Okay, it's bad when even the KKK is part of a sting to keep you from building a death ray

This bit of news is brought to you by YKWIA, my source for the off-beat sorts of things he just finds bizarrely online:

Feds thwart KKK member's plot to create mobile death ray to kill "undesirables" (with links to several articles, one of which is:)

KKK member, accomplice created lethal X-ray system, FBI says

Two New York state men have been charged in a bizarre plan to develop a mobile X-ray system that would be used from afar to silently kill people that they deemed "undesirable," federal officials said.

Glendon Scott Crawford, 49, and Eric J. Feight, 54, were arrested Tuesday after an undercover operation by the Albany FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force. They were charged with conspiracy to provide material support for use of a weapon of mass destruction, according to the criminal complaint.

Crawford and Feight were developing a device "intended to be mobile ... designed to turn on remotely from some distance away" that would emit "some dangerous levels of X-ray radiation," according to John Duncan, executive assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York.

They contacted two Jewish groups to try to get interest in buying their weapon, and someone contacted the authorities, starting the investigation. Later, Crawford met with a high-ranking KKK official and two other people who were working with the FBI, where he discussed the scheme and asked for money to get it off the ground. Sounds to me like they were petitioning to get into the Evil League of Evil.

Odd story of the day...

Tonnes of nicked Nutella gives cops bellyache

Exactly what do you do with five tonnes of Nutella? This is the third strange heist in the area, the others being a trailer full of coffee a couple of weeks ago and several tonnes of Red Bull before that.

Wins for today's oddest headline

Mom of Miami cannibal dismisses depiction of him as zombie

The mom of the crazed cannibal who gnawed off the face of a homeless man in Miami defended him as “a good kid” Thursday and said he doesn’t deserve to be remembered as a “zombie.”

“He gave me a nice card on Mother’s Day,” Ruth Charles told CBS Miami about son Rudy Eugene. “Everyone says he was a zombie. He was no zombie. That was my son.”

Nearly 80% of the other man's face was chewed off.

It's the only Southern state I haven't been to

and somehow, judging from these stories in this year in review, I think I'm missing something by never visiting the Sunshine State:

Butt injections, angry 92-year-olds, free breast exams: Florida's strange 2011

:)

Two interesting things shared on Facebook

by someone I knew in the old days.


Britain's rudest place names (amusing)

Men Photographed in Stereotypical Pin-Up Poses (read: silly)

Thanks, Bill!

Weird news of the day

thanks to YKWIA, who won hands down for this gem he found:

Police: Russian man kept 29 mummified bodies

The Russian historian had always been open about his interest in the dead and eagerly described how he loved to rummage through cemeteries, studying grave stones to uncover the life stories behind them.

What he failed to mention, according to police, was that he had dug up 29 bodies and taken them back to his apartment, where he dressed them in women's clothes scavenged from graves and then put them on display.

A police video of the man's apartment in the Volga River city of Nizhny Novgorod released Monday shows his macabre collection of what look like dolls. Lifesize, they are dressed in bright dresses and headscarves, their hands and faces wrapped in what appears to be cloth. Police said they were mummified remains.

Instructions for doll-making were found in the apartment, police said, and the video showed old-fashioned plastic dolls in frilly dresses lying about.

So not only was he hoarding mummified human remains he'd dug up, he was dressing them up like dolls. The story YKWIA read indicated he was making working joints for them, as well.

It topped the story I'd found about the South Africa couple, engaged and expecting a baby, who found out they were brother and sister. I haven't been able to confirm that one, any way--I'm somewhat dubious of the sources, and no names have been named (which, granted, I understand).

Anyway, there's your odd news for the day.

Drunken Bullwinkle goes up tree looking for Rocky?

Here in the United States, there is the proverbial calling of the fire department to rescue a poor kittie trapped in a tree. Of course, cats can (usually) climb back down. Not so with moose. Apparently it is not terribly uncommon in Sweden for moose to eat fermented apples, get terribly barmy, and climb up the apple trees (looking for more delectable apples, no doubt.) So this man was coming home and lo!, a moose was twisted in a small apple tree. They had to cut most of the tree away to rescue the moose, then allowed it to 'sleep it off' there.

Drunk Moose Gets Stuck in Swedish Apple Tree [PHOTOS & VIDEO]

A drunk moose, intoxicated from eating too many fermented apples, was stuck in an apple tree in Sweden before being spotted by a Swedish passerby and rescued.

The moose was found by Per Johansson in Saro just south of Gothenberg in Sweden while on his commute home from work, stuck in a tree, drunk from eating apples.

Drunken moose ends up stuck in Swedish apple tree

It was a dark, windy and rainy night when Per Johansson returned from work to his home in Saro just south of Gothenburg, Sweden.

"It was raining really bad. In the wind I heard something screaming with a very dark voice," Johansson told CNN. "At first I wondered if it was the crazy neighbors, but then I heard it again and went and checked. I saw something really big up in a tree in my neighbors' yard and it was a moose. It must have been drunk after eating fermented apples and as it was reaching out for more fruit it must have slipped and fallen into the tree."

Silly moose. Squirrels often live in OAK trees, not tiny apple ones.

Thanks to YKWIA, who called me tonight with this truly blog-worthy story. :)

Gee, I thought I was prone to freak accidents

This man takes the cake.

US gardener survives being impaled in eye with shears

An 86-year-old US man impaled through the eye socket with pruning shears in a freak gardening accident is expected to make a full recovery, doctors say.

Go the story for a x-ray showing a handle that went through the man's eye socket and down to his neck.

Odd news of the day

'Zombies ahead,' warns electronic road sign in SC

I See Rock People: Mimetoliths of the World

How much for burritos? Man fires BB gun in protest: Suspect apparently angry that 99-cent Taco Bell promotion had ended, police say

Bird 'muzak' piped in California town [Video] (Lancaster, California, which was the largest town near Edwards AFB and which we visited frequently when I lived there.)

Sometimes it's better just to be yourself: Man posing as officer tries to pull over undercover police vehicle, cops say

Needing to pee may be good for your mind

We make better decisions when we gotta go

In addition to making you walk funny and drop your keys five or six times while trying to get inside your house, a full bladder may actually do something useful: help you make better decisions.

Apparently a full bladder leads to better impulse control. And that's not even considering how some great philosophical questions get solved on the john.

Crazy news story of the day

Woman starts fight over chicken nuggets (video included)

In Toledo, Ohio a woman got very irate when she went to a drive-through window and ordered chicken nuggets only to be told they were still serving breakfast. She started screaming and hitting the clerk, coming out of her car and nearly into the store through the window. Someone had the great idea to shut the window, and she fought them tooth and nail but finally the window shut and she tried to smash it with her hand, then her elbow, then she got in her car and picked up something she used to smash a great big hole in the glass (it wasn't like automobile glass, either...it was a gaping big hole the size of a large head. She's been arrested and charged with vandalism. In my opinion, they need to charge her with assault and battery, and maybe do a drug check and psych evaluation at the same time, because that was a lot of crazy in that video.

It's people like this that make me sometimes feel uneasy about working in retail.

Strange story of the week

Whale of a tale! 40-ton mammal lands on yacht

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Fortunately no one (including, apparently, the young Southern Right Whale) was injured.

Okay, nothing against Christians, but you know, God doesn't like idolatry (and tacky idolatry at that)

I have to admit the Pagan (me) and Jew (YKWIA) were quite amused by this bit of weird news:

6-story Jesus statue in Ohio struck by lightning: Sculpture nicknamed 'Touchdown Jesus' because of way arms were raised

A six-story statue of Jesus Christ was struck by lightning and burned to the ground, leaving only a blackened steel skeleton and pieces of foam that were scooped up by curious onlookers Tuesday.

Nor were we the only ones who found it amusing:

19 reasons why God torched Jesus

Never let it be said that God does not appreciate irony. Never let it be said that God does not have a sense of humor. Never let it be said that God loves tacky Styrofoam parade float lawn statue things that look like Charles Manson dipped in bleach and marshmallows and lost dreams.

I am sorry the church had such a high loss--$300,000 for the statue (!) plus another $400,000 for the amphitheatre. I am also sorry that there are people who are genuinely upset and fail to see the irony. But still...

Plus...
'Touchdown Jesus' Burns to Ground As Porn Shop Goes Unscathed

The "Touchdown Jesus," a six-story tall statue (also known as "Big Butter Jesus") outside an Ohio church, was torched by a lightning bolt late Monday night and completely incinerated. In a demonstration of God's keen sense of irony, the "Hollywood Hustler" sign at a nearby porn shop was left unscathed.

Strangest news story I've heard in awhile

This time from Florida.

Megan Barnes Driving While Shaving! Fla. Woman Arrested After Crash, Grooming "Bikini Area" Say Cops

She had her ex-husband take the wheel from the passenger seat and they crashed into a pickup, then went another half mile before stopping. This happened one day after being convicted of driving under the influence and she was driving on a revoked licence. Why was she shaving her delicate bits whilst driving? She was on her way to her boyfriend's home and, as YKWIA put it when he told me about this story, 'wanted a clean working surface'.

She should never get her licence back, ever, and her ex-husband should be prosecuted, too.

Weird and dangerous, that's what they are.

Hi, there

Sorry I've been amiss in blogging. Sunday after the game I went on a mega-run to Kroger, with almost a whole cart devoted to fresh vegetables, plus another cart, and a bill that would nearly pay my rent. Fortunately I wasn't the one buying. Someone I know has a new stove with five burners and two ovens and is in a cooking mood. Last night he slaved for seven hours to produce a meal of acorn squash soup, vegetable lasagna, and endive-egg-avocado salad. Bless his heart, we ate well, but he was too tired to eat. I washed dishes throughout the whole night to help out. He tends to cook from books by Victor-Antoine d'Avila-Latourrette, a Benedictine monk. The food is wonderful, but everything is from scratch, using fresh produce and interesting cheeses. You can really taste the difference though--especially in the pasta sauce for the lasagna. So last night we ate at 1 am and I was out till 3, taking a taxi home. I was dragging this morning.

Today I found out that I had a good performance review at the hospital (all satisfactory or above) but unfortunately we will not be getting a raise this year. I can't say I'm surprised. But I did get both a regular raise and market raise last year and am doing much better financially, so I can't really complain.

Tonight was truck night at the store, and it went well. Brandon was able to give me a ride home tonight, so I didn't have to dodge cars. One tried to run over me this morning. It blew through a red light to turn right just as I started crossing with the light. I really wish I had a sci-fi disintegrator sometimes.

So that's what I'm up to. I'll go check the news. The most memorable story I read earlier today was the woman from Louisiana who sold two children for a $1500 cockatoo (yes, you read that right) and $175. She has been sentenced to 15 months hard labour (she could have gotten 20 years). Good Lord.

Good Lord, where do they find these people?

Well, in this case, in Duluth, Minnesota.

Man pleads guilty to DWI in La-Z-Boy: Driver rode motorized chair away from bar and hit parked car

Police said the chair was powered by a converted lawnmower and had a stereo and cup holders.

Go, grandmas with guts!

Okay, I don't know if she really is a grandmother, but this is a great story.

Woman, 88, gives naked intruder the ‘squeeze’: Deputies say she grabbed the man’s crotch after he pushed her down

Moral of the story: don't attack feisty little old ladies when you're going commando.

Good grief!

Blind woman threatened over unpaid 1-cent bill: 74-year-old resident of Attleboro, Mass., told lien would be placed on home

Granted the letter was computer-generated with no human review, but I thought the City Collector, who already sounded defensive on that bit, came off worse in the interview, making it sound like it was horrible this woman didn't pay her bill on time, when no doubt the cheque was written a cent off or something. I mean really, that's such an innocent mistake for someone to make. And the idea of putting a lien on the house and charging $48 if it's not paid on time is ludicrous. So is sending a letter that cost 42 times the amount of the bill to mail. Goodness. Well, at least it should be easy enough for the lady to pay.

Just bizarre

Cloned puppies expose old mystery: Dog owner admits links to Mormon sex slave scandal 31 years ago

Only in New York

Corpse Wheeled to Check-Cashing Store Leads to 2 Arrests