News of the Weird (January 10, 2016)
News of the Weird
Weirdnuz.M457, January 10, 2016
Copyright 2016 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
Hard Times For Science: (1) A tractor-trailer driver with a load of bottled water tried to make it over an historic bridge in Paoli, Ind., on Christmas day, with the obvious outcome when 35 tons of water starts across a limit-6-tons span. The driver told police she saw the 6-ton sign but did not know how that “translated” to pounds. (2) Among the activists denouncing a proposed solar-panel farm at a December Woodland (N.C.) Town Council meeting were a husband and wife certain that vegetation near the panels would die because the panels would (the husband said) “suck up all the energy from the sun.” His wife (described as a “retired science teacher”) explained that the solar panels prevent “photosynthesis” (and also, of course, cause cancer). (The Council voted a moratorium on the panels.) [WDRB-TV (Louisville, Ky.), 12-25-2015] [Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald, 12-8-2015]
Recent Recurring Themes
Paul Stenstrom of Tarpon Springs, Fla., is among the most recent Americans to have discovered the brightest side of federal bankruptcy law, having lived in his mortgaged home basically free of charge from 2002 until 2013 by using the law to stave off foreclosure. Even though none of his 15 petitions was ever approved, he followed each one immediately with another petition, and it was not until 2013 that one judge finally declared Stenstrom a “serially abusive filer, “ barring further petitions for two years--at which point his bank was able to conclude the foreclosure. Upon expiration of the two-year period in September 2015, Stenstrom quickly filed another bankruptcy petition--to keep from being evicted from the townhouse on whose rent he is four months behind. [Tampa Bay Times, 11-21-2015]
Bright Ideas: In October, once again, police (this time in Liyang in eastern China) arrested a man whom they accused of stealing women’s underwear, prolifically, with a device likened to a fishing rod, enabling him to reach into windows and extract goodies. The suspect, 32, admitted to a three-year scheme, and in his van police found 285 bras and 185 panties. [The Guardian (London), 10-24-2015]
In December, Carlos Aguilera, 27, became the most recent brain-surgery patient to assist doctors by remaining conscious during the 12-hour operation--and playing his saxophone to help assure surgeons that their removal of a tumor was not affecting his speech, hearing, or movement. The operation, at Spain’s Malaga Regional Hospital, was supposedly Europe’s first, but News of the Weird has reported two in the U.S., including on a guitar-strumming man in 2013 at UCLA Medical Center. [Daily Telegraph (London), 12-17-2015]
Least Competent Criminals: (1) Nurse’s aide Candace McCray, 36, is the most recent theft suspect to have worn some of the purloined jewelry when meeting police detectives investigating the theft. An assisted-living resident in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., had described her missing gems, and McCray was questioned as someone with access to the woman’s room. (2) Joshua Jording, 26, in Latrobe, Pa., became the most recent burglary suspect caught on surveillance video during the crime wearing a shirt with his name on it (which was later found in Jording’s home, along with stash from the December 2nd burglary). [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 8-17-2015] [Associated Press via Seattle Post-Intelligender, 12-9-2015]
More Core Failings of Carjackers: (1) Albert Luna, 19, was arrested in Coachella, Calif., in December and charged with swiping the keys while a Federal Express driver was unloading a package. The driver reported that Luna later walked away when he could not figure out how to drive the truck. (Bonus: The arrest report noted that during the entire episode, Luna was naked.) (2) Kyle Blair, 25, was arrested in Surrey, British Columbia, in November when he approached a car at an intersection and attempted to pull the driver out. For one thing, the two men in the car were later described as “big, burly” guys, but more important, they were plainclothes police officers on a stakeout. [The Smoking Gun, 12-9-2015] [Canadian Press, 11-10-2015]
Syrian refugees (mostly, Muslims) may pose a humanitarian and political crisis for Germany, but the Virginia Care company of Recklinghausen, Germany, said they are good for its business: sales of fake hymens, for women to convince Muslim grooms to believe they were wedding-night virgins. The non-chaste Virginia Care buyer inserts a membraned packet (about US$54) that will burst by pentrative sex, releasing blood coloring. (The “blood” is available either in “Original” dark brownish red, which parents are said to expect, or “Advanced” brighter red, thought to be more satisfying to husbands.) [Daily Mail (London), 12-15-2015]
Mendel Epstein (Lakewood, N.J.) is not the only rabbi suspected of overaggressiveness as he helps desperate wives obtain religiously proper divorces, but he will be headed to prison for 10 years after a federal court found that he used beatings, stun guns, and, once, an electric cattle prod to convince reluctant husbands they should sign the papers. Orthodox Jewish wives cannot remarry properly without obtaining such a “get,” and Rabbi Epstein was apparently very “convincing.” (According to trial evidence, he used the services of four thugs.) “Over the years,” Epstein confessed in court, “I guess I got caught up in my tough-guy image.” [WCAU-TV (Philadelphia), 12-15-2015]
Another Way to Tell If You’re Really, Really Drunk: Her passengers had run away, leaving Elena Bartman-Wallman, 23, behind the wheel but oblivious on a December afternoon in Aleknagik, Alaska, and her car’s tires had started to smoke. She had lodged her foot against the accelerator, facing the wrong way on the road, with her wheels spinning continuously, and by the time police arrived (to discover Bartman-Wallman passed out), the front tires had melted down to the rims. [Alaska Dispatch News, 12-28-2015]
Though New York City’s waiting list for subsidized housing stands at over 300,000, the agency still has only nominal ability to evict a tenant who once qualified but subsequently became wealthier, and the latest “beneficiary” of those rules, according to a November WPIX-TV report, is a household that reported earning $497,911 in a recent year. Initially, one Housing Authority official declared it beneficial that such a mixture of income levels occupy subsidized housing--so that struggling families would not have only other struggling families for neighbors--but public pressure has made the Authority reconsider. [WPIX-TV, 11-25-2015]
Almost No Longer Weird: (1) When a woman leaped to her death on December 12th from an apartment building in New York City, she of course landed on top of another woman, 71, who was left in critical condition. (2) In December, Russia’s independent RT news site, culling a story from the country’s rural far eastern coast, reported the most recent case of a “declared dead” man awakening in a morgue. After a harrowing few hours, the man returned to the site of the party--to find his friends “still drinking but [by] this time commemorating him.” [New York Post, 12-13-2015] [Khasanskiye Vesti via RT.com (Moscow), 12-31-2015]
London’s Metropolitan Police called it the biggest case of voyeurism they had ever seen after a judge sent George Thomas, 38, to prison for four years in December for his six-year spree of furtively photographing women. Thomas, a former manager for the Ernst & Young accounting firm, filmed more than 3,500 people, including children and even babies, with cameras in his and others’ homes and the restrooms of coffee shops and workplaces. (And, of course, sooner or later, amidst the recovered stash, police found at least one shot of Thomas’s face, inadvertently captured as he was setting up one of the cameras.) [The Independent, 12-22-2015]
A News of the Weird Classic (November 2011)
Enterprising reporters get stories by earning the trust of their sources, which Simon Eroro of the Post-Courier (Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea) obviously did. At a banquet in November [2011], the News Corporation (Rupert Murdoch's empire) awarded Eroro its "Scoop of the Year" honor for reporting on militant tribal fighters of the Free West Papua movement--a scoop he had to earn by (to prove his sincerity) undergoing a ritual circumcision, with bamboo sticks. (Some of the rebels still wear penis gourds whose size varies with the status of the wearer.) [Daily Telegraph, 11-7-2011]
Thanks This Week to Rey Barry and Mark Lillicrap, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
Weirdnuz.M457, January 10, 2016
Copyright 2016 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
Hard Times For Science: (1) A tractor-trailer driver with a load of bottled water tried to make it over an historic bridge in Paoli, Ind., on Christmas day, with the obvious outcome when 35 tons of water starts across a limit-6-tons span. The driver told police she saw the 6-ton sign but did not know how that “translated” to pounds. (2) Among the activists denouncing a proposed solar-panel farm at a December Woodland (N.C.) Town Council meeting were a husband and wife certain that vegetation near the panels would die because the panels would (the husband said) “suck up all the energy from the sun.” His wife (described as a “retired science teacher”) explained that the solar panels prevent “photosynthesis” (and also, of course, cause cancer). (The Council voted a moratorium on the panels.) [WDRB-TV (Louisville, Ky.), 12-25-2015] [Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald, 12-8-2015]
Recent Recurring Themes
Paul Stenstrom of Tarpon Springs, Fla., is among the most recent Americans to have discovered the brightest side of federal bankruptcy law, having lived in his mortgaged home basically free of charge from 2002 until 2013 by using the law to stave off foreclosure. Even though none of his 15 petitions was ever approved, he followed each one immediately with another petition, and it was not until 2013 that one judge finally declared Stenstrom a “serially abusive filer, “ barring further petitions for two years--at which point his bank was able to conclude the foreclosure. Upon expiration of the two-year period in September 2015, Stenstrom quickly filed another bankruptcy petition--to keep from being evicted from the townhouse on whose rent he is four months behind. [Tampa Bay Times, 11-21-2015]
Bright Ideas: In October, once again, police (this time in Liyang in eastern China) arrested a man whom they accused of stealing women’s underwear, prolifically, with a device likened to a fishing rod, enabling him to reach into windows and extract goodies. The suspect, 32, admitted to a three-year scheme, and in his van police found 285 bras and 185 panties. [The Guardian (London), 10-24-2015]
In December, Carlos Aguilera, 27, became the most recent brain-surgery patient to assist doctors by remaining conscious during the 12-hour operation--and playing his saxophone to help assure surgeons that their removal of a tumor was not affecting his speech, hearing, or movement. The operation, at Spain’s Malaga Regional Hospital, was supposedly Europe’s first, but News of the Weird has reported two in the U.S., including on a guitar-strumming man in 2013 at UCLA Medical Center. [Daily Telegraph (London), 12-17-2015]
Least Competent Criminals: (1) Nurse’s aide Candace McCray, 36, is the most recent theft suspect to have worn some of the purloined jewelry when meeting police detectives investigating the theft. An assisted-living resident in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., had described her missing gems, and McCray was questioned as someone with access to the woman’s room. (2) Joshua Jording, 26, in Latrobe, Pa., became the most recent burglary suspect caught on surveillance video during the crime wearing a shirt with his name on it (which was later found in Jording’s home, along with stash from the December 2nd burglary). [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 8-17-2015] [Associated Press via Seattle Post-Intelligender, 12-9-2015]
More Core Failings of Carjackers: (1) Albert Luna, 19, was arrested in Coachella, Calif., in December and charged with swiping the keys while a Federal Express driver was unloading a package. The driver reported that Luna later walked away when he could not figure out how to drive the truck. (Bonus: The arrest report noted that during the entire episode, Luna was naked.) (2) Kyle Blair, 25, was arrested in Surrey, British Columbia, in November when he approached a car at an intersection and attempted to pull the driver out. For one thing, the two men in the car were later described as “big, burly” guys, but more important, they were plainclothes police officers on a stakeout. [The Smoking Gun, 12-9-2015] [Canadian Press, 11-10-2015]
Syrian refugees (mostly, Muslims) may pose a humanitarian and political crisis for Germany, but the Virginia Care company of Recklinghausen, Germany, said they are good for its business: sales of fake hymens, for women to convince Muslim grooms to believe they were wedding-night virgins. The non-chaste Virginia Care buyer inserts a membraned packet (about US$54) that will burst by pentrative sex, releasing blood coloring. (The “blood” is available either in “Original” dark brownish red, which parents are said to expect, or “Advanced” brighter red, thought to be more satisfying to husbands.) [Daily Mail (London), 12-15-2015]
Mendel Epstein (Lakewood, N.J.) is not the only rabbi suspected of overaggressiveness as he helps desperate wives obtain religiously proper divorces, but he will be headed to prison for 10 years after a federal court found that he used beatings, stun guns, and, once, an electric cattle prod to convince reluctant husbands they should sign the papers. Orthodox Jewish wives cannot remarry properly without obtaining such a “get,” and Rabbi Epstein was apparently very “convincing.” (According to trial evidence, he used the services of four thugs.) “Over the years,” Epstein confessed in court, “I guess I got caught up in my tough-guy image.” [WCAU-TV (Philadelphia), 12-15-2015]
Another Way to Tell If You’re Really, Really Drunk: Her passengers had run away, leaving Elena Bartman-Wallman, 23, behind the wheel but oblivious on a December afternoon in Aleknagik, Alaska, and her car’s tires had started to smoke. She had lodged her foot against the accelerator, facing the wrong way on the road, with her wheels spinning continuously, and by the time police arrived (to discover Bartman-Wallman passed out), the front tires had melted down to the rims. [Alaska Dispatch News, 12-28-2015]
Though New York City’s waiting list for subsidized housing stands at over 300,000, the agency still has only nominal ability to evict a tenant who once qualified but subsequently became wealthier, and the latest “beneficiary” of those rules, according to a November WPIX-TV report, is a household that reported earning $497,911 in a recent year. Initially, one Housing Authority official declared it beneficial that such a mixture of income levels occupy subsidized housing--so that struggling families would not have only other struggling families for neighbors--but public pressure has made the Authority reconsider. [WPIX-TV, 11-25-2015]
Almost No Longer Weird: (1) When a woman leaped to her death on December 12th from an apartment building in New York City, she of course landed on top of another woman, 71, who was left in critical condition. (2) In December, Russia’s independent RT news site, culling a story from the country’s rural far eastern coast, reported the most recent case of a “declared dead” man awakening in a morgue. After a harrowing few hours, the man returned to the site of the party--to find his friends “still drinking but [by] this time commemorating him.” [New York Post, 12-13-2015] [Khasanskiye Vesti via RT.com (Moscow), 12-31-2015]
London’s Metropolitan Police called it the biggest case of voyeurism they had ever seen after a judge sent George Thomas, 38, to prison for four years in December for his six-year spree of furtively photographing women. Thomas, a former manager for the Ernst & Young accounting firm, filmed more than 3,500 people, including children and even babies, with cameras in his and others’ homes and the restrooms of coffee shops and workplaces. (And, of course, sooner or later, amidst the recovered stash, police found at least one shot of Thomas’s face, inadvertently captured as he was setting up one of the cameras.) [The Independent, 12-22-2015]
A News of the Weird Classic (November 2011)
Enterprising reporters get stories by earning the trust of their sources, which Simon Eroro of the Post-Courier (Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea) obviously did. At a banquet in November [2011], the News Corporation (Rupert Murdoch's empire) awarded Eroro its "Scoop of the Year" honor for reporting on militant tribal fighters of the Free West Papua movement--a scoop he had to earn by (to prove his sincerity) undergoing a ritual circumcision, with bamboo sticks. (Some of the rebels still wear penis gourds whose size varies with the status of the wearer.) [Daily Telegraph, 11-7-2011]
Thanks This Week to Rey Barry and Mark Lillicrap, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
Comments
truck driver- Add basic math to CDL classes I guess.
Solar panels- NIMBY meets throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.
preventing eviction- I find myself happy for this guy for putting it to the bank. Mostly they kick people out and let the hose sit empty and get stripped of copper pipes and destroyed anyway. At least in town that is what happens. Also, they do not have the lawns mowed or anything. When someone lived there at least it was not an eyesore. Tax payers bail out banks so they can screw over people who are in financial straights just like the banks were. Sounds fair right?
gotta go, more later.
Solar panels- NIMBY meets throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.
preventing eviction- I find myself happy for this guy for putting it to the bank. Mostly they kick people out and let the hose sit empty and get stripped of copper pipes and destroyed anyway. At least in town that is what happens. Also, they do not have the lawns mowed or anything. When someone lived there at least it was not an eyesore. Tax payers bail out banks so they can screw over people who are in financial straights just like the banks were. Sounds fair right?
gotta go, more later.
Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 01/11/16 at 11:15 AM
panty thief- Cop searching his home, "What's under there?"
Thief, " Under where?" Cop, "You are under arrest!"
brain surgery- I guess you could say he was instrumental in his treatment.
Fed Ex- Same old thing till the naked part!
Car jacker- Now THAT is bad luck.
Fake Hymen- The only way this could be more offensive to Muslims would be if the things were made of pig skin.
To get a get- Like the Jewish mafia, the Kosher Hand.
tires melted- So that would be attempted drunk driving, right? I mean, obviously, the car never moved.
subsidized housing- They cut people off all the time, even needy people who are a few cents over the income limit. Obviously someone has some political pull to keep this going on.
peeping cameras- 4 years of jail for 6 years of peeping?
Bamboo- Now there's a devoted journalist!!
Thief, " Under where?" Cop, "You are under arrest!"
brain surgery- I guess you could say he was instrumental in his treatment.
Fed Ex- Same old thing till the naked part!
Car jacker- Now THAT is bad luck.
Fake Hymen- The only way this could be more offensive to Muslims would be if the things were made of pig skin.
To get a get- Like the Jewish mafia, the Kosher Hand.
tires melted- So that would be attempted drunk driving, right? I mean, obviously, the car never moved.
subsidized housing- They cut people off all the time, even needy people who are a few cents over the income limit. Obviously someone has some political pull to keep this going on.
peeping cameras- 4 years of jail for 6 years of peeping?
Bamboo- Now there's a devoted journalist!!
Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 01/11/16 at 01:35 PM
Commenting is not available in this channel entry.
Category: