What is the nature of your emergency?

Nobody likes it when a restaurant screws up their order, but most people have more sense than to get the police involved when it happens:

One man thought his sandwich was an emergency and called 911 twice.

"It's unbelievable what people get upset about now days," says Tammy Morris, a Subway manager.

Who knew a Subway sandwich could cook up so much trouble? "When you ask for 'the works' it consists of certain vegetables on your sandwich, it does not include mayonnaise or mustard," Morris says.

Police say that made Reginald Peterson pretty mad, mad enough to call 911 twice about his Spicy Italian Sub. It happened at the Subway on Atlantic Blvd. Thursday night.

"He tasted his sandwich and it didn't have mayonnaise or mustard on it, so he became upset," Morris says.

According to another account of the incident, Peterson made the second 911 call to complain that officers weren't arriving on the scene fast enough for his liking. Which is somewhat ironic, seeing as how they arrested his dumb ass when they finally showed up.

Easy come, easy go

I'm something of an agnostic, but stories like this one lead me to believe that if there is a God, He's got a pretty good sense of humor:

A pickup truck thief lost his purloined Chevy Silverado to an armed carjacker during a 7-Eleven stop. Police Cmdr. Kelly McMillin said "you couldn't make up something stranger than this."

A 33-year-old man told police he stole the pickup Saturday then, while sitting outside a convenience store, a man with a gun hopped in and ordered him to start driving.

The article goes on to say that when the truck ran out of gas, the guy with the gun told the original thief to get out and push, but he got away and called the police. Something tells me he probably didn't give them his name.

"I'm always looking for the sun"

Just because:

A meeting of the minds Morons

I met fellow Moronblogger XBradTC for a few beers tonight, just down the road from the real historical marker in Brea Canyon that's my blog's namesake. We mostly talked about military matters (Brad is an Army vet, while according to my lefty betters, I'm a Chickenhawk), politics (especially our mutual dismay over the rise of Captain Bullshit), and the Moronosphere. Brad is a very nice, well-mannered guy, though he swears more than any self-described Evangelical Christian I've ever met, something he chalks up to having a couple of Catholic Chaplains in the service.

We both agreed that we have to get together with more SoCal Moronbloggers over beers sometime in the near future (we're looking at bloggers like you, Malor) and that we ought to try to lure dpud out of Pennsylvania for a visit to the Golden State, if only to slip him some roofies and take compromising pictures of him for blackmail purposes. (Just kidding about that last part. Or am I?)

At any rate, Brad is a stand-up guy, especially since he picked up the entire tab for the evening. I totally owe him the next time we get together, especially since he's the only Moronblogger who knows what I currently look like and can describe me to police sketch artists who would be very interested in information regarding the disappearances of several hobos, not to mention the hijacking of a truckload of Val-U-Rite vodka.

(Cross-posted at doubleplusundead.)

Update: Here's Brad's take on our meeting. All I can say is that he's a filthy liar. Except for the stuff that's true. Which is everything. Although he downplayed how ruggedly handsome I am. Not cool, Brad.

Natural fight

I'm not saying the dude should have been stabbed, but seriously, four cans of that swill for ten bucks? Come on:

Grady "Skip" Wilburn Dollar, 64, was accused of stabbing Mickey Joe Hill, 37, during a dispute early Thursday, said Sgt. Mark Richard of the Lawrence County Sheriff's Department.

Richard said the two men had been drinking together when Dollar gave Hill $10 and told him to go to the store for more. Richard said Hill brought back only four cans of Natural Light, a low-cost brand, and Dollar got mad that he didn't get more for his money.

"He said, 'For $10 you could have gotten a half case,'" said Richard. "Four cans of Natural Light only cost $3 or $4."

The victim then asked for one of the four beers and pushed the older man when he refused to hand one over, the investigator said.

"Then the suspect went to the kitchen, got a big butcher knife and came back and stabbed him," Richard said.

I guess I'd be pretty pissed off too if I gave someone ten bucks and they brought back four cans of Natty Light. Hell, I'd be pissed off if I gave someone money to buy beer and they brought back any amount of that crap.

I may be a Moron, but I'm not illiterate

There's a cool article here about one of my favorite authors, Haruki Murakami. If you enjoy reading, I'd recommend picking up some of his stuff. A lot of his stuff is a bit strange, with spirits, people with unusual abilities, and parallel worlds. If you don't mind that sort of thing, I'd recommend The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle or the more recent Kafka on the Shore. If you like things a little more straightforward, try Norwegian Wood, which is one of the better love stories I've ever read.

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.

Heartfelt thanks to all you Morons

This has been another great month for my little crapblog, thanks to all of you stopping by. I'm not sure, but this may have been the first time I've ever had more than six hundred visitors three months in a row. A lot of that is thanks to the creation of the Moronosphere, and the thanks for that go to Conservative Belle and doubleplusundead. And I want to give special thanks to the latter for making the mistake of inviting me giving me an opportunity to become a co-blogger over at his place. Hopefully, I haven't driven too many of his readers away.

It's really been an amazing month. Thanks again to everyone!

Update: I just noticed that even though I've been posting over at dpud regularly, I posted more this month than I have since August, 2006. Way to go, me.

What not to wear

People will often tell you to be careful what you wish for. I'm guessing this guy was wishing for attention, and it didn't work out so well for him:

A Connecticut man was arrested over the weekend after he allegedly strolled along a busy interstate wearing nothing but a thong, fake breasts and a wig.

Authorities received several calls over the weekend from motorists reporting that a man was walking alongside I-291 in the unusual attire, the Hartford Courant reported.

An hour-long search turned up David Gebhardt, 42, who was arrested by police fully clothed after they found him collecting cans behind a business in Manchester.

They found the wig and the fake breasts in his car, so I guess he was wearing the thong under his clothes.

He might want to get the ACLU involved with his defense.

Stinking drunk?

There are some situations that you read about and even though it's not directly mentioned, the word "alcohol" comes screaming out at you. This would be one of those situations:

A woman trying to make "manure bombs" using stockings, slipped into a slurry tank and fled the scene naked, German police said Friday.

Two women entered a farm in the northern village of Eberholzen Wednesday evening and started to fill the stockings with manure.

There's just no way that sober, right-thinking people come up with a plan like that.

"One of them slipped into the manure tank, right into the cow muck," said a spokesman for local police. "The other one helped her out. We found their clothes in a field. One seems to have run off completely naked, the other in her underwear."

The cops don't know why the women were making their stink bombs in the first place, but they suspect it may have had something to do with the Euro 2008 soccer semi-finals, where Germany beat Turkey. I tried to warn people back during the last World Cup that nothing good comes from being a soccer fan, but I guess nobody listened.

Nobody ever listens.

What do you call losing a ballgame when the other team can't even get a lousy single?

Oh, that's right, you call it...



That's for damn sure.

BMW: Burning My Wheels

I think just about everybody is fed up with high gas prices, but some of us are apparently dealing with the situation a little better than others:

A German man doused his BMW with gasoline and torched it on Friday in protest at skyrocketing fuel costs, police said. The unemployed 30-year-old man drove the black 1995 BMW 3-series sedan onto the lawn outside Frankfurt's convention center grounds at about 7:30 a.m., police spokesman Karlheinz Wagner said.

He then jumped out, emptied a canister of gas over the vehicle, and set fire to it, Wagner said.

By the time the fire department got to the scene, the car was entirely burned out.

The Bavarian man, whose name was being withheld because he has not been charged with a crime, told police that gas prices were so high he could no longer afford to drive the vehicle.

Well, that's tough and all, but you know what might have been a better move on your part, there, Fritz? Oh, I don't know, maybe selling it?

Justice may be blind, but it's not stupid

I guess this court decision would be ironic except for the fact that everyone could have seen it coming from a mile away:

A New Mexico appeals court on Friday ruled against a Los Alamos man who wanted to change his name to a phrase containing a popular four-letter obscenity.

The man appealed after a state district judge in Bernalillo County refused his request to change his name to "F--- Censorship!"

Judge Nan Nash ruled that the proposed name change was "obscene, offensive and would not comport with common decency."

But don't you see, Judge Nash, that you're just reaffirming the man's brave stance against censorship? No? I guess not.

The man — whose current legal name is Variable — argued on appeal that it was improper government censorship to deny him the name change.

"We do not believe that the district court's action infringes on petitioner's right to free speech," a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals said in its ruling.

Well, I guess Judge Nash might just have been right, then.

There actually is some real-life irony in this case, though. Bear with me, here.

You see, a few years back, the same court ruled that a person could call himself anything he wants as long as he's not committing fraud or misrepresentation by doing so. But the judges ruled that when that person petitions the courts for a legal name change, "the court has the authority to turn him down on several grounds, including if the name is offensive to common decency and good taste."

And what, might you ask, is ironic about that? Well...

That law was clarified in a 2004 case in the same court that apparently involved the same petitioner. In that case, an Albuquerque man whose name was Snaphappy Fishsuit Mokiligon got the go-ahead from the appeals court to change his name to Variable.

Heh. That's pretty sweet.

Assault with a poultry weapon

It's always cool in martial arts movies when the hero uses whatever he or she has at hand as a weapon, like when Jackie Chan kicks someone else's ass with a broom. But when some douche uses whatever he can find nearby to assault a couple of women? Not so much:

Frederick Duane McKaney, 40, of Ypsilanti, was arraigned Wednesday in 12th District Court in Jackson. He faces two felony assault charges as well as one count of assault and battery and one count of resisting an officer.

Prosecutors said McKaney stabbed his mother in the back of the neck with a fork Monday night.

About an hour later, he hit a woman in the head with a plastic bag of frozen chicken. They had exchanged rude words while he rode his bicycle. She needed five surgical staples to close her wound.

Which leads to the question I'm sure you're all naturally asking yourselves: who the hell rides around on a bike with a big bag of frozen chicken, assaulting people? I mean, other than that guy.

Update: If you wandered over here from dpud's daily Moron round-up (or even if you didn't), please feel free to look around and leave some comments.

Bus stopped

You know, with all the bureaucracy, regulations, anti-prostitution laws, and red tape, it's getting harder and harder for the innovative small businessperson to succeed these days:

A "brothel bus" that detectives said cruised Miami Beach offering lap dances and drinks has taken its last ride, police said on Wednesday.

Riders were offered oral sex for $100, according to Miami Beach police who impounded the limousine bus and arrested its operator early on Sunday.

[...]

Aboard, undercover detectives said they found a fully stocked bar and several young women who stripped down to reveal G-strings stuffed with cash and offered to perform sex acts.

Suspected operator Christine Morteh, 29, was arrested on charges of offering to commit prostitution, transportation for the purpose of prostitution and operating a business without a license. She was released from jail on $5,000 bond.

Now, in spite of the fact that this was all highly illegal, I might praise something catering to the needs of people who actually want to be touched inappropriately by strangers on a bus as an innovative idea. But it's not. It turns out that it's actually a pretty old idea. A pretty old French idea.

Who sez there's no such thing as a free lunch?

While Jack may not make the best tacos in the world, if he wants to give me a couple for free, I think I'll take him up on that.

Mmmmmm...free tacos.

That's several hours of my life I'll never get back

Sorry for the lack of posting tonight, but I just got back from a city council meeting where they talked about a single road project for four and a half hours. I didn't even get to eat dinner until around 11:30.

Good night.

Another unorthodox DUI

Yesterday, it was an Aussie in a wheelchair. Today, it's an Alaskan on a mower:

Alaska State Troopers used lights and sirens to apprehend a North Pole man suspected of driving under the influence after he allegedly led them on a slow-speed chase that covered several lawns.

The 20-year-old man was on a riding mower. Sunday's pursuit lasted about 200 feet and reached speeds of up to 5 mph before a trooper got out of a cruiser and told the man to stop.

Troopers received a call early Sunday complaining of an intoxicated man driving a mower. They said Wyatt Lewis's blood-alcohol content was 0.18 percent, more than twice the legal limit of 0.08 percent.

Now, I'm aware of the fact that drunk people aren't known for coming up with good ideas, but I see stories like this once in a while and wonder, who the hell thinks booze and spinning blades are a good combination?

Oh, right. Dumbasses.

How'd that get there?

I'm not generally the kind of person who enjoys surprises, but I really don't think I'd enjoy a surprise like this one:

A woman in the Western Canadian city of Edmonton, Alberta, discovered the suspicious package on Sunday and took it to her local police station, where officers told her to carefully place it on the lawn.

Police called in the bomb squad, which determined the item was a grenade, still in its packaging and belonging to the Canadian military.

The technicians made sure the package was secure and called military personnel in to dispose of the ordnance.

"It is quite unusual for someone to find a grenade in their backyard, especially one that hasn't been spent," Edmonton police spokeswoman Patrycia Chalupczynska said.

I would hope something like that is unusual. After all, when people begin to find explosives in their yards on a regular basis, that's a sign that something is deeply wrong.

Jailbreak turns into FAILbreak

What do you call it when a criminal's dreams literally come crashing down while trying to bust out of the poky? Oh, I think you know what that's called:

Authorities say an inmate trying to flee a Texas city jail crashed through the ceiling into a police chief's empty office.

Police say 17-year-old Jesus Albert Suarez Chavez and 22-year-old Roman Orozco Martinez tried to escape through air conditioning ducts of the Alton city jail around 3 a.m. Saturday, but had been spotted by a dispatcher monitoring security video.

One of the inmates fell through the ceiling into the office of Police Chief Baldemar Flores. The second inmate was trying to get into the vent.

The article goes on to say that the two are charged with "burglary of a vehicle, evading arrest, resisting arrest, assault on a public servant and making a terrorist threat." They sound charming, no?

DWWI: Driving Wheelchair While Intoxicated

I guess this Aussie is proof that the Ace of Spades Lifestyle™ isn't limited to the able-bodied:

Police in Australia have charged a man for drink driving in a motorized wheelchair after he was found to be six times over the legal alcohol limit, local media reported on Monday.

Police in the tropical northern Queensland city of Cairns said the man had a blood alcohol reading of 0.31, and was so drunk he was asleep at the controls of his motorized wheelchair in a turning lane of a major highway.

"It beggars belief," Police Inspector Bob Walters told the Cairns Post newspaper, adding wheelchairs, bicycles, horses and skateboards were all considered to be vehicles under the state's road laws.

I kind of doubt it would be a very big deal if the dude was drunk, riding his wheelchair down the sidewalk somewhere, but a major highway? Yeah, that's kind of a bad idea.

Bad news

I just heard the news that George Carlin passed away this evening. I didn't always agree with his politics, but he was a damn funny guy. He will be missed.

The Inspirational Mr. Obama

See here for the details.

Things that go bump in the couch

Just because you're paranoid it doesn't mean they're not out to get you hiding inside your furniture:

Police say a New York man cut a hole in a woman's couch and hid in the carved-out space until she came home. Newburgh police said the woman sat on the couch Wednesday evening and felt a bump in the cushions move.

She jumped up and David Joe Limones emerged from his hiding place, knocking a cell phone out of her hand.

The woman was on the phone with a friend when she entered her apartment because she had filed an earlier complaint against Limones and was worried he might be there. Police said she had asked the friend to stay on the line and call police if something went wrong.

Well, that turns out to have been a pretty good plan, huh?

When officers arrived, they found Limones and the 22-year-old woman arguing on the apartment's balcony.

You mean he went to all that trouble just to argue with her? I'm not saying he should have done something worse to her, it's just that people like that usually do. I'm just saying is all.

Update: Welcome, doubleplusundead readers! Feel free to look around and leave comments.

Oh, just shut the hell up

So Burger King is selling a $200 burger in the UK, made with "Japanese wagyu beef, white truffles, onions fried in Cristal champagne, topped with pink Himalayan rock salt."

Now, I think anybody who's going to drop a chunk of change like that on a hamburger, much less one from Burger King, is a chump. But it's their money, and they can spend it any way they see fit. And if people are willing to drop two bills for a burger, hey, why shouldn't Burger King take advantage of that? Everybody's happy, right?

Wrong:

What's not going down so easily is Burger King's controversial concept of "delicious decadence" during a time of global economic meltdown and worldwide food shortages. Food crisis campaigners view it as the wrong burger at the wrong place at the wrong time.

"To come out with this kind of hugely expensive and over-the-top burger and to have 800 million people going to bed hungry every night is just to shoot yourself in the foot," said Dave Tucker of the organization "War On Want."

Right. Because if it weren't for Burger King serving these burgers, all those hungry people would be dining on wagyu beef and truffles.

Or is it that you're a smug, self-righteous prick who thinks we should all don hairshirts and eat nothing but organic tofu sprinkled with wheat germ because, somehow, in some way which you're never really going to fully explain, living a more "sustainable" (read: miserable) lifestyle is going to help these starving people thousands of miles away?

I'm leaning toward the latter.

Colonic comemmoration

People put up monuments to all kinds of people and things—war heroes, statesmen, Spanish explorers (ahem), battles, animals—but this one has got to be a first:

A monument to the enema, a procedure many people would rather not think about, has been unveiled at a spa in the southern Russian city of Zheleznovodsk. The bronze syringe bulb, which weighs 800 pounds and is held by three angels, was unveiled at the Mashuk-Akva Term spa, the spa's director said Thursday.

"There is no kitsch or obscenity, it is a successful work of art," Alexander Kharchenko told The Associated Press. "An enema is almost a symbol of our region."

The Caucasus Mountains region is known for dozens of spas where enemas with water from mineral springs are routinely administered to treat digestive and other complaints.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I know where I won't be taking my next vacation.

Kharchenko, 50, said the monument cost $42,000 and was installed in a square in front of his spa on Wednesday. A banner declaring: "Let's beat constipation and sloppiness with enemas" — an allusion to a line from "The Twelve Chairs," a famous Soviet film comedy — was posted on one of the spa's walls.

And yet, there was always a perception in the West that the Soviets were a dour and humorless lot. Well, consider that stereotype busted.

Dank around the dangle

You know how there are those times when something bad happens and you say, "You know, some day, I'll look back at this whole thing and laugh"? Hopefully this guy has that kind of attitude, but somehow, I doubt it.

Getting caught with marijuana by police is bad enough. But the drug arrest of John Christopher Williams, 34, was particularly embarrassing.

Williams has a lengthy criminal record and had failed to show up for court dates more than once, leading to a warrant for his arrest. When police found and arrested him they didn’t find any drugs on him and Williams didn’t say anything.

It was only when he was being checked in to prison that guards discovered nine grams of marijuana wrapped around his penis. Williams says it was all a misunderstanding.

No, a misunderstanding is when you accidentally do something wrong. I can't think of any way—no, scratch that, I don't want to think of any way—a guy could accidentally wrap nine grams worth of weed around his junk.

(Via Fark.)

Parading around in the nude—literally

You know, I'm as big a fan of naked ladies as the next guy, but there are just some situations where that sort of thing is inappropriate. Like, say, at a family-friendly Independence Day parade for instance:

A woman seen frequently in Ashland riding topless on her bicycle says she plans to be in Ashland's Fourth of July parade free and independent of all clothing but a hemp G-string. The Chamber of Commerce says that's contrary to the rules for the family celebration. She says she'll sue if she can't parade as she wishes.

Jen Moss has been known as "The Naked Lady" since she moved to Ashland in May from Ojai, Calif., drawn by the town's nudity laws. They specify only that people must cover their genitalia in a city park or the downtown commercial district, which means Moss need not cover her breasts.

The police in California, she says, harassed her when she rode her bicycle wearing a G-string and pasties.

No, you don't say.

Moss applied for an entry for the parade, which draws thousands each year.

The Ashland Chamber of Commerce learned of her coverage plans from an online posting. She promised to lead in-line skaters "wearing only a hemp G-string and blowing a conch shell."

"We don't feel that someone in the parade who is topless or nearly naked is appropriate for a family audience," said parade chairman James Kidd.

I tend to agree with him, especially since the rules of the parade "clearly indicate that entries must be appropriate for a family audience."

Now, here's where the story takes a turn toward the stupid:

City Council member Eric Navickas said he's on Moss's side.

If she can't be in the parade, Navickas said, it would be "an interesting commentary on our society that we're willing to tolerate dead bodies through our aggressive foreign policy from the war, but not healthy, naked bodies."

You know what I think is an interesting commentary on our society? The fact that even a stupid douche like Eric Navickas can hold elected office.

Anyway, back to the thong-waering attention whore for the last, foolish word:

Moss told the Ashland Daily Tidings in an e-mail that if she can't be nearly naked in the parade, she would "run around near naked protesting their unconstitutional(ism) and un-Americanism." And she said, she would ask the American Civil Liberties Union for help in a lawsuit.

Ah, but of course. And they'll turn it into a big free speech argument, where some skank should have the right to shake her dirty pillows in front of a bunch of kids because the First Amendment clearly gives her the right to express herself any way she sees fit.

The Founding Fathers would be so proud.

What do you call being embarrassed to the tune of 39 points?

Oh yeah, you call that...



Yep, that's definitely what you call it.

This could be fun!

You know, I agree with Vinty that if we're going to have to economize on what we use from AP stories, we'd better find the most important news nuggets we can in the fewest words.

That said, I was shocked by a quote from Obama adviser Richard Clarke which I found in this article:

"I'm[...]disgusted by[...]Americans."

Pretty scathing, huh? I wonder, what could have possibly driven Clarke to such naked hatred of his own countrymen?

(Cross-posted at doubleplusundead.)

Gold rush

I'm not in the habit of telling other people how to do their jobs, but when they make a really, really stupid mistake, like this jewelery store clerk did, I can certainly make an exception to that rule:

[A] man strolled into an Edmonton, Alberta, jeweler and asked to see several rings and necklaces, one after another.

Once he had loaded himself up with thousands of dollars worth of trinkets, he made for the door.

[...]

Allowing customers to weigh themselves down with jewelry is "certainly not something that we would recommend as it didn't turn out so well for this store," Edmonton police spokesman Jeff Wuite said on Tuesday.

Mr. Wuite, on the other hand, is doing a bang-up job, with the added bonus of a talent for understatement. I mean, if I were in his place, I'd be sorely tempted to call the clerk a dumbass, making sure that the press quoted me on that.

Weird tales of the Sitemeter VII

I keep getting hits from Google Images that lead to this post. I guess they're looking for the picture of Jame Gumb. That wouldn't be too weird in and of itself, but it's happening almost daily, attracting people from all over the world. Twice today.

So, welcome, fictional serial killer tranny fans!

Next time, find a hacksaw

If you're a smart person, what would be the last place you'd want to run to after being caught committing a crime? Probably a police station, right? Well, unfortunately for this guy, he's not a smart person:

A man caught breaking into a German supermarket late at night escaped despite being handcuffed to railings -- only to be arrested after he ran to a nearby police station to get the cuffs removed.

"It was stupid of him," said a police spokesman in Frankfurt Monday. "They took the cuffs off, but they kept him."

A security guard had cuffed the man and held three others after spotting the break-in. But by the time officers arrived, the man had managed to escape, police said.

Arriving at the police station, the 19-year-old told officers he had been locked up by a friend as a joke, and asked for their help. The officers at first went along with the ruse, "also laughing at the man's apparent misfortune," police said.

The police, being suspicious people by nature, didn't believe his story and got him to confess what he'd done. Who could have possibly seen that coming?

Well, everyone but him, I guess.