Just When You Thought You Heard it All News

An idots ill-judged attempt at taking a selfie with a captured python didn’t go entirely to plan.

He moved in to snap a photograph of himself alongside the serpent  department officials had removed it from a hotel in Mount Abu, northwestern India, on Friday.

But as the unidentified man posed for the picture, the snake rose up and bit him on the shoulder.

A passerby capt

ured the scary incident on camera and posted the footage online. 

Incredibly, the man managed to immediately run away and only sustained minor injuries. Officials later removed the snake from the area. Its current location is not known.

Things could have been much worse for the selfie-taker, however. Footage emerged last week, showing a rock python swallowing an entire antelope in the western state of Gujarat.

A Connecticut man may be guilty of the worst parking job in recorded history: eight freak'in feet off the ground.

Plainville police said the man was driving his girlfriend’s Saturn LS when he lost control, sped over a rock island, went air born and broke through a fence, according to NBC Connecticut.

The unidentified driver ended up smashing into a building eight feet in the air.

A few minutes earlier and about a mile away, police had pulled over the man on suspicion of drunk driving. But he took off when officers told him to put the car in park. The fact that he actually thought that he could out run police in a Saturn if proof that he was drunk as far as I'm concerned. 

Although the crash put him in a precarious position, the driver managed to climb out and run away again. He was probably running away from his third strike.

This all happened around 2 a.m. Tuesday. The suspect managed to avoid police until that afternoon, when officers tracked him down at a local hospital where he was being treated for injuries.

Officers are applying for an arrest warrant for this moron. 

A large crane was used to remove the vehicle, and an inspector was called in to see if the building was still structurally sound.

The building is the home of  Manafort Brothers Inc., a construction business. The owners are related to Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign manager. How ironic given the fact that the Trump campaign is like some of bizarre car crash!

And in other totally out of control car news......A driver rolled and totaled her car after a spider dropped down from the rear view mirror and into her lap. SMDH!!!

The unidentified woman (and if I were her I wouldn't identify myself either), somehow only sustained a minor scratch on her hand following the dramatic crash in the Bonny Slope neighborhood of Portland, Oregon last week.

“Spider season in full swing,” the Washington County Sheriff’s Office said in a Twitter post, alongside an image of the overturned vehicle.

Deputies said the woman was nearing an intersection when the arachnid made its surprising descent. She lost control of the car and rolled it into a ditch.

The fate, and exact species, of the spider remains unclear. It probably jumped out of the car when his spidey sense started tingling...

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Mad, Angry, and Black In America

If you're not black and angry right now, I suggest you stop reading this & go find your consciousness. I suspect that it is cowering in a corner some place along with your sense of humanity. One cannot be Black, African-American or whatever description you choose to identify yourself without being acutely cognoscente of the fact that there is a distinct ambivalence toward the quality of out lives. Of course I am speaking in reference to the murders of unarmed black people across the country. But I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the mental fortitude that it takes just to live in the skin we're in. The stress on the psyche of the African in America who has to deal with an every day existence in which he or she has to constantly climb up hill can never be understated, or understood because America in and of it self has been and continues to be reticent when it comes to recognizing our pain. The following facts and statistics are disturbing, but not at all surprising given the nature of our journey in this country. We may have breath in our bodies, and the activity of our limbs, but can we really lead "high quality lives" here in America?

 The wage gap between blacks and whites is the worst it's been in nearly four decades, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute.

Last year, the hourly pay gap between blacks and whites widened to 26.7%, with whites making an average of $25.22 an hour compared to $18.49 for blacks, the EPI found. Almost 40 years ago, in 1979, the wage gap between blacks and whites was 18.1%, with whites earning an inflation-adjusted average of $19.62 an hour and blacks earning $16.07 an hour. 

What's driving the wage gap has little to do with access to education, disparities in work experience or where someone lives, EPI found. Rather, the researchers found "discrimination...and growing earnings inequality in general," to be the primary factors at play. "Race is not a skill or characteristic that should have any market value as it relates to your wages, but it does," said Valerie Wilson, the director of the program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy at the EPI and a co-author of the report.

Studies have shown that applicants with "black sounding names" like Jamal are less likely to get a call back than applicants with names that appear white. Wilson also cited the skyrocketing incarceration rates of thousands of black men and women in the 1980s and 1990s who were pulled out of the workforce and have since struggled to get back in. 

Wage inequities also build up over time, Wilson said. If a black person started working in the 1980s and earned less than a white person, then "that disadvantage carries over." 

The researchers found that in 2015 the wage gap between black men with 11 to 20 years of work experience and their white counterparts was wider (23.5%) than it was for black men who had 10 years' of experience or less and their white peers (18.7%). Black women with 11 to 20 years of experience were paid 12.6% less than white women with the same experience and those with 10 years' experience or less made 10.8% less.

In an effort to combat this type of wage disparity, Massachusetts lawmakers recently passed a bill barring employers from asking about an applicant's previous salary. On a national level, the Obama administration announced a proposal in February to track wage data by gender and race for public companies and federal contractors that employ 100 employees or more to help "deliver on the promise of equal pay." 

Attaining a higher education also failed to close the gap between black and white workers, the report found. Black men with a bachelor's degree or more and who had 11 to 20 years of work experience made 27.2% less than whites with the same level of education and experience. Black women with a bachelor's degree or more and 11 to 20 years of work experience were paid 10.6% less than white women.

Recent college graduates with less than ten years of work experience also saw gaps in earnings by race. Black women with a bachelor's degree alone were paid 10.7% less than white women, while black men with the same credentials were paid 18% less than their white counterparts. 

The wage gap between blacks and whites has ebbed and flowed over the past four decades. 

In the 1980s, Wilson said a combination of factors including  (the federal minimum wage was $3.35 an hour between 1981 and 1989), a tough post-recession job market, declining participation in unions and the easing of enforcement on policies, like affirmative action, expanded the gap.

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Just When You Thought You Heard It All News (9-17-2016)

Here’s a guy who takes his job very seriously. 

Video posted on Youtube shows a mailman attempting to make his rounds during a hurricane.

(NOTE: There’s some NSFW language in the clip ― the kind of language that might be used if you’re working in the middle of a hurricane.)

“I gotta deliver the mail, son!” the excited letter carrier shouts as he narrates his attempt to steer the vehicle through high winds and heavy rains. ”I gotta deliver the mail, haha!” 

The postal worker, who was not identified, said the storm was pushing his truck and at one point lifted its rear. It’s not clear when or where this footage was filmed, but by the end of the clip, he seems to be having some second thoughts.

“Seriously, how am I supposed to deliver in this shi@t?”

Sounds like somebody needs to be drug tested......

With a disproportionate number of black children in foster care and in need of adoption, one would think that a black man looking to adopt a child would adopt a black child. For Barry Farmer, however, the choice was much deeper than skin color.

Farmer says his decision to adopt three white brothers was about love more than race. Still, the black father does get weird looks when he walks around with his white sons.

“I didn’t expect one kid, let alone three,” said the Richmond, Virginia father. “When someone calls you dad, you’re like, ‘who me?’ I just like taking care of children.”

Farmer says he became a foster parent 8 years ago because he believes every child needs a family.

“In this day in time when it comes to family, and seeing color or seeing unity and belonging, and that’s what I was hoping to accomplish with my family anyway,” Farmer said. “When I have them now I can’t imagine them anywhere else, and it’s a typical family. We may not look alike, but it’s a typical family. I just want them to be someone that I can be proud of and they can be proud of and that’s all it takes.”

Farmer’s 14 year old son Darrell says his father asked him a very important question.

“Dad was like, ‘can I be your dad forever?’ And I was like, ‘you already are.’ And that is how I came to stay here. I was in this dark spot at first and then he just comes in the picture. And everything’s all right.”

Farmer also adopted 12-year-old Xavier and 6-year-old Jeremiah.

Blacks make up 13 percent of the U.S. population, but according to ChildWelfare.gov, in 2014, 42 percent of kids in foster care were white, while 24 percent were Black or African-American.

“One of the strangest things that have happened to me in my life.”

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s... a fish? 

A Philadelphia woman says she was knocked to the ground when a 5-pound catfish fell from the sky and struck her in the face.

Lisa Lobree was on her way to a Labor Day exercise class near the Philadelphia Museum of Art when she was suddenly “slammed by something,” Lobree told the Philadelphia Enquirer.

“I was like, ‘What!?’I was freaking out,” she recalled.

Several news outlets  suggested that the 16-inch catfish fell from the grasp of a bird flying in the sky above.

Lobree suffered a small cut under her left eye and some swelling from the flying fish.

She was also hit with a distinct odor.

“I also smelled bad afterwards,” she told CBS Philadelphia. “I smelled disgusting.”

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Just When You Thought You Heard If All News (9-10-2016)

 And the clown saga continues........

A creepy North Carolina moron who told police someone dressed as a clown had knocked on his window at night landed in jail on Friday after admitting he fabricated the entire story, the latest twist in a string of such reported sightings in recent weeks.

David Wayne Armstrong, 24, described to Winston-Salem police how he had chased the clown into nearby woods, but authorities said in a statement he had lied...........He was arrested on a charge of filing a false police report.

Winston-Salem police also said Friday it had found no evidence to substantiate a report earlier this week of a clown attempting to lure children into a wooded area by offering them treats.

Reports of clown sightings in the state and neighboring South Carolina since late August have residents on edge and prompted more police patrols. In most cases, investigators have found no one matching the varying descriptions of the clowns.

In Greenville, South Carolina, where there have been several reported sightings, police are treating the cases as suspicious activity while trying to determine if they are legitimate or hoaxes.

“We’re still investigating to see what the actual purpose is, whether it’s for ill intent or if it’s a prank,” said Officer Gilberto Franco, a Greenville police spokesman.

A film distributor debunked speculation that the sightings were connected to the release of director Rob Zombie’s new independent horror movie “31,” which features a gang of sadistic clowns. Saban Films said it was “not associated in any way with the creepy clowns and costumed characters found roaming the South.” Also known as right-wing conservatives! Naw, just kidding.......

Somebody's mom has way too much time on their hands!!

Exhausted new parents often hear the same advice: Sleep when the baby sleeps. But for photographer and new mom Laura Izumikawa, nap time has turned into a fun, creative, weird outlet.

Izumikawa takes what she thinks is hilarious photos of her 4-month-old daughter, Joey Marie Choi, dressed in costumes while she naps peacefully. The outfits and props are mostly references to pop culture icons like Jon Snow, Pikachu and Beyoncé, as well as movies and TV shows like “Stranger Things” and “Star Wars.”

The L.A. photographer says that she learned pretty early on that the whole “sleep when the baby sleeps” method just didn’t work for her.

“I would end up just staring at her face all day and night because I was just so in love,” she said. “Because Joey slept so deeply, I thought it’d be fun adding little props on her just to send some hilarious pictures to our parents. It was a way to memorialize her growth and little milestones.”

As Izumikawa posted more nap-time photos of Joey on Instagram (along with some cleverly worded captions), her follower count grew to over 30,000.

The mom said she’s floored to know that so many people are following her account. “Initially when I started getting a ton of online attention, there was a bit of a mother-bear type of panic, and I thought about stopping,” she said.

“But then I started receiving messages from countless people who said that the photos and videos were the highlight of their day and for some, a thing they enjoy to watch with their kids,” she added.

As for Joey, she hasn’t let Instagram fame stop her from catching those much-needed Z’s. “A couple times she’s woken up while I’m dressing her up, but she’ll just look at me a little dazed and then fall right back to sleep,” Izumikawa said. “I really hope she’ll see the photos and videos in the future and have a good laugh. Hopefully she’ll see how loved she was.”

Izumikawa says that she hopes her photos inspire parents to hold onto their sense of humor. “I hope that these photos and videos will make people smile and also remind parents to have fun with their kids and not get too caught up in the seriousness of parenting.”

The school year has just begun and some mothers are already going to pot.....

At least in the Canadian province of British Columbia, where police pulledover a woman on for speeding near an elementary school in Saanich, a municipality on Vancouver Island.

Officers said when they were talking to the woman, she allegedly admitted that she had just finished smoking a joint with some other moms, according to Sgt. John Price of the Saanich Police Dept.

“As soon as she rolled down the window it was pretty evident that the people in that car, or the driver herself, had been smoking a joint prior to being stopped,” he told CTV Vancouver Island.

“She did admit to smoking a joint", and tried to excuse it away by saying her and some of the other moms this morning had a celebratory joint, celebrating that the kids were back in school.”

Once officers figured out that the mom had indeed smoked out, a drug recognition expert was called to the scene to conduct a sobriety test on the woman, according to the Canadian Broadcast Company.

The expert confirmed the marijuana-toking mom was sober enough to drive and issued her a warning ticket for speeding in a school zone.

Though technically marijuana is not legal in British Columbia, it’s not that surprising she wasn’t charged for the substance itself.

“Pot laws in Canada are legislated federally back in Ottawa, but in BC, enforcement is more lax,” he said. “The cops here feel they have more important problems.”

Meanwhile, Canadian politicians are currently pursuing legislation to make recreational marijuana legal in 2017.

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Family Gets $18 In Police Lawsuit.....

DeShawn Franklin was asleep in what he thought was the privacy of his own home. That is until police officers his  barged into his bedroom.

The assault which ensued was nothing short of a nightmare. He was punched  in the face 3 times, tazered, dragged out of his bedroom, handcuffed and put in the back of a police cruiser.

“I didn’t even know what was going on. I was just asleep,” Franklin said. “It was just all a big shock and disturbance.”

One thing became clear immediately: Franklin, then an 18-year-old high school senior, had done absolutely nothing wrong. But he did fit the description of a suspect being sought by the police: a slender, African American man with dreads. 

The incident, which occurred in the summer of 2012 in a northern Indiana suburb, prompted a civil rights lawsuit against the police officers and city officials. Earlier this month, a jury found that the officers violated Franklin’s constitutional rights by arresting him and entering his family’s home without a warrant.

But Franklin and his family still feel that justice has been denied.

What price was the police department forced to pay Franklin for violating his civil liberties, civil rights, and right to privacy? The jury ordered each of the defendants to pay Franklin and his parents $1 for the violations of their rights. The total award was a whopping $18 in damages...........

The Rev. Mario Sims, a senior pastor in South Bend, Ind., where Franklin lives, said the small award sends a strong message to Franklin and his family: “Your rights are worth a dollar.”

Russell Thomas Jr., Franklin’s nephew, said the whole experience was a “slap in the face.”

“To me, it’s just solidifying that blacks in America, we have no rights,” he said. “How can we fight for something when the system was not made for us in the first place?”

Franklin isn’t a thug, Sims said, and he DOES NOT have a criminal history. But the incident, which happened 4 years ago left the now-22-year-old distrustful of law enforcement and fearful that something similar will happen again. In fact, Franklin does not want to be recognized, so he has declined requests from local media for a picture of his face.

“It’s traumatizing,” he said. “It’s somewhat of a burden that you have to carry every day.”

I'm am not sure if he is referring to the burden that being Black in America can feel like sometimes? Or the burden of being violated, and mocked and insulted 18 times.

PR

Just When You Thought You Heard It All News (9-3-2016)

Talk about the kiss of death!

That's just what a hickey turned out to be for a 17-year-old boy in Mexico City.

Julio Macias Gonzalez suffered a stroke that doctors reportedly think was caused by a hicky from his 24-year-old girlfriend. The teen started convulsing during a family dinner and then died.

The woman’s skin-sucking could have created the blood clot that traveled to Julio’s brain and led to the stroke. 

Shouldn't this be considered child abuse?!

His girlfriend, who has not been publicly identified, is reportedly in hiding. According to local sources, Julio’s parents were already upset over the relationship due to the age difference.

This beautiful gift is one for the books. 

A worlds most generous man who worked for almost 50 years as a librarian at the University of New Hampshire left the school an astonishing $4 after his death last year. UNH announced the gift in a press release earlier this week. 

Robert Morin, who died at 77, quietly accumulated his fortune byliving humbly, often eating frozen dinners, according to a story in local outlet The Union Leader. 

A UNH alum, Morin gifted his entire estate to the school. He even dedicated $100,000 specifically to the Dimond Library, where he worked.

“His whole life was the library,” Erika Mantz, the university’s director of media relations, told The Huffington Post in an email. 

UNH will use the majority of his donation on a new career center for the school. Some funds will also go toward a video scoreboard at the school’s new football stadium, as the librarian frequently watched football games while residing at an assisted living facility during the last 15 months of his life. 

“This is an extraordinary gift that comes at a critical time for launching a number of initiatives that are only able to move forward because of his generosity,” Deborah Dutton,vice president for advancement and president of the UNH Foundation, said in the school’s release. 

Though few were aware of Morin’s wealth, his financial advisor, Edward Mullen, mentioned to the Union Leader that the fortune was due to the fact that he really didn’t spend much and lived a life without frills.

Morin “never went out” and drove an older vehicle, in addition to eating frozen dinners, Mullen told the outlet.

“He enjoyed talking to students on campus and especially the students who worked in the library,” Mantz told HuffPost. “He was very smart and very quiet.”

Mantz noted that those at the university are honored by Morin’s decision to support the school in such an incredible way. 

Scarey clown sightings in a South Carolina community have residents on high alert following reports that the masked figures are approaching children and even trying to lure them into nearby woods........

The creepy sightings at Greenville’s Fleetwood Manor Apartment Complex allegedly began on Aug. 19, when a resident relayed that her son said he saw clowns “whispering and making strange noises” in the nearby woods, according to an incident report obtained by The Huffington Post.

The resident, who was not identified, said she went to investigate and saw “several clowns in the woods flashing green laser lights.” The figures then ran away into the woods.

the family’s unease, the following night, at the same time of 10:30 p.m., the woman noted that her oldest son said he heard “chains and banging” on their front door.

In the early hours of Aug. 20, around 2:30 a.m., another resident said she was walking home when she saw “a large-figured clown with a blinking nose, standing under a post light near the garbage dumpster area.”

The woman said the clown waved at her so she waved back while safely making her way home. The suspect did not approach her or harm her in any way, the incident report states.

Several children said the clowns have appeared in woods behind one apartment building and that they “try to persuade them into the woods further by displaying large amounts of money.”

The kids said they believe that the clowns live in a house located near a pond at the end of a trail in the woods.

The responding Greenville Sheriff’s deputy reported that they indeed found such a house, but no clowns or any signs of suspicious activity. They noted in their report that there is no video surveillance in the community.

The apartment complex’s building management sent out a warning to residents on Wednesday:

In the letter, which was posted to social media Friday, the property manager reminded parents not to leave their children unsupervised outside at night.

“There has been several conversation (sic) and a lot of complaints to the office regarding a clown or person dressed in clown clothing taking children or trying to lure children in the woods,” the letter reads. It reminded residents that the complex has a 10 p.m. curfew.

A request for comment from the building management was not answered.

PR