posted 07-19-2017 10:01 PM                       

quote: Fox News

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NYC men square off in bloody brawl involving machete, garbage cans

It was slash versus trash!

A man wielding a machete faced off against a guy armed with a garbage can on an Upper West Side street Wednesday morning — and their epic brawl was caught on camera.

Cops say the faceoff at Broadway at West 94th Street started when one of the men, a 35-year-old, was walking along the street looking at his phone and driver Louis Roman, 40, made a comment about him not paying attention and threatened him by flashing a gun clip.

Witness Paul Tena, who tweeted out footage of the fight, told the West Side Rag blog he turned on his camera when he saw the pedestrian respond by throwing a garbage can at Roman’s car — and the driver emerged with a machete and chased the trash thrower back to the median.

The clip starts with the pedestrian dragging another garbage pail across the busy street as Roman waggles the blade on the sidewalk — while his female companion tries to put herself between the two.

She seems to talk her blade-brandishing pal into getting back in their car, but when the trash man tries to get in too, the driver rushes out and hurls the machete at him.

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posted 07-23-2017 06:57 PM                       

quote:

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Persisting hot, dry weather has caused another SaskPower meter box to catch fire in Regina, the utility provider confirms.

A meter caught fire at a home on 3438 Parkland Drive on Sunday around 2 p.m.

Tina Munro was at home with her two sons watching a movie when they heard two loud thuds.

"The kind of sound when a bird flies into a window," she recalled, while standing outside her home Sunday afternoon.

"My husband and I went into our sun room where we expected to find the cat trying to get out of the window at the birds and we saw a small blaze on the side of the house where there is the power box and a bush."

"The bush was on fire and it did eventually smoke itself out and we called emergency services and we evacuated the house," said Munro.

Both fire and SaskPower crews responded to the scene.

Leanne Persicke, a spokesperson for SaskPower, confirmed there was a failure with the box, attributable to the electrical cables being pulled down as a result of ground settling caused by dry weather.

She said over the past few days, crews have been proactively inspecting homes in older neighbourhoods in the city, such as Normanview, Uplands and Glencarin, to see if cables have been compromised.

Sunday's blaze wasn't in the one of those neighbourhoods and the home not been recently inspected. Munro said the meter is in a spot she and her husband don't pay attention to.

"We have had failures across the city," said Persicke.

SaskPower said fire crews have responded to five box failures since last week. But since Friday, the utility provider has received 23 calls from homeowners, mostly triggered by partial or complete electrical outages.

Persicke encouraged residents to check their power meter boxes to see if it has tilted, which may indicate a cable has shifted.

In that case, residents are asked to contact SaskPower at 1-888-757-6937.

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I never knew that this could happen with underground electrical service, but it makes sense. Apparently the ground sinks and takes the service wire along with it; when the wire gets pulled tightly against the edge of the meter housing it shorts and causes a fire.

I'm pretty happy that I have overhead electrical service here. I always thought underground service would be nicer because it looks prettier, but with this kind of a downside I wouldn't want it.

SaskPower is asking everyone with underground service to look at their meter and see if it looks like this:



If it's tilted like that, the hazard is imminent.

Who'da thought that would be a problem.

posted 07-25-2017 02:39 PM                       

quote:

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In 1962 woodsman David McPherson Sr. found himself deep in the forest of Lutes Mountain, some 15 kilometres west of Moncton, N.B., staring upwards at a 181-kilogram white box with cameras and hanging from a tree by a deteriorated parachute.

What began as a day of scouting timber would turn into the mystery of "the thing in the woods" that would stay with his family for the next 55 years.

His son, David McPherson Jr., now pores over black-and-white photos of his father and the mysterious box that he found in the forest.

"Dad always wanted to know just what that thing in the woods was," he said.

"It bugged him, even up until he passed away."

Days after the senior McPherson found the mysterious box, he went from trying to convince the RCMP to go into the forest and inspect the box to dragging it out of the forest himself.
The Thing In The Woods

A photo from 1962 of David McPherson Sr. and a friend after finding a 181-kilogram white box in the woods near Lutes Mountain containing a pair of cameras and attached to a rotting parachute. (Submitted: David McPherson)

With the help of a few friends, he used a bulldozer to build a road through the forest and hauled the box to his barn on Isaiah Road, near Moncton, with his tractor.

James Rogers, 74, is the only person still living who helped recover the box from the forest that day. He was 19 when the mystery began.

"And we did not know what it was. At first, he thought it might be a small aircraft that had crashed," he said.

"But there was no sign of aircraft parts or anything around."

He helped lug out a large antenna attached to the box that was later discovered to contain a dynamite cap, which was used to extend the rod to full length when detonated.

"We never opened it," said Rogers.

"Because there were clearly two window cameras inside, we didn't want to spoil any film."
A 'big deal' in the small community

Rogers also said people thought the box might explode if it was opened.

"We just didn't know what it was," he said.

In a written retelling of the events surrounding "the thing in the woods," Lois MacPherson, the wife of David MacPherson Sr., said people in the community were concerned about the box.

"Some 'Mrs. Lutes' called [the] RCMP and air force and army to report that Mr. McPherson had found a 'box' that was 'ticking and would blow up the mountain at anytime,'" wrote McPherson, before she passed away in 2004.

"This caused a lot of laughs to others."
David McPherson

McPherson stands with "the thing" alongside Major E. W. Flewelling moments before the unit was whisked away from the McPherson family. (Submitted: David McPherson)

Dangerous or not, the box did cause a stir in the small community.

She said people came from all over the area to see it.

"I would say there was over a 100 people. It was a big deal," she wrote.

"Will it blow up? Was it supposed to blow up? Do you think it's from Russia? Are there any bones of a man found near it?"

At one point, the RCMP did get involved, according to McPherson Jr.

"But they still weren't able to say what it was," he said.
Military dispute

McPherson said the attention from the public, including reporters from both the Moncton newspaper and the CBC, led to interest from the Canadian military.

Although he said his father called them to assess what he'd found, they only showed up days after he'd gone back to work.
James Rogers

"A large army truck pulled into the yard, backed up to the garage where the thing was kept and six men got out and started to attempt to load it into the vehicle," wrote Lois McPherson.

But she wasn't having it.

Her family said she single-handedly barred the military from attempting to steal the white box from their property.

Eventually, the "nasty corporal blew his top" and left, according to Lois McPherson's recounting of the ordeal.
The contents inside

Once the military left, Lois McPherson did not leave the box alone.

"And mom later told us she opened it up," said David McPherson Jr.

McPherson said his mother said the mysterious box had two cameras and about a dozen bottles of clear liquid surrounding the lenses.

And she said there was writing on some of the equipment, according to her son.

"But it wasn't in the English alphabet, she thought maybe Russian, but she didn't tell dad she'd opened it that day," McPherson said.

The next day the military came back to the McPherson farm, this time with a different strategy.

"They took it with promises of, 'You'll be there when it's opened' and, 'We'll let you know what it was and who owns it,'" said McPherson.

"But once it was on the truck, that was all gone. And so was the thing. They took it away."

That was the last time the family heard from the military on the issue, despite two rejected access to information requests to the Department of Defence in the years that followed.

No one from Lutes Mountain saw the box again.

"It was crazy how it just disappeared," said Rogers.

"For one week, it was huge. Then the next it was like everyone forgot."
They want answers

The mystery of "the thing in the woods" lives on in the yellowed newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, photos and documents the McPherson family kept.

Reports from the Moncton newspaper would later state the object was a "transosonde," a large weather balloon, but no attribution for that designation was given in those articles.
James Rogers

Rogers, left, is shown helping lift a large metal antenna recovered alongside the white box attached to a parachute in 1962. The bulldozer in the background was used to build the road to retrieve the heavy box. (Shane Fowler/CBC)

Both David McPherson Jr. and Rogers say they doubt what was found that day had anything to do with weather, but both men still want answers 55 years later.

"That would be very good, to have an answer, just for the satisfaction of knowing what it was," said Rogers.

"If it was some surveillance equipment from another country or if it was a weather balloon. But I don't really think it was a weather balloon."

Rogers said if it would have been a weather balloon, someone would have told them that immediately.

"Dad and mom would have loved to know what exactly that was before they passed," McPherson said.

"It'd be really great for the family."

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posted 07-26-2017 11:52 AM                       

quote:

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The family has had its Cold War suspicions for more than half a century, when David McPherson Sr. found the object in the forests of Lutes Mountain, near Moncton, while scouting for timber.

"There was just too much to it," said McPherson Jr.

"These camera lenses were huge, the secrecy around it. And I guess looking back now, the army probably had no choice — they couldn't tell us what it was."
Quickly taken by military

Two dozen black-and-white photos of "the thing" carefully preserved in the McPherson family photo album were all that remained after it was brought onto their property and then quickly whisked away by the Canadian military.
David McPherson and "the thing in the woods"

A handwritten memoir of the events by Lois McPherson, McPherson Sr.'s wife, detailed how the military first tried to steal the box before promising to get answers for the family if they simply relinquished control of it.

Those answers never came.

In the decades that followed, the family filed multiple access to information requests with the Department of National Defence, but those filings repeatedly went unanswered.
Public tips lead to CIA

But hours after the CBC story of "the thing in the woods" appeared on Monday, people started to submit their theories and ideas.

Among the tips were links to the Military Communications and Electronics Museum in Kingston, Ont., and to declassified documents on the CIA website.

Both contained photographs of a AN/DMQ-1 gondola, a portion of surveillance equipment which closely resembled the McPherson find from 1962.
CIA Camera

None of that surprised James Rogers, 74, who unknowingly helped McPherson Sr. lug a spy camera out of the forest when he was 19.

"I never thought it was a weather balloon," said Rogers, who was skeptical of the title the local newspapers had given the equipment he helped carry.

"Otherwise everyone wouldn't have been so secretive about it."
David McPherson Jr

Rogers said everyone always knew there was something more to the mystery box than officials were telling them.
Project Genetrix

The declassified CIA documents indicate the operation titled Project Genetrix was intended as a method of secret reconnaissance of Soviet Russia and Communist China during the late 1950s.

Then U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower approved the project, which was run alongside a similar balloon operation focused on weather in order to give operators a front to point to if, and when balloons went "rogue."

"If it is from that project I would not be shocked that the wind accidently took it into Canada," said Annette Gillis, a curator at the Military Communications and Electronics Museum.

"And it would answer why the family was never given any information about it."
More questions

Despite the recent answers, both Rogers and McPherson Jr. still have questions regarding the spy camera.
James Rogers

"What I want to know is what was on that camera," said Rogers.

"I would suspect there was film in there, and it would be really interesting to learn what it was taking pictures of."

But some familiar with the technology doubt the spy camera package recovered near Moncton was taking photos during its ill-fated flight.

Luis Pacheco is an archivist and cataloguer of stratospheric balloon flights and launches dating back to their creation.

"If this was one of the 'rogue' and never-recovered camera packages that crossed Soviet and Chinese airspace and survived the trip across the Pacific … it must be orange in colour," wrote Pacheco in an email to CBC News.

"The 'live' packages containing the cameras were painted that way for an easier recovery once landed."

Pacheco suggested the box recovered near Moncton could be one of several launched for training purposes in 1955 from the Lowry Air Force Base in Colorado.
Mixed emotions

Regardless of where the spy camera kit ultimately originated, the McPherson family said the answers are bittersweet.

"This has been a roller-coaster … I wish mom and dad were here, because they would have loved that, knowing what it was," said McPherson Jr, whose mother died in 2004 and father died 18 months ago.

"Dad would have been going around saying, 'I told you so! I told you so!' He would have been pretty excited."

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posted 07-27-2017 05:26 PM                       

quote:

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A Saskatchewan man has been charged with attempted murder after allegedly bulldozing a home with two people inside.

Ronald Fatteicher, 59, of the R.M. of Calder faces 12 charges in total after an incident Tuesday night.

RCMP responded to a call around 9:15 p.m. CST at a home located near Calder, Sask., which is roughly 50 kilometres east of Yorkton near the Manitoba border.

One of the homeowners, who asked not to be named, said the accused is a family relation. RCMP confirmed the man is known to the property owners.

"We are devastated. We have lost our home — everything. Our memories are gone," she said.

The bulldozer is still sitting in what's left of her home, she said.

"It looks like a tornado went right through my entire home. It's all gone."

The man was transported to hospital with minor injuries, according to a RCMP news release. The two people inside escaped without physical injury.

Fatteicher has been charged with two counts of attempted murder, assaulting a police officer and one count of intimidation of a justice participant, among other offences.

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posted 08-15-2017 10:33 PM                       

quote: Morocco World News

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15 Teenagers Treated for Rabies After Engaging in Bestiality with Donkey

Rabat – Fifteen minors who sexually assaulted a donkey in the small rural town of Sidi Kamel in the communal providence of Sidi Kacem have been treated for rabies infections received from the animal.

The sexually frustrated children and teenagers stayed at the Mechraa Belksiri Hospital for one week to receive rabies vaccinations after the animal transmitted the disease to them, explained Moroccan daily Al Akhbar in its August 10 edition.

The incident has put the families of these fifteen young people into distress and horror, reports the daily.

Local authorities have been alerted and search for find anyone else who has “approached” and “admired” the animal closely, in order to limit the risk of rabies spreading among the inhabitants of the region.

The occurrence became the subject of mockery and ridicule among the population of the small town.

However, it has also become a subject of fear and shame for parents who, in the utmost secrecy, hastened to have their children vaccinated in case they had approached the animal.

According to the daily, the number of infections could be much higher, as some families preferred to take their children to hospitals outside the region to avoid humiliation.

The local authorities ordered the owner of the animal to slaughter it to avoid further risk of spreading the disease.

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posted 11-26-2017 03:02 PM                       

quote: Daily Mail

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'Scientist', 61, prepares to prove the Earth is FLAT by launching himself 1,800ft above the Mojave desert in his homemade rocket built from scraps

A man, described as a 'self-taught rocket scientist', is preparing to prove astronauts fabricated the fact the Earth is round by launching himself in a homemade rocket.

'Mad' Mike Hughes plans to launch himself 1,800 feet (550 metres) high in his scrap metal contraption and fly through the air at 500mph (800kph) above the Mojave desert.

Ultimately, the 61-year-old limo driver's goal is to get 10 miles high so he can prove the Earth is disc-shaped and this weekend's flight marks the first step in his bizarre flat-Earth space programme.

Mr Hughes has spent the last few years building a steam-powered rocket out of salvage parts in his garage.

His project has cost him $20,000 (£15,000), which includes Rust-Oleum paint to fancy it up and a motor home he bought on Craigslist that he converted into a ramp.

He plans to strap into his homemade contraption and hurtle over the ghost town of Amboy, which has a population of four, in the Mojave Desert and along historic Route 66.

'I don't believe in science,' said Hughes, whose main sponsor for the rocket is Research Flat Earth.

'It'll shut the door on this ball Earth', he said in a fundraising video, while explaining that Nasa is controlled by round-Earth Freemasons and Elon Musk is making fake rockets.

Down the line, he's intending to build a rocket that takes him to space, so he can snap a picture and prove with his own eyes that the Earth is flat.

'It's scary as hell, but none of us are getting out of this world alive. I like to do extraordinary things that no one else can do, and no one in the history of mankind has designed, built and launched himself in his own rocket', said Mr Hughes.

'I know about aerodynamics and fluid dynamics and how things move through the air, about the certain size of rocket nozzles, and thrust. But that's not science, that's just a formula.

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quote: Desert Sun

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man who believes the Earth is flat and was ready to launch himself from a rocket in Amboy Saturday afternoon to prove it has canceled his plans. At least for now.

Not having the required federal permits plus mechanical problems with his "motorhome/rocket launcher" have forced self-taught rocket scientist "Mad" Mike Hughes to put his experiment on hold.

The United States Bureau of Land Management "told me they would not allow me to do the event ... at least not at that location," Hughes said in a YouTube announcement, amid international attention over his plans to launch into the 'atmosflat.'

"It's been very disappointing," he said.

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posted 11-28-2017 12:35 AM                       

quote:

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If he ever does get to launch, I fear that this won't end well. He reminds me a bit of Lawnchair Larry, but at least he had some control over his rate and direction of descent...

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posted 12-24-2017 03:21 PM                       

quote: Breitbart

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Man Avoids Jail Time for Allegedly Sodomizing His Girlfriend’s Dog

A New York man avoided jail time on Friday for allegedly getting it on with his girlfriend’s dog.

Authorities busted Jesus Gutierrez, 40, in 2016 after obtaining video footage of him allegedly sodomizing his girlfriend’s dog, Princess, using his fingers and grinding up against the animal’s genitalia for approximately 30 minutes.

Gutierrez’s girlfriend installed a camera in her Lower East Side Manhattan apartment that caught the moment the 40-year-old committed the alleged sex acts with the Maltese pooch.

Gutierrez pleaded guilty in December 2016 to a count of misdemeanor sexual misconduct and a violation. He took a plea deal that involved going to counseling for a year.

After Gutierrez fulfilled the terms of the plea deal, Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Phyllis Chu dropped the charge and sentenced him Friday to a conditional discharge if he agreed not to own a pet for five years.

Others charged with sexually abusing animals have faced more than just a slap-on-the-wrist.

A Virginia man was convicted of two charges of animal cruelty in August and faced a five-year prison sentence for the crime.

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posted 04-30-2018 11:43 PM                       

quote: The Verge

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Wildlife photographer of the year disqualified for using a stuffed animal

Judges of the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year have disqualified a winning contestant after the anteater in his prize-winning photograph was judged “highly likely” to be a taxidermy specimen. Called “The Night Raider,” the image was taken by photographer Marcio Cabral and depicts an anteater underneath starry skies next to a termite mound dotted with glowing bioluminescence. A team of five scientists all judged the work to be a fake, a conclusion Cabral strongly denies.

The Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition is run by the Natural History Museum in London, and Cabral’s photo won the category for Animals in their Environment in 2017. The NHM started an investigation into the photo after it was contacted in March by anonymous sources who questioned the authenticity of the image. The NHM said it was given evidence including high resolution photos of a taxidermy anteater at Portão do Bandeira gate, one of the entrances of Emas National Park in Brazil where the winning photo was taken.

In a statement, the NHM said:

“After a thorough investigation, the museum concluded that the available evidence points to this allegation being true. As a result, the museum believes that the image breaches the competition rules, which state that ‘entries must not deceive the viewer or attempt to misrepresent the reality of nature.’”

The NHM said it consulted with external experts who specialize in South American mammals and anteaters on the photo. They worked independently and said there were “elements of the animal’s posture, morphology, raised tufts of fur and patterns on the neck and head that are too similar for the images to show two different animals.”

The NHM said Cabral had fully cooperated with the investigation and supplied RAW file images taken before and after the winning shot, but none included the anteater. Cabral also provided a witness who said he saw the live anteater and also gave the NHM an explanation about why he had no other images of the anteater. According to The Guardian, Cabral’s original caption for the photo claimed he spent days frustrated by rain at Emas National Park, before a “giant anteater ambled out of the darkness,” staying “just long enough” to be captured in one single long-exposure shot.

Cabral is no longer considered a category winner of the competition, and the photograph has been removed from the NHM’s exhibition, website, and world tour. The NHM said Cabral will not be able to enter the competition again.

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Given that the creature in question was certainly not live, and therefore could hardly be described as wild, this seems like a fair cop to me.

posted 05-07-2018 04:19 PM                       

quote: Breitbart

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Woman Cited for Allegedly Exploding Urine Sample in 7-Eleven Microwave

Police have cited a Colorado woman for allegedly using a microwave in a 7-Eleven to heat up a urine sample, causing the container of urine to “explode” and damage the microwave.

Officers from the Aurora Police Department cited Angelique Sanchez, 26, after a 7-Eleven store clerk reported the woman for allegedly refusing to clean up the mess when the yellow liquid “exploded” in the microwave, SF Gate reported.

The clerk told officers that the liquid dripped from the microwave and smelled like “urine.” When the employee asked Sanchez to clean up the mess, Sanchez allegedly “wiped out the microwave onto the floor” before leaving the store.

Police found Sanchez at a clinic half a mile away from the convenience store waiting to take a drug test and undergo a physical examination for a potential employer.

“When I reminded her that urine blew up where people prepare their food, she told me it was not real urine,” the officer wrote in the report obtained by 9News.

The Associated Press reported that Sanchez, of Denver, received a summons for damaging property.

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posted 05-16-2018 07:51 AM                       

quote: AJC

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Zoo owners charged after taking bear to Dairy Queen drive-through

ALBERTA, CANADA —

A Canadian zoo is under fire after taking a bear through a drive-through for ice cream.

Discovery Wildlife Park posted a video in January of Berkley, a year old Kodiak bear, licking an ice cream cone at a Dairy Queen drive-through, according to The Canadian Press.

After an investigation, zoo owners Doug Bos and Debbie Rowland were recently charged under the province’s Wildlife Act for leaving the facility without telling animal officials as well as for taking the bear to the drive-through.

"What we got charged for under the act was that we failed to notify them that we were going to do those things," Doug Bos told CTV. "We were busy. We made a mistake, and we didn't email them and tell them."

For the lapse, Fish and Wildlife officials have revised the zoo’s permit. They will now be required to give more details when transporting animals, according to The Canadian Press. They also are not able to put animals on display outside of the facility without permission.

Bos took the charges in stride.

"I'm glad that they followed through with it because it shows how strictly regulated the zoo industry is in the province."

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