- You have to love it when a burgeoning criminal enterprise
is brought down by a small, silly crime that was totally immaterial to the
scheme at hand. Enter a group of accused thieves in Memphis who were busted for
possessing 27 stolen guns only after workers from a Memphis utility company
suspected the homeowners were stealing electricity and narced them out. The
work crew spotted an extension cord stretching to the home from another
residence and after looking around further, they saw several guns and called
police. At that point, they called police, who used that evidence as a means to
obtain a search warrant and carried out a bust that recovered 27 stolen guns at
the home, including a rifle that belonged to a local sheriff’s office. Nothing
infuriates the law quite like thieving one of their own weapons and in this
case, the rifle stolen from the Chester County Sheriff’s Office in Henderson
was found in a car parked in the driveway of the home. The gang of thieves
behind this included two women and two men who were arrested in connection with
the stolen guns. A fifth person, Cassandra Rodgers, was charged with stealing
electricity, while all involved could presumably be charged with being absolute
morons who couldn’t be bothered to a) better hide their stolen guns and b) pay
for their own damn electricity so they don’t leave a trail of bread crumbs
lying in plain sight to tip off the law to their criminal enterprise………
- The next doctor is a lady. Specifically, Jodie Whittaker
of “Broadchurch” fame has been announced by the BBC as the 13th title character
in its über-popular, long-running sci-fi show “Doctor Who.” Whittaker has
gotten a lot of attention for her starring roles in “Broadchurch, “Attack The
Block” and St. Trinian’s,” but this will clearly be her most prominent part to
date. She’ll take the stethoscope from Peter Capaldi as the titular time-lord
known only as ‘The Doctor,’ relieving him of his leading man duties this
December in the “Doctor Who” Christmas special that airs every year. It’s a
nice place to pass the torch and there will be plenty of time to build the
interest in Whittaker as the doctor as the news of her casting was revealed
exclusively on BBC One more than five months ahead of the change. Given the
transient nature of the role and the number of times it has changed hands,
there’s no reason to fear that fans will lose interest simply because Capaldi
is moving on. None of the past doctors has occupied the role for a tremendously
long time, so forming an attachment to any particular one is difficult to do.
Hell, the BBC may already be trimming its short list of candidates to succeed
Whittaker once her time on the show ends……..
- Only you, Europe, only you. Well, maybe a few
underdeveloped countries in remote reaches of the globe, but in most places,
the idea of a massive food scam involving horse meat would be unthinkable,
mostly because horses aren’t really dinner fodder. But in Europe, authorities
have arrested at least 66 people in a food scam in which they allegedly sold
horse meat unfit for human consumption. European Union police coordinating
organization Europol announced the completion of an operation in which eight
nations cooperated, with most of the focus being on Spain, where 65 people face
a series of charges relating to public health, money laundering and animal
abuse. This whole operation took several months and the chief suspect, a Dutch
businessman, was arrested in Belgium in April, but it didn’t wrap up until this
week. In a dramatic move, Spain's Civil Guard announced that the criminal ring
acquired horses in Spain and Portugal that were "in poor shape, old, or
had been designated 'not apt for consumption.'" Sure, but all horse meat
is unfit for…never mind. Let’s just say that in this scam, after falsifying
paperwork and substituting microchips used to identify the horses, the
participants slaughtered the animals and had the meat shipped to Belgium. According
to the Civil Guard, profits from the illegal meat could reach $23 million a
year. Interestingly, this scam ties back to a 2013 scandal in which Irish
authorities discovered beef burgers containing horse meat. This time around, authorities
in Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Switzerland, Britain and Spain
cooperated in the operation……….
- Yasiel Puig is a talented baseball player, but his most
prodigious skill appears to be pissing off opponents with his antics on the
field. Puig hits plenty of tape-measure home runs, but it’s hard to measure the
levels of rage rival players after seeing how he rolls on the field. Just ask
the Miami Marlins, who witnessed the latest Puig hijinks in the second of a
three-game series in Miami. The first pitch to Puig in the second inning by Miami's
Jose Urena was a 96 mph fastball that just missed Puig's left thigh and given
that pitchers typically don’t try to hit a batter in the upper leg in the
second inning, it seemed harmless - unless you ask Puig. After the pitch, he
yelled at Urena and took several steps as some players and both managers ran
onto the field and in the aftermath, even Dodgers manager Dave Roberts admitted
that Puig was wrong to take several steps toward the mound. "Yasiel
overreacted," Roberts said. "It's clear to me there was no intent [by
Urena]." Urena went a step further, going with a full-on infant blast.
"He got like a little baby," Urena said of Puig. "When he was
walking [toward] me, that was disrespect. I play the game. I respect the game.
If you do something like that, let's go." Catcher J.T. Realmuto stepped in
front of Puig and the confrontation quickly fizzled, with Puig flying out to
end the at-bat. He clearly felt the Marlins were throwing at him because he hit
two home runs in the Dodgers' win the previous, including the go-ahead
three-run homer in the ninth inning, but maybe realizing that the baseball
world doesn’t revolve around him and that winning a relatively meaningless
midseason road game isn’t a reason to try to drill a guy with a fastball the
next day……..
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