SPECIAL DELUXE EDITION: CRIMINAL MINDS

Hair Thefts + Thank You Notes + Silly Get-Aways + Silly, No Stupid Kidnappers + No Sense of Humor + Dogs Aren't that Smart, Says Captain Obvious

From Norfolk Daily News (10/24):  "Braid-chopping bandits have Kashmiris in panic. Hundreds of young men--armed w/knives, cricket bats & iron rods--patrol the nighttime streets of India-controlled Kashmir these days, hoping their ad-hoc vigilante groups will deter the mysterious bandits reportedly chopping off women's long, woven hair . . . The suspicion that women could be imagining the attacks grew stronger once the attacks spread to Kashmir, where the territorial conflict had caused widespread psychological trauma & other issues such as suicidal tendencies . . . While health experts dismissed the idea that women were imagining the attacks, pending scientific verification, they warned that the braid banditry could push an already edgy population further to the brink . . . " MY COMMENT:  I included this excerpt, not because I thought it was funny, but because it met my criteria for really weird news.

Ditto (10/30):  "Man ordered to write nice things about ex. A judge on the Hawaiian island of Maui has handed down an unorthodox sentence to a man who pleaded no contest to violating a protection order preventing him from contacting his ex-girl-friend. Judge Rhonda Loo ordered Daren Young on FRI to write 144 compliments about his ex-girlfriend, in response to the 144 'nasty' text messages & calls that he is accused of sending her . . . "  MY COMMENT:  Once again, I'm not saying this is funny--at least for the ex-girlfriend. I'm questioning whether the punishment goes too far enough. My concern is that this type of male cretin * may not have an adequate mental capacity of compliments w/o becoming repetitive . . . AND wouldn't these compliments be somewhat lacking in ardor?
* There are a few of us that fall into this category, bit I represent the vast majority of men who are consistently kind, sensitive, all-around good people.

Ditto (11/10):  "Slow get-away. A man accused of stealing a motorized shopping cart from an Alaska grocery store didn't get very far or go very fast before his low-speed attempt was foiled by police. The battery-operated cart w/a basket mounted behind the handlebars has a top speed of 1.9 mph . . . Police said they stopped (the suspect) while he was crossing a thoroughfare following a 10-minute joyride that consisted mostly of trying to leave the expansive store parking lot."  MY COMMENT:  I can neither confirm nor deny that Democrats blamed DT for creating the conditions leading to this nefarious escapade. According to an unnamed but not necessarily reliable source, "You'd find yourself resorting to these joyrides, too, if you were stressed over DT's rumored plans to sell Alaska back to Russia to help solve our trillion plus dollars deficit."

Ditto:  "Kidnapping foiled. Police arriving at a car crash in western Canada found five naked people inside, & ended up accusing them of kidnapping a mother, her father & her baby . . . While the car was being driven, the adult male, who was in the trunk, managed to escape. Shortly after that the woman escaped with the baby . . . Officials said they believe drugs or alcohol might have been a factor."  MY COMMENT:  Did it take CSI:  Alberta to figure out the drugs or alcohol factor?

Ditto (10/11):  Horn stuck. A St. Louis man is feeling pretty miffed over a recent traffic ticket. Scott Smith said he was ticketed for honking his horn at a police offer. Smith told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he repeatedly honked at the officer in an unmarked car because the light had turned green & the officer wasn't moving. He was pulled over & used his cellphone to record the heated exchange. The officer asked Smith if his horn was struck to which Smith replied, 'Is your brake stuck?' Smith was ticketed for excessive noise from a vehicle. He plans to file a complaint."  MY COMMENT:  No disrespect intended, but seriously, wasn't the perpetrator's reply pretty funny?

Ditto (12/12):  "Pacifiers for lunch. An Oklahoma mother & father couldn't figure out what was happening to their child's pacifiers until the baby's grandmother saw the family dog swipe one off a counter. One nauseous pooch & a trip to their veterinarians's office confirmed the couple's hunch:  Dovey had 21 pacifiers lodged in her stomach . . . The veterinarian cautioned pet owners that 'dogs will eat anything, anytime & at any age.'"  MY COMMENT:  This could explain Sammy's [Lois' dog] frequent bouts of slow eating & vomiting in the last month, ever since I lost one of my tackle boxes.