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
November 15, 2010
(datelines November 6-November 13) (links correct as of November 15)
Woman's Best Friend, Plus Bunga-Bunga, Leg of Greyhound, and Dachshund Sausages
★ ★ ★ ★!
Dildonic Euphemisms: In this Illinois police report, it's known as a "rigid feminine pleasure device," but in Alabama, it's a "bona fide medical, scientific, educational, legislative, judicial, or law enforcement" instrument (because if it's for "pleasure," it's illegal). And now, in Huntsville, Ala., you can buy it from the drive-thru window.
The Smoking Gun [police report] ///
Huntsville Times
"'Bunga-Bunga' Batters Berlusconi":
[Nope, I don't know, either. He picked it up from Khaddafi. Something like an "orgy." Something to do with "Ruby The Heartbreaker." All I know is that a lot of Italians are embarrassed.] Newsweek
Don't Even Consider Seeing Someone Behind My Back!: (If she just thinks about doing it, even though she doesn't do it, he can legally have the marriage annulled.)
Daily Telegraph (London)
Wrath of the Teaps: The wisdom of having a self-governing republic is being tested in Scottsdale, Ariz., where the Tea Party people are at war with the Fountain Hills Town Council over . . curbside trash pickup. The Teaps demand their own trash haulers--because, after all, any company with a
ewwww! "government" contract could be monitoring your rubbish.
Arizona Republic
Leading Economic Indicator: Jon "Neverdie" Jacobs, who has probably spent more hours in the Entropia Universe game than you've spent on any non-sleep activity, registered the sale of his make-believe resort on the make-believe asteroid Planet Calypso for $635,000 in
make-believe dollars real U.S. dollars. He paid $100,000 for it in 2005. Apparently, word of our 2008 economy-collapse has yet to reach Planet Calypso.
Blog.Games.Yahoo.com
Pick-Up Artist: Phillip Greaves, 47, flamed out after one hectic week with his e-book,
The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child Lover's Code of Conduct," which shot up on Amazon from one sale to several thousand at $4.79 before Amazon yanked it down (after initially defending it as free speech). Surprisingly . . it turns out Greaves had some psychological issues growing up and as an adult--although he says the book is his contribution to child
safety, in that he wants pedos to start acting responsibly when their libido overruns their governors. Greaves: "[T]he best advice I can give a pedophile is accept that masturbation is your best friend."
The Smoking Gun
Wrong Bowen Slapped: "[W]hite bitch" teacher slapped a black fourth-grade boy, and Momma went nuts, litigiously speaking, demanding nearly forty pages' worth of precise reparations, plus $1.25 million cash.
[Excuse me, Ms. Bowen, but could it be that you might be taking this a little too far?] "Kiss my
entire black ass!!!!!! I haven't
begun to go far enough!!!!!!!!"
[OK, yes, ma'm, thank you.] (Bonus: The names "Curtis Bowen" [kid] and "Lisa Henry Bowen" [Momma] are Copyright 2010.)
Pitch Weekly (Kansas City)
And Still More Things To Worry About
A Vietnamese biologist thought he discovered a previously-unknown species of lizard . . on a buffet table in Vung Tau province and notified American colleagues in California, one of whom began tingling so rapidly that he grabbed his doctoral-candidate son, flew to Hanoi, and then took a two-day motorcycle ride to Vung Tau. This is how reptile biologists are. (Bonus: A University of Derby scientist bestowed upon the "tuberous bushcricket" the award for largest testicles relative to body weight of anything alive.
[To compete, Yr Editor'd be lugging a pair of 11-pounders.] CNN ///
Agence France-Presse via Yahoo News
Here's an Illinois Prisoner Review Board member who showed up for a half-day orientation and promptly went on sick leave, where he's been for the last 17 months, ensconced in his health insurance. "So what's the [big] deal?" he asked. "These bills and stuff are just astronomical."
Chicago Tribune
"Do Not Drink Water from Toilets or Urinals": (There's no trust at all out there in Chandler, Ariz., because that sign is in the restrooms at City Hall.) (Bonus: There's a valid explanation.)
Arizona Republic
Tex-Ass Justice (another one): Claude Jones is no longer with us, thanks to the lethal-injection facilities in Huntsville, but it turns out that the crucial, key, slam-dunk piece of evidence tying him (as opposed to his partner) to the murder--an inch-long piece of "his" hair--was misassessed by one of those Texas trial "experts." Jones could still have been the killer (and was a loathesome scuzz even if his partner was the one who killed that particular guy), but when the prosecutor demands the death penalty based on an inch-long strand of hair, and then spends the rest of his life trying to destroy that strand so DNA testing could never be done, well, that's Tex-ass Justice. (Bonus: It was the victim's own hair.)
Time
Whew! Alabama's not just for drive-thru dildo shops. It's also OK with state law if teachers paddle students--for poor academic performance.
WHNT-TV (Huntsville)
"Dog Meat Now Promoted at UK Farmers Markets" It's "organic" "free-range," "corn-fed," but still, at the end of the day, the dogs go to slaughterhouses, where they're slaughtered. Among the catchy marketing slogans: Labrador steaks, leg of Greyhound, Afghan burgers, Dachshund sausages, Beagle chops, Chihuahua poppers.
AnimalAid.org [Oct. 28]
The 52-year-old financial manager who plowed into a bike-riding physician in Eagle, Colo., in July, and drove off, was initially charged with a felony--but, then, do you realize how career-gutting a "felony" would be when he has to disclosure it to his super-wealthy clients? So, now hit-and-run is a misdemeanor.
Vail Daily
Losers
He murdered a man (allegedly) and fled the city (New York), but he couldn't stay away from the NBA (Charlotte Bobcats) or the arena's JumboTron big screen. He was ID'd off the screen during the first game, and cops were waiting for him when he showed up again.
New York Daily News
New Jersey, grappling with guilt feelings: In a leniency-in-exchange-for-giving-up program in Somerset County, N.J., more than 3,000 fugitives surrendered--along with 550 or so who
thought they were wanted but who weren't. Awkward. (
Super Awkward: A hospital pharmacy manager was summoned to a security-system meeting and figured they had caught him setting up that camera in the ladies' room. So he confessed . . just as they were about to describe something unrelated, which was the purpose of the meeting.)
Star-Ledger (Newark) [Nov. 8] ///
Star-Ledger [Nov. 11]
He tried to buy two brand-new Bentleys using a check from the "Federal Reserve" for "$500,000." The Fed doesn't work in checks. (Bonus: To make it look good, he had brought his own notary public to the Bentley showroom.)
Houston Chronicle
Francisco Hernandez, 22, was picked up, distraught, in Whittier, Calif., after making an elaborate marriage proposal, getting rejected, and then trying to run down the ungrateful little wench. (Bonus: Then two of his tires went flat.)
Los Angeles Times
The Pervo-American Community
Noah Smith, 31, Seneca, S.C., going nuts on the cops (maybe high on magic-grade mushrooms), was naked, Taser-proof, pepper-spray-proof . . and with a "mouse" lodged in his you-know-where, with its "tail" hanging out (but cops explained only later that . . it was a
computer mouse).
WCSC-TV (Charleston) ///
The Smoking Gun
Your Weekly Jury Duty
[In America, you're presumed innocent . . . until the mug shot is released]
Mark Siebenmorgen, 46, charged with criminal mischief, assault, menacing.
[For textbook illustration of what "criminal mischief" and "menacing" mean, see mugshot.] KPTV (Portland, Ore.)
John Patrick Barton, Denton, Tex., repeat drunk driver?
[Spoiler Alert: guilty, life in prison] Associated Press via KTXA-TV (Dallas-Fort Worth)
Below The Fold
No Longer Weird?: Remote Surgery (UK doctors removed a tumor the size of a penny from a brain by running tiny pliers through the patient's nose). And Theodore Davenport Jr. robbed the same PNC Bank in Harrisburg, Pa., twice, then returned to check his balance. And another cigarette-smoking chimp ("Omega," in the Lebanon Zoo). And another jurisdiction with faulty blood-alcohol machines (or else it's another guy who ought to be dead, since he scored .546 and .586). And Road Rage again (bringing yogurt to a gunfight).
The Sun ///
Patriot-News (Harrisburg) ///
Daily Star (Beirut, Lebanon) [Oct. 15] ///
WEHT-TV (Evansville, Ind.) ///
WRC-TV (Washington, D.C.)
John Gilliand in Gainesville, Fla., filed for restraining orders against the three people who evidently annoy him the most--President Obama, Jesus Christ, and quarterback Tim Tebow.
Orlando Sentinel
Redneck Chronicles: Harvey Westmoreland, Lawrenceburg, Ky., , in a dispute with two men over the righteousness of his sale price for his truck, lost. Result, said Harvey: "[T]hey cut my beard and forced me to eat it."
WLWT-TV (Cincinnati)
Another Medical Marvel:
[Where does the Daily Mail
find these? It's Pulitzer-quality journalism!] Sharon Wilson of Doncaster, Yorkshire, has Cyclical Vomiting Syndrome, and it's ugly (up to 140 times a day). "[A]fter eight years of constant tests and brain scans, she was finally diagnosed with CVS."
[Perhaps Britain's best doctors are not in Doncaster.] Daily Mail
News That Sounds Like a Joke:
"10-Year Hurricane Forecasts Are On The Way" So reported
New Scientist.
[I don't mean no harm, but we residents of the F State know that it's about 50-50 that meteorologists can do a 10-week
forecast right.] New Scientist
Editor's Notes
"10 Unusual Fetishes With Massive Online Followings": Now you have fancy names for armpit-odor lovers, for those who love mannequins more than people, for biters and the bitten, and seven more. "Massive" must be a filter, with the rhinotillexomaniacs and the apotemnophiliacs laying low these days.
Criminal Justice Degrees Guide
Newsrangers: Steve Harrell, Bob Stewart, Neil Gimon, Kathryn Wood, Brian Sleeper, Sandy Pearlman, Eddie Earles, and Barry Rein, and the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors
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