Category: Bizarre

IOC Drops Wrestling As Olympic Sport

300px-Pankratiasten_in_fight_copy_of_greek_statue_3_century_bCThe International Olympic Committee shocked many today by announcing that it is dropping wrestling as an Olympic sport for the 2020 Games. Instead, they will add golf. That’s right, they are dropping one of the original Olympic sports that go back to the inaugural modern Olympics in Athens in 1896 and one of the few sports traced back to ancient Greece. However, we will keep synchronized swimming and Rhythmic Gymnastic routines with ribbons and hoops.

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The Evil Twin Defense: French Police Try To Determine Which Twin Is Serial Rapist In Marseille

170px-Chang-eng-bunker-PDFrench police are facing a bit of challenge in determining who to arrest in a series of rapes in Marseille. They have the DNA and eye-witness testimony to identify the rapist. However, when they move in to arrest the man they found two men — identical twins. Standard DNA analysis could not distinguish between the 24-year-old men and the witnesses, including a 76-year-old woman, could not determine which was the actual culprit between Yohan and Elwin.

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Smithsonian Contractor Continues To Run Parking Concession Despite Massive Fraud By Employees

300px-StevenFUdvarHazyMany of us who love to visit the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Air and Space annex in Chantilly often complain about the high $15 parking fee required of visitors (who have no choice but to park at the site. Now, it appears that more than $1.5 million was skimmed off by the booth personnel working for PMI Corporation. Freweyni Mebrahtu, 46, was sentenced to two years and three months in prison for her part in the conspiracy last week. Notably, Mebrahtu insisted that she never stole during the Muslim holy days of Ramadan. It appears that she considered that to be proof of being a moral person.

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Video: Police Officer Lands Helicopter To Confront And Search Hiker

This video of a San Bernardino police officer circling and confronting a woman hiking in the desert has raised the anger of many about the increasing intrusion of police surveillance and operations. The officer lands his helicopter and confronts the woman without any evidence of reasonable suspicion, let alone probable cause.

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Two Women Delivering Newspapers Shot By LAPD After Being Mistaken For Christopher Dorner

220px-Christopher-jordan-dorner.nlapd-two-women-shot-1.pngIn Torrance, California, two women delivering newspapers were shot by LAPD officers looking for triple murder suspect Christopher Dorner. Maggie Carranza, 47, and her 71-year-old mother Emma Hernandez looked nothing like the African-American male suspect but police insisted that they were driving a Toyota Tundra pickup truck similar to Dorner’s truck.

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Down In The Valley VI: The Paterno Family’s Report On The Freeh Report [UPDATED]

By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger

Author’s note: This is the sixth installment in a series about the child sexual abuse scandal at The Pennsylvania State University that helped bring down iconic football coach Joe Paterno and three top officials at the premier public college in Pennsylvania.  

a-paterno-sanduskyThe Paterno family has released their long unawaited report critiquing the Freeh report entitled appropriately, CRITIQUE OF THE FREEH REPORT:  THE RUSH TO INJUSTICE REGARDING JOE PATERNOCommissioned by the family through the mega-law firm of King & Spalding, the report on”The Freeh Report” (sometimes called the Special Investigative Counsel’s (SIC) report) predictably castigates Former FBI Director Louie Freeh for using “Rank speculation.  Innuendo.  [and] Subjective opinions.” to form the basis of his conclusion that Papa Bear Paterno knew quite a bit more about Jerry Sandusky’s sexual proclivities than he let on and actively participated in a cover up of monumental proportions. In contrast, Joe Paterno is pictured as a fine man undone by an unfair, inaccurate report that read more like  “an indictment” cooked up with the “unchecked power of a prosecutor, and [that] delivered unsupported but headline grabbing theories as fact.”

The wake from the scandal has toppled one university president, the athletic director, and an athletic department that  rode football like a bucking horse. The key points made by the Paterno family lawyers are that:

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Bill Maher’s Gambit Or Why Donald Trump Loves Lucy

By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger

The Contract From Lucy v. Zehmer
The Contract From Lucy v. Zehmer

Bill Maher’s caustic but hilarious shtick may have landed him $5 million dollars worth of trouble. Appearing on Jay Leno’s The Tonight Show, the comic best known for his HBO series, Real Time With Bill Maher, laughingly “offered” a cool 5 extra-large to charity if  perpetually hair-challenged, right-wing real estate mogul, Donald Trump, publicly  coughed up his birth certificate. Saying he was reasonably sure that Trump was the “spawn of his mother having sex with orangutan,” Maher asked to see the document then pledged to pay five charities of  The Donald’s choosing. Trump, who is no stranger to “birther” strategies, had famously offered to pay the exact sum to charity if President Obama produced his college records and passport application.

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I’m No Book Burner, I Am A Book Banner: Virginia Mother Leads Effort To Ban Toni Morrison’s “Beloved”

175px-BelovedNovelLaura Murphy wants people to know that she is no book burner . . . just a book banner. The Fairfax County mother of four has been campaigning to ban the Pulitzer-prize-winning American novel “Beloved” from the school system due to its depictions of bestiality, rape, and murder. She says that her teenage son read the book as a senior in his Advanced Placement English class and was traumatized with nightmares as a result. Now she wants to ban the book for any child to read.

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Chicago Woman Arrested After Allegedly Lying That Her Son Was In Stolen Car To Get Her Car Back

jeanette-holt-0206This happy mugshot shows Jeanette Holt, 25, after her arrest. If the criminal allegation against her is the truth, she is truly a piece of work. Chicago police accuse Holt of lying to police that her baby was taken when her car was stolen on Chicago’s South Side. Police launched a major hunt for the baby only to find out later that Hold allegedly lied because she wanted her car found.

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Rollover Tax Credit: IRS Agent Accused Of Coercing Man Into Sex To Avoid Tax Penalties

200px-IRSMany citizens have said that they have been raped by the IRS, but Vincent Burroughs, of Fall Creek, Ore., means it a bit more literally. He insists that he was coerced into sex against his will by IRS agent Dora Abrahamson, who allegedly threatened him with heaving tax fines unless he slept with her.

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Eye For An Eye Argument? Mistrial Declared After Victim’s False Eye Pops Out While On The Stand

220px-ScleralLens1This is a problem that you don’t encounter everyday in court. Matthew Brunelli, 23, is being prosecuted for aggravated-assault for allegedly punching John “Big Red” Huttick so hard in the left eye during a bar fight in August 2011 that the eye had to be surgically removed. Big Red was on the stand tearfully recounting the fight when his glass eye popped out and he caught it in his hand in front of jurors. Common Pleas Judge Robert P. Coleman granted a defense motion for a new trial given the expected prejudice caused by the scene against Brunelli.

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Deep Sixed: Worker Quits After Receiving W-2 Form Bearing The Number 666

We have periodically discussed cases involving employees who have objected on religious grounds to documents, badges, or other material showing the number “666” — considered by some to be the sign of the beast. We can now add the case of Walter Slonopas, a Tennessee maintenance worker, says he quit his job because his W-2 tax form was stamped with the number 666.

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Father Ordered to Pay Child Support For Three Children Conceived In Affairs With Three Other Men

father-knows-bestWe have previously discussed rulings where fathers have contested the obligation to pay child support for children conceived in affairs or where they were simply sperm donors. The latest case in Canada involves a man who was ordered to pay child support for three out of four children who were proven not to be his own biological offspring. Indeed, DNA tests found that his ex-wife had the three girls by three different fathers. Only the boy was found to be his biological progeny.

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Stalin’s Camp Guards Throw Anniversary Party To Celebrate Gulag Pride

220px-Frenkel2This may be the most bizarre party of all time. The former local officials and prison wardens at the notorious Usolsky prison camp in the Urals held a 75th anniversary celebration of their gulag and the “traditions in the camp that still hold value today.” We have previously seen efforts to rehabilitate Josef Stalin but the reunion of gulag guards is a bit much to take.

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Egyptian Prime Minister Blames Unclean Women For Diarrhea Epidemic

The Great Pyramid of Khufu
The Great Pyramid of Khufu

One could think of a variety of pressing issues for the Prime Minister of Egypt Hisham Qandil from civil unrest to the loss of religious freedom to regional instability. Prime Minister Hisham Qandil however took last week to address what he considered the growing problem of women not washing their breasts. Qandil, a hydrology expert with a degree from North Carolina State, blamed dirty breasts for a diarrhea epidemic in the latest example of a country that seems to be de-evolving in front of our eyes.

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