News of the Weird / Pro Edition (March 28, 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
March 28, 2011
(datelines March 19-March 26) (links correct as of March 28)
Rooster-Fighters Under Siege, Plus No Friending the Grizzlies and the Glory of Muck
★ ★ ★ ★!
Nightmare in Phoenix: You're minding your own business running a little suburban cockfighting emporium until, whoa! . . Here comes the cavalry! . . Sheriff Joe! . . He's got a tank! . . Armored vehicles! . . Rolling over neighbors' lawns! . . And with his head sticking out of the tank (Michael Dukakis-style)--Steven Seagal! KPHO-TV
The Tea Party Has Washington Under Control: Federal government managersno longer dare wasting money hiring people at ridiculous salaries to do non-totally-necessary jobs! have job openings for people to run the Facebook page at the Department of the Interior ($115,000/yr), to be mailroom clerk at the Pentagon (almost $50,000/yr), to be student intern at the Federal Housing Finance Agency ($48,000/yr), and to be equal opportunity compliance officers and the Peace Corps ($155,000/yr) and the Department of Transportation (nearly $180,000/yr). Daily Caller
There Will Be Blood: Julie Sygiel and Brown University classmate Eunice Png [Bonus: not a typo!] have apparently solved a girl-type problem that America's top corporations have failed at until now. Their company (Sexy Period) creates hottie underwear, durable and leak-proof enough to be worn during curse time, even "heavy" curse time. Brown Daily Herald
"Blanket Party" Beatdown, Tonight, Indianapolis, Be There!: Jacob Barnett, 12 (and 170 IQ), knows more than I and all y'all put together, in higher math, quantum physics, advanced astronomy. He's let the air out of the Big Bang, is working some glitches out of Einstein's Theory of Relativity, and says he'll let us know soon what really happened to create "time." "It didn't come from me," said his mother. "I flunked math." Best guess by doctors is that he's an Asperger's outlier, but Yr Editor is not ruling out "pod person from another dimension." Indianapolis Star
All Things Dirt: "Filth, fecal matter, and grime in all [their] forms are the subject of a new exhibition in London," reported Reuters (200 exhibits, ranging from dust and urine to vials of historic crud and odes to famous pillars of sewage and medical scum). "Dirt, the Filthy Reality of Everyday Life" is now playing at the Wellcome Collection. "I want people to leave with an expanded awareness of dirt," said the curator. Reuters via Yahoo News
And Still More Things To Worry About
Fine Points of Montana Law: It's still a "workplace injury" even if a "Great Bear Adventures" employee got hurt while sky-high on dope and attempting unsuccessfully to be buddies with a grizzly. Daily Inter Lake (Kalispell, Mont.)
You'd expect federal buildings, surely, to be secure after 9-11, but at the huge McNamara Federal Building in downtown Detroit, a contract guard found a "suspicious" package and stuck it in lost-and-found . . for three weeks . . before a supervisor asked, Whaziss? X-ray revealed "active bomb components." The McNamara houses the FBI, IRS, etc., and the office of Sen. Carl Levin (who might have been somewhat perturbed). Detroit News
Even though record companies have had file-sharers on the run for several years now, there's no let-up. They have demanded a copyright judgment against the defunct service Lime Wire (OK, fair enough), plus they insist that Lime Wire pay them, er, 75 trillion bucks. The American Lawyer
There's "zero tolerance" (e.g., suspending a kid for pointing his finger and thumb like a gun), and then there's this: Student Ryan Ricco, accused last year of threatening to blow up two schools in suburban Chicago, and who is free on $250,000 bond, was granted permission to play in a big school basketball tournament. Chicago Tribune
Leading Economic Indicator: KV Pharmaceutical of St. Louis recently announced that its Makena drug, which potentially reduces pre-term births by 10-15 percent, will undergo a slight price increase . . from $20 a dose to $1,500. WIOD Radio (Miami, Fla.)
Jo Yochum filed a lawsuit against a Pennsylvania franchisee of Bath Fitter (the custom-made bathroom fixtures and remodeling company). Employee Yochum did well enough that she could pay $90,000 charged by the franchisee upfront for "training," but she found out later that the "training" was to reflect on the "nature and quality" of "evil, sin, judgment day, hell, guilt and punishment . . . and free will." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Mass. Job Fair Canceled Because of Lack of Jobs" Boston Globe
General Electric earned $14.2 billion in profit last year ($5.1 billion from the U.S.). Total U.S. corporate income tax: $0.0. [ed.: Tax rate for high-tier corporate earnings is 35 percent, but that number is useful only as a talking point when trying to convince Congress to lower corporate taxes for all the businesses that can't hire (as GE has) the world's best tax technicians.] New York Times
It says here (in London's The Sun) that Briton Bob Gibbins, 60, collects the life-size, full-featured, finely-detailed, silicone-textured, er, "love dolls" (such as the proprietary Real Dolls) and has a house full of them, all nicely made-up and dressed sexily. Great photos! [ed. All right, now, I got busted recently (as I announced last week), so watch it! Those dolls cost several thousand pounds each, and Bob's a blue-collar guy. Plus, Bob's wife is supposedly into the hobby as much as he is. Plus, he swears he, unlike every other purchaser of those dolls, doesn't fool around with them! Plus, of course, Bob and Lizzie are apparently embarrassment-proof.] The Sun
Losers
Smooth: Marissa Mark, 28, was indicted in Allentown, Pa., for an attempted 2006 contract murder . . solicited on the site HitManForHire.com . . and paid for by sending $19,000 by PayPal. (No humans were harmed during the performance of this plan.) Morning Call (Allentown)
Sweet: Someone stole Mark Bao's MacBook Air and used it to, among other things, make a video of himself doing a wannabe remake of "Rubber Band Man" Tyga, thumping out a hit. Since the Mac was sync'd to lift files to the cloud, Bao recovered the video and stuck it up on YouTube, causing the thief (it says here) to give back the Mac and beg Bao to take the video down. New York Observer
Isaiah Doyle, convicted of murder, took the stand at his sentencing andbegged the jury to spare his life told the jury that if he "had an AK47, I'd kill every last one of ya'all with no remorse." [ed.: OK, now, is Doyle's odds at avoiding the death penalty worse than those of an 11th seed's winning the national championship? Your call.] WWL-TV (New Orleans) /// Times-Picayune [spoiler alert!]
Bonus: These guys aren't middle-schoolers! They're "grown-ups"! Aaron Penny, 27, and Justin Williams, 36, were charged with riding down the road tossing ball bearings at oncoming cars' windshields! Couldn't be cooler! Jacksonville (N. C.) Daily News
Uncreative: Lebain Preston, 40, was arrested for allegedly stealing a 12-pack of beer using a box cutter. Before that, he served 16 years for stealing a 6-pack using a knife. Mobile Press-Register
Your Weekly Jury Duty
[In America, you're presumed innocent . . . until the mug shot is released]
The super-clean Joshua Wordell, 34, accused of breaking into two homes and . . showering. Cape Cod Times (Hyannis, Mass.)
Mario Aguilar, 52, might have had sex with a roommate even though possibly not attractive enough for it to have been consensual. KTRK-TV (Houston, Tex.)
Helen Staudinger, 92, was charged with shooting into a neighbor's house because the resident, a 53-year-old man, had earlier declined to kiss her. Ocala Star-Banner
Beyond WTF? Cameron Spurback was arrested right here in Weird Central and accused, of course, of doing something weird with a kid. Tampa Tribune
Below The Fold
Taking the Concept of "Beat Reporter" to a New Level: Apparently, to write a good obituary for Elizabeth Taylor last week, the New York Times called on a fella who died in 2005. Village Voice
That new, greasy fast-food joint in Waco, Tex., doing bang-up business? Fat Ho Burgers (serving skinny fries). KWTX-TV (Waco)
A mancan't protect himself too much when it comes to keeping burglars out overprotected himself, getting shot by his own gun-cabinet trap. He's no longer with us. The Times and Democrat (Orangeburg, S.C.)
True or False: If a Papa John's store has just been robbed by a stick-up man at the back door, then a total stranger trying to rob the store at the front door one minute later is simply not getting any money. Tulsa World
Editor's Notes
Time-Wasters: (1) This little fella is said to be 3 years old (and 132 lbs.). (2) Here's a preacher onto something: the new, improved "F" word (which is "Forgive"). Watch his megachurch congregation taking it to heart: "F" you! (No, "F" you!)
Newsrangers: Sandy Pearlman, Lisa Manikowski, David Light, Bruce Leiserowitz, Steve Dunn, Roy Henock, Steve Silverwood, Chris Schulman, and Chris Paone, 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
March 28, 2011
(datelines March 19-March 26) (links correct as of March 28)
Rooster-Fighters Under Siege, Plus No Friending the Grizzlies and the Glory of Muck
★ ★ ★ ★!
Nightmare in Phoenix: You're minding your own business running a little suburban cockfighting emporium until, whoa! . . Here comes the cavalry! . . Sheriff Joe! . . He's got a tank! . . Armored vehicles! . . Rolling over neighbors' lawns! . . And with his head sticking out of the tank (Michael Dukakis-style)--Steven Seagal! KPHO-TV
The Tea Party Has Washington Under Control: Federal government managers
There Will Be Blood: Julie Sygiel and Brown University classmate Eunice Png [Bonus: not a typo!] have apparently solved a girl-type problem that America's top corporations have failed at until now. Their company (Sexy Period) creates hottie underwear, durable and leak-proof enough to be worn during curse time, even "heavy" curse time. Brown Daily Herald
"Blanket Party" Beatdown, Tonight, Indianapolis, Be There!: Jacob Barnett, 12 (and 170 IQ), knows more than I and all y'all put together, in higher math, quantum physics, advanced astronomy. He's let the air out of the Big Bang, is working some glitches out of Einstein's Theory of Relativity, and says he'll let us know soon what really happened to create "time." "It didn't come from me," said his mother. "I flunked math." Best guess by doctors is that he's an Asperger's outlier, but Yr Editor is not ruling out "pod person from another dimension." Indianapolis Star
All Things Dirt: "Filth, fecal matter, and grime in all [their] forms are the subject of a new exhibition in London," reported Reuters (200 exhibits, ranging from dust and urine to vials of historic crud and odes to famous pillars of sewage and medical scum). "Dirt, the Filthy Reality of Everyday Life" is now playing at the Wellcome Collection. "I want people to leave with an expanded awareness of dirt," said the curator. Reuters via Yahoo News
And Still More Things To Worry About
Fine Points of Montana Law: It's still a "workplace injury" even if a "Great Bear Adventures" employee got hurt while sky-high on dope and attempting unsuccessfully to be buddies with a grizzly. Daily Inter Lake (Kalispell, Mont.)
You'd expect federal buildings, surely, to be secure after 9-11, but at the huge McNamara Federal Building in downtown Detroit, a contract guard found a "suspicious" package and stuck it in lost-and-found . . for three weeks . . before a supervisor asked, Whaziss? X-ray revealed "active bomb components." The McNamara houses the FBI, IRS, etc., and the office of Sen. Carl Levin (who might have been somewhat perturbed). Detroit News
Even though record companies have had file-sharers on the run for several years now, there's no let-up. They have demanded a copyright judgment against the defunct service Lime Wire (OK, fair enough), plus they insist that Lime Wire pay them, er, 75 trillion bucks. The American Lawyer
There's "zero tolerance" (e.g., suspending a kid for pointing his finger and thumb like a gun), and then there's this: Student Ryan Ricco, accused last year of threatening to blow up two schools in suburban Chicago, and who is free on $250,000 bond, was granted permission to play in a big school basketball tournament. Chicago Tribune
Leading Economic Indicator: KV Pharmaceutical of St. Louis recently announced that its Makena drug, which potentially reduces pre-term births by 10-15 percent, will undergo a slight price increase . . from $20 a dose to $1,500. WIOD Radio (Miami, Fla.)
Jo Yochum filed a lawsuit against a Pennsylvania franchisee of Bath Fitter (the custom-made bathroom fixtures and remodeling company). Employee Yochum did well enough that she could pay $90,000 charged by the franchisee upfront for "training," but she found out later that the "training" was to reflect on the "nature and quality" of "evil, sin, judgment day, hell, guilt and punishment . . . and free will." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Mass. Job Fair Canceled Because of Lack of Jobs" Boston Globe
General Electric earned $14.2 billion in profit last year ($5.1 billion from the U.S.). Total U.S. corporate income tax: $0.0. [ed.: Tax rate for high-tier corporate earnings is 35 percent, but that number is useful only as a talking point when trying to convince Congress to lower corporate taxes for all the businesses that can't hire (as GE has) the world's best tax technicians.] New York Times
It says here (in London's The Sun) that Briton Bob Gibbins, 60, collects the life-size, full-featured, finely-detailed, silicone-textured, er, "love dolls" (such as the proprietary Real Dolls) and has a house full of them, all nicely made-up and dressed sexily. Great photos! [ed. All right, now, I got busted recently (as I announced last week), so watch it! Those dolls cost several thousand pounds each, and Bob's a blue-collar guy. Plus, Bob's wife is supposedly into the hobby as much as he is. Plus, he swears he, unlike every other purchaser of those dolls, doesn't fool around with them! Plus, of course, Bob and Lizzie are apparently embarrassment-proof.] The Sun
Losers
Smooth: Marissa Mark, 28, was indicted in Allentown, Pa., for an attempted 2006 contract murder . . solicited on the site HitManForHire.com . . and paid for by sending $19,000 by PayPal. (No humans were harmed during the performance of this plan.) Morning Call (Allentown)
Sweet: Someone stole Mark Bao's MacBook Air and used it to, among other things, make a video of himself doing a wannabe remake of "Rubber Band Man" Tyga, thumping out a hit. Since the Mac was sync'd to lift files to the cloud, Bao recovered the video and stuck it up on YouTube, causing the thief (it says here) to give back the Mac and beg Bao to take the video down. New York Observer
Isaiah Doyle, convicted of murder, took the stand at his sentencing and
Bonus: These guys aren't middle-schoolers! They're "grown-ups"! Aaron Penny, 27, and Justin Williams, 36, were charged with riding down the road tossing ball bearings at oncoming cars' windshields! Couldn't be cooler! Jacksonville (N. C.) Daily News
Uncreative: Lebain Preston, 40, was arrested for allegedly stealing a 12-pack of beer using a box cutter. Before that, he served 16 years for stealing a 6-pack using a knife. Mobile Press-Register
Your Weekly Jury Duty
[In America, you're presumed innocent . . . until the mug shot is released]
The super-clean Joshua Wordell, 34, accused of breaking into two homes and . . showering. Cape Cod Times (Hyannis, Mass.)
Mario Aguilar, 52, might have had sex with a roommate even though possibly not attractive enough for it to have been consensual. KTRK-TV (Houston, Tex.)
Helen Staudinger, 92, was charged with shooting into a neighbor's house because the resident, a 53-year-old man, had earlier declined to kiss her. Ocala Star-Banner
Beyond WTF? Cameron Spurback was arrested right here in Weird Central and accused, of course, of doing something weird with a kid. Tampa Tribune
Below The Fold
Taking the Concept of "Beat Reporter" to a New Level: Apparently, to write a good obituary for Elizabeth Taylor last week, the New York Times called on a fella who died in 2005. Village Voice
That new, greasy fast-food joint in Waco, Tex., doing bang-up business? Fat Ho Burgers (serving skinny fries). KWTX-TV (Waco)
A man
True or False: If a Papa John's store has just been robbed by a stick-up man at the back door, then a total stranger trying to rob the store at the front door one minute later is simply not getting any money. Tulsa World
Editor's Notes
Time-Wasters: (1) This little fella is said to be 3 years old (and 132 lbs.). (2) Here's a preacher onto something: the new, improved "F" word (which is "Forgive"). Watch his megachurch congregation taking it to heart: "F" you! (No, "F" you!)
Newsrangers: Sandy Pearlman, Lisa Manikowski, David Light, Bruce Leiserowitz, Steve Dunn, Roy Henock, Steve Silverwood, Chris Schulman, and Chris Paone, and the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors
Comments
Nightmare in Phoenix Segal cocked that up!
There Will Be Blood I could have gone all day without that info. Really! Wasn't necessary at all.
170 IQ And still nobody has taken the time to teach him how to hold a pencil!
Montana Law Why do I hear Weird Al singing about Camp Grenada?
File-Sharers Yet in every Sony picture one or more characters has make a mixed disk and/or d/loaded something to an I-Pod.
KV Pharmaceutical Thank the gods for patten law, corrupt congressmen and lawyers. (Although siting both congressmen and lawyers is tantamount to redundancy.)
GE's Taxes [See Above]
Bob Gibbins E's gone 'round the bend 'E az!
Reader's Note Seems like these dolls would appeal more to necrophiliacs than any other group.
Isaiah Doyle What the hell do 11 seeds have to do with this guy riding Old Sparky or not?
Lebain Preston Sounds like he got some learnin' in the joint.
Spurback And here's the quote of the week: Zoo officials said in a statement that Spurback will no longer be allowed on zoo property. Kind'a takes all the excitement out of visiting the zoo.
Fat Kid He's been around for a while and they say his genes are all "F"ed up!
There Will Be Blood I could have gone all day without that info. Really! Wasn't necessary at all.
170 IQ And still nobody has taken the time to teach him how to hold a pencil!
Montana Law Why do I hear Weird Al singing about Camp Grenada?
File-Sharers Yet in every Sony picture one or more characters has make a mixed disk and/or d/loaded something to an I-Pod.
KV Pharmaceutical Thank the gods for patten law, corrupt congressmen and lawyers. (Although siting both congressmen and lawyers is tantamount to redundancy.)
GE's Taxes [See Above]
Bob Gibbins E's gone 'round the bend 'E az!
Reader's Note Seems like these dolls would appeal more to necrophiliacs than any other group.
Isaiah Doyle What the hell do 11 seeds have to do with this guy riding Old Sparky or not?
Lebain Preston Sounds like he got some learnin' in the joint.
Spurback And here's the quote of the week: Zoo officials said in a statement that Spurback will no longer be allowed on zoo property. Kind'a takes all the excitement out of visiting the zoo.
Fat Kid He's been around for a while and they say his genes are all "F"ed up!
Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 03/28/11 at 08:45 AM
Frank H--your link seems broken. Try this:
http://tinyurl.com/4z8b7jp
http://tinyurl.com/4z8b7jp
Posted by Paul on 03/28/11 at 11:15 AM
It is an indication that nobody takes the time to teach the kids how to write correctly. I was in the same fix, regardless of the private school, and was sent to a special course in handwriting.
This isn't just the US as I've noticed the degrading penmanship over the decades here in Greece too.
This isn't just the US as I've noticed the degrading penmanship over the decades here in Greece too.
Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 03/28/11 at 11:56 AM
cock fights/tank/segal- sounds like segal and arpaio are a matched set.
. undies- sounds like a good idea to me. suprising it has not been done already.
170- dougie houser the scientist.
bomb- so fly safe, gropped but safe, but don't go into repace your sscard, it is too dangerous.
$75T- if that is what there stuff is worth lets tax them that way. ooo, what's that, the sound of a changing story?
sports- take sports out of school and make gym an exercise class, i bet grades would improve across the board.
big pharmacy- that is like what is going on with coltrazine. it has been around for a long time, so long it was grandfathered in by the fda. it is an effective treatment for gout, and it has been effective for my sister for migraines due to reasons i won't bore you with. now they are saying it needs more testing so the generic was pulled from the market, but a pharmasutical company that makes the 'name brand' is still selling it. sis was paying $4 a month for it and is now not using it because it is $400 dollars a month. the med makers are bastards.
ge- those f#$%ing f%^&ers;.
hitforhire- bet her iq wqsn't 170.
laptop- great idea posting the vid, score one for the good guys!
booby trap- give that man a darwin! (posthumously of course)
. undies- sounds like a good idea to me. suprising it has not been done already.
170- dougie houser the scientist.
bomb- so fly safe, gropped but safe, but don't go into repace your sscard, it is too dangerous.
$75T- if that is what there stuff is worth lets tax them that way. ooo, what's that, the sound of a changing story?
sports- take sports out of school and make gym an exercise class, i bet grades would improve across the board.
big pharmacy- that is like what is going on with coltrazine. it has been around for a long time, so long it was grandfathered in by the fda. it is an effective treatment for gout, and it has been effective for my sister for migraines due to reasons i won't bore you with. now they are saying it needs more testing so the generic was pulled from the market, but a pharmasutical company that makes the 'name brand' is still selling it. sis was paying $4 a month for it and is now not using it because it is $400 dollars a month. the med makers are bastards.
ge- those f#$%ing f%^&ers;.
hitforhire- bet her iq wqsn't 170.
laptop- great idea posting the vid, score one for the good guys!
booby trap- give that man a darwin! (posthumously of course)
Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 03/29/11 at 09:32 PM
Oh dear lord I'm glad Arpaio is on the other side of the continent(al U.S.) Scary, scary man. Sadly, it didn't even get a laugh...since he does this and equally ridiculous responses quite often.
hitmanforhire.com - Really? Might as well walk into a bar and look for someone in dark glasses and a handlebar mustache.
Beyond WTF? - I, too, looked at this story in disbelief when it appeared in the local paper. But this is Weird Central, so what am I saying?
Double Stick Up - Great timing, boys!
hitmanforhire.com - Really? Might as well walk into a bar and look for someone in dark glasses and a handlebar mustache.
Beyond WTF? - I, too, looked at this story in disbelief when it appeared in the local paper. But this is Weird Central, so what am I saying?
Double Stick Up - Great timing, boys!
Posted by RazzleCap in Clearwater on 04/02/11 at 07:42 AM
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