Just when you thought that the greatest danger was exposed by Chevy Chase as land sharks at your front door. An alligator succeeded in ringing the front door of a Florida home. After all, why chase food when the food can come to you?
Category: Bizarre
The rise of ISIS and other groups has left the entire region of the Middle East in smoking ruins with tens of thousands of innocent victims. So when the head of Egypt’s State Information Service Salah Abdel Sadek said at Cairo University that he had traced the source for such violence, many thought that they would hear a frank discussion of Islamic extremism. Yet, instead of Bin Laden and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the culprit proved (at least in part) to be none of than Tom and Jerry.
We have been discussing the over-reaction officials in past cases where police have been called to address pranks or controversies once handled internally in schools. A news story near Houston only serves to capture this absurdity. It began when Danesiah Neal, an eighth grader at Fort Bend Independent School District’s Christa McAuliffe Middle School, attempted to pay for lunch with a $2 bill given to her by her grandmother, Sharon Kay Joseph. The lunch personnel had never seen a $2 bill and the reaction is truly absurd overreaction involving banks and police.
We have another example of school officials and prosecutors criminalizing a school prank this week to an absurd degree. Authorities in Arizona have charged Hunter Osborn, 19, with 69 counts of indecent exposure when, on a dare from a friend, he exposed himself during a football team picture. No one noticed and it was published in the yearbook. The response is to hit this kid with dozens of criminal counts in a matter that would have previously been dealt with a suspension or inner school sanction.
Police in Oregon have been seeking a landlord named Brooke Skoda-Kempton, 39, who stole a black 4-year-old whippet named Isis from her former tenant Kate Taylor, 30. After a public call for the whereabouts of Kempton, she turned herself in by pulling up to the police station in a stretch limo. Not exactly the entrance that most defense lawyers would suggest.
Just when you thought that Turkey could not get more frightening under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamic parties, you get a story like this one. Turkish lawmakers were debating Erdogan’s effort to adopt an Islamic constitution and further increase his authoritarian powers. A member of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) sought to quote Oscar Wilde when members of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) objected that they had no idea who Wilde is and thought he was quoting from the Oscar movie awards. When the meaning was made clear, these Erdogan drones objected that it was a reference from a Western source. Of course, as Wilde noted, “Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”
In an example of how religious fervor can overwhelm basic judgment, the residents of a remote Indonesia village called Kalupapi recently discovered what they believed to be an “angel” on a beach. They described a being of “shining white, (with) round eyes with red eyebrows” that was naked, crying and only clothed in a white cloth after descending from the heavens. Police seized what they said was far from angelic: a sex toy that was tossed over the side of a boat.
There is a deeply disturbing controversy out of one of South Africa. Ntokozo Qwabe is an Oxford student who has received incredible privileges as a Rhodes Scholar and looking at virtually limitless opportunities. However, when he and a friend went to eat recently, they refused to leave a tip for a waitress because she was white and instead left a note that reduced Ashleigh Schultz, 24, in tears. Qwabe, who has led a campaign to remove a Cecil Rhodes statue at Oxford, displayed not only his own racism but lack of humanity in the treatment of Schultz, particularly in posting a gleeful account of who he made Schultz cry “typical white tears.” He celebrated on line that he and his friend were “unable to stop smiling because something so black and wonderful had happened.”
The Kansas City Fire Department rescued a group of police officers stuck in an elevator recent and the opportunity was . . . well . . . too good to pass up. Before letting them out, firefighter Tony Pisciotta memorialized the moment and posted it on the fire department’s website.
You have likely been reading about the scandalous situation at our airports where TSA security points have created chokepoints due to a lack of planning and staffing in the latest failure of this agency. Thousands of passengers are missing their flights due to massive lines and the airports are now suggesting that people come THREE HOURS in advance. The reason is obvious incompetence in failing to plan for rising numbers of passengers and to properly staff security checkpoints. Yet, no one is being held accountable. The public is just again left paying billions to the government, which cannot meet the most basic obligations to the public. We no longer expect competence from our government.
Continue reading “Airports Grind To Halt As TSA Again Fails Most Basic Test of Competence”
There is a controversy in New Jersey over the practice of “brake checking” where a police officer stops suddenly in front of a car that he thinks is following too closely. The problem is that the videotape below does not show Clinton resident Omar B. following too closely when Officer Juan Velez slams on the brakes. Nevertheless, the driver is hit with a slew of tickets, including tailgating.
Continue reading “New Jersey Officer’s “Brake Checking” Incident Causes Uproar”
Hope Sanchez, 38, (right below), an adjunct psychology professor at McHenry County College, is at the center new case out of Illinois with a rather bizarre twist. She reportedly told her class about her finding an abandoned boxer puppy inside a duct-taped pillowcase. The incident was ultimately reported it to the police and the police determined that the story was untrue. Police charged her with filing a false report even though it does not appear that she went to the police.
I have previously written about the peculiar position of being counsel for Hillary Clinton when your client, her advisers, and allies mock the massive federal investigation that continues into her reckless use of an unsecured personal server for her official communications as Secretary of State. As counsel you usually strive to show investigators that your client understands the gravity of such violations and accepts responsibility for serious mistakes of judgment or action on her part. The Clintons however have been yielding to a political rather than a legal narrative in mocking the investigation — something that truly must mystify those FBI agents working the case. In the latest such example, former president Bill Clinton used a speech in Kokomo, Indiana to dismiss the FBI investigation is nothing more than “a game.”
Continue reading ““This Is A Game”: The Clintons Continue To Mock Email Investigation”
If you thought Donald Trump was raising eyebrows in a presidential election with his support for torture and killing the families of terrorists, he appears perfectly moderate in comparison to Philippine presidential frontrunner Rodrigo Duterte. Duterte likes to comment on his genitals and recently attracted international criticism for a disgusting joke about his desire to rape a female minister who was savagely killed in 1989. Now he is being quoted as saying that he would pardon himself for mass murder if elected and hand out thousands of pardons to government officials accused of such crimes.
If police are correct, Oscar Sanchez, of Jersey City, has taken hubris to a new level. Sanchez’ black Mercedes Benz was seized after he was pulled over for a missing front license plate. That turned out to the least of the problems.