News of the Weird, March 31, 2013
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Chuck Shepherd
Mar 31, 2013, 3:41:43 PM3/31/13
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WEIRDNUZ.M312 (News of the Weird, March 31, 2013)
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
* In March, Microsoft was fined 561 million euros (about $725
million) by the European Commission after, apparently, a
programer carelessly left out just one line of code in Microsoft's
"Service Pack 1" of European versions of Windows 7. That one
line would have triggered the system to offer web browsers other
than Microsoft's own Internet Explorer, which Microsoft had
agreed to include (to settle charges that it was monopolizing the
web-browser business). (Also in March, the government of
Denmark said that Microsoft owed it about a billion dollars in
unpaid taxes when it took over a Danish company and tried to route
its taxes through notorious tax havens such as Bermuda. According
to a March Reuters report, Denmark is among the first European
countries to challenge such U.S.-standard tax shenanigans and is
expecting payment in full.) [The Guardian (London), 3-6-2013]
[Reuters, 3-4-2013]
Recurring Themes
* Being identified with the number 666 (the "mark of the beast" in
the Bible's Book of Revelation) continues to trouble the righteous.
Walter Slonopas, 52, felt required to resign as a maintenance
worker for Contech Casting in Clarksville, Tenn., in February after
receiving his W-2 form, which he noted was the 666th mailed out
by Contech this year. (However, perhaps Slonopas is not so
innocent. He had been working for Contech for less than two years
yet had already been "assigned" number 666 twice--on the
company's payroll books and the company's time-clock system.)
[USA Today, 2-7-2013]
* The Iconic Phantom Black/Hispanic Perpetrator: In February,
victims of crimes in San Antonio, Tex., and Terrebonne Parish, La.,
complained to police that they had been assaulted by, respectively,
an "Hispanic male" and an "unknown black man"--who the victims
admitted later did not exist. San Antonio police learned that their
victim was accidentally, embarrassingly, shot by a friend
mishandling his gun. Louisiana authorities found that their victim
had not been abducted and raped (and had her baby stolen). Rather,
she had wanted to hide her miscarriage from family and friends and
invented a phantom attack as more acceptable. [KENS-TV (San
Antonio), 2-6-2013] [WWL-TV (New Orleans), 2-28-2013]
* Chinese New Year, especially, turns out not so festive if busy
young professional women are unable to show off a boyfriend to
their parents. Thus, men offer themselves as fake boyfriends for the
equivalent of about $50 a day, plus extras including about $5 to
accompany the woman to dinner, $8 for a kiss on the cheek, and
$95 to spent the night--on the couch, of course, since "sex" is not
part of the concept. Recently, a reality TV series appeared for men
needing women for home visits--often gay men who have not "come
out" to their parents. [BBC News, 2-6-2013]
* Backwards Incentives: Society continues to suffer from
questionable company policies that encourage precisely the wrong
behaviors. Bartender Twyla DeVito said she knew that one of her
regulars at the American Legion Post in Shelby, Ohio, was too
inebriated to drive home and thus telephoned police, alerting them
to a potential drunk driver. An officer responded, observed the
driver, and arrested him when his blood-alcohol read twice the limit
for presumed impairment. Two days later DeVito was fired
because, as her boss allegedly said to her, "[I]t's bad for business to
have a bartender that will call the cops." [WBNS-TV (Columbus),
2-22-2013]
* The Fabulous British Government "Safety Net": Heather Frost,
36 and mother of 11, is getting a brand-new, specially designed
house through the Tewkesbury (England) Borough Council, which
deemed inadequate the duplex that the family had been using at
taxpayer expense for five years. Frost had complained that she
needed larger quarters because one daughter now owns a horse and
needs to stable it (and, said a stable worker, had almost acquired
two more horses, but that deal fell through). [Daily Telegraph
(London), 2-19-2013]
* Fathers caught up unfairly in state laws on child support have
appeared in News of the Weird, but Lionel Campbell's story seems
unusually harsh. Authorities in Detroit continue to bill Campbell
for past-due support (which Campbell admits he owes even if
unsure how much), but only recently did he discover that they were
counting $43,000 past-due to support "Michael," who had died 25
years ago at age three. Campbell said he had thought the support
was for another child, born seven years after Michael, but it turns
out neither the authorities nor Campbell knows precisely which
fatherhood Campbell is paying for. The latest audit reduced
Michael's $43,000 balance to about $6,500. [WXYZ-TV (Detroit),
2-15-2013]
* Third-World Penis-Snatchings Continue to Vex: In Tiringoulou
(pop. 2,000) in the Central African Republic, phantoms are thought
often to steal penises, or shrink them, but according to a March
dispatch in the magazine Pacific Standard, the stories' origins may
simply reflect distrust of outsiders. Townspeople over-attribute
worldly powers to strangers, and when outsiders' business deals go
sour, men check their genitals. Also, animal-organ poachers operate
nearby and arouse suspicion that they may be after human genitals,
as well. (Asking for perspective on this weirdness, though, the
Pacific Standard reporter wondered what Tiringoulou citizens might
think about Americans who, for instance, starve themselves "near to
death because their reflection in the mirror convinces them that they
are fat.") [Pacific Standard via Alternet, 3-14-2013]
* More Poor Planning: (1) In San Diego, Calif., in February, two
people broke into a Hooters after closing and stole a jukebox,
apparently, said police, mistaking it for an ATM inside the darkened
restaurant. (2) Jose Perales Jr., 24, was charged with breaking into
Dr. John's Lingerie Boutique in Davenport, Iowa, in February.
Surveillance video revealed he was wearing men's clothing when he
entered but left in a dress and blond wig. In fact, while changing
clothes, his bare back was visible, revealing "Perales" tattooed on
his shoulder. [KGTV (San Diego), 2-22-2013] [Quad City Times
(Davenport), 2-23-2013]
* Loretta Lacy, 49, perhaps set some kind of record in January as
she sped from Sioux Falls, S.D., to Racine, Wis. (about 500 miles
away) just to make her granddaughter's school dance. Although her
daughter told a Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter that her mother
"can make it from A to B faster than maybe the average person,"
Lacy collected four speeding tickets during one 2-1/2-hour stretch,
including for speeds of 88, 99, and 112. Of course, she arrived late.
[Star Tribune, 1-30-2013]
Updates
* Sherwin Shayegan might be again acting out his well-known (to
News of the Weird readers) obsession of coaxing strangers (usually,
teenage boys, especially athletes) to give him piggyback rides. A
Bettendorf, Iowa, police report (obtained by Deadspin.com in
February) showed his arrest on an unrelated charge, but police noted
that Shayegan had attended a college basketball game in Moline,
Ill., the night before--and such a scenario has been fertile ground in
the past for Shayegan's easing himself into locker rooms to hop on a
back or two. [Deadspin.com, 2-01-2013]
* News of the Weird mentioned in October that China and Japan are
currently engaged in an ownership dispute over two islands in the
South China Sea and had dispatched ships to the region to
accompany their countries' verbal blustering. (Taiwan also claims
the islands.) The Japanese daily Nikkan Spa reported in December
that China's very recent takedowns of Internet pornography from
Japan was likely caused by the spat. In comments on Internet porn
sites, some Chinese subscribers patriotically vowed to give up
watching Japanese sex videos--even if it meant going without one
of their favorites--the Japanese star Aoi Sola. [Nikkan Spa via
Kotaku.com, 12-6-2012]
* News of the Weird has noted the street-wise pointers offered by
al-Qaida's online magazine Inspire, and the new issue, released in
February, offers yet more tips for causing infidels mayhem. This
issue ignores large-scale destructions (such as bringing down
airliners) and focuses on smaller chaos such as torching parked cars,
greasing up sharp-angled roadways to force cars to skid, and
outfiting pickup trucks with knives affixed to the grill. Insight also
cautions the jihadists to use care to protect themselves in the
process--advice which, based on experience, will not be heeded.
[Wired Danger Room, 3-1-2013]
Thanks This Week to John McGaw, Gerald Sacks, and
Thomas Sullivan, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial
Advisors.
* * * * *
WeirdNews at earthlink dot net, http://www.NewsoftheWeird.net
(almost daily), and P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679.
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
* In March, Microsoft was fined 561 million euros (about $725
million) by the European Commission after, apparently, a
programer carelessly left out just one line of code in Microsoft's
"Service Pack 1" of European versions of Windows 7. That one
line would have triggered the system to offer web browsers other
than Microsoft's own Internet Explorer, which Microsoft had
agreed to include (to settle charges that it was monopolizing the
web-browser business). (Also in March, the government of
Denmark said that Microsoft owed it about a billion dollars in
unpaid taxes when it took over a Danish company and tried to route
its taxes through notorious tax havens such as Bermuda. According
to a March Reuters report, Denmark is among the first European
countries to challenge such U.S.-standard tax shenanigans and is
expecting payment in full.) [The Guardian (London), 3-6-2013]
[Reuters, 3-4-2013]
Recurring Themes
* Being identified with the number 666 (the "mark of the beast" in
the Bible's Book of Revelation) continues to trouble the righteous.
Walter Slonopas, 52, felt required to resign as a maintenance
worker for Contech Casting in Clarksville, Tenn., in February after
receiving his W-2 form, which he noted was the 666th mailed out
by Contech this year. (However, perhaps Slonopas is not so
innocent. He had been working for Contech for less than two years
yet had already been "assigned" number 666 twice--on the
company's payroll books and the company's time-clock system.)
[USA Today, 2-7-2013]
* The Iconic Phantom Black/Hispanic Perpetrator: In February,
victims of crimes in San Antonio, Tex., and Terrebonne Parish, La.,
complained to police that they had been assaulted by, respectively,
an "Hispanic male" and an "unknown black man"--who the victims
admitted later did not exist. San Antonio police learned that their
victim was accidentally, embarrassingly, shot by a friend
mishandling his gun. Louisiana authorities found that their victim
had not been abducted and raped (and had her baby stolen). Rather,
she had wanted to hide her miscarriage from family and friends and
invented a phantom attack as more acceptable. [KENS-TV (San
Antonio), 2-6-2013] [WWL-TV (New Orleans), 2-28-2013]
* Chinese New Year, especially, turns out not so festive if busy
young professional women are unable to show off a boyfriend to
their parents. Thus, men offer themselves as fake boyfriends for the
equivalent of about $50 a day, plus extras including about $5 to
accompany the woman to dinner, $8 for a kiss on the cheek, and
$95 to spent the night--on the couch, of course, since "sex" is not
part of the concept. Recently, a reality TV series appeared for men
needing women for home visits--often gay men who have not "come
out" to their parents. [BBC News, 2-6-2013]
* Backwards Incentives: Society continues to suffer from
questionable company policies that encourage precisely the wrong
behaviors. Bartender Twyla DeVito said she knew that one of her
regulars at the American Legion Post in Shelby, Ohio, was too
inebriated to drive home and thus telephoned police, alerting them
to a potential drunk driver. An officer responded, observed the
driver, and arrested him when his blood-alcohol read twice the limit
for presumed impairment. Two days later DeVito was fired
because, as her boss allegedly said to her, "[I]t's bad for business to
have a bartender that will call the cops." [WBNS-TV (Columbus),
2-22-2013]
* The Fabulous British Government "Safety Net": Heather Frost,
36 and mother of 11, is getting a brand-new, specially designed
house through the Tewkesbury (England) Borough Council, which
deemed inadequate the duplex that the family had been using at
taxpayer expense for five years. Frost had complained that she
needed larger quarters because one daughter now owns a horse and
needs to stable it (and, said a stable worker, had almost acquired
two more horses, but that deal fell through). [Daily Telegraph
(London), 2-19-2013]
* Fathers caught up unfairly in state laws on child support have
appeared in News of the Weird, but Lionel Campbell's story seems
unusually harsh. Authorities in Detroit continue to bill Campbell
for past-due support (which Campbell admits he owes even if
unsure how much), but only recently did he discover that they were
counting $43,000 past-due to support "Michael," who had died 25
years ago at age three. Campbell said he had thought the support
was for another child, born seven years after Michael, but it turns
out neither the authorities nor Campbell knows precisely which
fatherhood Campbell is paying for. The latest audit reduced
Michael's $43,000 balance to about $6,500. [WXYZ-TV (Detroit),
2-15-2013]
* Third-World Penis-Snatchings Continue to Vex: In Tiringoulou
(pop. 2,000) in the Central African Republic, phantoms are thought
often to steal penises, or shrink them, but according to a March
dispatch in the magazine Pacific Standard, the stories' origins may
simply reflect distrust of outsiders. Townspeople over-attribute
worldly powers to strangers, and when outsiders' business deals go
sour, men check their genitals. Also, animal-organ poachers operate
nearby and arouse suspicion that they may be after human genitals,
as well. (Asking for perspective on this weirdness, though, the
Pacific Standard reporter wondered what Tiringoulou citizens might
think about Americans who, for instance, starve themselves "near to
death because their reflection in the mirror convinces them that they
are fat.") [Pacific Standard via Alternet, 3-14-2013]
* More Poor Planning: (1) In San Diego, Calif., in February, two
people broke into a Hooters after closing and stole a jukebox,
apparently, said police, mistaking it for an ATM inside the darkened
restaurant. (2) Jose Perales Jr., 24, was charged with breaking into
Dr. John's Lingerie Boutique in Davenport, Iowa, in February.
Surveillance video revealed he was wearing men's clothing when he
entered but left in a dress and blond wig. In fact, while changing
clothes, his bare back was visible, revealing "Perales" tattooed on
his shoulder. [KGTV (San Diego), 2-22-2013] [Quad City Times
(Davenport), 2-23-2013]
* Loretta Lacy, 49, perhaps set some kind of record in January as
she sped from Sioux Falls, S.D., to Racine, Wis. (about 500 miles
away) just to make her granddaughter's school dance. Although her
daughter told a Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter that her mother
"can make it from A to B faster than maybe the average person,"
Lacy collected four speeding tickets during one 2-1/2-hour stretch,
including for speeds of 88, 99, and 112. Of course, she arrived late.
[Star Tribune, 1-30-2013]
Updates
* Sherwin Shayegan might be again acting out his well-known (to
News of the Weird readers) obsession of coaxing strangers (usually,
teenage boys, especially athletes) to give him piggyback rides. A
Bettendorf, Iowa, police report (obtained by Deadspin.com in
February) showed his arrest on an unrelated charge, but police noted
that Shayegan had attended a college basketball game in Moline,
Ill., the night before--and such a scenario has been fertile ground in
the past for Shayegan's easing himself into locker rooms to hop on a
back or two. [Deadspin.com, 2-01-2013]
* News of the Weird mentioned in October that China and Japan are
currently engaged in an ownership dispute over two islands in the
South China Sea and had dispatched ships to the region to
accompany their countries' verbal blustering. (Taiwan also claims
the islands.) The Japanese daily Nikkan Spa reported in December
that China's very recent takedowns of Internet pornography from
Japan was likely caused by the spat. In comments on Internet porn
sites, some Chinese subscribers patriotically vowed to give up
watching Japanese sex videos--even if it meant going without one
of their favorites--the Japanese star Aoi Sola. [Nikkan Spa via
Kotaku.com, 12-6-2012]
* News of the Weird has noted the street-wise pointers offered by
al-Qaida's online magazine Inspire, and the new issue, released in
February, offers yet more tips for causing infidels mayhem. This
issue ignores large-scale destructions (such as bringing down
airliners) and focuses on smaller chaos such as torching parked cars,
greasing up sharp-angled roadways to force cars to skid, and
outfiting pickup trucks with knives affixed to the grill. Insight also
cautions the jihadists to use care to protect themselves in the
process--advice which, based on experience, will not be heeded.
[Wired Danger Room, 3-1-2013]
Thanks This Week to John McGaw, Gerald Sacks, and
Thomas Sullivan, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial
Advisors.
* * * * *
WeirdNews at earthlink dot net, http://www.NewsoftheWeird.net
(almost daily), and P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679.
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