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This is a new thread where we can bring up interesting/frustrating/humorous events we read about in the news. Try to remember to be civil and state your opinions without denigrating or bullying others.
Not every news item need be serious, either.
If it turns out the comms system in the jail was not malfunctioning, I would fire every single officer on the night shift pulling duty inside the station. If the comms system was malfunctioning, I would sanction all the leadership, and fire the OIC for the night shift for dereliction--there's no excuse for someone not physically checking on prisoners more than not-at-all in a four hour time-span. If that's part of their SOP--not checking on prisoner welfare throughout the night--the Station Chief should be relieved.
Just my opinions based on the article.
I found this to be hilarious:
White House Corrects Conference Call Number After Directing Reporters to Sex Line
Anytime a mistake like this is made it's just too funny. I almost spit Dr. Pepper on my keyboard when I read it. I also wonder how my reporters might have stayed on the line for a while....
Woman testifies about cell phone in throat
INDEPENDENCE, Mo. - Prosecutors say a man shoved a cell phone down his girlfriend's throat because he was angry and jealous. But defense attorneys insisted as a trial got underway that the woman swallowed the phone intentionally to keep the defendant from seeing whom she had been calling.
Marlon Brando Gill, 24, is charged with first-degree assault in the December incident involving 25-year-old Melinda Abell. Abell has given inconsistent accounts of what happened before she was taken to a hospital, where an emergency room doctor removed the phone.
She testified Tuesday on the first day of Gill's trial that she couldn't remember how the phone got in her throat, saying she had too much to drink that night.
She said in court that she could not recall writing a statement to police after the incident, in which she said: "I think he thought I'd been talking to other guys. ... He took my phone to see who I had been calling."
The statement added: "If I didn't want him to see my phone, I would have just thrown it out the window and busted it."
Much of her testimony centered on her relationship with Gill, of Kansas City, which started in 2004.
"It was good at first, then it got rocky," Abell said.
She testified that he had verbally and physically abused her, but under cross-examination she acknowledged she never told police about the abuse and continued to live with Gill until the cell phone incident.
I had a sociology professor who once told us if the leading generation of any given time would simply ignore these slings and arrows, the next generation would move on without them. The idea is that if we stop being offended by the last generation's negative epithets, then they won't be negative epithets for the next generation.
Here's an example from my life: I am 33 years old. Until a year ago I had no idea that the word 'spooks' is racially charged. To me a spook is a ghost or a spy. Now, it is one of the words I feel I should teach my kids to abjure.
I found this to be hilarious:
White House Corrects Conference Call Number After Directing Reporters to Sex Line
Anytime a mistake like this is made it's just too funny. I almost spit Dr. Pepper on my keyboard when I read it. I also wonder how my reporters might have stayed on the line for a while....
The publisher I worked for put out a gardening book that inadvertently listed a gay sex hotline number instead of a gardening supply place's number. They also quoted Satan on the bible verse page-a-day calendar without realizing it. Pretty fun stuff.
I'm glad I found this section because this is very absurd!
You read that right. Now I'm all for not needlessly killing animals, but its a frakking videogame!!
I'm glad I found this section because this is very absurd!
You read that right. Now I'm all for not needlessly killing animals, but its a frakking videogame!!
Yeah. I love animals and I don't eat (most) of them, but PETA is just ridiculous. They do a lot more harm to their cause than good by pursuing silly stuff like this.
For your regular fix of weird news, I recommend News of the Weird.
I was once even listed as a "news ranger" for my report of really weird eastern practises (in some church here in Germany, they thought it would be swell to beat chocolate easter bunnies to death and tell the kids "There is no easter bunny. Easter is about sharing" or something like that. I bet child psychologists rejoyced!)
I'm glad I found this section because this is very absurd!
You read that right. Now I'm all for not needlessly killing animals, but its a frakking videogame!!
I see an Achievement Feat in the making!
8 year old girl married to a 47 year old man in order to settle her father's debts.
Get the f#&~ out of the dark ages!
I am absolutely disgusted with the culture and legal system that allows such a thing in the year 2009. Abhorrent, aberrant, and despicable.
Woman jumps into polar bear enclosure.
When I first saw this video, I could only assume it was a strange suicide attempt. However, reading the accompanying article, it was apparently just profound stupidity on the woman's part. I mean...zoo or no zoo, how is one able to see a full grown polar bear and have no instinct that it is not something to get close to?
Taliban Religious Police Execute Eloping Lovers in Town Square
CNN headlines this story as an execution. If it happened anywhere else in the civilized world, it would be called murder.
Taliban Religious Police Execute Eloping Lovers in Town Square
CNN headlines this story as an execution. If it happened anywhere else in the civilized world, it would be called murder.
Stories like this are what make me glad that the U.S. went into Afghanistan. Imagine what it was like when the Taliban was in charge of the entire country.
Recession fueling right-wing extremism, U.S. says
Some good points here, especially about the returning military personnel. As if our good men and women didn't already have to face crumbling VA facilities....
Doctors remove fir tree from patient's lung.
I was expecting to see that one referenced from NEWS of the WEIRD.
There's even an associated video. I nearly spit beer all over the computer when I watched it.
Captured Pirate Arrives in NYC for Trial
No offense, but I'd be smiling, too. US Prison must be a better life than war-ravaged Somalia.
Captured Pirate Arrives in NYC for Trial
No offense, but I'd be smiling, too. US Prison must be a better life than war-ravaged Somalia.
3 square FULL meals a day, bed to sleep on, AC when hot/heat when cold. I wonder if some of them become pirates just to get arrested???
Fat People are a causing Global Warming.
The wide-bodies are leaving a deeper carbon-footprint, so it seems.
Fat People are a causing Global Warming.
The wide-bodies are leaving a deeper carbon-footprint, so it seems.
It took me a few seconds to realize the girl lost 12 stone (168 lbs). The headline read "Fattest Teen's 12st Weight Loss."
I was metaphorically scratching the noggin...what's a twelvest?
OK, this is not actually news, it's a lifestyles article. When I was in college, usually girls were the abmiguous ones and, as far as guys go, well, this is exactly the kind of 'boyfriend' girls were after.
I think women have created this monster...
[pause for flames...]
OK, this is not actually news, it's a lifestyles article. When I was in college, usually girls were the abmiguous ones and, as far as guys go, well, this is exactly the kind of 'boyfriend' girls were after.
I think women have created this monster...
[pause for flames...]
As a perpetually single man of 24, I'll offer my perspective on the article from my own swims in the dating pond. It's hard to tell what someone else wants sometimes when you're going out and much like asking for directions, it's difficult for masculine buttheads like myself to just come out and say,"So, what are we doing here? Is this a date?" On the other hand, there's always the sense that maybe you're just waiting for the next best thing to come along. Right now, we're all enjoying longer adolescent stages just because that's how our culture has moved. It's acceptable to stay single for as long as you want now, so why not look for the best you can get while you're out there? But that kind of has the negative effect of never really forming a connection, never really accepting someone warts and all. We all want the people in the magazines and we have unrealistic expectations, men and women both. So it's easier to be noncommittal and just say you're hanging out than making it official just so you can move on when the next "better" opportunity arises.
So I don't know. I'd love to say it's all the girls' fault because I've endured more than my share of The Friend Talk, but I don't know if that's the case. I think it's the prevalent desire to "play the field".
Man exonerated after 16 years behind bars
This man was convicted when he was 13 years old and sentenced to 50 years in prison.
Illinois owes this guy some serious cash. He should be taken care of for the rest of his life.
Man exonerated after 16 years behind bars
This man was convicted when he was 13 years old and sentenced to 50 years in prison.
Illinois owes this guy some serious cash. He should be taken care of for the rest of his life.
I know the Feds get stuck paying $1000 a day for every day someone is wrongfully locked up. I helped a dude that was locked up ten months past the day he was supposed to be released paid. Getting him the time credit and the money was the only case I ever won in my "jailhouse lawyer" career.
Man exonerated after 16 years behind bars
This man was convicted when he was 13 years old and sentenced to 50 years in prison.
Illinois owes this guy some serious cash. He should be taken care of for the rest of his life.
I know the Feds get stuck paying $1000 a day for every day someone is wrongfully locked up. I helped a dude that was locked up ten months past the day he was supposed to be released paid. Getting him the time credit and the money was the only case I ever won in my "jailhouse lawyer" career.
6 million is a nice figure--please don't tell me the government taxes it...
6 million is a nice figure--please don't tell me the government taxes it...Man exonerated after 16 years behind bars
This man was convicted when he was 13 years old and sentenced to 50 years in prison.
Illinois owes this guy some serious cash. He should be taken care of for the rest of his life.
I know the Feds get stuck paying $1000 a day for every day someone is wrongfully locked up. I helped a dude that was locked up ten months past the day he was supposed to be released paid. Getting him the time credit and the money was the only case I ever won in my "jailhouse lawyer" career.
I don't know what Illinois will settle the case for, but I'm fairly certain the government doesn't tax law suit settlements.
Australia's "sexting" awareness campaign"
I'm thinking we here in the states should take a page from the playbook of our friends down under. They're trying to make their teens aware of the consequences of putting private things like this out into the public sphere, like having their reputations marred.
In this country, we charge them with child pornography for sending out naked pictures of themselves and get them stuck on a registered sex offenders list for the rest of their lives, thus marring their reputations.
Government seizes 1500 acres of land to build 9/11 memorial in PA
Over 2.3 square miles to build a memorial? That's a pretty big block of granite...
In case you're wondering how big 1500 acres is, it's the exact size of the National Mall in DC.
Government seizes 1500 acres of land to build 9/11 memorial in PA
Over 2.3 square miles to build a memorial? That's a pretty big block of granite...
In case you're wondering how big 1500 acres is, it's the exact size of the National Mall in DC.
I wonder why the erosion of property rights doesn't disturb the general public. It almost never comes up in political discourse, but it's happening everywhere.
I wonder why the erosion of property rights doesn't disturb the general public. It almost never comes up in political discourse, but it's happening everywhere.Government seizes 1500 acres of land to build 9/11 memorial in PA
Over 2.3 square miles to build a memorial? That's a pretty big block of granite...
In case you're wondering how big 1500 acres is, it's the exact size of the National Mall in DC.
I was pretty disturbed by this too and surprised by the lack of caring by the general public.
I wonder why the erosion of property rights doesn't disturb the general public. It almost never comes up in political discourse, but it's happening everywhere.Government seizes 1500 acres of land to build 9/11 memorial in PA
Over 2.3 square miles to build a memorial? That's a pretty big block of granite...
In case you're wondering how big 1500 acres is, it's the exact size of the National Mall in DC.
Eminent domain is noted and very loosely regulated by the U.S. Constitution. I'm not sure calling this an erosion of property rights is the best way to put this, given that this "erosion" has existed, legally, as long as the country has.
Eminent domain is noted and very loosely regulated by the U.S. Constitution. I'm not sure calling this an erosion of property rights is the best way to put this, given that this "erosion" has existed, legally, as long as the country has.I wonder why the erosion of property rights doesn't disturb the general public. It almost never comes up in political discourse, but it's happening everywhere.Government seizes 1500 acres of land to build 9/11 memorial in PA
Over 2.3 square miles to build a memorial? That's a pretty big block of granite...
In case you're wondering how big 1500 acres is, it's the exact size of the National Mall in DC.
On top of that is the fact that the Government typically goes out of its way to pay a negotiated price for needed property. When landowners won't sell, eminent domain is declared and the landowners are paid the fair market (and untaxed) value for their property.