department regularly used about 30,000 rounds per year on four training shoots and much of the leftover ammo was likely from two shoots that were canceled because of budget shortfalls.

City Administrator Tammy LaBorde said officials were working to identify all of the ammunition to get an accurate estimate of value for selling the leftovers. Officials estimated the sale could bring the city up to $14,000.

Police send drugs to resale shop

DALLAS, March 18 (UPI) -- Dallas police said an old file cabinet sent from a police property room to a local resale store was full of drugs when shop workers opened it.

The Dallas Police Department Property Unit said the file cabinet, one of several marked to be cleaned out and sent to Dallas CityStore to make way for new shelves, was apparently not checked before it was sent out and receiving employees at the store discovered 123 bags of illegal drugs inside, The Dallas Morning News reported.

"It was a terrible oversight," police spokesman Sgt. Warren Mitchell said. "We're going to see where we went wrong and try to fix that problem."

Investigators said no customers came in contact with the heroin, cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine and the bags were still sealed when police reclaimed them.

"Every seal was still sealed. They did not appear to be tampered with and they put them back in the vault," Mitchell said.

The department's internal affairs department is investigating and those found responsible for the oversight could face disciplinary action, officials said.