Gallows Humor, And Lack Thereof

On a rather scenic route in northern Michigan, a rather large set of gallows has been setup:

 Daily Press: Gallows built along M-28, generating controversy

Tom Pegenau, owner of Pegenau Builders, set up a wooden gallows structure with a noose outside of the Pegenau Builders business on M-28 in Chocolay Township, later painted with the words “bureaucrats,” “justice” and “freedom,” along with a banner reading “United States of America 1776-2026 250 We the MFin People.”

Kind of a bureaucrat, rope, gallows, assembly of one of each approach to things. 

Mr. Peregnau, per the article is rather unhappy (as many people are) with government at the moment, and he stated he was rather frustrated with both sides of the aisle in many areas so he built the gallows as a matter of protest.

Chocolay Township, where the gallows are located, is unamused.

The Detroit Free Press:  Marquette-area township orders gallows along major U.P. highway moved

In short the setting up of gallows along the roadway is claimed to be a zoning violation in the area.  This may indeed make Mr. Peregnau even more annoyed with bureaucrats, but it is most likely that the gallows are headed for the gallows so to speak.

We Still Have Got 194 Countries Where This Hasn't Happened

And that ain't bad.

Yes, that happened, and it counts as a pretty major oops.

Reuters:  Polish police chief who fired grenade launcher in office is charged two years later

Poland's former national police commander was belatedly charged on Monday with illegal import and unintentional endangerment after accidentally setting off an anti-tank grenade launcher in his office in 2022. 

Jaroslaw Szymczyk received mild injuries when the grenade launcher, which he said he had received as a gift during a visit to Ukraine, went off as he was moving it. Pictures obtained by local media showed that it had blasted through the floor, damaging the office below.

Talk about keeping your booger hook off the Big Bada Boom switch. 

If You Can Keep Your Head When Others Are Donating Theirs

Your weird news of the day:

The Detroit Free Press:  Apparent human skull donated at Goodwill heads to U-M for analysis

Talk about losing your head, or just plain giving it away.

 It should be noted that Goodwill is not normally accepting of  body parts for donations.

Update:  Turns out after testing that it was not an actual skull but a man made "artifact".  

Ok, Who Had

From Walmart, no less.

LiveScience: FDA issues warning over possible radioactive shrimp

 The FDA is warning consumers not to eat certain frozen shrimp products sold at Walmart after other products from the same company tested positive for a radioactive substance  

The bad shrimp was imported by PT. Bahari Makmur Sejati aka BMS Foods. 

While at least one shipment contaminated with cesium-137 was caught upon insoection, the FDA is warning people not to eat BMS shrimp they may have bought from Walmart at this time.

Nope, I did not have Radioactive Indonesian Shrimp on my list of concerns for August, but  "Radioactive Indonesian Shrimp" would make a great name for a midget heavy metal band.

Mr. Taggart, Your Dimes Have Arrived

Anybody got a dime?

The Detroit News:  Cha-ching! Millions of dimes spill onto Texas highway after truck rolls

No report as to whether a toll booth was nearby.

So, Penguins Really Can't Fly

At least, they certainly can't fly rotary wing aircraft.

BBC: Unsecured penguin caused helicopter crash in South Africa

Send that bird to flight school.

Surely, They Can't Be That Stupid

Apparently, they can indeed be that stupid, and stop calling me Shirley:

The term, Intelligence Community when applied to the American version of same, is rapidly becoming an oxymoron, if it hasn't already.

 

That level of incompetence is rather staggering.  But, perhaps, they were simply too busy having kinky and highly workplace inappropriate chats on secure government systems to pay attention to avoiding blowing the identities of CIA employees while they were chatting about a whole different kind of blowing:

 

Forbes: More Than 100 Intelligence Staffers Will Be Fired Over Sexually Explicit Texts In NSA Chatrooms, Gabbard Says

One would think members of the "intelligence community", being presumably both more tech-savy and intelligent than average, would know not to do something that the average American worker already knows is highly inappropriate to do in the workplace.  

Or they did know that, but figured the rules didn't apply to them.

And Nothing of Value Was Lost

Talk about the devotees of the party out of power going insane.  

Having a medical procedure with some serious consequences to protest the President is pretty radical, especially as it is purely performative nonsense.

The Washington Beacon: Not Kidding: Michigan State Rep Says She Sterilized Herself To Protest Trump 

A Democratic Michigan state representative told protesters Wednesday that she underwent voluntary sterilization to avoid becoming pregnant during President Donald Trump's second term, a left-wing media outlet reported.

"Just under two weeks ago, I underwent surgery to ensure that I would never have to navigate a pregnancy in Donald Trump's America," Rep. Laurie Pohutsky told anti-Trump protesters gathered Wednesday outside the Michigan Capitol, according to a piece published by the Michigan Advance. "I refuse to let my body be treated as currency by an administration that only sees value in my ability to procreate."

                                                          . . .

Pohutsky insisted that her surgery was important, telling protesters, "If you know people who are questioning how serious this is, I'm going to repeat myself: A sitting government official opted for voluntary sterilization because she was uncertain she would be able to access contraception in the future."

So Rep. Pohutsky sterilizes herself per her announcement to prevent becoming pregnant during Trump's presidency and apparently believes having a child is a terrible thing. Kinda a drastic measure, no? 

Either this is purely political theater and she got sterilized for other reasons and is lying about it, or she is a complete moron.

This is because, as Rep. Pohutsky certainly knows, the right to an abortion and indeed contraception was enshrined in the Michigan constitution in 2020 via referendum and law.

How do we know she knows?  Well, she publicly celebrated it when it passed:

Today should most certainly be celebrated; it took a lot of hard work to get these bills to the governor’s desk, and while there is still work to be done, we should absolutely take time to appreciate this victory,” said Speaker Pro Tem Laurie Pohutsky (D-Livonia), chair of the Progressive Women’s Caucus and spearhead of the House RHA bills. “This journey began over a decade ago, and I am honored to be a part of the continued efforts to guarantee Michiganders have access to abortion care. It was long past due for these obstacles to be diminished so people can make the decisions that are right for them without government interference."

So she's a die-hard pro-abortion progressive Democrat and is clearly announcing this sterilization for performative reasons, and likely lying about the reason for it.  If not, she is bug-house nuts and doesn't understand the laws she herself passed and advocates for, nor how the United States governmental system works, in which case she probably really shouldn't be a state representative.

On the upside, she's taken her craziness out of the gene pool.

For those who don't get it:  Abortion and contraception is now enshrined in the Michigan constitution per the referendum in 2020 and by law in the massive package of bills that Pohutsky herself helped pass. Trump cannot change that.

Letting Michigan Democrats continue to fear-monger on abortion when they have decisively enshrined abortion at the state level is simply allowing them to continue to deceive their constituents on what is now a settled issue.

The Democrat crazies here are like a dog chasing a car - they caught the car and now they don't know what to do with it, nor how to shift away from the fear-mongering on abortion they were using to fuel their campaigns.

Black Nazis - Are You Allowed To Hate Black Nazis?

I mean, you have clear permission to hate Illinois nazis.

However, in today's weird world of teens with mental health problems, we get not only Black White Supremacists, but now we also have Black Nazis. Or at least we had one.

The Detroit Free Press: Antioch school shooting: What to know about attack in Nashville that left 2 dead

You wouldn't know a key fact if you only got your info from the Detroit Free Press on this murderous scumbag.

The killer mentioned in the article as a "teen boy" with "professing alleged alt-right extremist views about "race mixing," who did the shooting, and then saved everyone the cost of a trial, was Black.

Kind of a relevant and indeed surprising detail, neh?  Impressively not mentioned at all.

Townhall: After These Details, the Antioch High School Shooting Is Going to Get Suffocated by the Media

Yep the killer was indeed a Black Nazi.   Who knew?

That he was a Black nazi likely indicates his education up until he took himself out of the gene pool (sadly killing an innocent while doing so), was rather inadequate when it came to both history and political philosophy. Indeed, this is  likely yet another teen with mental illness acting out.

Trial: Well, That Was Rather Unusual

Had a trial recently, and the outcome is still pending.

The overview:  Defendant Douche-Bag (DDB from here on in) is a handyman that not only conned a 90-year-old with dementia into doing $100k+ in "renovation" work on her condo, for which Adult Protective Services investigates and substantiates a finding of financial abuse - but nothing is done,  He also secretly obtains the deed top her condo under interesting circumstances.  

But wait, it gets better.

DDB also becomes her guardian - at the nomination of Adult Protective Services!, cuts off family and friends from seeing her, and then bilks the guardianship funds as well, including taking over $3,500 outof the account to clean it out after her death. Oh, and he does not tell anyone that she has died for 12 days, until the day before the hearing to remove him as guardian. But he does record the deed he got to the condo the very day she dies.

The deceased's remote family, who are out of state, then sues him for the money and condo that have been stolen when they find out the extent of what has happend.

The renovation work is, shall we say, sub par.

For example the new dining room floor, which we inspect at the condo during discovery:

Yep, it is that bad, it is also wavy and not level.  Click 'em to embiggen and see the suck-age in all its glory. 

Looks like scrap wood from multiple flooring kits with edges that don't even line up. No pattern at all. Other renovations DDB has done look about as bad - like repainting the bathroom wall and not moving the toilet tank while painting it, so there's a toilet-tank outline behind it in the original paint color that is really visible.

Many other renovations DDB charged for aren't even done at all, and it looks like he was making up the proposal quotes after the fact to cover himself after all the checks were written to him - checks he wrote out and either had her sign or forged her signature.

DDB is also representing himself which causes issues - he fails to comply with discovery leading the judge to sanction him, but the judge also gives him a lot of leeway as is often the case.

So we get to trial.

I had a nice opening argument prepared and the judge states no opening arguments, and to call my first witness.

Ah, well.

So,  I begin with the accountant expert I have and we start going over the accounts.

Lots of interesting things in those accounts as we trace funds he's taken and misappropriated for himself including lots of cash withdrawals, uisng her credit card to pay for his insurance and dog vet bills and more.

About 30 minutes in DDB stands up and asks the judge if we can stop so he can get an attorney as it is "more complicated than he thought".

The judge says no as we're in the middle of a trial, but if he can find an attorney to represent him before we re-start at lunch then that's fine.

DDB's mom, who is in the courtroom rushes out at that and I continue with my questioning.

Soon a fellow walks in up to the Defendant's podium and puts his name as Attorney Quickhire (never seen this guy before at court ever) on the record and states he'll be representing the Defendant.

Welcome to the party, pal.

I happily continue my questions, Attorney Quickhire never says a word, and I get more and more damning info out about the issues with the accounts and money being spent and the Judge asks me to pause.

The judge then states Attorney Quickhire has just left the courtroom.

Yep, he stood there for a bit then walked back to the mom, said something and left the courtroom.

Ooops.

Some of  my witnesses overheard him say to the mom that he can't represent him and that wasn't what they had told Attorney Quickhire this matter was about.  

Who knew that DDB's mom would lie too?  Shocker.

Unfortunately, Attorney Quickhire just committed malpractice and is on record representing DDB.  Not good for him at all.

We continue without him, and after luch the judge again notes Attorney Quickhire is not there.  We get through most of my witnesses on the first day.

Start of the second day, no Attorney Quickhire and Judge has DDB confirm Attorney Quickhire is not representing him.

I get through my witnesses.

DDB then represents himself as his only witness and I cross-examine the heck outta him.  I'll say this DDB is a very smooth liar and given the other person present for much of what went on is dead, the lies are a problem even when at times they defy belief.

I do get him to admit he is not licensed and never puled a single permit for all the work he did - including removing a wall that seems to have been load-bearing. Oopsies.

So, I have a damn nice closing prepared and ready to let it rip.

Of course the judge then says he doesn't want closing arguments.

Dammit, it was really good and I was ready to go. Ah, well.

Instead,  the judge wants very detailed briefs going into various aspects of the case as closing arguments, and he wants the financials presented differently in the closing brief to answer some specifics he wants answered.

Overall, feeling pretty good about where it is going, but one can never tell how a judge will rule but he was not impressed with the "work" DDB did at the condo and I had a lot of good evidence showing the deceased had severe enough dementia at the time, but we will see what happens.

So I get to do that now. That will be due late January, and the decision should be released in mid-February.

In short some helpful general advice: 

1. Don't rip off old ladies, you will get caught (now, if you do this in Oakland County you likely won't be criminally prosecuted as our Democrat progressive prosecuting attorney doesn't like going after such financial crimes - apparently they are too complicated and not headline-generating enough to get her interest);

2. Don't try to represent yourself at trial when you do get caught, for you are fun to play with, and will mess up, a lot;

3. Don't wait to the date of trial to try and find an attorney; and most importantly:

4.  If you're an attorney, Don't, for the love of professional responsibility, jump into a case at trial on the day of trial with no clue as to what is going on.  Nothing good will happen.

Attorney Quickhire didn't do himself any favors and may need to let his malpractice insurance carrier know about the mess he just got himself into. If DDB is bright enough to claim he committed malpractice by representing him and then disappearing without even being released by the court from representing DDB.  Really not good.

This was rather an unusual trial in many ways, and the decision isn't in yet.

Is Their Election Slogan It takes A Criminal To Catch A Criminal?

The Detroit News: Oakland, Wayne Co. sheriff challengers hope voters will overlook their criminal records

When all you have to run on is your criminal record, you might as well run on that:

Amrit Kohli said he's qualified to be the Oakland County sheriff because he's been an Oakland County Jail inmate and knows what needs to be fixed.

Wayne County sheriff candidate T. P. Nykoriak said his federal conviction for stealing from a Detroit church should not prevent him from being elected as the county's top law enforcement official.

Ok then.

Kohli is a very progressive  Democrat who is on the Democrat ticket running in Oakland County against the highly popular and effective Republican Sheriff Bouchard. 

"I want to get elected, so I can disrupt the policing of the Sheriff's Office and try to make a mark of what policing can do when they're not about guns and oppression," said Kohli, who was convicted of drunk driving in 2003 and malicious destruction of property in 2004. "Police are the apparatus of oppression and have committed genocide, in my opinion."

Yeah, he's the perfect progressive Democrat defund-the-police-type to run for the position with no law enforcement experience aside from being on the criminal end of it. He is also, of course, given his everything-I-don't-like-is- genocide,  pro "ceasefire" for Gaza.

This is part of why straight-ticket voting is dumb - he'll likely get votes from Democrats in the County who do a straight ticket and don't know any batter.

We'll note that while T. P. Nykoriak is nominally on the ballot as a Republican in Wayne County, he actually has a long history of running as a Democrat for the Sheriff slot, and other positions, and possibly changes party affiliation like others change their underwear.

Both should use a white circle on a red background as their campaign flags - They both have a snowball's chance in hell of winning.

Maybe There Actually Ought To Be A Law Sometimes

Well, my fellow Michiganders, if you have a certain rather rare (at least I really, really hope this is rare) kink, you've now got a shrinking window to act on it without running afoul of the law. 

Verily, If you're a necromancer or necromaniac, or both, this new law is gonna cut down on your opportunities.  For everyone else, well, not at all.

The Detroit Free Press: Bills criminalizing necrophilia in Michigan head to Gov. Whitmer's desk

Yes, it is, to my and many other people's surprise, apparently totally legal to have an intimate relationship with a corpse in Michigan.  

At least, it currently is until this bill becomes law.

The bills, collectively known as Melody's Law, came after a west Michigan man was convicted of the December 2021 killing of 64-year-old Melody Rohrer.

Prosecutors said Rohrer was out for a walk in Van Buren County, about 15 miles southeast of Kalamazoo, when Colby Martin, 31, ran her down with his pickup truck and loaded her body into his vehicle. He later committed sexual acts with the body before dumping it in a wooded area in St. Joseph County.

A jury later convicted Martin of murder, failing to stop at the scene of a fatal crash and concealing a death. Prosecutors could not charge him with the alleged sexual crimes because Michigan, unlike many other states, had no law on the books specifically criminalizing necrophilia.

Yeah, this is certainly a weird case.

While I'm generally not one for saying "There oughta be a law",  I can understand wanting to add some extra penalties for what this murderer did and preventing such acts in the future.  

Apparently, both sides of the aisle thought so too, as the bills passed unanimously in both the Michigan House and Senate.

That's Rather Unusual

Right on the heels of my last post, it turns out there is yet another reason to have a gun in a park:

CBS News: Officials warn of possible alligator sighting in lake at Kensington Metropark

"Alligators are not native to Michigan, so if this sighting is real, it is most likely the result of someone releasing a pet Alligator into the lake," a Huron-Clinton Metroparks spokesperson said in a statement.

Visitors are advised not to approach the alligator

Yeah, we're normally comfortably outside a gator's native range here in Michigan. 

Kensington Metropark, while normally alligator-free, may start getting a little more sporty than usual as a result.

From Car Meme To Reality

You've likely seen this meme about the wisdom of placing decorative items on your steering wheel:

Most people would chuckle at the pic thinking people can't really be that dumb.

They would be mistaken. 

Apparently, people putting objects over their steering wheel airbags is a real current concern.

The Detroit News: Feds urge people not to put decals on steering wheels after a driver is hurt by flying metal pieces

The warning from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration comes after another driver was severely hurt by a flying emblem during a crash. The air bag inflated and sent two pieces of metal from an aftermarket decal into the driver's face and neck.

The agency said it couldn't say where or when the injury occurred. But it said the injury was the second it is aware of involving an aftermarket decal. In the previous case the driver lost sight in one eye after being hit by a rhinestone-adorned decal that hit them in the face, NHTSA said in a statement Tuesday.

Yeah, that's gonna hurt. 

Placing any object - whether metal, stone or otherwise, over the casing of an airbag that will move towards you rapidly and with explosive force during an accident is just a stupid idea.

Sometimes You Really Just Need To Let Things Go

I daresay most people wouldn't consider leaping into the waste pit of an public outhouse, even if their Apple Watch fell in.

This lady in the story did, and found out yet another reason why you shouldn't jump into one - she got trapped for some time in the pit until other people heard her and sent for rescue.

The Detroit Free Press:  Woman rescued from muck inside Otsego County outhouse after trying to find her Apple Watch

I expect she's going to get some hepatitis shots shortly.  Not to mention she likely will have to throw out the clothes she was wearing when she jumped in.

I don't own an Apple Watch, but even if I did, if it fell into a pit of waste like that, there's no way I would be jumping in after it. 

Really, it's just not worth the sheer amount of actual crap to retrieve it.

Iceland Food Tour - That's Smoked Over What, Exactly?

Our next and final stop on the tour was a brewpub and restaurant.

Their signature beer is called the Flying Kock, which is really hard to order and keep a straight face, which seems to be the point.

Yes, the entendres were far more than doubled.

So along with the beer, came some smoked lamb on toasted Icelandic bread to the table to try as our next dish.

This is traditional smoked lamb, smoked in the traditional fashion.  Traditional means smoked over lamb dung.

Yes, dung. Iceland didn't have a lot of good smoking woods available, especially after they heavily deforested the island during settlement. So dung had to do, and it did.

Upside, I can report it had no dung in the flavor, just lamb, but it did have a very, very, heavy and strong smoke flavor to it.  Can't say as I'd recommend switching to dung as a smoking medium. I'll stick to wood, thank you very much. Most ppople on the tour who tried it stated it was not a hit.

That certainly was an experience, the beer was quite tasty though.

That was the end of the food tour, and it was fun, interesting, and educational and I'd highly recommend doing it if you ever visit Iceland.

We then walked back to our hotel to get ready for our next adventure the following day - The day I got to cross off an item on my bucket list.

When You Allegedly Have Got 'Em By The Nuts

You really can't make something like this up, but it would have been even better if allegation was that he was using them for bookends:

The Detroit News: 

 Pontiac transgender woman sues to get testicles back from ex

A transgender woman from Pontiac has filed a court claim demanding her testicles back, insisting her ex-boyfriend is keeping them in a jar in his refrigerator and refusing to return them.

Weird enough for you for a Monday?

Just wait, it gets better.

The ex, when told of the complaint, apparently didn't seem to deny having the boys around. But, he told the Detroit News that the transgender complainant has been harassing him so much previously he had to get a PPO against it and had already removed whatever was wanted from the residence. 

Oh, and the transgender complainant has a prior conviction for assault for pulling a knife on another roommate, who was also transgendered.

Issues?  Methinks this one's got subscriptions.

Did The Uber Eats Driver Get Et?

A rather strange and brutal crime out of Florida, where an MS-13 gang member and felon seemed to be confused about how things are supposed to work with delivery services:  

The rule is you're supposed to tip your delivery driver, not rip them into pieces and stuff them into garbage bags.

Another rule is you do not eat your Uber Eats driver, you eat the food they bring you.

The criminal's picture in the article shows he's a very well adjusted fellow.  Or, er,  not so much.

The Detroit News: Sheriff: Uber Eats driver slain, dismembered making delivery

A Florida man is charged with murder and other offenses in the slaying and dismemberment of an Uber Eats driver who had brought food to the assailant's house, authorities said Tuesday.

Oscar Solis Jr., 30, is charged with killing the driver during a delivery Wednesday at a home in Holiday, Florida, Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco said at a news conference. The remains were found at the house in trash bags and a cooler, which also contained a receipt with Solis' name on it, according to a police affidavit.

Is he really a Florida man if he just moved there in the last few months after getting out of prison in Indiana? In any case back to prison he goes, hopefully for a heckuva lot longer than his last sentence.

Just A Little Jan 6 Committee Irony

A bit of weirdness out of the January 6 Committee report regarding Ryan Kelly, a Michigan Republican politician that was running for Governor in the 2022 election, was present Jan 6 and running for office and thus arrested by the FBi on misdemeanor charges to hamper his gubernatorial run - nothing at all political about that, of course.

Here's where it gets a tad interesting: The Detroit News: Under oath, Ryan Kelley refused to identify himself in Jan. 6 videos

The Detroit News story, and the committee report, is all agog and aghast that Ryan Kelly refused to identify before the committee if a video did in fact show him at the Capitol doing stupid stuff.

Now, Kelly did sorta, kinda, take the Fifth before the Committee on that quesiton, but not exactly correctly, as you can read in the article. But, regardless, he refused to answer the question to identify if the person on the video was him all the same. 

So, there's all this umbrage about the failure of Kelly to identify himself by a committee official.

So, now that you have the background, the story gives a nice bit of irony:

"Mr. Kelley, how would answering that question impede your ability to peaceably assemble? It's a video of a thing that happened more than a year ago," an official with the U.S. House committee asked him at one point during the exchange.

Later, an official with the U.S. House committee said Kelley was stating his "opinion of what the Fifth Amendment is."

"But I will again note for the record that the witness has refused to answer the question, and he's refused to raise a recognized privilege as a reason for refusing to answer the question," the official said.

The official's name was redacted in the transcript.

Yep,  all this outrage over Kelly's failure to identify himself, and the "official" asking that line of questions has been redacted and unidentified in the report and their identity is a complete mystery.

You can't make that kind of irony up.

News of The Weird: Rectum? It Damn Near Killed Him!

In news from France today, it does turn out that French 88-year-olds can not only get frisky in a weird way, but that anything can indeed be a sex toy if you're brave or crazy enough.

Fox 10: Hospital evacuated over elderly man with explosive lodged in his rectum 

A French hospital was reportedly evacuated after an 88-year-old arrived with an artillery shell lodged in his rectum.

...

The French publication Var-Matin reported the elderly man had a World War I artillery shell partially inside him.
...

The shell was about eight inches long and two inches wide.

Not to sure what his explanation will be, perhaps confusing the artillery shell with the nearby bidet perhaps?

Well, the shell was older than he was, so at least there were no age of consent issues involved. The shell was successfully removed and defused if not defunked.

Verily, some people may love artillery just a little too much.