Thanks for stopping by

This has been a big month for my little crapblog, what with more than 1,500 people stopping by. Thanks for coming! I hope you were entertained. Or at least not too repulsed. I know for bigger blogs, that's a crappy day, but I've only been averaging around 640 hits per month over the past year. I want to also think everyone who linked here over the past month.

Good times. Good times.

Piddly crap for others, a big month for little old me.

The other Land of Opportunity

I am speaking of Australia, where a man with a rather colorful family background can rise to the top and become Prime Minister. Seriously, it's like a Horatio Alger story, but with stolen underpants:

While a convict past was once a source of shame for Australians, most now wear any criminal ancestry with pride.

The first European settlers arrived in Australia from Britain in 1788 to set up a British penal colony. More than 160,000 British convicts were sent to Australia until 1868, when the convict transports stopped.

The family history reveals Rudd's fifth great-grandmother Mary Wade lived in poverty in England and survived by sweeping streets and begging. In 1788, aged about 12, she and another girl robbed an eight-year-old girl of her dress and underclothes.

Wade was caught and tried at London's Old Bailey court in January 1789 and was sentenced to be executed, but after three months she was transported to Australia with 200 other women on the second fleet.

You know, far be it from me to coddle someone who would steal underwear from an eight-year-old, but daaaaamn, the justice system was a bit harsh back then. I mean, the two options they had were the death penalty or getting shipped around to the other side of the planet? I guess juvenile hall is a fairly recent invention.

Airport FAIL

Some people go looking for trouble, while for others, trouble seems to find them. I'm not exactly sure which category this couple falls into, but they should definitely avoid airports:

A man and woman who told troopers they were speeding to catch a flight when they were clocked driving 108 mph ended up in jail a second time — this time on charges of unruly behavior aboard an airplane, officials said.

The woman, 29, and the man, 42, both of Thorndike, were charged with criminal threatening, criminal trespass, disorderly conduct and violation of bail conditions after they were arrested Wednesday at Bangor International Airport.

Forty-eight hours earlier, the couple had been released on bail after speeding past an unmarked state police cruiser on Interstate 95.

They told the trooper they were headed to the airport, but they were going in the wrong direction and had no tickets or receipts with them.

Hey, all the more reasons to hurry. After all, if they had their tickets with them and were going the right way, they could definitely take a more leisurely pace.

At the risk of alienating a few readers...

...if any of you happen to be members of the so-called "Red Sox Nation," let me just take this opportunity to say SUCK IT, BITCHES! My favorite excerpt:

For two teams in the thick of contention for the American League pennant, the Angels sure made the Red Sox look second-rate in this rare sweep at Fenway. In fact, this series made the defending World Series champions look nowhere near the caliber of this high-powered squad from Anaheim.

Hahahahahahahahaha! Oh, damn, that's just fuckin' awesome.

Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to drive a truck

I'm actually not sure if they were fat, but something tells me that these drunken idiots weren't really clear on the concept of having a designated driver:

Police say two drunken friends crashed their pickup truck into a parked car in New York City's northern suburbs and then drove down the street and crashed it again. Peekskill Detective Sgt. Eric Johansen said he's "never seen anything like it."

[...]

Police said one of the men couldn't pull the truck free of the parked car he had hit so his friend hopped behind the steering wheel. They say the friend freed the truck but then drove it into another car parked down the block.

The saying goes, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again," but I don't think that applies when you're both so drunk that the two of you are certain to get DUI charges. Which they both did.

Loose lips get whips

In this country, we crack jokes about guys getting whipped when they're in a relationship with a woman, but in other parts of the world, it's no laughing matter:

A Saudi appeals court upheld a jail and flogging verdict against a biochemist and his female student whose research contact was ruled to be a front for a telephone affair that led her to divorce her husband.

The biochemist, Khalid Zahrani, said Wednesday that he found out this week from the court offices that three judges had approved the verdict.

He was sentenced last year to eight months in prison and 600 lashes and his student to four months in prison and 350 lashes for establishing a telephone relationship that the court said led her to divorce her husband.

The man said the only recourse left to him was the Supreme Judicial Council, a court of cassation that only views cases if requested by the king. He also hopes for intervention from the government's Human Rights Commission.

Um, is it just me, or is the Saudi Human Rights Commission kind of not doing a bang-up job if you can be flogged there for talking on the phone with a woman? Seems like the kind of thing they'd be trying to prevent.

Did we evolve into Morons?

Huh. It turns out that the Ace of Spades Lifestyle™ (well, the Val-U-Rite vodka swilling part, not the hobo huntin' or Thai tranny prostitute patronizing parts) may be hardwired into us through evolution:

Tree shrews that thrive on fermented nectar suck up amounts that would inebriate a human but seem to have no such ill-effects themselves, researchers reported on Monday.

They said their findings may shed light on how animals evolved a taste for alcohol and may help in understanding why so many humans abuse it.

The tree shrew, found in Malaysia, is very similar to the last common ancestor of all living primates -- a group that includes people -- and it could be that the human taste for alcohol evolved millions of years ago, the researchers reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"For humans alcohol consumption often has devastating consequences," Frank Wiens of Bayreuth University in Germany and colleagues wrote.

"We discovered that seven mammalian species in a West Malaysian rainforest consume alcoholic nectar daily from flower buds of the bertam palm (Eugeissona tristis), which they pollinate," they added.

The article goes on to say that the flower buds collect yeast, which ferments the nectar, giving it up to 3.8 percent alcohol content, some of the highest natural alcohol content ever recorded. And the little bastards don't even get drunk from it, even though a human drinking the equivalent of what the shrews guzzle would get smashed!

I don't know about the rest of you, but I feel somewhat better knowing that being a drunken Moron may be Mother Nature's default setting.

He's going to be an amazing dad

Wow. The baby hasn't even been born yet, and this guy is already running (literally) for Father of the Year:

A motorist led police on a chase that ended when his vehicle hit a tree and he fled, leaving his pregnant girlfriend behind, authorities said. A police officer who suspected the man of speeding tried to pull him over early Monday.

Lt. Robin Hollwedel said the man then lead officers on a short chase in which his vehicle clipped a house and rammed a tree.

"He hit the corner of it. The tree stopped him more than the house did," Hollwedel said.

The man then got out and fled on foot, leaving his girlfriend — who is 8 months pregnant — in the car, according to Hollwedel. The woman, whose name wasn't released, was unhurt but was taken to a hospital as a precaution.

They make greeting cards for a lot of things these days, but I don't think they have one for "Sorry I Left You and our Unborn Child Behind to Run from the Police," do they?

Get ready to rumble

We just had a 5.8 earthquake centered not too far from where I live. There doesn't seem to be any significant damage, just a lot of frazzled nerves. Phone lines seem to be overwhelmed in some areas, though, as people are trying to get through to loved ones to make sure everything is okay.

Oh, and if you live in an area that doesn't get earthquakes, and you've heard that animals can sense them before they happen, that's a load of crap. None of my dogs have ever had this ability, and Riley probably would have slept through the whole thing if I hadn't jumped up and yelled "Holy shit!"

A general observation

There's really nothing quite like a brand-new pair of socks, is there?

Just don't ask

Apparently, the people of Beijing are a rather forward lot, because part of the city's government is warning them against asking probing personal questions of foreign visitors during the upcoming Olympics:

"Don't ask about personal details or family background, don't ask about income or expenditures, don't ask about family assets," read posters put up by the government of the city's Dongcheng district, according to the Beijing News.

"Don't ask about age or marital status, don't ask about health problems, don't ask about where their family lives, don't ask about politics or religion and don't ask about their love life."

The "Eight don't asks" appear to be part of a wide-ranging makeover of the ancient capital aimed at presenting the best possible face to the world for the August 8-24 Olympics.

[...]

Foreigners in China are often taken aback by questions that curious Chinese themselves appear to view as harmless chit-chat.

One of the most common is when overseas visitors are asked how much money they make, a question that typically makes foreigners squirm, partly because their salaries often dwarf those of most Chinese.

Chinese also show little shame in asking a person's age and will tell someone they look "fat," which is meant as a compliment indicating that the person is leading a prosperous life.

Sounds like I need to drag my doughy ass to Beijing, where they'd mistakenly think I was some kind of bigshot.

They're apparently also trying to keep people from spitting and cutting in line and are trying to clean up the city's "ubiquitous sex industry." And here I thought they wanted to attract tourists.

But is it art?

Ah, loopholes. They're what make this country flexible. And one of those loopholes apparently allows flexible women to dance around nude in Iowa, for the time being, anyway:

Iowa doesn't have any all-nude strip clubs — but it does have performing arts centers where women dance naked.

However, the loophole in the state's public indecent exposure law that allows nude dancing at "art centers" is under attack in the small community of Hamburg, a town of 1,200 just across the Missouri River from Nebraska.

The case pending before a Fremont County judge effects only one business in Hamburg, but if he agrees with the prosecutor, it could eventually threaten the legal standing of nude dancing clubs across the state.

District Judge Timothy O'Grady heard arguments in a one-day trial on July 17 and took the case under advisement.

So, what prompted this whole case? Well, that's where things start to get...inappropriate:

It all began on July 21, 2007, when a 17-year-old niece of Sheriff Steven MacDonald climbed up on stage at Shotgun Geniez in Hamburg and stripped off her clothing. Owner Clarence Judy was charged with violating Iowa's public indecent exposure law.

Judy responded that the law doesn't apply to a "theater, concert hall, art center, museum, or similar establishments" devoted to the arts or theatrical performances.

"Dance has been considered one of the arts, as is sculpture, painting and anything else like that. What Clarence has is a club where people can come and perform," said his lawyer, Michael Murphy.

Murphy noted that the club has a gallery selling collectible posters and other art, and it provides patrons with sketch pads.

Ah, well, I suppose that makes the whole underage girl doing a striptease on stage thing more classy, huh? The fact that the audience could sketch her. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the prosecutor isn't buying that argument.

"Are you saying that minors can't be protected? Can a group of 12-year-olds come down and go in and dance nude and it's OK? I don't think that's what the Legislature had in mind when it made those additional provisions," Johnson said.

Johnson said the intent of the law is to allow movies in a theater where there's brief nudity or for an art gallery displaying paintings of nudes.

Judy's lawyer argues that they keep anyone who's under 18 out of the club, but that a group of girls smuggled in the 17-year-old, who just decided she felt like dancing and getting nude.

"While she was there, she felt like dancing so she got up and danced on the stage and then she took her clothes off. Trouble with that is she's the sheriff's niece," he said.

Uh, no, the trouble with that is that she was a minor. And though the defense cited a 1998 case that ruled nude dancing could be considered art, I tend to doubt that covers minors.

So long, and thanks for the armadillo

One of my favorite bloggers, protein wisdom's Jeff Goldstein, has decided to give it up, at least for the time being. I hope he'll be back someday, and I hope his co-bloggers will keep it up in his absence. It's become quite a little community of interesting misfits, and it would be a shame if it died out.

Hong Kong kiddie crimewave?

The lede in this story makes it sound like a crew of seven-year-old tykes had tried to pull off a heist:

Three Hong Kong children have been sentenced to more than three years for the armed hold-up of a jewellery shop, a newspaper said on Thursday, with the court saying the stiff sentence was in the public interest.

Actually, it turns out that the three of them were actually fourteen at the time of the robbery, which may be rare in Hong Kong, but which happens here in the States sometimes.

Instead, they save the real shocker for the end of the article:

Earlier this week, a court heard that a nine-year-old Hong Kong girl traveled alone into mainland China to collect heroin and bring it back in her rucksack for a drug trafficker who paid her HK$1,200.

I wonder, how long of a "time out" do you give a little girl for heroin trafficking?

A not-so-simple plan

Whatever happened to hanging out in front of a liquor store and asking a youngish-looking adult guy to just buy you the beer?

Two teenagers have been arrested after kayaking across a lake and stealing beer and energy drinks from a man's beachfront tiki bar.

Lt. Bill Lux of the Van Buren County Sheriff's Office says officers were dispatched Thursday morning to Porter Township in western Michigan, about 60 miles south of Grand Rapids.

Several cases of beer and a case of Red Bull had been stolen from a tiki bar on the shore of Cedar Lake. The owner said he saw two men paddling away in kayaks.

It turns out one of the kayaks overturned, spilling cans of beer into the water, and the cops were able to follow a trail of cans to the teenagers. I guess paddling a kayak full of beer across a lake isn't as easy as it sounds.

Wait, it doesn't sound easy at all.

Sean M., restaurant critic

There's a new hoity-toity pedestrian mall nearby, and it has a P.F. Chang's, which is a restaurant my family has wanted to try for some time. So, tonight, my brother and I met my mom and dad there for dinner. The food was great. The service, however, was terrible.

When we got there, we got seated right away out on the patio, which seemed like a good idea since the weather was nice and pleasant and the dining room was packed, even on a Thursday night. They gave us menus as we sat down, and we waited for a little while for our waitress, who showed up just a tad later than I would have liked. She took our drink orders, and we didn't see her again for quite awhile. She showed up empty-handed some time later to tell us the bartender had told her he was really busy and would get to our drinks sometime in the next few minutes. When she showed up again, she had my drink, which was spot-on (it's hard to mess up a Scotch and soda), but had made a slight mistake on my parents' drinks. By then, they just decided it would be better not to send them back. The bottle of beer my brother had ordered was nowhere to be seen. When she finally came back, he pointed out that she hadn't brought a glass, which took several more minutes to appear.

We had ordered our food when the first three drinks showed up, and our soups showed up relatively quickly with no problems. But then we had to wait for our entrees. And wait. And wait. Meanwhile, everyone around us, all of whom had arrived after we had, got their food. And I don't think any of them had to ask their servers to come back with anything. Finally, three of the four entrees showed up, along with rice bowls for two of us, and no plates. That's when we asked to see the manager. She came out a little later, and we explained all the problems we'd had. My mom told her that if she didn't know what a good reputation the chain had, she'd have vowed never to eat there again. "I hate to hear that," she said, and comped our bill completely. Oh, and my mom and dad took pains to say two or three times that they didn't blame the waitress, who was a nice girl and was trying hard. My brother and I weren't so sure—while we agreed that she was nice, she really wasn't a very good server. You could tell she was inexperienced. Finally, plates showed up, and the manager brought bowls of rice for my brother and me (she still got his wrong—he'd asked for white rice, they gave him brown) and we finished our meal, nearly two hours after we'd arrived.

Like I said, everything was delicious, if not quite hot. But I think we'll wait several months before going back. Hopefully, they'll have a better trained staff by then.

Love is a battlefield

I can think of all kinds of settings that could stir people to have, er, amorous feelings—a romantic beach, say, or the parking lot of a bar at closing time—but a war memorial?

A French couple were given a four-month suspended sentence and made to pay one euro in damages to the Canadian state for making a porn video at a World War I memorial, officials said Wednesday.

The verdict came just six months after another couple were fined for taking nude photographs of themselves at the same memorial at Vimy in northern France, which pays tribute to the 60,000 Canadians who died in the Great War.

In the latest ruling Tuesday by a court in the town of Arras, the married couple in their thirties, who put the video on a paying website, were also fined 500 euros each after they were found guilty of exhibitionism.

[...]

"The memorial has been known for a long time as a place where exhibitionism and voyeurism is common," prosecutor Elise Bozzolo told AFP.

I guess I'll take Elise's word for it, although I'm not exactly sure what these people find so erotic about a monument to thousands of dead Canadians. Not really my idea of sexy.

Darwin Awards: Down Under edition

This article doesn't say one way or another, but what do you want to bet (a lot of) drugs and/or alcohol were involved in this incident?

An Australian man's dare went horribly wrong when he tried to play chicken with cars on a freeway wearing only his underwear. The 18 year old was critically injured after being hit by a four-wheel drive on a freeway in the southern city of Melbourne in the early hours of Wednesday, police said in a statement.

"Police are dismayed at the utter stupidity of a man who decided to play chicken on the Tullamarine Freeway," the statement said.

I'm guessing it's going to be hard for doctors to determine whether or not the guy suffered any brain damage, seeing as how his brain obviously wasn't functioning properly before this all happened.

Shocking news: Pointless gesture employed to fight global warming

I tend to take a dim view of most protests and protesters, but this one sounds especially lame:

A climate change protester unsuccessfully tried to superglue himself to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown at an event in the leader's residence, a government spokesman said Tuesday.

Dan Glass, a 24-year-old member of Plane Stupid, which campaigns against airport expansion, tried to attach himself to Brown's suit as he was about to shake hands with the premier at his Downing Street residence.

Glass, who had been invited to the event held to recognise the British voluntary sector, asked Brown why the government was ignoring public objections to the construction of a third runway at London's Heathrow Airport.

Something tells me he probably won't be invited back.

Oh, and why did he try to undertake this particular foolishness with the super glue?

Glass assured the prime minister he was carrying out a "non-violent protest" and told Brown that "we cannot shake away climate change like you can just shake away my arm."

Nobody was arrested in connection with the stunt and a spokesman called it "a light-hearted and not particularly successful demonstration." You know what I'd call it? FAIL.

Wiccan FAIL

Now, that's some top-notch irony for you:

A woman accidentally stabbed herself in the foot with a 3-foot-long sword while performing a Wiccan good luck ritual at a central Indiana cemetery.

Katherine Gunther, 36, of Lebanon, pierced her left foot with the sword while performing the rite at Oak Hill Cemetery, police said.

Gunther said she was performing the ceremony to give thanks for a recent run of good luck. The ceremony involves the use of candles, incense and driving swords into the ground during the full moon.

Well, I think it's safe to say that her "recent run of good luck" just came to a rather painful end.

Thug wants to hug

Hugo Chavez, not a man usually credited with having good ideas in these parts, has a doozy of a bad idea for his coming trip to Europe:

King Juan Carlos sparked a furor in November by shouting "Why don't you shut up?" at Chavez when he tried to interrupt a speech by Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero at the Ibero-American summit in Chile.

Ties have improved since then and the Spanish government said last week that Chavez will meet the king on a visit to Spain next week.

"I'd like to give the king a hug, but you know, Juan Carlos, that I am not going to shut up," a smiling Chavez said on his weekly television show before setting of to Russia for the first leg of his tour.

Now, I don't know a lot about diplomatic protocol, but I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to hug royalty unless you happen to be related to them. Even then, it might be kind of dodgy. And I can say with some certainty that the King of Spain probably doesn't want a hug from Hugo. I know I wouldn't.

10 not so random songs, with video links

I can't seem to get to sleep, so I thought I'd provide you with links to a few videos for some songs I went looking for while I should be asleep...

1. The Plimsouls - "A Million Miles Away"
2. The Clash - "Bankrobber"
3. Pavement - "Range Life"
4. Isaac Hayes - "Walk on By"
5. The Cure - "A night Like This"
6. The Ocean Blue -"Between Something and Nothing"
7. New Order - "The Perfect Kiss"
8. Guided By Voices - "Motor Away"
9. Gorillaz - "Every Planet We Reach Is Dead"
10. U2 - "All I Want Is You"

Weird Tales of the Sitemeter VIII

Today, I got a hit from this site, which bills itself as the "Best of colonic news in real time." It turns out they linked to this post from last month. I guess that makes sense.

Loaded diapers

Well, that's something you probably don't find every day:

A package of baby diapers yielded an unlikely load in Mexico on Friday, according to the defense ministry: nearly half a million dollars in cash.

Soldiers conducting a routine check "found in a tractor-trailer a packet of diapers containing 490,300 dollars," the ministry said in a statement.

It said that the cash was likely a stash of narco-dollars destined for money-laundering...

No, I'm sure the driver was just hauling it to a nearby church to put it in the donation box. I mean, drug money and money laundering in Mexico? What are the odds?

A plan both bold and stupid

I don't know whether I should call this guy an idiot or if I should admire him for having the balls to even try pulling off his scheme:

An Indian man who took an impersonator to court to get a divorce faces legal action after his real wife found out, lawyers said Friday.

Sanjib Saha presented a woman as his wife in a lower court in the eastern city of Kolkata this month. Both said they sought a mutual divorce, something the court granted immediately.

The article goes on to note that his real wife was asked to leave their home, at which point the whole thing fell apart. I guess she started to think something fishy was going on when she was told they had gone to court to get a mutual divorce, seeing as how that's the type of thing most women would remember. Oh, and she's appealing the divorce. I wonder how he didn't see any of that coming.

Gettin' old

It's not like I'm going to go, but my ten-year college reunion is coming up this fall. I can't believe it's already been that long. It really seems like it was just yesterday.

One of these things is not like the others

I don't know much about Northern Italian anti-immigrant groups, but I know I like Chinese food, and I haven't really got anything against kebabs, so I guess I disagree with this:

Diners hungry for Chinese carry-out or Middle Eastern kebabs in Italy could have their choices limited under a regional law proposed by the anti-immigrant Northern League on Thursday.

The League called for the Lombardy regional council to allow cities to bar from their historic centers businesses that are "incompatible with the historical context."

"For example, fast food, Chinese restaurants, kebab, sex shops are types of commercial activity that clash heavily with a 1,000-year-old historic district, as is typical of Lombard reality," Daniele Belotti, a regional councilor with the League, said in a statement.

Sex shops? Um, which immigrant group is moving into their historic city centers and opening sex shops? I'm guessing Swedes.

Family-size FAIL

Boy, I bet this was a really awkward moment:

Police said they will not file charges against a clerk whose parents and husband were charged with robbing the pizza restaurant where she worked, officials said. Police said the clerk didn't know they planned to rob the Pizza Patron Friday night.

While the robbery was in progress, the clerk discovered her father was the robber when another clerk struck him, knocking him out and knocking off his wig and sunglasses. He was later apprehended after witnesses followed the getaway pickup.

"Her husband told us she didn't know. He knew they were going to rob someplace but he thought it was going to be a convenience store," police Sgt. James Brett said in a story in Monday's online editions of the Denton Record-Chronicle.

Well, I guess it's nice that he gets along with his in-laws, even if they are outlaws.

[rimshot]

Thank you, you've been a terrific audience! Make sure to tip your waitresses!

Fight for your right to facial hair

When moustaches are outlawed, only...wait, no, that's a stupid joke. But apparently, Japanese mailmen aren't allowed to have them:

Japanese lawyers are rallying behind a postman whose boss told him he had to shave off his moustache to comply with grooming standards for letter carriers.

The bar association in the western city of Osaka said Wednesday that the order against 55-year-old postman Noboru Nakamura was "irrational" and violated his human rights.

"Having a moustache is part of an individual lifestyle and should be an individual decision," said Kazuo Okawa, a lawyer for the bar association.

He's right about that. And you know, I've even heard that the lifestyle can have some pretty interesting side benefits:

Stay classy, Calvin

I don't understand how anybody could think doing something like this was a good idea, but then again, I'm not a complete idiot:

A judge has ordered a 19-year-old man to write an apology to a the city of Saratoga Springs in New York for dressing in an offensive costume at a high school graduation.

Calvin Morett had pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct for dressing in a 6-foot penis costume at the graduation at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

Now, is a six-foot penis costume something you can rent, or is it something you have to make for yourself? On second thought, I'd really rather not know.

I love the internets

In the old days, when you heard a song in a commercial that you liked but you didn't know who did it, it could take a lot of hard work to figure it out. These days, it takes minutes, if that long. For example, I just went to IMDb to find out what that song in the trailer for Pineapple Express was, and voila!



I like it because it samples the hook from "Straight to Hell" by the Clash.

Skanks for the memories

I know people tend to get carried away and do some pretty wild stuff while on vacation, but there have to be limits. Like, say, not acting like a total whore:

Nine British women were facing prostitution charges after being arrested at the weekend for taking part in an oral sex competition in the Greek holiday island of Zakynthos, police said on Monday.

Six British and six Greek men, including two bar owners, were also charged in the incident, which took place at Laganas beach in the south of the Ionian island, which lies off the west coast of mainland Greece, police said.

The women, who came to the popular resort on holiday, had been paid to take part in the competition, which was video recorded and was to be posted on the Internet, police said.

Okay, even if taking money to blow a bunch of guys doesn't seem like a bad idea, having someone make a video of it to post online should throw up a bit of a red flag that maybe you've made some bad choices.

Unless you're, like, really, really wasted. Then, it might seem like a fairly decent idea. But what are the odds of that?

That's not going to help those first day jitters

Man, talk about getting off to a really bad start:

An officer’s squad car was nearly totaled in a crash less than a half hour into his first day on the city police force.

Officer Tim Pochron was inside his house early Monday when someone smashed into his new squad car parked outside.

“Pochron was 29 minutes into the first day of his new job when his parked squad car was struck,” Hobart police Lt. Steve Houck said.

A Crown Point man had driven his car into a tree and Pochron’s car, police said. The man tested positive for drugs, was arrested and taken to a hospital.

What I want to know is, if this guy was half an hour into his brand new job, what was he doing at home?

Too gay to drive?

I'm not sure what the "gay rights" situation is generally like in a country like Italy, but the courts there have apparently just found that if you're a gay dude, you have the right to get a driver's license:

An Italian court has ruled the government must pay 100,000 euros ($157,700) in damages to a man who was told to retake a driving test because he was homosexual.

When 26 year-old Danilo Giuffrida told doctors he was gay at his medical examination for military service, they passed the information to the transport ministry, who told him he must repeat his driving test or have his license withdrawn due to his "sexual identity disturbance."

Giuffrida agreed to re-take his test, passed it for a second time, but the ministry renewed his license for just one year rather than the usual 10 years because of his homosexuality.

The judge ruling on the case in Catania, on the southern island of Sicily, said the actions of the defense and transport ministries showed "evident sexual discrimination" against Giuffrida and ran counter to his constitutional rights.

Now, even if he did have some sort of "sexual identity disturbance," how would that keep him from being a decent driver?

[insert crude stick shift joke here]

Hey, buddy, want to buy several hundred manhole covers?

You know, I'm starting to think that scrap metal dealers may not be the most scrupulous people:

City officials in Flint say they've had to replace hundreds of manhole covers and grates that likely were stolen and sold for scrap.

The Flint Journal reports Monday that nearly 400 covers and grates have been taken from the city's streets during the past year. A cover can fetch $20 from a scrap yard but can cost the city more than $200 to replace.

I mean, who just rolls up with a bunch of manhole covers for sale? That's not an item that most people have lying around their garages. In fact, the only places you usually find manhole covers is, you know, over manholes.

Oh, maybe that's their line. "I just found this lying in the street..."

Tell me, Doc, what does it mean?

I had a dream last night, and the only detail I can remember about it is that, for some reason, my dad had really creepy, nasty, long and yellowish fingernails. Very unpleasant.

Predictable results ensue

Well, I guess this just goes to show that they're still not ready for the challenge:

A stripper who danced on the poles of Santiago subway trains to challenge the prudishness of Chilean society was arrested on Thursday during one of her lightning performances.

Monserrat Morilles, 26, surprised subway riders all week stripping to skimpy underwear, but she refused tips.

She said she was protesting a lack of tolerance in Chile, one of Latin America's most conservative societies where the first generation since the Pinochet dictatorship is reaching adulthood.

"This is just a beginning. We are starting an idea here that will grow and be developed further," she told Reuters as police and subway guards surrounded her.

Far be it from me to discourage anyone from trying to get large numbers of attractive women to disrobe in public, but something tells me you don't really have the makings of a mass movement there, Miss Morilles. But, hey, keep on dreaming.

Rover is safe, at least for the Summer

If you're planning to try some dog meat at the Olympics in Beijing, you're a horrible person. You're also going to be disappointed:

Canine cuisine is being sent to the doghouse during next month's Beijing Olympic Games.

Dog meat has been struck from the menus of officially designated Olympic restaurants, and Beijing tourism officials are telling other outlets to discourage consumers from ordering dishes made from dogs, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Friday.

Waiters and waitresses should "patiently" suggest other options to diners who order dog, it said, quoting city tourism bureau Vice Director Xiong Yumei.

I would imagine it'll be back on the menu once the rest of the world rolls out of town, though. The article goes on to note that a similar ban in South Korea wasn't really enforced any more after the 1988 Olympics were over.

Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to fight a fire

Okay, to be fair, I have no idea whether or not this dude is fat, but he was definitely drunk and stupid:

Firefighters called to a blaze at an apartment building in a southern German town were astonished to discover a fully equipped extremely drunk imposter in their ranks, police said on Thursday.

On hearing the alarm, the 38-year-old man had rushed to the fire station, was helped into protective clothing and helmet by unsuspecting firefighters and boarded the fire engine, a spokesman for Suedhessen police said.

I'm sure it's very hectic when an alarm comes in for a fire at an apartment building (or anywhere for that matter) but nobody at the station realized that some random drunk had wandered in off the street?

Blowmobile

Normally, finding $400 grand worth of cocaine isn't something that's embarrassing for the police, but when you've been driving it around for two months...

An officer cleaning the car at a patrol station Wednesday discovered the nearly 50 pounds of cocaine carefully hidden in hydraulically controlled compartments.

[...]

Dallas police put the two-door 2004 black Infiniti into police service on May 7 after seizing it at a drug house. It had been found at a drug house earlier this year along with a 1999 Honda.

[Deputy Chief Julian] Bernal said the narcotics division searched both the vehicles and found nothing unusual after the seizure. The Honda was sold at auction.

Bernal said police plan to contact the person who bought the Honda to find out if drugs are hidden in that car, too. And, they are also trying to find out who owned the cocaine they have been secretly driving around with.

You know, those are a couple of really good ideas. And might I suggest you do a thorough check on all the other drug cars you've seized recently?

How did that get in there?

Not being a member of the fairer sex, I'm somewhat puzzled by this story. Somewhat aroused, too:

A British woman spoke of her surprise Wednesday after finding a baby bat in her bra.

Abbie Hawkins, 19, harboured the creature in her bosom for over four hours and had felt a slight twitching but thought it was her mobile phone vibrating.

Eventually, though, she checked and found the creature nestling in the padding pocket of her 34FF bra.

"Once I realised it was a bat I was shocked, but then I felt quite sorry for it really," Hawkins, a hotel receptionist from Norfolk, eastern England, told the Eastern Daily Press newspaper.

Why feel sorry for it? Sounds like a pretty lucky bat to me.

Oh, and why did she think it was her cell phone vibrating? I mean, what all is she keeping in there?

Naptime turns deadly

I've heard of people being killed in a variety of very unusual ways, but this one is new to me:

A Russian woman in St Petersburg killed her drunk husband with a folding couch, Russian media reported on Wednesday.

St Petersburg's Channel Five said the man's wife, upset with her husband for being drunk and refusing to get up, kicked a handle after an argument, activating a mechanism that folds the couch up against a wall.

The couch, which doubles as a bed, folds up automatically in order to save space. The man fell between the mattress and the back of the couch, Channel Five quoted emergency workers as saying.

The woman then walked out of the room and returned three hours later to check on what she thought was an unusually quiet sleeping husband.

Jesus, what was the couch made of, concrete? I thought that stuff never really caught on.

I've heard a lot of people say that when it's their time to go, they hope they'll just die in their sleep, but I think it's pretty safe to say this probably isn't what they mean.

I say, chaps, what a smashing idea!

I'm fairly certain that none of my readers are burglars, but if any of you are, you might want to consider moving to England:

BRITAIN’S soft justice system hit a new low yesterday with plans to scrap prison sentences for burglars.

Hundreds of thousands of crooks could escape jail every year under the proposals by advisers to the Lord Chief Justice.

Those sentenced to short, sharp shock jail terms of less than 12 months for "less serious offences" – including burglary – should be handed community penalties instead, they said.

Even those who are likely to reoffend could walk free from court if it is believed they will go on to commit "non-serious offences."

And in a further blow, while courts must not be swayed by victims demanding harsher punishments for offenders, the advisers said that judges should listen if they call for leniency.

Seriously, are they trying to increase the crime rate or something? If that's their aim, then bravo!

(Via Fark)

Insult to injury

Sometimes life is unfair, but you just have to cut your losses and move on. This would be one of those times:

Prosecutors have dropped charges filed against an East Hartford man who called police to report he had been robbed during a drug deal.

Max Minnefield called police Monday to report that he had paid a man and a woman $8 for some crack cocaine that he never received.

Police charged him with criminal attempt to commit possession of narcotics.

During his arraignment Tuesday, Judge Bradford Ward asked Minnefield, "Did you really think the police were going to go after the people?" He added that his question was rhetorical.

I wouldn't be surprised if someone that dumb didn't know what a rhetorical question was.

Dr. Frankenstein goes to prison

What kind of scumbag preys on people when they're at their most vulnerable? This kind of scumbag:

A Moscow court convicted a man of fraud on Monday for preying on people mourning loved ones by saying he could resurrect the dead.

Grigory Grabovoy stood passively inside an iron cage as he was sentenced to 11 years in prison working hard labor in a case which has grabbed headlines around Russia.

"He used a special method of influencing people distressed by the loss of relatives or the illness of loved ones," the judge said as he found Grabovoy guilty of 11 cases of fraud.

In one case from 2003 a man paid Grabovoy 39,500 roubles ($1,700) to attempt to cure his dying parents and in another case a woman paid him 118,000 roubles to try to resurrect her two dead sons.

All of that is pretty bad, but it gets even worse.

Grabovoy had also once met with mothers of children killed at a school siege in the south Russian town of Beslan in 2004 -- where he had promised to resurrect their children for a fee -- although Monday's verdict was not linked to this meeting.

Over 300 people -- mainly children -- died during a botched operations to rescue the hostages.

Dude. That's pretty fucked up right there.

Anyway, enjoy those next eleven years, douchebag. They should prove to be memorable.

20,000 Morons can't be wrong

Okay, so 20,000 Morons are probably wrong on a fairly regular basis, but the point is that this little crapblog topped 20,000 visits today. Thanks to everyone who's linked to me or poked around here over the last few years and made this the moderate little success that it is. God knows I don't do this for the fabled Crazy Blog Money™. No, I do it because I have no life. That, and because if I just scribbled my stupid little jokes into a notebook, that would make me a crazy person, whereas here, I'm a blogger.

Oops

Boy, I bet this guy wishes they'd used UPS instead:

FedEx prides itself on reliability. But a mistaken delivery tipped off police to a 200-pound shipment of marijuana that someone tried to send from Pembroke Pines, Florida to Baltimore via the shipping company.

Police tell The (Baltimore) Sun they learned about the shipment when it was delivered Tuesday to the wrong resident.

Authorities posed as FedEx employees and arrested the shipment's intended recipient, 30-year-old Richard Gwatidzo.

The article goes on to say that they found eight other packages containing more than 400 pounds of weed, and that they're trying to determine the identity of the sender. What, there wasn't a return address listed?

Happy birthday, America

Like they said in an episode of the Simpsons, "Celebrate the independence of your nation by blowing up a small part of it." Unless you're like me and you live in a state like California. In that case, bust out the sparklers and snakes.

Yay.

Update:


Inspired by this.

They don't know me very well

Some vegetarian/vegan group (no, I'm not gonna give the link) has the Google ad at the top of my page right now. Seeing as how I'm a firm believer in Dennis Leary's idea that "meat tastes like murder, and murder tastes good," there's a bit of a disconnect there.

Now, I've known a number of vegetarians and even a couple of vegans* who were great people, but I find a lot of them to be sanctimonious, humorless scolds whose only enjoyment in life seems to come from hectoring meat-eaters like me about how unhealthy our lifestyles are and how we're destroying the planet to boot. I guess I'd be a miserable prick (I mean more so), too, if all I ever had to eat was some of the awful stuff they try to pass off as "meat substitutes." Gah.


*One of my best friends in college was a vegan for health reasons—cardiovascular disease had killed just about every man in his family over the past fifty or so years, often before they reached their sixtieth birthday—but he dropped the vegan lifestyle after a trip to the British Isles. I've never really understood that, seeing as how those countries have a reputation for serving the kind of meat dishes that might drive an American straight into the arms of the vegan movement.

What a difference a link makes

So dpud got to guest blog over at Conservative Grapevine this week, and he linked to this post early this morning. At first, I noticed a slight bump in traffic, but by the end of the day, I'd picked up more than 530 hits. That's more than two thirds of my total traffic from all of last month!

Not a typical day around here.

I'd like to thank everyone for stopping by, and I hope some of you will continue to drop by and check out this humble little moronblog. I promise to keep producing mediocre jokes about dumb criminals, people doing stupid stuff while intoxicated, and really embarrassing and/or nasty sex. And I won't charge you a dime for any of it, because, let's face it, it probably wouldn't be worth it.

A criminal who cares

I guess there's no hard and fast rule stating that, just because you're robbing someone at gunpoint, you have to be unpleasant about the whole thing:

Heath Chandler, 31, of Naylor, told police he was in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart store when a man approached and put a semiautomatic gun to his stomach.

The assailant demanded money, so Chandler gave him the $25 he had. The man then took Chandler to a Jeep Cherokee driven by a woman. There, he gave the victim a hug before fleeing in the Cherokee.

You know, now that I think about it, the whole thing probably would have been better without the man-hug. That was probably really, really awkward.

Uh-oh

100%ALCOHOLIC

Created by OnePlusYou

I think my liver just filed an injunction against me.

Chinese Commies: No fun anymore

The Chinese government has issued a bunch of new rules for bars and nightclubs, and surprisingly enough, the rules don't seem geared toward allowing patrons to cut loose and have fun:

According to rules released on the Ministry of Public Security's website (https://www.mps.gov.cn), entertainment venues must install transparent partitions between rooms that ensure "the whole environment of the consumer's entertainment area in the room can be seen."

"When open for business, the transparent part of rooms and windows to rooms at singing and dancing entertainment venues must not be obstructed," the rules say.

Discos, karaoke nightclubs and other bars in China frequently have private rooms for hire, and are a favorite places for businessmen to entertain guests, sometimes with prostitutes, which is illegal in China.

Staff clothing is also covered in the new rules. "Staff members should dress tastefully, and not be too exposing."

As if we didn't need more reasons to hate Communist tyranny, they ban scantily-clad bar girls and go-go dancers? I mean, I'm not really all that opposed to cracking down on prostitution, but there's such a thing as going a step too far.

Stolen property sale FAIL

I don't know a lot about fencing stolen property, but I'm pretty sure this isn't a good way to do it:

Last Thursday, Fred and Betty McAteers were victims of a senseless, heartless crime when vandals tipped over a huge headstone for family members buried at Woodlawn Cemetery.

This week, the McAteers were victimized again, when they arrived at a home they own only to find it had been ransacked and furniture stolen.

"It's horrible that someone would break into your home and steal your stuff," Fred McAteer said.

But if they were violated, they were soon victorious, after making a shocking discovery about one of their neighbors.

The McAteers, who live in Ocklawaha, arrived at the home in Ocala in the 800 block of Southeast Fifth Street on Monday and discovered it had been burglarized.

They left and returned Tuesday morning and called police. They then decided to walk around the neighborhood to see if they could find anyone who might have some knowledge about the break-in.

When they walked up to a five-unit apartment building, they saw their wooden dresser sitting on the front lawn.

They called the Ocala police again, and detectives arrested 22-year-old Branden Mitchell Gardiner and charged him with one count of residential burglary and one count of dealing in stolen property.

Yeah, next time, you might not want to try to sell your ill-gotten gains within walking distance of the place you swiped it from, dumbass.

Update: Welcome Conservative Grapevine readers! Feel free to look around and leave some comments.

Oh, dear God, why?

I've read a lot of articles about a lot of weird, pervy stuff in my day, but this one takes the cake:

Alan Patton, 56, was taken into custody on June 14 on suspicion he was hiding in a men's restroom and putting cups into urinals at Sports Ohio in Dublin, Ohio.

Police said Patton had turned off the urinals before putting the cups inside the urinal. He was charged with criminal mischief.

In 2006, Patton told police that he suffered from urophilia -- a sexual fetish involving urine.

He also told Gahanna police that drinking boy's urine made him feel like he was "drinking their youth," a WBNS report said.

"Even though it makes me sick, it is a release for me," Patton said in a police report. "It's almost spiritual. I feel like it makes me closer to them -- like I'm drinking their youth."

I know that in this day and age it's not p.c. to knock someone else's "spiritual" experiences, but YOU'RE DRINKING OTHER PEOPLES' PISS FOR FUCK'S SAKE! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?

Oh, and he apparently won't be going to prison for this because "it is not against the law to drink someone's urine without their permission." That's probably because in saner times than these, nobody would have thought anybody would want to do such a thing.

No sale

Am I the only one who's just shocked and amazed that the clerk turned her down?

Lynne Rice crashed her 1988 Cadillac into the front window of Joe's Food Mart, 10641 E. Imperial Highway, at 6:10 p.m., causing about $8,000 in damage, said Lt. Jenny Ha of the Norwalk Sheriff's Station.

The crash apparently didn't slow her down.

After plowing halfway through the store, Rice got out of the car, walked over to the cooler and pulled out a six-pack of Budweiser, said the store owner, who gave only his last name, Awada.

"I don't know how she managed to walk," Awada said.

Rice went up to the counter to make her purchase, but when the cashier refused to sell to her, she allegedly pushed him, Awada said.

The cashier called 911 and police arrived minutes later.

Get this. Instead of getting her beer, she got arrested on suspicion of a DUI. Man, this really is becoming a fascist country.

Nobody tells me anything

I happened to be deleting some spam messages on my old Friendster page (yes, I am a dinosaur) when I noticed a picture of one of my oldest friends that I hadn't seen before. I investigated further and found out it was a picture she took with her boyfriend, holding up their new marriage licenses. They got married in Vegas back in the first week of June.

I didn't even get any cake out of it, damnit. But I just talked to her, and they're very happy together.