How to get on the judge's good side

Sheriff’s deputies dragged a 40-year-old homeless man out of a Halifax courtroom Friday afternoon after he dropped his pants and invited the judge to perform oral sex on him.

Joel David Arseneau... was being arraigned before provincial court Judge Barbara Beach on two charges of breaching probation on court orders when he let his pants fall to the floor, displaying his underwear.

As a pair of deputies were taking Mr. Arseneau downstairs to the holding cells, they received word that Judge Beach was prepared to proceed with the arraignment as long as the accused was willing to keep his pants up.

Link.

Ho Ho Ho

From the Taser International website. This has to be the most appalling use of Christmas imagery I have seen yet. You've got your cut-and-dried dualism (you're good and the rest of the world is bad), and you have Santa as a guy who will Taser you.

Iraq looting

One of the wonderful things about the slow death of the newspaper firewall era (in which you needed a subscription to access "premium content") is that Robert Fisk's reporting for the Independent is now freely available.

Remember the orgy of looting that broke out after the US invasion of Iraq? How there were troops protecting the Ministry of Oil and little else? (There is an excellent chapter on this whole episode in Rajiv Chandrasekaran's book Imperial Life in the Emerald City.)

Well, the looting never stopped. In fact, the looters just took over. Read Fisk and weep.

More weird criminals

First the fake reflexologist -- the guy who massaged women's feet under false pretenses. Now this guy. From the Halifax Chronicle-Herald:

Butt-grabbing biker strikes eighth time

By DAN ARSENAULT Crime Reporter | 5:32 AM

The bike-riding butt-grabber of Halifax appears to have struck for an eighth time.

Halifax Regional Police were called just after midnight Wednesday about a man in his 20s who pedalled up to a 35-year-old woman walking in the area of Young and Dublin streets, said something to her and then grabbed her buttocks before riding off.

Police say it’s the eighth time a woman has been sexually assaulted this way since May 15.

Excuses R Us

Do Nova Scotians lead the way when it comes to idiotic excuses told in the courtroom?

In this story, a fisherman who appears to have had illegal lobster on his boat rushes off to dump it into the water when fisheries officers arrive on the scene.

The Halifax Chronicle-Herald reports:

Mr. Herman was unloading gear from his boat on his wharf in Little Harbour, Lunenburg County, on May 28, 2006, when two helmeted fisheries officers pulled up on motorcycles.

Mr. Herman said he didn’t recognize them and assumed they were looking for his daughter. He said he suddenly remembered he had to do something on his boat, went back to it, picked up a bucket he said was filled with sand crab for bait and threw it over the side because he didn’t want the crab to die.

The fisheries officers, however, testified Mr. Herman knew them for at least 10 years and did recognize them. They said he turned and ran back to his boat when he saw them and jumped aboard.

Of course, when it comes to excuses, I still haven't found anyone to top the guy who crashed through a barricade drunk, then told the cops and the judge he had stopped -- just on the other side of the barricade -- and that the full bottle of rum in his car was proof he hadn't been drinking. If he had, the bottle would have been opened instead of sealed. The guy's story was that he felt an attack of his mystery illness (whose symptoms were remarkably similar to those of inebriation) coming on and he had to rush to his brother's house for help. Right.

At least no animals were harmed

ATLANTA (AP) - A vegan couple were sentenced Wednesday to life in prison for the death of their malnourished 6-week-old baby boy, who was fed a diet largely consisting of soy milk and apple juice.

Full story here.

Seriously though, did these people have no support whatsoever? Nobody who could have figured out a bit sooner that something was wrong?

... and turn it off in court too.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Imagine the look on U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve's face when attorney Patrick Tuite's cell phone erupted in the midst of the Conrad Black/Hollinger trial here.

• • Why? Because the phone's tubular ring tone was from the movie "The Exorcist."

• • Quoth the judge to Tuite: "I hope you didn't program that ring just for this trial." When Tuite's phone rang again, an attorney quipped: "It's possessed."

Tuite told Sneed, "I think they thought it would keep the prosecutor demons away from our Hollinger clients."

The big dirty

Now this sounds like something straight out of the Trailer Park Boys. Good thing these boys are in the right town. Auditions for next season are probably happening soon.

A search for a man suspected of trying to steal money from a parking meter ended with a cellphone ring, Halifax police say...

Officers spotted one suspect right away and arrested him. They found the second suspect in a garbage bin by following the ring of a cellphone.

What do school busses and hockey games have in common?

Apparently, if you're a kid, and you get beaten up on a school bus, the people responsible for your safety don't think it's assault.

From CBC Nova Scotia:

The RCMP are investigating an allegation of an attack against a 14-year-old boy on a school bus near Bridgewater earlier this week.

The parents of the boy say he was badly bruised during the incident Monday afternoon, and that no one did anything to intervene during the assault by another student.

RCMP in Lunenburg County confirm they are investigating an assault complaint.

The South Shore Regional School Board is not calling what happened Monday afternoon an assault.

Supt. Nancy Pynch-Worthylake told the Halifax Chronicle Herald the principal of Hebbville Academy is doing his own investigation and will decide whether discipline is warranted.

Go see the career counsellor

These guys are not cut out for a life of crime. From today's Halifax Chronicle-Herald:

Three teenage boys face criminal charges following an armed robbery in Dartmouth Monday.

Just after 9 p.m., two teens wearing ski masks and bandanas over their faces walked into the Petro-Canada station on Victoria Road.

The two ran off with an undisclosed amount of money and cigarettes.

The pair was quickly tracked down by officers who followed their footprints in the snow to a residence, which was down a nearby side street.

Inside the home, officers arrested two boys, aged 16 and 17, and recovered a shotgun, money and smokes.

And you thought you were in trouble before...

Kid plays in the woods where his parents have told him not to go. Falls down. Hits his head. Gets hurt. Is scared to tell his parents because he might get in trouble.

So, instead, he concocts this story.

Police launched a major investigation after the boy reported being struck in the head by a masked man who tried to get him into a white car after he was dropped off by his school bus.

The boy was treated in hospital and received stitches for the head wound.
...
However, on Tuesday, the boy changed his story. He now says he was playing in an area where he was not supposed to be when he fell and struck his head.

And the nice Nova Scotia cops give him a stern warning, but see a silver lining:

"There was a lot of resources and manpower oriented toward this investigation, but on the other side of it, it just shows you how closely knit the community of Lake Echo was, too," Cpl. Taplin said. "They rallied really quickly in order to ensure that their children were taught street safety and knew . . . to be on the lookout."

Mommy dearest

Strangest story of the day, from the BBC.

A woman in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has pleaded guilty to attempted homicide, assault and kidnapping for trying to cut a foetus from a neighbour's womb.

Peggy Jo Conner, 39, who gave up her right to trial by jury, was told by the judge she could face up to 80 years in prison and $100,000 (£51,000) in fines.

Authorities said Conner had tried to steal the unborn baby in an attempt to pass it off as her own child.

Imagine the kid's life if she had succeeded.