Archive for March, 2009
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
“Slightly smaller than Oregon”: a White House briefing on Britain:
So here’s what the White House is telling American reporters – and by extension the American people – about Britain. It’s laid out in an inch-thick “press kit”, with the Seal of the President of the United States emblazoned on the cover, handed out to each of us on board the White House press charter en route from Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington to Stansted.
The United Kingdom, we are told, is “slightly smaller than Oregon”. As for the the British climate, it is “generally mild and temperate” and “subject to frequent changes but few extremes of temperature”. A “group of islands close to continental Europe”, Britain has been “subject to many invasions and migrations”.
We’re taken through the Roman invasion (”brought more active contacts with the rest of Europe”), the Norman invasion (led to “active involvement in European affairs…for several hundred years”) and various travails with the Welsh, Scots and Irish before the British empire reached its zenith in Victorian times. Then it all started to go wrong.
“The losses and destruction of World War I, the depression of the 1930s, and decades of relatively slow growth eroded the United Kingdom’s preeminent international position of the previous century”.
Those fretting about the demise of the term “special relationship” might not be reassured by this briefing book. There’s talk of a “strong bilateral relationship”, of the UK being “one of the United States’ closest allies” and of “close coordination” and “bilateral cooperation” between two countries who “continually consult on foreign policy”. Everything except “special”.
Posted in Idiot Authorities | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
Officer, dog square off against Modesto mob of 60
A Modesto police officer had to pull his gun to keep a hostile crowd at bay early Sunday. The officer sustained minor injuries in the southwest Modesto incident, said police spokesman Sgt. Brian Findlen.
Police are not releasing the officer’s name. The officer’s dog was assaulted but not seriously injured, Findlen said. Police arrested several suspects in connection with the incident. A loaded assault rifle was found later at the scene of the struggle, which unfolded about 2 a.m.
Findlen said the officer pulled his gun only after other deterrents, including his police dog, failed to keep the crowd under control. “In a situation where you really feel that your life is in imminent danger, your options become very few,” Findlen said. Some members of the crowd told the officer that “he was not going to leave the scene alive,” according to police.
The crowd of as many as 60 people included some known gang members, Findlen said. Police believe the group was gathered for a party in the 1700 block of Pelton Avenue. The officer happened upon the group when he was responding to another call in the area.
The officer saw several people assaulting one man, Findlen said. As the officer tried to break up the fight, the crowd’s attention shifted from the assault victim to the officer. The crowd surrounded the officer. The officer sent his dog into the crowd in an attempt to stop the group.
The dog apprehended one suspect, who police later identified as 18-year-old Alfredo Espinoza of Modesto. As the officer tried to arrest Espinoza, the crowd pulled Espinoza away from the officer.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality, You lucky bastard | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
Pictured: The driver who took on a puddle … then discovered it was a 12-foot deep crater
A Ukranian driver already having a bad day – having taken a wrong turn onto a highway – found it getting a lot worse when he gingerly crept over a water-filled pothole, only to discover it was a 12-foot deep crater.
The formerly shiny hatchback moved over the hole and then, with no time to reverse, found itself plunging deep into an abyss caused by a broken water main.
The driver had to smash his rear window and scramble out to the top to avoid a muddy end, before waiting for workmen to come and rescue his car. A crowd then formed as workers drained the hole, exposing the extensive damage suffered by the Vokswagen, which will also need a good clean before getting back on the road.
Posted in Oops | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
Russia backs return to Gold Standard to solve financial crisis
Russia has become the first major country to call for a partial restoration of the Gold Standard to uphold discipline in the world financial system.
Arkady Dvorkevich, the Kremlin’s chief economic adviser, said Russia would favour the inclusion of gold bullion in the basket-weighting of a new world currency based on Special Drawing Rights issued by the International Monetary Fund. Chinese and Russian leaders both plan to open debate on an SDR-based reserve currency as an alternative to the US dollar at the G20 summit in London this week, although the world may not yet be ready for such a radical proposal.
Mr Dvorkevich said it was “logical” that the new currency should include the rouble and the yuan, adding that “we could also think about more effective use of gold in this system”.
The Gold Standard was the anchor of world finance in the 19th Century but began breaking down during the First World War as governments engaged in unprecedented spending. It collapsed in the 1930s when the British Empire, the US, and France all abandoned their parities. It was revived as part of fixed dollar system until US inflation caused by the Vietnam War and “Great Society” social spending forced President Richard Nixon to close the gold window in 1971.
Posted in End of the World Update, Greed is Good | No Comments »
Monday, March 30th, 2009
Navy Secretary Nominee Drew Notice Over Divorce
President Obama’s nominee for secretary of the Navy was involved in a divorce that drew national attention for his secret taping of a conversation between his wife and his family priest that he used against her in court proceedings.
The nominee, Ray Mabus, is a former governor of Mississippi and a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and he served in the Navy during the Vietnam War. Mr. Mabus, a Democrat, was a strong supporter of Mr. Obama in the campaign last year.
In 1998, as Mr. Mabus and his wife, Julie (now Julie Hines), sought to work out their marital problems, he surreptitiously recorded a meeting the couple had with the Rev. Jerry McBride, a mutual friend.
Posted in Idiot Authorities | No Comments »
Monday, March 30th, 2009
Jacqui Smith fights for future after pornographic film row
Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, is fighting for her political future following the disclosure that she paid for the cost of pornographic films with her taxpayer-funded allowance.
Miss Smith apologised for submitting the £10 bill for the two adult films, which were watched by her husband, Richard Timney, while she was away in London. She promised to repay the money.
Mr Timney, who is also paid from public funds to work as his wife’s Parliamentary assistant, made a public apology for the “embarrassment” he had caused her.
Posted in Idiot Authorities, Politico Follies, Sex | No Comments »
Sunday, March 29th, 2009
Police nab teen who wet himself in stranger’s home
Waking up to find a strange man asleep on your couch with his wet trousers round his ankles is perhaps not the best way to start the day.
But that was the experience for one homeowner in Texas, who responded to the unwanted intruder by calling police.
Officers arrived and arrested 19-year-old Nathan Ray Jones, who had enjoyed a night on the tiles before entering the house in Cheyenne through an unlocked door.
Posted in Teen Antics | No Comments »
Sunday, March 29th, 2009
Hillary Clinton leaves flowers for Our Lady of Guadalupe, asks ‘Who painted it?’:
During her recent visit to Mexico, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an unexpected stop at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe and left a bouquet of white flowers “on behalf of the American people,” after asking who painted the famous image.
The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was miraculously imprinted by Mary on the tilma, or cloak, of St. Juan Diego in 1531. The image has numerous unexplainable phenomena, such as the appearance on Mary’s eyes of those present in the room when the tilma was opened and the image’s lack of decay.
Mrs. Clinton was received on Thursday at 8:15 a.m. by the rector of the Basilica, Msgr. Diego Monroy. Msgr. Monroy took Mrs. Clinton to the famous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which had been previously lowered from its usual altar for the occasion.
After observing it for a while, Mrs. Clinton asked “who painted it?” to which Msgr. Monroy responded “God!”
Posted in Idiot Authorities | No Comments »
Sunday, March 29th, 2009
Man butted by deer at Stockholm supermarket
A man was butted by an unexpected assailant while shopping at his local supermarket in a Stockholm suburb on Friday – a roebuck deer.
“I was caught unawares when the roebuck suddenly came at me,” Anders Östeberg said to Aftonbladet of his meeting with the deer at a Coop store in Liljeholmen in southern Stockholm.
It is thought that the deer sneaked into the building when the loading bay was left open in connection with a delivery. The frightened deer ran into the store and Östberg was unfortunate to be in the rampaging animal’s path.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
Sunday, March 29th, 2009
Storm in a goldfish bowl as MSPs debate obese pet fish
SINCE devolution a decade ago, MSPs have broken new ground in tackling major health issues such as smoking, alcohol and obesity.
But now they have turned their focus to the wellbeing of pet tropical fish, which are becoming obese and suffering a lack of social interaction. Holyrood’s petitions committee yesterday called on the Scottish Government to investigate the conditions in which Siamese fighting fish, otherwise known as Betta splendens, are kept in pet shops.
MSPs agreed that rules preventing the spectacular fish from being kept in goldfish bowls rather than proper tanks were too lax and poorly enforced.
Posted in Idiot Authorities | No Comments »
Sunday, March 29th, 2009
House Of Filth: Nearly 100 Cats Found In NJ Home
One New Jersey SPCA official said it was probably the worst case he’s ever seen. Nearly 100 cats and one dog were found Thursday living in a home in a million-dollar neighborhood in Morris County.
SPCA spokesman Matthew Stanton said there was 2 feet of feces in one room of the home on Farm Road in Chester Township. Investigators wore masks to help them breathe through the stench of urine, Stanton said.
“The conditions were absolutely horrific – there wasn’t one inch of the house that wasn’t covered in feces or urine,” SPCA Lt. Rick Yocum says. ”There were three foot piles of feces in the hallways.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
Sunday, March 29th, 2009
19,000 UK credit card details posted on the Net … and accessible on Google
The credit card details of up to 19,000 British shoppers were published on the internet – where they could be found using a simple search on Google. The details apparently originated from the website of a criminal gang in the Far East.
The list, obtained by the Mail, includes the names, home addresses and full card details of thousands of Visa, Mastercard and American Express customers. Google’s high-powered search engine inadvertently picked up the list during a ‘crawl’ of the web – allowing it to be seen and copied.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality | No Comments »
Sunday, March 29th, 2009
‘FRIEND’ OF BIDEN’S DAUGHTER SHOPPING TAPE OF HER ALLEGEDLY DOING COCAINE:
A “friend” of Vice President Joseph Biden’s daughter, Ashley, is attempting to hawk a videotape that he claims shows her snorting cocaine at a house party this month in Delaware.
The anonymous male acquaintance of Ashley took the video, said Thomas Dunlap, a lawyer representing the seller. Dunlap and a man claiming to be a lawyer showed The Post about 90 seconds of 43-minute tape, saying it was legally obtained and that Ashley was aware she was being filmed.
The Post refused to pay for the video. The video, which the shooter initially hoped to sell for $2 million before scaling back his price to $400,000, shows a 20-something woman with light skin and long brown hair taking a red straw from her mouth, bending over a desk, inserting the straw into her nostril and snorting lines of white powder.
Posted in Drugs | No Comments »
Thursday, March 26th, 2009
Facebook ‘Jews’ Group Suddenly Praises Hitler
Some unsuspecting Facebook users may have fallen prey to a shocking prank.
A group on the social-networking site calling itself “I Heart Jews” garnered more than 2,000 members — until the group’s name was suddenly changed to “Hitler: Great Modern Man of History,” New York’s WNYW-TV reports.
”It’s disgusting. It’s despicable,” said Facebook user Wendy Erdheim, who had been part of the group. “Like, who would ever do that?”
Other members of the group were similarly shocked.
”Is this a joke?” posted one. “Because if it is not I am absolutely appalled.”
Mark Weitzman of the Simon Wiesenthal Center said the name change was no accident.
”One would have to say that it’s premeditated and that the intent was there from the beginning,” says Weitzman.
Posted in Politically Incorrect | No Comments »
Thursday, March 26th, 2009
Merengue Star Said to Fly Solo Into Mile-High Club
Merengue star Elvis Crespo has just given a new meaning to flying the friendly skies.
The Latin sensation was allegedly caught pleasing himself on a flight from Houston to Miami last week by a female passenger. Sometimes that in-flight movie can be so boring, you have to entertain yourself.
Crespo’s private time, however, was interrupted when the blanket he was under shifted, giving the woman an unexpected look at his package. The woman told a flight attendant, who in turn, told the pilot.
“I don’t recall doing that,” said the 37-year old Crespo.
Posted in Idiot Celebrities | No Comments »
Thursday, March 26th, 2009
David Beckham has some armless fun
STUNNED David Beckham gasped in horror yesterday as he shook an injured Royal Marine’s hand — and it came off.
England hero Becks went ghostly pale as he clutched the limb while Commando Ben McBean screamed: “My arm! My arm!”
But the star’s shock turned to relief as onlookers howled with laughter and he realised he was holding Ben’s prosthetic arm rather than a real one.
Posted in Doh! | No Comments »
Thursday, March 26th, 2009
Space storm alert: 90 seconds from catastrophe
IT IS midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colourful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south but their fascination is short-lived. Within a few seconds, electric bulbs dim and flicker, then become unusually bright for a fleeting moment. Then all the lights in the state go out.
Within 90 seconds, the entire eastern half of the US is without power. A year later and millions of Americans are dead and the nation’s infrastructure lies in tatters. The World Bank declares America a developing nation. Europe, Scandinavia, China and Japan are also struggling to recover from the same fateful event – a violent storm, 150 million kilometres away on the surface of the sun.
It sounds ridiculous. Surely the sun couldn’t create so profound a disaster on Earth. Yet an extraordinary report funded by NASA and issued by the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in January this year claims it could do just that.
Over the last few decades, western civilisations have busily sown the seeds of their own destruction. Our modern way of life, with its reliance on technology, has unwittingly exposed us to an extraordinary danger: plasma balls spewed from the surface of the sun could wipe out our power grids, with catastrophic consequences.
Posted in End of the World Update | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009
E.U. hustles to control damage after outburst
The European Union’s crisis of leadership during this severe economic downturn was thrown into sharp relief on Wednesday, as the prime minister of the country that holds the rotating presidency lambasted President Barack Obama’s emergency stimulus package as “a way to hell” that will “undermine the stability of the global financial market.”
The blunt comments of the Czech prime minister, Mirek Topolanek, coming just a week before a crucial meeting of the Group of 20 that is supposed to show leaders coming together to cope with the crisis, were greeted with embarrassment by many Europeans, who believe that the Czechs do not represent the consensus in the European Union in any case.
What made the situation even more absurd was that Mr. Topolanek lost his parliamentary majority in the Czech Republic on Tuesday, with his new lame-duck status further weakening Prague’s European presidency. Adding to the awkwardness, Mr. Topolanek will host Mr. Obama in Prague a few days after the G-20 meeting, at a United States-European Union summit.
So the old question of who speaks for Europe and when, especially in a crisis, has again become more acute, especially with persistent internal strains between more prosperous West European countries, which use the euro, and newer members in Central and Eastern Europe, which do not.
Posted in Politically Incorrect | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009
CT wife handcuffs husband, bites him on torso, arms
Police in Connecticut say a woman attempting to reconcile with her husband handcuffed herself to him as he slept and then bit him on his torso and arms.
Police say 37-year-old Helen Sun told them she wanted to have a conversation with husband Robert Drawbough without him leaving.
Police say she changed the locks on their bedroom and handcuffed herself to Drawbough while he was sleeping Monday.
Posted in Cryptozoology | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009
Dear A.I.G., I Quit!
The following is a letter sent on Tuesday by Jake DeSantis, an executive vice president of the American International Group’s financial products unit, to Edward M. Liddy, the chief executive of A.I.G.
DEAR Mr. Liddy,
It is with deep regret that I submit my notice of resignation from A.I.G. Financial Products. I hope you take the time to read this entire letter.
Before describing the details of my decision, I want to offer some context: I am proud of everything I have done for the commodity and equity divisions of A.I.G.-F.P. I was in no way involved in — or responsible for — the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung A.I.G. Nor were more than a handful of the 400 current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. Most of those responsible have left the company and have conspicuously escaped the public outrage.
After 12 months of hard work dismantling the company — during which A.I.G. reassured us many times we would be rewarded in March 2009 — we in the financial products unit have been betrayed by A.I.G. and are being unfairly persecuted by elected officials. In response to this, I will now leave the company and donate my entire post-tax retention payment to those suffering from the global economic downturn. My intent is to keep none of the money myself.
As the saying goes, read the whole thing.
Posted in Greed is Good | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 24th, 2009
Naked taoiseach paintings removed:
It could be described as oil on canvas featuring taoiseach, but the appearance of nude paintings of Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen in two Dublin galleries has seen the police called in.
A painting of Mr Cowen holding his underpants appeared in the Royal Hibernian Academy and one of him pictured on the toilet ended up in the National Gallery.
Whether it was political subversion or artistic expression if the painter behind them comes to light they could find themselves answering questions from Irish police.
Hat tip to Una!
Posted in Ars Gratia Artis | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 24th, 2009
Japanese Man Certified as Double A-Bomb Victim
A 93-year-old Japanese man has become the first person certified as a survivor of both U.S. atomic bombings at the end of World War II, officials said Tuesday.
Tsutomu Yamaguchi had already been a certified “hibakusha,” or radiation survivor, of the Aug. 9, 1945, atomic bombing in Nagasaki, but has now been confirmed as surviving the attack on Hiroshima three days earlier as well, city officials said.
Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip on Aug. 6, 1945, when a U.S. B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on the city. He suffered serious burns to his upper body and spent the night in the city. He then returned to his hometown of Nagasaki just in time for the second attack, city officials said.
“As far as we know, he is the first one to be officially recognized as a survivor of atomic bombings in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” Nagasaki city official Toshiro Miyamoto said. “It’s such an unfortunate case, but it is possible that there are more people like him.”
Posted in You lucky bastard | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 24th, 2009
Two Kimodo Dragons Kill a Human in Indonesia
Two Komodo dragons mauled a fruit-picker to death in eastern Indonesia, police and witnesses said Tuesday, the latest in a string of attacks on humans by the world’s largest lizard species.
Police Sgt. Kosmas Jalang said 31-year-old Muhamad Anwar was attacked on Komodo, one of four islands where the giant reptile is found in the wild, minutes after he fell out of a sugar-apple tree on Monday.
He was bleeding badly from bites to his hands, body, legs and neck after two lizards, waiting below, attacked him, according to a neighbor, Theresia Tawa. He died at a clinic on the neighboring island of Flores soon after.
Attacks on humans by Komodo dragons — said to number at less than 4,000 in the wild — are rare, but seem to have increased in recent years.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 24th, 2009
Firms working with Colo. family with flaming water:
A Fort Lupton family who can light their water on fire because of gas seeping into their house expect to get some help from two companies with natural gas wells in the area.
Amee Ellsworth says she met Friday with Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and Noble Energy Inc. The companies have pledged to provide water for the family and are looking at possibly installing a water-treatment system.
…
The state has been investigating the problem since last fall. Inspectors say the gas is coming from gas operations but they haven’t found the source.
Posted in Fire | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 24th, 2009
FT.com / Asia-Pacific – China calls for new reserve currency:
China’s central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund.
In an essay posted on the People’s Bank of China’s website, Zhou Xiaochuan, the central bank’s governor, said the goal would be to create a reserve currency “that is disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run, thus removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies”.
Analysts said the proposal was an indication of Beijing’s fears that actions being taken to save the domestic US economy would have a negative impact on China. “This is a clear sign that China, as the largest holder of US dollar financial assets, is concerned about the potential inflationary risk of the US Federal Reserve printing money,” said Qu Hongbin, chief China economist for HSBC.
Posted in End of the World Update | No Comments »
Monday, March 23rd, 2009
Cannabis users ’suffering new syndrome’
THERE is mounting evidence to support the existence of a new syndrome afflicting heavy cannabis users, after the world’s first cases were found in South Australia. The condition “cannabinoid hyperemesis” was first identified in a group of about 20 heavy drug users in the Adelaide hills in 2004, and a new case has emerged this time in the US. The syndrome is characterised by nausea, stomach pain and bouts of vomiting – ill effects which, oddly, sufferers say they get some relief from by having a hot shower or bath. The new case, involving a 22-year-old man in Omaha, is published in the World Journal of Gastroenterology where doctors were also told to consider it when treating people with unexplained vomiting.
Posted in Drugs | No Comments »
Monday, March 23rd, 2009
Saudi Clerics Urge Ban on Women, Music on Television
A group of Saudi clerics urged the kingdom’s new information minister on Sunday to ban women from appearing on TV or in newspapers and magazines, making clear that the country’s hardline religious establishment is skeptical of a new push toward moderation.
In a statement, the 35 hardline clergymen also called on Abdel Aziz Khoja, who was appointed by King Abdullah on Feb. 14, to prohibit the playing of music and music shows on television.
“We have great hope that this media reform will be accomplished by you,” said the statement. “We have noticed how well-rooted perversity is in the Ministry of Information and Culture, in television, radio, press, culture clubs and the book fair.”
Posted in T.R.O.P. | No Comments »
Monday, March 23rd, 2009
Obama tacitly honours Chirac’s stance against Iraq war:
US President Barack Obama has indirectly praised former French president Jacques Chirac’s fierce opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq, the online edition of the daily Le Figaro reported on Thursday. In a letter described by Chirac as ‘very nice,’ Obama wrote, ‘I am certain that we will be able to work together, in the coming four years, in a spirit of peace and friendship to build a safer world.’
Posted in Idiot Authorities | No Comments »
Sunday, March 22nd, 2009
Woodpecker terrorizes south Tampa
The woodpecker normally prefers softwood deciduous trees…except in one south Tampa neighborhood.
“Oh my god I am so devastated”, Brittany Jones told me when I met her outside her house. “You would think people would commit a crime and it’s just a measly little bird.”
Yes, a crime, a senseless act of vandalism. And Brittany isn’t the only victim of their feathered friend. “I can’t believe it actually happened,” said neighbor J.R. Gaskin.
Car mirrors are now cracked and shattered, all the result of a woodpecker. Brittany Jones’ mother, Dorothy, first spotted it. “I heard something pecking outside and I thought they were doing construction work. And I looked up and went, ‘oh my god that’s a woodpecker.’”
The red-crested fowl has been very busy, because in one south Tampa neighborhood near MacDill Airforce Base, he has hit at least six vehicles.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
Sunday, March 22nd, 2009
More ‘fight club’ allegations at Texas school:
Nine employees are under investigation over allegations of new fights among mentally disabled residents of the troubled Corpus Christi State School, a state lawmaker said Saturday night.
State Rep. Abel Herrero said the workers are on leave while officials look into complaints that the staff members did nothing to intervene in the fights involving residents Wednesday and Thursday.
The new allegations follow six staffers being charged earlier this month with injury to a disabled person over separate fights allegedly organized for the staff’s entertainment. Videos of those fights were found on a cell phone.
“Appalling,” said Herrero, a Corpus Christi-area Democrat. “Completely unacceptable. It’s important that the state exhaust every resource to once and for all ensure the safety and well-being of our state’s most vulnerable population.”
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent, Concentrated Criminality, Idiot Authorities | No Comments »
Saturday, March 21st, 2009
Man finds 41 snakes in buddy’s crawl space
Jeff Stafford’s buddy owes him a few beers — and 41 brews would still be a bargain for the colony of bull snakes Stafford found slithering in the crawl space of friend’s townhome in Westminster Sunday.
The 25-year-old banker had stopped by his friend’s place near Federal Boulevard and West 112th Avenue to say “hi.” He was wearing flip flops.
His friend, who asked to remain anonymous, was tending to a leaky pipe beneath the home, while Stafford chatted with his friend’s wife.
“Thirty seconds later I heard what sounded like the yelp of a small, frightened child,” Stafford said Monday. His friend had spotted a snake in the muddy crawl space.
“Dude, you’ve got to go get it,” Stafford recalled him saying Monday.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
Saturday, March 21st, 2009
Suspects toss thousands out windows during rush-hour pursuit:
Motorists stopped on freeways Thursday and scrambled to collect cash that drug suspects tossed like confetti from their pickup while leading police on a pursuit during the evening commute.
Police arrested two men on Interstate 5 in Carmel Valley while other officers collected more than $17,000 along the pursuit route. Drug Enforcement Administration agents took custody of the money, the pickup and the suspects.
Some civilians who got in on the cash-grab later handed it over to police. A 16-year-old boy turned over $570 at the department’s northeastern division station.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality, Drugs | No Comments »
Saturday, March 21st, 2009
Ex-exec eyed as campus flasher
A former executive from a white-shoe Boston wealth management firm was arrested for exposing himself to young women and is now being eyed as the pervert dubbed the “campus flasher” who preyed on Wellesley College students, the Herald has learned.
Stephen J. Barrett, 40, was terminated from his position as a senior vice president at Eaton Vance on March 13, the firm said, two days after he was arrested at Wellesley College and charged with flashing students.
Barrett was spotted by campus cops allegedly fondling his genitals and has been charged with indecent exposure and open and gross lewdness, said Wellesley Police Deputy Chief Bill Brooks. If convicted, Barrett will have to register as a sex offender.
Posted in Career Limiting Move | No Comments »
Friday, March 20th, 2009
Prediction market odds rising that Geithner will go
The odds on whether U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will leave by the end of June increased over the last week in a political prediction market, but traders still gave it only a small chance of happening.
On the Dublin-based Intrade (www.intrade.com/) prediction market, traders on Friday gave Geithner a 16 percent chance of leaving before midnight on June 30. While that is down from a spike of 20 percent on Thursday, the odds have risen since traders had an 8 percent expectation on March 13.
Posted in Gambling | No Comments »
Friday, March 20th, 2009
AIG Bonus Fury Took Awhile to Boil Over
Maybe you don’t spend your weekends perusing SEC filings, so perhaps you missed the one in November in which AIG, the world’s most unloved big company, reported that it planned to distribute $469 million in bonuses to some employees. This was after the government began pouring billions into AIG to save it from the fate of Lehman Brothers but long before populist outrage over the bonuses exploded this week.
And maybe you aren’t a regular reader of Rep. Elijah Cummings’s blog on the Huffington Post. His Nov. 27 entry, “A Bonus by Any Other Name Still Stinks,” complains that “just one day after being told that top AIG executives would be forgoing bonuses this year,” he had been “shocked” to learn that they would be getting “cash awards” as “retention payments.”
But surely you didn’t miss the Oct. 8 article in this very newspaper headlined “AIG Spa Trip Fuels Fury on Hill; Pressing Executives to Concede Mistake, Lawmakers Blast Them About Bonuses.” Or how about the New York Times on Oct. 17: “A.I.G. Agrees to Let New York Review the Propriety of Its Pay Packages”?
In short, you knew about this, if you cared. So why didn’t your self-righteous populist fury boil over before now? One of my favorite things about the news is the randomness of what becomes a big story. This is far from the first time some scandal that was reported with a yawn on Page D13 popped up months later on Page 1.
Posted in Idiot Authorities | No Comments »
Friday, March 20th, 2009
Pub is closed by Monty Python grenade
BUILDINGS were evacuated, a street was cordoned off and a bomb disposal team called in after workmen spotted a suspicious object.
But the dangerous-looking weapon turned out to be the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, made famous in the 1975 film Monty Python And The Holy Grail.
Police and a fire crew were first on the scene in Shoreditch, east London, when water company workers found a copy of the film prop under a fire hydrant cover.
They evacuated a pub and another building in Tabernacle Street, while office staff in another building were stopped from leaving.
Posted in Doh! | No Comments »
Friday, March 20th, 2009
Family who are ‘too fat to work’ say £22,000 worth of benefits is not enough
Philip Chawner, 53, and his 57-year-old wife Audrey weigh 24st. Their daughter Emma, 19, weighs 17st, while her older sister Samantha, 21, weighs 18st. The family from Blackburn claim £22,508 a year in benefits, equivalent to the take-home pay from a £30,000 salary.
The Chawners, haven’t worked in 11 years, claim their weight is a hereditary condition and the money they receive is insufficient to live on.
Mr Chawner said: “What we get barely covers the bills and puts food on the table. It’s not our fault we can’t work. We deserve more.”
The family claim to spend £50 a week on food and consume 3,000 calories each a day. The recommended maximum intake is 2,000 for women and 2,500 for men.
“We have cereal for breakfast, bacon butties for lunch and microwave pies with mashed potato or chips for dinner,” Mrs Chawner told Closer magazine
Posted in Human Oddities | No Comments »
Friday, March 20th, 2009
Obama Thanks Himself, Irish PM Repeats Speech in Teleprompter Meltdown
Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen was just a few paragraphs into an address at a St. Patrick’s Day celebration at the White House when he realized something sounded way too familiar.
Turns out, he was repeating the speech President Barack Obama had just given. Cowen was set to speak twice at the White House on Tuesday night because there were two different parties going on at the executive mansion. No matter — he would give the same speech to the two different audiences.
But Cowen was 20 seconds into his second address when it dawned on him that he was giving word for word the speech that Obama had just read from the same teleprompter. Cowen stopped and looked back at the president to say, “That’s your speech.”
Posted in Concentrated Stupidity | No Comments »
Friday, March 20th, 2009
Gordon Brown is frustrated by ‘Psycho’ in No 10
While not exactly a film buff, Gordon Brown was touched when Barack Obama gave him a set of 25 classic American movies – including Psycho, starring Anthony Perkins on his recent visit to Washington.
Alas, when the PM settled down to begin watching them the other night, he found there was a problem. The films only worked in DVD players made in North America and the words “wrong region” came up on his screen.
Although he mournfully had to put the popcorn away, he is unlikely to jeopardise the special relationship – or “special partnership”, as we are now supposed to call it – by registering a complaint.
Posted in Idiot Authorities | No Comments »
Friday, March 20th, 2009
Obama White House bars press from press award ceremony
We are not making this up:
Barack Obama was elected commander-in-chief promising to run the most transparent presidential administration in American history. This achievement and the overall promise of his historic administration caused the National Newspaper Publishers Assn. to name him “Newsmaker of the Year.”
The president is to receive the award from the federation of black community newspapers in a White House ceremony this afternoon. The Obama White House has closed the press award ceremony to the press.
Posted in Idiot Authorities | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 18th, 2009
Porn Sting Goes To The Dogs
Meet Michelle Owen. Concerned that an ex-boyfriend had used her laptop to search for child pornography, the Indiana woman asked police to search the computer for illegal images, but had her plan backfire when cops discovered two videos of her engaged in illicit acts with a dog. Owen, 24, was charged last week with two felony bestiality counts in connection with the video files, which a detective found in the laptop’s “recycle bin.” At the time Owen asked cops to search the computer, she was locked up in the Johnson County Jail on a public intoxication charge (which violated the terms of her release in a prior drunk driving case).
Posted in Sexual Deviants | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 18th, 2009
Gambians ‘taken by witch doctors’:
Up to 1,000 Gambian villagers have been abducted by “witch doctors” to secret detention centres and forced to drink potions, a human rights group says.
Amnesty International said some forced to drink the concoctions developed kidney problems, and two had died.
Officials in the police, army and the president’s personal protection guard had accompanied the “witch doctors” in the bizarre roundup, said witnesses.
Gambia’s government was unavailable to comment on the claims.
Posted in Cultural Oddities | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 18th, 2009
German teens drawn to neo-Nazi groups
Roughly one in twenty 15-year-old German males is a member of a neo-Nazi group, a higher proportion than are involved in mainstream politics, according to a study released on Tuesday.
Many politicians fear a resurgence of right-wing extremism as unemployment creeps higher in Germany, which is facing its deepest recession since World War Two.
Government figures have shown anti-Semitic crimes rose at the end of last year.
“It is shocking that right-wing groups have more success recruiting male youths than the established political parties,” said Christian Pfeiffer, author of the report issued by Lower Saxony’s criminal research instute.
Posted in Nazis | No Comments »
Monday, March 16th, 2009
‘Frozen’ truck driver trapped in industrial oven
An attempt by a truck driver with a chill to warm himself in an industrial oven has prompted a reaction from Sweden’s work safety agency.
An alert shrink oven operator was able to drag the truck driver out of the 180 degree Celsius heat before he sustained any serious injuries, according to Sveriges Radio (SR). The incident took place in February at a facility in Hässleholm in southern Sweden operated by Ballingslöv, a maker of kitchen and bathroom cabinets and fixtures.
The heating system in the facility’s loading area had ceased to function, leaving the truck driver defenseless against Sweden’s chilly February temperatures.
Looking to escape the cold, the man wandered to another part of the building and asked the shrink oven operator if he could take a spin on the oven’s conveyor belt to get warm.
Posted in Concentrated Stupidity | No Comments »
Monday, March 16th, 2009
Scoop: Scientology Spokesman Confirms Xenu Story:
After years of dismissing the story as false, Scientology spokesman Tommy Davis has confirmed that the story of mankind’s origins involving an alien overlord named Xenu is indeed authentic Scientology teaching.
In the exclusive interview with KESQ News Channel 3 reporter[1], Nathan Baca, Scientology spokesman Tommy Davis was asked about the story of Xenu, known to senior Scientologists as part of “Operating Thetan Level III”, or “OT III” for short.
Davis denied the story at first (as he has done in the past), stating that these were claims “forwarded by anti-Scientologists.”
When Baca began reading from a book written by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard that mentions the Xenu story, Davis became defensive, admitting that the story is indeed authentic, but confidential. He then accused Nathan Baca of religious hate, saying that a non-Scientologist asking about Scientology’s core beliefs is an “offensive concept”, and that Baca was “just forwarding an agenda of hate.”
Posted in Crazy is as Crazy Does | No Comments »
Sunday, March 15th, 2009
‘THEY SHOT ME WITH AN ARROW!’
A woman got a terrifying taste of the Old West this afternoon when she was struck by an arrow as she stepped out of a car at a Riverdale nursing home. Witnesses said Denise Delgado-Brown was dropping two friends off at the Schervier Nursing Care Center on Independence Avenue shortly after 1:30 p.m. when a black arrow with yellow feathers – apparently fired by an unknown archer – struck her mid-section near the heart. “They shot me with an arrow!” a stunned Delgado-Brown, who lives in Yonkers, told friends as she collapsed near her KIA SUV.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality | No Comments »
Sunday, March 15th, 2009
Former soldier John Radoll tried to impress women with gun in pants,
A FORMER soldier suffering trauma from his time in the army took a loaded gun into a Brisbane nightclub because he wanted to impress women, a court has been told.
Samuel John Radoll, 21, approached two women in The Met nightclub on October 25 last year and asked them to feel the “awesome” thing he had down his pants, the Brisbane Magistrates Court was told today.
The first woman happily chatted to Radoll, sat on his lap and had her photo taken with him after she discovered he had a gun secreted down the front of his jeans.
But the second woman reported him to security personnel, the court was told.
Posted in Concentrated Stupidity | No Comments »
Sunday, March 15th, 2009
Bestiality closer to becoming illegal in Florida
The act of bestiality is a step closer to becoming illegal in Florida now that a Senate committee voted to slap a third-degree felony charge on anyone who has sex with animals.
Florida is one of only 16 states that still permit bestiality – a fact that animal-rights activist and Sunrise Sen. Nan Rich learned to her horror when a Panhandle man three years ago was suspected of accidentally asphyxiating a family goat with which he was copulating.
Posted in Sexual Deviants | No Comments »
Sunday, March 15th, 2009
Doctors save speared Indian boy:
A six-year-old Indian boy is recovering after doctors removed a two metre (6ft) iron rod that speared his body when he fell from a terrace.
Mehul Kumar was rushed to hospital in the city of Ranchi in Jharkhand after the incident on Wednesday.
Doctors at the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences removed the rod in a four-hour operation.
The doctors said he had lost a lot of blood and suffered liver and stomach injuries but “nothing major”.
Mehul was playing on the Indian festival of Holi when he fell on the rod in a terrace under construction at his grandparents’ home
Posted in You lucky bastard, Yuck! | No Comments »
Sunday, March 15th, 2009
Bedlam Erupts At NYC ‘Top Model’ Auditions
Three people were arrested and six others were hurt on Saturday after bedlam broke out while contestants were waiting to audition for “America’s Next Top Model” in Manhattan.
“It was scary,” aspiring model Sofia Tancredi said. “The girls were crying.”
Officials said the chaos Saturday afternoon, involving hundreds of people outside the Park Central New York hotel, was prompted by smoke coming from an overheated car nearby that caused someone to yell “fire,” sparking a model stampede at the Midtown hotel.
Mere moments later, someone yelled about a man with a gun, leading to more running and screaming chaos. The panic left the street outside the hotel littered with the would-be models’ shoes and clothing, according to news reports.
Posted in Anarchy | No Comments »
Friday, March 13th, 2009
More Than 9,000 Ticketed For Using Cell Phones While Driving:
The New York City Police Department issued more than 9,000 tickets yesterday to drivers caught using their cell phones while on the road. The 24-hour citywide crackdown began at midnight yesterday.
It served as a reminder to New Yorkers that using a hand held cell phone while driving is illegal in the state.
Drivers who were ticketed face a $120 fine. Police say they normally issue around 500 tickets for cell phone use per day.
Posted in Greed is Good | No Comments »
Friday, March 13th, 2009
South African men are ‘raping women to cure them of being lesbians’
Lesbians living in South Africa are being raped by men who believe it will ‘cure’ them of their sexual orientation, a report has revealed. Women are reporting a rising tide of brutal homophobic attacks and murders and the widespread use of ‘corrective’ rape as a form of punishment.
The report, commissioned by international NGO ActionAid, called for South Africa’s criminal justice system to recognise the rapes as hate crimes as police are reportedly failing to take action over the spiralling violence.
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent, Concentrated Criminality | No Comments »
Thursday, March 12th, 2009
Police: 81 cars missing from dealership; 3 execs in custody
The owner of a Nebraska car dealership and two executives were in police custody facing theft charges Thursday after 81 cars were taken from the dealership’s lot, authorities said. Alan Patch, 52, who owns Legacy Auto Sales in Nebraska is being held in Tooele County, Utah.
Rachel Fait, 37, Legacy’s comptroller, was arrested in Tooele County on Wednesday, and Legacy general manager Rick Covello, 53, turned himself in to Scottsbluff officials Thursday, Spencer said.
Police became aware of the case Tuesday, when they received a call from Toyota company officials, Spencer said. Toyota told police they had received a call that all of Legacy’s new Toyotas were gone from its lot.
Employees arriving at the dealership for work on Tuesday also found the three executives gone, police said. They had packed up their personal possessions. Some computers were gone, as well. Fait and Patch’s homes in Nebraska were on the market and empty, Spencer said.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality | No Comments »
Thursday, March 12th, 2009
Mexico blasts Forbes for putting drug lord on list
Mexico’s government condemned Forbes Magazine on Thursday for putting the country’s most wanted man, a violent drug lord, on its annual list of the world’s richest people.
Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman made the prestigious business magazine’s list for the first time on Wednesday, sharing the 701st spot at $1 billion in assets. The amount was based on his estimated share of drug shipments to the United States.
Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora accused U.S.-based Forbes of coming to the defense of a criminal and said it was “deplorable” for the publication to compare Guzman with honest and law-abiding business people.
Guzman, who is just 5 feet tall, escaped from prison in 2001 and set off a wave of killings across Mexico in an attempt to dominate the country’s highly lucrative drug trade into the United States.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality, Drugs, Idiot Authorities | No Comments »
Thursday, March 12th, 2009
Scientists a step closer to ‘reading minds’:
A machine to read the mind came a step closer on Thursday, when scientists at University College London released the results of an experiment in which brain scans revealed the location of people moving around a virtual reality environment. Demis Hassabis, co-author of the study, said it was “a small step towards the idea of mind reading, because just by looking at neural activity we were able to say what someone was thinking”.
Posted in Mad Scientists | No Comments »
Thursday, March 12th, 2009
Beach man arrested after putting bite on hotel elevator
A 24-year-old man who claimed to be high on cocaine was found biting an elevator door at the Westin at Town Center and then fought a police officer who tried to arrest him, according to court records.
William Catoe, of the 4000 block of Marlboro Drive in Virginia Beach, was “out of control” early Tuesday when the officer found him locking his teeth on the elevator door on the hotel’s 11th floor, a search warrant affidavit filed in Virginia Beach Circuit Court shows.
Officer Brandon Foss tried to arrest Catoe for public intoxication but became Catoe’s next target, and a fight ensued, the affidavit shows.
Posted in Drugs | No Comments »
Thursday, March 12th, 2009
MOMENT OF TOOTH
These amazing pictures show an epic, two-hour battle between spear fisherman Craig Clasen and a 12-foot tiger shark in the Gulf of Mexico.
The life-and-death struggle took place off New Orleans when Clasen, filmmaker Ryan McInnis and two friends were hunting tuna.
Suddenly McInnis found himself cut off and the shark began circling.
“I positioned myself between Ryan and the shark and I tried to watch it for a second, hoping it would pass,” said Clasen, 32, who was wearing a snorkel. “The shark made a roll and looked like it was going to charge us.
“Down in my core I really felt the shark was there to feed. I didn’t want it to come to that.”
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
Thursday, March 12th, 2009
Terrified Deer Trashes Restaurant, Grocery Store:
A deer chased by two dogs crashed through a Silver Spring restaurant’s window before seeking safety inside a Giant Thursday afternoon.
The three animals’ dramatic entry into the Greek Village Restaurant at a shopping center in the 13400 block of New Hampshire Avenue astonished the staff.
The dogs continued their pursuit inside the restaurant until the deer exited and tried to hide inside a Giant Food store, instead. This time, the deer used the automatic door.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
Thursday, March 12th, 2009
Deer Beer Run Catches Employees At Beer Arena In Greensburg By Surprise
A family of deer that ran into a beer store in Westmoreland County sent employees scrambling. It happened last Friday near closing time at the Beer Arena in Greensburg. The front door was left open and the deer ran inside. Tony Shadler was checking out a customer at the cash register when it happened. He ran to get out of their way. “Because I almost got hit by one of them – they went up the center,” he told KDKA.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
Thursday, March 12th, 2009
Man survives 180ft plunge over Niagara Falls :
A man has survived a plunge of 180ft (55m) over the Niagara Falls, becoming only the second person in more than 100 years to go over the falls with no protective device and live.
The apparently distraught man, believed to be in his late thirties, jumped into the rapids above the Horseshoe Falls, one of Niagara’s three waterfalls. After making it safely to the bottom, he repeatedly resisted attempts to save him, swimming away from rescuers and climbing out of a sling dropped by a priviate helicopter.
Posted in Suicidal Tendencies, You lucky bastard | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009
Woman Injured in Power Tool Sex Toy Encounter
Some apparent sexual experimentation landed a southern Maryland woman in a hospital with injuries tough to imagine and even more difficult to forget.
Maryland State Police airlifted the 27-year-old woman to Prince George’s County Hospital Center early Sunday morning after she was injured in an incident involving a sex toy attached to a saber saw blade, TheBayNet.com reported.
Posted in Oops, Sexual Deviants | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009
Airline Delivers Dead Body to Pet Store
Workers at a pet store in Northeast Philly spent half the day Tuesday freakin’ out.
They went to pick up a big box of fish at the airport today.
They came back with a big box. Eight feet long. It had a body inside.
We got this frantic email at 12:36 p.m.: “Please contact me ASAP about a dead body mistakenly picked up at the airport a few minutes ago by a local pet store. Was supposed to pick up fish and we received a dead human body! Is in the store RIGHT NOW!”
Posted in Oops | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 10th, 2009
‘Fight club’ set up at school for mentally disabled, police say
Workers at a Texas state school for mentally handicapped adults are believed to have been staging a “fight club” among residents, encouraging them to physically battle one another, police told CNN Tuesday.
A cell phone containing videos of the alleged abuse at the Corpus Christi State School in Corpus Christi, Texas, was turned over to police last week, and authorities are expecting to file arrest warrants this week, Corpus Christi police Capt. Tim Wilson told CNN.
The incidents are believed to have taken place in a school dormitory, Wilson said.
“This has been going on for some time,” Wilson said. “That is what makes this an exceptional case. It is not the workers abusing the clients, so to speak. The workers are not hitting them, but they are allowing these clients to fight with each other, thereby endangering their well-being.” “These people are charged with the care and custody of these clients, and they are exploiting (them),” he said.
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 10th, 2009
5 human heads discovered in ice chests in central Mexico:
Five human heads were found in ice chests on Tuesday under a ficus tree in the central Mexican state of Jalisco, police said.
Police in Jalisco, Mexico, discovered five heads beside a road to Guadalajara on Tuesday morning. The grisly find appeared to be the latest indication of drug cartels fighting for supremacy in battles that have left thousands dead.
Police in the municipality of Ixtlahuacan del Rio were informed of the discovery at 2 a.m., the prosecutor’s office said in a written statement. Each head was found in a separate ice chest beside a road leading to the city of Guadalajara, police said.
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent | No Comments »
Monday, March 9th, 2009
PERV GROUP PUTS 10G ‘HIT’ ON ANDY
A $10,000 Internet bounty was placed on Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s head by a suspected agent of the North American Man/Boy Love Association, The Post has learned.
The shocking death threat by the infamous organization of pederasts was posted three weeks ago on an Internet news-group bulletin board that originated in The Bronx, law-enforcement sources said.
The threat, described by a source as “unprecedented” because it is believed to come from an organization, prompted a sweeping and ongoing criminal probe by the Attorney General’s Office and at least one other law-enforcement organization, and subpoenas were issued, sources said.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality, Sexual Deviants | No Comments »
Saturday, March 7th, 2009
London aghast at President Obama over gifts given to Prime Minister Brown:
You’d think President Obama had booted the Brits out of America — again!
London newspapers are howling over a string of alleged snubs by Obama to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown during his visit to Washington last week — including a squabble over presidential gift-giving.
”President Obama has been rudeness personified towards Britain,” sniffed The Daily Telegraph Friday.
”His handling of the visit of the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, to Washington was appalling.”
The list of complaints is longer than the Magna Carta: Obama canceled a planned, podium-to-podium news conference with Brown (actually, none was ever scheduled); he recently removed a bust of former Prime Minister Winston Churchill from the Oval Office; and he gave gifts to the Brown family that were “about as exciting as a pair of socks,” one Fleet Street wag whined.
Posted in Concentrated Stupidity, Crazed Dictatorships, Idiot Authorities | No Comments »
Friday, March 6th, 2009
Clinton gift gaffe: ‘Overcharge’
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton opened her first extended talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov by giving him a present meant to symbolize the Obama administration’s vow to “press the reset button” on U.S.-Russia relations.
She handed a palm-sized box wrapped with a bow. Lavrov opened it and pulled out the gift: a red button on a black base with a Russian word peregruzka printed on top.
“We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?” Clinton asked.
“You got it wrong,” Lavrov said.
Instead of “reset,” Lavrov said the word on the box meant “overcharge.”
Posted in Idiot Authorities | No Comments »
Thursday, March 5th, 2009
Stranger Hits Dead Man:Officials Release Report and Tickets
Tammy Fausel said that she and her family were shocked at what happened during her uncle’s funeral in Gray Court.
A Candler, N.C., woman danced in front of the service, waved a wand around the casket, opened the lid, laid her hands on the deceased’s head and struck the body with a wand, according to an incident report from the Laurens County Sheriff’s Office.
Nicole Marie Loretta Leonard, 25, has been charged with disturbing a funeral and public disorderly conduct in Tuesday’s incident, according to tickets.
Posted in Crazy is as Crazy Does | No Comments »
Thursday, March 5th, 2009
Eagle Crash Lands Into Semi Truck
The eagle has landed — with a thud — after crashing through the windshield of a tractor-trailer on a Nevada highway. State wildlife officials said Wednesday that a 15-pound golden eagle with a 7-foot wing span has a swollen head but otherwise appears unhurt after crashing into a Florida truck driver’s big rig on Monday.
Zoo Babies View Slideshow See all the newest arrivals at zoos around the world. Baby lions, tigers and bears step into the spotlight. Matthew Roberto Gonzalez of Opa Locka, Fla., was driving on U.S. Interstate 80 in northeast Nevada near Wells, about 60 miles west of the Utah line, when the eagle came crashing into the cab of his truck.
“I heard a loud thump like a brick or something coming through the glass,” said Daryl Young of Miami, the co-driver who was dozing in the sleeper berth when it happened. “I woke up, and the windshield was all over me. Next thing I know there was a big bird lying on the floor.”
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009
Man jumps off taxiing airliner from Charlotte
A 26-year-old passenger on board an American Airlines jet from Charlotte to Dallas opened a door and slid down an inflatable emergency chute Tuesday as the aircraft waited to taxi to its gate at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.
The man, who had not been identified Tuesday night, reportedly ran into the first class section of American Airlines Flight 1343 and opened the exit door, according to an airport advisory. The plane, an MD-80, had just arrived from Charlotte/Douglas International Airport about 1 p.m. and was parked on a ramp when the incident happened.
After opening the door, the man deployed the inflatable slide and slid down to the Aircraft Operations Area, where he was held by American fleet service clerks until airport public safety officers took him into custody.
Posted in Crazy is as Crazy Does | No Comments »
Monday, March 2nd, 2009
Ukraine risks unrest as ills worsen:
Olexander Pavlenko, a young computer programmer, is one of tens of thousands of Ukrainians who cannot get their money out of the bank.
He stood in line in Kiev at Nadra Bank and Ukrprombank, two big troubled banks, planning to withdraw more than $10,000 (€7,950, £7,125). But like many others, he was told the cash was not available.
“I stood in line a couple times with other bank clients who were protesting, crying and screaming. But the bank told me: ‘Sorry, we simply don’t have the money now and can’t help you.’”
With about nine banks now under the central bank’s special control, Ukrainians are increasingly worried.
Even those with their money in apparently solid banks, including those controlled by west European banking groups, are concerned because the central bank has banned the early redemption of term deposits, the most popular form of saving in Ukraine.
Posted in End of the World Update | No Comments »
Monday, March 2nd, 2009
Man accused of stuffing cat into bong
A man who tried to cool out his hyper cat by stuffing her into a boxlike homemade bong faces cruelty charges — and catcalls from animal lovers.
Lancaster County sheriff’s deputies responding to a domestic disturbance call Sunday alleged they saw 20-year-old Acea Schomaker smoking marijuana through a piece of garden hose attached to a duct-taped, plastic glass box in which the cat had been stuffed.
“This cat was just dazed,” Sgt. Andy Stebbing said. “She was on the front seat of the cop car, wrapped in a blanket, and never moved all the way to the humane society.”
Posted in Drugs | No Comments »
Sunday, March 1st, 2009
E.U. Leaders Reject Bailout for Eastern Europe
European leaders Sunday rejected a Hungarian plea for a $240 billion bailout of struggling eastern European countries, as divisions continued to fester over how to prevent economic ills from spreading across the continent.
Germany, Europe’s largest economy, led opposition to the Hungarian proposal. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said a broad, regional rescue plan was ill-conceived, though she did not offer specific alternatives.
Posted in End of the World Update | No Comments »
Sunday, March 1st, 2009
Woman, 70, Fights Off Intruders With Pan
A feisty 70-year-old woman who fought off four home intruders by whacking one with a signature Emeril Lagasse saucepan was upset when police took it as evidence after apprehending the suspects.
But now, Ellen Basinski, of Elyria, outside Cleveland, has lots of replacement Lagasse cookware coming her way, courtesy of the chef himself, and The Early Show Saturday Edition.
The feisty Basinski was on the phone with her husband, a local judge, when the would-be robbers entered the house.
“I was angry,” she says.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality | No Comments »
Sunday, March 1st, 2009
Frustrated Building Owner Allows Sex Shop to Open in Old Town Alexandria:
To many in Old Town Alexandria, the sex shop that opened recently on King Street is nothing short of scandalous, a historical desecration just blocks from the boyhood home of Robert E. Lee. But to Michael Zarlenga, it’s justice.
Zarlenga spent $350,000 on plans to expand his hunting and fishing store, the Trophy Room. He worked with city officials for almost two years and thought he had their support — until the architectural review board told him he couldn’t alter the historic property.
Furious and out of money, Zarlenga rented the space to its newest occupant, Le Tache.
“I can’t say I didn’t know it would ruffle feathers,” said Zarlenga, 41. “Actually, I was hoping for a fast-food chain because I thought that would be more annoying to the city.”
Posted in Idiot Authorities | No Comments »
