Submitted By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
In yet another sign of the Apocalypse, an 82-year-old grandmother was denied medical attention for 30 minutes and told to call an ambulance after she fell and broke her hip. That’s bad enough, but what is particularly infuriating is that she was told this by staff at Greater Niagara General Hospital where she’d fallen.
Every year, Halloween gets scarier and scarier. I am not talking about the costumes but religious writers and activists who denounce the holiday as a pagan attack on God and faith. The creepies started early this year. Bloomberg columnist Amity Shlaes has written to denounce “the pull of the pagan” and ask people to think about how Halloween fills the vacuum left from the absence of faith.
Continue reading “Amity-ville Horror: Is Halloween A Cry For Help?”
French terrorists have landed . . . in San Antonio, Texas. That is apparently the concern of local police after arresting French teenagers who broke into a courthouse, put on a judge’s robe, played with a gavel, and ran around the hallways wearing sombreros and drinking beer. The FBI and Homeland Security have been called in to determine whether this could be an act of terrorism.
Continue reading “French “Terrorists” Break Into Texas Court, Wear Sombreros, and Play With Gavel”
Freemon Everett Seay, 38, like to punish his child the old-fashioned way . . . around the 15th Century old-fashioned. After Seay’s daughter ran away, he donned armor from the Renaissance period and forced her to do the same. He then forced her into a battle for hours until she was covered in bruises and could barely stand. Vanquished, he let his foe leave the field of battle and she promptly recorded evidence of the alleged abuse for that band of not-so-merry men in the Yelm police department.
Continue reading “Renaissance Man and County Inmate: Father Arrested After Forcing Daughter Into Armored Battle”
A lesbian couple in California has triggered a controversy by giving their son hormone blockers to delay his puberty so that he can decided whether to be a girl or a boy. The 11-year-old boy named Tommy could decide to be a Tammy now that he is approaching puberty, but many are questioning the basis for such treatment or the ability of a minor to make such a decision. I am one of them.
Continue reading “Tommy or Tammy? California Parents Give Son Hormone Treatment To Delay Puberty To Allow Him To Explore a Female Identity”
The World Scrabble Championship was rocked by controversy this year when Chollapat Itthi-Aree, from Thailand, demanded officials take Ed Martin, an IT consultant from London, to the toilet for a strip search. The contraband was the letter “G”, which went mysteriously missing in the match.
Continue reading ““Strip Search” Worth 18 or a Lawsuit? Scrabble Competition Rocked By Controversy Over Missing G”
a new book is making a shocking claim that Vincent van Gogh might did not commit suicide in 1898 but was in fact killed by a local boy named Rene Secretan. In “Van Gogh: The Life,” Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith suggest that van Gogh was shot by Secretan and then lied to protect the boy.
Continue reading “Was Van Gogh Murdered?”
Just when you think you have planned for everything on your cross-country bike trip in South Africa . . .
Continue reading “Antelope 1, Biker 0”
Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
As an undergraduate I learned the wisdom of management guru, Peter Drucker, who reminded us that, “Efficiency is doing things right; but effectiveness is doing the right thing.” True words, indeed, but I wonder how Professor Drucker would explain Franklin, Tennessee native, Mark Burgen.
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Rep. Brad Drake (R., Eucheeanna) wants to put the pain back into executions. The Florida Republican has filed a bill to require the use of electrocution or firing squads to execute people — saying that lethal injection is simply too easy a way out for convicted murderers.
Continue reading “The Politics of Pain: Florida Legislator Seeks To Bring Back Electric Chairs and Firing Squads For Executions”
This week proved rather gruesome for teachers and students alike. In Illinois, Linda Walker (shown here) decided not only to hang herself but to do it in her kindergarten class. In France, a high school math teacher set herself on fire in the playground during the recreation period full of children.
Continue reading “School Horrors: Teacher in France Lights Herself On Fire on Playground While A Teacher in Illinois Hangs Herself in Her Classroom”
This video may be the ultimate chop shop. I ran across it on YouTube and was mesmerized by the sight of a 1985 Dodge Daytona being devoured by an industrial shredder.
Continue reading “Gone in 60 Seconds”
We may be watching civil liberties and federal programs fall like leaves in Montpelier, but Senator Patrick Leahy (D, Vt.) is moving aggressively to address the need for yet another federal crime . . . the crime mislabeling products as containing maple syrup. That’s right, despite criticism of the over-criminalization of America (here and here and here), we need to add a federal law on maple syrup mobsters.
Continue reading “Ending Molasses Mayhem: Leahy Moves To Make False Labeling of Maple Syrup A Crime”
We have yet another grotesque pension story involving a city struggling with financial woes. This one is out of my home town of Chicago. Charles LoVerde III, a former trustee of the city laborers’ pension fund, will receive three pensions for the same time period totaling nearly $500,000 a year — that’s right, three pensions for the period. The triple crown of pensions was also won by union official, Liberato “Al” Naimoli, would will receive $438,000 a year. Since he is only 59 years old, he stands to rake in at least $9 million over his expected lifetime.
Continue reading “Pension Trifecta Winners: Chicago Labor Officials Set To Receive Pensions As High As $500,000 a Year in “Charitable Interpretation” of State Law”