You really have to read the following article by Graham Stewart in the Times online, ‘Gaffes and blunders all around.’
It’s the absolutely fabulous story of the Imperial Russian Fleet that went to Japan to wage war on the Land of the Rising Sun.
It’s like Cheney with a hunting rifle, Amy Whinehouse singing ‘No, no, no: I won’t go!’ or Woody Allen with the keys to a Vietnamese orphanage - but worse:
It is Russia’s biggest naval exercise since the Soviet Union’s collapse and another of Vladimir Putin’s reminders that the West should not mess with Moscow. Yet the vast live ammunition war game taking place off the French and Spanish coasts divides analysts. Is it an impressive display of Russian might or, like the Kursk, another humiliating accident waiting to happen?At least we can rest assured that nothing unfolding in the Bay of Biscay can equal the display of reckless incompetence achieved by the Imperial Russian fleet in its great and spectacularly disastrous show of power in 1904.
So, what went wrong?
Well, everything - but read the article. It’s funnier than the Blues Brothers, scarier than Stallone on steroids and weirder than a skeleton crew of sumo wrestlers wearing Christian Dior dresses:
After the Russian fleet docked at Tangier to resupply, its departure was marred when an anchor ripped-up the telegraph cable connecting North Africa to Europe. Several days of intercontinental radio silence ensued. Off Madagascar, illness and disease took its toll. A live shell was fired to mark one sailor’s funeral but was not aimed away from the fleet and scored a direct hit on the battlecruiser Aurora.
Clearly in need of gunnery practice, a line of stationary targets was attached to a support vessel. The shelling missed the targets but hit the vessel. The torpedo practice was no less farcical. One torpedo started whizzing round and round in circles, forcing the fleet to disperse in fright.
A drunk-driver who killed a cyclist has been sentenced to ten years in prison in the US, after the judge heard a recorded jail conversation in which she laughed about “taking out a tree hugger, a bicyclist, a Frenchman and a gay guy all in one shot.”
Melissa Arrington, 27, a barmaid and exotic dancer from Tucson, Arizona, could have received as few as four years behind bars after she killed cyclist Paul L’Ecuyer while driving under the influence on the night of December 1, 2006.
Instead, she was sentenced to 10 years - one year shy of the maximum prison term for negligent homicide - after the judge heard a telephone conversation between her and a male friend one week after L’Ecuyer was killed.
I have nothing against barmaids, exotic dancers or even Tucson, Arizona but it would be nice if Miss Arrington would rot in jail until such time that she could prove conclusively to the rest of us that she actually is a card-carrying member of the human race and not some kind of psychotic Barbie.
However, isn’t it remarkable how humans can misuse everything they come upon or invent?
For instance, one clever cave guy or gal finds two rock, beats them together and hey presto: first sparks, then fire, then steak. Then, he shows this new trick to the rest of the clan and yes, they are mightily impressed. Like, wow, you can really hit something hard with them stones. So, then the men start to beat each other over the head with those rocks (in between stoning some of their women to death, of course.)
Same with cars, as we saw with that mental moron, Melissa Arrington. Still, driving under the influence isn’t the only illegal bit of fun you can have with a car. As a couple of Malaysian thieves showed:
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Thieves in Malaysia stole an adult cow, They managed to push the cow into the back of a mid-sized sedan Tuesday night, but were spotted by villagers who gave chase, said a local police official in the northern state of Kedah.
The driver lost control during the chase and drove into a tree, after which they abandoned the animal. The cow, injured in the crash, was slaughtered by villagers.
Which is rather sad, of course.
Mind you, this was just one cow and a couple of thieves – and a mid-sized Sedan. In KwaZulu-Natal, there was only one thief, a bloody Fiat Uno - and quite a bit more than just the one cow…: Police spokesperson Captain Jabulani Mdletshe said two off-duty policemen were informed by residents of the Phelindaba area near Emanguzi in northern KwaZulu-Natal that they had seen a man loading a cow into the small vehicle.
By the time the two officers arrived, the driver had loaded his vehicle and attempted to speed away. Realising that he was not losing the police, he stopped his car and fled into the bushes.
The police officers discovered that the Fiat Uno had not one unwilling passenger, but four - two cows and two goats.
Which shows that you can definitely have too much of a good thing.
Speaking of which…
I can’t help but feel that the Japanese police were overdoing things just a little bit when they were chasing one wanted man who tried to get away from them by car:
Around 11 a.m., police received an emergency call saying that a car was driving recklessly, ignoring traffic lights. When a patrol car approached the vehicle in question, it took off.
Police were mobilized throughout the area and a helicopter called in. The chase ended when Fukuda’s car crashed into a bridge column. He sustained light injuries but no one else was injured in the chase.
The chase involved 2,240 officers, 460 police cars and one helicopter.
As I’m sure you’ve read all of the nay-sayers’ dull statements: that it ain’t Bigfoot at all and that there is no intelligent life on Mars to be found either.
Well, maybe they are right.
But then, having just seen the following photo on Arbroath, I’m not convinced there’s much intelligent life on Earth either:
“Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It’s no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today. More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history.”
Yes, indeed, that was Pat Robertson, the Christian leader who wanted to take out the Venezuelan president Chavez.
And yes, it’s time for another award: The ‘Pat Robertson’s Awful Toss Award’, or the PRAT, in short.
The year has just started, of course, and it will be months before we will know the definite shortlist but already there is quite a field of worthy candidates shaping up. This week alone three potential candidates proved themselves to be eminently electable as the possible winner of the 2008 PRAT trophy.
The first of these three is the beloved ambulance-chasing TV psychologist Dr Phil, who was once the perfect paladin of Oprah Winfrey. (You can watch them here in happier times.)
Here’s how our good doctor earned his nomination:
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. television personality and psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw on Monday scrapped plans to air a show about Britney Spears after he was criticized for a visit to the troubled pop star in hospital on the weekend. McGraw said he had planned to tape a show on Monday focused not on the tabloid side of Britney’s problems, but on other issues surrounding this case.
“Clearly, it is not just Britney’s family struggling to find a way to protect adult children who cannot be ordered or compelled to seek help,” he said. “Because the Spears situation is too intense at this time, and out of consideration to the family, I have made the decision not to move forward with the taping,” said McGraw.
McGraw later stated that he only regretted the fact that the ungrateful little bitch and her stupid family had refused to let him help them. (Or, in his own, more mealy-mouthed words, “I won’t apologize for reaching out to a friend.”)
You go, Dr Phil.
Incidentally, talking of his former adoring mistress, the big O herself, rumour has it that this is indeed what she did say to the egomaniacal quack: “You: go!”
Yes, indeed, the woman who made her billions by inviting people to bare all on television – and who is good buddies with dangerous cult freaks like Travolta & Cruise – that woman is now ‘furious’ at her former pet for wanting to do a show about Britney:
The fallout from Dr. Phil McGraw’s controversial meeting with pop wreck Britney Spears just keeps on coming. Now it’s not just Brit’s parents and mental health professionals giving the good doc a hard time. Queen of Talk Oprah Winfrey has had it with her tell-it-like-it-is protégé, reports the National Enquirer.
“Oprah is furious,” an insider told the magazine. “She expected Phil to apologize before the situation got out of hand. Instead he used the spotlight to tout his struggling talk show. … Oprah thinks he has completely lost his sense of right and wrong.”
So yes, Oprah is this week’s second strong candidate for the PRAT shortlist.
Still, both Phil and Oprah may not make it to that final shortlist after all. Not if we will see many more candidates like this week’s final hot favourites.
Everybody knows that the USA is a terribly divided country. So, it’s not often that you will, for instance, find Iraq war veterans and gay rights activist agreeing on certain issues. It is a very special person or organisation that can make this happen.
‘Special’ in the sense of loathsome, of course. In other words, perfect candidates for the PRAT award.
So, enter the third and last candidate of this week, the Radical Westboro Baptist Church:
The radical Baptist church known for picketing the funerals of American soldiers who lost their lives in Iraq has announced that they intend to protest Heath Ledger’s stateside memorial service because he played a gay character in “Brokeback Mountain.”
“You cannot live in defiance of God. He (Ledger) got on that big screen with a big, fat message: God is a liar and it’s OK to be gay,” said Shirley Phelps in a statement sent out by the Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church.
Whatever all the upstanding and well-meaning people say, crime does pay – and when you’re a columnist, looking for something to write about, criminals are worth their weight in gold. Especially stupid criminals.
Of course, it’s not just columnists who praise God or Darwin for the fact that so many criminals are as thick as a Paris Hilton quarter pounder with cheese. Cops also like their felons stupid – for God knows most cops aren’t Einsteins themselves. Take these German police officers, for instance:
But the police car was stolen in the Berlin’s Wedding district after officers left it unlocked with the key in the ignition when they jumped out to chase a joy-rider on foot after he had abandoned a stolen car.
The criminal got away and when the officers went back they found the expensive BMW gone.
So, cops who manage to get their theft-proof car stolen really do appreciate the fact that criminals at times manage to act even dumber than that.
Ever heard the one about confession being good for the soul? Well, a certain pensioner might have agreed – for a while. Till the cops came to arrest him, that is.
Which just goes to show that talking to animals might have done Dr Dolittle some good, but that talking to your average moggie can be as ill-advised as hiring Britney Spears as a babysit:
A pensioner is facing charges for the murder of his long-term friend after police recorded him allegedly confessing to his cats. Detectives investigating the death of Joyce Sutton were looking for leads in the case when they decided to secretly install listening devices in David Henton’s house and car.
They allege the 72-year-old, who denies murder, admitted to the crime during his mostly irrelevent musings to his feline companions. Police arrested the life-long bachelor, who lives alone in Skewen, south Wales, after taping him saying:
“They know I did it, see. What can I do now? I hit my Joyce. A bloody woman. Its too much, too much.”
Mrs Sutton was first thought to have been battered to death in bed on Jan 11, 2006 by a burgler, Paul Lewis QC, prosecuting, told Swansea Crown Court. But almost two weeks later, Mr Henton was recorded saying to his cats:
“So, I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know if they can prove it or anything. What am I going to say if they find anything?”
Of course, not all criminals are so obliging to confess to their crimes on tape. So, sometimes, the police actually have to try and do some detective work themselves.
A job, to put it mildly, for which not all that many coppers are particularly well-suited - because they can be sincerely and severely cerebrally challenged; like the PC plods & plonkers of the memorable market town Tewkesbury:
Lee Hicks was arrested for burglary when police found his fingerprints on locks at the scene of the crime. Officers swooped on his Tewkesbury home and held him in custody for three hours.
His frightened wife and two young children looked on in disbelief as officers rummaged through wardrobes searching for evidence at 6am on Wednesday.
He tried to explain to the police why his fingerprints were at the scene of the crime. But Lee was bundled into the back of a van and whisked off to Cheltenham Police Station
Police had found his fingerprints at the garage that had been burgled, and assumed he was their man. But mister Hicks, a locksmith, had been called to replace the locks the real burglars had broken.
Anyway, I started this column with a story about a police car and I shall finish with one as well.
Not all cops are so stupid to get their cars stolen, of course – and some police officers so love their appointed vehicle that they would never consider going anywhere without it. Not to take the car but leave it somewhere instead would be unthinkable to them.
Metropolitan Police riot squad PC Geoff Jackson, 27, is said to have been found asleep in the wrecked van 10 miles from where it had been parked at Paddington Green, central London - the station where terrorist suspects are held. Officers woke him up and gave him a breath test.
The Mercedes Sprinter van had struck the kerb on the busy A40 near Perivale, West London, so hard that one of its wheels had been torn off. The incident allegedly happened after he returned to the Paddington Green police station, where the van was parked, following a work party at 3am last Friday.
Benjamin Jorgensen, 38, and Donna Hayes, 36, were sentenced to seven and eight years respectively for the robbery in a Melbourne restaurant.
During the robbery, Jorgensen grabbed what he thought was a bag of money - only to find it contained bread rolls.
He also accidentally fired his gun, hitting Hayes in the buttock.
Which is kind of cute – him leaving love tokens like that. For yes, verily, man does not live by bread alone.
Still, love, in the immortal words of the Bard, can’t always be a whole lot of roses.
So, when love goes bad, like milk left out in the sun, or goat cheese running to Nietzsche, we find ourselves in the old Hunter S. Thompson paradigm, ‘When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro:’
Kenneth Morris, 54, was left furious when his former girlfriend ditched him for someone else - and left him footing the rent bill. When he found a DVD of her performing oral sex on a dog in an obscene homemade film, he decided to get his own back. Morris copied the DVD then gave it to one unsuspecting friend saying: “Watch this - it’s gross.”
The shocked pal was so disgusted by what he saw he immediately alerted the RSPCA and police.
When officers searched his house they found DVDs of Morris having sex with many different women and he was arrested. At Minshull Street Crown Court, Morris of Eccles in Salford, Greater Manchester, admitted distributing obscene material. He leant on a crutch and nodded his head in the dock as he was sentenced to a 12 month supervision order.
Well, they are right: He does. I’m talking about the Son now, by the way, not the Daddy.
We first read about it in Matthew 28; 1-6: [1] In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.
[2] And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.
[3] His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow:
[4] And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.
[5] And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.
[6] He is not here: for he is risen, as he said.
The Bible is a great book, full of wonderful and very gruesome stories. As far as we know most of the Old Testament was written when the Jews were living in exile, in Babylon. So, they told all these wild stories round the campfire, trying to cheer each other up. Like little boys they would boast about the strength of their Father, Jahweh, and would tell tall tales about glorious victories, bloody revenge and grandiose escapes from their earlier period of bondage in Egypt.
Wonderful stories all. Maybe not perfectly reliable and historically correct but when you’re lying down by the rivers of Babylon, weeping for and remembering Zion, well, then you’re more in need of a good yarn than objective truth.
Anyway, back to Jesus and His mysterious ways.
As I said, the Bible is a fun book but at times you need to remove quite a lot of tinsel before you can see the tree again.
So, maybe we should forget about that earthquake, or angels descending from Heaven and rolling back rocks.
I’m not saying Jesus hadn’t done an Elvis and left the building – just that it might have been for slightly more mundane reasons than the Bible claims.
You’re not convinced?
Well then, let me tell you that the episode mentioned by Matthew in the King James Bible was not the last time Jesus did a runner.
In fact, He did it again just a few days ago – and you know what? This time the story wasn’t told by a disgruntled slave, weeping for Zion or one of those sentimental and rather thick apostles but penned down by a professional journalist.
Which could explain the lack of caves, earthquakes, angels and what have you.
Mansel says she cherishes her cement Jesus statue; it was an heirloom from her late uncle.
“There were footprints behind it, and footprints in front of it,” she says, pointing out where the statue used to be.
It was Thursday morning when Jean walked outside to find Jesus gone.
“My husband got a phone call and a real raspy voice over the phone said ‘check your mailbox’.”
In the mailbox was a ransom note.
“The note basically said they were holding Jesus for ransom.”
The note reads: “We are holding Jesus ransom until you clean up the poopie from your wieners and trust us we see you take your wieners for long walks w/out picking up their poopie in our yards. This has upset us dearly so please clean up all the wiener poopie, if you want to see Jesus unharmed. Sincerely, Lindy Lane Residents.”
Sometimes you read something that is so breathtakingly offensive that you want to flap your arms like a demented Elmer Fudd, just praying you and your shotgun could blast all that is this monstrously vile and stupid to smithereens.
This Fudd thing happened to me again just a bit earlier, when I was browsing through the online Sunday papers.
The article in question was short enough. As short as it was in-fucking-credible:
The Romanian authorities are grumpy because they’d like to ban it, but they have no control over the cartoon because it is broadcast on a channel with a British license.
The National Audiovisual Council argued that the cartoon is damaging for children to watch.
Right. Yes. Of course.
Damaging for children…
Indeed.
Does the two word combination ‘Romanian orphanages’ ring a bell?
Yes, those hell holes that grew like cancer moles on the bloated, dying body of Ceausescu’s communist Romania.
What’s that? Ah yes, Ceausescu is indeed long gone and good riddance too – but the orphanages are not.
This is what was going on there as recently as in 2006:
After the fall of communism in the 1990s, the world saw horrific images of abused children living in deplorable conditions in state-run Romanian orphanages. Those images and stories led to an international uproar and an outpouring of humanitarian aid to the country. After the initial furor died down, most people assumed the situation had gotten better.
ABC News, however, had an exclusive look at a report, which was released today by Mental Disability Rights International, that details the horrible abuse of handicapped children in Romanian institutions.
Over an 18-month period, the organization found 46 disabled children and teenagers ages 7 to 17 inside a hidden ward at a psychiatric hospital for adults. Many of them had cerebral palsy and had been abandoned by parents, some of whom had been told their children were “biological garbage.”
When Eric Rosenthal, the organization’s executive director, visited an institution in the midsize city of Braila, he captured the misery on camera — a 17-year-old girl who looked like she was 5 years old and weighed only 22 pounds; children wrapped in full-body restraints with sheets tied to beds and cribs; and children so malnourished that their skin peeled off their bodies.
“What I saw in Braila was the worst I have seen anywhere in the world. It was just an absolute horror,” Rosenthal said. “These children, 46 children, were near death.”
No wonder Romanian officials are so grumpy. They don’t want any cartoon squirrels threatening the state monopoly on harming children.
Give those damn squirrels one inch and before you know it they would insist on torturing and killing Romania’s children just as enthusiastically as its government has been doing for decades.
One last suggestion to the Romanian National Audiovisual Council, before I go off Fudding and flapping my arms for a little while longer:
If you, like some bizarre and very unlikely ostrich-type community, actually did not know about your country’s orphanages, you are unfit for your jobs.
If you did know and still insist cartoon squirrels are the real danger to Romanian children, you are unfit to live. In fact, in that case I sincerely hope the rest of your useless little lives will be as unbearable & cruel and your deaths as painfully protracted as the lives of all the children who suffered and died in your country’s unspeakably vile orphanages were.
So, you’re a criminal; let’s say a bank robber. You’ve robbed a few banks and then you have to decide what to do with all the money. You can’t leave it at home: that would be too risky. In the end, this is what you do: you take the money to another bank, in a big bag with huge, fluorescent letters that spell ‘loot’.
Unlikely? Well, it’s almost precisely what a certain, disgusting little prick called John George Lockmann, Jr. did:
In August 2007, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office received reports that a hard drive sent to the Best Buy Geek Squad in Maplewood for data recovery contained child pornography.
Geek Squad employees viewed over 800 images contained in a folder titled XXXYOUNGS.
Honestly, when it comes to being dumb it’s hard to beat the criminal fraternity.
Okay, apart from celebs.
Take Victoria Beckham. Well, okay, fair enough: I wouldn’t take her either – or touch her with a 25 foot pole.
Or a 25 foot…
No, I can’t bear to write it. Just read it for yourself and weep:
After previously revealing that “Goldenballs” wears her knickers, here’s another classic comedy moment from Posh.
In the video, when asked about her hubby’s racy Emporio Armani underwear snaps adorning billboards in Milan while at ROBERT CAVALLI’S fashion show this week, she said: “I’m proud to see his penis 25 foot tall. It’s great.”
“It’s huge. It’s enormous. Massive.”
Posh added: “If I looked like that I’d walk down the street in my panties too.”
You know what? With women like ‘Posh’ around it’s no wonder men get off sex – or go for even the strangest alternatives.
Like this gentleman.
To be honest though, when it comes to intelligence he and Victoria would seem to have rather a lot in common. Talk about thick…
A 31-year-old man bought the female bust from the mannequin manufacturer Displaysense for £38. But he got more than he bargained for when he trapped his manhood inside a 24mm hole designed for a display stand.
Rather than keeping quiet about the embarrassing episode though, the fuming punter then rang up Displaysense to COMPLAIN. The company’s sales team were forced to stifle their laughter as the man blasted the product’s “user friendliness” and demanded a refund. The refund request was politely refused.
Steve Whittle, marketing manager, said they were now considering issuing the mannequins - used by a number of high street stores - with warnings to prevent any repeat.
“He had purchased the display bust by accident after mistaking it for an adult toy. Due to the durability of the display bust, he became concerned that the fire brigade would need to be called to liberate him. But thankfully, a pair of heavy duty scissors were able to cut apart the female bust to release him and relieve his delicate area. After freeing himself, he made an angry call to us to complain about the user friendliness of the female bust and that it was not what he had ordered.”
Still, it is hard to beat the real pros.
Some criminals are so stupid they even make Victoria Beckham look like the bride of Einstein.
Honestly, this guy would be able to drown in the shallowest bit of the gene pool:
The Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office says when 36-year-old Ronald LaPlaca appeared in court on Thursday he had a hard time standing, was loud and smelled of alcohol.
A deputy says he saw LaPlaca reach into his back pocket and pull out a plastic baggy. Upon further investigation, officials found that baggy filled with crack cocaine and $4,000.
Which makes the 43th president, George Walker Bush, one of the most virtuous men on earth, since he is now on record for saying that he is willing to wait for posterity’s verdict on his presidency.
Maybe someone could explain to him that posterity doesn’t do waiting rooms.
Anyway, we were talking about patience. Well, in truth, we’re talking about a bunch of bloody idiots – no, not Bush; not this time anyway.
We have seen people waiting in huge lines, hoping for a glimpse of Britney Spears entering or leaving some nightclub (or rehab clinic). We have seen countless morons, day in, day out, during Michael Jackson’s paedophile trial, waving ‘We love you, Michael!’ placards outside the courthouse.
More than 100 people stood in the rain outside a new Chick-Fil-A restaurant in Winter Garden. Some people brought tents to fend off the rain while others huddled together to stay as warm and dry as possible.
The people gathered for the grand opening of the restaurant. The restaurant is giving away a meal a week for the rest of the year to the first 100 people in line.
Mind you, not everybody would be prepared to set up tents in the vague hope that some fast food might follow eventually. Most people enjoy fast food because it is, well…, fast.
For some fast can never be fast enough, of course. They want their food delivered within nano-seconds. Yet, they also demand both immediate and perfect service - and God help the poor underpaid Mac jobber if he or she does not give satisfaction:
31-year-old David Spillers told police he lost it when he didn’t get the two french fries he had ordered last Thursday night.
“He got angry because his order was incorrect, and he rammed his car into the kiddie play area of this particular establishment,” said Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Ken Jefferson.
Police say Spillers was so angry, he didn’t stop after smashing into the play area at the restaurant on Atlantic Boulevard. He rammed his car into the side of the restaurant, where customers normally sit.
It’s a shame really: grown-ups behaving in such an irresponsible manner. I mean, what kind of example does that kind of thing set for our poor, innocent children?
Oh, whom am I kidding?
Our children don’t need us to teach them how to behave in restaurants. Mind you, the way these kids do behave almost makes you long for the days of those stupid etiquette books and their strange hang-ups about the correct placement of the cutlery.
Put the knife on the right side of the plate or was that the left side of the plate?
You know: never mind. Just put it down, okay. Please…?
TAMPA - A 13-year-old girl released from the county Juvenile Assessment Center landed back inside after she tried to rob a Burger King at knifepoint over a cheeseburger, police said.
The girl, who was wearing pajamas and socks when she was arrested Saturday, told Tampa police she was hungry when she brandished a kitchen knife inside the restaurant and demanded a burger.
Police said a witness heard the girl yelling, “Give me a … cheeseburger now!” The girl chased the employee through the kitchen before other employees subdued her, police said.
