Sperm import
A clinic at Albury in southern New South Wales has been given permission to advertise overseas for fully paid holidays to Australia for sperm donors.
Reproductive Medicine Albury is offering to pay Canadian men to travel to Australia for two weeks to provide samples. The clinic's Scott Giltrap says while local donors are preferable, there has been a significant drop in interest. He says impending legislation requiring donors to be listed on a register with identifying information has put people off. "The issue really was whether it was legal to import sperm from other countries, whether it was trading in sperm and basically the legislators have decided that what we may plan to do is quite reasonable," he said.
Seems that sperm is now a precious commodity!

Virtual music
Internet surfers will soon be able to listen live to the soothing sounds made by dolphins living in an estuary on the west coast of Ireland. Scientists are installing a sound system in the Shannon estuary and hope to begin streaming the sounds made by the dolphins on the Internet from September.
Shannon Dolphin and Wildlife Foundation (SDWF), the project's pioneers, hope also to establish a dial-a-dolphin phoneline allowing callers to tune in to the sea animals' conversations.
"What we are trying to do is quite innovative and challenging," said Simon Berrow, a marine biologist and manager of the project.
Eavesdropping, in this case, might be fun!
Scathing fans
British pop star George Michael has decided to close down a fans' chatroom on his official website after messages accused him of being old, overweight and lazy.
The 41-year-old, one of the most successful pop musicians of recent decades, said he had been upset to see the forum "packed full of negative comment".
Some visitors to the chatroom had accused the musician of looking past his best, and of not sufficiently promoting his album, Patience, the first new work in eight years.
In a message to fans posted earlier this week, Michael, born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou in London to Greek Cypriot parents, said he had had enough.
"I'm afraid that, having visited the forums on a regular basis over the past few months, simply to see how you guys thought the album/interviews/promotion were going, I have decided to close them down," the message read.
Painful climb down from stardom!
No offence
A couple fined for copulating on stage as 4,000 fans applauded and a band played on at a Norwegian rock festival said they would not pay.
"No, that fine is ridiculous, there'll be no fine here, there'll be a legal process and the whole shebang," Tommy Hol Ellingsen told the media.
Ellingsen, 28, and his 21-year-old girlfriend Leona Johansson were called up on stage during The Cumshots concert by the lead singer, where they had sex for almost 10 minutes as the crowd cheered and the band played on. Police later fined them 10,000 kroner ($AU2,034) each.
The on-stage sex at the Quart music festival in the southern city of Kristiansand made it to the top of the country's news headlines.
It was later discovered to be a pre-arranged public relations gimmick to raise money for the couple's environmental group, which raises money for organisations working to protect the rain forest.
The end justifies the means, or does it?
   
Obsessed with beauty
A Tasmanian woman has been jailed for three-and-a-half years for using taxpayers' money to enlarge her breasts. Sylvia Wilson, 33, defrauded the government of £200,000 and spent £40,000 of it on breast implants.
The Tasmanian Supreme Court was told she got the money by making out fraudulent claims for diesel fuel rebate while working for her partner's plant hire firm. Some of the money was used to pay off the firm's creditors but much of it ended up in Wilson's bank account and she spent it on herself.
The presiding judge told her: "Your application of a portion of the funds to your personal life is explained on the basis of your depression and as compensation for an unhappy life.
``Whatever the explanation, it is clear that your personal spending was in no way confined to necessities. To that extent, it can be said that your criminal conduct was motivated by greed, not need."
Good money put to bad (err…naughty) use!

Tailpiece

A man enters his favorite ritzy restaurant and while sitting at his regular table, he noticed a gorgeous woman sitting at a table nearby....all alone. He calls the waiter over and asks for their most expensive bottle of Merlot to be sent over to her - knowing that if she accepts it, she is his.
The waiter gets the bottle and quickly sends it over to the girl, saying this is from the gentleman. She looks at the wine and decides to send a note over to the man. The note read: "For me to accept this bottle, you need to have a Mercedes in your garage, a million dollars in the bank, and 7 inches in your pants.
The man, after reading the note, sends one of his own back to her: "Just so you know - I happen to have a Ferrari Testarosa, a BMW 850iL, and a Mercedes 560SEL in my garage; plus I have over twenty million dollars in the bank. But, not even for a woman as beautiful as you, would I cut off three inches...."