Sure enough. Kathyrn Fridge, a 28-year-old Texas mom, as reported in the Galveston County Daily News,
went with her 2-year-old daughter and mother to Wal-Mart on Aug. 4 to buy batteries just in case Edouard left the county without electricity the following day.
As luck would have it (bad luck, that is), there were no batteries. Said Ms. Fridge to her mom:
It was a bad idea, and it didn’t end well. Per the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:
Witnesses told township police that [Jay Matthew] Tokar [age 46] was flying his glider dangerously close to children playing soccer in the area.
They also told police Tokar was yelling at people on the golf course and trying to spit on them.
[Witness] Mark J. Gazi told police that Tokar flew the glider so close that at times Gazi could have touched Tokar with his golf club.
Police didn’t test Tokar at the scene but …
…a search warrant served Aug. 28 for Tokar’s medical records revealed his blood-alcohol level was 0.151 percent and he had taken benzodiazepines before the crash. A motorist is considered intoxicated in this state with a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 percent.
How did the ride end?
According to the criminal complaint, after Tokar’s plane struck the cable lines, one of the lines jumped off the pulley system and struck witness James Troutman, injuring him in the left leg.
Tokar’s injuries were much more serious, unlike the time in August 2003 when he …
… crashed his aircraft in the Cobblestone-St. Ives housing plan in Hempfield. It snagged a tree, spun out of control and dropped about 60 feet to the ground.
Tokar was not injured in that crash.
60 feet to the ground and no injuries! For this latest flight, Tokar faces charges of reckless endangerment, disorderly conduct and public drunkenness. Here’s the source.
Per the Alaska Supreme Court’s decision, Judge David Landry: 
made inappropriate sexual comments to female court employees in the workplace. These included a note to a female employee that her “Hillbilly thermometers are distracting”, a note to a court clerk referring to a juror, stating, “I think Ms. _______ wants me,” describing one court clerk as a “shameless hussy”…
Hillbilly thermometers?! Where do you come up with that? Judge Landry also routinely signed blank bail orders, leaving it to the prosecutors to decide “the particulars for out-of-custody defendants.” Gee, think there’s anything wrong with that? There are a few more findings (like 14 criminal cases that had to be dismissed in 2005 because Judge Landry failed to schedule the trials within the time required by law), but I think you get the idea. Partially because Judge Landry was defeated in November 2006, his punishment was only a “public censure.” Oh, and “at no time in the future [may he] seek or hold a position as a judicial officer in the State of Alaska.” Where’s the accountability? I’m steamed.
A Chinese company called “Beijing Lunar Village Aeronautics and Technology Co Ltd,” but operating as the “Lunar Embassy to China,” offered land on the moon at the low, low price of 298 yuan (about $40) per acre. And just in case you need to check up on your plot, this ambitious company also registered to engage in space travel.
According to the company’s CEO, Li Jie, they sold 49 acres to 34 clients in the first 3 days of operations! Unfortunately for the Lunar Embassy, a Beijing court shut it down, citing a 1983 treated signed by China. The treaty provides that
outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by other means… The exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries.
Snap! Naturally, with such a solid claim, the Lunar Embassy appealed … and lost again. The Chinese government revoked their business license, fined them 50,000 yuan (about $6,250 dollars), and ordered that the investors be refunded their money.
They both sew with a steady hand, right? Somehow, a 30-year-old Indian man posed as a doctor for almost a year without raising even an eyebrow. So how was he caught? A security guard overheard the “doctor” telling a patient that he did not know the way to the pathology lab! And what did the man say when he was caught? He said he was a surgeon in India, had a applied for a job, and was just wandering around waiting for word on his application. But when the police checked him out, they learned that he works in a women’s tailor shop! No doubt that’s where he made (really) the doctor’s uniform that he wore around the hospital.
This man didn’t walk into Walgreens with no stinkin’ pocket knife. No, it’s the Powell Doctrine (remember, overwhelming force?) or nothing. Per The Denver Post:
A 19-year-old Denver man wielding a samurai sword is suspected of holding up a pharmacy Tuesday night in Glendale.
The robber jumped a counter at the Walgreens at 360 S. Colorado Blvd. and threatened employees with a 30-inch long samurai sword, police said.
The robber ran off with a cache of the painkiller Oxycontin but was chased down by police about 100 yards away.
100 yards? Must’ve forgotten to plan the getaway.
That may be an understatement. Sure, if you’re in jail, maybe it’s not a big deal to steal from another inmate. But what about stealing a computer from the jail? Yup. Per the Kalamazoo Gazette:
Kalamazoo County Circuit Judge Gary Giguere Jr. sentenced [Western Michigan University student William K.] Bradley on Monday, telling the Kalamazoo resident his jailhouse theft was “the dumbest crime I’ve heard today” and “may be in the top half-dozen in my career.”
Bradley, who has racked up six felonies and four misdemeanors by the age of 25, agreed with the judge, saying, “I’m not the best criminal.”
This had to hurt …
Bradley asked for home arrest, but Giguere instead ordered him back to jail for six months.
Not a good sophomore year for Mr. Bradley.
Okay so the guy had a knife, but it was a butter knife. And the motel clerk didn’t think much of it either. Per the Rapid City Journal [South Dakota]:
The front desk clerk told police a man pointed a butter knife at her and asked her for money. When she refused, the man left the hotel, walking west, police said.
The clerk gave police a detailed description of the man. Police searched the area, and about 7 p.m., an officer noticed a man matching the description of the robber standing outside an apartment in the 900 block of Fillmore Street, just north of the hotel. Police recovered a knife they believe was used in the attempted robbery.
Police arrested Robert Lee McKinney, 34, of Rapid City. He has been charged with first-degree robbery and is in custody at Pennington County Jail.
What’s he looking at?
First-degree robbery is a class 2 felony with a maximum penalty upon conviction of 25 years imprisonment and a $50,000 fine.
Shazam!
You know those ideas that leave you asking yourself “why didn’t I think of that? It’s so simple.” Well, this isn’t one of them. The only simple thing about this scheme is the dude that tried to pull it off. From the South Florida Sun-Senitnel:
Add a zero to a $5 bill and it becomes a $50? Well, one would-be thief today tried to pass off a fake fifty at the Ace hardware store, 510 E. Boynton Beach Blvd., police said.
At about 8:08 a.m., an unidentified shopper brought a few items to the counter and handed over the money. When the clerk questioned another store employee about the authenticity of the bill the man ran out of the store, according to a police log.
“A closer examination of the bill revealed that it appeared to be a five dollar bill that the suspect attempted to transform into a fifty,” the report stated.
Look at that fiver up there! How could you possibly turn that into a fifty?
The old saw remains true: if it’s sounds too good to be true, it is. So how did former high school secretary Caroline McNeal allegedly assure that her daughter increased her grades and SAT scores? Per The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
The first clue that something was amiss came when a high school guidance office employee in fall 2007 noticed that the SAT college entrance exam score in the school computer for Ms. McNeal’s daughter was higher than the one sent by the College Board, 1730 vs. 1370.
Further investigation showed the girl’s grades had been altered about 193 times in 24 courses between May 30, 2006 and July 12, 2007, covering school years from 2003-04 through 2006-07.
Many of the changes boosted grades that were already in the 90s, such as changing an accelerated social studies term grade from 94 to 95 and a family and consumer sciences final grade from 98 to 100.
In some cases, the increase was significant, such as raising an exam grade in advanced algebra from 69 to 94.
But that’s not all. She’s also charged with reducing the grades of two other girls!
The girls had higher class ranks than Ms. McNeal’s daughter did before the grades were altered.
According to the affidavit, the grades of the two girls were changed by a couple of percentage points, such as reducing one’s advanced algebra grade for one term from 96 to 94 and the other’s accelerated English grade for a term from 96 to 93.
All very uncool, and felonious.
[Ms. McNeal] was charged with 29 counts of unlawful use of a computer and 29 counts of tampering with public records, all third-degree felonies.
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