News of the Weird / Pro Edition (January 24, 2011)
News of the Weird/Pro Edition
You're Still Not Cynical Enough
Prime Cuts of Underreported News from Last Week, Hand-Picked and Lightly Seasoned by Chuck Shepherd
January 24, 2011
(datelines January 15-January 22) (links correct as of January 24)
Body Parts Frolicking on Their Own, Plus Police Seek Moron, and The Rising Menaces of Acne and Bedbugs
★ ★ ★ ★!
Give Karen Byrne a Hand, Folks: Nothing's more awesomely scary than her case of Alien Hand Syndrome, an actual malwire problem in which the left and right hemispheres of the brain lose their co-ordination and begin competing with each other. A power struggle among her arms and legs! "I'll Heil Hitler you (with your right hand)!" "Oh, yeah, well, how about I give you some noogies (with your left hand)!" Amazingly, there's now a med that might make it all better. BBC News /// YouTube clip from "Dr. Strangelove"
Least Sensitive Advertiser: The Martin Luther King, Jr., Day special at Thalia Surf Shop in California was "20% Off" on "All Black [surfing] Products," and if that weren't enough disrespect, the illustration was of a Photoshopped wet-suit-clad MLK, himself. OC Register
A Tea Party Opportunity: The most important thing for the Berkeley (Calif.) City Council is not its $252 million unfunded city-worker pension liability or the complaints about infrastructure breakdowns but rather the fact that city workers who need transsexual surgery can't get it from the city's health-insurance carrier. Presto, a municipal entitlement! (And, though it would be too ironic to have a Tea Party movement in the UK, they must be disturbed over there about convicts released from prison, who don't have jobs or housing, and thus immediately qualify for $31,000 a year in welfare [£19,806].) San Francisco Chronicle /// Daily Mail
You'd Be Hostile, Too: Police in Aurora, Colo., were looking around last week for a man, wanted on two felony warrants, and who has a history of violence: 35-year-old Joseph Moron. KMGH-TV (Denver)
States Just Want to Have Fun: In Tennessee, state Medicaid will gladly pay for your bariatric surgery--but not initial-weight-gain counseling by dieticians (wasteful!). In North Carolina, they're still restricting "convicted sex offenders" whose only crime was consensual adult oral sex–which isn't even illegal anymore. In the F State, a gun-fondling legislator introduced a bill to make it illegal for doctors to ask patients if there are guns in the home (if the doctor senses child-abuse or mental-health problems)--penalizable by up to $5 million. The Tennessean (Nashville) /// New York Times [Jan. 11th] /// Orlando Sentinel
And Still More Things To Worry About
Few of us work as hard as Lisa Murphy when she's preparing tactile-based pornography (aka "porn for the blind"). Took photos of her friends, enlarged them, sculpted them into clay, made "thermoform" copies. Hardest part? Female derriere: to "give it a feminine softness so it would actually feel like a woman's butt." AVN.com (Adult Video News)
The problem with bedbugs is that theyevolve much faster than the pace at which pesticides can be upgraded are intelligently designed so that the little buggers always stay one step ahead of the pesticides. [Of course! Just like Westboro Baptist says--God hates people who kill bedbugs!] Wall Street Journal [link badly formatted; keep scrolling down]
Perhaps J.P. Morgan Chase Bank was put on Earth for the sole purpose of making Bank of America not look so bad. Chase admitted violating the federal law that protects military personnel's mortgages, i.e., just flat-out ignored it like it wasn't there (and will now refund $2 million). The victims were all war-zone military! Then, former owners of a house in Rexburg, Idaho, took to the Animal Planet TV show to talk about the home's foundation and land being infested with "thousands" of garter snakes--a fact Chase fails to mention as it offers the house for sale today. NPR /// Reuters
Marc Higgins, 21, was arrested for four stabbings (one fatal). Victims had been dogging Higgins about his flatulence. Bristol (Conn.) Press
Memphis, Tenn., TV station WMC-TV reported that 90 girls at Frayser High School (11% of the entire student body) . . are pregnant. WMC-TV
Handi-Capable: Jim Starr's off-road "wheelchair" (needed for chronic back pain) is too tricked out for DMV (in the UK, known as DVLA) because . . it's a tank. He needs to apply for a tank license, they say. Daily Mail
We don't yet know why people who are naked and drunk in public seem to be immune to Taser shots, but they appear to be. Richard Gervasi, in the Florida Keys, is just the latest. Keysnet.com
All you need to know about teenagers: A microbiologist at Britain's Aston University has found that the P.acnes bacteria, which contributes to zits, is more dangerous than previously thought . . and attacks the brain! Live Science via Yahoo News
Yes, there is such a thing as Post-Orgasmic Illness Syndrome, says Utrecht University (Utrecht, Netherlands) researcher Marcel Waldinger, where you can get a runny nose or fever or burning eyes after sex. The Sun (London)
The woman who brought down a nation (even though inadvertently): the haughty, imperious mad shopper, Leila Ben Ali, possibly more despised than her husband, Tunisia's now-former president. According to reports, she at least had the sense, as she fled with her life, to arrange for a ton and a half of gold to be dropped off at her new home in Saudi Arabia. Daily Mail (London)
Losers
Here's Raymond Dascott, not exactly posing for a mug shot, just before being charged with felony child neglect in Marathon, Fla. He was taking his grandson, 1½, for a stroll along U.S. 1, and promptly passed out, drunk. Keysnet.com
Waldo, Matrix, and Jose were the week's big losers (all over the news) for their December burglary near Ocala, Fla., in which they encountered some cocaine in a home and stopped to snort some, except that it wasn't cocaine but rather the ashes a man and his two Great Danes. WKMG-TV (Orlando)
Actually, Cathy Cruz Marrero, 49, might be an even bigger loser. She's the lady on the You Tube mall surveillance video who was busy texting-while-walking and sauntered right into a mall's fountain. Worse: Even though she's unidentifiable in the video, she outed herself, ostensibly to demand an apology from mall security officers for releasing the video. Worse still: Then she decided to sue. Worst yet: Then she had to go to court on an earlier criminal charge for unauthorized credit card use, and reporters found she had a rap sheet as long as her arm. Reading Eagle /// YouTube
Saved, though, was Hubert Blackman of New York City, who ordinarily might have been the biggest Loser had it not been for the above playas. Hubert is suing a Las Vegas escort agency and the Las Vegas police because of severe "trauma" suffered when the cops threatened to arrest him--after he called to report the agency for not giving him his full hour's worth of in-room dances (and instead performing a sex act on him) (which would be illegal). Hubert wants $1.8 million. Las Vegas Sun
The Pervo-American Community
Lawyer Thomas Walkley doesn't deny that he dropped trou in front of two teenage boys, but he's not a perv. It was "educational," he said. He was "mentoring," trying to make them "think differently." "Radical times call for radical measures." All right, then. American Bar Association Journal
Your Weekly Jury Duty
[In America, you're presumed innocent . . . until the mug shot is released]
Here's Ricky Kalichun, 45, who represents the forensic intersection of the sword and the Magic Marker (not that that's a crime, necessarily!). Courier & Press (Evansville, Ind.)
Greg Ciarlante, 46, arrested on drug charges in Portland, Ore., a couple of weeks ago. [Fark.com tag: if Robin Williams and Henry Rollins had a baby together . . .] PDXMugshots.com
From this week's Smoking Gun collection: The man who wore his crime on his t-shirt, and the kindly-looking senior lady who couldn't possibly have assaulted a cop with a deadly weapon, and this-here fella, wanted for a probation violation but who obviously didn't go quietly.
Editor's Notes
Beware Those Judicial Activists: A year ago, the five originalism-ignoring U.S. Supreme Court justices (Scalia, Thomas, et al) declared that corporations (and not just, y'know, people, like the humans who created the Constitution) can have so-called "fundamental" rights. Now comes F-Stater Sarah Steiner, 39, who announced on Saturday that she's on the prowl to get married . . to a corporation (i.e., to Mr. Right, Inc.), preferably a well-endowed corporation and not a female corporation (which would be "unnatural" and illegal in Florida), and she's even willing to pump out some little subsidiaries for him. Palm Beach Post
Newsrangers: Gerald Sacks, Adrian Martin, Joseph Stanley, Roy Henock, David Bonan, Matt Clinton, Matt McCaffrey, William Sennett, Perry Levin, Christopher Nalty, Paul Peterson, Nancy Korenchan, JoJo Peck, and Sandy Pearlman, and the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors
You're Still Not Cynical Enough
Prime Cuts of Underreported News from Last Week, Hand-Picked and Lightly Seasoned by Chuck Shepherd
January 24, 2011
(datelines January 15-January 22) (links correct as of January 24)
Body Parts Frolicking on Their Own, Plus Police Seek Moron, and The Rising Menaces of Acne and Bedbugs
★ ★ ★ ★!
Give Karen Byrne a Hand, Folks: Nothing's more awesomely scary than her case of Alien Hand Syndrome, an actual malwire problem in which the left and right hemispheres of the brain lose their co-ordination and begin competing with each other. A power struggle among her arms and legs! "I'll Heil Hitler you (with your right hand)!" "Oh, yeah, well, how about I give you some noogies (with your left hand)!" Amazingly, there's now a med that might make it all better. BBC News /// YouTube clip from "Dr. Strangelove"
Least Sensitive Advertiser: The Martin Luther King, Jr., Day special at Thalia Surf Shop in California was "20% Off" on "All Black [surfing] Products," and if that weren't enough disrespect, the illustration was of a Photoshopped wet-suit-clad MLK, himself. OC Register
A Tea Party Opportunity: The most important thing for the Berkeley (Calif.) City Council is not its $252 million unfunded city-worker pension liability or the complaints about infrastructure breakdowns but rather the fact that city workers who need transsexual surgery can't get it from the city's health-insurance carrier. Presto, a municipal entitlement! (And, though it would be too ironic to have a Tea Party movement in the UK, they must be disturbed over there about convicts released from prison, who don't have jobs or housing, and thus immediately qualify for $31,000 a year in welfare [£19,806].) San Francisco Chronicle /// Daily Mail
You'd Be Hostile, Too: Police in Aurora, Colo., were looking around last week for a man, wanted on two felony warrants, and who has a history of violence: 35-year-old Joseph Moron. KMGH-TV (Denver)
States Just Want to Have Fun: In Tennessee, state Medicaid will gladly pay for your bariatric surgery--but not initial-weight-gain counseling by dieticians (wasteful!). In North Carolina, they're still restricting "convicted sex offenders" whose only crime was consensual adult oral sex–which isn't even illegal anymore. In the F State, a gun-fondling legislator introduced a bill to make it illegal for doctors to ask patients if there are guns in the home (if the doctor senses child-abuse or mental-health problems)--penalizable by up to $5 million. The Tennessean (Nashville) /// New York Times [Jan. 11th] /// Orlando Sentinel
And Still More Things To Worry About
Few of us work as hard as Lisa Murphy when she's preparing tactile-based pornography (aka "porn for the blind"). Took photos of her friends, enlarged them, sculpted them into clay, made "thermoform" copies. Hardest part? Female derriere: to "give it a feminine softness so it would actually feel like a woman's butt." AVN.com (Adult Video News)
The problem with bedbugs is that they
Perhaps J.P. Morgan Chase Bank was put on Earth for the sole purpose of making Bank of America not look so bad. Chase admitted violating the federal law that protects military personnel's mortgages, i.e., just flat-out ignored it like it wasn't there (and will now refund $2 million). The victims were all war-zone military! Then, former owners of a house in Rexburg, Idaho, took to the Animal Planet TV show to talk about the home's foundation and land being infested with "thousands" of garter snakes--a fact Chase fails to mention as it offers the house for sale today. NPR /// Reuters
Marc Higgins, 21, was arrested for four stabbings (one fatal). Victims had been dogging Higgins about his flatulence. Bristol (Conn.) Press
Memphis, Tenn., TV station WMC-TV reported that 90 girls at Frayser High School (11% of the entire student body) . . are pregnant. WMC-TV
Handi-Capable: Jim Starr's off-road "wheelchair" (needed for chronic back pain) is too tricked out for DMV (in the UK, known as DVLA) because . . it's a tank. He needs to apply for a tank license, they say. Daily Mail
We don't yet know why people who are naked and drunk in public seem to be immune to Taser shots, but they appear to be. Richard Gervasi, in the Florida Keys, is just the latest. Keysnet.com
All you need to know about teenagers: A microbiologist at Britain's Aston University has found that the P.acnes bacteria, which contributes to zits, is more dangerous than previously thought . . and attacks the brain! Live Science via Yahoo News
Yes, there is such a thing as Post-Orgasmic Illness Syndrome, says Utrecht University (Utrecht, Netherlands) researcher Marcel Waldinger, where you can get a runny nose or fever or burning eyes after sex. The Sun (London)
The woman who brought down a nation (even though inadvertently): the haughty, imperious mad shopper, Leila Ben Ali, possibly more despised than her husband, Tunisia's now-former president. According to reports, she at least had the sense, as she fled with her life, to arrange for a ton and a half of gold to be dropped off at her new home in Saudi Arabia. Daily Mail (London)
Losers
Here's Raymond Dascott, not exactly posing for a mug shot, just before being charged with felony child neglect in Marathon, Fla. He was taking his grandson, 1½, for a stroll along U.S. 1, and promptly passed out, drunk. Keysnet.com
Waldo, Matrix, and Jose were the week's big losers (all over the news) for their December burglary near Ocala, Fla., in which they encountered some cocaine in a home and stopped to snort some, except that it wasn't cocaine but rather the ashes a man and his two Great Danes. WKMG-TV (Orlando)
Actually, Cathy Cruz Marrero, 49, might be an even bigger loser. She's the lady on the You Tube mall surveillance video who was busy texting-while-walking and sauntered right into a mall's fountain. Worse: Even though she's unidentifiable in the video, she outed herself, ostensibly to demand an apology from mall security officers for releasing the video. Worse still: Then she decided to sue. Worst yet: Then she had to go to court on an earlier criminal charge for unauthorized credit card use, and reporters found she had a rap sheet as long as her arm. Reading Eagle /// YouTube
Saved, though, was Hubert Blackman of New York City, who ordinarily might have been the biggest Loser had it not been for the above playas. Hubert is suing a Las Vegas escort agency and the Las Vegas police because of severe "trauma" suffered when the cops threatened to arrest him--after he called to report the agency for not giving him his full hour's worth of in-room dances (and instead performing a sex act on him) (which would be illegal). Hubert wants $1.8 million. Las Vegas Sun
The Pervo-American Community
Lawyer Thomas Walkley doesn't deny that he dropped trou in front of two teenage boys, but he's not a perv. It was "educational," he said. He was "mentoring," trying to make them "think differently." "Radical times call for radical measures." All right, then. American Bar Association Journal
Your Weekly Jury Duty
[In America, you're presumed innocent . . . until the mug shot is released]
Here's Ricky Kalichun, 45, who represents the forensic intersection of the sword and the Magic Marker (not that that's a crime, necessarily!). Courier & Press (Evansville, Ind.)
Greg Ciarlante, 46, arrested on drug charges in Portland, Ore., a couple of weeks ago. [Fark.com tag: if Robin Williams and Henry Rollins had a baby together . . .] PDXMugshots.com
From this week's Smoking Gun collection: The man who wore his crime on his t-shirt, and the kindly-looking senior lady who couldn't possibly have assaulted a cop with a deadly weapon, and this-here fella, wanted for a probation violation but who obviously didn't go quietly.
Editor's Notes
Beware Those Judicial Activists: A year ago, the five originalism-ignoring U.S. Supreme Court justices (Scalia, Thomas, et al) declared that corporations (and not just, y'know, people, like the humans who created the Constitution) can have so-called "fundamental" rights. Now comes F-Stater Sarah Steiner, 39, who announced on Saturday that she's on the prowl to get married . . to a corporation (i.e., to Mr. Right, Inc.), preferably a well-endowed corporation and not a female corporation (which would be "unnatural" and illegal in Florida), and she's even willing to pump out some little subsidiaries for him. Palm Beach Post
Newsrangers: Gerald Sacks, Adrian Martin, Joseph Stanley, Roy Henock, David Bonan, Matt Clinton, Matt McCaffrey, William Sennett, Perry Levin, Christopher Nalty, Paul Peterson, Nancy Korenchan, JoJo Peck, and Sandy Pearlman, and the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors
Comments
Dr. Strange Love Me like 10 to 1 ratio! :coolsmirk:
Berkeley, Californika And they're bankrupt why?
Chase Bank Only one member of a very well organized and executed land grab. (Think not? Review the facts.)
off-road "wheelchair" I think it's the 50cal rifle he's got mounted on the top that has the authorities worried most.
Taser shots Obviously LSD doesn't make a good conductor.
Post-Orgasmic Illness Syndrome (Or POISE) does not cause anything other than the nose to drip! And stinging eyes can be avoided if one observes better (ahem) table manners.
Leila Ben Ali Imelda Marcos v2.0
Cathy Cruz Marrero If she gets a trial we should bring suit against the judge that grants it!
Hubert Blackman So he's suing because he got f***ed... No, wait, he already got that so what the beef?
Jury Duty Nuke'm all!
Judicial Activists Roller Ball anyone?
Berkeley, Californika And they're bankrupt why?
Chase Bank Only one member of a very well organized and executed land grab. (Think not? Review the facts.)
off-road "wheelchair" I think it's the 50cal rifle he's got mounted on the top that has the authorities worried most.
Taser shots Obviously LSD doesn't make a good conductor.
Post-Orgasmic Illness Syndrome (Or POISE) does not cause anything other than the nose to drip! And stinging eyes can be avoided if one observes better (ahem) table manners.
Leila Ben Ali Imelda Marcos v2.0
Cathy Cruz Marrero If she gets a trial we should bring suit against the judge that grants it!
Hubert Blackman So he's suing because he got f***ed... No, wait, he already got that so what the beef?
Jury Duty Nuke'm all!
Judicial Activists Roller Ball anyone?
Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 01/24/11 at 08:57 AM
Track-laying vehicle: I just looked at my British Driver's Licence. I'm licensed to drive all manner of stuff, as long as it weighs under 7,000 lbs, but I am specifically *not* allowed to drive a "track-laying vehicle steered by its tracks".
HS pregnancies: about 11% of the students are pregnant. Pardon my asking, but it still is only the girls who get pregnant, right? So it might be 11% of the 800 students, but I would expect that about half the student body (*snerk*) can't get pregnant. Shouldn't that be 20+% of the girls are pregnant?
Fountain girl: I can sort of see her getting pissy about the security footage being aired. OTOH, if she hadn't identified herself, how big of a dent would there have been in her privacy?
HS pregnancies: about 11% of the students are pregnant. Pardon my asking, but it still is only the girls who get pregnant, right? So it might be 11% of the 800 students, but I would expect that about half the student body (*snerk*) can't get pregnant. Shouldn't that be 20+% of the girls are pregnant?
Fountain girl: I can sort of see her getting pissy about the security footage being aired. OTOH, if she hadn't identified herself, how big of a dent would there have been in her privacy?
Posted by TheCannyScot in Atlanta, GA on 01/24/11 at 01:39 PM
Taser man - Experience speaking...if you are on this cocktail of LSD and booze, a taser shock is optional. Perhaps it didn't occur to him that he should be in pain/writhing on the ground. At least he wasn't smashing up cars or something if he was that drunk.
Posted by RazzleCap in Clearwater on 01/25/11 at 12:17 AM
alien hand- sorry for a guy with this, he can't even be sure to score with rosie palm and her 5 sisters.
moron- there is a good subject for one of those studies about whether the name effects how the person turns out. also, wander if his middle name is wayne.
porn for the blind- oh sculpture.
chase bank- where are the fees for this, otherwise known as fines when illegal acts are involved.
farts- over react much?
naked and drunk- shoot 'em that'll make an impression.
orgasm sickness- sowhen a co worker comes in with a cold that just means they got luck?
tunisia- agree with expat (as usual)
snort- that is so disgusting!
jury duty-5 for leathal injection.
marry a corp- found her own way to get those 15 minutes didn't she.
moron- there is a good subject for one of those studies about whether the name effects how the person turns out. also, wander if his middle name is wayne.
porn for the blind- oh sculpture.
chase bank- where are the fees for this, otherwise known as fines when illegal acts are involved.
farts- over react much?
naked and drunk- shoot 'em that'll make an impression.
orgasm sickness- sowhen a co worker comes in with a cold that just means they got luck?
tunisia- agree with expat (as usual)
snort- that is so disgusting!
jury duty-5 for leathal injection.
marry a corp- found her own way to get those 15 minutes didn't she.
Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 01/25/11 at 01:21 AM
Marry a Corp I just checked the constitution of the US (again) (link here: http://www.usconstitution.net/const.pdf) and the word "Corporation" isn't in it! In fact the thing starts with, We, the <u>people</u>.
Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 01/25/11 at 02:37 AM
Beverley/RazzleCap, TASER weapons are not the same thing as those commercial "stun guns" you can buy over the counter. They are painful, yes, but their primary function is to induce paralysis in the target by overriding control of the voluntary muscles.
"Physiology and Pathology of TASER Electronic Control Devices"
M. W. Kroll, Journal of forensic and legal medicine, 2009.
Here's a video of some marines being tasered as part of their training. It's fairly obvious that they really would have dropped like a felled tree if they hadn't been held.
"Physiology and Pathology of TASER Electronic Control Devices"
M. W. Kroll, Journal of forensic and legal medicine, 2009.
Here's a video of some marines being tasered as part of their training. It's fairly obvious that they really would have dropped like a felled tree if they hadn't been held.
Posted by Dumbfounded on 01/25/11 at 05:23 AM
Expat, that's the point, in law corporations are people too.
Shame they're not eligible for military service though. We could have rescued the enconomy simply by drafting Halliburton, Boeing and the rest and getting them to work at a buck private's salary for 4 years.
Shame they're not eligible for military service though. We could have rescued the enconomy simply by drafting Halliburton, Boeing and the rest and getting them to work at a buck private's salary for 4 years.
Posted by Dumbfounded on 01/25/11 at 05:38 AM
I'M STILL waiting for the MLK jr.Day WHITE SALE!!! :lol:
The ad copy practically writes itself!
I HAVE A DREAM of low prices!
I HAVE BEEN TO THE MOUNTIAN TOP AND I SEEN great values!
I say this with the utmost respect, not just because it's my birthday aswell,but because then we will know that america has trully accepted it as a real national holiday!!! 😊
The ad copy practically writes itself!
I HAVE A DREAM of low prices!
I HAVE BEEN TO THE MOUNTIAN TOP AND I SEEN great values!
I say this with the utmost respect, not just because it's my birthday aswell,but because then we will know that america has trully accepted it as a real national holiday!!! 😊
Posted by Tyrusguy on 01/27/11 at 09:49 PM
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