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After spending $5 million on its five automated public toilets, Seattle is calling it quits. In the end, the restrooms, installed in early 2004, had become so filthy, so overrun with drug abusers and prostitutes, that although use was free of charge, even some of the city’s most destitute people refused to step inside them. The units were put up for sale Wednesday afternoon on eBay, with a starting bid set by the city at $89,000 apiece. The dismal outcome coincides with plans by New York, Los Angeles and Boston, among other cities, to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars...

SEATTLE — After spending $5 million on its five automated public toilets, Seattle is calling it quits. One of San Francisco’s toilets, which, officials say, always need maintenance adjustments. In the end, the restrooms, installed in early 2004, had become so filthy, so overrun with drug abusers and prostitutes, that although use was free of charge, even some of the city’s most destitute people refused to step inside them. The units were put up for sale Wednesday afternoon on eBay, with a starting bid set by the city at $89,000 apiece. The dismal outcome coincides with plans by New York,...

Japan's second most dubiously famous technological predilection (behind panty-vending machines) is its highfalutin' toilets, which warm, wash, blow dry and deodorize your bum, just to cover the basics. Japan is also well regarded for taking the lead on going green—average energy consumption per person is half ours. Tragically, the Japanese desire for a pampered and squeaky clean butthole is killing that ethos—and the planet. Super-deluxe-awesome-o toilets are always on, constantly sipping power—they now make up four percent of household energy consumption, more than dishwashers or clothes dryers. And they're in 68 percent of homes. One expert says it's the Japanese...

An operator of a so-called “Booty Camp” in suburban Chicago has a claim that will astonish parents of droopy-diapered toddlers everywhere. Give her five hours, she says, and she’ll give you a potty-trained toddler.

Bo (woof) In Commentary: How do you know you’re having a bad day? When you’re on vacation in Australia, and you stop to do your business and then this happens to you. Fortunately it happened to a human and not a canine, but even I feel embarrassed for this guy. ( A ROADSIDE toilet stop ended in pain, embarrassment and almost death for a tourist when a highly venomous snake bit the end of his penis. The deadly brown snake slithered between his legs and lunged at his manhood as he crouched on a roadside near Laura, 300km northwest of...

Two weeks after the only toilet broke aboard the international space station, Russian Mission Control has some welcome news for astronauts: You can "start using it." Wednesday's successful repair job came thanks to a 35-pound pump delivered by the space shuttle Discovery. A cosmonaut spent hours installing the device and was told to report later on how well the toilet works.

NASA rushed Wednesday to get a special pump on board the shuttle Discovery to fix a balky toilet at the international space station, even as the launch countdown got under way. The space station’s Russian-built toilet has been acting up for the past week. The three male residents have temporarily bypassed the problem, which involves urine collection and not solid waste.

The international space station has a plumbing problem: the lone toilet is broken. So NASA may make an in-orbit plumbing service call when space shuttle Discovery visits next week.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The international space station's lone toilet is broken, leaving the crew with almost nowhere to go. So NASA may order an in-orbit plumbing service call when space shuttle Discovery visits next week. Until then, the three-man crew will have to make do with a jury-rigged system when they need to urinate. according to NASA. Since then, the liquid waste gathering part of the toilet has been working on-and-off. Fortunately, the solid waste collecting part is functioning normally. Russian officials don't know the cause of the problem and the crew has been unable to fix it. The crew...

MILTON, Vt. (AP) — For fighter pilots, the difficulty in answering nature’s call is as old as flying itself. After all, there are no rest areas when you’re zooming through the sky at 500 mph. Over the decades, pilots have used bottles and bags — or just held it. Many avoid liquids, or make sure their last stop before climbing into the cockpit is a bathroom. Now a Vermont company has come up with a 21st-century solution that pilots can use without unstrapping themselves from their seats. The system uses special underwear equipped with a hose linked to a pump...

NY man sues airline over flight spent in toilet Mon May 12, 2008 6:52pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York man who says he was denied a seat on a five-hour jetBlue flight and was instead told to "hang out" in the plane's bathroom has sued the airline for $2 million, saying he suffered "extreme humiliation." When Gokhan Mutlu arrived to check in for a jetBlue flight from San Diego to New York in February he was told the flight was full, according to the lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court. But Mutlu was allowed to...

Right on schedule, Israel has rolled out its first new Nemer IFV (infantry fighting vehicle). This vehicle is based on the chassis of older Merkava I and II series tanks that are being retired. There was one unexpected feature. The Nemer has a toilet. That's actually not a first for an infantry combat vehicle (not counting many previous improvisations.) The current British Warrior and Swedish CV 90 also have toilets on board. In the combat zone, it's often prudent to keep everyone inside for extended periods. So a toilet makes sense. In practice, the onboard toilet is generally not used...

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Authorities are considering charges in the bizarre case of a woman who sat on her boyfriend's toilet for two years — so long that her body was stuck to the seat by the time the boyfriend finally called police. Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said it appeared the 35-year-old Ness City woman's skin had grown around the seat. She initially refused emergency medical services but was finally convinced by responders and her boyfriend that she needed to be checked out at a hospital. "We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat...

A WOMAN in US has spent two years stuck to a toilet before her boyfriend finally called for help. The woman, who has not been named, initially refused medical help, but was convinced by emergency services and her boyfriend that she needed to leave the bathroom and go to hospital. Sheriff Bryan Whipple told AP it appeared the 35-year-old woman’s skin had grown around the seat. "We pried the toilet seat off (the toilet) with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital," Sheriff Whipple said. "The hospital removed it." "It is hard to imagine. ......

WICHITA, Kan. -- Deputies say a woman in western Kansas became stuck on her boyfriend’s toilet after sitting on it for two years.

Proposed Law Looks to Wipe Out Problem TALLAHASSEE (CBS4.com) ― A proposed law currently making its way through the Florida legislature might help you with what can be an embarrassing problem. Here's the bottom line, the bill would be a mandate that all eating establishment must have enough toilet paper when you go into the restroom. The only problem is the bill doesn't dictate how much toilet paper is "enough." State Senator Victor Crist, a Republican from Tampa, felt the problem was so important, a law must be passed to protect the backsides of anyone in Florida. The measure will...

NESS CITY, Kan. | Law officers in western Kansas are investigating the bizarre case of a woman they say sat on her boyfriend’s toilet for two years. Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said the boyfriend called his office late last month to report that something was wrong with his girlfriend. The sheriff said the woman’s muscles had atrophied and that medical personnel had to remove her from the toilet because she was bound to it by “natural means.”

NESS CITY, Kan. - Deputies say a woman in western Kansas became stuck on her boyfriend's toilet after sitting on it for two years. Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said it appeared the 35-year-old Ness City woman's skin had grown around the seat. She initially refused emergency medical services but was finally convinced by responders and her boyfriend that she needed to be checked out at a hospital. "We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital," Whipple said. "The hospital removed it."

Remember him? A blogosphere cause celebre last summer and the occasion for one of Hitchens’s finer moments on television opposite CAIR tool Ibrahim Hooper, who had the elephant stones to assert putting a book in a toilet is an “act of intimidation” in a world where Geert Wilders has to worry constantly about having his throat slit for making a movie. If the sentence sounds excessive to you, keep it in perspective: Kerplunking two Korans into the porcelain goddess of some Pace University restroom is, conceivably, an offense worth two to eight in the state pen. Unless they’re your Korans,...

A former prison guard accused of giving birth in a motel bathtub and stuffing the full-term baby in the back tank of the toilet was in the Falls County Jail Tuesday, charged with capital murder. Sheriff’s deputies arrested 25-year-old Khaliliha Baucom of Lott earlier Tuesday. Bond was set at $200,000. She was named in a sealed indictment returned in December by the Falls County Grand Jury. Baucom was arrested in November on a warrant charging abuse of a corpse, which is a misdemeanor, but authorities said then a capital murder charge could still be filed. She was free on $2,500...

A US woman who was facing jail for swearing at her toilet has been acquitted. Dawn Herb, 31, of Scranton, Pennsylvania, was charged after an off duty police officer overheard her swear at an overflowing toilet.

New Worldwide Toilet Organization Promises 'Toilet Revolution' Thursday, November 22, 2007 SEOUL, South Korea — The World Toilet Association kicked off its inaugural conference Thursday, hoping to spark a sanitation revolution that will save lives through better hygiene and break taboos about what happens behind closed bathroom doors. To the celebratory rhythms of a percussionist beating on toilets, dozens of government delegates and U.N. representatives began two days of discussions on improving bathroom facilities for the 2.6 billion people worldwide who lack access to proper restrooms. Dr. Shigeru Omi, western Pacific director of the World Health Organization, said 1.8 million...

TAIPEI (Reuters Life!) - This Taipei restaurant might consider it a compliment to be called an outhouse as the Modern Toilet diner is one of chain of themed eateries appealing to largely young clientele with a toilet humor. All 100 seats in the crowded diner are made from toilet bowls, not chairs. Sink faucets and gender-coded "WC" signs appear throughout the three-storey facility, one of 12 in an island-wide chain of eateries with a toilet theme. Customers eat from mini plastic toilet bowls. They wipe their hands and mouths using toilet rolls hung above their tables, which may be glass-topped...

Italy: Koran toilet seat cover angers cleric Rome, 26 Oct. (AKI) - The imam of the Lazio town of Latina's mosque, Sheikh Yusuf on Friday heckled interior minister Giuliano Amato as he visited Rome's mosque to present the new 'charter of values' for immigrants. “There is a toilet seat cover on sale in local stores that features verses of the Koran. This is an insult to the Muslim faith that we must react to," he called out. Amato however reassured Yusuf, saying: "I would like to tell our friends from Latina that we have been informed of this matter and...

A steel and glass toilet-shaped house is under construction in Suwon, 40 kilometers south of Seoul, on 10 October. The house owned by South Korean sanitation activist Sim Jae-Duck will be open on November 11 to mark the launch of the World Toilet Association.(AFP/Jung Yeon-Je) South Korea's leading sanitaton activist Sim Jae-Duck poses at his office in Seoul, on 10 October. Sim, head of the Korea Toilet Association, is building a toilet-shaped house to mark the launch of the World Toilet Association in November.(AFP/Jung Yeon-Je) This handout computer graphic image by designer Koki-woong shows a toilet-shaped house in Suwon, 40...

Workers at the state-of-the-art factory were shocked when they were given a tour of the building and told a cubicle had been fitted for the use of Muslim employees. The staff said they are baffled at the decision because they are not aware of any Islamic workers at the base in Cambuslang, near Glasgow. Last night, management at the bakery said they had received several requests from all over the country for the exclusive facility. All their new buildings will now be fitted with the specialised toilet regardless of the number of Muslims in the workforce. But staff at the...

Electronics giant National is flush with the success of its Beauty Toilet Series, but it's now aiming to make its gadget-packed toilet seats even cleaner and more environmentally friendly, according to Spa! (9/11). With 65 percent of Japanese homes now using toilet seats that are heated and can provide a warm water bidet spray and butt cleaner, National turned its attention toward making a seat that didn't consume energy for heating when it wasn't being used. "We carried out all sorts of tests to try and come up with a toilet seat that heated up only when it was being...

BOISE, Idaho - Sen. Larry Craig is reconsidering his decision to resign after his arrest in a Minnesota airport sex sting and may still fight for his Senate seat, his spokesman said Tuesday evening. "It's not such a foregone conclusion anymore, that the only thing he could do was resign," said Sidney Smith, Craig's spokesman in Idaho's capital. "We're still preparing as if Senator Craig will resign Sept. 30, but the outcome of the legal case in Minnesota and the ethics investigation will have an impact on whether we're able to stay in the fight - and stay in the...

You don't know what could be down there, sometimes. Sometimes you do know, because some people won't flush a toilet -- sometimes three or four people in a row, apparently. There's no doubt what's down there then. But that's another problem. The problem here is that you never know what else might turn up under a toilet seat: Spiders, snakes, wasps, scorpions, possibly even tarantulas, which would come under "spiders" if they weren't as big as rats, which by the way also turn up in toilets. I've heard such rat tales. And I've heard a snake tale, too -- about...

FORT LAUDERDALE -- Mayor Jim Naugle has never been shy about voicing his beliefs. He's called some environmentalists "wackos" and said people complaining about high home prices were lazy, beer drinking "schlocks." Now the mayor has shifted his attention to a robotic toilet, saying the invention could have a special edge over a traditional restroom in preventing the "homosexual activity" that he said plagues other public restrooms. The robo-john the city might buy for $250,000 or more allows occupants to stay inside for only a short time before the door opens. Probably not enough time for "illegal sex," Naugle figures.

ARCHAEOLOGISTS FIND EARLY EXECUTIVE TOILET IN SHEFFIELD WORKS By Caroline Lewis 08/06/2007 A grinding workshop at the site. Courtesy University of Sheffield/ARCUS The Victorians were great inventors, and their progress in the field of sewage disposal was not one of their least achievements. Thomas Crapper is famed for popularising the flush lavatory in the 19th century, but not many examples of his early ‘work’ survive. So archaeologists from the University of Sheffield got quite excited when they found a toilet dating back around 150 years in an old cutlery and grinding works, believing it to be an original Crapper. Further...

Proposal Would Have Doors Swing Out, Not In BOSTON -- If Bellingham resident Douglas Flavin has his way, all public bathroom doors in Massachusetts will open outward, not inward. The Legislature's Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight reviewed the bill Wednesday. State Rep. James Vallee (D-Franklin) filed the bill on Flavin's behalf. Survey: What Do You Think? "[Think] how easy it would be to prevent germs and disease," Flavin's wife Tracy told BostonNow. "If state residents could open bathroom doors with a knee or elbow instead of a handle." Flavin also claimed it would prevent litter resulting from people...

LAGS' NEW TOILETS ARE £12K HOLES IN GROUND 22 April 2007 By Julian Gavaghan BARMY jail chiefs tore out two loos and replaced them with £12,000 holes in the ground for Muslim lags. They installed the squatover toilets - with a buried ceramic bowl - because many of the foreign inmates did not know how to use a regular toilet. But last night the bosses at Canterbury Prison in Kent were blasted for the decision. An insider said: "We thought it was a joke. I could have dug them two holes in the floor for 50p." Blair Gibbs, of the...

A tour of a space facility in the US apparently prompted Prince Philip to ask how astronauts deal with "natural functions" in space. So how exactly do they go to the toilet (or should that be the loo)? It's all to do with air flow. On earth, in the West at least, your standard toilet is a water-flush affair, that takes waste and washes it down a pipe. The lack of gravity on the shuttle and the space station mean a water-flush system is not an option. You don't need a particularly vivid imagination to see the potential problems. Instead,...

SEATTLE - Eddie Mitchell can see it -- the looks people give him. They stare. He knows they're looking at one thing: the patch on his right eye. "Kids look at it too," Eddie says. "'You look like a pirate,' " they say. They laugh, like Eddie and I did after he told that story. But when you hear the story of Eddie's right eye, there's nothing funny about it. Someone poked it out with a stick years ago, in a fight over drugs. But that's not why Eddie's wearing the patch. He's wearing it because of something that happened...

HUTCHINSON, Kan. - Toilet paper is becoming a sought after commodity at the Hutchinson Correctional Facility after officials began limiting inmates to one roll at a time to trim costs. Officials say the prison has long had a limit, but they learned recently that it hadn't been enforced. Increased enforcement began this month. Under the prison policy, inmates are restricted to four rolls of toilet paper each month or on an "as-needed" basis.

Last Updated: Monday, April 23, 2007 | 4:26 PM ET CBC News In an effort to help save the environment, U.S. singer Sheryl Crow is calling on everyone to limit the amount of toilet paper used "in any one sitting" to one square. Crow made the suggestion in her blog chronicling her recent tour of the United States on a biodiesel-powered bus to raise awareness about climate change. She and environmental activist Laurie David toured 11 university campuses to persuade students to act to help safeguard the world's environment. "I have spent the better part of this tour trying to...

TOKYO—Japan's leading toilet maker Toto is offering free repairs for 180,000 bidet toilets after wiring problems caused several to catch fire, the company said today. The electric bidet accessory of Toto's Z series caught fire in three separate incidents between March 2006 and March 2007, according to company spokeswoman Emi Tanaka. "Fortunately, nobody was using the toilets when the fire broke out and there were no injuries," Tanaka said. "The fire would have been just under your buttocks." The company will repair 180,000 toilet units manufactured between May 1996 and December 2001 for free, she said. A manufacturing defect is...

"..a new form of humiliation and contempt for the feelings of Muslims."

Michelle Conlin ride her scooter, even in the snow. ?Rain is worse,? she said. A sour odor hovered oh-so-slightly in the air, the faint tang, not wholly unpleasant, that is the mark of the home composter. Isabella Beavan, age 2, staggered around the neo-Modern furniture ? the Eames chairs, the brown velvet couch, the Lucite lamps and the steel cafe table upon which dinner was set ? her silhouette greatly amplified by her organic cotton diapers in their enormous boiled-wool, snap-front cover. A visitor avoided the bathroom because she knew she would find no toilet paper there. Meanwhile, Joseph, the...

Women Have Germiest Offices But Men's Wallets Germier Than Purses Feb 13, 2007 (WebMD) Women tend to have germier offices than men, according to a new study on office germs. The study comes from University of Arizona researchers Sheri Maxwell, BS, and Charles Gerba, PhD. It was funded by The Clorox Company. The researchers swabbed the offices of 59 women and 54 men in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oregon, and Washington, D.C. They sampled eight sites in each office: the phone, desktop, computer mouse, computer keyboard, exclamation key on the computer keyboard, pen, bottom of desk drawer,...

SINGAPORE, Feb 7 (Reuters Life!) - Think you deserve a throne? A U.S. plumbing firm has created a luxury toilet equipped with laptop computer and flat-screen TV which it plans to give away in an online sweepstake. Ohio-based Roto-Rooter says its "Pimped Out John" is designed to "fulfill all your wildest bathroom dreams." Special features include an iPod music player and speakers, an Xbox video game console, a refrigerator filled with drinks and snacks and a cycling exercise machine. "The bathroom is the perfect place for your very own throne. It shouldn't always be regarded as the room of last...

HICAGO - The gunman who went on a deadly shooting spree in a downtown high-rise law office went to the building in search of an attorney because he felt cheated over an invention, authorities said Saturday. ADVERTISEMENT Joe Jackson, 59, made at least one other attempt Friday to enter the offices of the intellectual property law firm Wood, Phillips, Katz, Clark & Mortimer, but was turned away because he didn't have an appointment, said Chicago Police Superintendent Phil Cline. The next time he returned, Jackson had a revolver, knife and hammer hidden in a manila envelope, Cline said. He forced...

NEW YORK - Even amid the flashing lights and dizzying colors of Times Square, this is one tourist magnet that's hard to miss: a huge, glowing blue sign bearing the word "Restrooms" and an arrow pointing down.In a public relations extravaganza that just begged for potty humor, a toilet-paper company rolled out a fit-for-royalty complex of new public thrones in Times Square on Monday, just in time for the busy holiday season. "You put in a bar in this place and we'd really rock," said actress Doris Roberts, best known as the cantankerous mom on television's Everybody Loves Raymond. As...

At least four million Britons suffer from debilitating toilet phobias and most are too embarrassed to seek help, the National Phobics Society (NPS) said.The NPS, which works with people affected by anxiety disorders, has classified the "secret" problem of toilet phobia as an anxiety condition in its own right and is launching a new campaign to help sufferers. Toilet phobias range from a mild dislike of public loos to obsessions where sufferers refuse to leave their homes or even undergo potentially life-saving medical examinations. The NPS said extreme sufferers are often unable to leave their homes, deny themselves fluids which...

German driver's car directs him into toilet 23 October 2006 BERLIN: A German motorist followed the command "Turn right now" from his navigation system and crashed into a small toilet hut by the side of the road - about 30 metres before the crossing he was meant to take. The overly obedient 53-year-old from Freiburg drove his sport utility vehicle off the road onto into a building site, up a stairway and into the small toilet shack, police in the eastern town of Rudolstadt said on Sunday. It caused 2000 euros ($NZ3843) worth of damage to the stairway, 100 euros...

That cat is determined to figure it out.

A lower Manhattan university is investigating how a paperback copy of the Quran from the campus library ended up in a public toilet, school officials said Tuesday. The discovery at Pace University was among three separate incidents in the past two weeks involving vandalism with racial or religious overtones. In the other two, racial slurs were scrawled on a student's car parked at a satellite campus in Westchester County and on a bathroom wall at the downtown campus. University President David A. Caputo said the incidents did not appear to be related. But he called them "deeply disturbing" and invited...

Accused Connecticut Toilet Bomber Denied Bail NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT (AP) -- A Weston man once called one of the Internet's most notorious pirates of music and movies is too dangerous to be released from prison following charges that he blew up several portable toilets, a federal judge ruled. U.S. Magistrate Holly Fitzsimmons ordered Bruce Forest to undergo a medical evaluation and rejected efforts by his family to release him on bond. Forest was charged in May with seven counts of using explosives to destroy property and seven counts of discharging a firearm in connection with the explosions from last October...

Woman gets stuck on toilet, suffers burns Thu Aug 3, 4:06 PM ET COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa - A woman who became stuck to a toilet seat in a shopping mall restroom was treated at a local hospital after paramedics used fingernail polish remover to free her, officials said. The 53-year-old Council Bluffs woman suffered burns to her skin in the incident, which happened Wednesday, officials with the Fire Department said. Investigators said they believe someone placed a cement compound on the toilet seat in the restroom at the Mall of the Bluffs. Investigators say they are treating the case as...