Follies of the Madmen #270

Message: Colt 45 habit produces stupefied oblivion to everything but next drink.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Jan 05, 2016 - Comments (8)
Category: Oceans and Maritime Pursuits, Advertising, 1960s, Alcohol, Brain Damage

Untitled

Untitled
January 4, 2016
(Untitled, because Chuck never follows through on these start-ups, so if things work out better this time, I’ll come up with a title) (Links to sources on page 2, chronological order)
Copyright 2016 by Chuck Shepherd

Enrique Iglesias brought his “Love and Sex” world tour to Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo, and the traditional girls’ panty-toss came to the attention of the president, who prescribed public whippings of the concert organizers with toxic stingray tails, which, to Sri Lankans, is apparently a very, very, very bad thing.

New World Order: Normal birth (conception “the old-fashioned way”) in Ecuador, announced Xmas Eve--except the trans female provided the sperm, the trans male the egg and uterus.

Think Roe v. Wade is just one of those in-the-past/your-momma’s-era issues? Indiana woman is locked up for 46 yrs because a jury thought she should’ve been more alert about, was it “miscarriage” or gasps of a live birth.

Turns out some lady cops in Brussels were hyped about the country’s lockdown after Nov. 13th Paris attacks--but mainly because they heard Belgian soldiers (guy-type) would be quartered at their police station overnight. Yesss!

The Asian-American rock band with the disgusting, offensive, disrespectful, awful, hate-speech (etc.) name can still trademark it under U.S. law. (They’re “The Slants” and proud of it.)

Two subtle Monica Lewinsky references in the news last week: (1) In a New Yorker report on Jeb Bush’s ongoing suck-up to the F State’s sugar industry, we are reminded that Big Sugar’s biggest kahuna was the one on the phone to Bill Clinton during one of those famous ML episodes. (2) Ms. Carneeka Sanders was arrested in St. Petersburg and happened to be squirreling away a “cigar” in her hoo-hah.

Comment in the journal Nature about the James Bond pic Spectre, about how the writers got it correct in one scene about erasing Bond’s face-recognition memory--except, wrote the commenter, the drill should have been aimed in front of Bond’s left ear, not to the back of the skull. (Doesn’t everybody know how to access the fusiform gyrus without messing up the ipsilateral vertebral artery?)

Most Helpful Post of the Year: Deadspin’s annual plumbing of Consumer Product Safety Commission reports on what humans got stuck in their bodies last year (based on hospital E.R. reporting), with special emphasis on the you-know-whats.

Of course: From a U.S. Supreme Court brief on the challenge of a Mississippi high schooler disciplined for online-posting a rap song by Killer Mike, the student’s lawyer clarified for the 9 justices: “It probably is worth noting that ‘Killer Mike’ has never actually killed anyone.”

Highlight of the Week: the photo of presidential candidate (i.e., Narcissistic Personality Disorder sufferer) Martin O’Malley at his “rally” in Tama, Iowa, when he attracted a crowd of . . one. One on one, O’Malley couldn’t even close on “Kenneth,” who said afterward he was still undecided. Perfect! (Once again this year, thanks to the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, America will spend more on NPD sufferers than on victims of most other major disorders.)

[Links on Page 2]


More in extended >>

Posted By: Chuck - Mon Jan 04, 2016 - Comments (2)
Category:

Paring knives are not arms

After Wayne Anthony Evans was pulled over for speeding by a Seattle police officer, a paring knife was found in his pocket, and he was arrested for possession of a fixed-blade knife. In his defense, Evans argued that the Seattle municipal code banning fixed-blade knifes violated his constitutional right to bear arms.



Not so, the Washington Supreme Court recently decided. It didn't consider the constitutionality of the municipal code itself, but (looking narrowly at the facts of this specific case) decided that there was no historical evidence that paring knives are "arms." Therefore, they can be banned.


If Evans had been carrying a bayonet, perhaps the outcome of the case would have been different.

via Wash Post

Posted By: Alex - Mon Jan 04, 2016 - Comments (5)
Category: Law, Weapons

Motorcycle + Parachute = Disaster

Posted By: Paul - Mon Jan 04, 2016 - Comments (3)
Category: Daredevils, Stuntpeople and Thrillseekers, Air Travel and Airlines, 1920s, Motorcycles

News of the Weird (January 3, 2016)

News of the Weird
Weirdnuz.M456, January 3, 2016
Copyright 2016 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

WEIRDNUZ.M456 (News of the Weird, January 3, 2016)
by Chuck Shepherd

Lead Story

New World Order: In December, Canada’s supportive organization The Transgender Project released a biographical video of the former Paul Wolscht, 46 and the father of seven children with his ex-wife Marie, describing his new life as not only a female but a six-year-old female, Stephoknee Wolscht. She told the Daily Xtra (gay and lesbian news site) that not acting her real age (even while doing “adult” things like working a job and driving a car) enables her to escape “depression and suicidal thoughts.” Among the trans-age’s favorite activities are (coloring-book) coloring, creating a play-like “kingdom,” and wearing “really pretty clothes.” Stephoknee now lives with the couple who adopted her. [The Independent (London), 12-16-2015]

Unclear on the Concept

Thee, Not Me: American “millennials” (those aged 18-29) continue a “long-standing tradition,” the Washington Post wrote in December, describing a Harvard Institute of Politics poll on their views on war. Following the recent Paris terrorist attacks, about 60 percent of U.S. millennials said additional American troops would be needed to fight the Islamic State, but 85 percent answered, in the next question, that “no,” they themselves were “probably” or “definitely” not joining the military. [Washington Post, 12-10-2015]

Exceptional Floridians

(1) Police in St. Petersburg reported the December arrest of a 12-year-old boy whose rap sheet listed “over 20" arrests since age 9. He, on a bicycle, had told an 89-year-old driver at a gas station that the man’s tire was low, and when the man got out to check, the boy hopped in the car and took off. (2) A driver accidentally plowed through two small businesses in Pensacola in December, creating such destruction that the manager of one said it looked like a bomb had hit (forcing both--a tax service and a casket company--to relocate). The driver told police he was attempting to “travel through time.” [WTSP-TV (St. Petersburg), 12-15-2015] [WEAR-TV (Pensacola), 12-23-2015]

Compelling Explanations

(1) Breen Peck, 52, an air traffic controller who has been having career troubles in recent years, was arrested during a traffic stop on New York’s Long Island in December when officers found illegal drugs in his car. “That’s meth,” he said. “I’m an air traffic controller.” “I smoke it to stay awake.” (2) In a “she-said/he-said” case, wealthy Saudi businessman Ehsan Abdulaziz, 46, was acquitted of rape in December in England’s Southwark Crown Court, apparently persuading jurors of “reasonable doubt” about his DNA found in the alleged victim’s vagina. Perhaps, his lawyer said, Abdulaziz was still aroused after sex with the other woman in the room and accidentally fell directly upon the alleged victim lying on a couch. [New York Post, 12-11-2015] [The Independent, 12-16-2015]

Ironies

Christopher Manney was fired from the Milwaukee Police Department in 2014 after shooting a black suspect to death in a case bearing some similarity to 2015 shootings that produced “Black Lives Matter” protests--not fired for the shooting (adjudged “not excessive force”) but for improper actions that preceded the shooting (not announcing a valid reason for a patdown and conducting a not-by-the-book patdown). Two days before the firing, he had filed a disability claim for post-traumatic stress disorder from the shooting and aftermath, and in November 2015 the city’s Annuity and Pension Board, following city law, approved the claim. Thus, Manney, despite having been subsequently fired (i.e., two days later), retired with full disability, with basically the same take-home pay he was receiving when fired. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 11-5-2015; WITI-TV (Milwaukee), 10-16-2015]

In November, as anti-Muslim tensions arose in several U.S. cities following the Paris terrorist attack, two chapters of the Satanic Temple church (San Jose, Calif., and Minneapolis) offered to protect Muslims who feared a backlash. The Minneapolis group offered “just big dudes walking you to where you need to be,” for example, grocery-shopping--an offer “of genuine compassion for our fellow human beings.” (The offer was subsequently rescinded by the Minneapolis church’s executive ministry, reasoning that they are “not a personal security service.”) [City Pages (Minneapolis), 12-22-2015]

Wrong Place, Wrong Time

In November, a 62-year-old customer at Ancient City Shooting Range in St. Augustine, Fla., was hit in the lower abdomen area by another shooter, 71, because the victim was standing behind the target (“for some reason,” was all a fire-rescue spokesman would say). The shooter thought the man was elsewhere on the property. [Jacksonville.com, 11-27-2015]

Least Competent Criminals

Oops! (1) Jasper Harrison, 47, working inside the storage unit in Edgewater, Fla., where he grows his marijuana, heard a helicopter overhead on December 9th, panicked, and called 911 to turn himself in to pre-empt what he presumed was a SWAT raid. Actually, the helicopter belonged to a local news station headed elsewhere, but police later arrested Harrison based on the 911 call. (2) Lloyd Franklin, 34 and suspected in a North Carolina double murder, fatally shot himself in a Bensalem, Pa., motel room in November when police knocked on the door. However, cops actually had come to arrest another man in the room, on a parole violation. [Orlando Sentinel, 12-10-2015] [KYW-TV (Philadelphia), 11-8-2015]

The Continuing Crisis

Elaine Williams, 47, was arrested in December in North Forsyth, Ga., and charged with trying to buy a baby for her daughter, 14, via an ad on Craigslist. Williams said her daughter said she “wanted a baby and would get one with or without [my] help.” (Bonus: Williams lives near Jot Em Down Road.) [Forsyth County News, 12-7-2015]

Easily Disrespected: Two foreign students at the liberal-arts Oberlin College complained in a recent school publication that the cafeteria selections--supposedly “inclusive” of world cultures--was actually denigrating those cultures by offering inferior versions of national dishes. Vietnamese student Diep Nguyen wrote that the correct “banh mi” sandwich should be a “crispy baguette with grilled pork, pate, pickled vegetables, and fresh herbs” and not, he complained, “ciabatta bread, pulled pork, and coleslaw.” Said Japanese student Tomoyo Joshi, sushi with “undercooked rice and lack of fresh fish is disrespectful.” (Cafeteria managers told the Washington Post they were proud of their commitments to other cultures, to local farming, sustainable foods, and animal-treatment concerns.) [Oberlin Review, 11-6-2015] [Washington Post, 12-21-2015]

The Aristocrats!

(1) A customer had to be dragged from a burning sex shop by firefighters in the notorious Reeperbahn “sin” section of Hamburg, Germany, in November when he refused orders to evacuate. He had shut himself inside a private booth to watch a film (“Throbbin Hood”) and was heard complaining (while coughing from smoke inhalation), “I haven’t finished yet.” (2) Police in Richmond, Va., announced in December that high school math teacher Kenneth Johnson III turned himself in for several recent residential shoe thefts. Each time, the shoes taken from homes were returned to their owners but with “bodily fluids” added. [Daily Mail (London), 11-25-2015] [WTVR-TV (Richmond, 12-5-2015]

Update

Road to Nowhere: The “Bridge to Nowhere” played an outsize role in politics a decade ago as an example of uncontrolled government spending (before Congress killed it). (Ketchikan, Alaska, planned a sleek international airport upgrade on nearby, barely-inhabited Gravina Island, but needed a sleek bridge to get there, and the $450 million bridge would be built first.) These days, reported Alaska Dispatch News in November, the original 3.2-mile, $28 million access road on Gravina Island, built to access the bridge, now just ends in a “scrub forest.” One optimistic state official said the road gets “more use all the time”--boaters come for “hunting and fishing, berry picking, things like that. It’s actually a nice road.” [Alaska Dispatch News, 11-16-2015]

A News of the Weird Classic (June 2011)

A prison guard is "the greatest entry-level job in California," according to an April [2011] Wall Street Journal report highlighting its benefits over those of a typical job resulting from a Harvard University education). Starting pay is comparable; loans are not necessary (since the guard "academy" actually pays the student); and vacation time is more generous (seven weeks, five paid). One downside: The prison system is more selective: While Harvard accepts 6.2 percent of applicants, the guard service takes fewer than 1 percent of its 120,000 applicants). [Wall Street Journal, 4-30-2011]

Thanks This Week to Rich Heiden, Rachael Bock, and Stuart Worthington, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

Posted By: Chuck - Sun Jan 03, 2016 - Comments (7)
Category:

Fire Alibi

This has to be one of the worst excuses ever.

The Pantagraph (Bloomington, Illinois) — Mar 2, 1955

Posted By: Alex - Sun Jan 03, 2016 - Comments (8)
Category: Accidents, 1950s

The Huntress

I would love to see this 1923 film starring Colleen Moore remade today. A white actress playing a Native American, who is so desperate for a husband she kidnaps a stranger? Uncontroversial box-office gold!

Original ad here.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Jan 03, 2016 - Comments (8)
Category: Movies, Stereotypes and Cliches, 1920s, Native Americans

Eliza Bent

Luckily for us all, Eliza Bent, having exhausted the audiences of Austin, has found new comrades and a new home in New York City for her "art."

That her new piece is titled "Toilet Fire" leaves us eager to drop everything and attend!

Posted By: Paul - Sat Jan 02, 2016 - Comments (4)
Category:

Hoped brain would prove his innocence

1913: Charles Gilbert, imprisoned for 48 years for the murder of a bounty officer, was so determined to prove his innocence that he requested that his brain be examined after his death — believing that "the investigation would corroborate his claim of innocence by revealing that such a brain as his could not have conceived or exercised the Caldwell murder."

Scientists at Yale Medical School complied with his wish and examined his brain. However, I've not yet been able to find any report of their findings.

Sources: Leavenworth Times (Oct 18, 1913); Lincoln Star (Oct 14, 1913)

Posted By: Alex - Sat Jan 02, 2016 - Comments (1)
Category: Crime, 1910s, Brain

2016 Calendhair

Tired of back hair shaming, one man made a calendhair, a calendar of back hair art. You can view all the months pictures and order yourself a calendhair at the link. The picture above is, of course, July. Maybe next year use some temporary hair dye to dress it up.

Posted By: Alex - Fri Jan 01, 2016 - Comments (2)
Category: Human Marvels, Hygiene