Critters 4 Humans 0
A 17-year-old boy in Reno Nev. accidentally set his family`s house on fire trying to kill spiders (August).
[Reno Gazette-Journal-AP 8-18-08]
A woman in Santa Fe N.M. accidentally caused severe fire damage to her home while trying to torch a rattlesnake (July).
[KOB-TV (Albuquerque) 7-27-08]
A 26-year-old man in Mobile Ala. accidentally caused $80000 damage to his home and a shed trying to kill a swarm of bees (June).
[Mobile Press-Register 6-4-08]
A Buddhist monk accidentally burned down his temple in Ojiya City Japan trying to destroy a hornets` nest (September).
[MSNBC-AP 9-4-08] Chuck Shepherd
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Elderly drivers` recent lapses of concentration confusing the brake pedal with the gas (or however artfully they explain it):
A Norfolk Va. woman 86 crashed against a Rite Aid pharmacy damaging a vending machine (May).
[Daily Press (Hampton Roads Va.) 5-20-08]
A Lake Oswego Ore. man 81 crashed through the front of a U.S. Bank building sending employees scurrying (February)
[Lake Oswego Review 2-11-08]
A Cincinnati woman 80 crashed halfway into a Dollar General store damaging displays (May).
[WKRC-TV (Cincinnati) 5-19-08]
A 75-year-old Shriner driving a go-cart in one of the organization`s tiny-car exhibitions lost control and hit in succession two kids and two adults before coming to a halt in bushes (July).
[Chicago Sun-Times 7-4-08] Chuck Shepherd
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In December 2003 Yves Julien worked a regular 11-hour shift plus overtime all at premium pay for the Canada Border Services Agency and then demanded an additional $9 (Cdn) for a sandwich he had purchased when asked to put in the extra hours. The agency said he was not entitled by contract because the overtime was already at premium pay. In September 2008 after nearly five years of multiple reviews hair-splitting legal decisions and lengthy appeals Julien won his $9.
[Globe and Mail 9-10-08]
Never Give Up: In September Melvin Dummar now 62 the man who famously claimed to be in Howard Hughes` hand-written will (based on having given Hughes a ride in the desert in 1967) was turned down again by a federal appeals court in his latest challenge to the "official" 1976 will.
[Salt Lake Tribune 9-13-08]
The U.S.`s most-ridiculed litigator Roy Pearson of the Washington D.C. dry-cleaning case (who in 2005 sued for $54 million over a pair of pants) announced in September he was appealing the dismissal of his case.
[WJLA-TV (Washington) 9-10-08] Chuck Shepherd
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Jose Rivera 22 survived two tours in Iraq but back home in California he took a job at the high-security Atwater federal prison where officers cannot carry even non-lethal crowd-control weapons and Rivera was murdered 10 months later by two inmates armed with handmade shivs. "Every single inmate in there is armed to the teeth for his own protection" complained one officer but a Bureau of Prisons spokesman told CNN in August that "communication" with inmates is a better policy than even modestly arming guards.
[CNN 8-26-08]
When Eric Aderholt`s house in Rockwell County Texas burned down in June it wasn`t because the fire department was too slow. They arrived within minutes but none was aware that local hydrants were locked. Apparently departments know that hydrants in rural areas have been shut off as part of post-9/11 security and must be turned on with a special tool which no one brought that night. Texas law even requires shut-off hydrants to be painted black but the firefighters still arrived without the tool and by the time they retrieved it Aderholt`s house was gone.
[WFAA-TV (Fort Worth) 8-27-08]
A member of Pakistan`s parliament stood his ground in August defending news reports from his Baluchistan province that five women had been shot and then buried alive as tribal punishment for objecting to their families` choosing husbands for them. A defiant Israr Ullah Zehri told the Associated Press "These are centuries-old traditions and I will continue to defend them" despite condemnation by Zehri`s colleagues. "Only those who indulge in immoral acts should be afraid" Zehri said.
[New York Daily News-AP 8-30-08] Chuck Shepherd
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