Things To Worry About On Wednesday
It’s another slow news day, but Yr Editor is fighting for you, and I’ll continue to fight for you, all the way to the convention!
Creme de la Weird
A choice NOTW evergreen: the latest story on hysteria over African sorcerers (this time, in Congo) who steal (or, alternatively, shrink) men’s stuff [which goes something like this, Yr Editor imagines: Yes, officer, he shrunk my privates; I can prove it; why, I used to have 12 inches and now, look, 3]
Civilization in Decline
Yr Editor, for one, is proud of the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, like this report showing us way ahead of the rest of the world in acknowledging our miscreants and locking their butts up (less than 5 percent of the world’s population, but we have almost 25 percent of the world’s prisoners!), and . . oh, wait, I think the point of the story is that it’s bad for America to be doing this, so, never mind . . . . . Update on University of Buffalo professor Steven Kurtz, whose 2004 indictment for possession of some dangerous stuff that was obviously, obviously, for an art-cum-political project but which the feds pretended to think was for an actual terrorist attack, was ridiculous at the time, and, sure enough, a federal judge this week threw out the indictment as “insufficient on its face” after deliberating on it for, let’s see, 40-some months.
The Human Condition Today
A trucker in Toronto reported that someone made off with his big rig and the cargo, which was 30 pallets of broccoli . . . . .Of course! Three teenage girls practicing holding their breath as members of a local synchronized swim team in Seattle, all fainted at precisely the same time and had to be pulled from the pool . . . . . Expected to plead “mentally ill, but creative”: A woman in Waterbury, Conn., stole hundreds of paintings last year but said it was for the purpose of showing God she was good enough to be saved in the Apocalypse . . . . . There’s a Catholic school in Mackay, Queensland, Australia, in the news because the hot-chicks clique is somewhat more advanced than those in U.S. schools: a specific ranking of girls from number 1 to 21 (anything above that is officially ugly) . . . . . Robert Dee, 21, a British tennis pro, won a first-round match in Spain to bring his three-year record to 1-54. (Bonus: Every loss was in straight sets)
Your Daily Loser
Here in Weird Central, it appears that Mr. Leonard Levy is facing life in prison as a habitual offender, caught this week after having broken in to a café at 4 a.m. to go through the cash drawer. The owner, who had been asleep in the back room, noticed that Levy had left his truck beside the back door with the engine running. The owner jumped in, drove it away, leaving Levy standing there with a well-founded sense of doom.
People Whose Sex Lives Are Worse Than Yours
A 51-yr-old man was arrested in Fort Pierce, Fla., charged with hitting on women in a restaurant by walking up to them, removing his dress (yep!), showing his underwear, and flashing a fistful of money. Apparently, this is not a good way to score. (Bonus: His name is Mr. Nanu Banu.) (Seriously)
Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict based on mugshot only]
Michael Stock, 19, the top-pictured man of the four alleged trespassers
Professor Music’s Weird Links
Flash! It’s dangerous to have receptive anal intercourse with a pig, but I know there are skeptics out there. It’s a detailed summary of a journal article, from http://ScienceBlogs.com
NOTW, The Blog
(1) Another set of researchers intent on putting Yr Editor out of business: A Norwegian professor studying brain activity that just precedes a "brain fart" screw-up says we actually have about 30 seconds’ warning that the screw-up may be upon us, instead of just a couple of seconds. He is therefore hopeful of finding such-and-such part of the brain responsible, sending it a message, and preventing the screw-up. Yes, that may save lives and stuff, but how is Yr Editor to put food on the table if there are no screw-ups? (2) Your Daily Jury Duty galore! The entire criminal class of Dekalb County, Ga. (hint: They’re all guilty!) [link from Fark.com] (3) From the other NOTW (London’s News of the World) (journalism not guaranteed) last week: photos from the junior version of the Fight Club, with urchins kick-boxing!
Newsrangers: Bruce Alter, Al Sayre, Roger Gulbransen, John Holsinger, Mark Neunder, Bob Pert, Allen Barnett, Emory Kimbrough, Peter Harrison
This posting to News of the Weird Daily is © 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Things To Worry About On Tuesday
The main thing to worry about, if you’re writing the Pro Edition of News of the Weird, is what to do the day after a slow weird-news day? Oh, yeah, there was the usual run of stupid people, like the home invader who got beaten up by a blind guy, and the girl who was carrying on a phone conversation while crossing the railroad tracks at 11:44 a.m. (just when the 11:44 went by), and so forth. But all that tickled Yr Editor’s fancy were: the VA official caught stone-cold lying to CBS News about veterans’ suicide attempts; the Brazilian priest trying to raise money for his church by floating up in helium-filled balloons and who may be by now in a Better Place; the German who thinks it’d be high art to exhibit somebody dying in his gallery; the poorly-reported report of the doper caught “pumping gas” into an “imaginary” car; and the update on the lawsuit against the hospital [NOTW M048, 3-9-2008] for administering the unwanted, uncalled-for rectal exam (verdict for defendants). I’m pretty sure yesterday was just a statistical blip, and I’m back in the trenches today. [NOTW Daily ombudsman Buddy: I agree that it's probably a blip, Chuck; I don't buy those rumors that the reason you can't find weird news is because you're all washed up; no way.]
Newsrangers: Elijah Christman, Aaron Geiger, Scott Loflin, Caroline Lawler
This posting to News of the Weird Daily is © 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
The main thing to worry about, if you’re writing the Pro Edition of News of the Weird, is what to do the day after a slow weird-news day? Oh, yeah, there was the usual run of stupid people, like the home invader who got beaten up by a blind guy, and the girl who was carrying on a phone conversation while crossing the railroad tracks at 11:44 a.m. (just when the 11:44 went by), and so forth. But all that tickled Yr Editor’s fancy were: the VA official caught stone-cold lying to CBS News about veterans’ suicide attempts; the Brazilian priest trying to raise money for his church by floating up in helium-filled balloons and who may be by now in a Better Place; the German who thinks it’d be high art to exhibit somebody dying in his gallery; the poorly-reported report of the doper caught “pumping gas” into an “imaginary” car; and the update on the lawsuit against the hospital [NOTW M048, 3-9-2008] for administering the unwanted, uncalled-for rectal exam (verdict for defendants). I’m pretty sure yesterday was just a statistical blip, and I’m back in the trenches today. [NOTW Daily ombudsman Buddy: I agree that it's probably a blip, Chuck; I don't buy those rumors that the reason you can't find weird news is because you're all washed up; no way.]
Newsrangers: Elijah Christman, Aaron Geiger, Scott Loflin, Caroline Lawler
This posting to News of the Weird Daily is © 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Things To Worry About On Monday
Your honor, my client is a genetic mistake, a platypus! / Doctor, my navel is ugly and I want it gone / What was that rope for? / Jonathan Lee Riches files again / And more!
Creme de la Weird
Mr. LaVern Jordan, who founded the Parkway Christian School in Houston, got busted about as completely as a tacky dirty old man can be, trying to “do something” with a mother who needs to get her underachieving daughter into his school. “Excuse me and I don’t mean to be so blunt but I am talking about f------ you,” he says to the hidden microphone. Before she decides yes or no, he suggests, maybe “we could do some t–ty play.” Oh, how embarrassing! [Here’s the follow-up story, announcing Mr. Jordan’s retirement (Bonus: It appears that Mrs. Jordan wrote KTRK-TV a comment attacking the victim [since withdrawn, though other commentors’ comments on that comment remain up], and hers wasn’t the only attack on the victim)]
Civilization in Decline
Turns out that one enabler of Warren Jeffs and the Texas/Utah polygamists over the last 10 yrs has been, the, er, Pentagon, which has paid $1.7m for aircraft parts to companies owned by a major funder of the church, and that was only one of the companies’ customers (claims of $25k to $50k a week funneled to the church, which over time would buy you a pretty tall temple and a lot of gingham).
The Human Condition Today
MSNBC summarizes extreme plastic surgeries, like “vaginal rejuvenations” [yawn!], but what about ankle liposuction, forehead implants, toe-shortening, jaw-reshaping, and umbilicoplasty (er, removal of the belly button)? . . . . . Police Blotter from just across the Sound from our favorite Kitsap County: “At 4:02 p.m., April 10, two women went into the Federal Way [Wash.] police station claiming that over the past two years, a paranormal person has been placing sensors on their bodies and . . having sexual intercourse with them” . . . . . Mayberry in Crestview: A judge issued a domestic abuse restraining order against the police chief in Crestview, Fla., meaning that if he goes out on call, he turns into Sheriff Andy Taylor (unarmed) . . . . . Patrick Kilkenny Jr., accidentally crashed his car but thank goodness had the good sense to realize that if he didn’t quickly make a tourniquet with the seat belt and . . inject some of that heroin before the cops arrived, it’d just go to waste.
People Whose Sex Lives Are Worse Than Yours
CNN anchor Richard Quest was busted for violating the curfew in NYC’s Central Park last week, with a little meth in his pocket, but the NY Post said he also had “a rope around his neck that was tied to his genitals, and a sex toy in his boot.” [Ed.: Actually, Yr Editor pleads ignorance here; the rope could be part of a better sex life than a lot of us have.]
Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict based on mugshot only]
Stewart Otto, 31, charged with counterfeiting [or, rather, charged with being a guy you wouldn’t expect to be carrying legitimate $100 bills]
NOTW Lite
Unique trial strategy if you’re defending an accused wife murderer: My client reminds me of a platypus, and a platypus that’s gettin’ screwed! . . . . . The European Union further enraged another couple of UK groups: Health and safety rules require restrictions on the incredibly, unavoidably noisy bagpipe-playing, whose decibels come in ahead of a pneumatic drill and just behind a Boeing 747 take-off, and consumer-protection requirements mean spiritual healers and psychics might actually have to prove their effectiveness.
Updates
The videogame press is reporting that the all-time litigiousness giant Jonathan Lee Riches [NOTW M053, 4-13-2008] has filed for an injunction against some new games, claiming that inmates will play them, be overcome, and beat him up and steal his “gold Jesus cross” . . . . . There was another Christian-on-Christian brawl at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem yesterday [NOTW M004, 5-6-2007]; Armenians tossed a Greek priest out, and as usual, Muslim police had to come restore order . . . . . Gene Theory Lives: Freddie Johnson, the subway frottomaniac [NOTW Daily, 4-11-2008] has, it turns out, a twin brother Teddy who does the same damned thing (only he does it better dressed and not as frequently) (Freddie’s last interview with police yielded the indignant defense of, y’know, don’t beautiful women know they’re gonna get felt up if they ride the subway?) . . . . . Follow-up on the Loser/Bus Driver on Friday [NOTW Daily, 4-18-2008]: DUI was not involved, nor senior gas/braking, nor cell-phone driving, but the other of our Four Major Contemporary Highway Fear Inducers was involved: blind obedience to GPS navigators . . . . . The ABC News Medical Unit visited the same Sneeze Fetish Forum that Yr Editor commended to you on Thursday and wrote it up pretty good, with interviews of researchers on why people fetishize certain things.
Professor Music’s Weird Links
Not today. Maybe tomorrow.™
NOTW, The Blog
Yr Editor has always envied paraphiliacs who get off on things like sneezing because they get to engage in all sorts of erotic play that haven’t been frowned against like the mainstream paraphilias have. If I got off on fashionably-dressed women smiling with braces on their teeth, I could have all sorts of orgasm-inducing “pornography” lying around without being arrested or grossing anyone out. The equation changes, of course, if a real victim is included, and even my “pornography” involves taking the legal photograph of a person who might not have wanted it taken, especially if she knew I was going to have a happy ending with it. The issue has surfaced several times in recent weeks in the F State, involving Photoshopping legally-taken pictures of women’s or children’s faces onto legal adult pornography, with the latest involving Danny Parker (who, by the way, has not yet joined the digital revolution, in that his treasures are still done with scissors and paste, in a scrapbook).
Newsrangers: Ginger Katz, Christopher Nalty, Larry Ellis Reed, Chris Douthitt, Wendy Palm, Paul Di Filippo, Mark Neunder, Pierre Langenegger
This posting to News of the Weird Daily is © 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Your honor, my client is a genetic mistake, a platypus! / Doctor, my navel is ugly and I want it gone / What was that rope for? / Jonathan Lee Riches files again / And more!
Creme de la Weird
Mr. LaVern Jordan, who founded the Parkway Christian School in Houston, got busted about as completely as a tacky dirty old man can be, trying to “do something” with a mother who needs to get her underachieving daughter into his school. “Excuse me and I don’t mean to be so blunt but I am talking about f------ you,” he says to the hidden microphone. Before she decides yes or no, he suggests, maybe “we could do some t–ty play.” Oh, how embarrassing! [Here’s the follow-up story, announcing Mr. Jordan’s retirement (Bonus: It appears that Mrs. Jordan wrote KTRK-TV a comment attacking the victim [since withdrawn, though other commentors’ comments on that comment remain up], and hers wasn’t the only attack on the victim)]
Civilization in Decline
Turns out that one enabler of Warren Jeffs and the Texas/Utah polygamists over the last 10 yrs has been, the, er, Pentagon, which has paid $1.7m for aircraft parts to companies owned by a major funder of the church, and that was only one of the companies’ customers (claims of $25k to $50k a week funneled to the church, which over time would buy you a pretty tall temple and a lot of gingham).
The Human Condition Today
MSNBC summarizes extreme plastic surgeries, like “vaginal rejuvenations” [yawn!], but what about ankle liposuction, forehead implants, toe-shortening, jaw-reshaping, and umbilicoplasty (er, removal of the belly button)? . . . . . Police Blotter from just across the Sound from our favorite Kitsap County: “At 4:02 p.m., April 10, two women went into the Federal Way [Wash.] police station claiming that over the past two years, a paranormal person has been placing sensors on their bodies and . . having sexual intercourse with them” . . . . . Mayberry in Crestview: A judge issued a domestic abuse restraining order against the police chief in Crestview, Fla., meaning that if he goes out on call, he turns into Sheriff Andy Taylor (unarmed) . . . . . Patrick Kilkenny Jr., accidentally crashed his car but thank goodness had the good sense to realize that if he didn’t quickly make a tourniquet with the seat belt and . . inject some of that heroin before the cops arrived, it’d just go to waste.
People Whose Sex Lives Are Worse Than Yours
CNN anchor Richard Quest was busted for violating the curfew in NYC’s Central Park last week, with a little meth in his pocket, but the NY Post said he also had “a rope around his neck that was tied to his genitals, and a sex toy in his boot.” [Ed.: Actually, Yr Editor pleads ignorance here; the rope could be part of a better sex life than a lot of us have.]
Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict based on mugshot only]
Stewart Otto, 31, charged with counterfeiting [or, rather, charged with being a guy you wouldn’t expect to be carrying legitimate $100 bills]
NOTW Lite
Unique trial strategy if you’re defending an accused wife murderer: My client reminds me of a platypus, and a platypus that’s gettin’ screwed! . . . . . The European Union further enraged another couple of UK groups: Health and safety rules require restrictions on the incredibly, unavoidably noisy bagpipe-playing, whose decibels come in ahead of a pneumatic drill and just behind a Boeing 747 take-off, and consumer-protection requirements mean spiritual healers and psychics might actually have to prove their effectiveness.
Updates
The videogame press is reporting that the all-time litigiousness giant Jonathan Lee Riches [NOTW M053, 4-13-2008] has filed for an injunction against some new games, claiming that inmates will play them, be overcome, and beat him up and steal his “gold Jesus cross” . . . . . There was another Christian-on-Christian brawl at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem yesterday [NOTW M004, 5-6-2007]; Armenians tossed a Greek priest out, and as usual, Muslim police had to come restore order . . . . . Gene Theory Lives: Freddie Johnson, the subway frottomaniac [NOTW Daily, 4-11-2008] has, it turns out, a twin brother Teddy who does the same damned thing (only he does it better dressed and not as frequently) (Freddie’s last interview with police yielded the indignant defense of, y’know, don’t beautiful women know they’re gonna get felt up if they ride the subway?) . . . . . Follow-up on the Loser/Bus Driver on Friday [NOTW Daily, 4-18-2008]: DUI was not involved, nor senior gas/braking, nor cell-phone driving, but the other of our Four Major Contemporary Highway Fear Inducers was involved: blind obedience to GPS navigators . . . . . The ABC News Medical Unit visited the same Sneeze Fetish Forum that Yr Editor commended to you on Thursday and wrote it up pretty good, with interviews of researchers on why people fetishize certain things.
Professor Music’s Weird Links
Not today. Maybe tomorrow.™
NOTW, The Blog
Yr Editor has always envied paraphiliacs who get off on things like sneezing because they get to engage in all sorts of erotic play that haven’t been frowned against like the mainstream paraphilias have. If I got off on fashionably-dressed women smiling with braces on their teeth, I could have all sorts of orgasm-inducing “pornography” lying around without being arrested or grossing anyone out. The equation changes, of course, if a real victim is included, and even my “pornography” involves taking the legal photograph of a person who might not have wanted it taken, especially if she knew I was going to have a happy ending with it. The issue has surfaced several times in recent weeks in the F State, involving Photoshopping legally-taken pictures of women’s or children’s faces onto legal adult pornography, with the latest involving Danny Parker (who, by the way, has not yet joined the digital revolution, in that his treasures are still done with scissors and paste, in a scrapbook).
Newsrangers: Ginger Katz, Christopher Nalty, Larry Ellis Reed, Chris Douthitt, Wendy Palm, Paul Di Filippo, Mark Neunder, Pierre Langenegger
This posting to News of the Weird Daily is © 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Things To Worry About On Friday
The main thing that Yr Editor is worrying about is whether he can get back to a normal work day while swapping out computers; you’ll know by Monday
Creme de la Weird
In Baghdad, where “traffic law enforcement” should be devoted to stopping car bombs and preventing street-corner kidnaping, the police are starting to enforce, er, seat-belt laws. (Seriously)
Civilization in Decline
Researchers in Mexico City found that Mexicans paid $2.5B in bribes last yr, at a rate of nearly 2 for every living person, but also that bribery is not that big a deal, though the gov’t’s trying to convince people to report it (Bonus: One of the top bribery categories is, ya have to bribe gov’t workers to take your crime reports) . . . . . The feds swooped down on the Boston Fire Dept. this week, investigating corruption in the filing of disability claims; worst case: 102 people filed for career-ending disabilities precisely while they had temp jobs filling in for absent workers in higher pay grades, i.e., their lifetime disability pay would be at the higher grade . . . . . Now, an 8th-grader doing a science-fair project has proven that “Chinese water torture” (drip-drip-drip) works, even in a play-like setting, in that it jacks up the body’s fear mechanisms.
The Human Condition Today
Aliza Shvarts advanced our understanding of “performance art” yesterday by punking almost the entire MSM and blog communities with a claim in Yale Daily News that she inseminated herself repeatedly, then induced abortions, so she’d have some sheets of artwork for all of us to stand around contemplating, but then, hours later, she admitted, Naah, she only pretended to have done that, i.e., it was performance art! [Upcoming in NOTW M055, 4-27-2008, the performance art of Matthew Feeney [CORRECTION: Keeney], one of whose pieces is that he stands on the street and waits for someone to come ask him WTF he’s doing, whereupon he’ll say he’s doing performance art] . . . . . Age 18 is much too young to be calling yourself “the master thief” around Madison, Wis., unless you can deliver, and Garrett Haselton obviously can’t (although his pre-crime research instincts are good) (Nerd!).
Your Daily Loser
Brad the Bus Driver, in Seattle on Wednesday, chauffeuring a charter that was 11 ft, 8 inches high, underneath an overpass that’s 9 ft, 0 inches high [with photos]
Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict based on mugshot only]
Daniel Ramirez, 54, who might have accidentally left nine baggies of meth (and his driver’s license) on a counter at Wal-Mart when buying something
NOTW Lite
Wrong place, wrong time: Richard Szymanski, using the john in his son’s house, was slammed against a shower wall when the toilet exploded.
Professor Music’s Weird Links
Five links to journal articles about the consequences when teeth meet men’s genitalia
Newsrangers: Eric Gibbs, Emory Kimbrough, Peter Steele, Jan Wolitzky
This posting to News of the Weird Daily is © 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
The main thing that Yr Editor is worrying about is whether he can get back to a normal work day while swapping out computers; you’ll know by Monday
Creme de la Weird
In Baghdad, where “traffic law enforcement” should be devoted to stopping car bombs and preventing street-corner kidnaping, the police are starting to enforce, er, seat-belt laws. (Seriously)
Civilization in Decline
Researchers in Mexico City found that Mexicans paid $2.5B in bribes last yr, at a rate of nearly 2 for every living person, but also that bribery is not that big a deal, though the gov’t’s trying to convince people to report it (Bonus: One of the top bribery categories is, ya have to bribe gov’t workers to take your crime reports) . . . . . The feds swooped down on the Boston Fire Dept. this week, investigating corruption in the filing of disability claims; worst case: 102 people filed for career-ending disabilities precisely while they had temp jobs filling in for absent workers in higher pay grades, i.e., their lifetime disability pay would be at the higher grade . . . . . Now, an 8th-grader doing a science-fair project has proven that “Chinese water torture” (drip-drip-drip) works, even in a play-like setting, in that it jacks up the body’s fear mechanisms.
The Human Condition Today
Aliza Shvarts advanced our understanding of “performance art” yesterday by punking almost the entire MSM and blog communities with a claim in Yale Daily News that she inseminated herself repeatedly, then induced abortions, so she’d have some sheets of artwork for all of us to stand around contemplating, but then, hours later, she admitted, Naah, she only pretended to have done that, i.e., it was performance art! [Upcoming in NOTW M055, 4-27-2008, the performance art of Matthew Feeney [CORRECTION: Keeney], one of whose pieces is that he stands on the street and waits for someone to come ask him WTF he’s doing, whereupon he’ll say he’s doing performance art] . . . . . Age 18 is much too young to be calling yourself “the master thief” around Madison, Wis., unless you can deliver, and Garrett Haselton obviously can’t (although his pre-crime research instincts are good) (Nerd!).
Your Daily Loser
Brad the Bus Driver, in Seattle on Wednesday, chauffeuring a charter that was 11 ft, 8 inches high, underneath an overpass that’s 9 ft, 0 inches high [with photos]
Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict based on mugshot only]
Daniel Ramirez, 54, who might have accidentally left nine baggies of meth (and his driver’s license) on a counter at Wal-Mart when buying something
NOTW Lite
Wrong place, wrong time: Richard Szymanski, using the john in his son’s house, was slammed against a shower wall when the toilet exploded.
Professor Music’s Weird Links
Five links to journal articles about the consequences when teeth meet men’s genitalia
Newsrangers: Eric Gibbs, Emory Kimbrough, Peter Steele, Jan Wolitzky
This posting to News of the Weird Daily is © 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Things To Worry About On Thursday
The happiest person in Singapore / Girl scouts against cookies / The ever-dangerous Stopped Escalator / Stalked by a midget robber / And more!
Creme de la Weird
Another decrying of the YouTube-ization Culture: The Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu City, Philippines, said it most certainly did not approve of the six doctors and their helpers, who laughed continuously at a patient during surgery. And it sure as hell did not approve putting said video on YouTube. Highly unprofessional, said Medical Center officials, even if the surgery did involve removal of a perfume canister from the patient’s rectum.
Civilization in Decline
So, what would happen if a state like California cross-checked its licensed day-cares with its sex offenders’ residences? Answer: Uh, 49 matches . . . . . So few of y’all readers are volunteering to pick up that M-16 and go help establish freedom in Iraq that people like James Raymond have to be re-called into service, even though Raymond had been discharged in 2004 with no hearing at all in one ear and a 10 percent-disability bad knee . . . . . Going Too Far: Two Ann Arbor, Mich., girl scouts boycotted the cookie drive this yr because the harvesting of transfat-less palm oil to make them harms the habitats of orangutans.
The Human Condition Today
According to polite news reports on the death of the father who accidentally plunged two stories after a New York Mets game, in front of his two young daughters, it’s exceeding dangerous to walk down a stopped escalator because you never know if, like this guy, you’ll be mysteriously hurled over the side (or, on the other hand, alcohol might have been involved, or at least showing off) . . . . . A private conference in grimness-intensive Singapore will soon select the city’s “happiest person” [a little like trying to find the most effeminate member of the Pittsburgh Steelers] . . . . . David Whyte, 42, was convicted of telephoning brides (from newspaper wedding announcements) and calling them all sorts of vile names (Whyte’s lawyer: My client had never been in a serious relationship, himself) [Photographic proof of that].
Your Daily Loser
From the Police Blotter of the Daily Record (Hackensack, N.J.) [scroll down to Rockaway listings]: “Louis Rolstad, 46, of Wharton , , , was renting a room and made claims that a midget was hiding in the curtains of his room trying to steal his money.”
People Whose Sex Lives Are Worse Than Yours
A 59-yr-old registered sex offender was arrested in West Valley City, Utah, after allegedly standing on his apartment balcony taking pictures of himself dressed in women’s clothing, with two underage kids nearby, watching.
Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict based on mugshot only]
Carla Scharbach, 46, who might have punched school officials who thought she was too drunk to take her own daughter home from kindergarten
NOTW Lite
Copy editor working without supervision (describing softball pitcher Tristan Dykes’s dominating performance): “Eastern’s Dykes plugs up Lady Zebras’ offense.”
Updates
Well, now, NASA is denying that it ever agreed with the calculations of the German 13-yr-old, as reported here yesterday. In fact, NASA says its original calculation was good and that we’re likely not facing doom 15 yrs from now, after all.
Professor Music’s Weird Links
http://www.SneezeFetishForum.org/ (‘nuff said)
Newsrangers: Tim Farley, Kathryn Wood, Kurt Knochel, Paul Blumstein, Grant Crawford
This posting to News of the Weird Daily is © 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
The happiest person in Singapore / Girl scouts against cookies / The ever-dangerous Stopped Escalator / Stalked by a midget robber / And more!
Creme de la Weird
Another decrying of the YouTube-ization Culture: The Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu City, Philippines, said it most certainly did not approve of the six doctors and their helpers, who laughed continuously at a patient during surgery. And it sure as hell did not approve putting said video on YouTube. Highly unprofessional, said Medical Center officials, even if the surgery did involve removal of a perfume canister from the patient’s rectum.
Civilization in Decline
So, what would happen if a state like California cross-checked its licensed day-cares with its sex offenders’ residences? Answer: Uh, 49 matches . . . . . So few of y’all readers are volunteering to pick up that M-16 and go help establish freedom in Iraq that people like James Raymond have to be re-called into service, even though Raymond had been discharged in 2004 with no hearing at all in one ear and a 10 percent-disability bad knee . . . . . Going Too Far: Two Ann Arbor, Mich., girl scouts boycotted the cookie drive this yr because the harvesting of transfat-less palm oil to make them harms the habitats of orangutans.
The Human Condition Today
According to polite news reports on the death of the father who accidentally plunged two stories after a New York Mets game, in front of his two young daughters, it’s exceeding dangerous to walk down a stopped escalator because you never know if, like this guy, you’ll be mysteriously hurled over the side (or, on the other hand, alcohol might have been involved, or at least showing off) . . . . . A private conference in grimness-intensive Singapore will soon select the city’s “happiest person” [a little like trying to find the most effeminate member of the Pittsburgh Steelers] . . . . . David Whyte, 42, was convicted of telephoning brides (from newspaper wedding announcements) and calling them all sorts of vile names (Whyte’s lawyer: My client had never been in a serious relationship, himself) [Photographic proof of that].
Your Daily Loser
From the Police Blotter of the Daily Record (Hackensack, N.J.) [scroll down to Rockaway listings]: “Louis Rolstad, 46, of Wharton , , , was renting a room and made claims that a midget was hiding in the curtains of his room trying to steal his money.”
People Whose Sex Lives Are Worse Than Yours
A 59-yr-old registered sex offender was arrested in West Valley City, Utah, after allegedly standing on his apartment balcony taking pictures of himself dressed in women’s clothing, with two underage kids nearby, watching.
Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict based on mugshot only]
Carla Scharbach, 46, who might have punched school officials who thought she was too drunk to take her own daughter home from kindergarten
NOTW Lite
Copy editor working without supervision (describing softball pitcher Tristan Dykes’s dominating performance): “Eastern’s Dykes plugs up Lady Zebras’ offense.”
Updates
Well, now, NASA is denying that it ever agreed with the calculations of the German 13-yr-old, as reported here yesterday. In fact, NASA says its original calculation was good and that we’re likely not facing doom 15 yrs from now, after all.
Professor Music’s Weird Links
http://www.SneezeFetishForum.org/ (‘nuff said)
Newsrangers: Tim Farley, Kathryn Wood, Kurt Knochel, Paul Blumstein, Grant Crawford
This posting to News of the Weird Daily is © 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Things To Worry About On Wednesday
Britain’s mad tunneler gets his comeuppance / More kids in dryers / The 8-yr-old divorcee / NASA flunks arithmetic / And more!
Creme de la Weird
Update from NOTW 969, 9-3-2006:
Civilization in Decline
Economic ministers from poorer countries, meeting in Washington, trashed effete U.S. tree-huggers for human-rights violations, i.e., for diverting so much corn and sugar cane into energy substitutes, thus driving up the world prices for the staples that poor people subsist on . . . . . An 8-yr-old girl heroically marched into a courtroom in Sana’a, Yemen, and demanded a divorce from the 30-yr-old man who had married her on parental contract, and the judge said yes, but contract marriages are nonetheless legal . . . . . It’s not rocket science, but still, NASA shouldn’t have screwed up the probability that Earth will take a major asteroid hit in the year 2029, especially since a 13-yr-old German boy is the one who discovered they were off by a multiple of 100 [UPDATE: No, maybe Agence France-Presse got the story wrong, and NASA was correct] . . . . . Yr Editor’s home county was exposed yesterday as having treated work-release inmates, for 15 yrs now, as regular gov’t employees, meaning a few actually acquired pension benefits while working off their sentences (and the F State legislature naturally went nuts) . . . . . Amnesty Int’l had its annual cow deploring the number of executions in the world the year before, with China number one (and growing, i.e., number one with a bullet), Iran second, and the U.S. slipping to 5th. [Ed.: But America executed 42 people last year, out of 305 million; to conclude that only one of every 7.2 million of us is a worthless t*rd seems charmingly short-sighted.]
The Human Condition Today
Again [see also NOTW Daily, 3-7-2008], parents use the clothes dryer as a substitute for getting their kids, y’know, a swing set . . . . . A Salt Lake City woman, pretending to be a man, was arrested for using someone else’s urine to try to pass a drug test (Bonus: It was the urine of a 5-yr-old boy) (Double Bonus: The kid tested positive for cocaine) . . . . . Instant karma: Willie Thomas III fled in a stolen U-Haul truck, but then jumped out, and somehow the truck did a Phil Leotardo on him . . . . . Cross-dresser Jeremy McIntosh, 27, who was turned down for a job at the Intimate Ideas lingerie store, did the manly thing and smashed his Geo Tracker into the store, 7 times (Bonus: For his day in court, he showed up in blue Capri pants, red flip flops, a flowery blouse, and matching bra) . . . . . The Unavoidable Human Condition: Al-Qaeda documents the U.S. has finally, finally processed from Afghanistan and Iraq, most dated from 9-11 and before, are said by a Los Angeles Times reporter to describe an organization rife with bureaucratic rules and petty feuds.
People Whose Sex Lives Are Worse Than Yours
Scott Fuchs, 41, got off on a technicality in Port Orchard, Wash., but still, it looks like his thing was making tapes through holes in restroom walls at a golf driving range.
Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict based on mugshot only]
Speaking of restrooms, Edward Fladung III, 44, has been charged with groping a man against his will in a rest room.
Professor Music’s Weird Links
This made the rounds on the ‘net last week, but maybe you didn’t see it. Or maybe you saw it and wished you hadn’t. Or maybe you saw it and haven’t been able to get it out of your mind since. [Ed.: Do not write Yr Editor for an explanation.]
NOTW, The Blog
(1) Erroror: In this week’s NOTW M053, 4-13-2008, I wrote that the scrapbooking critics had called the tarnished Hall of Famer “labelwhore,” but on closer reading, thanks to the prodding of a close-reader, I see that “labelwhore” is her own User Name, not a pejorative. Ouch. (2) A probably very nice lady from Wisconsin wrote me a note politely backing Mr. Leo Hill, who is the 81-yr-old in NOTW this week who made a big deal about counting the toilet paper sheets. She said her experience is the same as Leo’s, i.e., the TP companies are crooks! Readers should therefore know that there is more to this toilet-paper-gate than meets the eye. There are people like this lady who are mad as hell and won’t take it anymore! Companies are warned! (3) For those following Yr Editor’s equipment soap opera, this post is being written on the main machine, which Yr Editor managed to coax “on” after 429 pushes of the “on” button.[*] It appears that the problem lies inside the mysterious “power supply” box. Yr Editor has a replacement machine en route and will not turn this one off until it arrives. [* Just in the nick of time: An iron rule is that one should not perform the same futile act, and expect a different result, more than 430 times.]
Newsrangers: Mark Neunder, Roger Gulbransen, Matt Mirapaul, Leo Steffens, Gary Davidson, Amy Saxton, Jerry Whittle
This posting to News of the Weird Daily is © 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Britain’s mad tunneler gets his comeuppance / More kids in dryers / The 8-yr-old divorcee / NASA flunks arithmetic / And more!
Creme de la Weird
Update from NOTW 969, 9-3-2006:
In 2001, News of the Weird mentioned William Lyttle, then age 71, of North London, England, who was notorious for obsessively digging tunnels underneath his 20-room home. That year, he had dug past the property line for the first time and created a 15-foot hole in the street. Earlier in 2006, Lyttle was temporarily evicted when his tunneling threatened the integrity of the entire street, and building inspectors feared that his accumulation of junk would cause the house itself to sink into the ground already weakened by 40 years worth of burrowing. Engineers are considering cementing in all the tunnels.This week, the judge decided the damage was about £293,000 ($579,000), but apparently Lyttle did not go quietly, vigorously contesting in court his right to dig because, uh, because . . well, he never really got around to that.
Civilization in Decline
Economic ministers from poorer countries, meeting in Washington, trashed effete U.S. tree-huggers for human-rights violations, i.e., for diverting so much corn and sugar cane into energy substitutes, thus driving up the world prices for the staples that poor people subsist on . . . . . An 8-yr-old girl heroically marched into a courtroom in Sana’a, Yemen, and demanded a divorce from the 30-yr-old man who had married her on parental contract, and the judge said yes, but contract marriages are nonetheless legal . . . . . It’s not rocket science, but still, NASA shouldn’t have screwed up the probability that Earth will take a major asteroid hit in the year 2029, especially since a 13-yr-old German boy is the one who discovered they were off by a multiple of 100 [UPDATE: No, maybe Agence France-Presse got the story wrong, and NASA was correct] . . . . . Yr Editor’s home county was exposed yesterday as having treated work-release inmates, for 15 yrs now, as regular gov’t employees, meaning a few actually acquired pension benefits while working off their sentences (and the F State legislature naturally went nuts) . . . . . Amnesty Int’l had its annual cow deploring the number of executions in the world the year before, with China number one (and growing, i.e., number one with a bullet), Iran second, and the U.S. slipping to 5th. [Ed.: But America executed 42 people last year, out of 305 million; to conclude that only one of every 7.2 million of us is a worthless t*rd seems charmingly short-sighted.]
The Human Condition Today
Again [see also NOTW Daily, 3-7-2008], parents use the clothes dryer as a substitute for getting their kids, y’know, a swing set . . . . . A Salt Lake City woman, pretending to be a man, was arrested for using someone else’s urine to try to pass a drug test (Bonus: It was the urine of a 5-yr-old boy) (Double Bonus: The kid tested positive for cocaine) . . . . . Instant karma: Willie Thomas III fled in a stolen U-Haul truck, but then jumped out, and somehow the truck did a Phil Leotardo on him . . . . . Cross-dresser Jeremy McIntosh, 27, who was turned down for a job at the Intimate Ideas lingerie store, did the manly thing and smashed his Geo Tracker into the store, 7 times (Bonus: For his day in court, he showed up in blue Capri pants, red flip flops, a flowery blouse, and matching bra) . . . . . The Unavoidable Human Condition: Al-Qaeda documents the U.S. has finally, finally processed from Afghanistan and Iraq, most dated from 9-11 and before, are said by a Los Angeles Times reporter to describe an organization rife with bureaucratic rules and petty feuds.
People Whose Sex Lives Are Worse Than Yours
Scott Fuchs, 41, got off on a technicality in Port Orchard, Wash., but still, it looks like his thing was making tapes through holes in restroom walls at a golf driving range.
Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict based on mugshot only]
Speaking of restrooms, Edward Fladung III, 44, has been charged with groping a man against his will in a rest room.
Professor Music’s Weird Links
This made the rounds on the ‘net last week, but maybe you didn’t see it. Or maybe you saw it and wished you hadn’t. Or maybe you saw it and haven’t been able to get it out of your mind since. [Ed.: Do not write Yr Editor for an explanation.]
NOTW, The Blog
(1) Erroror: In this week’s NOTW M053, 4-13-2008, I wrote that the scrapbooking critics had called the tarnished Hall of Famer “labelwhore,” but on closer reading, thanks to the prodding of a close-reader, I see that “labelwhore” is her own User Name, not a pejorative. Ouch. (2) A probably very nice lady from Wisconsin wrote me a note politely backing Mr. Leo Hill, who is the 81-yr-old in NOTW this week who made a big deal about counting the toilet paper sheets. She said her experience is the same as Leo’s, i.e., the TP companies are crooks! Readers should therefore know that there is more to this toilet-paper-gate than meets the eye. There are people like this lady who are mad as hell and won’t take it anymore! Companies are warned! (3) For those following Yr Editor’s equipment soap opera, this post is being written on the main machine, which Yr Editor managed to coax “on” after 429 pushes of the “on” button.[*] It appears that the problem lies inside the mysterious “power supply” box. Yr Editor has a replacement machine en route and will not turn this one off until it arrives. [* Just in the nick of time: An iron rule is that one should not perform the same futile act, and expect a different result, more than 430 times.]
Newsrangers: Mark Neunder, Roger Gulbransen, Matt Mirapaul, Leo Steffens, Gary Davidson, Amy Saxton, Jerry Whittle
This posting to News of the Weird Daily is © 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Things to Worry About on Tuesday
Little Andrew, the Nose / America’s clumsiest judge / Netherlands’s solution to unemployment: reincarnation / Padded bras for little girls / And more!
Creme de la Weird
Update, from NOTW M035, 12-9-2007:
Civilization in Decline
It’s the Age of the New Age: (1) In Maastricht, Netherlands, the local gov’t, trying out a new strategy for the long-term unemployed, paid the equivalent of almost $1,500 to send one woman on a 10-week psychotherapy session to visit her “past lives,” to help enlighten her as to why she can’t get a job. [Supply own punch line] (2) At Mab Lane Primary school in Liverpool, they claim great success in sending kids (and their parents, if they wish) to twice-weekly shoulder/back-massage sessions, which they promise will “boost their emotional well-being, self-esteem, and working on [sic] giving the children the ‘I Can’ factor.” (3) Britain’s Tesco supermarket (which last yr sold a pole-dancing kit for little girls) is back with padded bras for girls as young as 7 (“very low bridge connecting the cups,” “the shape and position is lower to expose the breast tissue,” says a critic). (4) Switzerland’s federal Ethics Committee on non-human Gene Technology condemned the “arbitrary” killing of plants.
The Human Condition Today
Brooklyn, N.Y., judge Jack Battaglia said he’s about to file a $1m lawsuit against the city (and the cleaning lady in his building) because he slipped on a wet floor and busted his knee last November.
Your Daily Loser
Australian Ahmed Jalloul, 20, was convicted of robbing a post office in Adelaide (done in by the fact that he had nervously hurled on the floor during the job, thus leaving his DNA behind).
Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict based on mugshot only]
Danny Shelton, 55, who might have had a video on his computer of a young relative undressing
NOTW Lite
Andrew Dahl, 13, Pasco, Wash., wants the Guinness Book record: 213 balloons inflated in one hour, blown up without benefit of his mouth, just his nose . . . . . Just added to the Orlando theme parks (for your next visit): Colon-land, a 20-ft-long replica of the human you-know-what, sponsored by a cancer research foundation . . . . . A couple dozen German dope smokers got punked by a dealer who had added 10 percent lead to the product, (a) increasing the weight, (b) endangering the smokers’ lives, and most important, c) ruining their innocence.
Updates
The Washington Post’s crack weird-news reporter Karl Vick paid a visit to Provo, Utah, to check out that waterboarding lawsuit [NOTW Daily, 2-29-2008], where the company was trying to pressure its sales force to sell, sell, sell, and in a “team-building” exercise, almost drowned Chad Hudgens. “I don’t know if this would even be an issue if it weren’t for Guantanamo bay,” said the company’s lawyer. From what we know so far, Hudgens took it better than Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Professor Music’s Weird Links
Not today. Maybe tomorrow.™
NOTW, The Blog
(1) Erroror: “Stephenson,” Tex., in yesterday’s Creme [4-14-2008], does not exist; “Stephenville,” Tex., though, now, there’s a town for ya. (2) Admin. Note: Yr Editor’s regular computer, with all the unanswered recent e-mail on it and with the only current file of Prof. Music’s goodies, is inaccessible until I figure out how to change the battery so I can turn it on again, but I should figure that out in a week or two. [It’s a desktop; I have to find the damned battery first.]
Newsrangers: Bryce Jackson, Jamie Anderson, George Ronczy, Stephen Taylor
This posting to News of the Weird Daily is © 2007 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Little Andrew, the Nose / America’s clumsiest judge / Netherlands’s solution to unemployment: reincarnation / Padded bras for little girls / And more!
Creme de la Weird
Update, from NOTW M035, 12-9-2007:
An Indonesian fisherman, Dede, age 35, is in reasonably good health except that his hands and feet resemble something out of the “Alien” movie series, with huge root-like growths that render his arms and legs useless, according to a November Discovery Channel TV program, “Half Man, Half Tree,” reported on by London’s Daily Telegraph. Dermatologist Anthony Gaspari of the University of Maryland flew to Indonesia and determined that Dede’s condition was caused by a genetic inability to restrain the growth of warts (“cutaneous horns”) produced by the human papilloma virus. Gaspari prescribed a regimen of vitamin A, which he said should reduce the size of the warts enough so that, with surgery, Dede could eventually use his hands again.The Daily Telegraph reports back this week that Dede is improving, with about 4 lbs. of warts surgically removed from his legs and feet so far and a few more from his hands, allowing him to indulge his sudoko habit, and there is a range of before-and-after photos [with, as usual, Yr Editor’s Not Safe for Stomachs warning].
Civilization in Decline
It’s the Age of the New Age: (1) In Maastricht, Netherlands, the local gov’t, trying out a new strategy for the long-term unemployed, paid the equivalent of almost $1,500 to send one woman on a 10-week psychotherapy session to visit her “past lives,” to help enlighten her as to why she can’t get a job. [Supply own punch line] (2) At Mab Lane Primary school in Liverpool, they claim great success in sending kids (and their parents, if they wish) to twice-weekly shoulder/back-massage sessions, which they promise will “boost their emotional well-being, self-esteem, and working on [sic] giving the children the ‘I Can’ factor.” (3) Britain’s Tesco supermarket (which last yr sold a pole-dancing kit for little girls) is back with padded bras for girls as young as 7 (“very low bridge connecting the cups,” “the shape and position is lower to expose the breast tissue,” says a critic). (4) Switzerland’s federal Ethics Committee on non-human Gene Technology condemned the “arbitrary” killing of plants.
The Human Condition Today
Brooklyn, N.Y., judge Jack Battaglia said he’s about to file a $1m lawsuit against the city (and the cleaning lady in his building) because he slipped on a wet floor and busted his knee last November.
Your Daily Loser
Australian Ahmed Jalloul, 20, was convicted of robbing a post office in Adelaide (done in by the fact that he had nervously hurled on the floor during the job, thus leaving his DNA behind).
Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict based on mugshot only]
Danny Shelton, 55, who might have had a video on his computer of a young relative undressing
NOTW Lite
Andrew Dahl, 13, Pasco, Wash., wants the Guinness Book record: 213 balloons inflated in one hour, blown up without benefit of his mouth, just his nose . . . . . Just added to the Orlando theme parks (for your next visit): Colon-land, a 20-ft-long replica of the human you-know-what, sponsored by a cancer research foundation . . . . . A couple dozen German dope smokers got punked by a dealer who had added 10 percent lead to the product, (a) increasing the weight, (b) endangering the smokers’ lives, and most important, c) ruining their innocence.
Updates
The Washington Post’s crack weird-news reporter Karl Vick paid a visit to Provo, Utah, to check out that waterboarding lawsuit [NOTW Daily, 2-29-2008], where the company was trying to pressure its sales force to sell, sell, sell, and in a “team-building” exercise, almost drowned Chad Hudgens. “I don’t know if this would even be an issue if it weren’t for Guantanamo bay,” said the company’s lawyer. From what we know so far, Hudgens took it better than Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Professor Music’s Weird Links
Not today. Maybe tomorrow.™
NOTW, The Blog
(1) Erroror: “Stephenson,” Tex., in yesterday’s Creme [4-14-2008], does not exist; “Stephenville,” Tex., though, now, there’s a town for ya. (2) Admin. Note: Yr Editor’s regular computer, with all the unanswered recent e-mail on it and with the only current file of Prof. Music’s goodies, is inaccessible until I figure out how to change the battery so I can turn it on again, but I should figure that out in a week or two. [It’s a desktop; I have to find the damned battery first.]
Newsrangers: Bryce Jackson, Jamie Anderson, George Ronczy, Stephen Taylor
This posting to News of the Weird Daily is © 2007 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Things To Worry About On Monday
UK to take it easy on pirates / The strip-club owners’ go-to intellectual / Damn those complicated flagpoles / Milwaukee’s jailhouse alderman leaves “office” / And more!
Creme de la Weird
At the 20th Ozark UFO Conference over the weekend, a warning was issued, from reps of the “143,999" alien races, offering salvation from the imminent black hole that Earth’s solar system will become at some point over the next four years (no matter who wins the presidency!), with the only requirements, apparently, that you be “willing” and “ready” to be saved, i.e., nothing about Jesus. Author Don Ray Walton said this information came directly to him when he was abducted briefly just outside of Stephenson, Tex., [CORRECTION: Stephenville] earlier this year, and that dad-gummed new information made him have to go back and revise one of his chapters.
Civilization in Decline
Britain’s Foreign Office has advised the Royal Navy to go easy on pirates, like the ones off the coast of Somalia, because, one, we don’t want to deprive them of their “human rights,” and two, if you capture them, they might claim asylum . . . . . Recession, what recession? 71 NYC apartments selling for $10M or more have already closed out this yr, versus 17 during all of last yr, and according to this Guardian report, companies selling customized baby strollers are still getting $3,500 for their buggies . . . . . The Catholic Archdiocese of Denver has agreed with a man who was fondled (only fondled) by a priest on two occasions, when he was 16 or 17, that a fair price for those feel-ups is $150,000 each.
The Human Condition Today
A Birmingham (Ala.) News columnist said Mayor Langford’s new anti-crime strategy involves 2,000 burlap bags, to somehow shame would-be criminals (provided the criminals understand the Biblical imagery) . . . . . Once again, U. of Maryland anthropologist Dr. Judith Hanna comes to the rescue of strip clubs, testifying that stripping and lap-dancing are serious artistic performances for such-and-such reasons based on such-and-such research . . . . . A 50-yr-old Southbury, Conn., man was killed in a mid-afternoon one-car collision as he was backing out of his driveway (Seriously) . . . . . The executive director of the TIZA Academy, a Minnesota charter school run by an Islamic organization, said he really wants to be a good American citizen and that the only reason he never flew the U.S. flag out front was because he couldn't figure out how to do that flagpole thingy . . . . . The lovely Kira Kashie Brooks’s aspiring pageant career (as well as her electability as governor of the F State) is on hold following her sentencing for charging the pageant entrance fee (plus some diva supplies) to her gov’t-job credit card (Bonus: the “gov’t job” she had was with the police department).
Your Daily Loser
Cyheam Forney, 31, Melville, N.Y., managed to pump up an illegal left turn citation into a felony by offering as bail a counterfeit $50 bill.
Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict based on mugshot only]
Larry Smallwood, 52, and Brenda Ivey, 46, charged with elderly abuse, neglecting Larry’s mother (she died)
NOTW Lite
The criminal suspect most in need of a name change: Austin, Tex., alleged parole-violator, 24-yr-old Don Henry Truevillain [may need to scroll down, to SWAT story, 4-13-2008; Note: Name also spelled "Truevillian" in the story] . . . . . Italy votes today for lots of offices, but we’ll be watching the Rome city council elections, where porn star Milly D’Abbraccio has been putting her background in voters’ faces . . . . . Brilliant: An F-state sheriff’s deputy concluded that the graffiti at an elementary school, of stick figures with schlongs (i.e., maximum age of artist is, like, 8), appeared to be just regular graffiti “and not gang-related.”
Updates
Milwaukee Alderman Michael McGee [NOTW Daily, 2-22-2008] lost his seat in the April 1 election, and today’s his last day in office, and by “in office,” I mean “in Waukesha County Jail,” where he’s been since the middle of last year, drawing his paycheck (“innocent until proven guilty,” you know), and has thus cashed out $67k in jail pay. His trials (state and federal) start next month on shaking down businesses for city licenses and conspiracy to beat up a guy who wouldn’t play.
Professor Music’s Weird Links
A Turkish designer’s punchline-friendly combination, er, toilet and washing machine, for recycling wash water into the toilet tank, but visually it’d take some getting used to. [Link from Gizmodo].
NOTW, The Blog
Clarification from NOTWD ombudsman Buddy: A link in Prof. Music’s Weird Links on 4-10-2008 (the second of the two, http://LoveBugz.net/) might be a hoax, says reader Marti Walters, who tracked down the domain owner as far as she could take it and still ended up unsatisfied: “Whoever did that site is really trying to hide.” And, logically, why in the world would someone be trying to hide if he were intending to glorify the cultivating of crab lice? Extra note: That particular link was not supplied by Prof. Music, himself.
Newsrangers: Andy Gallien, Linda Ofshe, Jodi Lipsitz
This posting to News of the Weird Daily is © 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
UK to take it easy on pirates / The strip-club owners’ go-to intellectual / Damn those complicated flagpoles / Milwaukee’s jailhouse alderman leaves “office” / And more!
Creme de la Weird
At the 20th Ozark UFO Conference over the weekend, a warning was issued, from reps of the “143,999" alien races, offering salvation from the imminent black hole that Earth’s solar system will become at some point over the next four years (no matter who wins the presidency!), with the only requirements, apparently, that you be “willing” and “ready” to be saved, i.e., nothing about Jesus. Author Don Ray Walton said this information came directly to him when he was abducted briefly just outside of Stephenson, Tex., [CORRECTION: Stephenville] earlier this year, and that dad-gummed new information made him have to go back and revise one of his chapters.
Civilization in Decline
Britain’s Foreign Office has advised the Royal Navy to go easy on pirates, like the ones off the coast of Somalia, because, one, we don’t want to deprive them of their “human rights,” and two, if you capture them, they might claim asylum . . . . . Recession, what recession? 71 NYC apartments selling for $10M or more have already closed out this yr, versus 17 during all of last yr, and according to this Guardian report, companies selling customized baby strollers are still getting $3,500 for their buggies . . . . . The Catholic Archdiocese of Denver has agreed with a man who was fondled (only fondled) by a priest on two occasions, when he was 16 or 17, that a fair price for those feel-ups is $150,000 each.
The Human Condition Today
A Birmingham (Ala.) News columnist said Mayor Langford’s new anti-crime strategy involves 2,000 burlap bags, to somehow shame would-be criminals (provided the criminals understand the Biblical imagery) . . . . . Once again, U. of Maryland anthropologist Dr. Judith Hanna comes to the rescue of strip clubs, testifying that stripping and lap-dancing are serious artistic performances for such-and-such reasons based on such-and-such research . . . . . A 50-yr-old Southbury, Conn., man was killed in a mid-afternoon one-car collision as he was backing out of his driveway (Seriously) . . . . . The executive director of the TIZA Academy, a Minnesota charter school run by an Islamic organization, said he really wants to be a good American citizen and that the only reason he never flew the U.S. flag out front was because he couldn't figure out how to do that flagpole thingy . . . . . The lovely Kira Kashie Brooks’s aspiring pageant career (as well as her electability as governor of the F State) is on hold following her sentencing for charging the pageant entrance fee (plus some diva supplies) to her gov’t-job credit card (Bonus: the “gov’t job” she had was with the police department).
Your Daily Loser
Cyheam Forney, 31, Melville, N.Y., managed to pump up an illegal left turn citation into a felony by offering as bail a counterfeit $50 bill.
Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict based on mugshot only]
Larry Smallwood, 52, and Brenda Ivey, 46, charged with elderly abuse, neglecting Larry’s mother (she died)
NOTW Lite
The criminal suspect most in need of a name change: Austin, Tex., alleged parole-violator, 24-yr-old Don Henry Truevillain [may need to scroll down, to SWAT story, 4-13-2008; Note: Name also spelled "Truevillian" in the story] . . . . . Italy votes today for lots of offices, but we’ll be watching the Rome city council elections, where porn star Milly D’Abbraccio has been putting her background in voters’ faces . . . . . Brilliant: An F-state sheriff’s deputy concluded that the graffiti at an elementary school, of stick figures with schlongs (i.e., maximum age of artist is, like, 8), appeared to be just regular graffiti “and not gang-related.”
Updates
Milwaukee Alderman Michael McGee [NOTW Daily, 2-22-2008] lost his seat in the April 1 election, and today’s his last day in office, and by “in office,” I mean “in Waukesha County Jail,” where he’s been since the middle of last year, drawing his paycheck (“innocent until proven guilty,” you know), and has thus cashed out $67k in jail pay. His trials (state and federal) start next month on shaking down businesses for city licenses and conspiracy to beat up a guy who wouldn’t play.
Professor Music’s Weird Links
A Turkish designer’s punchline-friendly combination, er, toilet and washing machine, for recycling wash water into the toilet tank, but visually it’d take some getting used to. [Link from Gizmodo].
NOTW, The Blog
Clarification from NOTWD ombudsman Buddy: A link in Prof. Music’s Weird Links on 4-10-2008 (the second of the two, http://LoveBugz.net/) might be a hoax, says reader Marti Walters, who tracked down the domain owner as far as she could take it and still ended up unsatisfied: “Whoever did that site is really trying to hide.” And, logically, why in the world would someone be trying to hide if he were intending to glorify the cultivating of crab lice? Extra note: That particular link was not supplied by Prof. Music, himself.
Newsrangers: Andy Gallien, Linda Ofshe, Jodi Lipsitz
This posting to News of the Weird Daily is © 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Things To Worry About On Friday
Prosecutors bring the D.C. Madam to her knees / England’s spitting vicar gets the door / The state of the poop-scooping business / Yr Editor’s gas-pedal, brake-pedal ethical dilemma / And more!
Creme de la Weird
A parenting dispute turns violent in Commerce City, Colo.: Mom wants one thing for their tot, estranged dad wants another. The issue: Should the kid wear the colors of her street gang, or his?
Your Daily Loser
Darryl Copeland: How to turn a court summons for a petty assault into 30 yrs for aggravated heroin trafficking.
People Whose Sex Lives Are Worse Than Yours
Freddie Johnson, back at Riker’s Island after his 30th arrest for non-consensual sex (53rd overall) (preferred scene: frottage on a crowded No. 6 train).
Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict based on mugshot only]
Careful, now: Bruce Mendenhall, 56, might be a serial killer
NOTW Lite
An excellent way to make the point about America’s excesses: a German production of Verdi’s A Masked Ball opera, with, er, 35 old people frolicking naked among the ruins of the World Trade Center, wearing Mickey Mouse masks . . . . . The Chicago Tribune catches us up on the state of the poop-scooping-service business (trade ass’n [APAWS], a McD’s-type franchiser [Pet Butler] with 100 outlets in 27 states, serving a pet-dog census that’s about one-fourth our human population) . . . . . This week’s trial of the D.C. Madam, Deborah Palfrey, featured a few Washington-B-list clients forced to testify (under immunity), along with some of the service-providers (SSP’s), to establish that Palfrey lies when she says it was a no-sex escort biz. The best SSP’s: suburban mom Fauzia Mack, 46, very persuasive that she thought it was merely a “social companionship” service for elderly men until her first client asked for a blow job (whereupon Palfrey fired her for refusing and called her a “nitwit”) and Rhona Reiss, Ph.D., age 63 (56 when she turned 100 tricks), who re-taught Palfrey attorney Preston Burton the classic trial-lawyer rule of “Don’t ask a witness a question you don’t already know the answer to.”
Updates
The best evidence that there is regular turnover in the journalism profession: Every year or so, a fresh-faced reporter and fresh-faced editor seem absolutely astonished to find out there is such a thing as Kopi Luwak (coffee from beans that have made it through the digestive tracts of Asian civet cats). Here’s this year’s story . . . . . Uppity Church of England vicar Tom Ambrose got written up here earlier because parishioners were quite upset that he gave his 2006 Christmas sermon on Microsoft PowerPoint [NOTW M024, 9-23-2007]. Well, he was just sacked for that and a range of other offenses, including twice spitting on parishioners.
Professor Music’s Weird Links
Something else Yr Editor would have never thought of, much less have done with such passion: “The Sublime, Nihilistic Elegance of Assquatch Art,” y’know, fixing up dead deer butts.
NOTW, The Blog
(1) Among Yr Editor’s specialties is the growing parade of seniors who confuse the gas pedal for the brake, and wreak various versions of havoc, including death. This phenomenon strikes Yr Editor as odd for several reasons: (a) We as a society overlook that, per mile driven, seniors’ “accident” rates are higher than teenagers’ (depending on how one defines “senior”); (b) Gas-brake crashes happen in otherwise-low-profile places, such as parking lots (or even farmers’ markets), where potential victims aren’t so vigilant; (c) Society continues to unreasonably protect its seniors because (c-1) seniors notoriously vote, thus terrifying politicians and (c-2) society has bought the bogus argument that we must be fair to the few seniors who remain as sharp as tacks, and thus can’t impose restrictions unless we perfectly pre-identity all seniors who are not so sharp. But here’s a dilemma for Buddy, NOTWD’s new ombudsman: What if the senior tries to explain the boo-boo by claiming the accelerator “stuck” (Actually, mechanically, that almost never happens) or, in a story this week, blaming a new pair of shoes (“wider” than my old ones!). Can Yr Editor move past this b.s. and call it what it surely was: confusing the gas pedal with the brake? [Buddy: You have to stick with how the story was reported.] [Ed.: But the only witness to the actual cause is a confused coot! It’s not like the reporter observed the wide shoe getting tangled with the gas pedal.] [Buddy: Still . . ..] [Ed.: Ehh, we'll talk next week.] (2) Erroror: Thanks to readers who pointed out that “free reign” yesterday should have been “free rein.” [Ed.: So, Buddy, is that an error that I have go fix?] [Buddy: No; it’s just errors of fact in reportage that you have to fix. Leaving up bad word usage merely invites ridicule, and I figure you should be used to that by now.]
Newsrangers: John Whisenhunt, Bob Pert, Matt Mirapaul, Steve Miller, Perry Levin, Paul Di Filippo
This posting to News of the Weird Daily is © 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Prosecutors bring the D.C. Madam to her knees / England’s spitting vicar gets the door / The state of the poop-scooping business / Yr Editor’s gas-pedal, brake-pedal ethical dilemma / And more!
Creme de la Weird
A parenting dispute turns violent in Commerce City, Colo.: Mom wants one thing for their tot, estranged dad wants another. The issue: Should the kid wear the colors of her street gang, or his?
Your Daily Loser
Darryl Copeland: How to turn a court summons for a petty assault into 30 yrs for aggravated heroin trafficking.
People Whose Sex Lives Are Worse Than Yours
Freddie Johnson, back at Riker’s Island after his 30th arrest for non-consensual sex (53rd overall) (preferred scene: frottage on a crowded No. 6 train).
Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict based on mugshot only]
Careful, now: Bruce Mendenhall, 56, might be a serial killer
NOTW Lite
An excellent way to make the point about America’s excesses: a German production of Verdi’s A Masked Ball opera, with, er, 35 old people frolicking naked among the ruins of the World Trade Center, wearing Mickey Mouse masks . . . . . The Chicago Tribune catches us up on the state of the poop-scooping-service business (trade ass’n [APAWS], a McD’s-type franchiser [Pet Butler] with 100 outlets in 27 states, serving a pet-dog census that’s about one-fourth our human population) . . . . . This week’s trial of the D.C. Madam, Deborah Palfrey, featured a few Washington-B-list clients forced to testify (under immunity), along with some of the service-providers (SSP’s), to establish that Palfrey lies when she says it was a no-sex escort biz. The best SSP’s: suburban mom Fauzia Mack, 46, very persuasive that she thought it was merely a “social companionship” service for elderly men until her first client asked for a blow job (whereupon Palfrey fired her for refusing and called her a “nitwit”) and Rhona Reiss, Ph.D., age 63 (56 when she turned 100 tricks), who re-taught Palfrey attorney Preston Burton the classic trial-lawyer rule of “Don’t ask a witness a question you don’t already know the answer to.”
Updates
The best evidence that there is regular turnover in the journalism profession: Every year or so, a fresh-faced reporter and fresh-faced editor seem absolutely astonished to find out there is such a thing as Kopi Luwak (coffee from beans that have made it through the digestive tracts of Asian civet cats). Here’s this year’s story . . . . . Uppity Church of England vicar Tom Ambrose got written up here earlier because parishioners were quite upset that he gave his 2006 Christmas sermon on Microsoft PowerPoint [NOTW M024, 9-23-2007]. Well, he was just sacked for that and a range of other offenses, including twice spitting on parishioners.
Professor Music’s Weird Links
Something else Yr Editor would have never thought of, much less have done with such passion: “The Sublime, Nihilistic Elegance of Assquatch Art,” y’know, fixing up dead deer butts.
NOTW, The Blog
(1) Among Yr Editor’s specialties is the growing parade of seniors who confuse the gas pedal for the brake, and wreak various versions of havoc, including death. This phenomenon strikes Yr Editor as odd for several reasons: (a) We as a society overlook that, per mile driven, seniors’ “accident” rates are higher than teenagers’ (depending on how one defines “senior”); (b) Gas-brake crashes happen in otherwise-low-profile places, such as parking lots (or even farmers’ markets), where potential victims aren’t so vigilant; (c) Society continues to unreasonably protect its seniors because (c-1) seniors notoriously vote, thus terrifying politicians and (c-2) society has bought the bogus argument that we must be fair to the few seniors who remain as sharp as tacks, and thus can’t impose restrictions unless we perfectly pre-identity all seniors who are not so sharp. But here’s a dilemma for Buddy, NOTWD’s new ombudsman: What if the senior tries to explain the boo-boo by claiming the accelerator “stuck” (Actually, mechanically, that almost never happens) or, in a story this week, blaming a new pair of shoes (“wider” than my old ones!). Can Yr Editor move past this b.s. and call it what it surely was: confusing the gas pedal with the brake? [Buddy: You have to stick with how the story was reported.] [Ed.: But the only witness to the actual cause is a confused coot! It’s not like the reporter observed the wide shoe getting tangled with the gas pedal.] [Buddy: Still . . ..] [Ed.: Ehh, we'll talk next week.] (2) Erroror: Thanks to readers who pointed out that “free reign” yesterday should have been “free rein.” [Ed.: So, Buddy, is that an error that I have go fix?] [Buddy: No; it’s just errors of fact in reportage that you have to fix. Leaving up bad word usage merely invites ridicule, and I figure you should be used to that by now.]
Newsrangers: John Whisenhunt, Bob Pert, Matt Mirapaul, Steve Miller, Perry Levin, Paul Di Filippo
This posting to News of the Weird Daily is © 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Things To Worry About On Thursday
Padlocks for their skirts? / Rob a dry cleaner, get yourself steamed / The devil’s gasoline / Your new fetish for the day: pthirophilia / And more!
Creme de la Weird
Joel Brodsky, 48, Hackensack, N.J., was arrested after he allegedly walked right into Indian Hills High School and asked four kids in the hallway if they could find him a 16- or 17-yr-old girl to have sex with. Oh, yeah, he was claiming to be an ESPN celebrity and was carrying an Eli-Manning-autographed helmet. Oh, yeah, he had his 10-yr-old son alongside.
Civilization in Decline
It’s one thing to be the person who thought up the idea of “dancing” “freestyle” with a dog, but then you have to irritate at least several dogs trying it out (and holding dogs’ paws, like in “regular” dog-dancing, is not allowed!), and then you’re way overboard if you formed Paws2Dance, an “academy” that trains dance-contest “teams” (with emphasis on the human’s outfits and matching dog collars). (Yr Editor reported in 1999 [NOTW 577, 2-26-1999] that something called the World Canine Freestyle Organization had an 8,000-person mailing list.) [NOTWD ombudsman “Buddy”: Chuck, you surely don’t mean that they have competitions, like Dancing with the Stars?] [Ed.: Keep at it, Buddy; you’ll get the hang of this].
The Human Condition Today
There was a house fire in Crystal Lake, Ill., with everyone making it out OK, including three adults who walked out and another adult who had to be rescued, since he had been chained by the neck to a pole in the basement; his official explanation was, Nothing to see here, Move along [Link from ObscureStore.com] . . . . . Suspicions Confirmed: Yes, Christian fundamentalists do notice that Phillips 66 gas stations symbolize two-thirds of the devil . . . . . Awesome: An Australian driver made it through a suburb of Perth at 203 km/h (122 mph) without hitting a single thing, even though he was arguing with his wife on the phone the whole time . . . . . In crime-intensive Papua New Guinea, one dry cleaner self-helped, by steam-cleaning a robber . . . . . Unclear on the Concept: A high school student in Camden County, N.J., was caught with a hit list (three students, one administrator, and, er, Chuck Norris).
Your Daily Loser
Not Ready for Prime Time: Jake Merfeld, 16, was spotted burglarizing Derdre Rodriguez’s home in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and fled, but Derdre grabbed her ice-scraper, chased him down, and held him for police.
Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict based on mugshot only]
James Hensley, 32, wanted for failure to register as a sex offender
NOTW Lite
In the tourist town of Batu, Java (Indonesia), legitimate massage parlors wanted to put some distance between themselves and whorehouses. Solution: Their masseuses will wear little padlocks on their zippers . . . . . Your Daily Schadenfreude: A video outfit made a “handshake” deal with Wal-Mart in the 1970s to shoot promotion/documentary footage, was given free reign of stores and executives, and made 15,000 tapes (many of them, well, awkward) but was unceremoniously fired in 2006, and there ain’t no “ownership” clause in a handshake so, you know, "possession is nine-tenths of the law," and Wal-Mart offered $500k for the tapes, but Flagler Productions said $2 million, or we auction ‘em off. Ta-daaa!
Updates
Rev. Phelps and the lesser Phelpses of Westboro Baptist, who are surely the least persuasive advocate group in U.S. history (having publicly attracted to their cause utterly no one outside their extended family), announced they’ll now pick a newly-deceased Marylander at random to vilify, on the ground that God hates the state because it is the site of the first-ever court judgment against them. The picket-ees are two teenage girls who died in an auto crash last weekend.
Professor Music’s Weird Links
Yr Editor loves to find new fetishes (even though there’s already, allegedly, a word for this one: pthirophilia). So . . . is genital crab lice a bug or a feature? Why, they could be pets, especially the Japanese crab lice. Here’s more. [UPDATE: Ehhh, this second link doesn't appear to be authentic, or at least the domain owner's going to great links to hide himself.]
NOTW, The Blog
Yr Editor calls two stories from last week to your attention: (1) The U.S. Supreme Court OK’d punishing someone for a “crime” that he was officially acquitted of. Sentencing guidelines allow years to be added to a conviction for Crime A based on behavior engaged in in Crime B even though a jury had just acquitted the defendant of Crime B. Seriously. (2) In the last year, U.S. surgeons have done a couple dozen “natural orifice” gallbladder removals (through the vagina or mouth), and last month did the first vaginal appendectomy (though that might have been done before in, I think, Brazil, as Yr Editor reported last year [NOTW Daily, 4-7-2007]). But someone has to keep an eye on these experimenters because already, last month, there was an appendix-through-the-mouth, and you know damn well some surgeon out there’s already thinking kidney through the anus. (A dangerous “natural orifice consortium” has been formed) (Bonus: The vaginal appendectomy patient’s name is Diana Schlamadinger)
Newsrangers: Emory Kimbrough, Peter Hine, Ginger Katz, Sam Gaines, Pierre Langenegger
This posting to News of the Weird Daily is © 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Padlocks for their skirts? / Rob a dry cleaner, get yourself steamed / The devil’s gasoline / Your new fetish for the day: pthirophilia / And more!
Creme de la Weird
Joel Brodsky, 48, Hackensack, N.J., was arrested after he allegedly walked right into Indian Hills High School and asked four kids in the hallway if they could find him a 16- or 17-yr-old girl to have sex with. Oh, yeah, he was claiming to be an ESPN celebrity and was carrying an Eli-Manning-autographed helmet. Oh, yeah, he had his 10-yr-old son alongside.
Civilization in Decline
It’s one thing to be the person who thought up the idea of “dancing” “freestyle” with a dog, but then you have to irritate at least several dogs trying it out (and holding dogs’ paws, like in “regular” dog-dancing, is not allowed!), and then you’re way overboard if you formed Paws2Dance, an “academy” that trains dance-contest “teams” (with emphasis on the human’s outfits and matching dog collars). (Yr Editor reported in 1999 [NOTW 577, 2-26-1999] that something called the World Canine Freestyle Organization had an 8,000-person mailing list.) [NOTWD ombudsman “Buddy”: Chuck, you surely don’t mean that they have competitions, like Dancing with the Stars?] [Ed.: Keep at it, Buddy; you’ll get the hang of this].
The Human Condition Today
There was a house fire in Crystal Lake, Ill., with everyone making it out OK, including three adults who walked out and another adult who had to be rescued, since he had been chained by the neck to a pole in the basement; his official explanation was, Nothing to see here, Move along [Link from ObscureStore.com] . . . . . Suspicions Confirmed: Yes, Christian fundamentalists do notice that Phillips 66 gas stations symbolize two-thirds of the devil . . . . . Awesome: An Australian driver made it through a suburb of Perth at 203 km/h (122 mph) without hitting a single thing, even though he was arguing with his wife on the phone the whole time . . . . . In crime-intensive Papua New Guinea, one dry cleaner self-helped, by steam-cleaning a robber . . . . . Unclear on the Concept: A high school student in Camden County, N.J., was caught with a hit list (three students, one administrator, and, er, Chuck Norris).
Your Daily Loser
Not Ready for Prime Time: Jake Merfeld, 16, was spotted burglarizing Derdre Rodriguez’s home in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and fled, but Derdre grabbed her ice-scraper, chased him down, and held him for police.
Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict based on mugshot only]
James Hensley, 32, wanted for failure to register as a sex offender
NOTW Lite
In the tourist town of Batu, Java (Indonesia), legitimate massage parlors wanted to put some distance between themselves and whorehouses. Solution: Their masseuses will wear little padlocks on their zippers . . . . . Your Daily Schadenfreude: A video outfit made a “handshake” deal with Wal-Mart in the 1970s to shoot promotion/documentary footage, was given free reign of stores and executives, and made 15,000 tapes (many of them, well, awkward) but was unceremoniously fired in 2006, and there ain’t no “ownership” clause in a handshake so, you know, "possession is nine-tenths of the law," and Wal-Mart offered $500k for the tapes, but Flagler Productions said $2 million, or we auction ‘em off. Ta-daaa!
Updates
Rev. Phelps and the lesser Phelpses of Westboro Baptist, who are surely the least persuasive advocate group in U.S. history (having publicly attracted to their cause utterly no one outside their extended family), announced they’ll now pick a newly-deceased Marylander at random to vilify, on the ground that God hates the state because it is the site of the first-ever court judgment against them. The picket-ees are two teenage girls who died in an auto crash last weekend.
Professor Music’s Weird Links
Yr Editor loves to find new fetishes (even though there’s already, allegedly, a word for this one: pthirophilia). So . . . is genital crab lice a bug or a feature? Why, they could be pets, especially the Japanese crab lice. Here’s more. [UPDATE: Ehhh, this second link doesn't appear to be authentic, or at least the domain owner's going to great links to hide himself.]
NOTW, The Blog
Yr Editor calls two stories from last week to your attention: (1) The U.S. Supreme Court OK’d punishing someone for a “crime” that he was officially acquitted of. Sentencing guidelines allow years to be added to a conviction for Crime A based on behavior engaged in in Crime B even though a jury had just acquitted the defendant of Crime B. Seriously. (2) In the last year, U.S. surgeons have done a couple dozen “natural orifice” gallbladder removals (through the vagina or mouth), and last month did the first vaginal appendectomy (though that might have been done before in, I think, Brazil, as Yr Editor reported last year [NOTW Daily, 4-7-2007]). But someone has to keep an eye on these experimenters because already, last month, there was an appendix-through-the-mouth, and you know damn well some surgeon out there’s already thinking kidney through the anus. (A dangerous “natural orifice consortium” has been formed) (Bonus: The vaginal appendectomy patient’s name is Diana Schlamadinger)
Newsrangers: Emory Kimbrough, Peter Hine, Ginger Katz, Sam Gaines, Pierre Langenegger
This posting to News of the Weird Daily is © 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Things To Worry About On Wednesday
The World’s Most Optimistic Man / Another annual Japanese Schlongfest / That cursed beating heart / The greater threat—al Qaeda or gangs of American kids? / And more!
Creme de la Weird
Behold Ms. Amity Joy Doss, 24 (and not bad), who tried to impose some free-lance discipline on a rude McDonald’s order-taker; then, while the manager called the police, Amity climbed a nearby tree (naturally!) and hung upside down from it before sprawling out on the hood of her car [NOTWD Ombudsman (“Buddy”): Chuck, this doesn’t make sense] [Ed.: You're new on the job, Buddy]
Civilization in Decline
Kids! If it’s not third-graders making an elaborate threat to off their teacher, it’s a bunch of teenagers viciously beating up a girl just for YouTube/MySpace content (“MySpace is the anti-Christ for children,” said the victim’s dad) . . . . . Hard Job: Tourism minister of India’s Kashmir region, hoping to set up a world-class golfing destination, downplaying the civilian war fatalities (only 164 last year!) (it's India vs. rebels backed by Pakistan) and despite the fact that the main resort is a short distance from the front line (often described as the number-one-likely place in the world where nuclear war could break out, since both sides have da bom) . . . . . The upscale Lebua Hotel in Bangkok, which last yr hosted a $25k/person dinner for rich people [NOTW 996, 3-11-2007], set up another last Saturday, not quite so fancy but this time free, provided that the diners agree to a stop-off at a horrific slum in northeast Thailand, where they tsk-tsk-tsk’d for four hours before returning to the Lebua for truffles (Yummm!) . . . . . Fine Point of Sharia, says the Islamic Fiqh Academy of India: No health insurance; that’s gambling . . . . . Can’t Possibly Be True: 8-yr-old kid suspended for one day (down from 3) for sniffing the ink from a Sharpie smudge on his shirt—Zero Tolerance, you know? (“It smelled good,” the young fella said) . . . . . Kinder, Gentler: The District of Calamity police chief said enforcement of the D.C. handgun law [brief summary of the law: No, you can’t have one, No!] will continue, but searches of private homes will be by appointment (Seriously) . . . . . “Get out of that seat . ..! You have no right to be here! We believe in something [and you don’t]!”; so said a state legislator from Chicago to an atheist at a committee hearing [LINK CORRECTED] . . . . . At least that atheist kept his clothes on, but a widow in Dhanbad, India, didn’t after she was caught inside a temple, since elders said a widow “has no right to enter a temple,” and as punishment, she was paraded naked through the village . . . . . In an apparent race to see who can best turn The Last Supper into a San Francisco bath house, in comes renowned Austrian artist Alfred Hrdlicka, with the self-described “homosexual orgy” among the disciples (an altogether different piece than Terence Koh’s statue of 74 plaster figures, many of the men in which, including Jesus, have John Holmes-size erections [NOTW Daily, 1-14-2008]). (Bonus: Hrdlicka’s work was originally OK’d by the Archbishop of Vienna, though the signature piece is down now).
The Human Condition Today
Who says public defenders are always overmatched in court? Guy named Ethan Levi in Hillsboro, Ore., got his client acquitted after he was found hiding in a woman’s bedroom closet while dressed in negligee, miniskirt, and wig (They had a year to think up a defense, which was that he was just in the wrong woman’s apartment, and, well, OK, then, the jury said) . . . . . A South Korean burglar, trying to be Tom Cruise in the first Mission: Impossible, lowered himself from the ceiling to take jewelry from a case but screwed up anyway and tripped the alarm . . . . . Johnny Depp famously had “Winona Forever,” but that’s nothing: Greg Newey had his 26-word marriage proposal tattooed on his belly (after 6 months’ courtship); fortunately, she said Yes, but still– . . . . . Mom: “I’m of a mind to send you to military school”; Kid: “Hello, police? Mom’s growing dope in the basement” . . . . . Not sure whether it’s just an F State phenomenon, but an Orlando Sentinel reporter believes people making capuchin monkeys baby-substitutes are getting out of control (It’s all about dressing them up, said one owner; “Believe me when I tell you that if people could get their cats in outfits, a lot of those cats would be wearing outfits”) . . . . . One of those Japanese fertility festivals just thrust itself into the news, in Kawasaki; the Kanamura Matsuri is sort of a catch-all for sexual hopes: prevention of STD’s, increased marital harmony, even easier childbirth (yep, there's a display of the holy erection, the large holy erection) . . . . . Headline: Ex-Marine accidentally shot in neck by 9-yr-old son (Backstory: Dozens of unsecured guns, thousands of bullets around the house, even in the son’s room, and each room had been peppered with bullet holes) . . . . . Ben Saunders, 30, who reportedly trained for 7 yrs for this mission, to walk—walk—the last 460 miles to the North Pole, had to abort about 13 percent into it . . because, well, he hadn’t planned on this much ice.
Your Daily Loser
Actually, Michael Petro of Gulfport, Miss., hasn’t lost yet; he may have the last laugh. He was wiped out by Katrina and is now making a sad plea for help because he has been trying to rebuild, but the gov’t didn’t come through, the private agencies didn’t come through, and now the housing economy’s in the tank, and there’s the plea right there on YouTube. (Backstory: He’s a stockbroker; the wiped-out house was 2500 sq ft; the one he’s part-way through now is 6,000 sq ft.) [story has link to his video, supposedly]
People Whose Sex Lives Are Worse Than Yours
John Hartley, 65, says he’s still in the race for San Diego City Council despite his no-contest plea Monday based on a recent episode, in his truck, of masturbating (and urinating into a cup) in a residential ‘hood.
Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict based on mugshot only]
Allan Dwayne Schoenborn, 40, prime suspect in the deaths of his three kids
NOTW Lite
Punchline-Friendly News: A girl in India was born with two faces [Ed. What office is she running for, bada-boom-ba!] [Buddy: They just read ya for news, Chuck] She eats with one mouth and sucks her thumb with the other (seriously), and, of course, the locals believe she is a deity . . . . . A Muslim restaurateur in Scotland got to keep his driver's license despite a serious speeding ticket, by convincing the judge that he needed to drive, and drive fast, to have quality time with his two wives in different cities . . . . . Celine Dion (“My Heart Will Go On”) had nothing on the late Mr. Terry Cottle, who killed himself, but his heart went on, over to donee Sonny Graham, and now, 12 yrs later, Graham has killed himself, too; could it be? (Bonus: Superseding factor, underplayed in news reports: Both suiciders were married to a woman named Cheryl Cottle Graham, who’s apparently nobody to mess with).
Professor Music’s Weird Links
Yet something else Yr Editor doesn’t understand at all (which makes it ideal for this space): someone really, really fascinated by, uh, opera gloves.
NOTW, The Blog
(1) Staleness quotient for NOTW Daily is still within 3 days, but I’ve been off, so a couple of these today are older. (2) What have I learned in the last 10 days? (a) I have to do this column every day, even if some days it’s not very good. (Half of those not-good days will be because the news wasn’t good, the other half because I wasn’t good. I gotta face up to that.) (b) I’d like to have some more clicks to justify my existence. Can y’all help me out? NOTW Daily is one of those few things on the Internet really professionally done (usually, that is) but at utterly no cost to you, i.e., no fee, no ads, no collection of data by advertisers. Please, can ya find it in your heart to help me get clicks? Thankyavermuch.
Newsrangers: Jerry Whittle, Larry Ellis Reed, Mark Rowan, Steve Davies, Ginger Katz, Jerry Williamson, Bob Pert, John Wriedt, Joe Littrell, Bruce Alter, Kevin Key
This posting to News of the Weird Daily is © 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
The World’s Most Optimistic Man / Another annual Japanese Schlongfest / That cursed beating heart / The greater threat—al Qaeda or gangs of American kids? / And more!
Creme de la Weird
Behold Ms. Amity Joy Doss, 24 (and not bad), who tried to impose some free-lance discipline on a rude McDonald’s order-taker; then, while the manager called the police, Amity climbed a nearby tree (naturally!) and hung upside down from it before sprawling out on the hood of her car [NOTWD Ombudsman (“Buddy”): Chuck, this doesn’t make sense] [Ed.: You're new on the job, Buddy]
Civilization in Decline
Kids! If it’s not third-graders making an elaborate threat to off their teacher, it’s a bunch of teenagers viciously beating up a girl just for YouTube/MySpace content (“MySpace is the anti-Christ for children,” said the victim’s dad) . . . . . Hard Job: Tourism minister of India’s Kashmir region, hoping to set up a world-class golfing destination, downplaying the civilian war fatalities (only 164 last year!) (it's India vs. rebels backed by Pakistan) and despite the fact that the main resort is a short distance from the front line (often described as the number-one-likely place in the world where nuclear war could break out, since both sides have da bom) . . . . . The upscale Lebua Hotel in Bangkok, which last yr hosted a $25k/person dinner for rich people [NOTW 996, 3-11-2007], set up another last Saturday, not quite so fancy but this time free, provided that the diners agree to a stop-off at a horrific slum in northeast Thailand, where they tsk-tsk-tsk’d for four hours before returning to the Lebua for truffles (Yummm!) . . . . . Fine Point of Sharia, says the Islamic Fiqh Academy of India: No health insurance; that’s gambling . . . . . Can’t Possibly Be True: 8-yr-old kid suspended for one day (down from 3) for sniffing the ink from a Sharpie smudge on his shirt—Zero Tolerance, you know? (“It smelled good,” the young fella said) . . . . . Kinder, Gentler: The District of Calamity police chief said enforcement of the D.C. handgun law [brief summary of the law: No, you can’t have one, No!] will continue, but searches of private homes will be by appointment (Seriously) . . . . . “Get out of that seat . ..! You have no right to be here! We believe in something [and you don’t]!”; so said a state legislator from Chicago to an atheist at a committee hearing [LINK CORRECTED] . . . . . At least that atheist kept his clothes on, but a widow in Dhanbad, India, didn’t after she was caught inside a temple, since elders said a widow “has no right to enter a temple,” and as punishment, she was paraded naked through the village . . . . . In an apparent race to see who can best turn The Last Supper into a San Francisco bath house, in comes renowned Austrian artist Alfred Hrdlicka, with the self-described “homosexual orgy” among the disciples (an altogether different piece than Terence Koh’s statue of 74 plaster figures, many of the men in which, including Jesus, have John Holmes-size erections [NOTW Daily, 1-14-2008]). (Bonus: Hrdlicka’s work was originally OK’d by the Archbishop of Vienna, though the signature piece is down now).
The Human Condition Today
Who says public defenders are always overmatched in court? Guy named Ethan Levi in Hillsboro, Ore., got his client acquitted after he was found hiding in a woman’s bedroom closet while dressed in negligee, miniskirt, and wig (They had a year to think up a defense, which was that he was just in the wrong woman’s apartment, and, well, OK, then, the jury said) . . . . . A South Korean burglar, trying to be Tom Cruise in the first Mission: Impossible, lowered himself from the ceiling to take jewelry from a case but screwed up anyway and tripped the alarm . . . . . Johnny Depp famously had “Winona Forever,” but that’s nothing: Greg Newey had his 26-word marriage proposal tattooed on his belly (after 6 months’ courtship); fortunately, she said Yes, but still– . . . . . Mom: “I’m of a mind to send you to military school”; Kid: “Hello, police? Mom’s growing dope in the basement” . . . . . Not sure whether it’s just an F State phenomenon, but an Orlando Sentinel reporter believes people making capuchin monkeys baby-substitutes are getting out of control (It’s all about dressing them up, said one owner; “Believe me when I tell you that if people could get their cats in outfits, a lot of those cats would be wearing outfits”) . . . . . One of those Japanese fertility festivals just thrust itself into the news, in Kawasaki; the Kanamura Matsuri is sort of a catch-all for sexual hopes: prevention of STD’s, increased marital harmony, even easier childbirth (yep, there's a display of the holy erection, the large holy erection) . . . . . Headline: Ex-Marine accidentally shot in neck by 9-yr-old son (Backstory: Dozens of unsecured guns, thousands of bullets around the house, even in the son’s room, and each room had been peppered with bullet holes) . . . . . Ben Saunders, 30, who reportedly trained for 7 yrs for this mission, to walk—walk—the last 460 miles to the North Pole, had to abort about 13 percent into it . . because, well, he hadn’t planned on this much ice.
Your Daily Loser
Actually, Michael Petro of Gulfport, Miss., hasn’t lost yet; he may have the last laugh. He was wiped out by Katrina and is now making a sad plea for help because he has been trying to rebuild, but the gov’t didn’t come through, the private agencies didn’t come through, and now the housing economy’s in the tank, and there’s the plea right there on YouTube. (Backstory: He’s a stockbroker; the wiped-out house was 2500 sq ft; the one he’s part-way through now is 6,000 sq ft.) [story has link to his video, supposedly]
People Whose Sex Lives Are Worse Than Yours
John Hartley, 65, says he’s still in the race for San Diego City Council despite his no-contest plea Monday based on a recent episode, in his truck, of masturbating (and urinating into a cup) in a residential ‘hood.
Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict based on mugshot only]
Allan Dwayne Schoenborn, 40, prime suspect in the deaths of his three kids
NOTW Lite
Punchline-Friendly News: A girl in India was born with two faces [Ed. What office is she running for, bada-boom-ba!] [Buddy: They just read ya for news, Chuck] She eats with one mouth and sucks her thumb with the other (seriously), and, of course, the locals believe she is a deity . . . . . A Muslim restaurateur in Scotland got to keep his driver's license despite a serious speeding ticket, by convincing the judge that he needed to drive, and drive fast, to have quality time with his two wives in different cities . . . . . Celine Dion (“My Heart Will Go On”) had nothing on the late Mr. Terry Cottle, who killed himself, but his heart went on, over to donee Sonny Graham, and now, 12 yrs later, Graham has killed himself, too; could it be? (Bonus: Superseding factor, underplayed in news reports: Both suiciders were married to a woman named Cheryl Cottle Graham, who’s apparently nobody to mess with).
Professor Music’s Weird Links
Yet something else Yr Editor doesn’t understand at all (which makes it ideal for this space): someone really, really fascinated by, uh, opera gloves.
NOTW, The Blog
(1) Staleness quotient for NOTW Daily is still within 3 days, but I’ve been off, so a couple of these today are older. (2) What have I learned in the last 10 days? (a) I have to do this column every day, even if some days it’s not very good. (Half of those not-good days will be because the news wasn’t good, the other half because I wasn’t good. I gotta face up to that.) (b) I’d like to have some more clicks to justify my existence. Can y’all help me out? NOTW Daily is one of those few things on the Internet really professionally done (usually, that is) but at utterly no cost to you, i.e., no fee, no ads, no collection of data by advertisers. Please, can ya find it in your heart to help me get clicks? Thankyavermuch.
Newsrangers: Jerry Whittle, Larry Ellis Reed, Mark Rowan, Steve Davies, Ginger Katz, Jerry Williamson, Bob Pert, John Wriedt, Joe Littrell, Bruce Alter, Kevin Key
This posting to News of the Weird Daily is © 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Monday, April 07, 2008
NOTE: Yr Editor’s off to Vegas this morning to lay his entire year’s worth of earnings from News of the Weird Daily on Kansas getting 2½, and then I’ll be meeting at an undisclosed location later in the day with Senators Obama and Clinton, to try and straighten out this nomination thingy, and then return to work sometime Tuesday, reading stupid news stories for a living. Back on the air with a full plate for ya Wednesday morning.
Friday, April 04, 2008
NOTE: Yr Editor and his main squeeze, Ms. J. Aniston, continue to enjoy the sun and fun of the Caribbean (though there was that minor crisis last night when we couldn’t find the Astro-Glide!), but I’ve told her firmly that I just must get back to work next week! (Oh, she pouted, but Yr Editor put his foot down, and, of course, she wound up meow-ing, as usual.) Look for me, oh, say, Wednesday, April 9th.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
NOTE: Yr Editor continues to be off on a dangerous undercover assignment somewhere in the Middle East. NOTW Daily will return next week, perhaps. In the meantime, here is your Daily Jury Duty assignment (as usual, no fair examining the actual evidence): Mark Jones, 42, DUI.
Monday, March 31, 2008
NOTE: Ladies and Gentlemen, Yr Editor regrets to inform you that he must take a few days off, starting, er, now. To keep me insinuated in y’all’s hearts and minds, though, I will dutifully post a Gone-Fishin’ message on NOTW Daily on Wednesday and Friday (and probably next Monday and Wednesday, too). If you have news tips, please continue to send them, as I will more-or-less be at work during this hiatus, although somewhat “less” at work than “more” at work. The weekly News of the Weird will appear next Sunday as scheduled. Nothing major going on here, except that sometimes, web-loggers need to shut down for a bit just to prove to our therapists that we're not as compulsive as they think we are. Cheers.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Things To Worry About On Friday
Cage-fighting 6-year-olds / Making their way onto TSA’s agenda: travelers’ nipple rings / The man’s been a wreck ever since Bigfoot molested him / The cigarette-puffing tortoise / And more!
Civilization in Decline
The AP found an “ultimate fighting” club in Carthage, Mo., with 11 kids ages 6-14 (including a girl) that couldn’t be prouder to live in the only state that lets kids be cage fighters . . . . . Transportation Security Administration officials say, no, they don’t have an official policy on travelers wearing nipple rings, but a woman in Los Angeles said she was given the choice of no-fly or removing them with a TSA-supplied pair of pliers . . . . . The NY Times yesterday revealed that a 22-yr-old CEO of a Pentagon contractor, operating out of a nondescript Miami Beach office, has done over $300m worth of business providing munitions for the Afghanistan gov’t, representing a humongous profit because nearly all the munitions were old, expired, obsolete relics discarded by other countries, and furthermore, some were from China, which would be illegal, and of course, the Pentagon was all shoulder shrugs about it until Times reporters came along (Bonus: CEO was carrying a forged driver’s license and had a domestic stayaway order against him) . . . . . Berlin Zoo came under fire because exotic animals seem to vanish without a trace, and a Green Party pol said it’s because the Zoo had become overpopulated (to increase attendance, since the public loves cute little critters) and is now forced to sell surplus to abattoirs and researchers.
The Human Condition Today
Let’s get those state test scores up, said the Texas principal to the teachers, grimly, or else “I will kill you all and kill myself” . . . . . Officials in Australia’s Queensland state are finding it difficult to explain to the defendant all of his legal rights because he insists he’s God and doesn’t need them . . . . . The plodding, methodical Derick Berry, 52, was subdued and arrested after calmly running bathwater for his wife, announcing (in answer to her question) that he was going to drown her (Bonus: This all took place in her hospital room) . . . . . Tacky: Missouri suspended one lawyer’s license (and two more are in the balance) over bribery and lying to federal investigators over [drum roll!] a Terry Bradshaw autograph (Bonus: It was his autograph on a baseball) . . . . . Gene Morrill, 57, trying to save himself from a lengthy prison term for soliciting boys for sex, played the Bigfoot card, i.e., Sasquatch is the one that started me down this road to ruin . . . . . One store on which you ought not try to skip out on the bill: a portrait studio . . . . . Driving into post offices is apparently Glenn Sparling’s thing, this time the one in Ravenden Springs, Ark. . . . . . And this report out of Bellingham, Wash., where a building belonging to Georgia-Pacific Corp. was being demolished, but then caught fire, and the Bellingham Fire Dept. came and put it out.
Your Daily Loser
Zachary Booso, 19, shot in the cheek, shoulder, and thigh by gangbang—oops, make that, shot himself in the cheek, shoulder, and thigh, because he wanted his friends and ex-girlfriend to think he was mixed up in gangs.
People Whose Sex Lives Are Worse Than Yours
Art Price, Jr., 40, Bellevue, Ohio, at least knows he has a problem, but he can’t stop himself from getting captured on video four times by grossed-out neighbors as he walked naked into his back yard, hopped onto a metal table, and humped it. (But he cleaned the deck underneath each time!)
Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict based on mugshot only]
Gary Weaver, 41, charged this week on a warrant for theft from 1990 (Bonus: Because of a couple of quirks of Ohio law at the time, his bond for the $21 theft was, er, $1 million)
NOTW Lite
Finally, a second good use of hydrogen sulfide (“rotten-egg”) (beyond vandalism to get a day off from school): It can induce a safer coma-like-state to allow major trauma injuries to stabilize (in low concentrations, researchers emphasize) . . . . . Agence France-Presse has located a man in the Chinese province of Jilin who has a tortoise that can puff through a cigarette in four minutes . . . . . Some Afghan Taliban officials said maybe, well, they shouldn’t ought to blow up any more cell-phone towers because they've learned that, of all things, not getting a cell-phone signal gets people really mad.
Updates
Since NOTW Daily posted the link on Monday [3-24-2008] to the Advocate article by the “pregnant husband,” other media have piled onto the story, including Britain’s Guardian, which reported that (1) Advocate’s editor said the man’s doctor [Ed.: Gynecologist? I guess so] had been contacted and had verified the story but (2) one of the husband’s neighbors in Oregon said he saw the man just last week and that there was no baby bump and (3) the husband is under a “confidentiality” contract and will not speak to the media until it expires, which is coincidentally (?), er, April 1st.
Professor Music’s Weird Links
Last year, NOTW (and everyone else) reported on the German rabbit breeder creating monster bunnies that he tried to pitch to North Korea as food supplies for poor families [NOTW Daily, 1-13-2007]. It turns out that that wasn’t a monster bunny. This is a monster bunny.
Newsrangers: John Sauter, Christopher Nalty, Amy Rogers, Michael Ravnitzky, Jim Bishop, Catherine May, Karl Olson, Hal Dunham, John Holsinger, Michael Lawlor, Jerry Whittle, Sam Gaines, Emory Kimbrough, Craig Cryer, Joe Littrell, Bob Pert
This posting to News of the Weird Daily is © 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Cage-fighting 6-year-olds / Making their way onto TSA’s agenda: travelers’ nipple rings / The man’s been a wreck ever since Bigfoot molested him / The cigarette-puffing tortoise / And more!
Civilization in Decline
The AP found an “ultimate fighting” club in Carthage, Mo., with 11 kids ages 6-14 (including a girl) that couldn’t be prouder to live in the only state that lets kids be cage fighters . . . . . Transportation Security Administration officials say, no, they don’t have an official policy on travelers wearing nipple rings, but a woman in Los Angeles said she was given the choice of no-fly or removing them with a TSA-supplied pair of pliers . . . . . The NY Times yesterday revealed that a 22-yr-old CEO of a Pentagon contractor, operating out of a nondescript Miami Beach office, has done over $300m worth of business providing munitions for the Afghanistan gov’t, representing a humongous profit because nearly all the munitions were old, expired, obsolete relics discarded by other countries, and furthermore, some were from China, which would be illegal, and of course, the Pentagon was all shoulder shrugs about it until Times reporters came along (Bonus: CEO was carrying a forged driver’s license and had a domestic stayaway order against him) . . . . . Berlin Zoo came under fire because exotic animals seem to vanish without a trace, and a Green Party pol said it’s because the Zoo had become overpopulated (to increase attendance, since the public loves cute little critters) and is now forced to sell surplus to abattoirs and researchers.
The Human Condition Today
Let’s get those state test scores up, said the Texas principal to the teachers, grimly, or else “I will kill you all and kill myself” . . . . . Officials in Australia’s Queensland state are finding it difficult to explain to the defendant all of his legal rights because he insists he’s God and doesn’t need them . . . . . The plodding, methodical Derick Berry, 52, was subdued and arrested after calmly running bathwater for his wife, announcing (in answer to her question) that he was going to drown her (Bonus: This all took place in her hospital room) . . . . . Tacky: Missouri suspended one lawyer’s license (and two more are in the balance) over bribery and lying to federal investigators over [drum roll!] a Terry Bradshaw autograph (Bonus: It was his autograph on a baseball) . . . . . Gene Morrill, 57, trying to save himself from a lengthy prison term for soliciting boys for sex, played the Bigfoot card, i.e., Sasquatch is the one that started me down this road to ruin . . . . . One store on which you ought not try to skip out on the bill: a portrait studio . . . . . Driving into post offices is apparently Glenn Sparling’s thing, this time the one in Ravenden Springs, Ark. . . . . . And this report out of Bellingham, Wash., where a building belonging to Georgia-Pacific Corp. was being demolished, but then caught fire, and the Bellingham Fire Dept. came and put it out.
Your Daily Loser
Zachary Booso, 19, shot in the cheek, shoulder, and thigh by gangbang—oops, make that, shot himself in the cheek, shoulder, and thigh, because he wanted his friends and ex-girlfriend to think he was mixed up in gangs.
People Whose Sex Lives Are Worse Than Yours
Art Price, Jr., 40, Bellevue, Ohio, at least knows he has a problem, but he can’t stop himself from getting captured on video four times by grossed-out neighbors as he walked naked into his back yard, hopped onto a metal table, and humped it. (But he cleaned the deck underneath each time!)
Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict based on mugshot only]
Gary Weaver, 41, charged this week on a warrant for theft from 1990 (Bonus: Because of a couple of quirks of Ohio law at the time, his bond for the $21 theft was, er, $1 million)
NOTW Lite
Finally, a second good use of hydrogen sulfide (“rotten-egg”) (beyond vandalism to get a day off from school): It can induce a safer coma-like-state to allow major trauma injuries to stabilize (in low concentrations, researchers emphasize) . . . . . Agence France-Presse has located a man in the Chinese province of Jilin who has a tortoise that can puff through a cigarette in four minutes . . . . . Some Afghan Taliban officials said maybe, well, they shouldn’t ought to blow up any more cell-phone towers because they've learned that, of all things, not getting a cell-phone signal gets people really mad.
Updates
Since NOTW Daily posted the link on Monday [3-24-2008] to the Advocate article by the “pregnant husband,” other media have piled onto the story, including Britain’s Guardian, which reported that (1) Advocate’s editor said the man’s doctor [Ed.: Gynecologist? I guess so] had been contacted and had verified the story but (2) one of the husband’s neighbors in Oregon said he saw the man just last week and that there was no baby bump and (3) the husband is under a “confidentiality” contract and will not speak to the media until it expires, which is coincidentally (?), er, April 1st.
Professor Music’s Weird Links
Last year, NOTW (and everyone else) reported on the German rabbit breeder creating monster bunnies that he tried to pitch to North Korea as food supplies for poor families [NOTW Daily, 1-13-2007]. It turns out that that wasn’t a monster bunny. This is a monster bunny.
Newsrangers: John Sauter, Christopher Nalty, Amy Rogers, Michael Ravnitzky, Jim Bishop, Catherine May, Karl Olson, Hal Dunham, John Holsinger, Michael Lawlor, Jerry Whittle, Sam Gaines, Emory Kimbrough, Craig Cryer, Joe Littrell, Bob Pert
This posting to News of the Weird Daily is © 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Things To Worry About On Wednesday
Robber calls ahead to make sure there’s cash on hand / Hawaii’s volcano people, living in paradise / Mexican border-jumper forces immigration official to tap out / Carl Spackler lives! / And more!
Civilization in Decline
The Pentagon revealed that, yes, it did mistakenly send four fuses for nuclear missiles to Taiwan when it meant to send helicopter batteries, but, second, not to worry, because it caught the error, er, 18 months later, but still . . . . . So there’s a brain-damaged truck-crash victim who can’t even remember that her son was just killed in Iraq and who wins $1M from the trucker, and first the lawyers, etc., suck out $580k of that, leaving $417k, and then Wal-Mart stockholders suck that out, since she was covered under Wal-Mart’s health-insurance plan, whose fine print says she has to give up insurance payouts.
The Human Condition Today
Firefighter Mary Wolski says her constitutional rights were violated by her bring pink-slipped, just because she set her father’s trailer-home on fire when she got depressed . . . . . The captain of the cheerleaders at West Boca Raton (Fla.) High School died of complications from breast-augmentation surgery . . . . . “This is heaven on Earth” said a representative of a group of residents who live in houses constructed upon charred black rocks far from civilization (namely, the active Kilauea volcano in Hawaii) . . . . . A Beaumont, Tex., woman enforced, at gunpoint, her house rule that deliverymen are not to come into her home unless they remove their shoes first . . . . . Unclear on the Concept: (1) 18-yr-old guy in Chicago tried to rob a muffler shop at 9 a.m., but the manager wasn't in, and only he had access to the cash, and so our guy left his cell phone number and told the employees to give him a ring when the manager showed up so he could come back and rob ‘em (and he tried) (Seriously); (2) 40-yr-old guy in Windsor, Ontario, called up the convenience store 90 minutes ahead of time to make sure there was money in the till before he went to the trouble of driving down there to rob it (there was; he did; he was arrested) . . . . . Readers’ Choice: Ronald Long, 40, Deepwater, Mo., frustrated that he couldn’t drill a hole in the wall to run his satellite TV wire into the house, shot the hole open with his .22-caliber handgun, but on the other side of the wall, inadvertently, was the now-late-Mrs. Long.
Your Daily Loser
F-Stater Frank Singleton, released from jail after a misdemeanor trespassing charge, walked out to the parking lot and tried to jack a car, and that one is a felony (Bonus: He was arrested at the scene, slowed down because the car was a stick-shift, which he couldn’t drive.)
Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict based on mugshot only]
Steven Ross Fowler, 40, allegedly a serious copper thief
NOTW Lite
The newest masked wrestler in Los Angeles’s lucha libre community: Super Mojado (i.e., Super Wetback), and his opponent, in the corner to my left, wearing the black tights with the white lettering . . I-N-S! . . . . . Life Imitates Caddyshack in Calgary: Two men with a Carl Spackler device to blast gophers out started a massive grass fire.
Professor Music’s Weird Links
Not today. Maybe next time.™
NOTW, The Blog
Erroror: The Aboriginal Manitoban woman on Monday (3-24-2008) was not pregnant from the original rape by the brother when he kicked her; coulda been somebody else's, or coulda been the brother's on a return visit.
Newsrangers: Catherine May, Stephen Taylor, Karl Olson, Gerald Sacks, Eric Gibbs, Diane Gunnels-Rowley, Sam Gaines, and quite a few finders of the Readers’ Choice stories and the two unclear-on-the-concept robbers
This posting to News of the Weird Daily is © 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Robber calls ahead to make sure there’s cash on hand / Hawaii’s volcano people, living in paradise / Mexican border-jumper forces immigration official to tap out / Carl Spackler lives! / And more!
Civilization in Decline
The Pentagon revealed that, yes, it did mistakenly send four fuses for nuclear missiles to Taiwan when it meant to send helicopter batteries, but, second, not to worry, because it caught the error, er, 18 months later, but still . . . . . So there’s a brain-damaged truck-crash victim who can’t even remember that her son was just killed in Iraq and who wins $1M from the trucker, and first the lawyers, etc., suck out $580k of that, leaving $417k, and then Wal-Mart stockholders suck that out, since she was covered under Wal-Mart’s health-insurance plan, whose fine print says she has to give up insurance payouts.
The Human Condition Today
Firefighter Mary Wolski says her constitutional rights were violated by her bring pink-slipped, just because she set her father’s trailer-home on fire when she got depressed . . . . . The captain of the cheerleaders at West Boca Raton (Fla.) High School died of complications from breast-augmentation surgery . . . . . “This is heaven on Earth” said a representative of a group of residents who live in houses constructed upon charred black rocks far from civilization (namely, the active Kilauea volcano in Hawaii) . . . . . A Beaumont, Tex., woman enforced, at gunpoint, her house rule that deliverymen are not to come into her home unless they remove their shoes first . . . . . Unclear on the Concept: (1) 18-yr-old guy in Chicago tried to rob a muffler shop at 9 a.m., but the manager wasn't in, and only he had access to the cash, and so our guy left his cell phone number and told the employees to give him a ring when the manager showed up so he could come back and rob ‘em (and he tried) (Seriously); (2) 40-yr-old guy in Windsor, Ontario, called up the convenience store 90 minutes ahead of time to make sure there was money in the till before he went to the trouble of driving down there to rob it (there was; he did; he was arrested) . . . . . Readers’ Choice: Ronald Long, 40, Deepwater, Mo., frustrated that he couldn’t drill a hole in the wall to run his satellite TV wire into the house, shot the hole open with his .22-caliber handgun, but on the other side of the wall, inadvertently, was the now-late-Mrs. Long.
Your Daily Loser
F-Stater Frank Singleton, released from jail after a misdemeanor trespassing charge, walked out to the parking lot and tried to jack a car, and that one is a felony (Bonus: He was arrested at the scene, slowed down because the car was a stick-shift, which he couldn’t drive.)
Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict based on mugshot only]
Steven Ross Fowler, 40, allegedly a serious copper thief
NOTW Lite
The newest masked wrestler in Los Angeles’s lucha libre community: Super Mojado (i.e., Super Wetback), and his opponent, in the corner to my left, wearing the black tights with the white lettering . . I-N-S! . . . . . Life Imitates Caddyshack in Calgary: Two men with a Carl Spackler device to blast gophers out started a massive grass fire.
Professor Music’s Weird Links
Not today. Maybe next time.™
NOTW, The Blog
Erroror: The Aboriginal Manitoban woman on Monday (3-24-2008) was not pregnant from the original rape by the brother when he kicked her; coulda been somebody else's, or coulda been the brother's on a return visit.
Newsrangers: Catherine May, Stephen Taylor, Karl Olson, Gerald Sacks, Eric Gibbs, Diane Gunnels-Rowley, Sam Gaines, and quite a few finders of the Readers’ Choice stories and the two unclear-on-the-concept robbers
This posting to News of the Weird Daily is © 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
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