‘A 48-year-old Phoenix man whom authorities say was choking his 3-year-old granddaughter during an exorcism early Saturday died after struggling with police officers who went into the home to investigate, Phoenix police said.
Police reportedly found Ronald Marquez, of Phoenix, shirtless and choking his granddaughter as her 19-year-old mother, naked and bloody, looked on. The bloodied girl was gasping and screaming as her mother chanted and held a religious picture of some kind, police said.
“It’s very bizarre, (a) very unusual and pretty horrific situation this young child was involved in,” said Sgt. Joel Tranter, a Phoenix police spokesman. [..]
Investigators later learned the man was trying to “squeeze the demons out of the young girl,” Tranter said.’
‘A teenager told how a girl gang sexually abused him and “bayed like a pack of hyenas” as they filmed it on a mobile phone, a court has heard.
During a three-and-a-half hour ordeal the youth was punched, kicked and beaten with a broken broomstick, the Inner London Crown Court heard.
The victim, 18, allegedly owed money to one of the girls who dragged him away from a market in south-east London.
Four girls, the alleged ringleader aged 16 and three aged 17, were in the dock.
The 16-year-old has admitted assault, but denied charges of kidnap, false imprisonment, robbery and causing a person to engage in sexual activity.’
‘All troops, when they occupy and battle insurgent forces, as in Iraq, or Gaza or Vietnam, are placed in “atrocity producing situations.”
In this environment, surrounded by a hostile population, simple acts such as going to a store to buy a can of Coke means you can be killed. This constant fear and stress pushes troops to view everyone around them as the enemy. This hostility is compounded when the enemy, as in Iraq, is elusive, shadowy and hard to find.
The rage soldiers feel after a roadside bomb explodes, killing or maiming their comrades, is one that is easily directed over time to innocent civilians who are seen to support the insurgents. It is a short psychological leap, but a massive moral leap. It is a leap from killing — the shooting of someone who has the capacity to do you harm — to murder — the deadly assault against someone who cannot harm you. The war in Iraq is now primarily about murder. There is very little killing.’
‘Orangutan communication resembles a game of charades, a study suggests.
Researchers from St Andrews University have shown that the animals intentionally modify or repeat their signals to get their messages across.
The scientists said they believed all great apes could have this capability, suggesting that the skill may have evolved millions of years ago.
The study, which is published in the journal Current Biology, involved six orangutans living in two zoos.’
‘Some goofy drunk dude stands on top of an 18 foot ladder and wants to jump off into a covered pool but ends up slipping off and landing head first onto the concrete deck.’
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see it here »
‘Police in Johnson City arrested a Bristol, Virginia, minister for driving under the influence and indecent exposure.
Police say 58-year-old Tommy Tester urinated in front of children at a car wash while wearing a skirt. He will remain free on bond until an October court hearing.
He is also charged with having an open container of alcohol in his vehicle.
Tester is a minister of Gospel Baptist Church and works for Christian radio station W-Z-A-P, 690 A-M. The owner of the radio station, Al Morris, is asking for people to pray for Tester.
A report also accuses Tester of offering police officers oral sex and says an open bottle of vodka and empty oxycodone prescription bottle was found in his car when Tester was arrested Friday.’
‘A man has been banned from talking to women for five years after committing a number of indecent assaults.
Paul Jennings, 23, pedalled up behind and grabbed the bottoms of five women jogging, cycling or walking in a park.
He would brake when confronted by an angry victim, hurl verbal abuse, blow them a kiss and pedal off.
The father-of-two from Swindon is forbidden from approaching any woman he does not know in the open air, unless for legitimate reasons.’
‘Iraq’s national government is refusing to take possession of thousands of American-financed reconstruction projects, forcing the United States either to hand them over to local Iraqis, who often lack the proper training and resources to keep the projects running, or commit new money to an effort that has already consumed billions of taxpayer dollars.
The conclusions, detailed in a report released Friday by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, a federal oversight agency, include the finding that of 2,797 completed projects costing $5.8 billion, Iraq’s national government had, by the spring of this year, accepted only 435 projects valued at $501 million. Few transfers to Iraqi national government control have taken place since the current Iraqi government, which is frequently criticized for inaction on matters relating to the American intervention, took office in 2006.’
‘You know, these days with shows like Lost, Heroes, and Battlestar Galactica, it’s easy to forget how bad we used to have it on television when it came to sci-fi shows. Sure, we remember the Star Treks, the Fireflys, the Babylon 5s, and so on, that managed to crawl their way into our hearts…but lest we forget – Forever Geek is here to remind you just how lucky we are these days. Sci-Fi on TV used to be BAD…real bad.
With that said, we present to you the 10 WORST Sci-Fi Shows of all time. Complete with video of each horrible, horrible, television mistake.’
‘A weightlifter is trying to pump himself up before he maxes out so he decides to headbutt the weights and it ends up knocking him out cold.’
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see it here »
‘The owner of a car dealership has been accused of killing two employees because they kept asking for pay raises. [..]
Milinavicius, 38, turned himself in two days after the shootings and confessed to the killings, Popham said.
“As I understand, the employees were not really happy about the pay, and they had questioned him about it over the course of time,” Popham said. “That morning he said he just snapped.”’
‘Smoking one cannabis joint is as harmful to a person’s lungs as having up to five cigarettes, according to research published on Tuesday.
Those who smoked cannabis damaged both the lungs’ small fine airways, used for transporting oxygen, and the large airways, which blocked air flow, the researchers said.
It meant cannabis smokers complained of wheezing, coughing, and chest tightness, the study by experts at the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand found.’
‘Recently some restaurants in Guangdong, China, have been promoting a popular dish called “water boiled live cat”.
The way the restaurants kill the cats is very cruel and inhumane. One of the chefs even says “the more torture the cats receive, the better they taste.”
They use a bat and beat the cats until they pass out; then throw them into hot water and boil them alive, then de-skin and cook them again.’
I had a friend do a very similar thing once with a chair and a fence. Nearly broke his face with the chair.
It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. :)
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see it here »
‘Police in Blackpool are hunting a man who sexually assaulted a woman who was performing as a living statue.
The attack happened during a corporate event in a marquee in the grounds of the De Vere Hotel on 18 July.
Police said the victim was indecently assaulted by a drunk, rowdy man after she tapped him on the shoulder.
After checking the list for the event police do not believe he was invited and are appealing for anyone who remembers the incident to come forward.’
‘Elijah Horne told a judge Thursday that one of his friends shot him in the face after an argument about a messy room.
Elijah, 13, testified that his 15-year-old friend was upset with him July 10 when he walked into his Walnut Hills bedroom and found it in disarray. Elijah, who was spending the night, had said he didn’t do it.
But he said his friend pulled a gun from under the mattress and shot him.
The bullet went through his cheek and remains lodged in his neck.
“He just came in kind of crazy,” Elijah Horne said.’
‘I’m a horny young lady who holds down a respectable job at my local fitness centre. If my work colleges found out what I was up to I’d surely be in trouble, so hush hush, it’s between me and you and some very close friends. I’m a Brunette with an average figure, not super slim but well toned. I regularly work out during my lunch break and offer my panties that I’ve worked out in if you’re interested, they’ll be very sweaty and smelly, I promise.
Please visit the Panty Store page to find out more.’
‘This guy calls the front desk of a hotel in Atlanta and complains that he is under attack by Jewish Ninjas.’
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see it here »
‘Scientists have jump-started the consciousness of a man with severe brain injury in a world-first procedure in which electrodes were inserted deep into his brain.
The 38-year-old, who had been in a minimally conscious state for six years after an assault, could only move his fingers or eyes occasionally and was fed through a tube.
Now he can chew, swallow and carry out movements like brushing his hair and drinking from a cup, say the US neuroscientists who carried out the procedure, known as deep brain stimulation.
“He regularly uses words and gestures and responds to questions quickly,” said Ali Rezai, of the Cleveland Clinic’s Centre for Neurological Restoration.’
‘Pennsylvania inmate Shakira Staten says she was left alone screaming in her cell for four hours while she went into labor and gave birth to her daughter.
Despite her constant pleas, Staten said it wasn’t until she gave birth, the baby fell on the cell floor and she held her child up to the cell bars that she finally got the attention of a guard, who cut the umbilical cord with her fingernails.
Staten, 22, filed a civil rights lawsuit Monday claiming she and her newborn baby were subjected to cruel and unusual punishment when the staff at the Lackawanna County Prison left her alone in her cell without providing medical care or transporting her to a hospital. [..]’
‘A Wisconsin man whose blend of awkward syntax, imminent disaster and bathroom humor offends both good taste and the English language won an annual contest Monday that salutes bad writing.
Jim Gleeson, 47, of Madison, Wis., beat out thousands of other prose manglers in San Jose State University’s 2007 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest with this convoluted opening sentence to a nonexistent novel:
“Gerald began – but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him ten percent of his hearing permanently, as it did everyone else in a ten-mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for them ‘permanently’ meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash – to pee,” Gleeson wrote.’
‘Images captured by a surveillance camera inside the store show the woman lose her footing in one of the aisles and take a nasty fall. A store worker comes to her aid and helps her up. The woman then loses her footing again and falls to the floor.
But store manager Luis Diaz noted there was something strange about the ‘accident’ after viewing the tape.
Diaz decided to do a little investigating on his own and rewound the surveillance tape back even more, and what he found surprised him. On the tape, the same woman, in the same aisle, minutes before her ‘slip and fall’ accident. On the tape, the woman appears to be trying to open a bottle of olive oil unsuccessfully. The woman puts it back on the shelf, leaves the aisle only to return a few moments later and pick up a new bottle. The tape shows her opening this bottle and pouring some of the oil onto the floor, then she puts the bottle back on the shelf and leaves the aisle.’
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see it here »
How does Kevin Smith respond to the question “Do you ever plan on making an original movie without rehashing any of your old characters that doesn’t suck?” .. Hilariously. :)
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see it here »
‘Party princess Paris Hilton is $60 million out of pocket after her billionaire grandfather – appalled by her jail term for drink-driving offences – axed her inheritance.
Family patriarch Barron Hilton was already embarrassed by his granddaughter’s wild behaviour – notably when her home sex video was leaked on the internet.
But the 79-year-old considered her 23-day sentence last month the last straw.
“He was, and is, extremely embarrassed by how the Hilton name has been sullied by Paris,” says Jerry Oppenheimer, who wrote a biography of the clan called House Of Hilton.
“He now doesn’t want to leave unearned wealth to his family.”‘
‘Emissions from office laser printers can be as unhealthy as cigarette smoke, according to an Australian professor who is now calling for regulations to limit printer emissions.
Office workers breathing easy since smoking was banned in public places in the United States and the United Kingdom have new reason to worry, according to research from the Queensland University of Technology’s Air Quality and Health Program, led by physics professor Lidia Morawska.
The average printer releases toner particles that can get deep into the lungs and cause respiratory problems and cardiovascular trouble, according to Morawska’s team, part of the International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health, and specialists in atmospheric particles.
The team tested 62 laser printer models–all relatively new–and found that 17 of them were “high emitters” of toner particles. Despite using similar technology, office photocopiers do not emit particles, the team found. ‘
‘The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light. The question came about as a result of a five dollar bet over highballs, and it happened this way:
Alexander Adell and Bertram Lupov were two of the faithful attendants of Multivac. As well as any human beings could, they knew what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face — miles and miles of face — of that giant computer. They had at least a vague notion of the general plan of relays and circuits that had long since grown past the point where any single human could possibly have a firm grasp of the whole.
Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting. It had to be, for nothing human could adjust and correct it quickly enough or even adequately enough — so Adell and Lupov attended the monstrous giant only lightly and superficially, yet as well as any men could. They fed it data, adjusted questions to its needs and translated the answers that were issued. Certainly they, and all others like them, were fully entitled to share In the glory that was Multivac’s.’
‘It was a night like any other – people inviting us out to a steakhouse. We get there, we are seated in a private room. All was well. Niceties aside, we prepare to order. I ask my wife what I should get. She says, “Go ahead and look at the menu – it’s in English.”
“Oh Really?”‘
‘This colored corn syrup is dropped into a mixture, stirred up, and when the direction is reversed, the drops return their original state.’
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Here’s a collection of funny stories by emergency physicians and the like. Quite a lot of them. Also, more in part 2.
I’ve chewed up a whole day reading through these. Good way to kill some time. :)
Followup to Nee Naw – Blog of a Dispatcher in the London Ambulance Service’s Control Room.
‘A gang of children killed a father-of-two by stoning him as he played a makeshift game of cricket with his son, a court has heard.
They surrounded a tennis court where Ernest Norton and his teenage son had set up a wicket and hurled bricks and debris in a “completely unprovoked attack”.
Mr Norton, 67, collapsed in a pool of blood after being hit by a piece of rock and died from heart failure, the Old Bailey was told. [..]
Five boys, all aged 13 or under at the time of the onslaught last year, are accused of unlawfully killing Mr Norton, a retired engineering draughtsman. None can be named for legal reasons.’
