Abaddon's Weird News of the World!

[Lord Baal]

Czech President refused to go through security, denied entry into Australian parliament

The Age

How the hell have I not heard of this until now? I have the news on in the background as we speak. Stupid media.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Diaper astronaut finally "booted" from the Navy:

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A former astronaut banished from NASA after she confronted a romantic rival in a bizarre episode is being kicked out of the Navy, officials said yesterday.

Capt. Lisa Nowak will retire with an "other than honorable" discharge and her pay grade will be knocked down one rank.

Nowak's conduct "fell well short" of what's expected of Navy officers and "demonstrated a complete disregard for the well-being of a fellow service member," said Assistant Navy Secretary Juan Garcia.

Nowak was accused of confronting Colleen Shipman in the parking lot of the Orlando airport in February 2007 after driving from Houston.

It sure took them long enough...

 

[aronnax]

South Africa: 'Dead man' wakes up inside morgue

A 50-year-old South African man woke up inside a mortuary over the weekend and screamed to be let out - scaring away attendants who thought he was a ghost.

His family presumed he was dead when they could not wake him on Saturday night and contacted a private morgue in a rural village in the Eastern Cape.

He spent almost 24 hours inside the morgue, the region's health department spokesman told the Sapa news agency.

The two attendants later returned and called for an ambulance.

The man - whose identity has been withheld - was treated in hospital for dehydration.

"Doctors put him under observation and concluded he was stable," Eastern Cape health spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

At first the men ran for their lives”

Sizwe Kupelo Eastern Cape health spokesperson

"He did not need further treatment."

Mr Kupelo said the man woke up at 1700 local time (1500 GMT) on Sunday, demanding to be let out of the chilly morgue in Libode village, frightening the attendants on duty.

"At first the men ran for their lives," said Mr Kupelo.

Officials have urged the public to contact doctors or the emergency services so they can they can pronounce someone dead before calling an undertaker.

"You begin to ask yourself how many other people have died like that in a morgue," said Mr Kupelo.

"We need to [get] the message across to all South Africans that it is very wrong for them to conclude on their own that a person has died," he said.

 

[Lord Baal]

I saw this two days ago. Really should have posted it. The strangest part is the fact that actual morgue-workers would be that stupid.

 

[Cutlass]

Woman causes million dollar car accident in Monte Carlo.

July 29, 2011

IT'S the one place in the world you don't want to have a prang but one blonde driver's antics outside the Place du Casino, in Monte Carlo, made every tourists' day.

A parade of some of the world's most expensive cars turned into a demolition derby after a driver scraped her $370, 000 Bentley against a $111,000 Mercedes S class.

The woman's 2.7 tonne beast then went on to plough into a $207,000 black Ferrari F430 before crashing head-on into a Porsche 911 worth $118,000 and a $207,000 Aston Martin.

The total value of the cars involved in the bingle is $1.02 million.

The driver and her two passengers were circled by hundreds of tourists after the pile-up, unable to open their car doors.

The cost of repairs is expected to reach around $60,000.

Tough scrape: The moment when the driver realises she's failed to negotiate traffic around Monte
Carlo's Place du Casino in her $360,000 Bentley Azure. Picture: Courtesy of DailyFun.us Supplied

 

[_random_]

Samoas banned in Somalia due to perceived blasphemy.

A powerful Muslim extremist group in Somalia banned samosas in the country because their three sides may remind people of the Christian Holy Trinity.
Members of Al-Shabaab recently boarded trucks with loudspeakers and announced that the popular pastries are banned in the country, UPI reported. The group did not fully explain its decision to ban the snack that is often filled with minced meats and vegetables, but witnesses told a local paper that their ubiquitous three-cornered shape may invoke thoughts on the Holy Trinity, according to the report.
The Islamic militant group, which controls wide swaths of the country, bans music and watching sports on TV.
The ban comes at a time where 800,000 children could die in a famine that reaches across the Horn of Africa. Aid workers are rushing to bring help to dangerous and previously unreached regions of drought-ravaged Somalia.

(Yes, I know it's Fox News, but it's still a well-sourced and rather odd story.)

 

[Arakhor]

That just goes to show that there are crazy people everywhere; some just have religion with which to disguise it.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Turn your loved one's ashes into bullets. It's cheaper than burial and...

“I will rest in peace knowing that the last thing that one turkey will see is me, screaming at him at about 900 feet per second." – Holy Smoke LLC website

Locked and Loaded: Send Your Loved One Out With a Bang

Thad Holmes and business partner Clem Parnell recently launched what they describe as “a way to honor your deceased loved one by giving or sharing with him or her one more round of clay targets, one last bird hunt, or one last stalk hunt.”

For $1,250, you can have your loved one packed into 250 rounds of shotgun shells, rifle cartridges or pistol rounds. A variety of calibers and gauges is available. It takes one pound of ash to produce the 250 rounds.

Holmes and Parnell contract with professional ammunition reloaders to add a precise amount of cremated remains to each round. The ashes are hand-delivered to the reloaders and then shipped back to the customer as soon as the rounds are finished.

Holmes said his company uses quality ammunition and that the ashes have no effect on round performance.

“It’s just the fact that you’ve got your uncle up there on the shelf or in 'the judge' or in the shotgun that you can use for your own defense,” he said.

And it is fully endorsed by Stephen Colbert!

This is a great day for America folks, because we are finally extending Second Amendment rights to dead people.

 

[Formaldehyde]

B of A branch gets foreclosed after they foreclosed on a house that didn't even have a mortgage:

Bank of America Gets Pad Locked After Homeowner Forecloses On It

Collier County, Florida -- Have you heard the one about a homeowner foreclosing on a bank?

Well, it has happened in Florida and involves a North Carolina based bank.

Instead of Bank of America foreclosing on some Florida homeowner, the homeowners had sheriff's deputies foreclose on the bank.

It started five months ago when Bank of America filed foreclosure papers on the home of a couple, who didn't owe a dime on their home.

The couple said they paid cash for the house.

The case went to court and the homeowners were able to prove they didn't owe Bank of America anything on the house. In fact, it was proven that the couple never even had a mortgage bill to pay.

A Collier County Judge agreed and after the hearing, Bank of America was ordered, by the court to pay the legal fees of the homeowners', Maurenn Nyergers and her husband.

The Judge said the bank wrongfully tried to foreclose on the Nyergers' house.

So, how did it end with bank being foreclosed on? After more than 5 months of the judge's ruling, the bank still hadn't paid the legal fees, and the homeowner's attorney did exactly what the bank tried to do to the homeowners. He seized the bank's assets.

"They've ignored our calls, ignored our letters, legally this is the next step to get my clients compensated, " attorney Todd Allen told CBS.

Sheriff's deputies, movers, and the Nyergers' attorney went to the bank and foreclosed on it. The attorney gave instructions to to remove desks, computers, copiers, filing cabinets and any cash in the teller's drawers.

After about an hour of being locked out of the bank, the bank manager handed the attorney a check for the legal fees.

"As a foreclosure defense attorney this is sweet justice" says Allen.

Allen says this is something that he sees often in court, banks making errors because they didn't investigate the foreclosure and it becomes a lengthy and expensive battle for the homeowner.

Daily Show episode featuring John Oliver going nuts over this.

This is the single greatest story I have ever heard.

 

[classical_hero]

I'd just wish they were able to keep the bank. Now that would have been sweet justice.

 

[NedimNapoleon]

Kim Jong Il gets funds by gold farming

SEOUL, South Korea — The North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has found a novel way of raising badly needed cash, according to the South Korean authorities: unleashing young hackers on South Korea’s immensely popular online gaming sites to find ways to rack up points convertible to cash.

Despite its decrepit economy, North Korea is believed to train an army of computer programmers and hackers. The police in Seoul said Thursday that four South Koreans and a Korean-Chinese had been arrested on charges of drawing on that army to organize a hacking squad of 30 young video gaming experts.

Working from Northern China, the police said, the squad created software that breached the servers for such popular South Korean online gaming sites as “Lineage” and “Dungeon and Fighter.” The breach allowed round-the-clock play by “factories” of dozens of unmanned computers.

Their accumulated gaming points were exchanged for cash at Web sites where human players are focused on acquiring enhancements for their online personas, or avatars. The gaming software was also sold, the police said; such factories, while illegal, are common in South Korea and China.

In a little less than two years, the police said, the organizers made $6 million. They gave 55 percent of it to the hackers, who forwarded some of it to agents in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. “They regularly contacted North Korean agents for close consultations,” Chung Kil-hwan, a senior officer at the police agency’s International Crime Investigation Unit, said during a news briefing.

Mr. Chung said the hackers, all graduates of North Korea’s elite science universities, were dispatched from two places: the state-run Korea Computer Center in Pyongyang and the Korea Neungnado General Trading Company. The company, he said, reports to a shadowy Communist Party agency called Office 39, which gathers foreign hard currency for Mr. Kim through drug trafficking, counterfeiting, arms sales and other illicit activities.

South Korean and American officials say they believe the slush fund is worth billions, and that Mr. Kim uses it to help finance his nuclear weapons programs and to smuggle Rolex watches and other luxury goods, which he doles out to buy the allegiance of the party and the military elite. Meanwhile, the bulk of his people suffer privation and myriad hardships.

A series of United Nations sanctions imposed after North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile tests in recent years aim to squeeze the cash flow by curtailing trade with the North Korean companies suspected of illicit activities. They also ban exports of luxury goods to North Korea.

The North Korean computer experts were each required to send at least $500 a month back to the Pyongyang government, the police said. It remained unclear how much of the rest of their profits they pocketed for themselves, given different layers of party and military officials involved in a typical illicit operation.

What appeared clear from the case, the police said, was that North Korean agencies, increasingly hamstrung by international sanctions, were exploring any new means to raise cash for Mr. Kim and prove their loyalty. The two Koreas, which have remained technically at war for almost 60 years, operate in an environment of mutual suspicion. The tensions extend to the virtual world: Seoul accused North Korea of spreading malicious software that paralyzed the Web sites of South Korean government agencies and financial institutions in July 2009 and again in March. In May, the South blamed North Korea for an attack that brought down a South Korean bank’s network.

North Korea denied responsibility and accused Seoul of inventing a conspiracy.

 

[Lord Baal]

I'd just wish they were able to keep the bank. Now that would have been sweet justice.

Agreed. I also wholeheartedly agree with the quote in Forma's post. This is the single greatest story I've ever heard.

 

[_random_]

That just goes to show that there are crazy people everywhere; some just have religion with which to disguise it.

Certainly. I wasn't trying to promote any anti-Muslim sentiment, but it would be insulting not to share a story that silly.

 

[carmen510]

Thieves Targeting Vans Confronted by SAS on Stakeout

TEENAGE thieves targeting vans parked on a council estate forced open the doors of one - and were confronted by four SAS men on a stakeout.
Two of the Who Dares Wins heroes stayed put while the other two chased the panic-stricken tearaways and gave them "a bit of a slap".

The SAS surveillanced team was on a night-time counter-terrorism training exercise in Manchester.

I would've loved to be there and see the pants-crapping fear on the guys' faces.

 

[Cutlass]

Police Chief Confirms Detaining Photographers Within Departmental Policy
by Greggory Moore | No Destination | 08.15.11

9:45am | Police Chief Jim McDonnell has confirmed that detaining photographers for taking pictures "with no apparent esthetic value" is within Long Beach Police Department policy.

McDonnell spoke for a follow-up story on a June 30 incident in which Sander Roscoe Wolff, a Long Beach resident and regular contributor to Long Beach Post, was detained by Officer Asif Kahn for taking pictures of a North Long Beach refinery.1

"If an officer sees someone taking pictures of something like a refinery," says McDonnell, "it is incumbent upon the officer to make contact with the individual." McDonnell went on to say that whether said contact becomes detainment depends on the circumstances the officer encounters.

McDonnell says that while there is no police training specific to determining whether a photographer's subject has "apparent esthetic value," officers make such judgments "based on their overall training and experience" and will generally approach photographers not engaging in "regular tourist behavior."

This policy apparently falls under the rubric of compiling Suspicious Activity Reports (SAR) as outlined in the Los Angeles Police Department's Special Order No. 11, a March 2008 statement of the LAPD's "policy … to make every effort to accurately and appropriately gather, record and analyze information, of a criminal or non-criminal nature, that could indicate activity or intentions related to either foreign or domestic terrorism."

Among the non-criminal behaviors "which shall be reported on a SAR" are the usage of binoculars and cameras (presumably when observing a building, although this is not specified), asking about an establishment's hours of operation, taking pictures or video footage "with no apparent esthetic value," and taking notes.

Also listed as behaviors to be documented are "Attempts to acquire illegal or illicit biological agent (anthrax, ricin, Eboli, smallpox, etc.)," "In possession, or utilizes, explosives (for illegal purposes)," and "Acquires or attempts to acquire uniforms without a legitimate cause (service personnel, government uniforms, etc.)." Special Order No. 11 does not distinguish between how these behaviors should be handled and how (e.g.) photography should be handled.

McDonnell says that LBPD policy is "on-line" with all instructions contained in Special Order No. 11, "as is everyone else [i.e., other police departments] around the country."

In response to Long Beach Post's coverage of the incident, the National Press Photographer's Association has written to Chief McDonnell expressing concern "about the misplaced beliefs that photography is in and of itself a suspicious activity."

Deputy City Attorney Gary Anderson says that the legal standard for a police officer's detaining an individual pivots on whether the officer has "reasonable suspicion of criminal activity"; and that whether taking photographs of a refinery meets that standard "depends on the circumstances the officer is confronted with." For that information, Anderson says, we must know what is in the officer's mind.

Officer Kahn did not reply to repeated attempts to contact him in order to determine what was in his mind when he allegedly detained Wolff; and the LBPD Public Information Office referred pertinent questions to Anderson.

According to Anderson, Kahn claims that Wolff complied with Kahn's request to see his license, and that it was unnecessary for him to compel Wolff to do so — a version of events Wolff flatly contradicts. "I absolutely asked him if showing him my license was necessary," Wolff says, "which is when he gave me his little spiel about Homeland Security [allowing Kahn to detain Wolff under the circumstances]."2

Anderson reports that Kahn asserts Wolff denied being a reporter, which Wolff says is untrue. "I never denied being a reporter," Wolff says. "He never asked me about being a reporter. He asked me why I was taking pictures, and I told him that I was an artist."

Regarding whether Kahn felt Wolff's behavior gave him "reasonable suspicion of criminal activity," Anderson initially replied, "I never asked [Kahn] that question." Agreeing that "we can't go any further in discussing [whether Kahn had 'reasonable suspicion of criminal activity'] without knowing what was in the officer's mind in this specific instance," Anderson agreed to follow up with Kahn on that matter.

However, when reached 10 days later, Anderson stated, "I'm not going to get into the officer's subjective state of mind at this point. … That's attorney-client privilege."

As to why Anderson failed to cite attorney-client privilege initially, Anderson says only that he has "been thinking about it more"; and, "We have no further comment. Seriously."

1 After running Wolff's driver's license, Kahn left the scene without ordering Wolff to desist.

2 Legally, a police detention has occurred when "a reasonable individual" in that circumstance would be believe he or she is not free to leave

http://www.lbpost.com/life/greggory/12188

 

[timtofly]

Certainly. I wasn't trying to promote any anti-Muslim sentiment, but it would be insulting not to share a story that silly.

Maybe they just don't want people to get food and that is the excuse they used to make it look "religious"? Either way, it is pretty weird not to let people have food who are starving.

 

[Formaldehyde]

"Floating palace" reputed to have no prostitutes and only a few slot machines:

But it does have everything else to cater to the discriminating angler...

Luxury floating resort to open off Clearwater

CLEARWATER — The palatial Fisherman's Paradise resort boasts something for the angler with everything: a helipad, a marina, a two-floor gym, a health spa, a sports bar, a 900-bottle wine cellar, even a movie theater.

Did we mention it's a boat?

The five-story "floating palace," moored 15 miles off the Clearwater coast, is a barge that has been transformed into a $25 million luxury mothership for deep-sea anglers and divers. Pulled by a tugboat, it will loop between the Gulf of Mexico, Panama and Belize.

After six years of construction, it will open to guests Sept. 9 and will stay here for six months. A helicopter ride, a charter fishing tour of the Middle Grounds and a night's suite will cost $599, with a $100 yearly membership.

At 385 feet long, the barge is longer than a football field and most multimillion-dollar "superyachts." At 5,000 tons, it weighs more than all the gold in Fort Knox.

To check in, guests must dock their boats in the barge's marina, travel via shuttle boat, or fly from St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport aboard a Sikorsky S-76, a soundproofed helicopter that operations director Christopher Longrie calls "the Bentley of the skies."

While aboard, anglers can charter one of eight powerboats or catamarans for fishing or diving. Catches will be cleaned by the crew, then served for dinner, packed in fish boxes with a saltwater ice-maker, or preserved with a flash freezer.

Landlubbers can relax at the sauna, salon, massage room, sun deck, restaurant, pool bar or 1,000-gallon saltwater aquarium, watching an octopus, Popo, that the crew found in the marina. Mahogany-trimmed halls are adorned with sculptures of dolphins, marlin and crabs.

The barge runs on three 180-kilowatt diesel generators, 380,000-gallon fuel tanks and two desalinators that produce 6 gallons of fresh water a minute. Trash and sewage run through an onboard waste treatment plant, incinerator or trash compactor.

Yet for all its size, the barge only sleeps 36. VIP suites have king beds and are decked in Italian marble.

Six years ago, Gary Boesch, the retired founder of insurance giant AmeriLife, and Longrie, a computer and electrical engineer, bought an old transatlantic pipeline barge and tugged it to the Dominican Republic. Cheap labor gutted the barge and built five steel decks into its shell.

It was anchored off Clearwater in late 2009, and local craftsmen began work on flooring, masonry and finishing touches. Clearwater harbormaster Bill Morris said residents of beachfront condo towers began calling to report the mysterious glow of lights on the horizon.

Rumors of the lavish barge swirled on online boating forums. When in international waters, some speculated, the Paradise would become a floating den of iniquity with a brothel and casino.

But Longrie says the barge won't have anything so illicit. It will follow fishing laws, won't house prostitutes and will keep gambling to a few upper-deck slot machines. "Believe me," he said. "I've heard it all."

The barge is built to withstand hurricane-force winds and is on contract with a tug company that, with 24 hours notice, could pull it from the path of a storm.

Yet the barge remains at the mercy of the seas. In December, amid strong winds, it broke from its mooring 15 miles west of Clearwater Pass and drifted within a mile of Indian Rocks Beach. Crews tugged it to a Port of Tampa shipyard for repairs and a bigger anchor.

Emily Woodberry of Melbourne was recently boating with her all-women's spearfishing group, the Lady GaDivers, when charter boat captain T.J. Shea brought them by the barge as a surprise.

"I was drooling. The inside, those rooms are like a five-star hotel's," Woodberry said. "A couple of the girls that toured it that day said, 'I don't care how much it costs, I want a weekend on this boat.'

"If I had $600 a night, I'd be on the boat. But I'm more of a $70 charter girl myself."

I have decided to invite the Lady GaDivers to snorkel in my pool.

 

[West 36]

Vonnegut banned; given away

School bans Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-5, so Vonnegut Library gives copies to students for free
Most of us regard Kurt Vonnegut's classic novel Slaughterhouse-Five as a masterpiece of thought-provoking science fiction, but the School Board of Republic High School in Missouri felt differently. They decided to ban the novel.

And in response, the Vonnegut Memorial Library offered to provide a free copy to any of the 150 students who were originally supposed to read it.
Top image: a detail from an amazing minimalist poster for Slaughterhouse-Five by artist Frank Chimero for Kitsune Noir Poster Club. See the whole thing below, and buy it here.

Vonnegut's novel filters his World War II trauma through the lens of time travel and alien abduction, and in the process creates some fascinating insights into trauma, history and brutality. But the high school banned the book for creating "false conceptions of American history and government or that teach principles contrary to Biblical morality and truth."

The School Board took the Vonnegut classic under consideration after receiving a complaint from Missouri University professor Wesley Scroggins, about that book and two others. He wrote about Slaughterhouse-Five:

This is a book that contains so much profane language, it would make a sailor blush with shame. The "f word" is plastered on almost every other page. The content ranges from naked men and women in cages together so that others can watch them having sex to God telling people that they better not mess with his loser, bum of a son, named Jesus Christ.

According to a message at the Vonnegut Library, all students from Republic High have to do is email them with their name, address and grade level. They add:

We have up to 150 books to share, thanks to the generosity of an anonymous donor. We think it's important for everyone to have their First Amendment rights. We're not telling you to like the book… we just want you to read it and decide for yourself. We will not share your request or any of your personal information with anyone else.

And for the rest of us, the Vonnegut Library is seeking donations to help supplement the costs of this operation.

The library's executive director, Julia Whitehead, told Reuters in a statement:

It is shocking and unfortunate that those young adults and citizens would not be considered mature enough to handle the important topics raised by Kurt Vonnegut, a decorated war veteran. Everyone can learn something from his book.

 

[GoodGame]

Not so ANONYMOUS?

'Flash mob' robs Maryland 7-Eleven in less than a minute, police say
By the CNN Wire Staff
August 16, 2011 7:58 p.m. EDT
Montgomery County Police posted a surveillance video on YouTube.com of the alleged "flash mob" robbery.


Maryland police post video of the 'flash mob' robbery online
Police: "At least 28 different individuals" confirmed in surveillance tape
Several suspects have been identified, but no arrests have been made, authorities say

(CNN) -- A "flash mob" believed to have been organized on the Internet robbed a Maryland convenience store in less than a minute, police said Tuesday, and now authorities are using the same tool to identify participants in the crime.

Surveillance video shows a couple of teens walking into a Germantown 7-Eleven store on Saturday at 1:47 a.m. Then, in a matter of seconds, dozens more young people entered and grabbed items from store shelves and coolers. Police said the teens left the store together, without paying for anything.

"At least 28 different individuals" have been confirmed on the video, Capt. Paul Starks told CNN Tuesday.

Flash mobs -- usually announced online in social networking sites, or by e-mails or text messages -- were once benign and entertaining, but recent gatherings by groups of teenagers have evolved into more sinister actions.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/08/16/maryland.flash.mob/

 

[Boundless]

Canadian workers ill after cannabis brownie mix-up
Chocolate cake

Three office employees in the Canadian city of Victoria fell ill after a colleague unwittingly gave them chocolate brownies laced with cannabis.

Police were investigating a possible case of poisoning at the workplace after the three were taken to hospital feeling dizzy and disorientated.

The woman who brought in the cakes said she simply found them in her freezer.

But her son later admitted to police he had baked the cannabis cakes some time ago and forgotten about them.

Canadian media reports said police decided not to press charges because there had been no criminal intent.

But the son is expected to be ordered to take part in community work, said the Vancouver Sun.

All three affected colleagues were released from hospital after a few hours.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14770359