Sunday, February 28, 2016

Are Today's Children Going Crazy?!


We've all done stupid things when we we're children. But unfortunately in this day and age children who do stupid things pay a much steeper price than we did. The most we had to worry about was dention, suspension, or our parents getting a call. Those days are long gone.

Three 12-year-old girls in Florida are facing charges after they allegedly poured red pepper into a middle school teacher's soft drink.

The girls were arrested Friday night.

Volusia County sheriff's spokesman Gary Davidson says one of the girls was angry because teacher Jayne Morgan had disciplined her Monday. The next day, she brought the crushed red pepper from home and grabbed Morgan's open can of soda.

Davidson says a second girl poured the pepper into the can while the third girl distracted Morgan.

When Morgan took a drink, she began choking and experienced shortness of breath. She discovered the pepper flakes when she poured the soda into a clear cup.

The girls are charged with tampering with a consumer product and poisoning.
A 12-year-old is charged in northern Virginia with threatening her school with a social media message using emojis of a gun, a bomb and a knife.

Emoji symbols, used on mobile devices, sometimes replace words.

The student at Sidney Lanier Middle School in Fairfax posted an Instagram message in December. It contained the words "Killing" and "meet me in the library Tuesday."

According to a search warrant, the girl acknowledges she posted the messages under another student's name. She's charged with threatening the school and computer harassment.

Her mother says the girl posted the messages in response to being bullied in school, and is "a good kid' who's "never been in trouble." The mother says the girl shouldn't have been charged. In the bible is says that each generation is wickeder and wiser. Although there is very little evidence of wisdom in either one of these stories. The idea is that each generation is able to come up with ideas that are both more wicked and more creative. But my repetitive question is. Where are their parents?

PR

Saturday, February 27, 2016

Just When You Thought You Heard It All News (2-27-2016)

When I was a kid I wanted to change my name to Steve. You know, like Steve Austin The Bionic Man. Needless to say, may parents thought I was crazy. But at least I didn't change my name to chicken wing or Big Mac. 

A British man formerly known as Simon Smith has changed his name to something slightly more carnivorous: Bacon Double Cheeseburger.

The change was inspired, like many bad ideas, by an evening of drinking. 

OF COURSE!!!

“It was the culmination of probably too many drinks in the pub where there was a conversation about names," Cheeseburger told the Evening Standard. “Bacon Double Cheeseburger was pretty much the first thing that came up. Everyone loves bacon don’t they?"

Cheeseburger, 33, told the newspaper his new moniker is "the most ridiculous thing" he and his friends could think of.

"My friends were quite supportive of anything that makes me look silly, as good friends are.”

Cheeseburger said his new name hasn't affected his career as a consultant in the oil and gas industry.

"My work speaks for itself... people keep hiring me," he told the BBC. 

But that's slightly misleading. He acknowledged he uses the name he was born with on his resume and doesn't inform employers hisreal name is Cheeseburger when he's applying. 

"I usually drop that bombshell after the contracts have been signed," Cheeseburger said.

The name, he said, has advantages and at least one downside.

Once word got out that a man really named himself Bacon Double Cheeseburger, fast food outlets came calling, including Byron Hamburgers, a British-based burger chain. 


This weird British dude is so batty for Batman that he's turned a spare bedroom into a bat cave replica.

Darren Wilson wanted a suitable place to store his $21,000 collection of Batman memorabilia in his home in Calne, Wiltshire.

He spent the last 18 months -- and many a dark night -- on this project.

"I was doing the room as a computer room initially and it just came to me," Wilson told South West News Service. "People who see it are pretty amazed. We like to be different, but every other room is normal."

Wilson, a sculptor by trade, fitted wooden joists and mesh to hold paper mache "stalactites." Then he covered it all in six shades of grey paint.

"It’s always nice and tidy in there with the effects of the rocks and granite just making a big talking point," he said. "It was a lot of hard work.  The paper mache took the longest as it was two layers - that took a good year but it's worth it now."

Wilson's bat cave is a conversation piece with visitors, but there is one topic he said he won't bring up with his wife, Catherine.

"I've promised I won't decorate any more rooms," he said.

TORONTO, Feb 25 (Reuters) - A Canadian man who smuggled 38 turtles in his pants has been given probation, a fine and has been banned from owning such reptiles for 10 years.

According to Canada's environment department, Dong Yan of Windsor, Ontario, had tried to bring the reptiles from the United States into the southern part of the province.

"The turtles were contained in plastic bags and taped to Mr. Yan's legs," Environment and Climate Change Canada said in a statement on Thursday.

Yan was convicted on Feb. 17 after he was caught during an inspection in 2014 when he tried to enter Canada through the Niagara border crossing, the department said.

Yan's probation is for two years, and his fine was C$3,500 ($2,600). He was also sentenced to 50 hours of community service and must notify the environment department of international travel. Yan was also ordered to write a letter about his experience "for publication as the department sees fit."


Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Blacks Arrest The Blacks!

When a white police officer responds to the Black Lives Matter movement with the retort  “Blue lives matter,” is that a heartfelt sentiment or a venomous jab?  What about African-American police officers?  Undoubtedly there are African-American police officers who have internalized the racial oppression of a career that has forced them to walk the line between the colors black and blue. Some have chosen the uniform. But others have refused to betray their Blackness. These officers have chosen to be black while wearing blue and have challenged the system.

There is a reason Black police officers have Black police associations.  Obviously, the dominant law enforcement associations and unions fail to address the needs of Black officers.  

The police culture is all about the blue mentality, which overwhelmingly seems to be a white mentality, where a culture of racism and brutality have been ingrained and deeply rooted within the profession since the plantation era. The police have often referred to themselves as "gangs", with what seems to be at times, an almost cultish indoctrination process. Those who chose to challenge this system face punishment and retaliation.  These obstacles make changing the institution from the inside virtually impossible.  Consider the case of Edwin Raymond, a Black NYPD officer who was the subject of a New York Times Magazine story by Saki Knafo.

Raymond, the son of a Haitian immigrant family is a socially-conscious Black man who believed he could reform “New York’s Finest” internally. But he was in for a rude awakening.  Ultimately, he joined a lawsuit of a dozen Black officers who sued their own department for racism, even secretly recording conversations he had with his superiors.  Raymond and others refused to follow the NYPD policy of quotas for arrests and summonses, a race-based practice in which officers were pressured to boost arrests of Blacks and Latinos but  stay away from whites and Asians.

An award-winning officer who placed at number eight on the sergeant’s exam, Raymond was passed over for promotions and given abysmal performance reviews because he would not tow the line and make a sufficient number of arrests.  He was a Black man on a police force that is only 16 percent Black and whose top ranks are less than 7 percent Black, according to the Marshall Project.  The population of New York City is only one third white, but a mostly white police force patrol an overwhelmingly Black, Latino and Asian population.

Here is a conversation Raymond secretly taped with his supervisor, Sgt. Martin Campbell, also Black, over a bad performance review that Campbell was ordered to write by his own boss:

What is the issue with me?’’ he asked Campbell. ‘‘Just the activity, the quota?’’

Campbell laughed. ‘‘What do you think, bro?’’

‘‘Man,’’ Raymond said.

‘‘Honestly, what do you think?’’

‘‘But it has to be more,’’ Raymond said, “because technically, when it comes to numbers—”

‘‘No, no, no,’’ Campbell said. ‘‘There’s not more. That’s it.’’

And yet that wasn’t it — at least, Raymond didn’t think so. There were other officers in the district, not many, but some, whose numbers were even lower than his.

‘‘You really want me to tell you what I think it is?’’ Campbell asked.

‘‘Of course, because I need to understand this.’’

‘‘You’re a young black man with dreads. Very smart, very intelligent, have a loud say, meaning your words is loud. You understand what I’m saying by that?’’

‘‘Yeah.’’

‘‘I never seen anything like this, bro,’’ Campbell said.

Meanwhile, even as Raymond was denied promotions, he was asked to participate in a process where Police Commissioner William Bratton asked people on and off the force to brainstorm ideas for improving the police department. Bratton, who ran the police in the 1990s under the infamous Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, was a primary cheerleader of “broken windows” policing that has ensnared young Black and Latino men in the criminal justice system over minor, noncriminal “quality of life” offenses — if they are offenses at all.

Hundreds of thousands of innocent men of color were targeted in a “stop and frisk” policy that labeled them as suspicious, potential criminals because of their skin.  And now, Mayor Bill de Blasio has asked Bratton to return to his old job.  Raymond recalled when he met with Deputy Commissioner of Personnel Michael Julian and other NYPD bigwigs to make the case for his own promotion:

I want to hire a thousand of you,’’ [Julian] said. He hadn’t conjured that exact number out of thin air. Julian, who is white, had recently been assigned the task of coordinating the recruitment of 1,000 black officers. That summer, the 57 black men and 25 black women who graduated from the academy represented less than 10 percent of the graduating class — the lowest percentage of black graduates in 20 years.  In an interview with The Guardian, Bratton blamed the scarcity of black recruits on the prevalence of criminal records in black neighborhoods. Too many of the city’s black men had ‘‘spent time in jail and, as such, we can’t hire them,’’ The Guardianquoted him as saying. (Bratton later said the newspaper took the quote out of context.)

Along with the other executives at the hearing, Julian had already reviewed Raymond’s documents. He noted that Raymond had called in sick only once in seven years. ‘‘You don’t get sick,’’ he said, his voice rising with enthusiasm. ‘‘There’s a lot of good about you.’’

Black cops are pressured to arrest their own people for no reason at all but to fill a bogus arrest quota. And they are kept down by a white leadership structure.  And then we wonder why there is a problem in law enforcement, or why there is a need for a Black Lives Matter movement.

PR

Sunday, February 21, 2016

Just When You Thought You Heard It All News (2-21-2016)



A photo has gone viral on Imgur of this poor sap looking terrified because his blonde crazy girlfriend gave him this shirt.

It's kind of cute to be dating someone crazy, right? At first? Like, oh! She’s sassy and has a temper, and isn’t afraid to put you in your place when you’re being a total douche bag. You like it! At first........RIGHT?!??

Maybe not so much!

Crazy girls are a challenge and quick to attract. But the cuteness starts to evaporate when she starts doing really weird things like keying your car after you talk to a female customer at work or calling your mom to make sure you’re actually at her house for dinner. Before you know it, you’re filing for a restraining order and sleeping with a bat underneath your bed.

If anyone knows about crazy girls, it’s this guy.

Is it a Valentine’s Day joke? We hope so but based on the crazy eyes featured in this t-shirt, we’re going to guess that’s a no. Run, run far far away, before it’s too late.

Daredevils recently scaled a skyscraper in China to take what may be the ultimate self-portrait.

The "On The Roofs" collective took the elevator to the top floor of the Shun Hing Square tower in Shenzhen and busted through what looked like a locked door. They then climbed to the top of a spire, 1,260 feet above the ground, and took a selfie.

"On the roofs" is officially made up of Russian and Ukrainian photographers Vitaliy Raskalov, 21, and Vadim Makhorov, 25. The duo were joined by Ivan Burkuss for the latest stunt, Mashable reported. 

It's not known whether they had permission to scale the building, which is the 28th tallest in the world.

Previously, the group scaled the Shanghai Tower, the world's second tallest building at 2,073 feet, and the 390 foot high Moscow Bridge in Kiev, Ukraine.


For six years, a building supervisor in Spain quietly collected a $41,500 salary from his local government without showing up for work. 

A lot of people are at work and never really show up anyway so......

And he would have gotten away with it too if it wasn’t for him getting an award for his 20 years of loyal service.

Joaquín García, 69 was recently fined $30,000 for the extended paid vacation from a water treatment plant in Cádiz -- the maximum penalty government officials could deliver, the BBC reported.

According to deputy mayor Jorge Blas, it wasn’t until Garcia was due to be recognized for his hard work in 2010 that authorities realized his office was sitting vacant.

"I wondered whether he was still working there, had he retired, had he died? But the payroll showed he was still receiving a salary," Blas told Spanish newspaper El Mundo.

“I called him up and asked him, ‘What did you do yesterday? The month before, the month before that?’ He didn’t know what to say,” Blas said.

Garcia's water company coworkers thought the plant was being overseen by local authorities because they hadn't seen Garcia in so long.

Garcia’s attorney, speaking on his behalf, reportedly blamed bullying at his workplace for his absence. He also said there was no work to do.

People close to Garcia told El Mundo that he dedicated himself to reading philosophy instead and that he did not report the bullying out of fear that he could be fired.

Garcia retired after the allegations came to light, though he denies wrongdoing.

In the end, a court sided with the government, recently ordering him to pay the five-digit fine.

Garcia has since petitioned to the deputy mayor not to pay the fine and to have the judgment reviewed, The Local reported.

PR


Monday, February 15, 2016

A Letter For Viagra.....


There is nothing quite like an angry woman. You never know what she'll do. You just hope & pray that you're not on the receiving end of her wrath. If you are, and this particular woman happens to be in a position of power, you never know what might happen......

Angered by a new law requiring that women receive medical counseling at least 24 hours before an abortion, a Kentucky lawmaker decided she was going to "strike a nerve" with her political opponents, especially her male counterparts.

In a bold move to prove her point, State Rep. Mary Lou Marzian, a Louisville Democrat, has introduced a bill that would require any man seeking a prescription for drugs to treat erectile dysfunction,  such as Viagra, Cialis and Levitra to "have two office visits on two different calendar days" before receiving the desired medication. 

This sounds fair, but two doctors visits is a long time to be non-functional!

Marzian's House Bill 396 would only allow married men access to the treatments and call on them to "produce a signed and dated letter" demonstrating the consent of their current spouse. They would also have to give a sworn statement, "hand on a Bible", that the prescription would only be used for sex with their legal partners.

This is extreme and ridiculous. I "get it", but I fail to see the correlation between having to have medical counseling 24 hours before an abortion and having to get consent from your wife in order to receive medical treatment. Yes, I said medical treatment!

"As a woman and a pro-choice woman and as an elected official, I am sick and tired of men, mostly white men, legislating personal, private medical decisions," Marzian, a retired nurse and 22-year statehouse veteran, says that. "It's none of their business."

Agreed.

Earlier this month, Republican Gov. Matt Bevin signed into law a bill beefing up the state's "informed consent" requirement for women seeking an abortion. Previously, patients could listen to a phone recording that listed the potential health risks associated with the procedure. Now, women will have to speak to a medical professional in person or via video teleconference.

While I am anti-abortion, I don't think that anyone should have the right to make that decision except for the woman who is considering it, and I don't see any harm in being well informed before undergoing major surgery. 


PR


Saturday, February 13, 2016

Just When You Thought You Heard It All News (2-13-2016)

This is the perfect "fat" gift for your greedy Valentine!

According to some, Valentine's Day is a pretty cheesy holiday, so why not celebrate it with a cheesy treat?

That's the logic behind Doritos roses, a very limited-time offering of 12 long-stemmed roses formed with petals of ketchup-flavored Doritos, a flavor that was discontinued after it debuted in Canada in 2003 but has been rereleased for a limited time.

These very real, free bouquets are sadly only available in Canada, and were all gone by the time we got to the website. In fact, a spokeswoman for Doritos told The Huffington Post they were all swooped up within hours in all three available cities -- Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.

But rejoice, Nacho Cheese chasers, the brand has also offered up six easy steps to DIY this Valentine's Day treat with whatever flavor of the beloved chip you fancy:

All you need is a bag of Doritos, some fake flowers, glue, and the willpower not to eat the whole bag before you're done. 


As excuses go, this one is pretty fishy. 

A Wisconsin man convicted on Monday for his 10th Operating a Vehicle While Intoxicated charge (OWI) actually had the nerve to blame his high blood alcoholcontent on beerbattered fish, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

And the other 9 times it was what? Rum cake, vodka sauce maybe?

John Przybyla, 76, was arrested in October 2014, after a deputy noticed his truck cross the center line of a state highway.

The deputy said Przybylas breath smelled like alcohol and administered a field sobriety test that the suspect failed, according to local news station WISC.

Przybyla denied drinking alcohol, but said he had eaten beer-battered fish earlier in the evening. He made the same dumb statements in court on Monday.

If true, there would have to be a lot of beer in that batter.

Police said Przybyla's blood-alcohol level was .062, according to the Associated Press.

That's below the state's normal legal limit of .08, but the legal limit for Wisconsin residents with three or more drunkendriving convictions is only .02 percent.

As novel as the beer-battered fish defense may be, jurors did not fall for it hook, line or sinker.

Przybylas found guilty of operating while intoxicated, 10th offense; operating with a prohibited alcohol concentration; and operating while revoked, according to WILX.com.

No sentencing date has been set, but Przybyla could face up to 12.5 years in prison.

An insane Florida man, (as if there's any other kind), in Jupiter is facing assault charges after Fish and Wildlife officials said he tossed an 3.5 foot live alligator into the drive-thru window of a Wendy's.

U.S. Marshals arrested 24-year-old Joshua James on Monday and charged him with assault with a deadly weapon and unlawful possession and transportation of an alligator, according to WPTV.com.

The incident happened last October, but officials for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Department only tracked him down recently.

According to the incident report, James pulled up to the window at a Wendy's in Loxahatchee last fall and placed an order for a drink. 

After he got the beverage, investigators said he tossed the alligatorwhich he had in the back of his truck, into the restaurant's kitchen, according to the Miami Herald.

PR

Thursday, February 11, 2016

Suing The Victim?!?!

In a country where police are rarely prosecuted for killing civilians, and where those who are prosecuted are rarely convicted, civil lawsuits filed by victims of police violence and their families have become perhaps the foremost tool for law enforcement accountability. The wrongful-death suit is a familiar step in an all too common sadly familiar narrative.

But in Chicago one police officer has sank to a new low. This officer is suing the estate of his victim.

On December 26, Chicago police officers responded to a domestic-disturbance call. According to police, 19-year-old Quintonio LeGrier was threatening his father and wielding a baseball bat. During the response, Officer Robert Rialmo not only shot and killed LeGrier, he also shot and killed Bettie Jones, a mother of five and downstairs neighbor.

The death came amid heated protests in Chicago over excessive use of force by police—most prominently the killing, caught on video, of Laquan McDonald by Officer Jason Van Dyke. Critics Including LeGrier mother, complained that police had been too quick to use deadly force rather than less-lethal alternatives, and too quick to use force rather than de-escalating the situation. LeGrier’s mother, in fact, said the police never should have been called. The killing of Bettie Jones, an innocent bystander whom Quintonio LeGrier’s father Antonio had asked to let police in the door, added more horror to the situation.

Shortly after the shooting, Antonio LeGrier filed a suit against the city for wrongful death, wrongful arrest, excessive use of force, and not providing prompt medical attention to his son. It’s unclear how much LeGrier is seeking in damages; the lawsuit specifies only more than $50,000. On Friday in what is perhaps the most disgusting legal maneuver in recent memory, Rialmo had the nerve to countersue, asking for more than $10 million from LeGrier’s estate for assault and infliction of emotional distress.

“LeGrier knew his actions toward Officer Rialmo were extreme and outrageous, and that his conduct was atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community,” the complaint states. It goes on to say that by “forcing Officer Rialmo to end LeGrier’s life” and Jones’s innocent life as well, caused “Rialmo to suffer extreme emotional trauma.”

Counterclaims to civil lawsuits are not themselves rare; in some states, they’re even compulsory. “Most astute lawyers would encourage a client to file a counterclaim” in a civil suit, said Michael Kaufman, associate dean for academic affairs at Loyola University Chicago School of Law. But a police officer suing someone he’s murdered does seem to be unusual, as does the language used in the suit, as his lawyer acknowledged to The New York Times.

"There is no question that he suffered very extreme emotional trauma and stress as a result of what Quintonio LeGrier did,” said Joel Brodsky. “When I say he feels extremely horrible about her death, that’s an understatement. But the bottom line is that it was Quintonio LeGrier who forced him to shoot.”

This is without a doubt the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. "Making me shoot you was very traumatic for me??????"

The LeGrier family’s lawyer blasted the countersuit, calling it “nonsense,” “pure fantasy,” and “a new low for the Chicago Police Department.”

The countersuit does provide the most detailed explanation of the December 26 shooting yet made public. Official investigations are ongoing, although the victims’ families have said they have little confidence in the process not surprising, given Chicago and Cook County authorities’ handling of the McDonald case, among others.

The suit alleges that shortly after the officer arrived on the scene, LeGrier “took a full swing at Officer Rialmo’s head, missing it by inches, but getting close enough for Officer Rialmo to feel the movement of air as the bat passed in front of his face.” It alleges that Rialmo retreated down steps from the second-floor porch, instructing LeGrier to drop the bat. At the bottom of the steps, “Officer Rialmo reasonably believed that if he did not use deadly force against LeGrier, that LeGrier would kill him,” and so he fired eight shots, striking both LeGrier and Jones, whom Rialmo says he did not see.

Rialmo is white; LeGrier and Jones were both black. Rialmo has been placed on desk duty.

It’s tough to compare the legal prospects for Rialmo’s suit to those of the LeGrier family’s original claim. Kaufman said the language in Rialmo’s suit, “atrocious,” “utterly intolerable in a civilized community”, seemed uncommon, and unusually strident for a suit. They could put off a judge or jury, or create conflict with the plaintiff’s lawyers, he said.

And whatever the legal implications, the lawsuit seems like a bad public-relations strategy. Whatever the merits of Rialmo’s case, blaming a mentally troubled young man he shot is unlikely to win him many defenders, and social media lit up with shock atthe suit. Moreover, one of the most common defenses of police accused of using excessive force is that officers are willing to put themselves in the line of fire on the job. That kind of stress, they say, explains and justifies why police sometimes make regrettable decisions. It’s true that police officers take special risks, but demanding $10 million from the family of a college student killed by police bullet goes a long way to leveling the moral high ground.

PR

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Dangerous Little Black Boys....



Little boys are not usually considered a dangerous threat, unless they happen to be black. In which case some people's perceptions are quite different.

According to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Iowa, racial stereotypes affect black boys as young as five years old.

Sadly, white participants in the study were more likely to view a toy as a weapon if it was associated with little black boys. Those who participated in the study were less likely to view a toy as a weapon if it were associated with a white boy.

Seeing the face of a black boy was enough for the white students in the study to misidentify the toy as a weapon.

Lead researcher, Dr. Andrew Todd, said this study shows how people who don’t view themselves as racist can still react with unconscious bias.

“Our findings suggest that, although young children are typically viewed as harmless and innocent, seeing faces of five-year-old Black boys appears to trigger thoughts of guns and violence,” Dr Todd said.

“One of the most pernicious stereotypes of Black Americans, particularly black men, is that they are hostile and violent,” he explained.

“So pervasive are these threat-related associations that they can shape even low-level aspects of social cognition.”

The white college students were shown images of black five-year-olds and white five-year-olds. Then they were shown a second image which they were told to identify as quickly as possible. Participants recognized guns quicker after seeing images of black boys. They were also quicker to mistake toys for guns after viewing images of black boys.

“In this case, it was the alarming rate at which young African Americans – particularly young black males – are shot and killed by police in the US,” Dr. Todd concluded.

“Although such incidents have multiple causes, one potential contributor is that young black males are stereotypically associated with violence and criminality.”

This was not really a study in which they were hoping to unearth some kind of revolutionary evidence, or provide a ground breaking conclusion. The findings are nothing more than a confirmation of what those of us who are Black men in America already know. The pervasive perception of who and what we is overwhelmingly negative.

PR

Saturday, February 6, 2016

Just When You Thought You Heard It All News (2-6-2016)

A Kit Kat without the delicious "crisp wafer" advertised on the package is just another piece of chocolate, nothing but plain old chocolate without the satisfying crunch that has given the candy bar an almost cult-like following. 

While wafer-less bars have been known to pop up from time to time, a law student in the U.K. claims she suffered a "monetary and emotional" loss after buying an eight-pack of Kit Kats that were missing their crunch. 

I know I'd suffer an emotional setback with that Kit Kat crunch!!

Saima Ahmad, who's in her second year at King’s College London, says Nestle should give her a lifetime supply of Kit Kats as compensation.

"I Wouldn't rule out taking this further if Nestle do not apologize or compensate me adequately," Ahmad wrote, according to ITV.

It's hard to tell if the demand is serious or merely a tongue-in-cheek project by a law school student, but Ahmad told the company she would act as "quality control" by eating the Kit Kats to check for defects, according to Metro.

"It appears you need me more than I need you" she wrote. 

Not everyone has the same reaction to discovering an all-chocolate Kit Kat; some fans of the candy look forward to coming across one just because of the freakish nature of it. In fact, there's a Facebook page devoted to wafer less Kit Kats and finding a solid Kit Kat ranked #9 on Buzzfeed's list of the "23 Things That Could Possibly Happen To A British Person." 

Nestle has yet to respond to Ahmad's complaint. In the past, the company has said that during the candy-making process, the wafer is placed into a mold, which is then filled with chocolate. Sometimes the machine jams. 

"We try to reject the solid bars but very occasionally one or two will slip through," Nestle said, according to a message posted on the Facebook page. 

It was a big, fat lie.

Two jokesters squeezed into one pair of pants to sneak into a movie theater as a single person with one ticket. 

Best buds Bo and Matthew filmed themselves carrying out their elaborate transformation in a YouTube video that documented their hilarious waistgate scheme.

http://youtu.be/zZaSnGwD2qM

After a couple failed attempts, one of the two men manages to cling to the other's chest, wrapping his legs around his buddy's waist. A large shirt and track jacket are then placed on top, making the giant bulge resemble a massive belly.

They then practiced their walk and talk before heading to the theater.

"We'd like one ticket for the Avengers, please," the face of the operation practiced.

"What do you mean, 'We'?" a muffled voice corrects.

Their clever getup fooled the theater's staff and earned them a spot on Reddit's front page. Their video has since been viewed more than 17,000 times.

We don't know where or when they pulled this off. We don't even know the culprits' full names, so the joke might be on us. But we give them points for creativity.  


Katy Sypher-Piper had limited funds when she went to buy winter shoes for her young children. But when her daughter wanted boots the mom couldn't afford, Payless ShoeSource employees stepped in and bought the shoes for the children with their own money.

The mom originally budgeted $30 to spend on boots for her 2-and-a-half-year-old daughter Ava and 10-month-old son Andrew. But the little girl immediately fell in love with a pair featuring characters from Disney's Frozen that were $44, above the budget for both pairs.

When employees at the store in Old Saybrook, Conn. stepped in to figure out a way to bring the price down and then offered to pay for the items themselves. The family had been struggling to pay for Ava's medical bills, who has an immunodeficiency disorder and asthma, and said she was touched by the employees' kind gesture.

"I have been pretty down lately and this act of kindness is so amazing and uplifting to me. I am so grateful," Sypher-Piper wrote.

The mom posted about the encounter to the Payless ShoeSource Facebook page on Jan. 21, where hundreds of commenters praised the employees for their good deed.

PR

Friday, February 5, 2016

Mom Knocks Out School Administrator


Those of us who are African Americans are familiar with "Please don't be black moments." These moments occurr whenever we hear about a dispicable crime, a brutally embarrassing moment, or an incredibly stupid act that just happens to make the news. I could say that it's just because we don't want to see those like us do anything wrong. But the fact of the matter is, we perceive the misdeeds of a few to be a stain on those of us who are sane and law abiding. Even though that particular train of thought isn't true. The perception is still present.
This story is my most recent, "Please don't be black" moment.

A mother from Portsmouth, Virginia is behind bars for assaulting an administrator at her child’s elementary school.

According to local media sources, Tracy Lawrence was arrested and charged with assault, battery, and disorderly conduct after a disagreement with her child’s assistant principal turned violent.

The incident occurred at Lakeview Elementary School on Wednesday just before 2:30 p.m., when a resource officer was called regarding a disorderly parent in the school’s main office. Lawrence and the assistant principal were in disagreement over a final decision the administrator made about her child. Lawrence reportedly struck the assistant principal in the head, causing her to lose consciousness.

The 43-year-old is currently being held at the Portsmouth City Jail on a $10,000 bond. Her husband spoke with a judge during her court hearing this week and explained that his wife is a great mother and needs to be home with her children.

In addition to her high bond, the judge recommended Lawrence be evaluated for any possible mental or substance abuse issues. Appalled at the ruling, her family denied she had problems with drugs or mental health.

Thankfully, no children witnessed the altercation.

PR


Tuesday, February 2, 2016

The Secret Hero.


Months before Rosa Parks made history in 1955 by refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus, a young Montgomery, Ala., student challenged injustice by doing the very same thing.
But Claudette Colvin, who was 15 at the time and pregnant by a married man, was hardly the test case person local leaders were looking for to launch their civil rights campaign. Those at the forefront of of campaign felt that there had to be a carefully orchestrated plan to spark the movement.
So Colvin was relegated to the footnotes of history. I have only heard of her about a month ago. But now some 66 years later she has reemerged and is being credited long after the battles were won.
Colvin kicked off Black History Month on Monday by recounting her story to students at Evander Childs High School in the Bronx, New York, reminding them that they are never too young to make history of their own.
“We still have a long way to go,” Colvin told a crowd of elementary and middle-school students who had assembled at the school.
"I consider myself a survivor. So many people were lost.”

Bronx City Councilman Andy King said he wanted Colvin to share an unfiltered version of history so that children could take civil rights to the next level.
“She was the inspiration for the civil rights movement. You are in the presence of living history,” King told the children. “She is a pioneer.”

Students walked away feeling inspired to make their own changes.
“She was brave and very strong. I could not believe they put her in a jail for adults. She was almost my age,” said Ishah Diop, 13, an eighth-grader at the Learning Tree school in the Bronx.
“She overcame so much. But she remained empowered.”
Learning Tree student Phillip McCoy, 15, said he hopes to be part of the change Colvin started.
“She was very inspirational. I hope to one day grow up and practice the things they taught us,” he added.

PR