DELHI, La. A call mistakenly made by a victorious video gamer led to his arrest on an outstanding warrant. Authorities arrested Thomas Ballard, 29, of Delhi, early Monday after a woman reported receiving a late-night call from someone saying, "I have killed them all."
Ballard's number showed up on the woman's caller ID; he'd called by mistake, meaning instead to get a buddy to talk-up his success in an Xbox game, said Sgt. Julie Lewis, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana State Police. ...Hokay - stupid, but understandable. Read on, though, Gentle Rantburger...
Authorities following up at the address, to investigate whether there had been any foul play, found no evidence of wrongdoing, she said. But they did find, in the process of identifying Ballard ... Ah, you KNEW there was a but...
... that he had a 5-year-old warrant out of Baton Rouge, charging him with failure to appear on a possession of cocaine charge. "Stay inside,", they said. "Play video games until this blows over," they said. "It's SAFE," they said...
Ballard was booked into the Richland Parish Detention Center for extradition to Baton Rouge. "It was weird the way this all came down," Lewis said Tuesday. "This isn't something you could just make up."
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/20/2008 09:59 ||
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Too bad he's not here. The NEA would be throwing money at him by the truckload...
SYDNEY (Reuters) - A cheeky artist who uses his penis as a brush has entered a racy self-portrait for Australia's top art prize. Australian Tim Patch, who calls himself Pricasso, usually exposes his talents at sex product fairs around the world, but has decided to go upmarket by entering a painting for Australia's Archibald Prize -- the nation's top award for portraiture. Nice portrait. Big nose though.
That's not his nose...
In a unique painting style, Patch does not use paint brushes, but his penis to apply paint to the canvas. "In a unique painting style"? Really? Ya think?
"I had to use my bum to paint in the background, because you have to have the occasional break," Patch told the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper on Wednesday. ...but ya can't do the details.
Patch entered a painting of a plastic surgeon in last year's Archibald Prize, but failed to impress the judges. This year's entry depicts a nude Patch, wearing only a hat, holding a blank canvas to hide his "brush". What do you see in it?
Well, it's powerful, but it kinda looks like the guy painted it with his dick...
The Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney expects up to 700 portraits to be entered for the 2008 Archibald Prize, with the finalists to be announced in March. And the winner is...
Beginning in March 1989, Edward Ryan wrote a series of letters in which he recounted some of his experiences in World War II. Mr Ryan was an engineer in the U.S. Army; he served in France and Germany, in Patton's Third Army, and was discharged with the rank of captain. . . .
The letters are at the link.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/20/2008 07:52 ||
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SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - Scientists investigating the icy waters of Antarctica said Tuesday they have collected mysterious creatures including giant sea spiders
No! Not the ATTACK OF THE GIANT SEA SPIDERS!
and huge worms
The HUGE WORMS OF DOOM!
in the murky depths. Australian experts taking part in an international program to take a census of marine life in the ocean at the far south of the world collected specimens from up to 6,500 feet beneath the surface, and said many may never have been seen before. hidden in distant wastes and dark places all over the world until the time when the great priest Cthulhu, from his dark house in the mighty city of R'lyeh under the waters, should rise and bring the earth again beneath his sway.
Some of the animals far under the sea
"I'd like to be
Under the sea
In an octopus's garden
Witchoo!"
grow to unusually large sizes, a phenomenon called gigantism that scientists still do not fully understand.
"Dr. Bob, have you figured that gigantism thing yet?"
"Not yet, Dr. Albert. It's just too big for me to get a handle on. How's yer perpetual motion study coming along?"
"Oh, it's ticking along under it's own steam. Doesn't look like it's ever gonna run down."
"Gigantism is very common in Antarctic waters," Martin Riddle, the Australian Antarctic Division scientist who led the expedition, said in a statement. "We have collected huge worms, giant crustaceans and sea spiders the size of dinner plates."
"Has its advantages, too. A single giant lobster can feed an entire Ethiopian village for 9 months, assuming you can find enough butter."
The specimens were being sent to universities and museums around the world for identification, tissue sampling and DNA studies.
"Cheeze, Doc! What the hell is that?"
"That is apparently the Elm Street rapist, Muldoon!"
"It looks like some kinda giant sea spider!"
"A horny giant sea spider!"
"Not all of the creatures that we found could be identified
"Wholly spit! What the hell is that?"
"I dunno, but I'm outta here!"
and it is very likely that some new species will be recorded as a result of these voyages," said Graham Hosie, head of the census project.
"And what're you gonna call that big lizardy thing that belches methane and stomped Tokyo, Doctor Bob?"
The expedition is part of an ambitious international effort to map life forms in the Antarctic Ocean, also known as the Southern Ocean, and to study the impact of forces such as climate change on the undersea environment. Three shipsAurora Australis from Australia, France's L'Astrolabe and Japan's Umitaka Marureturned recently from two months in the region as part of the Collaborative East Antarctic Marine Census. The work is part of a larger project to map the biodiversity of the world's oceans. The French and Japanese ships sought specimens from the mid- and upper-level environment, while the Australian ship plumbed deeper waters with remote-controlled cameras. That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.
"In some places every inch of the sea floor is covered in life," Riddle said. "In other places we can see deep scars and gouges where icebergs scour the sea floor as they pass by." Among the bizarre-looking creatures the scientists spotted were tunicates, plankton-eating animals that resemble slender glass structures up to a yard tall "standing in fields like poppies," Riddle said. Other animals were equally baffling.
"They had fins in various places, they had funny dangly bits around their mouths," Riddle told reporters. "They were all bottom dwellers so they were all evolved in different ways to live down on the sea bed in the dark. So many of them had very large eyesvery strange looking fish." Scientists are planning a follow-up expedition in 10 to 15 years to examine the effects of climate changes on the region's environment.
#4
The Blob was frozen and dropped in the Arctic, not the Antarctic. Why they didn't ship the thing off to the local Halliburton secret hangar for further study is unknown. It doesn't seem likely they could not have kept the thing frozen.
Now they have the enviro-Nazi's and Al Gore to worry about.
Decades of eluding U.S. and Israeli intelligence won Imad Mughniyeh a mythic stature in his home village, where even his family knew little of what the secretive Hezbollah commander was doing. After his death in a Damascus car bombing last week, his poster hangs on every lamppost and building corner here. "My feelings toward him were the same as a fan's for a celebrity, wanting to get his autograph," said Zaynab, 25, one of Mughniyeh's two sisters.
Mughniyeh, who helped set up the Shiite Hezbollah guerrilla group, was one of the world's most feared terror masterminds, accused by the West of killing hundreds in suicide bombings and hijackings in Lebanon and around the world. He dropped out of sight some 15 years ago few outside his inner circle knew where he was or even what he looked like until Feb. 12, when a car bomb killed the 45-year-old in the Syrian capital.
But in this Lebanese village, surrounded by hills lush with orange groves and wild flowers, the mystery surrounding Mughniyeh known to his supporters by his nom de guerre of Hajj Radwan only burnished his image as a warrior against Israel and its ally, the United States. "To us, he's holy, a great leader," said 18-year-old Hasan Karam. "When we were growing up we kept hearing about Hajj Radwan, the hero fighting Israeli occupation. We used to hear Israel was after him and that he liberated our lands. But I never met him or knew what he looked like. We didn't even know until now that Hajj Radwan was the same person as Imad Mughniyeh."
Now there's no escaping his image here. A recent photo of Mughniyeh stocky, wearing military garb, with a thick gray and black beard is hung everywhere in his home village of Tayr Debba, nestled in Hezbollah's heartland of mainly Shiite south Lebanon.
Over the weekend, thousands came to mourn his death and pay respects to his family. "He was like a ghost in hiding," said Badie Zaydan, 52, a high school teacher in the village. "The success of the resistance is in its secrecy, even from family members," said fellow teacher Yousef Haidar, 42, referring to Hezbollah, the well-armed and tight-knit guerrilla force backed by Iran.
Even Mughniyeh's mother rarely saw him since 1982, when at the age of 19 he quit his business administration studies at the American University of Beirut to help set up Hezbollah after Israel's invasion of Lebanon that year. "I encouraged him," his 69-year-old mother said as she received hundreds of mourners. Mughniyeh's wife, who refused to talk to reporters, sat next to her, her eyes red and swollen from crying. They had three children, two boys and a girl.
It was the brief earlier 1978 invasion by Israel when Mughniyeh was 15 that first planted the seeds of armed action in Mughniyeh's mind, said his mother, who refused to give her first name and goes as Umm Imad, or mother of Imad. "That's when he decided to carry the gun and fight Israel," she said.
Western and Israeli intelligence accuse Mughniyeh of involvement in suicide bombings in the 1980s in Beirut that killed hundreds of American and French troops, as well as the 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner in which a U.S. Navy diver was killed, and bombings in the 1990s against the Israeli Embassy and a Jewish cultural center in Argentina that killed over 100 people. Mughniyeh's relatives deny his role in any of those attacks. "My son is not a terrorist," his mother said. "These are silly allegations ... My son is a fighter." Mughniyeh's two brothers, Jihad and Fuad, were killed in car bomb explosions in Beirut in the 1980s and 1990s.
The only time villagers saw Mughniyeh after some 20 years of absence was in 2002, when he attend his uncle's funeral. "He comforted me saying my father's passing was God's will," said Mahmoud Mughniyeh, 45, a cousin. He said he couldn't tell whether his fugitive relative had plastic surgery because he hadn't seen him since the early 1980s.
Huge black banners cover the outside walls of the Mughniyeh family house, a one-story building at the end of a green field overlooking a valley that stretches to the Mediterranean. "You will continue to haunt them ... you will be victorious," one banner says. "We shall not cry for you Hajj Imad, but we will resist," says another.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. apologized to a Muslim woman who said she was mocked because of her face veil. What? Did the clerk make a comment about the guy ahead of you forgetting his new barbeque and cover?
"Please don't stick me up," a cashier told the shopper on Feb. 2, according to The Council on American-Islamic Relations. No, it wasn't because of your veil. It was because of your faith, which was merely indicated by the veil.
Wal-Mart apologized Monday in a letter signed by Rolando Rodriquez, a vice president and regional general manager. It was released Tuesday by the council's Nevada chapter. Are you sure he wasn't Rolando Floor Laughing?
"I can assure you that the associate in question was disciplined in accordance with our employment policies as a result of the situation," Rodriguez said without disclosing details. "If you just gotta make fun of her, next time just ask for picture ID! CAIR and the media will take the rest in a way money can't buy!"
Rodriguez said employees at the Riverdale store would undergo "sensitivity training," specifically in the Islamic faith and Muslim culture. "And from now on, everyone will step into the bathroom left foot first. Toilet paper will be removed from all stalls in favor of wiping with your left hand. While squatting over the freshly dug latrine, make sure to put the majority of your weight on your left foot. And don't forget to step out of the restroom with your right foot first. Try to remember to wash your hands. Hopefully that will make them feel more at home here in America, which is rightfully theirs because they discovered it first. Now, can one of you tell me why they moved here and demand that we change our culture instead of assimilating?"
At Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., spokesman Phillip Keene confirmed the letter and declined further comment. Try again in a few minutes. He just finished the WalMart sensitivity training series and has taken up banging his head on the floor five times a day.
"We applaud Wal-Mart for taking appropriate action to resolve this incident," said Yasser Moten, executive director of the council's Nevada chapter. The group doesn't have an office in Utah. Instead CAIR has their subversion training camp Headquarters in no other place than Washington, D.C..
#1
Until a pharmaceutical solution is offered, ie, innoculation, pill, patch, etc, Rodriguez said employees at the Riverdale store would undergo "sensitivity training," specifically in the Islamic faith and Muslim culture.
#5
In my fantasy world, Wal-Mart contracts with volunteers from Rantburg to provide "sensitivity training to it's employees. RB volunteers would do a better job and for less $$$ than CAIR will charge for the same service.
#6
Its only a matter of time before a robber gets the bright idea of disguising himself/herself as a burka slave. Loot in hand, the burka goes in the first handy clump of bushes and nobody has any idea what the robber looked like.
#7
Perhaps she should be more sensitive to the needs of register-jockeys who are robbed from time to time and have reasonable fears when someone covering their face arrives. She should show her sensitivity by removing her Hajib in public in favor of more modern and less fearful dress.
If I wore my kippa (Jewish skullcap) to Wal-Mart and an Arabic clerk said something like, "Please don't send your F-16s to bomb me," I would just say, "Ok, but you better make it snappy and give me a discount, or else."
#10
Next time I'm shopping there I'll dress up (or down as your perspective imagines) as a Celtic Warrior and get a discount on clothes.
"Is that your bagpipe showing or are you just happy to shop here?"
"Et tu, Brute?"
*or, maybe when she heard 'stick', she she had a conditioned response and was afraid he was going to beat her for shopping without a relative. What a slut.
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.
DELHI, La. A call mistakenly made by a victorious video gamer led to his arrest on an outstanding warrant. Authorities arrested Thomas Ballard, 29, of Delhi, early Monday after a woman reported receiving a late-night call from someone saying, "I have killed them all."
