WTF DAY!
I hereby dub Tuesdays WTF day. 4 those who don't know what WTF means, WTF! (what the fuck) As part of my daily browsing I often find myself reading Chuck Shepherd's News of the Weird. When I was in high school, it always offered such an enlightened look at the people that make up this fair country, especially in the red states. :-) And today, it's no different. Just take a look at some things that have been happening around our country.
New Hampshire Moms Gone Wild
Police in Sandown, N.H., charged Suzanne Viviani, 47, with threatening her daughter (age 22) with a knife held to her head because the daughter had snatched cocaine out of Suzanne's bra during a confrontation in August. (The two women reconciled and were booked into the same jail cell.) And in October, 40 miles away in Belmont, N.H., police charged Jacqueline Weiner, 36, with assault after her husband, Steven, held Jacqueline's 10-year-old son down while she stabbed him repeatedly in the arm with a kitchen knife because the boy and his brother had destroyed Jacqueline's favorite toy animal. [Union Leader (Manchester), 8-17-04] [Laconia Citizen, 10-7-04]
In September, the Oakland (Calif.) police suspended their successful traffic safety program of random drunk-driving checkpoints because they had received too many complaints from illegal aliens, who were being arrested not because they were driving drunk but because, as illegals, they lack driver's licenses. [Oakland Tribune, 9-26-04]
More Scenes of the Surreal
(1) Joseph Manuel Augusto, 37, and Andres S. Diaz, 52, chased each other around a Burger King in Stratford, Conn., in July after Augusto had become enraged that Diaz had occupied the men's room too long; Augusto was flailing at Diaz with a small pocket knife, and Diaz at Augusto with a straw dispenser. (2) Attorneys for the city of Monte Sereno, Calif. (pop. 3,400), said in October they would proceed with the civil and criminal cases against defiant residents Joe and Darla Padgett over the Padgetts' 2-feet-too-high fence (and illegal chopping down of a tree), which has so far cost the modestly budgeted city $170,000 to prosecute, with no end in sight. [New Haven Register, 7-20-04] [San Jose Mercury News, 10-12-04]
In an October decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit voted, 8-7, not only to affirm Paul Gregory House's 1986 rape-murder conviction but also to keep him on Tennessee's death row, despite subsequent knowledge that the prosecutor's primary evidence was faulty. The eight judges accepted the conviction, even though the rape evidence was based, nearly archaically, on a match of blood "type" in semen found on the victim; much more sophisticated DNA testing later showed that the semen was not from House but from the victim's estranged husband (who, it was subsequently learned, allegedly "confessed" the crime to three witnesses, evidence that was too belatedly offered to satisfy the majority judges). [New York Times, 10-7-04]
Now perhaps you understand why I dub it WTF Day, because who in their right mind can read that stuff and NOT go WTF!?
When she called me common I thought it meant I had common sense. I was wrong.
Ta commoners!
New Hampshire Moms Gone Wild
Police in Sandown, N.H., charged Suzanne Viviani, 47, with threatening her daughter (age 22) with a knife held to her head because the daughter had snatched cocaine out of Suzanne's bra during a confrontation in August. (The two women reconciled and were booked into the same jail cell.) And in October, 40 miles away in Belmont, N.H., police charged Jacqueline Weiner, 36, with assault after her husband, Steven, held Jacqueline's 10-year-old son down while she stabbed him repeatedly in the arm with a kitchen knife because the boy and his brother had destroyed Jacqueline's favorite toy animal. [Union Leader (Manchester), 8-17-04] [Laconia Citizen, 10-7-04]
In September, the Oakland (Calif.) police suspended their successful traffic safety program of random drunk-driving checkpoints because they had received too many complaints from illegal aliens, who were being arrested not because they were driving drunk but because, as illegals, they lack driver's licenses. [Oakland Tribune, 9-26-04]
More Scenes of the Surreal
(1) Joseph Manuel Augusto, 37, and Andres S. Diaz, 52, chased each other around a Burger King in Stratford, Conn., in July after Augusto had become enraged that Diaz had occupied the men's room too long; Augusto was flailing at Diaz with a small pocket knife, and Diaz at Augusto with a straw dispenser. (2) Attorneys for the city of Monte Sereno, Calif. (pop. 3,400), said in October they would proceed with the civil and criminal cases against defiant residents Joe and Darla Padgett over the Padgetts' 2-feet-too-high fence (and illegal chopping down of a tree), which has so far cost the modestly budgeted city $170,000 to prosecute, with no end in sight. [New Haven Register, 7-20-04] [San Jose Mercury News, 10-12-04]
In an October decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit voted, 8-7, not only to affirm Paul Gregory House's 1986 rape-murder conviction but also to keep him on Tennessee's death row, despite subsequent knowledge that the prosecutor's primary evidence was faulty. The eight judges accepted the conviction, even though the rape evidence was based, nearly archaically, on a match of blood "type" in semen found on the victim; much more sophisticated DNA testing later showed that the semen was not from House but from the victim's estranged husband (who, it was subsequently learned, allegedly "confessed" the crime to three witnesses, evidence that was too belatedly offered to satisfy the majority judges). [New York Times, 10-7-04]
Now perhaps you understand why I dub it WTF Day, because who in their right mind can read that stuff and NOT go WTF!?
When she called me common I thought it meant I had common sense. I was wrong.
Ta commoners!
posted by Saturn at
1:32 PM
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