Friday, January 06, 2017

Hitting for the DUI cycle, death by fire ants in Bolivia and more proof "Batman Forever" sucks


- Everyone - literally, everyone - seems to be packing heat in the Lone Star State. That includes 74-year-old grandmothers who are sitting down to do what all old people do in the early evening, namely watch their local TV news broadcast. Enter Rebbie Roberson, a Bowie County resident who was settling into her favorite chair to watch another clichéd half hour of house fire, animal rescue and convenience store shooting stories when an armed intruder wearing gloves and a mask broke into her home. "And when I started to get up, he was in here on me with a gun facing me right to my face,” Roberson said. "So I had to walk right out in front of him. I didn't know if he was going to kill me or what." As it turned out, the would-be robber wasn’t paying close enough attention to his mark because had he been, he would have seen that Roberson had her own weapon on a table nearby. "I reached over there and grabbed this gun. And when I swerved around, I pointed it at him and he ran,” Roberson recalled of having her .38-caliber pistol in hand and squeezing off several round at the fleeing criminal. She left plenty of bullet holes in the walls of her home, though she admitted after the incident that she wasn’t sure whether she hit the man or not. Investigators don’t believe the intruder was wounded, but not for lack of intent by Roberson. "I tried to kill him. Anybody break in on me, I'm going to kill them. He's going to kill me or I'm going to kill him,” she said. The wisest words came from Bowie County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Jeff Neal, who broke the situation down thusly: “It could have been worse for both individuals, both the victim and the suspect.” Well said, deputy……..


- Thank you for saying what we all already knew, Michael Keaton. Keaton, who starred as Batman in 1989’s “Batman” and 1992’s “Batman Returns” (both of which were directed by Tim Burton), smartly chose not to be involved with the third film in that trio. Until now, not much has been known about why Keaton turned down the title rile in the 1995 film “Batman Forever,” but his explanation should surprise no one. “I can simplify it all for you: it sucked,” Keaton said of the project. “The script never was good. I knew it was in trouble when [director Joel Schumacher] said, ‘Why does everything have to be so dark?’ I replied: ‘Okay, well, [Batman] witnessed the death of his parents.’ But [Schumacher said] physically it had to be brightened up too.” When Keaton passed on the role, Val Kilmer took on the role of the Caped Crusader and turned in a thoroughly forgettable performance to cap off arguably the three worst Batman movies ever made. “If Tim [Burton] had said, ‘I want to experiment with something’, I would have been way open to it because in this guy’s hands, who knows?,” Keaton added. “I just couldn’t do it. Not that I’m above it or an artist or anything… I just don’t think I could do it without blowing my brains out.” If a job paying millions still makes you want to shoot yourself in the head, that’s generally a good call on taking a pass. Keaton was more recently nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his performance in “Birdman” in 2014, so he seems to still be making wise career decisions even later in his run as an actor………


- Stay ignorant, residents of Third World nations stuck in a bygone era where death by poisonous ants is still a thing. Keep doing moronic sh*t like taking a woman you’ve mistaken for a car thief and tying her to a tree overrun with poisonous ants, leading to her death and your likely prosecution as murderous ghouls. This sad story happened in the town of Caranavi in Bolivia, around 100 miles north east of the capital La Paz, where an unidentified woman was rescued by police after going to help her son, who had been bound to the tree by angry vigilantes who accused them of trying to steal a car. The woman, her son and her daughter all received the same punishment, but only the mother died in the wake of the incident, passing away in the hospital from breathing problems caused by severe throat swelling after her windpipe was bitten by the insects. The three victims were allegedly beaten and burned before being tied to the tree and pictures have surfaced of two of these three people blindfolded and bound to the tree while villagers, including a woman with a child in her arms and a schoolboy kneeling on the ground, looked on from a few feet away. Props to those timid and indifferent souls who stood by and did nothing while the woman and her two adult children were tied to a Palo Santo, a mystical tree growing on the coast of South America which is the favorite haunt of colonies of Brazilian fire ants known for their extremely painful bites. According to police, the trio had traveled to the area from La Paz to recover a debt. “We managed to rescue all three people but one of them, the 52-year-old woman, was in a bad way and had to be taken to hospital, police chief Gunter Agudo said. “She died at 3:30 p.m. Initially the investigation was opened as a probe into an attempted car theft, but now it has been changed to a murder and serious assault investigation.” Amazingly, only one person has been arrested on a paltry charge of suspicion of inciting locals to commit their shocking act, although the authorities have confirmed others took part………


- It’s beginning to look like Pittsburgh Pirates third baseman Jung Ho Kang is not a good dude. That will happen when you were interviewed by Chicago police last summer as a "person of interest" in a sexual assault investigation - no charges filed yet - and now you’re facing a possible indictment after being arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence back home in South Korea, your third DUI since 2009. While its unclear how the Pirates will respond to this latest ugly incident from their third baseman, Kang has been cut from South Korea's national team for the upcoming the World Baseball Classic, a move South Korea manager Kim Kyungmoon announced largely due to the fact that public opinion against Kang turned ugly following the arrest becoming public knowledge. "As we all know, Kang has had some issues," Kim said. "So our coaching staff made this call [to drop him]." Seoul police announced that they have handed over to prosecutors the results of their investigation into Kang's arrest, during which he was also charged with leaving the scene of an accident. Not a great look for anyone, especially a guy with a .273 average and 36 home runs in two seasons with the Pirates. South Korea wasn’t going to win the WBC with or without him, but now the team has one less headache entering the tournament, to be played March 6-22 in multiple cities…….

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