xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
A former police official and current aggressive, respected Wellington, New Zealand, litigator, Rob Moodie, 67, said in July that he is tired of the old-boy network of male lawyers and judges, and that henceforth he will show his disdain by dressing in women’s clothes in court. The worse the “corruption” he senses, the frillier will be his outfits, said the married father of three, who also said he happens to like women’s clothes, but that it took the pervasive male courthouse culture to bring that into the open. Moodie said already he has enjoyed giving “a flash of lace at the urinal” but said he would keep his trademark moustache.
Steven Buelow, whose Vermont prison sentence is up for a rape-murder he committed at age 15, still cannot be released until he proves that he has a place to live, and according to an August report on Burlington’s WCAX-TV, the keenest idea he had was to pick women at random from the Burlington phone book, write them letters describing himself and his prison status, and asking them to take him in (with a total of 15 letters going out). Not surprisingly, at least one woman contacted by the station said she was terrified by the letter and considered moving away, and Buelow said he wouldn’t send out any more.
An analysis of government records by The Washington Post revealed in July that a federal agriculture subsidy program to compensate farmers for market-losing crops has evolved, through regulatory interpretation and lax enforcement, into a program that since 2000 has paid $1.3 billion to people who don’t even farm at all. (Although pre-tax income of all farming was a near-record $72 billion in 2005, federal subsidies actually grew to $25 billion, a sum considerably more than that paid to families receiving welfare.)
More than 70 children got separated from their parents during the Taste of Chicago festival on June 30, but one 6-year-old boy was still unclaimed as of July 7, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, citing a police spokesperson. The boy was eventually turned over to the state Department of Children and Family Services, which found that his family had a spotty record of supporting him even before the festival.
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