Judge Rules for Jesus Christ, Against David Merrill and His Motor Scooter
Federal judge Edward Nottingham of Denver, Colo., tossed out Merrill’s lawsuit on Thursday, remarking that “the beginning and the end of [his] pleading” were “too far apart.” Merrill [and his motor scooter, which apparently does not have a name] sued Mr. Christ (but not the Jesus Christ, just an imposter), the United Nations, and various other nonsensically related entities that he thought were responsible for his scooter’s being seized while in El Paso, Tex., for which he demanded $5G. [Denver Rocky Mountain News, 8-18-01]
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Life in Western North Carolina
Michael Dean Messer was treated at a hospital in Waynesville, N.C., on Wednesday night after being bitten on the leg by his pet 4-ft-long timber rattlesnake, which he had taken outside “for some exercise” after coaxing it to swallow a hen’s egg for food. “I was just worried about him [not] eating,” said Messer, who said the snake had not eaten in about a month. “I laid him down in the yard for a few minutes, and I was going to put him back in the cage, but my dog got him upset,” causing the bite. [Asheville Citizen-Times, 8-17-01]
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Below the Fold for Saturday
The sheriff in Monroe, N.C., apologized for his deputy, who Monday night had barged into a Flag Branch Baptist Church revival session demanding to see the owner of a certain pickup truck in the parking lot because he thought the man had run over the deputy’s dog. [Charlotte Observer, 8-17-01]
Ms. Eunwoo Lee, 37, filed a $135k (USD) lawsuit in Toronto against the cad Chicagoan John Riley because he didn’t tell her the truth about his marital status during their 4-yr relationship; the two met while MBA students, and Ms. Lee’s damages includes the [present? future?] value of Riley’s having taken her off the marriage market for 4 yrs. [Toronto Star, 8-17-01]
The FDA yesterday approved the artificial Neosphincter, a pump-operated device to give relief for otherwise-hopelessly incontinent people (and their friends); although the device recorded too many “adverse incidents” in trials to be marketed to the general population, it claimed a 90 percent success rate for patients specially trained in its use. [Yahoo News-Reuters, 8-17-01]
Recession Hits Turkish Circumcision Industry
Istanbul’s leading circumciser, Kemal Ozkan (106k lifetime procedures), will perform only 1,500 this year, down from 3k; gov’t budgets for free circumcisions have evaporated, forcing poor Turk boys to wait and get cut in the military; and business is off by half at the Circumcision Palace (important to the middle-class because their sons can get snipped and then be hosted by the parents at elaborate parties downstairs). In the traditional Turkish coming-of-age ceremony, boys parade beforehand through the streets dressed up like royalty in white suits with capes, holding gold-trimmed scepters; after the cutting (performed with local anesthesia), the boy dances with his mother before being stitched up. [Los Angeles Times-AP, 8-17-01]
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Recent Unusually Unpleasant Deaths
Okla. inmate Mariano Absum, 27, hid out in a garbage bin and successfully smuggled himself past the gate in a trash truck but minutes later was compacted to death. [San Francisco Chronicle-AP, 8-15-01]. Two pedestrians (age 21 and 17), arguing with each other smack in the middle of U.S. 36 in Macon, Mo., were accidentally killed by an oncoming pickup truck. [Columbia Daily Tribune-AP, 8-15-01] In Reefton, New Zealand, Peter John Robinson, 28, slipped on some ice and fell, landing unconscious with his face in his cat’s water bowl, where he drowned. [CNN-Reuters, 8-15-01]
That 1,500-lb. H-Bomb 15 Miles from Savannah
The military declassification of the 1958 lost-bomb incident near Savannah, Ga., was actually last month’s news, but it got excluded here as the date for launch of Weird Central was extended; thus, Yr Ed will now take advantage of a late version of it this week in The Australian to bring it to your attention. A bomb 100X more powerful than that which hit Hiroshima was lost at sea in 1958, 6 miles from Tybee Island, which is at the mouth of the Savannah River at the Ga.-S.C. line. The Pentagon looked for it for a few days, then abandoned the search, saying that it was not armed, anyway, and thus not dangerous. On the other hand, the report also said that it was best not to look for it anymore, in that it was too dangerous to try to pick it up. Since then, several munitions people have said that bombs in that circumstance were usually armed. [The Australian, 8-12-01] [Washington Post, 7-15-01]
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Ski-Masked, Gun-Toting Woman Denies She's a Robber
Gail M. Follis, 35, was charged with attempted robbery of a convenience store in Elkhorn, Wis., after an employee spotted her toward the back of the store holding a rifle and attempting to put on a ski mask. Allegedly, she told him that, yep, this must look strange, but that she had just come in (it was 6:35 a.m.) from skeet-shooting (hence, the gun) and just wanted to buy some beer (not legal until 8 a.m.). According to the complaint, she said she didn’t remember having a mask at all. [Janesville Gazette, 8-14-01]
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Below the Fold for Thursday
Michael Joe Muniz was charged with a 1996 White Ridge, Colo., murder (which had been an inactive case) after he inexplicably called the police last month, referenced the murder, and said, “I just want to let you know that, I’m on the loose again, just let you know, I’m back”; apparently, he forgot that police can trace phone calls. [Denver Rocky Mountain News, 8-15-01]
In court in Pittsburgh on Tuesday on drug charges, Larry C. Richardson, 25, took his hand out of his pocket to sign a court document, and a small bag of marijuana came out, too; he was rearrested. [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 8-15-01]
Townspeople of Rye, N.H. (pop. 800, just south of Portsmouth, near the coast), continue to meet this week to discuss seceding from the state because property taxes are too high; they claim the state constitution (Article 10) grants to right to revolt. [WMUR (Manchester, N.H.), 8-14-01]
CutOffMyFeet.com
News of the website of Paul Morgan (Biloxi, Miss.), 33, has been circulating for a couple of weeks, but Yr Ed withheld reports because, being a staff of one, he has to rely on real newsrangers to provide a level of comfort as to credibility. Enter Paul Eng, ABC News, who filed yesterday after a long talk with Morgan, and it’s probably legit: Morgan needs to finance the removal of his feet so that he can get completely hydraulically-abled (instead of the the plastic braces he now wears that force him only to drag his legs), and he’s settled on charging rubber-neckers $20 to watch on the Internet, including for some of the preparations, such as building a special guillotine for the job. So far, 10 sign-ups (he needs 10,000), but traffic on the website is heavy. Guillotine-building starts soon; d-day is October 31 (Halloween). [ABC News, 8-14-01]
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As Usual, the Weird Stuff in Public Opinion Polls Is How Many Are in the Minority
A CBS poll found that 53 percent of his constituents would not vote for Rep. Gary Condit again [but 47 percent would still consider it] and that 64 percent thought he had hindered the Chandra Levy investigation [and what kind of law-enforcement-investigation standards do the other 36 percent have?]. A San Jose Mercury News poll found that, even if Condit is guilty of asking his airline-hostess squeeze to lie to police about their affair, only 55 percent of his constituents believe he should resign [and what standards for Congressman do the other 45 percent have?]. [New York Times, 8-15-01]
Below the Fold for Wednesday
The Vatican released a statement in the name of its political prisoner (whom it has been holding incomunicado for 5 days), Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, renouncing his wife and Rev. Sun Myung Moon and rededicating himself to the Catholic priesthood. [New York Times-Reuters, 8-15-01]
A member of the San Francisco Bd of Supervisors [who apparently doesn’t get to go to movies or travel in airliners enough] suggested getting new-parent city employees back to work sooner by allowing them to bring their under-6-months infants to the office. [San Francisco Chronicle, 8-14-01]
Arrested for murder in Peoria, Ill., on Monday: Terry Wayne Freeman, 47. [Peoria Journal Star, 8-14-01]
A misdemeanor indecency charge was indeed filed against St. Louis Alderman Irene Smith over her filibuster-busting, in-chamber urination [Weird Central 7-19]; Smith says she’s anxious, herself, to see how they prove she actually tinkled, since she was behind a quilt at the time. [New York Times-Reuters, 8-15-01]
EDITOR'S NOTE
There's a really good Weird Planet Daily story that goes here, but I had to squeeze it onto the next page to fit in this emergency announcement. Yr Ed is virus-free, and this site is virus-free, but Yr Ed's compuserve.com e-mail address has been the target of, now, 5,500 messages containing the SirCam worm virus in the last 23 days. Usually this is not a problem; I just log on and delete the messages. However, the messages are now coming at such a rapid clip that my box fills up (capacity, 250), and the lovely CompuServe service then simply deletes anything else, with no notice to the sender. Therefore, I know I am losing mail. Therefore, if you are writing me, please either use the screen on this website or mail directly to me at Newsweird@aol.com. Thank you. Now, click this link and read about CutOffMyFeet.com and the rest of Weird Planet Daily.
"That'll Show 'Em," Say Protestors
Seven teachers in Bhubaneswar, India, set themselves on fire on Friday to protest the gov’t’s education policies (specifically, the one that resulted in their being laid off); at least one was in critical condition. [Pakistan News Service, 8-12-01] And in Seoul, 20 South Korean men each ritually hacked off a little finger to protest Japan’s continuing unwillingness to acknowledge that it brutalized South Korean men and women during World War II. [New Jersey Online-AP, 8-13-01]
Below the Fold for Tuesday
Charged with murder, Sevier County, Tenn.: Dallas Wayne Shults (along with his partner, the semi-official Michael DeWayne Ball). [Knoxville News-Sentinel, 8-10-01]
And charged with murder in Dallas: Ms. Sincere L. McMillan. [Dallas Morning News, 8-13-01]
Two Indiana militia men were arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder; in an alleged trick, they were going to kill a turncoat colleague after arranging an attention-diverting protest of the play “Corpus Christi” (featuring a gay Christ-like character), but the plan fell through when they mistakenly showed up at Indiana U.’s Bloomington campus and not at the play’s actual venue, which was the Fort Wayne campus of IU. [Bloomington Herald-Times-AP, 8-13-01]
The full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 9-5 that it is unconstitutionally bad lawyering if your attorney falls asleep during your capital murder trial; that point had been missed by a 3-judge panel of the same court last year, when it ruled that it all depended on which parts he slept through. [San Francisco Chronicle-AP, 8-13-01]
Pennsylvania Cracker Claims National-Origin Discrimination
Curt Storey, 62, filed a wrongful-discharge lawsuit against Burns Int’l Security Services on Friday, claiming he was fired from his $8/hr job because he refused supervisors’ demands that he cleanse his lunchbox and pickup truck of the Confederate flag, which he says is illegal national-origin discrimination (“Confederate Southern American”). Two problems: CSA’s are not (yet) a protected class under EEOC law, and besides, Storey was born and bred in Pennsylvania, and now lives in the lovely pueblo of Hunker, located where I-70 joins the Turnpike near Pittsburgh. [Observer-Reporter (Washington, Pa.), 8-13-01]
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In the U.S., This Story Would Be in The Onion
Justice Minister John O’Donoghue of Ireland (whose gun-control laws are among the world’s strictest) ordered a review of the country’s Offensive Weapons Act with an eye toward banning “dangerous” knives. [Irish Independent, 8-12-01]
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Switzerland Rocks the Boat on Cherry-Pit Spitting
Except for its secretive bank records, Switzerland has a reputation for avoiding controversies, but that was before it decided to allow its home-grown competitors to wreak havoc on world cherry-pit spitting records. The old (U.S.) record: 74 ft (by Rick “Pellet Gun” Krause of Arizona, who is married to the women’s champion, Marlene “Machine Gun” Krause); the new (Swiss) record: 82 ft, but thanks to a 2-step follow-through included in the distance that the Swiss allow. (Americans measure from the point of release.) There are also questions about the characteristics of the pit, itself, that separate the 2 jurisdictions. [Daily Telegraph (London), 8-12-01]
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Living Large in West Virginia
Charleston trailer-home salesman Bob Jett says he can get you up to a 5-bedroom, 3-bath double-wide for $80G and add Jacuzzis, skylights, Moen faucets, and other cachets of luxury. By contrast, he said, “‘Trailer trash’ comes from the old cheap, noninspected small trailers that typically attracted lower-echelon folks.” The centerpiece of a New York Times report was the 5/3 home Professor Michael Minnick (West Virginia U. Inst. of Technology) bought for his wife and 8 kids near the town of Dixie, with oak windowsills 6 inches deep. On the other hand, a former Congressman, disturbed about the trend, questions whether the boom in trailer homes constitutes genuine progress. [New York Times, 8-12-01] [free link, but registration required]
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Below the Fold for Monday
The Northampton (England) Borough Council recently ordered Ruby Barber to remove the 2-yr-old barbed wire fence around her home because it might possibly injure someone who “foolishly” tried to scale it (despite the fact that it has apparently stopped the rash of burglaries at her house). [BBC News, 8-8-01]
A previously reported Wayne, Robert W. Rotramel, rejected a plea bargain for the Oklahoma murder of which he is accused. [KWTV (Oklahoma City), 8-12-01]
The Austrian chemical company Dracoco announced it will keep the French Franc alive, even after it is replaced by the Euro, by issuing a scent that will supposedly capture the fragrance associated with French money. [BBC News, 8-8-01]
Two sheriff’s deputies in Frederick, Md., filed a lawsuit against a diabetic driver whose seizure caused the men to act super-aggressively to subdue him and who now say the man’s continuing to tell his story has hurt their careers. [WJLA-TV (Washington, D.C.), 8-10-01]
Cumulative Thank Yous for This Week
Paul Hannah, Jonathan Eisenberg, Gregory Bogle, Laura Jordan, Douglas Felts, Raymond McIndoe, Bill Gover, Bill Remer, Maggie Morgan, Mark Schiefelbein, Graham Thomas, Leah Clemons, David Holmes-Kinsella, Carlos Wilson, Richard Katzenberg, D.T. Friedman, Jerry McCollom, J.E. Melton, Lance Spangler, Michael Lewyn, Lyle Mariam, Eric Caldwell, Greg Lief, Steve Miller, Claudine McGin, Elaine Weiss, John Glauner, Rick Murphree, Tara Jernigan, Mike Miksch, Joe Littrell, Gary Shears, Jim Liddell, John Henry, and the News of the Weird Senior Advisors and Chief Correspondents.
©
2001, Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
