Say Anything Blog

A Los Angeles woman claims she was injured by her Victoria’s Secret thong, prompting her to sue the underwear manufacturer.

The plaintiff in the case, Macrida Patterson, 52, attributed the May 2007 injury to a Victoria’s Secret “low-rise v-string,” according to a court document posted on The Smoking Gun.

Patterson’s lawyer told The Smoking Gun that a “design problem” caused a decorative metallic piece on the underwear to fly up and hit Patterson in the eye while she was putting the underwear on.

Patterson’s product liability lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court last week.

The Smoking Gun reported that, prior to the lawsuit, officials from Victoria’s Secret had asked to see the offending underwear but were refused by Patterson’s lawyer.

Oh GAWD, my eyes! My Eyes!

LOL… This tactic worked a lot better 40 years ago, huh ladies?

On Friday members of Code Pink and Breasts Not Bombs bared their breasts to passing vehicles and pedestrians in front of the Marine Recruitment Center at Shattuck Square in what members said was a protest against the true indecencies in American society.

“We do not abide by your definitions of decency,” said Sherry Glaser, the founder of Breasts Not Bombs, the protest group that bares their breasts against the war. “War, genocide and death are indecent.”

more here...

Because, if the mayor makes it a law, the criminals will obey?

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels has signed an executive order that asks all departments to come up with a plan within 30 days to ban guns at all property owned by the city.

The mayor’s office says a public hearing will be held to gather comment on today’s order but it does not require city council approval.

Nickels says the added gun restriction is needed because of a shooting at last month’s Folklife Festival at the Seattle Center that wounded two people.

Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske says the mayor’s order will help protect people at civic events.

Of course, this is just my opinion, but I’m fairly sure banning weapons would not have stopped this man from bringing one.
Prohibiting weapons will only make the innocent become the prey

H/T SondraK

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—It began with an errant dog, and it’s now culminated with the forced betrothal of 15 little girls, some of them as young as 3, as compensation in a case of tribal feuding in a remote part of Pakistan.

It’s thought that around 20 people have died in the bitter quarrel, and the marriage offer of the girls is meant to end the bloodletting.

Under a brutal custom, called Vani, the girls are being traded as settlement of a long-running dispute between two tribes. This case occurred on the border between the southern provinces of Sindh and Baluchistan, but the practice, known as Swara in some areas, isn’t uncommon in rural parts of Pakistan.

"Americans don’t understand what is going on in the rest of the world,” Sharif said. “They are ignorant.”
And because he is an actor, he is qualified as a political intellect?

Appearing on the Al-Hayat television network, Sharif claimed to have spoken with President Bush even before the Iraqi invasion, warning America’s commander in chief that American forces “would drown there” and that in Arab nations, “we don’t have a democracy, and we never will.”

Sharif’s venom wasn’t reserved only for the president, however, as he also criticized Americans’ lack of geographical knowledge.

“Only 10 percent of all Americans have a passport,” he said. “In other words, 90 percent never left America. … You show them an unmarked map of Europe and ask them where France is, and they don’t know. Ask them where Italy is … . OK, Italy they know because it looks like a shoe. They don’t know anything.”

“We, the Arabs… We are not like [regular countries],” he said, explaining why he warned Bush against encouraging democracy in Iraq. “We are sects. This is how we have always been.”

Sharif’s diatribe began with a declaration that summarized his comments: “The American policy is completely wrong.”

Since when does Hollywood hand out political science degrees? Sheesh.. some actors need to be blackballed for being simple idiots

Grr…

H/T SondraK

By TONY RIZZO

It’s the only way Tory Bowen knows to honestly describe what happened to her.

She was raped.

But a judge prohibited her from uttering the word “rape” in front of a jury. The term “sexual assault” also was taboo, and Bowen could not refer to herself as a victim or use the word “assailant” to describe the man who allegedly raped her.

The defendant’s presumption of innocence and right to a fair trial trumps Bowen’s right of free speech, said the Lincoln, Neb., judge who issued the order.[...]

Despite the semantic restrictions, the Jackson County jury last week found Ray Slaughter guilty of forcible rape and two counts of forcible sodomy.

Bowen’s case gained national notoriety and drew the attention of free-speech proponents after she filed a lawsuit challenging the judge’s actions as a First Amendment violation. A federal appeals court dismissed the suit, but Bowen’s attorney plans to petition the U.S. Supreme Court.

Although he dismissed her suit, a federal judge said he doubted a jury would be swayed by a woman using the word “rape” instead of some “tortured equivalent.”

“For the life of me, I do not understand why a judge would tell an alleged rape victim that she cannot say she was raped when she testifies in a trial about rape,” wrote U.S. District Judge Richard G. Kopf.

Wendy J. Murphy, an adjunct professor at the New England School of Law in Boston, is representing Bowen. She said the practice is “absolutely” unconstitutional.

“There’s no law anywhere that allows courts to issue these kinds of orders against private citizens,” Murphy said. “That doesn’t mean judges aren’t doing it.”

So… in other words she was not only fu**ed up the a$$ by the rapist, but also by the courts.
Go figure

H/T SondraK

32-Year-Old Teacher Accused Of Having Sex With Four Teen Boys

BARTOW, Fla.—A Polk County middle school teacher was arrested Thursday for allegedly having sex with young boys. Currently, 32-year-old Danielle Jones of Auburndale is still being paid by the school board.

Two of the boys were her former students and then they started sharing their sexual trysts with their friends. One of the boys told another teacher at Stambough Middle School (see map) last year. When investigators started peeling back the layers, they found there were at least three other boys Jones was allegedly having sex with.

“It’s painfully obvious to us that she is a pedophile,” said Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd.

Jones was arrested Thursday and charged with two counts each of unlawful sexual activity with minors and lewd/lascivious battery.

[...] Dang right, she’s a pedophile!

Sheriff Judd said there were at least four teenaged boys, between the ages of 14 and 16, involved. Two of them were brothers who were students under Jones in 2005 and 2006, but the sexual relationship started last year when two of the boys reached out to Jones through her MySpace page.

According to the police report, when the boys contacted her through her MySpace page, she replied, “Hey baby. I just miss my boys. Ya’ll need to come see you [sic] momma soon!” When asked if she would come pick him up, along with his 15-year-old brother, who was also a student of hers, she replied, “Of course I will. Anything to see my boys that I haven’t seen for months.”

The sheriff said there was no evidence that the boys were coerced or given drugs or alcohol.

[...] No, but at 15 sex is as enticing as a drug. She is sick and she needs to be locked up just like a male pedophile would be.

“This was about sex with children by a school teacher,” Judd said.

Eyewitness News contacted the Polk County School Board. A representative refused to comment but said that Jones is still on the payroll and on administrative leave until the investigation is over.

“Teachers have an ethical and moral obligation to protect our youth, not prey upon them. We urge parents to come forward and report any suspicious activity between their children and this woman. There may be more victims out there,” Judd said.

Detectives are trying to find out if there are other students that could be victims of Jones, who is currently being held in the Polk County jail.

If she is found guilty ... will the school will be reimbursed? Yeah.. Big NO!
Wouldn’t it be smarter to withhold her pay until the investigation is over?

Naked Man Rescued From Porta-Potty

(AP) Rescue crews had to cut apart a portable toilet to rescue a man who got stuck naked inside the potty.

Authorities say 31-year-old Shannon Hunter, of Lebanon, Pa., used his cell phone to call 911 on Sunday from inside a portable toilet.

Police say Hunter had been drinking and had taken off his clothes. Somehow, he immersed himself in the holding tank.

Ewwww…

Deputy fire commissioner Chris Miller told WPMT-TV, “I’ve been on the job in one form or fashion for 21 years, and this is the first port-a-potty rescue I’ve ever had.”

Police charged Hunter with public drunkenness and creating a health code violation, but they have no idea why he was in the toilet with his clothes off. They say he didn’t suffer any serious injuries.

LOL.. they grow ‘em kind of crazy out there in Pennsylvania

A senior week “prank” that involved flying the Confederate flag in a public high school parking lot left three Minnesota students banned from walking with their fellow graduates at a commencement ceremony Wednesday night.
School bans three students from graduation after displaying Confederate flag.

Seniors Dan Fredlin and Justin Thompson, both 18, and Joey Snyder, 17, were suspended and restricted from the diploma ceremony after arriving at John F. Kennedy High School in Bloomington, Minn., Tuesday with the flags affixed to their cars. One of the teens had a flag hoisted on a 20-foot flagpole attached to his truck.

School district officials say the students were “carrying and waving” the Confederate flags when they arrived at their last day of school, a violation of the school’s code of conduct.

The school’s principal, Ron Simmons, who is black, made the decision to suspend the trio and ban them from the commencement, a decision school district officials affirmed.

[cont.]

“The whole racism thing is a bandwagon idea that everyone jumped on that has very loose wheels,”

Amen!

Secondary Drowning Phenomenon

GOOSE CREEK, S.C. (June 5) - A 10-year-old South Carolina boy died several hours after he swallowed water in a swimming pool.

Goose Creek police said Johnny Jackson swallowed some water while swimming around noon Sunday.

Police say he later complained he was tired and took a nap. When someone checked on him, water was coming out of his nose and he was having trouble breathing.

“His lips were blue and his tongue was sticking out,” his mother, Cassandra Jackson, told the Post and Courier in Charleston, S.C. “We called 911.”

The boy later died at Trident Hospital.

Berkeley County Coroner Glenn Rhoad told the newspaper that the boy’s lungs were filled with water and he died of asphyxiation. There was no way the adults in the child’s family could have known what was happening to him, Rhoad said.

Unfortunately, not many people are aware of this is phenomenon. Secondary Drowning is a condition where water, or other fluids, enter the lungs but the person may be conscious and not fully aware of what has occurred.  Meaning, prior to exiting the water they inhaled, potentially deadly fluid, into their lungs.

The general warning signs for this include: coughing; trouble breathing; pain in the lungs or chest especially when taking a deep breath; and a feeling of swallowing or inhaling water. In rare occasions there are little to no signs.

It’s extremely important to seek medical attention as quickly as possible. As the name implies, the person can drown even several hours later as the fluid in the lungs impairs the breathing process.

The headline in the article I linked is misleading. The child did not drown by swallowing the water, he inhaled the water. The child, obviously, was playing innocently and vigorously in the water. Most likely, he coughed and choked many times, as do many children playing in water.

If your child or someone you know, repeatedly inhales water you need to monitor them closely.

A sad situation for sure, but as the mother mentioned, perhaps others may learn from this tragedy.

Dead Voters Still Showing Up on Election Records, Puzzling Officials”

Jane Drury voted last year in an election in Stonington, Conn. The only problem is, she died eight years ago.

Her daughter Jane Gumpel thought someone must have goofed.

“I was surprised because this is not possible,” she said.

But it did happen. The town clerk’s record clearly shows Drury’s vote, marked by a horizontal line poll workers put next to her name. And it turns out, Drury isn’t the only voter to apparently cast a ballot from the grave.

The issue of dead voters showing up on ballot records continues to be a problem for election administrators across the country.

Journalism professor Marcel Dufresne, at the University of Connecticut, led a class investigation into dead voters and said his group of 11 students discovered 8,558 deceased people who were still registered on Connecticut’s voter rolls. They discovered more than 300 of them appeared somehow to have cast ballots after they died.

“We have one person who appeared to have voted 17 times since he died,” Dufresne said.

Dufresne said there is no evidence of any election fraud, but the number of dead voters “shows the system is vulnerable and it shows that people who are clever and have a little cooperation in the town level, you could use this and get people to vote for people who died.”

Sounds a bit fraudulent to me

[...]

But officials elsewhere have confirmed other cases in which dead people appear to have voted.

In Washington State, Republican Dino Rossi ran for governor in 2004, and *lost by only 133 votes. Officials confirmed that the names of 19 dead people somehow cast ballots. Rossi is running this year for governor and reflected on his experience in 2004.

“It was the closest governor’s race in U.S. history. After the fact we found a number of dead people voted. I don’t know how they voted — you have to talk to Shirley MacLaine about that,” Rossi said.

[...]

*Yep, Democratic motto here in Washington state is “demand a recount until we win”

I’d hate to see what he’d do if the vending machine didn’t give him his snack.
Cubicle rage .. whoda thunk

After seeing this pet peeve, I decided I needed to vent a lil. A bit of blog therapy, Anna style

A pet peeve of mine is… when a couple Mexican families (which, might I add, totals no less than 25 members in attendance) congregate in the store aisle to socialize AND don’t give a rats ass that others are there to shop
Arrggh!!!!!

Image shamelessly stolen from SondraK

Automatic car features are supposed to make life easier for motorists, but they may be leaving some people without the know-how to do things the old-fashioned way. That’s what happened to a driver in Utah County who became trapped inside her own car.

A woman called Orem police Friday afternoon needing help because her battery died and she was locked inside her car.

When police arrived, they found the woman sitting in the car, unable to get herself out. She couldn’t hear the officers instructions through the rolled-up windows so she motioned to them to call her on her cell phone, according to police.

Once officers were able to talk to the woman on the phone, they were able to tell her how to manually operate the slide lock mechanism on the inside door panel to open the door and free herself.

“I’m just glad she had a cell phone to call for help,” an officer said.

LOL.. and no, I don’t know the color of her hair