PALM SPRINGS, FL -- Continuing a terrible holiday season, Bernard Madoff was forced to celebrate Hannukah with an unlikely Jew -- The Alien! After details of an investment scam came to light in the last two weeks, Madoff's own children disowned him and have ceased communication since the reports first emerged. So he was feeling . . . alien-ated, was he?
Madoff was hoping the spirit of the season would warm the icy tension that had developed within his family, but relations had not improved in time for the first night of Hanukkah. "It's terrible not being with your children during the holidays," Madoff told reporters. "No one will talk to me, no one wanted to share my latkes or drink my Manischevitz. Man, oh Manischevitz, what a whine!
That's why I was so delighted to get a call from the Alien. He knows what its like to be scrutinized and probed."
Questions have surrounded the existential and religious beliefs of the Alien for years. Although the Alien has never admitted to having a Bar Mitzvah, it is now believed that he practices Judasim. While the Alien may celebrate the minor holiday Hanukkah, not everyone is convinced that the Alien is a practicing Jew.
"Who knows what this actually signifies," Rabbi Eli Weisberg of Temple Beth Shalom Israel said. "Plenty of Jews celebrate Christmas not as a religious holiday but as an excuse to get together with friends and family and be joyful. And I know plenty of shiksas and goyum who stick a Menorah on top of the tree, light a candle or two then eat gelt for a week and open more presents. It's a little meshuga if you ask me, but what do I know? I'm an alter kocker." Oy vey! These stereotypes, the headaches they give me. What am I to you, Mister Weekly World News Writer, chopped liver?
There are reportedly photos of the Alien comforting a weeping Madoff after he lost chocolate coins during a dreidle game, but Weekly World News has yet to verify this.
Posted by: Mike ||
12/23/2008 09:34 ||
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It was a little before 8 at night when the breaker went out at Emily Milburn's home in Galveston. She was busy preparing her children for school the next day, so she asked her 12-year-old daughter, Dymond, to pop outside and turn the switch back on.
As Dymond headed toward the breaker, a blue van drove up and three men jumped out rushing toward her. One of them grabbed her saying, "You're a prostitute. You're coming with me."
Dymond grabbed onto a tree and started screaming, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy." One of the men covered her mouth. Two of the men beat her about the face and throat. As it turned out, the three men were plain-clothed Galveston police officers who had been called to the area regarding three white prostitutes soliciting a white man and a black drug dealer.
All this is according to a lawsuit filed in Galveston federal court by Milburn against the officers. The lawsuit alleges that the officers thought Dymond, an African-American, was a hooker due to the "tight shorts" she was wearing, despite not fitting the racial description of any of the female suspects. The police went to the wrong house, two blocks away from the area of the reported illegal activity, Milburn's attorney, Anthony Griffin, tells Hair Balls.
After the incident, Dymond was hospitalized and suffered black eyes as well as throat and ear drum injuries.
Three weeks later, according to the lawsuit, police went to Dymond's school, where she was an honor student, and arrested her for assaulting a public servant. Griffin says the allegations stem from when Dymond fought back against the three men who were trying to take her from her home. The case went to trial, but the judge declared it a mistrial on the first day, says Griffin. The new trial is set for February.
"I think we'll be okay," says Griffin. "I don't think a jury will find a 12-year-old girl guilty who's just sitting outside her house. Any 12-year-old attacked by three men and told that she's a prostitute is going to scream and yell for Daddy and hit back and do whatever she can. She's scared to death."
Since the incident more than two years ago, Dymond regularly suffers nightmares in which police officers are raping and beating her and cutting off her fingers, according to the lawsuit.
Griffin says he expects to enter mediation with the officers in early 2009 to resolve the lawsuit.
Update: This is from the officers' lawyer, William Helfand:
Both the daughter and the father were arrested for assaulting a peace officer. "The father basically attacked police officers as they were trying to take the daughter into custody after she ran off."
Also, "The city has investigated the matter and found that the conduct of the police officers was appropriate under the circumstances," Helfand says. "It's unfortunate that sometimes police officers have to use force against people who are using force against them. And the evidence will show that both these folks violated the law and forcefully resisted arrest."
#1
Were the officers in uniform? Did they identify themselves and dress so as to be easily identified? Was the vehicle marked? If not they were kidnappers and should have been shot.
PS: Dressing like a hooker is not smart for so many reasons.
#3
dressing like a hooker is not smart for any reasons.
thats the stupidest statement i have ever read here at rantburg.. She was 12 at her own home and three men in PLAIN CLOTHES jump out of a van and grab her. Thats like saying a rape victim deserved it.They lucky i wasn't daddy or at least one of them would have died that morning along with me if that where the case. Damn , I thought the human rights article pissed me off but TIPOVER i believe you are by far the stupidest fucking person too ever enter the halls of rantburg and thats saying alot
The officers are lucky to be alive, kidnapping a 12 year-old from her front porch.
Sounds like this city's had it. Time for 'daddy' to take the kids & move, hopefully after collecting nicely against the city (and hopefully finding the officers fired, if the facts merit that).
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
12/23/2008 11:57 Comments ||
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#8
If this was a fair world, the "police" officers would have all been shot dead by the father defending his daughter from what appeared to be attackers.
Absolutely fucking disgusting behavior by the police.
#9
tipover, rabid is so right. u r a frickin' idiot. The cops should be in the slammer. Want to know why so many people hate cops and totally distrust them? Just read the news. This sort of thing happens all the time and excused.
#10
A high school classmate of mine used to work for the City of Galveston as a probation officer. This is not an isolated case. Even Houston has a better reputation than Galveston.
Cops being off by two blocks doesn't surprise me. Galveston streets were laid out and named by blind wharf rats after they consumed a few bottles of rotgut. My friend used to live on "Half-M Street". That was a street halfway between "M" and "N" streets.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/23/2008 12:51 Comments ||
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#11
Since when are police allowed to beat prostitutes around the head and throat, much less 12-year-olds?
. . . At one point, there were 54 Titan missile silos in the United States, concentrated in Arizona, Arkansas, and Kansas. Now, this site, which was first armed in 1963 and stayed on duty until 1982, is the only one left; all the rest have been abandoned and destroyed, the result of technological progress and arms-control agreements. But this one, known to the Air Force as Silo 571-7, has been preserved nearly exactly as it was. The missile, of course, is non-functional, the warhead removed (a small rectangular hole has been cut in the nose just to prove it is inactive). The massive, 760-ton silo closure door designed to protect the Titan from a nearby nuclear hit is left permanently half-open.
To say the site is nondescript would be an exaggeration. Its barely there. The only building in the area is the one built to house the museums offices, a small exhibit, and a tiny store. The silo door is painted desert tan and blends into the surroundings. Theres a 1960s-era jeep and a couple of vintage cars parked around, plus a display of the tanker vehicles used in the tricky operation of loading the missile with highly volatile liquid fuel. That, plus a door leading 55 steps down to the missile control area, is pretty much it.
When you tour the site, your first stop underground is the control room. You wont find a nicer example of mid-century technology, with its institutional green consoles, old-fashioned indicator lights and rotary phones. It looks exactly like it did, says Yvonne Morris, the museums director who, as a young Air Force first lieutenant, commanded a missile crew here in the early 1980s. Weve had young people look at the dial phone and say, Whats that?
If a missile had ever been launched from here, it would have required two officers turning two old-fashioned brass keys (normally kept in the red emergency war orders safe) after going through a list of safeguards that must be heard to be believed. Its fair to say that this was a job that required more care than any other in the world, and visitors here get to see just how many safety measures there were.
But the bigger message of this site is what it says about American power and its role in the Cold War. The mission of the Titan II was peace through deterrence, Morris told me. What it was supposed to do, in simple terms, was to be the biggest, baddest missile on the block, to show the former Soviet Union that if you launch us against us, we will retaliate. This place is a monument to the success of Mutual Assured Destruction. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
12/23/2008 12:18 ||
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#1
My father-in-law was a quality control engineer for Martin in Denver, where the Titans were built. He got me admitted to the factory and gave me a tour. Titans were HUGE! Again, much of it was 50's technology, but they were constantly being upgraded. Fueling one took a long time, but they could be on launch ready for up to a week, once fueled. Of course, removing the fuel was even more dangerous than pumping it in to begin with. The Titan-34D is still being manufactured as a launch vehicle for polar orbiting satellites.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/23/2008 12:58 Comments ||
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ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Snowzilla is no more. Municipal officials in Anchorage have given a cease-and-desist order to builders of the giant snowman that made appearances the last three years in an east Anchorage neighborhood. The giant snowman was a favorite for photographers and camera crews from Russia and Japan filmed the temporary sculpture. Snowzilla in 2005 rose 16 feet. He had a corncob pipe and a carrot nose and two eyes made out of beer bottles.
He was built in the front yard of the Powers family home and Billy Powers said his children collected snow from neighbors homes to add to the height and breadth.
The snowman was built even higher in succeeding years, but not everybody in the neighborhood liked all the cars and visitors who came to see him. City officials deemed Snowzilla a public nuisance and safety hazard.
A few weeks ago, code enforcers left red signs at Snowzilla's bottom body ball telling its builders to cease and desist. The city also tacked a public notice on the door of the Powers home. City officials said the structure increased traffic to the point of endangerment and that the snowman itself was unsafe.
When the notices went up, Snowzilla still didn't have a full torso or head.
"The kids had spent hours and hours of work on it," Billy Powers said Sunday.
Now, Snowzilla is just a big pile of snow rubble. Powers said he doesn't plan to rebuild.
FOR nearly 40 years, Gary Fenton, one of Australia's most influential television executives, has been feeling guilty about an unpaid debt. As a penniless 22-year-old backpacker in 1969, he borrowed a ferry fare worth £5 ($11) from another traveller, and promised to send the money when he could.
Now, Mr Fenton has quietly paid back British man Jim Webb - with interest. This week Mr Webb, 72, arrived at his home in England's north to find a hand-delivered parcel containing £200 ($439) and a note: "To Jim Webb, a good man. From Gary Fenton, a tardy payer of debts." . . .
"When I got back to Australia after hitchhiking around the world 40 years ago, I was broke and I went back home to live," he recalled. "After I got my first pay cheque, I said to my mother, 'Where's that address that was on the mantelpiece?'
"She said, 'I don't know, it must have been thrown out.' "
Six months ago, a year after their mother's death in Melbourne, Mr Fenton's brother sent him a box of his mother's belongings. "She kept all the cards and letters I had sent her from when I'd travelled, and out fell the address," Mr Fenton said.
Knowing he had an upcoming trip to the UK, Mr Fenton decided to visit Mr Webb and honour his debt.
Posted by: Mike ||
12/23/2008 10:58 ||
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#1
Nice story. When I saw the headline, I had thought it might be about genuflecting to one's mortgage(s).
Merry Christmas
(and a big stay safe to my fellow Marylanders in the vicinity of the now-aptly named River Road.)
Posted by: eLarson, on leave in Wisconsin ||
12/23/2008 12:39 Comments ||
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Abu Dhabi police sought to play down fears among consumers on Monday that a killer perfume was on the loose after a rumor was spread by text message to mobile phones.
The text messages claimed that in four days 18 people had died after using the unnamed perfume and that another 35 had been admitted to intensive care in hospitals in Abu Dhabi. The text messages also urged the receivers to spread send warnings to the people they know as quickly as possible to rescue as much people as possible.
Abu Dhabi Police completely denied the rumors and said that the only aim of the whole issue is accomplishing commercial benefits.
Abu Dhabi Police Chief Colonel Maktoum Sharifi formally denied the rumor about the wares being pushed by wandering perfume sellers. Sharifi said the rumors were "without substance," and did not rule out differences between perfume sellers as being behind the malodorous campaign.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/23/2008 00:00 ||
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#4
The favorite was disqualified for fraternizing with a Judge. They were last seen checking into the Honeymoon Suite at the Sands Hotel, Atlantic City.
Scientists are reporting the remarkable case of a blind man who can see.
The case involves a middle-aged male physician living in Switzerland, who is known only by the initials "TN." A few years ago, TN had two strokes, one on either side of his brain. The strokes severely damaged the part of the brain primarily responsible for vision, known as the occipital cortex.
Extensive testing of TN confirmed that even though his eyes were just fine, he was completely blind. He couldn't see objects held in front of him and used a cane to get around. Ask him if he could see, and TN would reply, "No, I'm blind."
But neuroscientist Beatrice de Gelder wanted to study TN further. She is affiliated with Tilburg University in the Netherlands as well as Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. First, she and her colleagues repeated tests on TN to satisfy themselves that he was indeed blind.
Then they laid out an obstacle course in a hallway. The obstacles consisted of everyday objects.
"One was a typical paper basket; one was a stack of books," says de Gelder. "They all had different shapes and sizes."
She then told TN to walk down the hall.
"We didn't give him information about obstacles or anything. So he was not aware that there were obstacles."
So TN walked down the hall, but instead of walking straight ahead, he carefully stepped around each of the obstacles.
"He never touched any of it. We were like totally amazed," says de Gelder, who reports her finding in the journal Current Biology. You can see this test by clicking on the video link above.
For his part, TN was surprised that the scientists were surprised.
"Since he had not seen any object, he wasn't aware of having achieved anything sensational," de Gelder says.
TN has what is known as blind sight, according to de Gelder. Even though the primary part of his brain that processes visual information is destroyed, he still has more primitive parts of his brain intact, and these are capable of doing some visual processing. After all, one of the most basic functions of the visual system is to help an animal avoid obstacles or predators. TN still has some visual abilities he's just not aware he has them.
Steven Hackley, an associate professor of psychological sciences, says studying patients such as TN will tell scientists about the nature of consciousness.
"The idea is that by comparing the same mental process when it is conscious and when it is not, it will be possible to determine which parts of the brain are essential and how consciousness arises," Hackley says.
As hordes of bachelors return home to Lebanon for the holiday season, young eligible women who far outnumber their male counterparts in this tradition-bound country are angling for the perfect catch. "This is the time when many young men come back for the holidays and the women want to find that catch," said Samir Khalaf, professor of sociology and head of the Center for Behavioral Research at the American University of Beirut.
"We really have a lopsided demographic problem," he added.
Throughout Lebanon's history young men have tended to emigrate in search of economic prosperity, but the phenomenon became acute during the country's 1975-1990 civil war and subsequent economic downturn and accelerated again after the July-August 2006 war between the militant group Hezbollah and Israel.
Five women for each man
" There are no boys here anymore so you can pick and choose "
Alaa Manasski
Estimates are that for every eligible man there are five women available in this small country of four million people. That makes for tough competition among women as they try to find Prince Charming.
This year the rivalry is especially pronounced with the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha falling close to the Christian holiday of Christmas, and making for an even larger number of expatriate men than usual returning home.
"The competition among the women is not on how to outwit each other but how to find that catch, or lakta as you say in Arabic," Khalaf said. "And that lakta is a guy who has studied and works abroad, has a good career and is unmarried."
Alaa Manasski, 27, is one such candidate. Manasski is a businessman in Qatar and just recently came back to Beirut to spend the holidays with his family. "There are no boys here anymore so you can pick and choose," Manasski said as he surveyed the scene at a trendy nightclub in Beirut's downtown area one recent evening.
Pressure to marry before 30
" But the problem in Lebanon is that if a woman is not married by age 32, the men think she has a problem or can't have children anymore "
Solange Sraih
"The problem is that first they (the women) want a serious relationship and then a month later they want to get married especially if they know that you live in a Persian Gulf country," he added. "I meet many young women and I tell them that I'm not in a hurry to get married, I'm still young. But when I'm ready she'll definitely be Lebanese."
Solange Sraih, who runs a matchmaking company called Pom D'Amour, said business has been brisk this season as time-strapped bachelors seek to meet the perfect match during their brief visit home.
"I've been very busy and since I set up the company at the end of 2006 I've had four couples marry and two more are planning to wed next year," Sraih told AFP. "But the problem in Lebanon is that if a woman is not married by age 32, the men think she has a problem or can't have children anymore. So there is a lot of pressure on women to marry before they reach 30."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/23/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Judging from the Lebanese women I've met here in Canada, they're welcome to emigrate. Just leave the hijabs at home.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Weekly World News
Questions have surrounded the existential and religious beliefs of the Alien for years. Although the Alien has never admitted to having a Bar Mitzvah, it is now believed that he practices Judasim. While the Alien may celebrate the minor holiday Hanukkah, not everyone is convinced that the Alien is a practicing Jew.
Abu Dhabi police sought to play down fears among consumers on Monday that a killer perfume was on the loose after a rumor was spread by text message to mobile phones. 
