| Police: Mother Ate Baby's Brain |
[Jul. 27th, 2009|04:34 pm] |
SAN ANTONIO, TX -- A woman charged with murdering her 3 1/2-week-old son used a knife and two swords to dismember the child and ate parts of his body, including his brain, before stabbing herself in the torso and slicing her own throat, police said Monday.
Full story and video here. |
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| Military Robot Could Eat Corpses |
[Jul. 15th, 2009|04:21 pm] |
Granted, the source if Fox news here, but still, take note:
"A Maryland company under contract to the Pentagon is working on a steam-powered robot that would fuel itself by gobbling up whatever organic material it can find — grass, wood, old furniture, even dead bodies."
And of course, such a thing wouldn't be complete without a badass acronym to go by. I'm sure whoever came up with "Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot" (EATR for short) was pretty damn proud of themselves. |
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| Nirvana bassist seeks county office |
[Jun. 5th, 2009|09:39 am] |
CATHLAMET, Wash. (AP) - Nirvana's former bassist is running for clerk of a rural county to protest Washington state's method of letting candidates name their own party affiliation.
Krist Novoselic (noh-voh-SEL'-ik) is running for clerk of Wahkiakum (wah-KAI'-ah-kum) County in western Washington.
Novoselic is head of his local chapter of the Grange, a civic organization. His election paperwork declares that he's running under the "Grange Party" banner, even though the Grange isn't a political party.
Novoselic tells The Daily World newspaper that he's protesting the state's system that lets candidates say what party they prefer when running for office. He says that's confusing for voters and lets candidates appropriate the names of private associations. |
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| Amish teen ticketed for having beer in buggy |
[May. 13th, 2009|10:29 pm] |
LEON, N.Y. (AP) - Police cracking down on rowdy Amish youths ticketed a teenager for having beer in his horse-drawn buggy when they pulled him over on a western New York road. They said the 17-year-old was charged with underage possession of alcohol after he was stopped by deputies late Monday night in the town of Leon, 40 miles south of Buffalo.
Detective Nathan Root said the teen admitted drinking beer, but passed a field sobriety test.
Root says another Amish man in the buggy, a 22-year-old, was charged with providing the beer. Both are scheduled to be arraigned June 22.
Patrols were stepped up after an Amish elder's property was vandalized when he confronted youths about their drinking and listening to radios. |
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| Man jailed for spraying urine, feces on food in UK |
[Apr. 15th, 2009|12:38 pm] |
RAPHAEL G. SATTER
LONDON (AP) - An unemployed chemist was jailed Tuesday for spraying a mix of urine and feces on food, wine and children's books in several British stores. Sahnoun Daifallah was sentenced to nine years in prison after being found guilty of four counts of contaminating goods.
The 42-year-old Algerian carried a mix of his waste in a container of weed killer concealed in a laptop bag, a court found. Using the nozzle, which poked out of the bag, Daifallah was able to spray large areas, leaving a powerful stench and causing tens of thousands of pounds (dollars) worth of damage.
Daifallah's first target was The Air Balloon pub and restaurant near Cheltenham in western England, which he visited around lunchtime on May 14. Kate Rochead, on duty that day, told The Associated Press she didn't know exactly what area he sprayed.
"All we know was that it was a horrendous smell that was left behind," she said.
Daifallah next visited a bookstore in neighboring Cirencester, dousing hundreds of books - most of them in the children's section.
Two days later he struck in the nearby suburban area of Quedgeley, where a customer spotted him squirting the frozen french fries at a supermarket. Daifallah then drove four miles (six kilometers) to another supermarket, where an employee in the wine section noticed him acting suspiciously and reported an overpowering stench. Both supermarkets were closed for two days for cleaning. Shoppers reported suffering from rashes and nausea.
Local police said the products weren't handled by customers, but Morrisons, one of the supermarkets targeted, said a small number of goods were returned as a precaution. Tesco, the other supermarket hit by Daifallah, declined comment.
Police were able to identify Daifallah using security camera footage. When they raided his home, they found a stockpile of the substance and plans to spread it. Plastic bags containing excrement were marked with the names of cities on them.
Daifallah represented himself at Bristol Crown Court, where he pleaded not guilty.
Judge Carol Hagen said Britain's security agencies had labeled him a high risk to public safety. Authorities have already begun deportation proceedings. |
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| Man found burned in apartment with no sign of fire |
[Jan. 21st, 2009|02:23 pm] |
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Investigators are baffled as to how a man suffered second- and third-degree burns inside his apartment - even though the only sign of a fire was a candle in the bathroom. Knoxville Fire Department crews found the 56-year-old victim inside his apartment bathroom Monday afternoon with third-degree burns to his face and second-degree burns to his hands.
Officials say they knocked on the door of the unit at Cagle Terrace Apartments, and went inside when they heard someone moaning.
The man, who was not identified, was later taken to a burn center for treatment.
Fire officials say their investigation is ongoing. |
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| El Pelon |
[Jan. 6th, 2009|10:59 am] |
And as the new year starts, we shed a little tear for El Pelon. |
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| Greasuses |
[Sep. 12th, 2008|01:14 pm] |
And in other news:
Lewd vandal leaves greasy imprints on Neb. town
By NATE JENKINS
Published: Today
VALENTINE, Neb. (AP) — Boy, how people here wish their busiest vandal would find another way to make his mark. Beginning more than a year ago, some man has been skipping from one business to another at night, pressing his naked behind — sometimes his groin, sometimes both — on windows. Store owners, church workers and school janitors have had to wash lotion and petroleum jelly off the windows he selects.
"This is the weirdest case I've ever seen," said police Chief Ben McBride.
Some residents of Valentine, a town of about 2,650 people, find some humor in the strange vandalism and have taken to calling the perpetrator the "Butt Bandit." But they also can't help but cringe when finding his marks.
"We were completely grossed out," said Kalli Kieborz, who works in a downtown building. "One day I walked into the office and an employee said, 'Oh, my God, we've been struck!'"
The police chief is far from amused.
"It's not funny," McBride said. "We're worried about the next step."
It started in spring 2007, when the window of a Methodist church was greased with an imprint. McBride figured it was a high school prank. But the church kept getting hit, even after police staked it out.
The bandit struck business after business, window after window last summer.
Then he — and maybe, McBride said, copycat vandals — stopped over the fall and winter.
"People said he was done," McBride said. "Then he started back up this summer."
During one particularly brazen session, virtually all the windows at a local hotel were imprinted.
McBride said no one has reported seeing the vandal in action. The only clue is a blurry picture of him caught by a surveillance camera at the middle school last year.
The man was 6-feet-tall or slightly taller, and slender. He had a dark complexion, and McBride said the man's dark hair was styled in a "1980s, feathered look."
Valentine, in remote north-central Nebraska, promotes itself as "The Heart City." Downtown sidewalks are painted with hearts, and locals encourage people from around the country to send their Valentine's Day cards to the local post office so they can be mailed out with the word "Valentine" stamped on them.
"This is not normal behavior for Valentine," Cherry County Attorney Eric Scott said. "It's not funny or something people want to be exposed to." |
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| Gorilla Robot Factory |
[Sep. 10th, 2008|06:17 pm] |
EAST MACHIAS, Maine (AP) — An 8-foot-tall mechanical gorilla that was swiped in broad daylight from its longtime location outside a store has turned up several hundred miles away — with an apologetic ransom demand.
The arm-waving primate disappeared during the Labor Day weekend and store owner Lowell Miller and his wife, Sandy, marveled at how such a big ape on a heavy base could have been taken without attracting attention.
The gorilla's creator, Ken Booth of the Gorilla Robot Factory in Akron, Ohio, helped out by posting a YouTube video seeking the gorilla's return and offering a reward.
Then another video turned up on YouTube, showing a hooded person demanding a $1 million ransom — apologizing for causing a flap. "I didn't know it'd be such a big deal," the hooded abductor said.
Now the gorilla — named "Seemore," as in "See More at Sandy's Sales" — has turned up in a cornfield at Swanton, Vt.
Sandy Miller intends to press charges.
"What really upset me was the YouTube video. He was so nonchalant," she said Tuesday. "You don't steal other people's property and take it out of state."
She said her husband's old truck is in no shape to make the 750-mile roundtrip to St. Albans, Vt., where the gorilla is being held by state police. But she said offers were pouring in from people willing to assist.
So I've been half-assedly following this news story since the theft at the end of August, which has been a reasonably good time, just on the merits of the story alone. The real deal-sealer though has been the Gorilla Robot Factory, who have obviously nailed it when capturing the interest of consumers from basically any demographic. Their site, which boasts a collection of hypnotically watchable videos of apes turning and waving, states "our adult-size, life-like animatronic gorilla robots immediately command attention," over which I say that there's no argument. Most intriguing to me though is their offering of custom animatronics. I'm developing a pretty incredible plan for my tombstone, where I commission GRF to actually build my remains into a turning, waving monument to myself, passively greeting visitors to whatever barren patch of tundra I end up in.
Because "when you make a strong visual impression, your product or service stays in the minds of consumers longer." |
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