News of the Weird for May 08, 2012

by the Editors at Andrews McMeel Syndication

News of the Weird | May 8th, 2012

Condo developer Larry Hall is already one-quarter sold out of the upscale doomsday units he is building in an abandoned underground Cold War-era Atlas-F missile silo near Salina, Kan. He told an Agence France-Presse reporter in April that his 14-story structure would house seven floors of apartments ($1 million to $2 million each, cash up front), with the rest devoted to dry food storage, filtered-water tanks and an indoor farm, which would raise fish and vegetables to sustain residents for five years. The 9-foot-thick concrete walls (built to protect rockets from a Soviet nuclear attack) would be buttressed by entrance security to ward off the savages who were not wise enough to prepare against famine, meteors, nuclear war and the like. Hall said he expects to be sold out this year and begin work on another of the three silos he has options to buy. [Agence France-Presse via Google News, 4-9-2012]

-- Dan O'Leary, the city manager of Keller, Tex. (pop. 27,000), faced with severe budget problems, was unable to avoid the sad job of handing out pink slips. For instance, he determined that one of Keller's three city managers had to go, and in April, he laid himself off. According to a March Fort Worth Star-Telegram report, O'Leary neither intended to retire nor had other offers pending, and he had aroused no negative suspicions as to motive. He simply realized the city could be managed more cost-effectively by the two lower-paid officials. [Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 3-21-2012]

-- Herman Wallace, 70, and Albert Woodfox, 65, have been held in solitary confinement (only one hour a day outside) since 1972 in the Louisiana State Prison at Angola, after being convicted (via flimsy evidence and a convenient prison snitch) of killing a guard. A third convict for the murder, Robert King, who was in solitary for 29 years but then released, explained to BBC News in an April dispatch what it's like to live inside 54 square feet for 23 hours a day, for over 14,000 straight days. The lawyer working to free Wallace and Woodfox said the soul-deadened men were "potted plants." [BBC News, 4-4-2012]

(1) A federal court magistrate in Melbourne, Australia, decided to split a divorcing couple's assets in half in February after listening to tedious details of their 20-year marriage. The "couple" lived apart except for vacations and kept their finances separate, constantly "invoic[ing] each other," according to the Daily Telegraph, for amounts as trifling as a $1.60 lightbulb. (2) Though many Americans act as though they are in love with themselves, only Nadine Schweigert became an honest woman. She married herself in March in front of 45 family members and friends in Fargo, N.D., vowing "to enjoy inhabiting my own life and to relish a lifelong love affair with my beautiful self." And then she was off on a solo honeymoon. [Herald Sun (Melbourne), 2-27-2012] [Fargo Forum, 3-15-2012]

On Feb. 1st, the New Jersey Honor Legion -- a civic association with more than 6,000 members in law enforcement -- nominated Frank DiMattina as "Citizen of the Month" for offering his catering hall in Woodbridge, N.J., numerous times for gatherings of police and firefighters. The nomination came three weeks after DiMattina (also known as "Frankie D") was convicted of shaking down a rival bidder for a school-lunch contract in New York City. Federal prosecutors told the New York Daily News that DiMattina is mobbed up--an associate of the Genovese family's John "Johnny Sausage" Barbato. [New York Daily News, 3-26-2012]

-- In January, Ms. Navey Skinner, 34, was charged with robbing the Chase Bank in Arlington, Wash., after passing a teller a note that read, "Put the money in the bag now or [d]ie." According to investigators, Skinner subsequently told them she had been thinking about robbing a bank and then, while inside the Chase Bank, "accidentally robbed" it. [Daily Herald (Everett, Wash.), 1-30-2012]

-- Emanuel Kuvakos, 56, was arrested in April and charged with sending two Chicago sports team executives emails that threatened them with violence for having stolen his "ideas" for winning "championships." One of the victims was a former general manager of the Chicago Cubs, a team that famously has not won a National League championship in 66 years, nor a World Series in 103. [Chicago Tribune, 4-18-2012]

-- In April, Arizona (recently the home of cutting-edge legislation) almost set itself up for the impossible task of trying to prohibit any "annoy[ing]" or "offen[sive]" or "profane" language on the Internet. The state House passed the bill, which was endorsed 30-0 by the state Senate, ostensibly to make an anti-stalking telephone regulation applicable to "digital" communications. (Just as the bill was about to go to the governor for signature, sponsors suddenly realized the futility of the bill's directives, and on April 4th, withdrew it.) [Phoenix New Times, 4-4-2012]

-- Finally, a nationally prominent judge has taken on prison "nutriloaf" as a constitutional issue. In March, U.S. Appeals Court Judge Richard Posner reinstated a dismissed lawsuit by a Milwaukee County Jail inmate who claimed that the mystery meat gave him an "anal fissure." Posner wrote that the lower courts needed to rule on whether the food of indeterminate content is "cruel and unusual punishment," since (citing a Wikipedia entry) an anal fissure seems "no fun at all." [American Bar Association Journal, 3-28-2012]

-- Gay Rights in Limbo: (1) The Missouri House of Representatives, after several times rejecting "sexual orientation" as one of the legally prohibited categories of discrimination, managed to find another category in March (to join "race," "religion" and so forth) that is deserving of special protection: licensed concealed-weapons carriers. (2) The Kansas Supreme Court ruled in April that Joshua Coman, convicted of having sex with a dog, does not have to register as a sex offender. Activists had urged that the sodomy law on which Coman was convicted be declared unconstitutional, since it appears to equate human-animal sex with man-man and woman-woman sex. However, the Court declined, instead noting that Coman had been convicted of a misdemeanor and that only felons are required to register. [St. Louis Public Radio, 3-11-2012]

In March, West Des Moines, Iowa, police opened an investigation, with video surveillance, of a 59-year-old employee of the state's Farm Bureau on suspicion of criminal mischief. According to police documents cited by the Des Moines Register, the man would look through the employee database for photos of attractive female colleagues and then visit their work space after hours and urinate on their chairs. Not only does the man allegedly have a problem, but the Farm Bureau figured it is out $4,500 in damaged chairs. [Des Moines Register, 3-27-2012]

Amateur Hour: (1) CVS supervisor Fenton Graham, 35, of Silver Spring, Md., was arrested as the inside man (with two accomplices) in two drugstore robberies in April. Surveillance video showed that in the second heist, the nervous perp evidently failed to take the money with him, and Graham (the "victim") was seen taking it out to his forgetful partner. (2) Kyle Voss, 24, was charged with four burglaries in Great Falls, Mont., in April after coming upon a private residence containing buckets of coins. According to police, Voss first took the quarters and half-dollars ($3,000), then days later he returned for $700 in dimes and nickels. By the third break-in, the resident had installed surveillance video, and Voss was caught as he came back for a bucket of pennies. [Washington Post, 4-13-2012] [Associated Press via Fox News, 4-17-2012]

Federal court documents revealed in March that AWOL Army Pvt. Brandon Price, 28, had convinced Citibank in January that he spoke for Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen (one of the world's richest men) and convinced the bank to issue Allen (i.e., Price) a new debit card and to change Allen's address from Seattle to Price's address in Pittsburgh. Price/Allen shopped decidedly downscale, running up charges only at Gamestop and Family Dollar, totaling less than $1,000. [Pittsburgh Post Gazette, 3-27-2012]

oddities

News of the Weird for May 06, 2012

by the Editors at Andrews McMeel Syndication

News of the Weird | May 6th, 2012

On Feb. 1st, the New Jersey Honor Legion -- a civic association with more than 6,000 members in law enforcement -- nominated Frank DiMattina as "Citizen of the Month" for offering his catering hall in Woodbridge, N.J., numerous times for gatherings of police and firefighters. The nomination came three weeks after DiMattina (also known as "Frankie D") was convicted of shaking down a rival bidder for a school-lunch contract in New York City. Federal prosecutors told the New York Daily News that DiMattina is mobbed up -- an associate of the Genovese family's John "Johnny Sausage" Barbato. [New York Daily News, 3-26-2012]

-- In January, Ms. Navey Skinner, 34, was charged with robbing the Chase Bank in Arlington, Wash., after passing a teller a note that read, "Put the money in the bag now or (d)ie." According to investigators, Skinner subsequently told them she had been thinking about robbing a bank and then, while inside the Chase Bank, "accidentally robbed" it. [Daily Herald (Everett, Wash.), 1-30-2012]

-- In April, Arizona (recently the home of cutting-edge legislation) almost set itself up for the impossible task of trying to prohibit any "annoy(ing)" or "offen(sive)" or "profane" language on the Internet. The state House passed the bill, which was endorsed 30-0 by the state Senate, ostensibly to make an anti-stalking telephone regulation applicable to "digital" communications. (Just as the bill was about to go to the governor for signature, sponsors suddenly realized the futility of the bill's directives, and on April 4th, withdrew it.) [Phoenix New Times, 4-4-2012]

2012]

oddities

News of the Weird for April 29, 2012

by the Editors at Andrews McMeel Syndication

News of the Weird | April 29th, 2012

In April, a research ship will begin surveying the Atlantic Ocean floor off of Nova Scotia as the first step to building, by 2013, a $300 million private fiber-optic line connecting New York and London financial markets so as to speed up current transmission times -- by about five milliseconds. Those five milliseconds, though (according to an April report in Bloomberg Business Week), will enable the small group of firms that are underwriting the project (and who will have exclusive use of it) to earn millions of dollars per transaction by having their trade sales arrive five milliseconds before their competitors' sales would have arrived. [Bloomberg Business Week, 4-2-2012]

-- Brazil's Safety Net for the Poor: Dr. Ivo Pitanguy, the most celebrated plastic surgeon in the country, apparently earned enough money from well-off clients that he can now "give back," by funding and inspiring more than 200 clinics to provide low-income women with enhancement procedures (face lifts, tummy tucks, butt lifts) at a reduced, and sometimes no, charge. A local anthropology professor told ABC News, for a March dispatch, that "(i)n Brazil, plastic surgery is now seen as something of the norm" (or, as the reporter put it, "(B)eauty is (considered) a right, and the poor deserve to be ravishing, too"). [ABC News, 3-23-2012]

-- In a March interview on Bolivian television, Judge Gualberto Cusi, who was recently elected to Bolivia's Constitutional Tribunal from the indigenous Aymara community, acknowledged that occasionally, when deciding tough cases, he relied on the Aymaran tradition of "reading" coca leaves. "In moments when decisions must be taken, we turn to coca to guide us and show us the way." [BBC News, 3-15-2012]

-- In February, the Life-End Clinic in the Netherlands announced that six mobile euthanasia teams were placed in service countrywide to make assisted-suicide house calls -- provided the client qualified under the nation's strict laws. (Euthanasia, legal in the Netherlands since 2002, is available to people who suffer "unbearable, interminable" pain and for which at least two doctors certify there is "no cure." Panels of doctors, lawyers and ethicists rule on the applications.) [Agence France-Presse via Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 3-1-2012]

-- Two lawsuits filed in Los Angeles recently against the founding family of the religious Trinity Broadcasting Network allege that televangelists Paul and Jan Crouch have spent well over $50 million of worshippers' donations on "personal" expenses, including 13 "mansions," his-and-hers private jets, and a $100,000 mobile home for Mrs. Crouch's dogs. The jets are necessary, the Crouches' lawyer told the Los Angeles Times, because the Crouches receive more death threats than even the president of the United States. Allegedly, the Crouches keep millions of dollars in cash on hand, but according to their lawyer, that is merely out of obedience to the biblical principle of "ow(ing) no man anything." [Los Angeles Times, 3-23-2012; Daily Mail (London), 3-23-2012]

-- High-ranking Vatican administrator Cardinal Domenico Calcagno, 68, fired back at critics in April after an Italian website reported his extensive collection of guns and love of shooting. He told reporters that he owns only 13 weapons and that, "above all," he enjoys "repairing" them rather than shooting them (although, he admitted, "I used to go to shooting ranges"). [Agence France-Presse via Ottawa Citizen, 4-12-2012]

(1) In April, the Tampa Police Department issued preliminary security guidelines to control areas around August's Republican National Convention in the city. Although the Secret Service will control the actual convention arena, Tampa Police are establishing a zone around the arena in which weapons will be confiscated (including sticks, rocks, bottles and slingshots). Police would like to have banned firearms, too, but state law prevents cities from restricting the rights of licensed gun-carriers. (2) South Florida station WPLG-TV reported in March that vendors were openly selling, for about $30, verbatim driver's license test questions and answers, on the street in front of DMV offices. However, when told about it, a DMV official shrugged, pointing out that test-takers still had to memorize them to pass the closed-book exam. [Tampa Bay Times, 4-3-2012] [WPLG-TV, 3-30-2012]

-- Perp's Remorse: (1) Jason Adkins was charged in March in Cynthiana, Ky., with stealing electronic equipment from the home of a friend. According to police, Adkins admitted the break-in but said he felt guilty the next day and returned the items. However, he then admitted breaking back into the home two days after that and re-stealing them. (2) Ivan Barker was sentenced in March in England's Stoke-on-Trent Magistrates Court for stealing a laptop computer and cigarettes from the home of a wheelchair-bound man of his acquaintance. Barker subsequently visited the man and apologized for the theft, but then, during that visit, Barker stole the man's new replacement laptop computer and more cigarettes. [Cynthiana Democrat, 3-23-2012] [ThisIsStaffordshire.com, 3-22- 2012]

-- At a March town meeting in Embden, Maine, residents turned down proposals to rename its most notorious street "Katie Road." Thus, the name will remain, as it has for decades, "Katie Crotch Road." Some residents, in addition to being embarrassed by the name, also noted the cost of constantly replacing the street signs stolen by giggling visitors. (A Kennebec Journal report noted uncertainty about the name's origin. It might refer to how the road splits in two, forming a "Y" shape. On the low side, the name might refer to an early settler who would sit on her front porch without underwear.) [Kennebec Journal, 3-10-2012]

-- Lumpkin County, Ga., judge David Barrett, apparently frustrated by an alleged rape victim's reluctant testimony at a trial in February, blurted out in court that she was "killing her case (against the accused rapist)," and to dramatize the point, pulled out his own handgun and offered it to her, explaining that she might as well shoot her lawyer because the chances for conviction were dropping rapidly. (Five days later, following news reports, Barrett resigned.) [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 2-25-2012; Gainesville Times (Gainesville, Ga.), 3-1-2012]

-- For the first time in years, there was no Easter bunny at Central City Park in Macon, Ga., this year because the county commissioner who runs the sponsoring organization said he was tired of violent parents hogging the Easter egg hunt by "helping" their kids. (Two years ago, Olney High School in Philadelphia barred players' parents from its boys' junior varsity basketball games unless they registered and vowed to obey a code of conduct. In February 2012, the president of the Egyptian Football Association similarly announced that the season would continue but without spectators, because of the probability of violence. Of course, Egypt, unlike Macon, Ga., and Olney High School, has just been through a bloody civil war.) [Macon Telegraph, 4-5-2012] [WTXF-TV, 1-12-2010] [Ahram Online (Cairo), 2-15-2012]

Relentless: (1) In the early hours of Jan. 31, police in Gaston, N.C., were alerted to five burglaries in a two-block area that left shattered glass, broken doors and other damage, but no missing property. There was also a blood trail leading from one store, likely from a break-in boo-boo. (2) In March, England's Canterbury Crown Court heard the evidence against a gang of five who in August and September 2010 attempted to break into seven ATMs, using fancy power tools, but came away empty-handed each time. Brick walls were smashed around three machines, and twice explosives were used, resulting in fires. In each case, alarms were triggered, sending the men away prematurely, including once from an ATM that contained the equivalent of $223,000. [Gaston Gazette, 1-31-2012] [Daily Mail, 3-28-2012]

The Japanese delicacy "fugu" (blowfish) must be properly filleted by trained chefs because of the highly concentrated poison in its tissue, and indeed, a few deaths are reported every year in Japan from people who prepare fugu at home, since a single drop can be fatal. (The additional training, and chef-licensing, partly explains why Tokyo restaurants charge the equivalent of $120 or more for the dish.) However, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, which is apparently newly concerned about restaurant competition, announced recently that it would soon no longer require formal training of fugu chefs, leaving it to individual restaurants to set their own standards. Said one 30-year veteran chef, "We licensed chefs feel this way of thinking is a bit strange." [Reuters, 4-2-2012]

Thanks This Week to Joshua Guthrie and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

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