moonbuggy

`When burying a body in the backyard, don’t put it too close to the septic system. That was one piece of advice offered on Wednesday to a business conference on preparing for a potentially lethal bird flu andemic.

Preparations for a global flu pandemic, which many experts believe is overdue, have begun but the grisly details are horrific and the number of sick could quickly overwhelm the health care system.’

`Investigators found saws and chain saw oil at the home of a Sioux Falls woman suspected of killing and dismembering another woman.

Search warrant affidavits filed Wednesday list an inventory of items removed from the house where Daphne Wright was living.

“There was a wide variety of items taken from the house,” said Dave Nelson, state’s attorney for Minnehaha County.

Authorities asked for a search warrant for the house after determining Wright was the last person known to see Darlene VanderGiesen. The two had a conversation in the parking lot of a Pizza Hut where police later found the victim’s truck abandoned, according to court documents.

Wright is accused of killing VanderGiesen because she thought VanderGiesen had a romantic relationship with her girlfriend.’

`A Pakistani Muslim cleric and his followers have offered rewards amounting to over million (.35 million) for anyone who kills Danish cartoonists who drew caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad that have enraged Muslims worldwide.

Maulana Yousef Qureshi, a cleric in the north-western city of Peshawar, said during Friday prayers he has personally offered to pay a bounty of 500,000 rupees (,377), and two of his congregation put up additional rewards of million (.35 million) and one million rupees plus a car.

Qureshi repeated the offer at rally later in the city to protest against the cartoons.’

`The corpses of at least 20 newborn babies and fetuses are found each week in the sewers of Zimbabwe’s capital, some having been flushed down toilets, Harare city authorities said, according to state media Friday. [..]

“Apart from upsetting the normal flow of waste, it is not right from a moral standpoint. Some of the things that are happening now are shocking,” the state Herald, a government mouthpiece, reported Chideya as saying.’

`Officials said Leland E. “Leef” Holly IV, 23, of Wexford, fell down a flight of steps Friday night, during a birthday party in Greenfield.

He was put on a couch by his friends, who continued to celebrate.

They did not realize he was dead until Saturday afternoon.

The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the student died from blunt force trauma to the head.’

`An Australian TV channel has broadcast previously unpublished images showing apparent US abuse of prisoners in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib jail in 2003.

The images on SBS TV are thought to be from the same source as those that caused an outcry around the world and led to several US troops being jailed.

The new images show “homicide, torture and sexual humiliation”, SBS said.

The US has said the images could only “incite unnecessary violence” and endanger US military personnel.’

And here’s the new Abu Ghraib images themselves.

`A jilted romeo is accused of launching an elaborate land and sea operation to dispose of his male competition – breaking into the man’s luxurious canal-front home on the Gold Coast and stabbing him with a fishing knife before chasing the naked couple through the mansion. [..]

Corfield and Gentry, who became live-in lovers just weeks before the February 2003 attack and are now engaged, had been lying in bed about 10pm when Arroyo, dressed in a wetsuit and holding a large knife, allegedly appeared in their bedroom. [..]

Mr Fuller showed the jury what appeared to be a timeline, or to-do list, that was later found in Arroyo’s Main Beach apartment which contained a list of items including “crowbar for door”, “wetsuit” and “snorkel”. The word “kill” was among the jottings.’

`A Serbian funeral director is facing legal action after organising the burial of a man who was still alive.

The mistake was noticed only as the coffin was being lowered into the ground, prompting angry scenes from grieving relatives.

The family from Novi Sad in Serbia had been told that the head of their family, Bogoljub Topalovic, 84, had died in hospital. But the body of another man who had died at the same hospital was in the coffin.

Mourners realised a mistake had been made when Bogoljub rang his daughter on her cellphone during the funeral service to ask why no one had been to visit him for a few days.’

`The number of Japanese who killed themselves in suicide pacts made over the internet rose sharply last year.

Police said 91 people died in the pacts in 2005, compared with 55 in 2004 and 34 in 2003, when the records started.

Alarm at the rise has led to increased vigilance by internet service providers, who now report suspected suicide pacts to the authorities.

Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and the pacts may appeal to those scared to die alone.’

`An 87-year-old grandmother was jailed this morning after being charged with shooting her 80-year-old caretaker. [..]

Police arrived and surrounded the home only to have 80-year-old J. Elmer Clark hobble out of the home. Clark had been shot in the lower left leg.

“We could tell he had been shot,” Krieger said. “Then we see this older lady come out of the house.”

Krieger said officers were stunned when Pauline Shelby Mattson told officers that she had shot Clark. Police confiscated a .38-caliber revolver believed to have been used in the shooting.’

`US immigration officials have arrested a Haitian woman after baggage screeners found a human head in her luggage at a Florida airport.

Myrlene Severe, 30, has been charged with failing to declare the head on a customs form and transporting “hazardous material”. [..]

Ms Severe said that the head was to ward off evil sprits, officials said.’

`Willie Williamson’s mother had agreed to let her son come home a little later than usual. It was Super Bowl Sunday, after all, and his buddy had a 10:30 curfew.

But at 10:36 p.m., she got a call from a neighbor — the call every parent dreads — and rushed out the door.

“I talked to Willie about drugs,” Gloria Williamson says now. “I talked to Willie about drinking. I talked to Willie about if you go out with a girl, you have to respect her … but this is something I thought I would never have to talk to him about.”‘

`One of the world’s last Stone Age tribes has murdered two fishermen whose boat drifted on to a desert island in the Indian Ocean.

The Sentinelese, thought to number between 50 and 200, have rebuffed all contact with the modern world, firing a shower of arrows at anyone who comes within range.

They are believed to be the last pre-Neolithic tribe in the world to remain isolated and appear to have survived the 2004 Asian tsunami.’

`A senior military commander of the Taliban says the Taliban will give 100 kilograms of gold as a reward to anyone who killed the person responsible for “blasphemous” cartoons in Denmark, Afghan Islamic Press has reported.

“Any one who will kill the person responsible for blasphemous cartoons of Prophet Mohammed in Denmark would be rewarded 100 kilogram of gold by the Taliban,” Mullah Dadullah, chief military commander of the Taliban, said.

Dadullah also said the Taliban would give 5kg of gold as a reward to anyone who killed any military personnel from Denmark, Norway and Germany in Afghanistan.’

`Think about the title: Please Kill Me, I’m a Faggot Nigger Jew. That really says it all for this film, it’s a truly amazing work. A man, driven to desperation because of being a despised minority within a despised minority within a despised minority. It must be very hard to deal with such feelings of such hatred, this film shows the raw emotion very clearly. If only every movie were like this.’

`Britain’s fattest man has died of a heart attack aged 60.

Fifty-five stone Jack Taylor had a huge fish supper before his death in his sleep. [..]

He would eat six fried eggs, bacon and a whole loaf of bread for breakfast and scoffed seven cream cakes in a sitting.

But in the week before his death he got a cold and went off his food.

A neighbour said: “We thought alarm bells should start ringing then. It was sad.”’

`Football star Lomana Tresor LuaLua was last night mourning the death of his 18-month-old son — after the news was kept from him by officials for two weeks.

The tot died in Britain on January 20 from a mystery illness.

But Congolese chiefs did not tell their captain to avoid distracting him as he played in the African Cup of Nations.

They only broke the news after the Democratic Republic of Congo lost their quarter final to hosts Egypt.’

`In the latest twist in the debate over presidential powers, a Justice Department official suggested that in certain circumstances, the president might have the power to order the killing of terrorist suspects inside the United States. Steven Bradbury, acting head of the department’s Office of Legal Counsel, went to a closed-door Senate intelligence committee meeting last week to defend President George W. Bush’s surveillance program. [..]

A Justice Department official, who asked not to be ID’d because of the sensitive subject, said Bradbury’s remarks were made during an “academic discussion” of theoretical contingencies. In real life, the official said, the highest priority of those hunting a terrorist on U.S. soil would be to capture that person alive and interrogate him.’

`Modesto police said Kelli Pratt wanted her feeble 65-year-old husband to have sex with her the night of Oct. 7.

When Arthur Pratt refused, police said, his 45-year-old wife held him down and bit him repeatedly during a savage attack that ultimately killed him.

Arthur, whose skin was riddled with more than 20 deep tooth marks, died Sunday at Doctors Memorial Center in Modesto — six days after the attack.’

`An 80-year-old worker at a shuttered southern Illinois petting zoo has died at an Indiana hospital after being mauled by one of the zoo’s black bears.

Tom Phillips’ daughter-in-law said the man had continued to work at the Spotted Acres farm and petting zoo just outside Flora, Ill., since it closed to the public a couple years ago.

Deb Phillips said her father-in-law was trying to corral an escaped black bear Wednesday night with a bag of dog food when the bear attacked.’

`A Martha’s Vineyard man is charged with taking morphine from his mother’s intravenous drip minutes after she died.

Robert S. Peatie, 37, was arrested last week after a nurse at Cape Cod Hospital caught him pouring the morphine into a water bottle, the Cape Cod Times reported Friday.

His 62-year-old mother, Linda Peatie, had just died from an undisclosed illness.’

`”Once the door closed, the nightmare began,” prosecutor Mike Wolfe said. According to him, Runge, 36, repeatedly raped Gutierrez as her daughter watched. He then moved on to Jessica. After cutting their throats, Runge threw paint thinner and a lighted match onto the bed to try to conceal his crime, prosecutors said.

Defense attorneys didn’t try to soften the monster image prosecutors painted. But attorney William Wolf said his client is insane and needs treatment.

“These are the mad acts of an insane, irrational, illogical mind,” Wolf said. He told jurors that within Runge’s brain, “The wiring is all wrong.”

All of that means Runge has “poor impulse control, poor planning and poor judgment.”‘

`Fellow workers and regular patrons at the Kensington Avenue restaurant, where Thomas Erhardt had done some electrical work and odd jobs for four years, weren’t buying that this was a merciful act.

“When you brutally kill your father [with a hammer], where’s the mercy in that?” Storm asked. “There’s no justification for that at all. If you wanted to do a mercy killing, give him some sleeping pills.”‘

`A naked man, struck and killed on Interstate 90 just west of Snoqualmie Pass early today, was the owner of three McDonald’s fast-food restaurant franchises in Ellensburg. [..]

At about 4 a.m., the truck crossed the median and the eastbound lanes, coming to a stop when it struck a guardrail, the patrol said in a news release.

Arnes then apparently left the truck, took off his clothes and stood in the eastbound lanes — Lane 2 — where he was struck up a white pickup, Trooper Kelly Spangler said.’

`In a startling revelation, the former commander of Abu Ghraib prison testified that Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, former senior U.S. military commander in Iraq, gave orders to cover up the cause of death for some female American soldiers serving in Iraq.

Last week, Col. Janis Karpinski told a panel of judges at the Commission of Inquiry for Crimes against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration in New York that several women had died of dehydration because they refused to drink liquids late in the day. They were afraid of being assaulted or even raped by male soldiers if they had to use the women’s latrine after dark.’

`A 13-year-old boy who entered an elephant’s open-air cage to feed it a mango was crushed to death on Tuesday. [..]

“Maia understood that its territory had been invaded by a stranger, which is why the elephant trapped Guillermo with the trunk, taking him by the legs and then crushing him with one of its front feet,” said Carlos Britos, a veterinarian and director of the zoo.

He described the 35-year-old elephant as docile and obedient with him and other handlers. [..]

“She obeyed and let go of the child, but he was already dead,” he said.’

`There was an emotional farewell yesterday at Vancouver International Airport as medical marijuana crusader Steve Kubby reluctantly returned to the U.S. to face a jail sentence.

Kubby’s supporters and family were on hand as he boarded a flight to California escorted by his American lawyer, who worried he could die without access to pot in jail.

“The officials in Canada might be sending him back to a death sentence,” said Bill McPike.’

`Milwaukee police are now considering the body found encased in concrete in a Milwaukee rental house over the weekend a homicide. [..]

At least two families are now wondering how they could have lived there with a dead body for so long and not even have known it.

“You could see like a little lump in it, and then it looked like a foot sticking up, kind of, but with cement over it,” past resident Cortez Thurman said.

Thurman said his family always joked about a dead body buried in the basement of their old home.

“I used to lift weights down there and everything, and we used to always joke around, like, what if it’s a dead body up under there?” Thurman said.’

‘A dominatrix was acquitted of manslaughter Monday in the death of a man who prosecutors say suffered a heart attack while strapped to a replica of a medieval rack. [..]

Barbara Asher, a 56-year-old woman who called herself Mistress Lauren M, was also cleared of dismemberment. [..]

Asher had her boyfriend chop up the body of the 275-pound retired telephone company worker, and they dumped it behind a restaurant in Maine, prosecutors said. His remains have never been found.’

followup to Lawyer Dons Dominatrix Mask in Trial.

Update: Found a site with a picture of the prosecutor in a leather mask. Amusing. 🙂

‘1. Few people actually saw the Challenger tragedy unfold live on television.
2. The shuttle did not explode in the common definition of that word.
3. The flight, and the astronauts’ lives, did not end at that point, 73 seconds after launch.
4. The design of the booster, while possessing flaws subject to improvement, was neither especially dangerous if operated properly, nor the result of political interference.
5. Replacement of the original asbestos-bearing putty in the booster seals was unrelated to the failure.
6. There were pressures on the flight schedule, but none of any recognizable political origin.
7. Claims that the disaster was the unavoidable price to be paid for pioneering a new frontier were self-serving rationalizations on the part of those responsible for incompetent engineering management — the disaster should have been avoidable.’

Both the official NASA transcript of the cockpit voice recorder and the alleged secret transcript are on the web.