] MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (CNN) -- A pastor who led a church
] service to "heal" an 8-year-old autistic boy of
] "spirits," after which the boy died, was charged Tuesday
] with one count of physical abuse to a child, the
] Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office said.
]
] Ray Hemphill, a pastor at the storefront church and the
] brother of head Pastor David Hemphill, was arrested early
] Saturday, authorities said. Ray Hemphill led the prayer
] service Friday.
]
] The medical examiner's office ruled that the official
] cause of Terrance Cottrell's death was mechanical
] asphyxia due to external chest compression, meaning the
] boy was suffocated. The death has been ruled a homicide.
]
] Witnesses at the service said Ray Hemphill had his knee
] on the boy's chest at one point.
]
] If convicted, Ray Hemphill could face up to 10 years in
] prison and a fine of up to $25,000.

Why are people so damn stupid?

CNN.com - Pastor charged in autistic boy's death at church - Aug. 26, 2003

2003 Darwin Awards
In case you have been waiting breathlessly for this year's Darwin
Awards,here they are. The awards this year are, once again, truly
classic.

These awards are given each year to bestow upon (the remains of) that
individual, who through single-minded self-sacrifice, has done the
most to remove undesirable elements from the human gene pool. Just
think... until these events, these same people were walking the
streets like normal people.

5th RUNNER-UP:
Goes to a San Anselmo, California man who died when he hit a lift
tower at the Mammoth Mountain ski area while riding down the slope on
a foam pad. The 22-year old David Hubal was pronounced dead at Central
Mammoth Hospital.

The accident occurred about 3 a.m., the Mono County Sheriff's
department said. Hubal and his friends apparently had hiked up a ski
run called Stump alley and undid some yellow foam protectors from lift
towers, said Lt. Mike Donnelly of the Mammoth Lakes Police Dept. The
pads are used to protect skiers who might hit towers. The group
apparently used the pads to slide down the ski slope and Hubal crashed
into a tower. It has since been investigated and determined the tower
he hit was the one with its pad removed.

4th RUNNER-UP:
Goes to Robert Puelo, 32, was apparently being disorderly in a St.
Louis market. When the clerk threatened to call the police, Puelo
grabbed a hot dog, shoved it into his mouth and walked out without
paying. Police found him unconscious in front of the store. Paramedics
removed the six-inch wiener from his throat where it had choked him to
death.

3rd RUNNER-UP:
Goes to poacher Marino Malerba of Spain, who shot a stag standing
above him on an overhanging rock and was killed instantly when it fell
on him.

2nd RUNNER-UP:
"Man loses face at party." A man at a West Virginia party (probably
related to the winner last year, a man in Arkansas who used the .22
bullet to replace the fuse in his pickup truck) popped a blasting cap
into his mouth and bit down, triggering an explosion that blew off his
lips, teeth, and tongue. Jerry Stromyer, 24, of Kincaid, bit the
blasting cap as a prank during the party late Tuesday night, said Cpl.
M.D. Payne. "Another man had it in an aquarium hooked to a battery and
was trying to explode it." "It wouldn't go off and this guy said I'll
show you how to set it off." He put it into his mouth, bit down and it
blew all his teeth out and his lips and tongue off, Payne said.
Stromyer was listed in guarded condition Wednesday with extensive
facial injuries, according to a spokesperson at Charleston Area
Medical Division. "I just can't imagine anyone doing something like
that," Payne said.

1st RUNNER-UP:
Doctors at Portland University Hospita... [ Read More (0.4k in body) ]

2003 Darwin Awards

Microsoft using a Linux service is ironic, given that Microsoft has identified Linux as its biggest competitor. In a conference call with analysts last month, company CFO John Connors ranked Linux as the #2 risk faced by the company. The #1 risk was the general economic environment, Connors said. Nearly one in five small and mid-sized businesses are using Linux on the desktop.

Heh, first the problems with switching from FreeBSD to Windows NT at hotmail.com, now having to eat crow and use Linux as a front end with the Blaster worm. I really hope that IT Directors figure out how much crap they've been fed by the marketing machine. Oh, wait, never mind. Peter principle.

Microsoft Is Using Linux To Protect Its Own Web Site

] Christian pastors here at Landover Baptist thought their
] tireless efforts to warn Americans about the carefully
] disguised homosexual agenda targeting toddlers through
] Disney cartoons was working. They thought that since
] President George W. Bush, a devout Christian who attends
] a Bible church regularly and believes in the same
] three-headed God (Father, Son, and flying side-kick, The
] Holy Ghost) took office, that Americans were finally
] waking up. Our pastors took for granted that Americans
] understood that Jesus is not above sending little
] children straight to Hell for watching cartoons. It
] wasn't until Pastor Deacon Fred heard that millions of
] American children were being lured like zombies in a
] trance to see the new Disney film, Finding Nemo, that he
] decided to speak out against it.
]
] "Walt Disney would be spinning in his grave if he knew
] his animation studios were full of giggling homosexuals,
] doodling and talking about silly colors and little
] fishies for their latest film," said Pastor Deacon Fred
] last Sunday. "But as we all know, Walt Disney never made
] it to Heaven. Although he hated Jews almost as much as
] the Apostle Paul did, he never took the time to accept
] Jesus Christ as his personal savior. So Mr. Disney is
] burning in Hell right now and God melted his eyes right
] out of his head.

I *love* Landover Baptist Church! One of the all-time greatest spoof sites I've seen.

Children are Finding Nemo Instead of Finding Jesus, and the Homos at Disney are to Blame!

Oh, how I wish I were in the Bay Area just so I could go see this... sure, it may be depressing for some, but I think that some of our San Francisco memers should post a review for us!

To the kitschy annals of dot-com nostalgia, add the endearing farce of Rentalpuppy.com, a saga that starts and ends at Starbucks, with $50 million vanishing in between. Consultants, V.C.s, investment bankers and the dot-commers themselves are chewed up and sung out in a giddy production, the kind of show where "Norton anti-virus" is earnestly invoked in a lovers' duet.

Based in a SOMA loft with all the necessary office distractions, like foosball, air hockey, cellphones ringing to the tune of "Baby Got Back," Rental Puppy, as a company, seems to be mostly about office workers IM-ing their friends all morning before going out for a high-tech burrito, while they wait to vest. "I'm vesting. I'm vesting. Just four more years, then I'll be resting."

The real villain here isn't the hapless dot-commers themselves, whose main crime is just getting caught up in it all -- and, hey, who wasn't? -- but rather a nefarious investment banker from Stevenson Roberts, whose sterling credentials include sitting on the board of Enron and WorldCom, and the V.C.s so sexist that they have to have everything a woman says repeated to them by a man so that they can hear it.

It's never too early for dot-com nostalgia

] California (Reuters) -- Corpses littered the weekend box
] office in North America, but this time they weren't the
] remains of overhyped, costly flops.
]
] Instead, they belonged to hapless victims in the top
] three movies, led by teen horror "Freddy vs. Jason,"
] which shocked the industry with a surprisingly strong
] $36.4 million opening.

Damn! $36 million is unheard of for a horror flicks opening weekend. That kind of figure is more indicative of its ENTIRE box office run.

'Freddy vs. Jason' scares up weekend win

] Tampa police have scrapped their controversial security
] camera system that scanned city streets for criminals,
] citing its failure over two years to recognize anyone
] wanted by authorities.
]
] The system was intended to recognize the facial
] characteristics of felons, sexual predators and runaway
] children by matching passers-by in Ybor City with a
] database of 30,000 mug shots.
]
] "It's just proven not to have any benefit to us," Capt.
] Bob Guidara, a department spokesman, said Tuesday. The
] cameras have led only to arrests for such crimes as drug
] deals.
]
] Tampa was the first city in the United States to install
] the permanent camera surveillance system along public
] streets and the technology was used during the 2001 Super
] Bowl.
]
] Critics welcomed the end of the program.
]
] "It's a relief," said Darlene Williams, chairwoman of the
] Greater Tampa Chapter of the ACLU. "Any time you have
] this sort of technology on public streets, you are
] subjecting people who come to Ybor to an electronic
] police lineup, without any kind of probable cause."

YAY!! Chalk up a win for civil liberties... at least for now. If in say 5 to 10 years the facial recogition biometrics have improved substantially, expect us to face this beast all over again.

LB

Tampa police eliminate controversial facial-recognition system

"All hell breaks loose in the deliciously brainy "Evil Dead 1&2:The Musical," adapted from Sam Raimi's seminal Evil Dead films. The musical, directed by Christopher Bond, written by George Reinblatt, and blessed by Evil Dead star Bruce Campbell himself, cranks the camp factor of the movies all the way up to "666."

SNIP

"The show must go on - particularly if it's opening night. Evil Dead 1 & 2: The Musical triumphed over the blackout gremlins Thursday night by moving the whole show outside and performing outside the Tranzac Club on Brunswick Ave. Lighting was by hand-held flashlights and as the sun finally went down, the headlights of a car. The zombies - and the audience - loved it."

SNIP

"Toronto Globe and Mail - August 16th - Where were you when the lights went out? "We saw a musical, Evil Dead, spill out of a theatre and right out on the street," Chris says. "It was really cool."

C'mon... you knew this HAD to happen!
LB

Evil Dead - The Musical

] JENIN, West Bank, Aug. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- In response to
] the email received today from the Motion Picture
] Association of America (MPAA) to Earthstation 5 for
] copyright violations for streaming FIRST RUN movies over
] the internet for FREE, this is our official response!
] Earthstation 5 is at war with the Motion Picture
] Association of America (MPAA) and the Record Association
] of America (RIAA), and to make our point very clear that
] their governing laws and policys have absolutely no
] meaning to us here in Palestine, we will continue to add
] even more movies for FREE.

Dare I make a suicide bomber joke?

PRWire | Earthstation 5 Declares War on MPAA

Men have eagerly embodied their reputation as the sexually enthusiastic half of the population, and yet this study seems to suggest that women, deep down, are really thirsting for more. But, according to one of the study's coauthors, Northwestern psychology department chairman J. Michael Bailey, the study really just reinforces what we already know: Men are sexually simple, and women are not. "I think it really shows us how much we don't know about women more than it shows us what we do know," he says.

Interesting article about sexuality and the different means of arousal for the various gender roles.

What do women want?