Dr. G. Tod Slone, Founding Editor of the The American Dissident (aka P. Maudit), has sent us this cartoon. (I never realized that I looked so much like Ted Cruz in cartoon form). It is a response to the blog on the “Yield For Sneaker’s Bacon” sign controversy. The cartoon shows, in addition to my need for better fitting suits, that academics make for lousy cartoon characters because we can only speak in 100 word increments. It does contrast the pro-free speech statement with a caution posting about George Washington University’s policies by The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) that I was not aware of.
Category: Bizarre
There is an interesting controversy out of Winooski, Vermont over a sign for Sneakers diner. As part of a city program, Sneakers helped beautify its street with flower beds and in return was allowed to put up a sign. The diner featured its favorite dish with a sign that read: “Yield For Sneakers Bacon.” However, a Muslim woman who was also a vegan objected that a sign with the word bacon was offensive to her due to her religion’s ban on eating pork products. The diner responded by immediately taking down the sign and personally apologizing to the woman. That accommodation has led to a backlash from others who feel that the diner is yielding to ultra-sensitive individuals and encouraging such demands from others who may be offended by any number of food references and dishes.
Domingo Santos, 40, and his girlfriend, Vanessa Liriano, have been charged in a novel criminal case. They are accused of stealing about 650 gallons of used cooking oil from restaurants.
Continue reading “Long Island Couple Arrested for Allegedly Stealing Used Cooking Oil”
This picture was posted on social media of the Oval Office empty for cleaning. What I find most interesting is how it captures with relatively small size of the office. There are adjoining rooms but spaces were simply smaller back then. At the time, this was viewed as a spacious grand room for the Chief Executive.
The Israeli Diamond Industry has released an interesting video on how thieves were able to switch massive diamond worth over $160,000 for a worthless zirconia. It is hardly the stuff that Ocean’s Eleven is made of, but it got the job done for these two thieves.
By Mark Esposito, Weekend Contributor
Eating habits in Guangdong Province, China are likely about to change. There, the Indochinese spitting cobra is a prized delicacy. The preparation of the serpent is a time-honored tradition but yesterday something went terribly wrong for Chef Peng Fan of Foshan. Disposing of the head of the snake that had been killed twenty minutes before, Fan was fatally bitten and died before the anti-venom could be administered. Spitting cobra venom contains one of the world’s most powerful neurotoxins that kills within hours of injection by suppressing involuntary muscles which control respiration.
Continue reading “Biting The Hand That Cooks You: Severed Cobra Head Bites, Kills Chef”
By Mark Esposito, Weekend Contributor
Watching the waves roll in here in Duck, NC, I have to admit things seem pretty peaceful and serene. It got me wondering why the folks in Ferguson, Mo. are demonstrating on a daily basis about their policing. Wonderment stopped last evening when I came across this video by 35-year veteran of the St. Louis County Police Department, Sgt. Major Dan Page. Former Green Beret and supervising cop, Dan’s vaguely known to most CNN viewers as the enlightened peace officer who shoved reporter Don Lemon from a Ferguson street corner as he tried reporting on the mass protest of 17-year-old Michael Brown’s police-facilitated killing. Lemon was shoved and then was herded to some “Free Speech Zone” in a remote parking lot. Now street-savvy Page is back … and with a right-wing philosophy and blood thirsty vengeance that you’d have to go to 1970s Cambodia to match — “We can kill you anyway we want!”
I have got to get myself one of these. Whooshh Innovations have developed a solution (shown below in the video) to the falling salmon populations. The salmon had been kept from their migrating areas by a series of dams. The obstacles at dams leave them “disoriented” and lost. So enter the “salmon cannon” — a pneumatic tube that can shoot up to 40 fish a minute to up to 22 mph. Apparently, getting shot out of a cannon is less disorienting to the salmon but, come on, who would not want to be shot out of a cannon? It is the ultimately water park attraction for the high-end gill crowd.
The criminal bar has been dealing more regularly with the emergence of “synthetic marijuana” across the country, including incredibly potent form of the drug. Hospitalizations are rising and so are crimes referencing the drug. However, this seems a serious no addition to illegal drug markets. Emmerli Wilcoxson is a case in point. The Georgia woman was allegedly high on synthetic marijuana when she took police on an over 130 MPH car chase. That is bad enough but we was driving a stolen police cruiser. And, oh yea, she was driving on a suspended license.
I have said it before but I will say it again. The The National Football League (NFL) remains one of the most greedy and thuggish organizations in the country in dealing with host cities, artists, and citizens. The fact that it has been allowed to retain not-for-profit status is a grotesque triumph of money and lobbying in our country. Now, as proof that the NFL has lost any sense of shame, it is asking artists who want to play at the Superbowl to not simply play for free but to actually pay to play.
Continue reading “Pay To Play: NFL Shakes Down Artists Who Want To Perform For Free At Superbowl”
Apropos of our earlier discussion of celebrity mugshots with Gov. Rick Perry’s appearance in a Texas police station, Robert Burt has his own views on how to dress for your police portrait. If this mugshot of Robert Burt simply a bit surreal, it is because Burt was arrested wearing a teeshirt with his prior mugshot displayed on the front. He now has a great image for the back. Consider it a low-rent version of Norman Rockwell’s Triple Self-Portrait technique.
Nigerian Christian preacher Temitope Joshua is a multi-millionaire wannabe messiah with a devoted following in Africa. Joshua has decided to act to help the desperate situation in Sierra Leone. He sent a private jet to deliver 4,000 bottles of his patented holy anointed water and $50,000 in cash to defeat Ebola. Just what these ebola villages need, holy water from Brother Joshua.
We have been following the controversy surrounding the confrontation of Feminist Studies Associate Professor Mireille Miller-Young with pro-life advocates on campus. Miller-Young led her students in attacking the pro-life display, stealing their display, and then committing battery on one of the young women. Thrin Short, 16, and her sister Joan, 21, filed complaints and Miller-Young was charged with criminal conduct including Theft From Person; Battery; and Vandalism. To the surprise of some of us, faculty and students rallied behind Miller-Young. She remains employed as a faculty member. Miller-Young initially pleaded not guilty but later entered a guilty plea with an apology. She has now been sentenced to sentenced to three years of probation, 108 hours of community service, 10 hours of anger management, $500 in restitution and a small fine. While her actions (and absence of serious university punishment) remain highly disturbing, some of the letters written on her behalf raise new questions over the commitment of University of California faculty to free speech and core academic principles. Miller-Young has been defended by faculty as the victim of a media campaign to portray her as “an Angry Black Woman” and her seemingly happy demeanor on the videotape has been dismissed as a “mask” that she wears as part of a “cultural legacy of slavery.”
There is a truly horrific story out of South Jordan, Utah where retired teacher Jan Harding is in critical condition after drinking tea accidentally poisoned with an industrial oven cleaner by Dickey’s Barbecue Pit. An employee confused the oven cleaner with sugar in making the sweet tea for customers. The tort liability is obvious in such a case and could involve both negligence and strict liability claims given the involvement of food or drink served at a restaurant. The chemical has been described as Lye in some news accounts.
This Russian driver may have been prepared for any number of things but my guess is that an erupting geyser was not one of them.
Continue reading “Try Explaining This To Your Insurance Agent . . .”