Amanda Schweickert, 28, was charged with a felony and three driving offenses in Springville, N.Y., when deputies noticed that her rear license plate was just a piece of cardboard clumsily painted to resemble a New York plate. New York requires a front plate. But Schweickert hadn’t gotten around to that yet.
Heroic Goldfish Surgery
Veterinarian Tristan Rich, in Melbourne, Australia, was credited with saving the life of a 9-year-old goldfish (“Bubbles”) by removing its brain tumor. Rich had to figure out how to keep Bubbles out of the water long enough to operate. He rigged a contraption that continually splashed water over Bubbles’ gills. This was Dr. Rich’s second heroic goldfish surgery. Bubbles’ breed was not reported; ordinary goldfish can be purchased for less than $1 each.
The Reptilian News
Government in Action
— The Pentagon recently admitted it has no way to know how many parts or devices are in its equipment inventory. The best it can do is go through its 30 million contracts, which are recorded on a database. Because the database cannot search text, each of the 30 million contracts must be assessed one by one. When it recently received a Freedom of Information request from a software developer (for number of Pentagon “HotPlug” power-extenders for computers), the Pentagon quoted an information retrieval price of $660 million to cover 15 million hours of work.
— The most recent problem with the Defense Department’s prospective, ultra-modern F-35 fighter jet is that its “radar control” sometimes malfunctions. System updates will not be ready until 2020. In the interim, an Air Force official advised that, as a workaround, the radar could be turned off and then back on again — an action that is comparable to restarting a glitchy computer.
— Michael Ford, 36, a U.S. Embassy staff member in London, was sentenced in March to 57 months in prison for having run a “sextortion” email scheme that preyed on young girls. He ran the scam from his heavily monitored embassy computer workstation, where he operated undetected for two years. One work day last April, he sent 800 emails from his desk “phishing” for gullible, young social media users.
Klepto Kat
In March, Sarah Nathan’s 6-year-old cat Brigit was discovered to have collected a stash of a dozen boxer briefs and 60 socks — all apparently lifted from neighbors in Hamilton, New Zealand. Nathan admitted that she may have to stash underwear around her farm to keep Brigit contented.
Police Report
Charli Jones Parker, a teacher and girls’ basketball coach at the Pickens Academy in Pickens County, Ala., was arrested on March 28 and charged with having sex with an underage male student. Her husband, James Parker, a math teacher and coach at Pickens, was arrested two days later, and charged with having sex with an underage female former student. The district attorney said the incidents were unrelated and resulted from separate investigations.
Latest Religious Messages
In March, the Kingdom Church, in the south London district of Camberwell, was fined $10,900 by the Southwark Council for its amplified music and incessant “loud preaching,” which were heard “almost daily” at around 3 am. A spokesperson told the London Evening Standard that the timing was necessary because the early morning hour is the time when evil spirits are most likely to be present.
Scientific Breakthroughs
— A new weight-loss device being tested in the U.S. (“AspireAssist”) is billed as a less-expensive alternative to bariatric surgery. It has the ability to evacuate up to 30 percent of recently eaten food from the stomach before digestion. A tube, that goes through a port in the stomach, sucks out the food.
— Researchers at HRL Laboratories in California reported that test subjects who had no pilot training at all nonetheless performed flight simulations 33 percent better than a control group after the researchers uploaded electrical signals to certain parts of their brains.
O Canada!
In March, the town council in Bracebridge, Ontario, approved a new municipal bylaw ending prohibitions on people engaging in “yelling, shouting, hooting or similar noises.” Other noise controls, such as on audio devices, or on shouting between 11 pm and 7 am, remain in effect. Also in March, the city council in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, was considering a proposed anti-bullying bylaw prohibiting gossip, which was described as “rumor-mongering, name-calling, taunting, mocking and ostracizing.” Gossip would be prohibited not only in the streets and parks, but also in “public places,” such as bars and restaurants.
Least Competent Criminals
— Alfonso Mobley, Jr., 26, claims he is a “Sovereign Citizen” who is exempt from obeying laws or paying taxes. On April 5, lost both hands when a bomb he was working on exploded in Columbus, Ohio. The bomb was made of the same material as those used in the November terrorist attacks in Paris. A 2010 FBI report labeled “Sovereign Citizens” a domestic terrorist group. But Mobley’s associate, who was not hurt, told police the bomb was simply a diversion for a bank or armored-car robbery the two were planning.
Grown-Ups
— In March, one D.C. government administrative law judge was charged with misdemeanor assault on another judge. Judge Sharon Goodie said she wanted to give Judge Joan Davenport some files, but Davenport would not open the door to her office. Goodie said once the door finally opened, an enraged Davenport allegedly “lunged” at her, “aiming” her thrust at Goodie’s neck.
— Tennessee state Rep. Jeremy Durham has such a reputation as a “dog” around women working at the capitol that the house speaker issued a directive relocating Durham’s office to a less-populated building across the street. Further, Durham is allowed access only to certain legislative meetings and certain staff. (That is, there is no free-ranging among female staff members.) After he interviewed 34 people, the state attorney general said he believed Durham’s unwanted sexual approaches were impeding legislative business.
Religion Du Jour
Awesome Governments!
— According to figures reported by Amnesty International in March, Chinese courts dispense justice so skillfully that more than 99.9 percent of cases result in convictions. There were 1,039 acquittals in 1.2 million cases last year.
— During its first 33 years (through 2012), the U.S. government’s applications for secret search warrants to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court have been approved in all but 11 of 33,900 cases.
Leading Economic Indicators
— The city council in Palo Alto, Calif., proposed a subsidy plan to help with steep housing costs. In a town where tiny homes sell for $2 million (and are immediately knocked down and rebuilt), subsidies will be available even to families earning $250,000 a year.
— In February, a family court in England reduced the child-support payments from hedge fund financier Christopher Rokos to the mother of his 7-year-old son from $17,000 a month to $11,300. For some reason, that amount includes more than $1,200 a month for wine.
— The giant HSBC Bank was let off the hook for its money-laundering in 2012 with a $1.9 billion settlement and a promise to vigilantly guard against future money laundering. In March, HSBC’s monitor said that the bank failed to stop transactions by a company whose business included exporting miniskirts to Iran in violation of international sanctions and, presumably, Iranian law. In another incident, a 19-year-old Mexican man from Sinaloa state, which is dominated by drug cartels, was allowed to open a private-wealth account with a bagful of cash. He claimed to be a shrimp farmer.
— Some dog owners showcase their pet’s charm on a “personal” social media account in the dog’s name. Marketers scour those sources to match the most popular pooches with advertisers who are seeking just the right four-legged creature for their image. As The Wall Street Journal reported in April, entrepreneurial dog owners have rushed to create popular Instagram accounts and Facebook posts. They also put their photogenic pups on a live-streaming app called Waggle. They hope to catch agents’ eyes and get four- and five-figure paydays from such advertisers as Nikon, PetSmart, Residence Inn and Heinz.
— When one man decided to move away from New Jersey, the state Legislature’s budget office director warned that the loss of that man’s taxes might lead to state revenue problems. Billionaire hedge fund manager David Tepper evidently pays a bundle. The budget office director pointed out that the state’s reliance on personal income taxes means that even a 1 percent drop in tax could create a gap of $140 million.
— Among the names chosen for Internet start-ups: Houzz (home design and remodeling); Kabam (online interactive game company — formerly “Watercooler Inc.”); Klarna (e-commerce company that pays the store for your purchases and then collects from you); MuleSoft (makes software to integrate applications); and Kabbage (makes small-business loans online). Wired magazine reported in February that those ventures, and two dozen other start-ups, are all “unicorns,” meaning that investors are pledging at least $1 billion to each one.
Police Report
— According to a surveillance video, a man broke into a Five Guys restaurant in Washington, D.C., in the middle of the night on March 18, cooked himself a cheeseburger and fled.
— Ellis Battista, 24, was arrested for the February break-in at Bradley’s convenience store in Las Cruces, N.M. He took only a pack of cigarettes, for which he left $6 on the counter. However, he damaged the door getting in.
Undignified Deaths
— A 69-year-old man was killed on March 17 while waiting for emergency care at the Vidant Medical Center in Greenville, N.C. He had been seriously injured in an accident and was in the waiting room when a 59-year-old driver’s car crashed through the hospital doors and fatally struck him.
— A 55-year-old man was killed in Memphis, Tenn., on March 23 when a 15-foot trailer came loose and crashed into him as he walked down a sidewalk. The deceased, who had a lengthy criminal record for sexual assault, might have avoided the trailer had he not been distracted by watching pornography on his phone as he walked.
Mailbox Style
Britain’s annual Boring Conference — set for July 5 at Conway Hall in London — brings together those who celebrate the mundane. Previous topics included sneezing, toast, vending machine sounds, yellow lines, bar codes. In anticipation, a BBC News commentator interviewed Peter Willis of the Letter Box Study Group. Willis, 68, was excited at having recently acquired access to a database of all 115,000 mailboxes served by U.K.’s Royal Mail. He hopes, with the help of “splendid” mapping software, to visit and photograph each one in order to examine the different styles. Willis said the lay version of “boring” implies inactivity. But he says the obsessives in his study group lead active lives, with a wide range of interests. The conference is sold out.
Eye On The Future
Sri Lanka has, as an “unwritten symbol of pride and culture,” the world’s highest per capita rate for eye donation, reports the Associated Press. Underpinning this national effort is the country’s Buddhist tradition that celebrates afterlives. “He’s dead,” said a mourning relative of a deceased eye donor, “but he’s still alive. His eye can still see the world.” Doctors even report instances in which Sri Lankans consider giving up an eyeball while still alive, as a measure of virtue. A new state-of-the-art clinic, funded by Singaporean donors, is expected to nearly double Sri Lanka’s export of eyeballs.
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