News of the Weird (March 16, 2014)
News of the Weird
Weirdnuz.M362, March 16, 2014
Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd
Lead Story
In February, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that David Bell could not avoid being charged with DUI merely because he had been sober enough to pass all six “field sobriety tests” administered during a traffic stop. It was enough, the court said, that he had admitted drinking that night. A few days later, the Austin American-Statesman reported on Texan Larry Davis’s struggle to clear the 2013 DUI arrest from his record--since he had blown a 0.0 alcohol reading that night and then had voluntarily undergone a blood test for other impairing drugs and come up clean on that. Davis had admitted to “one drink” but allegedly failed a “field sobriety test” (in the opinion of the arresting officer, anyway). (Davis’s case is still unresolved, but, since he has been declared an “indigent,” the state covers his legal expenses.) [Associated Press via WRCB-TV (Chattanooga), 2-21-2014] [Austin American-Statesman, 2-24-2013]
Compelling Explanations
Jack Harvey, 42, drew a three-plus-year sentence in England's Truro Crown Court in February following his guilty plea on drug charges. Earlier, he had insisted that police had planted the drugs they found in his house and car and even that a stranger (maybe "some filthy woman," he said) must be the owner of that cocaine and heroin that police found taped to his testicles. [WestBriton.co.uk, 2-6-2014]
Logical: (1) John Rogers of Geneva, Fla., recently acquitted in a shooting death (using Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” defense), convinced a judge in February to return his gun, which police had confiscated when they arrested him. Rogers said he needs the gun for protection because he is particularly vulnerable--in that he is blind. (2) Rogerio Scotton, challenging federal charges in January that he lied to immigration officials about his “marriage” to a Cuban woman (a “sham,” said prosecutors), offered to prove the matrimony’s bona fides by showing the couple’s conjugal-bed videos in open court. (The judge instructed Scotton to find a “less intrusive” way to make the same point.) [WESH-TV (Orlando), 2-21-2014] [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 1-22-2014]
The Continuing Crisis
PREVIOUSLY ON WEIRD UNIVERSE: The firm 3D Babies has begun selling (for $800) 8-inch-long fetal sculptures manufactured from 3-D ultrasound images developed with computer graphics and 3-D printing technology (“printing” successive layers of material continuously, eventually creating a physical object). (Four-inch and two-inch models are available for $400 and $200, respectively.) For celebrity hounds who are not planning imminent parenthood, the company sells one fetal sculpture off the shelf: the Kim Kardashian-Kanye West fetus (“Baby North West”) for only $250. [FastCoDesign.com, 1-17-2014]
Ms. Blondie Bennett (her recently-acquired real name), 38, is not just a California model selling provocative “Barbie doll” photos of herself online (featuring her recently-augmented 32JJ breast implants). She is at work on a longer-range project to remake herself completely as a human Barbie doll--to include the popular critique that Barbie represents not only bodily perfection but mindlessness. Bennett said she has had 20 hypnotherapy sessions to “help” her appear more confused and vacant, according to news reports. “I want people to see me as a plastic sex doll, and being brainless is a big part of that.” She said she is doing well, in that she recently got lost driving to her mother’s house. [Daily Mail, 2-19-2014; Huffington Post, 2-19-2014]
Perspective
First-World Problems: The designer Giorgio Armani is one of the most recent one-day sponsors of a United Nations project to send safe drinking water to help some of the planet’s 768 million people without access to a clean supply. The “Tap Project” program signs up smartphone users with a reward: that it will donate one day’s clean water to a child for anyone who can manage to refrain from picking up his or her phone for a 10 consecutive minutes. “Tap Project” screens even feature a 10-minute countdown clock to help do-gooders remain strong in the face of anxiety over the brief loss of access to Facebook, online games, et al. [TreeHugger.com, 2-26-2014]
The Litigious Society
PREVIOUSLY: Litigant Jane Mulcahy was turned down twice recently in her attempts to sue her former divorce lawyers for negligence--although they had won her case, defeatinher husband’s contentions. The lawyers were negligent, she said, because they never told her that if she “won” the lawsuit, the marriage would be over. Lord Justice Briggs, in the second appeal, said that Mulcahy’s Roman Catholic faith should have tipped her off that “divorce” ended the marriage. [The Independent (London), 1-10-2014]
Clients Richard and Sandra Weiner filed a lawsuit in Paterson, N.J., in January against their former real estate agents, who they said had a blatant conflict of interest while offering the Weiners’ house for sale. The agents allegedly, purposely, high-balled the asking price so that the house would remain unsold longer--so that the two agents (Robert Lindsay and Jeannemarie Phelan) could meet there frequently, using a duplicate key to bypass the lockbox recorder, and have sexual liaisons. The agents denied the charge, but Coldwell Banker terminated their service. [Courthouse News Service, 12-20-2013]
Ironies
As Americans know, Canada’s healthcare system, funded largely by taxes, is dramatically less expensive than America’s--well, unless you’re a dog. The Canadian news service CTV reported in February that increasingly, pet owners in Winnipeg, Manitoba, are making the 120-mile car trip to Grand Forks, N.D., because U.S. veterinarian prices are significantly lower than comparable services by Canadian vets. One Winnipeg family, facing a $650 teeth-cleaning plus blood work for “Jackson,” their Shitzu, took him on the road trip to Grand Forks, where the bill came to $205. [CTV News, 2-13-2014]
Internal Revenue Service might have second thoughts about suing William Berroyer to recover a $60,000 tax underpayment since, by the time Berroyer was finished with them, the federal government had been ordered to write Berroyer (now age 66) checks totaling nearly 15 times that much. Berroyer, who was on his way out of the IRS office in Hauppage, N.Y., after his first meeting in 2008, tripped over a phone cord and fell against a filing cabinet, injuring himself so severely that he required a 17-day hospital stay and rehabilitation and alleged long-term confinement to a wheelchair. [New York Post, 1-20-2014]
In February, after a 43-year-old rape victim in Cowlitz County, Wash., missed court hearings, prosecutors, needing her testimony, filed for a rare “material witness” warrant to assure her availability--by asking the judge to jail her. She acknowledged her anxieties but promised to do better if the judge would dismiss the warrant. She pointed out that prosecutors were seeking to lock her up against her will--to force her to testify that a rapist had once locked her up against her will (in addition to committing other indignities). (The sympathetic judge dismissed the warrant, but the woman has since missed another date.) [The Daily News (Longview, Wash.), 2-21-2014]
Least Competent Criminals
Unclear on the Concept: (1) Michael Williams, 53, was arrested in Sumter, S.C., in February after his debit card was rejected as payment at the Applebee’s restaurant. Police were called when Williams’s backup form of payment was a “U.S. currency” bill in the denomination of $1 trillion. (2) Dyonta Rose, 29, in police custody the night of February 22nd in Dallas, Tex., for possession of narcotics, fled the police cruiser still wearing his handcuffs. Rose was tracked down a short time later when he called 911 to ask for an ambulance because “handcuffs” were cutting off circulation in his arm. [The State (Columbia, S.C.), 2-21-2014] [KMOV-TV (St. Louis), 2-25-2014]
Undignified Deaths
(1) Twenty-two people were killed just north of Baghdad in February (and 15 injured) from a devastating suicide-bomb blast. The 37 were Sunni militants attending a class on how to be suicide bombers when the teacher’s vest accidentally exploded. (2) An 86-year-old man, celebrating his selection in November by the Howard Stern radio show to be treated to a fancy meal followed by a menage-a-trois session with prostitutes at Nevada’s famed Bunny Ranch, called it “the greatest day of my life.” However, he failed to make it through dinner, as he choked to death on a piece of steak. [New York Times, 2-10-2014] [New York Daily News, 12-14-2013]
Thanks This Week to Paul Peterson, Mel Birge, Russell Bell, Tim Kirby, Sam Scrutchins, and Milford Sprecher, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
Weirdnuz.M362, March 16, 2014
Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd
Lead Story
In February, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that David Bell could not avoid being charged with DUI merely because he had been sober enough to pass all six “field sobriety tests” administered during a traffic stop. It was enough, the court said, that he had admitted drinking that night. A few days later, the Austin American-Statesman reported on Texan Larry Davis’s struggle to clear the 2013 DUI arrest from his record--since he had blown a 0.0 alcohol reading that night and then had voluntarily undergone a blood test for other impairing drugs and come up clean on that. Davis had admitted to “one drink” but allegedly failed a “field sobriety test” (in the opinion of the arresting officer, anyway). (Davis’s case is still unresolved, but, since he has been declared an “indigent,” the state covers his legal expenses.) [Associated Press via WRCB-TV (Chattanooga), 2-21-2014] [Austin American-Statesman, 2-24-2013]
Compelling Explanations
Jack Harvey, 42, drew a three-plus-year sentence in England's Truro Crown Court in February following his guilty plea on drug charges. Earlier, he had insisted that police had planted the drugs they found in his house and car and even that a stranger (maybe "some filthy woman," he said) must be the owner of that cocaine and heroin that police found taped to his testicles. [WestBriton.co.uk, 2-6-2014]
Logical: (1) John Rogers of Geneva, Fla., recently acquitted in a shooting death (using Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” defense), convinced a judge in February to return his gun, which police had confiscated when they arrested him. Rogers said he needs the gun for protection because he is particularly vulnerable--in that he is blind. (2) Rogerio Scotton, challenging federal charges in January that he lied to immigration officials about his “marriage” to a Cuban woman (a “sham,” said prosecutors), offered to prove the matrimony’s bona fides by showing the couple’s conjugal-bed videos in open court. (The judge instructed Scotton to find a “less intrusive” way to make the same point.) [WESH-TV (Orlando), 2-21-2014] [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 1-22-2014]
The Continuing Crisis
PREVIOUSLY ON WEIRD UNIVERSE: The firm 3D Babies has begun selling (for $800) 8-inch-long fetal sculptures manufactured from 3-D ultrasound images developed with computer graphics and 3-D printing technology (“printing” successive layers of material continuously, eventually creating a physical object). (Four-inch and two-inch models are available for $400 and $200, respectively.) For celebrity hounds who are not planning imminent parenthood, the company sells one fetal sculpture off the shelf: the Kim Kardashian-Kanye West fetus (“Baby North West”) for only $250. [FastCoDesign.com, 1-17-2014]
Ms. Blondie Bennett (her recently-acquired real name), 38, is not just a California model selling provocative “Barbie doll” photos of herself online (featuring her recently-augmented 32JJ breast implants). She is at work on a longer-range project to remake herself completely as a human Barbie doll--to include the popular critique that Barbie represents not only bodily perfection but mindlessness. Bennett said she has had 20 hypnotherapy sessions to “help” her appear more confused and vacant, according to news reports. “I want people to see me as a plastic sex doll, and being brainless is a big part of that.” She said she is doing well, in that she recently got lost driving to her mother’s house. [Daily Mail, 2-19-2014; Huffington Post, 2-19-2014]
Perspective
First-World Problems: The designer Giorgio Armani is one of the most recent one-day sponsors of a United Nations project to send safe drinking water to help some of the planet’s 768 million people without access to a clean supply. The “Tap Project” program signs up smartphone users with a reward: that it will donate one day’s clean water to a child for anyone who can manage to refrain from picking up his or her phone for a 10 consecutive minutes. “Tap Project” screens even feature a 10-minute countdown clock to help do-gooders remain strong in the face of anxiety over the brief loss of access to Facebook, online games, et al. [TreeHugger.com, 2-26-2014]
The Litigious Society
PREVIOUSLY: Litigant Jane Mulcahy was turned down twice recently in her attempts to sue her former divorce lawyers for negligence--although they had won her case, defeatinher husband’s contentions. The lawyers were negligent, she said, because they never told her that if she “won” the lawsuit, the marriage would be over. Lord Justice Briggs, in the second appeal, said that Mulcahy’s Roman Catholic faith should have tipped her off that “divorce” ended the marriage. [The Independent (London), 1-10-2014]
Clients Richard and Sandra Weiner filed a lawsuit in Paterson, N.J., in January against their former real estate agents, who they said had a blatant conflict of interest while offering the Weiners’ house for sale. The agents allegedly, purposely, high-balled the asking price so that the house would remain unsold longer--so that the two agents (Robert Lindsay and Jeannemarie Phelan) could meet there frequently, using a duplicate key to bypass the lockbox recorder, and have sexual liaisons. The agents denied the charge, but Coldwell Banker terminated their service. [Courthouse News Service, 12-20-2013]
Ironies
As Americans know, Canada’s healthcare system, funded largely by taxes, is dramatically less expensive than America’s--well, unless you’re a dog. The Canadian news service CTV reported in February that increasingly, pet owners in Winnipeg, Manitoba, are making the 120-mile car trip to Grand Forks, N.D., because U.S. veterinarian prices are significantly lower than comparable services by Canadian vets. One Winnipeg family, facing a $650 teeth-cleaning plus blood work for “Jackson,” their Shitzu, took him on the road trip to Grand Forks, where the bill came to $205. [CTV News, 2-13-2014]
Internal Revenue Service might have second thoughts about suing William Berroyer to recover a $60,000 tax underpayment since, by the time Berroyer was finished with them, the federal government had been ordered to write Berroyer (now age 66) checks totaling nearly 15 times that much. Berroyer, who was on his way out of the IRS office in Hauppage, N.Y., after his first meeting in 2008, tripped over a phone cord and fell against a filing cabinet, injuring himself so severely that he required a 17-day hospital stay and rehabilitation and alleged long-term confinement to a wheelchair. [New York Post, 1-20-2014]
In February, after a 43-year-old rape victim in Cowlitz County, Wash., missed court hearings, prosecutors, needing her testimony, filed for a rare “material witness” warrant to assure her availability--by asking the judge to jail her. She acknowledged her anxieties but promised to do better if the judge would dismiss the warrant. She pointed out that prosecutors were seeking to lock her up against her will--to force her to testify that a rapist had once locked her up against her will (in addition to committing other indignities). (The sympathetic judge dismissed the warrant, but the woman has since missed another date.) [The Daily News (Longview, Wash.), 2-21-2014]
Least Competent Criminals
Unclear on the Concept: (1) Michael Williams, 53, was arrested in Sumter, S.C., in February after his debit card was rejected as payment at the Applebee’s restaurant. Police were called when Williams’s backup form of payment was a “U.S. currency” bill in the denomination of $1 trillion. (2) Dyonta Rose, 29, in police custody the night of February 22nd in Dallas, Tex., for possession of narcotics, fled the police cruiser still wearing his handcuffs. Rose was tracked down a short time later when he called 911 to ask for an ambulance because “handcuffs” were cutting off circulation in his arm. [The State (Columbia, S.C.), 2-21-2014] [KMOV-TV (St. Louis), 2-25-2014]
Undignified Deaths
(1) Twenty-two people were killed just north of Baghdad in February (and 15 injured) from a devastating suicide-bomb blast. The 37 were Sunni militants attending a class on how to be suicide bombers when the teacher’s vest accidentally exploded. (2) An 86-year-old man, celebrating his selection in November by the Howard Stern radio show to be treated to a fancy meal followed by a menage-a-trois session with prostitutes at Nevada’s famed Bunny Ranch, called it “the greatest day of my life.” However, he failed to make it through dinner, as he choked to death on a piece of steak. [New York Times, 2-10-2014] [New York Daily News, 12-14-2013]
Thanks This Week to Paul Peterson, Mel Birge, Russell Bell, Tim Kirby, Sam Scrutchins, and Milford Sprecher, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
Comments
Handcuffs story: If you click next story twice, you'll find this little gem: Cops:// Boy robs San Diego ice cream truck with gun, maybe 10 year olds with guns aren't very weird, or really news in San Diego, but I thought it was a hoot.
Posted by BHicks on 03/16/14 at 08:38 PM
Not DUI- 0.0 on the breathalyzer and they charge him??? It is not illegal to have a drink and then drive as long as you are not drunk, or has zero tolerance raised its ugly head here too?
drugs/testicles- Boy is that dirty woman gonna be mad when she finds out the cops found where she hid her stash!
Blind gunman- Yet another reason not to live in Florida.
fetus sculptures- Kind of a neat idea for new parents. But by the second child we are lucky to have pictures.
Barbie Doll- What therapist anywhere would agree to help someone lower their IQ? 'First do no harm...'
10 minutes- No phone for 10 minutes? Considering how people here are those kids are going to be mighty thirsty.
divorce- The Barbie doll should take lessons from this broad.
sex house- Ever heard of a hotel room? Geesh.
cuffs off- Somebody shoula informed him that 911 for an ambulance and 911 for police are the same thing.
premature detonation- 22 less killers, thanks Teach!
86- As Maxwell Smart said,'Missed it by THAT much.' This guy should get 72 virgins or maybe 86, one for every year.
drugs/testicles- Boy is that dirty woman gonna be mad when she finds out the cops found where she hid her stash!
Blind gunman- Yet another reason not to live in Florida.
fetus sculptures- Kind of a neat idea for new parents. But by the second child we are lucky to have pictures.
Barbie Doll- What therapist anywhere would agree to help someone lower their IQ? 'First do no harm...'
10 minutes- No phone for 10 minutes? Considering how people here are those kids are going to be mighty thirsty.
divorce- The Barbie doll should take lessons from this broad.
sex house- Ever heard of a hotel room? Geesh.
cuffs off- Somebody shoula informed him that 911 for an ambulance and 911 for police are the same thing.
premature detonation- 22 less killers, thanks Teach!
86- As Maxwell Smart said,'Missed it by THAT much.' This guy should get 72 virgins or maybe 86, one for every year.
Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 03/16/14 at 10:04 PM
OMG, just realized, 86 was Maxwell Smart's number!!
Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 03/16/14 at 10:06 PM
Just to confirm: The husband filing against the real estate agent has the name Dick Weiner?
Posted by Gary on 03/17/14 at 02:55 AM
Damn, I missed that Gary! :lol:
Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 03/17/14 at 10:13 AM
Tenn 0.0 Drunk Oh, Lord, don't let the facts get in the way of "Just-Us"!
Jack Harvey What a nut job!
John Rogers If a blind man can hit the mark then let him have his gun! He paid for it and, obviously, knows how to use it!
Rogerio Scotton Now this is weird! A federal judge who DOESN'T want to see a bit of porn?
“Tap Project” More tree-hugging feel-good uselessness!
Canadian Vets Teeth cleaning??? Aren't there any mailmen in Canada?
William Berroyer vs IRS One for our side!
Cowlitz County, Wash Oh, Lord, don't let common sense get in the way of "Just-Us"!
Sunni Militants "Pay attention, I'm only going to show you how to do this once."
Jack Harvey What a nut job!
John Rogers If a blind man can hit the mark then let him have his gun! He paid for it and, obviously, knows how to use it!
Rogerio Scotton Now this is weird! A federal judge who DOESN'T want to see a bit of porn?
“Tap Project” More tree-hugging feel-good uselessness!
Canadian Vets Teeth cleaning??? Aren't there any mailmen in Canada?
William Berroyer vs IRS One for our side!
Cowlitz County, Wash Oh, Lord, don't let common sense get in the way of "Just-Us"!
Sunni Militants "Pay attention, I'm only going to show you how to do this once."
Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 03/17/14 at 11:36 AM
DUI - seems like the state should have a fairly specific definition of DUI, other than leaving it to the officer's subjective opinion.
Rogerio Scotton - And here I thought the government wasn't supposed to intrude in our bedrooms anymore. What's the definition of a "true" marriage? And is that codified in the law?
Blondie Bennett - too old to be Barbie. And I thought Barbie was also a doctor at one point, so what's up with the mindless bit.
Bunny Ranch - to help console the grandson on his loss, he was given a freebie.
Rogerio Scotton - And here I thought the government wasn't supposed to intrude in our bedrooms anymore. What's the definition of a "true" marriage? And is that codified in the law?
Blondie Bennett - too old to be Barbie. And I thought Barbie was also a doctor at one point, so what's up with the mindless bit.
Bunny Ranch - to help console the grandson on his loss, he was given a freebie.
Posted by RobK on 03/17/14 at 11:58 AM
DUI: Over here DUI means driving under provable influence, not alleged or even confessed influence. Surely that's what it means over yonder, too?
Scotton: What happened to "innocent until"? Surely it's the court's job to prove that the marriage is a sham, not his to prove that it isn't?
Fœtus doll: Even if I wanted one, I'd certainly not want one of Plasticface and Jackass's pop-out.
Barbie Doll: Doesn't need commenting on, she's her own comment.
Armani: Solving a fake first-world problem and a real third-world one using a single app - I like it!
Baghdad: So that's where Achmed The Dead Terrorist went...
86-year-old: On the bright side: he died happy!
Scotton: What happened to "innocent until"? Surely it's the court's job to prove that the marriage is a sham, not his to prove that it isn't?
Fœtus doll: Even if I wanted one, I'd certainly not want one of Plasticface and Jackass's pop-out.
Barbie Doll: Doesn't need commenting on, she's her own comment.
Armani: Solving a fake first-world problem and a real third-world one using a single app - I like it!
Baghdad: So that's where Achmed The Dead Terrorist went...
86-year-old: On the bright side: he died happy!
Posted by Richard Bos on 03/18/14 at 11:08 AM
Richard - he died before experiencing what the Bunny Ranch offers, but if Mr. Spock is correct ("you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting"), perhaps he did die happy.
Posted by RobK on 03/18/14 at 11:36 AM
Well, he was already calling it the greatest day of his life. That sounds like happiness to me.
Posted by Richard Bos on 03/19/14 at 08:55 AM
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