After languishing for two years in the Irish legislature, the Nuclear Test Ban Bill of 2006 was recently rethought and refurbished, according to a June report in the Irish Independent. Originally, the bill codified the U.N. Test Ban Treaty and added some provisions specific to Ireland. Among those additions was a seemingly light punishment for anyone detonating a nuclear weapon in Ireland: up to 12 months in jail and/or a fine of up to 5,000 euros (then, around $6,500), along with language that might even allow a person found guilty to apply for first-offense probation. The proposed punishment this time is expected to be considerably harsher.
Least Competent Criminals
In June, James Milsom, 21, was arrested in Avon and Somerset, England, after a hidden camera in a police decoy car caught him breaking in and swiping the GPS device. It was his third arrest in four months for breaking into a police decoy car to steal a GPS device (he was caught by the hidden camera each time).
In June, Reno, Nev., homicide detective David Jenkins was sitting in his unmarked carwhich had emergency lights on the dash and a police radio blaring awaywhen Mercedes Green, 19, hopped in and, yelling so as to be heard over the radio, propositioned him for sex. “You’re not the police, are you?” she asked. “What do you think?” he said. “I didn’t think so,” the woman replied. After her arrest, Green explained: “You wear glasses, and I didn’t think police could wear them.”
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Update
Luxury toilets were introduced in Japan in the 1970s. Within 20 years, models were available that would automatically heat bottom-splashing water, take health readings of bodily emissions and supply music and “white noise” to mask the bowel movements, as “News of the Weird” noted in 1990 and 2001. Though the world is more environmentally conscious, and Japan is among the leaders in energy conservation among industrial nations, the country has not been able to shake its obsession with smart toilets, which consume more electricity than dishwashers or clothes dryers, according to a June Washington Post dispatch from Tokyo. Said one energy consultant, “For hygiene-conscious Japanese, the romance with these toilets is equivalent to the American romance with the Hummer.”
The Aristocrats!
A 28-year-old woman, unnamed by the Kitsap (Wash.) Sun, was arrested in May and charged with stealing her husband’s wallet and subsequently assaulting an arresting officer. According to deputies, she had awakened her husband, 24, and demanded sex, but he rebuffed her and insisted, from that point on, that the two of them would quit smoking, drinking and cussing, limit their sexual activities and be “good Christians.” Evidently, that idea didn’t sit well with the wife, and police arrived to witness her screaming, swearing, slamming doors and complaining about her unsatisfactory sex life, while carrying around a large bottle whiskey. At one point, she allegedly tossed the couple’s 20-pound dog at a deputy (who caught it safely).
Readers’ Choice
In May, two young men and a juvenile from Houston were charged with corpse abuse after they allegedly dug a body out of a grave in a cemetery in the town of Humble, removed the head and took it away in order to use it as a bong for smoking marijuana.
Jorge Espinal, 44, was taken to a hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, in May after an early-morning incident (alcohol was involved) in which he used a loaded handgun to scratch a hard-to-reach itch on his back and accidentally shot himself.
Unclear on the Concept
After motorist Mark Holder, 30, had a seizure in Boynton Beach, Fla., in June, his car swerved off the road and smashed into a sign, badly injuring him. Emergency workers arrived and, protecting against possible nerve damage, attempted to put a brace on him to stabilize his neck. However, Holder became combative, and sheriff’s deputies reported that they were forced to shoot Holder “several times” with a Taser to calm him down so that the brace could be fitted.
People With Issues
(1) In Singapore in June, a 36-year-old man was sentenced to 14 years in jail and 18 strokes of the cane after he was convicted of 23 counts of molesting women on elevators and other places, mostly sniffing their armpits. (2) In June, a masochist, with tastes similar to those an Ontario man reported on in this column three months ago, was sentenced four years in jail for encouraging two underage girls near Bicester, England, to kick him repeatedly in the groin until could no longer handle the pain.
