Ah, politics!

Ah, politics!

For Florida Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the voice on her cell phone sounded eerily familiar.

“He sounded just like Obama,” she said on Thursday, referring to President-elect Barack Obama.

Sensing she was the victim of a spoof by a South Florida radio station, she promptly disconnected the call.

Trouble was, it was Obama.

A chagrined Ros-Lehtinen told the Fox News Channel that she also hung up on Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, when he called her back to explain it really was the next president on the line.

Both Emanuel and Obama tried to convince her the call was for real.

“Guys, it’s a great prank, really,” she said she told them.

It took a subsequent call from California Democratic Rep. Howard Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, to finally convince Ros-Lehtinen to talk to Obama.

Apparently, Ros-Lehetinen was even concerned about Rep. Berman, requesting he relate a private joke between them as a sort of password.

I suppose, given the prank call to Sarah Palin in the run-up to the election, one might … but, no. Wait. I’m sorry, but while the idea of French President Nicolas Sarkozy calling a vice-presidential candidate is perhaps a bit strange, is it really so rare that an American president, or president-elect, might be calling a member of Congress?

Is this a bit of paranoia? Just … I don’t know, maybe?

And is it worrying? I mean, is this an omen of things to come? After all, at some point, Democrats and Republicans, or Congress and the White House, need to start trusting each other. Or am I just being paranoid?

Saucy: Pastaphilia Down Under

And as long as we’re on the subject of news from The Vine, just be thankful I haven’t any pictures for this. (Believe me, I am.)

A man caught near Nobbys Beach with his penis in a pasta sauce jar led police on a 20 kmh car chase, Newcastle Local Court heard yesterday.

Police drew their weapons when they suspected Keith Roy Weatherley, 46, was armed.

Instead, they found him partially clothed with his genitals in a jar, a police statement said.

Weatherley, of Promontory Way, North Arm Cove, attracted attention parked in a no-stopping zone before noon on October 26.

Police believed Weatherley was doing something with his hands in his lap and thought that he might have a weapon.

Weatherley saw the police and drove away, despite them flashing their lights.

The chase lasted five to 10 minutes, with a top speed of just 20 kmh, before Weatherley was stopped at Centenary Drive, Newcastle. He refused to leave the car.

Four officers used batons and capsicum spray to remove him.

They found a 750-millilitre jar around his penis and noted that Weatherley attempted to continue “pleasuring himself in between bouts of wrestling”.

A search of his car uncovered pornography, a home-made sex aid, women’s stockings and a Jack Russell terrier.

What? What the hell am I supposed to do with this?