‘There are days when it is agony to read the news, because people are so goddamned stupid. Petty and stupid. Hateful and stupid. Just plain stupid. And nothing makes them stupider than religion.
Here’s a story that will destroy your hopes for a reasonable humanity.
Webster Cook says he smuggled a Eucharist, a small bread wafer that to Catholics symbolic of the Body of Christ after a priest blesses it, out of mass, didn’t eat it as he was supposed to do, but instead walked with it.
This isn’t the stupid part yet. [..]’
‘Late last year, the writer, polemicist and fierce proponent of the US-led invasion of Iraq Christopher Hitchens attempted, in a piece for the online magazine Slate, to draw a distinction between what he called techniques of “extreme interrogation” and “outright torture”.
From this, his foes inferred that since it was Hitchens’ belief that America did not stoop to the latter, the practice of waterboarding – known to be perpetrated by US forces against certain “high-value clients” in Iraq and elsewhere – must fall under the former heading.
Enraged by what they saw as an exercise in elegant but offensive sophistry, some of the writer’s critics suggested that Hitchens give waterboarding (which may sound like some kind of fun aquatic pastime, but is probably best summarised as enforced partial drowning) a whirl, just to see what it was like. Did the experience feel like torture?
And amazingly, he has done just that. [..]’
‘A new Texas law requires every computer repair technician to obtain a private investigator’s license, according to a lawsuit filed in Austin. Violators can face a $4,000 fine and one year in jail, as well as a $10,000 civil penalty.
Unlicensed computer shops will have to close down until they obtain a private investigator’s license.
A private investigator’s license can be obtained by acquiring a criminal justice degree or by getting a three-year apprenticeship under a licensed private investigator. [..]
In the Austin American-Statesman, State Rep. Joe Driver, (R-Garland) explains the intent of the law, and claims it does not place such restrictions on most computer shops.’
‘A couple telephoned police in the middle of the night after finding a man in their basement covered head to toe in barbecue sauce.
“He told the officers that it was urban camouflage,” said the homeowner.
This happened in Wisconsin.
The homeowners say they woke up to whistling sounds.
The husband grabbed his shotgun and headed toward the basement where he found the sauced-up intruder.
He held him at gunpoint until police arrived.
The guy told officers he covered himself in barbecue sauce because he wanted to hide from the government.
He now faces burglary charges.’
‘The “spiritual” effects of psilocybin from so-called sacred mushrooms last for more than a year and may offer a way to help patients with fatal diseases or addictions, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.
The researchers also said their findings show there are safe ways to test psychoactive drugs on willing volunteers, if guidelines are followed.
In 2006, Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and colleagues gave psilocybin to 36 volunteers and asked them how it felt. Most reported having a “mystical” or “spiritual” experience and rated it positively.
More than a year later, most still said the experience increased their sense of well-being or life satisfaction, Griffiths and colleagues report in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.
“This is a truly remarkable finding,” Griffiths said in a statement. “Rarely in psychological research do we see such persistently positive reports from a single event in the laboratory.”‘
‘A 19-year-old man dressed as a penis was arrested for disturbing a high school graduation today at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.
Calvin Morett of 337 Pyramid Pine Estates allegedly interrupted the Saratoga Springs High School graduation by marching across SPAC’s stage in an inflatable 6-foot penis costume while diplomas were being given out, Saratoga Springs Police Sgt. Sean Briscoe said.
Morett purchased the full-body costume and sprayed parts of the 5,000 people in the crowd with Silly String, Briscoe said.
His motive? “He thought it would be funny,” Briscoe said. [..]
“Once I stopped laughing, he was pretty easy to catch because he was tripping on the lower portion of the costume,” said Briscoe, who made the arrest.’
‘Police killed a 27-year-old man as he kicked, punched and stomped a toddler to death despite other people’s attempts to stop him on a dark, country road, authorities said.
Investigators on Sunday were trying to establish the relationship between the suspect and the child they say he killed Saturday night. The Stanislaus County coroner said the boy appeared to be between 1 and 2 years old based on his size, according to county sheriff’s deputy Royjindar Singh.
“It’s been a long night of wondering, ‘Why?’ — not only for the officers and the passers-by who stopped and tried to help out, but for anyone. Why would somebody do this?” Singh said.
Singh said the coroner does not plan to confirm the identities of the suspect and victim until Monday. Because his injuries were so severe, the child will have to be identified through a blood or DNA test, he said.’
‘Transit police have identified the man seen with a young girl on-board a bus at Sullivan Station Sunday night.
Officers have met with both the young girl, and the family member who was with her on the bus.
A passenger noticed a man holding the child’s hand. That passenger says she overheard the girl say she was hungry, and the man told her to “Please be quiet.”
T police say there was no criminal conduct. They consider the case closed.’
‘The chief judge of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals posted sexually explicit photos and videos on a Web site he maintained that he has now blocked to the public, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday on its Web site.
The revelation about Judge Alex Kozinski came as opening statements were under way in an obscenity trial he is presiding over in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.
Kozinski, 57, told the Times that he thought the material on his Web site, which included a video of a man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal, couldn’t be seen by the public. He took the site down and said he didn’t believe any of the images were obscene.
“Is it prurient? I don’t know what to tell you,” he told the newspaper. “I think it’s odd and interesting. It’s part of life.”‘
‘A peace campaigner from Newtown will tomorrow ask Reading magistrates for a warrant to arrest George W Bush.
Peter Burt, of Biko Court, is taking his case to court to try to get the American president arrested for war crimes.
Mr Burt, of Reading Peace Group, plans to outline the offences that ‘Dubya’, left, has committed and the international laws that he has broken, including the invasion of Iraq, the bombing of Afghanistan and the abduction, illegal detention and torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
He said: “The historians of the future will mention the name Bush in the same breath as the names of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and other great criminals who have committed the most appalling crimes that humanity has known.
“I will be asking Reading magistrates to stand up for international law by issuing an arrest warrant so that George Bush can be held to account for his crimes in the International Criminal Court.”‘
‘Bethlehem Police arrested a man Wednesday after they say he followed two female teenagers in his car and offered them money to allow him to smell their feet.
Police say John Robinson, Jr., 32, of Selkirik, trailed the teens in his gold and brown 1989 Chevrolet pick-up truck on Glenmont Road sometime on Wednesday.
Robinson approached the teens, according to police, and offered them 20 dollars for the chance to smell their feet in order to satisfy a sexual gratificaation.
Robinson was arrested Thursday and charged with harrassment and endangering the welfare of a child.’
‘German police have discovered a well-preserved WWII anti-aircraft cannon in a German man’s garage in part of a series of raids that uncovered more than €100,000 in illegal weapons, German daily Berliner Morgenpost reported on Thursday.
Police discovered the flak cannon, used by the German Wehrmacht in the Second World War, after conducting a search on a family home in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. The 49-year-old resident was in possession of 200 illegal firearms, one kilogramme of explosives, and 15,000 rounds of ammunition. The anti-aircraft cannon was resting where a car would normally park.
“I thought I’d seen everything, but you can always be surprised,” chief investigator Manfred Schmandra told the paper.’
‘ Two teenagers who say they hijacked Comcast’s Web portal on Thursday also say they expect to be arrested for their actions.
“I wish I was a minor right now because this is going to be really bad,” 19-year-old “Defiant” told Wired’s Kevin Poulsen, who managed to get a one-hour phone interview with Defiant and his 18-year-old cohort “EBK.”
“I slept in my clothes, because the last time they came, I was in my underwear with my dong hanging out and shit,” Defiant said of a past raid.
On Thursday, Comcast’s portal was defaced, leaving some e-mail subscribers without service. On the site, the hackers referenced their group: “KRYOGENICS Defiant and EBK RoXed Comcast.”‘
‘Two Australian burglars broke into a house – only to find it full of police officers staging a drugs raid.
The pair jemmied open a window to get into the house in a midnight raid in Melbourne, reports the Herald Sun.
But they had been beaten to it by police officers who had just burst through the door to search for drugs.
The property was allegedly being used for growing hydroponic cannabis, and the detectives were on a raid to arrest the resident, a man in his 20s.
The startled burglars fled, but were caught a couple of days later, said Det Sen-Sgt Paul Cassidy, of Melton detectives.
“It is unusual,” he said, but declined to comment on whether the burglars had been after money or drugs.’
‘[..] Largent fulfilled the pop-culture dream that was popularized in such movies as Office Space and Superman 3 – stealing a large sum of money, $50,000 to be exact, a few pennies at a time.
Largent used a massive fraud scheme to trick Google Checkout and online brokers like E-trade and Schwab to send him the sum, a few cents at a time. The fraud was made possible by a common practice relatively unknown to the general public. When users open up accounts with these sites, the site sends a tiny payment from a few cents to a few dollars to the user. The payment is meant to verify that the user has access to the account and that it’s active.
By opening 58,000 such accounts, Largent funneled money through the channels into a few private bank accounts. Largent raked in $8,000 from Google’s Checkout alone.’
‘ A homeless woman lived in the closet of a Japanese man for one year before she was found and arrested.
Apparently the fact that someone was living in his home wasn’t enough to tip him off. It took the fact that food was missing from his house to give him a hint that something was wrong. Since he lived alone, and didn’t have any rats, he installed security cameras in his rooms and set them up to transmit to his mobile phone.
Shortly after, he saw something in those images, and thinking that there was a burglar in the house, he called the police. When the police arrived, they found the house locked, but when they entered the house they found something they didn’t expect.’
‘A call for a woman armed with a taser at a high school Wednesday morning turned out to be a man in a dress. [..]
“As we were walking up to the classroom, I saw some guy in a dress, in pink rubber boots. It looked pretty ridiculous, I’m not going to lie,” said senior Ian Metz. He says he wasn’t scared by the stranger until he thought he saw a gun in the man’s hand.
It was actually a taser, but it was enough to send Metz running into class to tell his teacher.
“It’s going to sound completely out of nowhere, but there’s a man out there with a gun and pink boots,” Metz told his teacher. [..]
“He has posted a lot of things on the internet that certainly need to be cleared up,” said Cmdr. Tor Bjornstad, Olympia Police. [..]
In the Capital High School Tragedy posting, there is a thread that reads “In about an hour or so, teens from Capital High School will be parking out from my house, and littering as usual. If i (sic) SHOOT ONE, perhaps the FIRST ONE TO PARK OUTSIDE, Can i (sic) PLEASE HAVE SOMEONE TO TALK TO ABOUT MY GENDER ISSUES?”‘
‘A donkey has been sent to prison in southern Mexico for a brutal case of ass-ault and battery.
The animal was locked up at a local jail that normally holds people for public drunkenness and other disturbances after it bit and kicked two men near a ranch in the state of Chiapas.
The two victims accuse it of biting one of them in the chest and then kicking the other as he came to the rescue, fracturing his ankle.
Police said it took half a dozen men to control the enraged beast.’
‘A 16-year-old Pasco High School student was arrested Tuesday and charged with aggravated domestic violence after allegedly spiking her mother’s food.
The deputies said the girl’s mother was allergic to many types of food. Her allergies are actually so severe that she carries around an EpiPen, a spring-loaded injector of epinephrine or adrenaline, which prevents her from entering anaphylactic shock.
On May 7, when deputies said the teen added seasoning salt to her mother’s food, the 39-year-old woman had a severe allergic reaction.
Apparently, the woman’s reaction was so serious that she couldn’t inject herself with the EpiPen, as usual, and her teenage daughter had to do it for her.’
‘A surge in US airstrikes within densely populated areas of Iraq has led to a dramatic rise in civilian casualties.
According to the Washington Post, ever since an attempted crackdown on Shi’ite militias by the Iraqi government in March, which led to increased attacks on the Green Zone in Baghdad that killed some Americans, the US military has been firing missiles almost every day into the crowded Shi’ite slum of Sadr City.
Residents describe the attacks as indiscriminate and say they have led to many civilian deaths. However, the US Army states that they choose their targets carefully and often refrain from firing for fear of civilian casualties. [..]
CNN reports further on Iraqi victims of US gunfire, noting that “anger against the Americans is only increasing.”‘
‘At 2:25 P.M., I happened to be down on the street, smoking a cigarette with a co-worker. Out of the blue, I hear “Splat,” followed by piercing, vivid screams of fear and nauseous anxiety.
Suddenly, I saw two girls running down the side of the street with blood and muscle tissue covering their faces. And I just walked around, asking myself what the hell was going on.
In the confusion, my buddy told me to turn around. I did, and there it was: [..]’
‘Blake Dwyer remembers pain:
And shouting.
And fear.
“I thought a swarm of wasps was after me,” the 17-year-old Guyer High School athlete said. “I was trying to fight them off.”
He doesn’t remember the epileptic seizure he suffered July 18, 2007, when he was 16.
He doesn’t remember fighting to keep from being tied to a stretcher or hitting a paramedic.
His brother, Travis Baker, 17, remembers all of it. He recalls screaming at Corinth police to stop shocking Blake with a Taser. His mother, Deana, remembers hearing Travis crying on the telephone.
“He was saying, ‘Blake is having a seizure, and they’re hurting him,'” she said.’
‘Police in Russia are investigating after pupils stripped off their clothes, climbed walls or lay on the floor laughing after their school dinners were spiked with drugs.
The teenaged students were given ecstasy in their soup and drinks at their school in the city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk in eastern Russia.
Doctors who were called in said the students showed signs of intoxication and prosecutors later found traces of ecstasy.’
‘A man who allegedly photographed more than 3,000 women’s bottoms as they toured Venice has been arrested.
The man was stopped after police became suspicious of a large bag he was carrying as he followed women through St Mark’s Square. [..]
Police said he was filming through a small hole in the side of the bag.
The officers had become suspicious when they realised he was only following women with short skirts. When they stopped or bent down to pick something up, he was clearly trying to angle the bag behind them.
When the voyeur was finally caught police recovered several DVDs which held more than 3,000 images of women’s bottoms.’
‘Two children and their mother lived for about two months with the decaying body of a 90-year-old woman on the toilet of their home’s only bathroom, on the advice of a religious “superior” who claimed the corpse would come back to life, authorities said Friday.
The children—a 15-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy—cried hysterically Wednesday after a deputy who came to their Necedah home looking for Magdeline Alvina Middlesworth ordered them out because of the stench from her body.
The children were in foster care Friday. Their mother, Tammy Lewis, and self-described “bishop” Alan Bushey remained in custody on felony counts of being a party to causing mental harm to a child. [..]
Lewis told the deputy that Middlesworth had died about two months earlier, but that God told her Middlesworth would come to life if she prayed hard enough.
She said she couldn’t say anything more until she spoke with her “superior”—Bushey, 57, also known as Bishop John Peter Bushey.’
‘A self-proclaimed manicurist decided to open for business in Concord on Monday without the state’s approval, attacking state licensing laws with a nail file. [..]
His first and only customer was Kat Dillon, of Frost, Texas, who said it was her first manicure. It was also Fisher’s first time giving one.
“I’m going to buff it and shine it with one of these, a buffer, basically,” he said.
The manicure performed without a license was undertaken right outside the state Board of Barbering, Cosmetology and Esthetics office.
“The reason I’m doing this is because it’s one of the harmless things I can do to prove that the law is unjust,” Fisher said. “Without the government’s permission, you can’t do nails, hair, lot of other things.”
Fisher said his manicure movement was inspired by the movie “Ghandi” [..]’
‘A 13 year old from Texas who stole his Dad’s credit card and ordered two hookers from an escort agency, has today been convicted of fraud and given a three year community order.
Ralph Hardy, a 13 year old from Newark, Texas confessed to ordering an extra credit card from his father’s existing credit card company, and took his friends on a $30,000 spending spree, culminating in playing “Halo” on an Xbox with a couple of hookers in a Texas motel.
The credit card company involved said it was regular practice to send extra credit cards out as long as all security questions are answered.
The escort girls who were released without charge, told the arresting officers something was up when the kids said they would rather play Xbox than get down to business. [..]
Ralph’s ambition is to one day become a politician.’
‘alright, i got a computer that used to be networked onto a server with classlinks in school or whatever., well i got it home thinking i could reformat the hard drive, yeah…no. they set up a password on the computer so when i go to the utility options or whatever, and it has a password as soon as it opens. and to let you know nothing boots. i tried installing XP but im almost 100% sure that that password is blockin the coputer from accessing it, bc when i go to install XP it says no mass storgae device found. So how do i over ride this password. i changed the RAM and switched out the hard drives, then i took out that little battery for 10 min or so..no luck, Somone please help me.’
‘Highly intoxicated and dissatisfied with her sex life, a 28-year-old woman was arrested Tuesday for stealing her husband’s wallet and later assaulting the deputy who booked her into jail.
The meltdown, which deputies witnessed along with the couple’s 3- and 4-year-old children, started when the husband, 24, had told his wife they had three hours to quit smoking, drinking, swearing and engaging in some sex acts because “they were going to be good Christians now,” the woman said.
The man said she had woken him up to have relations, but then became disappointed and angry. [..]
When deputies arrived, the woman denied any assault had taken place, and repeatedly, without sparing a vulgar euphemism, told the deputies about how unsatisfied she was with her sex life — some of the time carrying around a half-gallon of whiskey while doing so.
During an argument with one of the deputies, the woman picked up the family’s 20-pound dog and threw it at the deputy, who caught it, the report said.’
‘A California man has been arrested after police say they found about 300 dead cats stuffed into freezers in his house.
Animal control officers also removed 30 live cats from 47-year-old Michael Louis Vondueren’s home over the weekend.
Vondueren was arrested on suspicion of possessing an automatic weapon and obstructing police officers. Animal control officers also are considering issuing citations.
Sgt Jim Hose says Vondueren interfered with officers when they tried to enter his house. The sergeant says they found three freezers crammed with dead cats and the house littered with cat faeces.’
