While today is the largest consumption of turkeys in the year, Nepal still holds the record for the largest sacrifice of animals. This week Nepal will carry out the ritualistic slaughter of more than 250,000 animals as part of the blood sacrifice to Gadhimai, a Hindu goddess of power. Most of the killings occur at and around the Gadhimai temple of Bariyapur.
Month: November 2009
Former Asheville firefighter Charles Alexander Diez was irate over the fact that cyclist Alan Simons was bicycling on a busy road with his 3-year-old son in a child seat. His solution was to pull over, confront Simons and then shoot him in the head. The bullet went through Simons’ helmet and just missed his head. However, Superior Court Judge James Downs found that Diez was having a bad day and his military record had to be considered. He, therefore, gave Diez an astonishing 15-27 months and then suspended all but four months. Four months for coming less than an inch from killing a man in front of his son.
David Hackbart, 35, will be awarded $50,000 after being ticketed in Pittsburgh for flipping the bird in traffic.
Continue reading “A Bird in the Hand is Worth . . . $50,000: Pennsylvania Man Receives $50,000 After Being Given Ticket for Flipping the Bird at Officer”
Scandal has rocked the Sudoku community. Eugene Varshavsky of Lawrenceville, N.J. has been stripped of his third place position in the national Sudoku after cheating allegations were raised due to his sharply uneven performance. As a Sudoku addict, I am crushed. Not since the Black Sox Scandal and Shoeless Joe Jackson has such alleged depravity brought the great so low.
Continue reading “Say It Ain’t So-duku, Joe: Scandal Rocks the Puzzle World”
Ali Sibat is a Lebanese citizen who counsels couples and viewers on television, making predictions about their future. Saudi police arrested Sibat when he was visiting Medina last year and accused him of being a sorcerer. He was convicted without a lawyer and sentenced to death.
Police in Bruceville-Eddy, Texas shot and killed a dog that they insist was threatening them and then tasered its elderly owner for failing to obey their commands. The man turns out to be deaf and there is still no word on the investigation that began in March in the incident.
Continue reading “Texas Police Shoot Dog and Then Taser Dog’s Deaf Elderly Owner For Failing to Obey Commands”
Roy C. Sun, 21, is a smart senior student who hopes to be an engineer. He is a senior student at Purdue University in Indiana. Purdue police also say that he is a terrorist after he left a suspicious box in the hallway of the university’s Visitor Information Center. The police surrounded the area, used a small x-ray machine, and evacuated the building — only to discover that the box contained a wheel lock, a Purdue parking ticket and $20. Tippecanoe County Prosecutor Pat Harrington has charged him as a terrorist.
Continue reading “Tippecanoe and Terror Too: Engineering Student Charged With Terroristic Mischief for Leaving Box with Wheel Lock, Ticket, and $20 in Hallway”
Perhaps it was inevitable with the rapid increase in the use of tasers, but police are now tasering animals. Toronto police tasered a deer that was found near a commercial building after it was tranquilized by a veterinarian.
Continue reading “Fawning Innocence: Police Taser Deer”
Michael Sampson, 41, succeeded in turning a minor driving with a suspended license into a charge of threatening a judge and intimidating a witness — all without uttering a word.
Continue reading “Motion to the Court: Kansas Man Charged With Threatening Judge and Witness”
The Kentucky Court of Appeals upheld but reduced a punitive award to a McDonald’s manager who was duped into a prank forcing a young worker into a strip search. The punitive award against McDonald’s was reduced from $1 million to $400,000. However, the court let stand the $5 million award of punitive damages for 18-year-old worker who was the subject of the search.
Reviews can be scathing for new movies, but the producers of New Moon, a vampire film, are being accused of not just robbing viewers of their money, but potentially their souls. The critic in this case is the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture and gave the film one thumb down . . . way down.
Continue reading “One Thumb Down, Very Down: Vatican Says New Moon is a Must Miss”
Note to self: When parking a car in London, walk slowly away from the vehicle. Michael Raphel recently went on a birthday cruise on the River Thames. When he returned, police had blown up his car.
Continue reading “Walk, Don’t Run: English Police Blow Up Car After Spotting Motorist Running For Boat”
There is another fatality connected to the use of tasers. Ronald Petruney, 49, of Washington, Pa. died after he was hit by three tasers by police trying to restrain him.
Continue reading “Pennsylvania Man Dies After Hit By Multiple Tasers”
A billboard in Colorado is causing considerable controversy and gives an insight into the radical fringe of America. The billboard by car dealership owner Phil West in Wheat Ridge, Colorado combines the “birther” controversy with the suggestion that Obama is both a Muslim and a terrorist. It further makes the bizarre connection to Fort Hood — suggesting that Obama could at any time go on a shooting spree in the West Wing.
A new alleged abuse is receiving national action from the ever-expanding controversies surrounding Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio. We have been following the scandals surrounding Arpaio from his crackdown on illegal aliens to use of his office for a reality show to his attack on the press to his shaming of prisoners to his defense of deputies who rifle through the files of lawyers. Now, he is accused of forcing Alma Minerva Chacon to give birth in shackles when she went into labor the night of her arrest. What is interesting is that this is not the first such case of a shackled birth.