Archive: April 22, 2007 - April 28, 2007
This Week in OFF/beat Crime 4.27.2007
Tommy Vercetti they ain't. (Rockstar Games) It's Friday again, and we're looking back on another stellar Week in OFF/beat Crime. Here are your nominees for the ever-popular Stupidest Criminal Award. *First up we have Jazrahel King, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, who tried to trade in a Jeep at the very dealership from which he stole it one month earlier. According to employees at Wholesalers of America, the 29-year-old had tried to test-drive vehicles in March, but was turned down because of bad credit. Then, after trolling around the lot for a while, King jumped into a Jeep, which had just been purchased by someone else, and drove off. Employees at the dealership were "left speechless" when he returned and tried to trade it in. ***Next we have Eric Cunningham, of Orlando, Florida, who allegedly robbed an area gas station with an AK-47. Deputies investigating the scene later noticed that someone...
By Emil Steiner | April 27, 2007; 7:44 AM ET | Comments (1)
Facebook, Guns & the Virginia Tech Fallout
SUNY Student Sent to Mental Hospital for Posting Gun Photo What You Post On Facebook Could Cost You Your Freedom (Business Wire) In the latest blow-back from the Virginia Tech shooting, State University of New York at Cobleskill suspended a student and sent him to a mental hospital for five days after he posted a photograph of himself posing with a shotgun on his Facebook page. According to reports, somebody found that image along with an away message that read, "I'm tired of people talking sh*t about my school." As a result, last Friday Tharindu Meepegama (Thar), "a junior majoring in computer information systems, was escorted by the sheriff's department to a psychiatric center in Oneonta, N.Y., where he was held until Wednesday."In the interim, friends and classmates have spoken out on his behalf, protesting the suspension through a Facebook group called The Worldwide Release Tharindu Meepegama aka Thar. They...
By Emil Steiner | April 26, 2007; 3:15 PM ET | Comments (31)
Thursday Breakfast Bender
Welcome to April 26! On this date 61 years ago, Father Divine, a controversial religious leader who claimed to be God, married devotee Edna Rose Ritchings in celebration of the anniversary of the International Peace Mission movement. She was 21, and he was 65. Here's Your Thursday Top Five: 5) Head-to-Head A 2-1/2-year-old toddler had somehow managed to insert his cranium into the training seat, but neither he nor his mother could get it out. Firefighters acted quickly, applying "dish washing liquid on his head and ears and it slid off nice as pie." Though reports indicate the youngster toddled off happily, only time will tell what psychological damage he may experience as a result of the incident or future retellings of it in front of dates. Neighbors Praise Back Alley Dentist (AP) 4) Dental Hygiene & Oil ChangesFloridian Roger Bean has been arrested for running an unlicensed dental practice...
By Emil Steiner | April 26, 2007; 8:11 AM ET | Comments (1)
John McCain Takes On Jon Stewart
Arizona Senator Goes On Daily Show Comedic Offensive John McCain Showcases His Dark Sense of Humor (AP) Did you catch John McCain joke about putting an IED under Jon Stewart's desk and fantasize about kicking a pet dog on yesterday's Daily Show? Did you see the Senior Arizona Republican display his double karate chop when Stewart attempted to arm wrestle him? If not, catch all the mayhem over on my sister blog Punchline Politics, and just remember, he could be President some day!...
By Emil Steiner | April 26, 2007; 2:18 AM ET | Comments (10)
Arkansas Dad Sues Library Over Lesbian Book
Christian Values Against Homosexual Literature Does Lesbian Literature Belong in Our Public Libraries? (Reuters) In today's internet age, books are almost a forgotten commodity in public libraries, but if you look hard enough you can still find some gems. For example, two teenage boys in Bentonville, Arkansas unearthed a hefty tome entitled "The Whole Lesbian Sex Book" while "browsing for material on military academies" -- or so they told their father. Although the sex guide by Felice Newman has been "deemed suitable for all public libraries, according to the Library Journal," the dad, Earl Adams, was so perturbed by its contents that he is suing Bentonville for $20,000. According to Adams, his two sons, ages 14 and 16, were "greatly disturbed" by their discovery and apparently underwent "many sleepless nights" as a result. In a letter faxed to Mayor Bob McCaslin, Adams himself wrote that the book pushes "an immoral...
By Emil Steiner | April 25, 2007; 10:23 AM ET | Comments (67)
Wednesday Breakfast Bender
Welcome to April 25! On this date 3,191 years ago, legend has it that Greeks penetrated the walls of Troy using a Trojan horse. Here's Your Wednesday Top Five: 5) Centenarian Beats the OddsEveryone says they want to live to see 100, but perhaps more people actually would if they bet on it. That strategy seems to have worked for Alec Holden, of Epsom, England, who wagered $200 a decade ago that he would reach the century mark. Now, some ten years later, bookmaker William Hill has had to fork over $50,000 to Holden, who attributes his longevity to "a daily diet of porridge and playing chess." Having 50K waiting for him probably didn't hurt, though. A German Parking Lot, of Course of Course (AP) 4) Parking Under the InfluenceAfter "a few beer," Wolfgang H., of Wiesenburg, Germany, decided it was too late to make it home, so instead he...
By Emil Steiner | April 25, 2007; 7:24 AM ET | Comments (3)
Emmanuel Prof Fired For "Discussing" Virginia Tech Shooting
Will Academic Free Speech Be Cho Seung-Hui's 34th Victim? Do Our Rights Change During National Mourning? (Reuters) Nicholas Winset, a professor at Emmanuel College in Boston, was fired last week for a "controversial" discussion he had with his students about the Virginia Tech shootings. The incident though has sparked a national debate about how and to what extent academics can express their points of view in the classroom. It all started last Wednesday during Dr. Winset's financial accounting class in which the adjunct professor used a "dry erase marker" as a mock gun to dramatize the massacre, walking around his class and saying "pow" to five or six students. He then signaled to "a student he had prepped before class," who drew his own marker, pointed it at him and "fired." According to Winsett, this demonstration was meant to encourage discussion about three ideas: First, that if you are confronted...
By Emil Steiner | April 24, 2007; 10:54 AM ET | Comments (30)
Tuesday Breakfast Bender
Welcome to April 24! On this date 17 years ago, Gruinard Island in Scotland, was officially declared anthrax-free, 48 years after being quarantined thanks to British biological warfare testing on a flock of sheep. As of January 2002, there have been no cases of anthrax among the island's surviving flock! Mutton anyone? Here's Your Tuesday Top Five: 5) Pure Urine PedagogyIn some American schools kids get inspected for lice to prevent infestation. In some rural Indian schools, "low-caste students" get sprayed with cow urine, "to purify them and drive away evil." Most recently incident an "upper-caste" headmaster in the western state of Maharashtra had a teacher douse the youngsters during "an examination, wetting their faces and their answer sheets." Apparently the kids were told "you'll study well after getting purified." Who knew? Housing Issues Can Affect All Britons (Adrian Dennis) 4) Blair's Building BoondoggleOf all the people you'd expect to...
By Emil Steiner | April 24, 2007; 9:24 AM ET | Email a Comment
Of Mental Health, Gun Control & Virginia Tech
What Civil Liberties Would You Trade For Protection? Cho Seung-Hui's Actions Shake a Nation to Its Core (NBC) This time last week, many of us were tuning in to the first grisly details of Cho Seung-Hui's massacre at Virginia Tech. Since then I've gotten hundreds of comments, notes and e-mails -- some expressing contrition or confusion, others anger -- that this one "psycho" could have destroyed the lives of some many. Just as a point of clarification, the term psychopath is different from psychotic, though in common use there seems to be some justified confusion. Psycho, is usually short for psychopath, an anti-social person who feels little pain or empathy for others though I have also seen psycho used in reference to psychotic (Hitchcock's "Psycho" fits this example) -- that is, someone who is experiencing a psychotic episode, hallucinations or delusions, which is one of the key symptoms of schizophrenia....
By Emil Steiner | April 23, 2007; 11:11 AM ET | Comments (38)
Monday Breakfast Bender
Welcome to April 23! On this date 659 years ago, King Edward III of England founded The Most Noble Order of the Garters. Although it has nothing to do with garter belts, "it is considered the world's oldest national order of knighthood, and the pinnacle of the British honors system," which, again, has nothing whatsoever to do with garter belts. Here's Your Monday Top Five: 5) Binge Drinking Your Vitamins? Good news for fans of fruity cocktails. A recent study in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture found that booze actually "boosted the antioxidant nutrients in strawberries and blackberries." In fact, according to the findings, "[a]ny colored fruit might be made even more healthful with the addition of a splash of alcohol." So next time someone looks at you funny for chugging a pitcher of jungle juice, you glare right back and tell them: "I'm doing my...
By Emil Steiner | April 23, 2007; 7:32 AM ET | Comments (1)
