July 31, 2012

For $10 million a saddle, you can actually ride Mitt Romney like a pony.

First in line, businessman Sheldon Adelson. Romney is reported to be "excited and nervous" about the mounting, which will take place Thursday of this week, and reportedly hopes he "executes the complex prancing maneuvers to Mr. Adelson's liking."

PB

July 28, 2012

And sometimes, a person whose arm is blown off will pick it up and attempt to stick it back on.

The actions of a person in a state of shock are not something to mock.

PB

July 19, 2012

Elderly South Korean woman unexpectedly sodomized by her calamari dinner.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/partially-cooked-squid-inseminates-woman-mouth-article-1.1097250

[div class="excerpt" style="border: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-bottom: none; border-radius: 0.3846em 0.3846em 0em 0em; box-shadow: 2px 2px 6px #bfbfbf;"]Partially cooked squid inseminates woman’s mouth[div class="excerpt" style="border: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-top: none; border-radius: 0em 0em 0.3846em 0.3846em; background-color: #f4f4f4; box-shadow: 2px 2px 6px #bfbfbf;"] A South Korean woman got quite a mouthful when a semi-cooked squid she was eating reportedly inseminated her mouth.

The 63-year-old suffered "severe pain" and a "prickling, foreign-body sensation" in her mouth after taking a bite of the partially-cooked seafood, according to a study published in February in the Journal of Parasitology.

The unidentified woman spit the squid out immediately, according to the report, but not before the cephalopod injected its sperm bags into the mucous membranes of her tongue and cheek.

She went to the hospital, where doctors apparently found a dozen "small, white spindle-shaped bug-like organisms" which they believed to be parasites in the woman's mouth.

But I'll give you a hint: They weren't parasites. And it's apparently not the first time this has happened, either. More at the link!

Nobody made you click on this OP. You only have yourself to blame.

OnEdit: I should add the obligatory:


PB

July 12, 2012

I had basically the exact thing happen. Back porch, late at night. I can't remember...

...why I wanted to shoo them off but there was some reason. So I slide open the porch door and I'm all making cat-hiss noises and stuff to get them to scram. There were three of 'em. The first two sort of amble off absent-mindedly but the third one stands on his hind legs like "Oh, hey, who're you? I think I can take you, old man. What do you think about that?"

Now I'm physically making shooing motions because the psychic connection between the raccoon and I allowed me to read his thoughts and I'm a little hurt- "Hey, uncool! I'm not that old."

But he ain't moving. Standing on hind legs, little beady eyes just staring right at me in perfect concentration, while them little hands play over the cement in case there was a Cadbury egg or a chicken liver or something that he might not want to miss.

Eventually I realize I want to get a stick and poke his uppity ass with it. I just want to at this point, because fuck this raccoon. He's telepathically called me old and, damnit, if there do happen to be any Cadbury eggs or chicken livers on my back porch, they're mine.

And then I realize the best way to win this battle is to go back inside, close the patio door and fuck that racoon. I hope he found a bunch of unexploded landmines from WWII on my porch, but I know, deep down, it was probably a Cadburdy egg.

I've had lots of similar experiences, usually without the name-calling. Because of how close it is to the river, and because the campus is actually a giant arboretum, I've seen troupes of raccoons 15-20 strong moving through the middle of the University of Oregon campus at like, I have no idea, like 3am or some silly shit like that. Same with Hendricks park, which is a park on a hill even closer to the river.

15-20 raccoons and I start walking the opposite direction at 50 yards.

PB

July 2, 2012

NYT: Probation Fees Rise, Firms Profit and the Poor Go to Jail

[div class="excerpt" style="border: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-bottom: none; border-radius: 0.3846em 0.3846em 0em 0em; box-shadow: 2px 2px 6px #bfbfbf;"]Probation Fees Rise, Firms Profit and the Poor Go to Jail[div class="excerpt" style="border: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-top: none; border-radius: 0em 0em 0.3846em 0.3846em; background-color: #f4f4f4; box-shadow: 2px 2px 6px #bfbfbf;"]CHILDERSBURG, Ala. — Three years ago, Gina Ray, who is now 31 and unemployed, was fined $179 for speeding. She failed to show up at court (she says the ticket bore the wrong date), so her license was revoked. When she was next pulled over, she was, of course, driving without a license. By then her fees added up to more than $1,500. Unable to pay, she was handed over to a private probation company and jailed — charged an additional fee for each day behind bars.

For that driving offense, Ms. Ray has been locked up three times for a total of 40 days and owes $3,170, much of it to the probation company. Her story, in hardscrabble, rural Alabama, where Krispy Kreme promises that “two can dine for $5.99,” is not about innocence. It is, rather, about the mushrooming of fines and fees levied by money-starved towns across the country and the for-profit businesses that administer the system. The result is that growing numbers of poor people, like Ms. Ray, are ending up jailed and in debt for minor infractions.

“With so many towns economically strapped, there is growing pressure on the courts to bring in money rather than mete out justice,” said Lisa W. Borden, a partner in Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, a large law firm in Birmingham, Ala., who has spent a great deal of time on the issue. “The companies they hire are aggressive. Those arrested are not told about the right to counsel or asked whether they are indigent or offered an alternative to fines and jail. There are real constitutional issues at stake.”

Half a century ago in a landmark case, the Supreme Court ruled that those accused of crimes had to be provided a lawyer if they could not afford one. But in misdemeanors, the right to counsel is rarely brought up, even though defendants can run the risk of jail. The probation companies promise revenue to the towns, while saying they also help offenders, and the defendants often end up lost in a legal Twilight Zone.

Much more at the link and definitely worth the read!

PB