Daily Rotten Archives February 12, 2004 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 Pluto crushed to death by Disneyworld parade float WJXT-TV 4 Jacksonville | Submitted by: UberBeavis "A costumed worker was killed after being run over and killed by a Walt Disney World float during an afternoon parade Wednesday. Javier Cruz, 38, of Orlando was killed in a backstage area of the Magic Kingdom, near the Splash Mountain ride, according to the Orange County Sheriff's Office. Cruz had worked at the park for eight years, officials said. Disney spokeswoman Rena Langley said Cruz was toward the end of the parade and was about to enter the park when he was hit. Langley said she wasn't sure if any visitors witnessed what happened... The last time a worker died at Walt Disney World was in 1999 when a part-time employee who had been working in the loading area of the Magic Kingdom Skyway fell to his death. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration later fined Walt Disney World $4,500 for what it called a 'serious' violation of safety standards. The ride was closed later that year." Read article... Mom finds used syringes in old macaroni box KOIN-TV 6 Portland | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "Investigators have traced a tainted box of macaroni and cheese to a packing plant in Minneapolis. Earlier this week, a Stayton mother opened the last box of pasta in her pantry and discovered two used syringes inside. 'When I squeezed the box, there was two syringes sticking up out of the macaroni and cheese,' Tara Ebner told KOIN 6 News. Police say residue in the syringes tested positive for amphetamines... it came from S.T. Specialties in Minneapolis. S.T. Specialties President Dale Schultz said 1,665 cases were produced on July 14, 2002." Read article... and This article... Courtney Love back in the deep end MTV | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "The day after a bench warrant was issued for her failure to appear in court, Courtney Love called Howard Stern's radio show Thursday morning (February 12) to explain her behavior... 'The reason I called,' Love said, 'was that I thought I knew evil. But I didn't know its capacity. The greed out there is outrageous.' ... When asked why she didn't appear in court, Love mentioned something about firearms and how she didn't have a personal bodyguard... 'Why isn't the government supporting me? The DA has got it in for me and I don't know why. My house is bugged.'" Read article... Coroner ruins own credibility with alleged stunt New York Times | Submitted by: KrisAbyss "A federal grand jury on Tuesday accused the Shelby County medical examiner of faking an attack in which he was wrapped head to toe in barbed wire, strapped with a homemade bomb around his neck and bound to window bars in his office here. The incident, which the authorities say was staged by the examiner, Dr. O'Brian C. Smith, occurred in the middle of the night on June 1, 2002. The coroner was found by a security guard who notified the police bomb squad... Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, the chief medical examiner in Pittsburgh and president of the American Board of Legal Medicine, said the indictment could taint cases in which Dr. Smith had given critical evidence and cause them to be appealed. 'If he could fabricate a story like this that a Hollywood screenwriter on LSD would have difficulty coming up with, who can believe him in a courtroom?'" Read article... Blacked-out Bush records pique curiosity USA Today | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "As Texas Gov. George W. Bush prepared to run for president in the late 1990s, top-ranking Texas National Guard officers and Bush advisers discussed ways to limit the release of potentially embarrassing details from Bush's military records, a former senior officer of the Texas Guard said Wednesday. A second former Texas Guard official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, was told by a participant that commanders and Bush advisers were particularly worried about mentions in the records of arrests of Bush before he joined the National Guard in 1968, the second official said... Two forms in Bush's publicly released military files - his enlistment application and a background check - contain blacked-out entries in response to questions about arrests or convictions... The nature of what was blacked out in Bush's records is important because certain legal problems, such as drug or alcohol violations, could have been a basis for denying an applicant entry into the Guard or pilot training. Admission to the Guard and to pilot school was highly competitive at that time, the height of the Vietnam War." Read article... Accused whoremonger spent $1M on poontang Montana Standard | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "A widely known businessman and civic leader was accused Wednesday of spending as much as $1 million over a 20-year period on prostitutes. The arrest of Richard Dasen Sr. capped a long investigation, Police Chief Frank Garner said. Dasen, 61, was charged with solicitation of prostitution and pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charge in Municipal Court... He said 'many' women were involved over the years, but he would not say how many or disclose their ages. Some of the women were paid 'in excess of $100,000' for sexual favors." Read article... Dubya fondly remembered as annoying cuntsman Village Voice | Submitted by: A. P. Palled "In Alabama, where George W. Bush supposedly was slaving away on Winton 'Red' Blount's 1972 U.S. Senate campaign in lieu of National Guard duty, he is remembered by a Blount son as a smartass 'cuntsman' from Texas. Bush Junior, as he was then called, used to come into Blount's campaign office in Montgomery, prop his feet up on a desk, and blab on about how much he'd drunk the night before... Tom Blount 'remembers thinking to himself' the following: 'This guy thinks he is such a cuntsman, God's gift to women. He was all duded up in his cowboy boots. It was sort of annoying seeing all these people who thought they were hot shit just because they were from Texas.'" Read article... and This article... Cops raid garbage house Stuff NZ | Submitted by: Hoggy "Police operation targeting one of Rotorua's most notorious criminal families has revealed a house so filthy, it made officers physically sick... A 'small mountain' of rubbish bags had been left to pile up at the back door, Detective Sergeant Dennis Murphy said. The bags contained rotting food and 'black, indescribable filth' that had left hardened police officers used to dealing with gruesome scenes retching and gagging." Read article... Woman charged with torturing adopted girl CNN | Submitted by: optional "A woman was charged with beating her 7-year-old adopted daughter with a dog chain and keys, burning her wrists on a stove, dousing her naked body with bleach, then locking the girl inside a closet in a coal cellar with a burning furnace filter... Police said they were called to [Debra Liberman]'s home at about 7:30 a.m. Tuesday ET after a neighbor reported screams coming from the residence. Police found Liberman's unharmed 4-year-old son. Officers then moved a safe blocking a closet door and found the girl inside. Liberman had set fire to a furnace filter and placed it inside the closet with the girl." Read article... Unsupervised toddlers electrocuted in bathtub Sydney Morning Herald | Submitted by: Sly "The lifeless bodies of the brother, sister and their cousin, aged 2, 3 and 5, were found by the mother when she went into the bathroom to see what had happened. The accident happened yesterday in the French Riviera city of Cannes. According to paramedics, it appeared the children had been bathing alone and one of them had started playing with the hair-dryer. The device fell into the water, which conducted an electric shock of 220 volts." Read article... Would-be Columbine copycats arrested Sacramento Bee | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "Authorities charged two 15-year-old boys Wednesday with conspiring to murder their classmates at Laguna Creek High School, but prosecutors backed off allegations that the crimes were racially motivated. The boys - one a freshman, the other a sophomore - were arrested after another student's parent tipped law enforcement officials that the pair were plotting to attack Laguna Creek High with guns and bombs. Both are charged with two counts each of conspiracy to commit murder and one count of attempted burglary, said Deputy District Attorney Rick Yenovkian. Though authorities found no guns or explosives at the school, a .22-caliber rifle was voluntarily given to investigators by one of the boy's parents. Authorities said the pair had tried to break into a sporting goods store to steal weapons." Read article... Murderer receives lethal injection Houston Chronicle | Submitted by: jtrotter "Twice-convicted killer Edward Lagrone was executed this evening for a triple slaying in Fort Worth where one of the victims was a 10-year-old girl pregnant with his child... Evidence showed Shakeisha Lloyd was 17 weeks pregnant when Lagrone, who was released in 1984 after serving seven years of a 20-year prison term for murder, barged into her family's home about 4 a.m. on May 30, 1991, and began shooting with a double-barreled pistol-grip shotgun he had a girlfriend buy for him one day earlier. Two of the girl's great-aunts, Zenobia Anderson, 83, and Caolo Lloyd, 74, deaf, blind and bedridden with cancer, also were killed... Authorities believed Lagrone was enraged because Shakeisha's mother, Pamela Lloyd, wouldn't drop a sexual assault complaint she filed against him for impregnating her daughter even though he offered to pay her and pay for an abortion." Read article... Parents swindle own daughter Nettavisen | Submitted by: Thomas "The story started June 27, 2002, when the mother and stepfather asked if their daughter could lend them her bankcard so that they could rent a car for a weekend. Allegedly the truth was that the man was blacklisted for an old, unsettled matter. The case to a more serious turn when the parents did not at all took a little trip for the weekend, but took off to Spain. According to the rent agreement, they had a driving limit of 200 kilometres. When Avis finally got the car back 17 days later, the limit had been exceeded with 7,423 kilometres... They finally came back after they had been threatened of being reported to the police. Back home a bill of NOK 20,000 ($2,857) awaited them." Read article... Michael Jackson needs cash, badly New York Times | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "Michael Jackson is near insolvency as he continues to pile up debt, sapping his last credit reserves, several close financial advisers say. Mr. Jackson faces an immediate cash crisis with a $70 million loan from the Bank of America that is due on Tuesday and has no money to repay it, the advisers said... The child molestation charges against Mr. Jackson and allegations that the Nation of Islam, the black separatist group, is involved in his affairs have scared banks off and hurt his ability to make more money, the Jackson advisers said. Banks were particularly reluctant to extend him credit, they said, because of reports that a senior member of the Nation of Islam, Leonard Muhammad, was controlling Mr. Jackson's finances. Mr. Muhammad, who has a series of failed businesses in his past, hung up the telephone on a reporter who called for comment." Read article... Brainwashed woman receives $7.5M Chicago Sun-Times | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "Rush North Shore Medical Center psychiatrist Bennett Braun and psychologist Roberta Sachs paid a northwest suburban woman $7.5 million to settle her claim that they brainwashed her into believing she was a member of a cult and needed to be sterilized so she would not bear any more babies to be sacrificed for the cult. The truth is that Elizabeth Gale, 52, never had any children. She was just a woman with mild depression who surrendered herself to the care of Braun in 1986... Braun and Sachs 'convinced Ms. Gale she was a member of a worldwide secret ... satanic cult ... that Ms. Gale was a "breeder" for the cult and that she had sacrificed her previous children, when she in fact had never had children,' Smith said. Braun and Sachs 'instructed Ms. Gale to undergo a tubal ligation to avoid further "cult pregnancies." She did so in May of 1991.' They persuaded Gale to abandon her family, change her name more than once, quit her job and sell all her possessions to stay a step ahead of the alleged 'cult.'" Read article... Postal carrier snagged stealing mail Boston Globe | Submitted by: Amos Quito "A former postal service employee was sentenced on Wednesday to one year of probation for stealing mail instead of delivering it. Serge Firmin, 44, of Brockton was also ordered to pay a $250 fine. He pleaded guilty in November to one count of mail theft by a postal employee. Firmin, who worked out of the Waltham post office, was caught in October 2002 in a sting set up by postal inspectors after people on his route complained that they hadn't received expected mail." Read article... PETA attempting to tar poultry with Mad Cow brush Billings Gazette | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "A machine-gun-toting chicken aims to deter Americans from eating meat in the latest national campaign launched Monday by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. 'If the cow doesn't get you, I might,' crows an ornery-looking fowl featured on a billboard hovering above Interstate 76 between Federal and Sheridan boulevards. The animal-rights organization is urging Americans to stop eating chicken. The group claims that poultry given feed containing cattle byproducts, such as cow's blood, could carry a variant of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as mad cow disease... Scientists at two universities and the Denver-based National Cattlemen's Beef Association rejected PETA's claims. No published research shows that poultry is susceptible to BSE, they said." Read article... Vermont legislature tackles ethanol distribution Boston Globe | Submitted by: Amos Quito "It was dubbed the 'shot-and-a-beer law' by some, the 'no drink left behind bill' by others. The House advanced a measure Wednesday to allow bar patrons to possess two drinks at once. Backers said the bill would end the inconvenience of a bar patron having to make two trips from table to bar to order drinks for him- or herself and a friend. It also would allow ordering a shot of hard liquor with a beer. In addition, the law would allow someone to take an alcoholic drink to any part of the establishment. Vermonters currently are banned from bringing alcoholic drinks onto a dance floor." Read article... Wyoming considers highway pissjar ban KMGH-TV 7 Denver | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "Urinating in a bottle and tossing it along the road would be made illegal under a bill introduced in the Wyoming Senate Wednesday. Lawmakers said the practice has become problematic in many areas of the state. The measure would make it littering, a misdemeanor punishable by up to nine months in jail and a $1,000 fine." Read article... As predicted, Mexican soccer fans become somewhat unruly Fox News | Submitted by: Boat6float "The boos nearly drowned out 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' and a few dozen fans chanted 'Usama! Usama!' as the United States was eliminated by Mexico in Olympic men's soccer qualifying. A loud anti-American crowd yelled the first name of Usama bin Laden, the leader of the Al Qaeda terrorists who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks, as Mexico beat the United States 4-0 Tuesday night." Read article... Mom accidentally superglues daughter's eyes shut BBC | Submitted by: sTabby "Michelle Skidmore, from east Cleveland, accidentally used nail glue instead of eye drops to treat her daughter. Doctors have said Karen - who could not open her eye for three days - may have suffered a scratched cornea. Ms Skidmore said the two containers were almost identical and she felt 'awful' at what happened. She urged other parents to carefully check medication before giving it to their children... 'It was a stupid mistake, but if you see the bottles they are almost identical with the same nozzle and everything.'" Read article... Kiwi politicians evidently ill-mannered Stuff NZ | Submitted by: Biomechanical "Tempers are fraying in Parliament after a female MP was labelled 'white trash' and another MP angrily denied saying 'dopey niggers' during heated debate over race relations... MP Rodney Hide was accused yesterday of yelling out 'dopey niggers' during a speech by Labour list MP Dave Hereora – but Mr Hide denies it... On Wednesday, National Party junior whip Lindsey Tisch accused Labour MP Jill Pettis of calling National MP Sandra Goudie 'white trash' during a speech by Associate Maori Affairs Minister Tariana Turia. National's new Maori affairs spokesman, Gerry Brownlee, was forced to apologise this week for using the term 'black fella,' a jibe made in response to Labour MP John Tamihere's calling him 'the big fella.'" Read article... Defense contractors not paying taxes Boston Globe | Submitted by: dianalily "Privacy laws hamstring the Defense Department's ability to prevent government contracts from going to businesses that owe unpaid taxes, Pentagon and Internal Revenue Service officials said Thursday. Their statements came after congressional investigators found that 27,000 defense contractors owed a total of $3 billion in unpaid taxes. Auditors at the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, studied taxes owed in the budget year that ended Sept. 30, 2002. The secrecy laws prevent the Defense Department from asking the IRS whether a prospective contractor is delinquent in its tax payments, the officials said. Nevertheless, the Pentagon should have been withholding 15 percent of its payments to individuals or businesses identified as tax delinquent, according to the GAO, and should have made a dent in the billions owed by collecting at least $100 million in unpaid taxes in 2002." Read article... Art Garfunkel pleads guilty to pot possession Poughkeepsie Journal | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "Art Garfunkel pleaded guilty to marijuana possession and paid $200 in fines... Garfunkel, 62, of Manhattan, was charged with unlawful possession of marijuana after state police stopped his limousine for speeding Jan. 17 in Hurley. The trooper who stopped the limo, in which Garfunkel was the lone passenger, allegedly smelled marijuana and found a bag containing six grams of the drug in Garfunkel's jacket pocket, police said." Read article... E-voting lawsuits disallowed until an election is actually stolen Tallahassee Democrat | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "A congressman's lawsuit seeking to require electronic voting machines to produce a paper trail was dismissed Wednesday when a Palm Beach County judge ruled he did not have the standing to sue. U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, filed the lawsuit against Florida Secretary of State Glenda E. Hood and Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore, claiming the use of machines that do not produce paper duplicates of the votes cast violates voters' rights. Without that paper trail, a manual recount isn't possible, Wexler argued. But Circuit Judge Karen Miller ruled Wexler did not have the standing to file the suit, since he could not prove he had been hurt, either as a citizen or as a public official, by the voting system. Wexler's complaints would be better addressed through legislative remedies, her order said." [Great idea, fuckwit. Let's all wait for the legislature to take up the issue a couple of years from now, by which point all the legislators will have been elected by the machinery in question.] Read article...