Baby Shower Brawl

I think anyone who has been forced to sit through a baby shower can understand why this would have happened. I bet they were being forced to play that game where they have to taste baby food and guess the flavor...

Two people have been charged in a fight that broke out between neighbors attending a baby shower Sunday, during which a woman knocked another unconscious with a shovel and a man allegedly threatened a crowd with a shotgun.
A 40-year-old woman is charged with aggravated assault, a third-degree felony, for her role in the brawl near 5600 West and Plumbago Avenue (5637 South). She allegedly approached a neighbor and began a fight, later striking the woman with a shovel, who remained unconscious until police arrived.
The woman's 35-year-old husband was also charged with third-degree felony aggravated assault for his role in the brawl.
The man pulled a shotgun from the bed of a truck, racked it and swung it around at people, according to charging documents.
Police say the man also resisted arrest, for which he was also charged with interference with an arresting officer, a class B misdemeanor.

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Screaming In My Head

I just died a little inside...

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) -- A new poll suggests John McCain's
selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate is drawing a positive
if partisan response from the public.
The ABC News poll released today finds half of all respondents
had a positive impression of her, while 37 percent saw her less
favorably. Of the Republicans who were surveyed, 85 percent felt
positively, while 53 percent of independents and just 24 percent of
Democrats felt similarly.
By comparison, 54 percent of respondents expressed a favorable
view of Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden.
The survey also suggests there are plenty of doubts about the
Alaska governor's experience. Just 42 percent of respondents say
she has enough experience to serve as president.
Further, only 25 percent say Palin's selection makes them
likelier to vote for the Republican ticket.

Someone make it stop. Obama, can you make it stop?

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Very Small Business

I will continue my stories from Mexico tomorrow, but today I need to address a story making headlines here in Utah: the sock Obama doll. This cute and cuddly toy was thought up by a pair in Utah County as a way to "get kids interested in the political process." However, they decided to stop plans to manufacture it after people began calling it racially insensitive, calling for a boycott of the company, and issuing death threats. The couple behind the idea say they are shocked at the response they have received, and that they didn't mean any harm. And I believe them. Because some people are just that stupid.

How could anyone in this country make it to adulthood and not understand the basic social mores that have formed during the history of our country? The 1960's weren't that long ago, and I don't think that America's schools have gotten so bad that nothing about the Civil Rights movement is taught. And even if they didn't learn it in school, did they only turn on the television to see possible political candidates and decide which animals they look like? If they had watched ten minutes of news they would have understood the racial overtones going into this election, if for no other reason than the fact Obama is the first black Presidential candidate from a major party. Or, even if they don't watch television (god forbid), if they have the savvy to start an Internet company they probably looked around the web some. Even if they only browsed porn they would get some sense of the racial tensions that still exist in America. But I'm guessing that all went over their heads. After all, today the couple issued a statement saying they would not be manufacturing the doll, disappointing their "wonderful new customers around the globe." I hate to tell them this, but I'm guessing that most of those "wonderful" people also subscribe to newsletters disproving the existence of the Holocaust. I'm sure if they knew who David Duke was they would understand why he ordered three.

I actually kind of feel bad for the makers of this doll, because they have gotten a rather virulent response, and have taken it personally. In their statement they write at least three times that they can't believe people are acting like this in America. Well, I guess if they don't know about race relations they probably aren't that familiar with the Bill of Rights either. Or maybe they were talking about themselves. After all, if America is an enlightened nation how can some of it's citizens not understand that racism is nothing to be toyed with?

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Dedicated to the Job

Yes, yes, reporting the news is a dangerous job. There are people who risk their lives to bring people the latest from war zones, disaster areas, and Detroit. However, a high school track meet is not normally an assignment that qualifies for hazard pay, and that is what makes this tale the "Story O' the Day."

Ryan McGeeney is a photographer for a local newspaper, and was covering the state high school track meet this weekend when he was struck by a javelin. No, he wasn't just struck, the thing went right through his leg. Now, if that happened to me I would either be screaming bloody murder, or trying to figure out how this was going to get me out of work for the next six months. Not McGeeny though -- he kept shooting, and today his photo is on the front page of the newspaper. If you dare to see it follow this link.

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Get This Woman A Hysterectomy!

Michelle Duggar is pregnant with her 18th child. I guess she has nothing better to do since being a human rabbit has become a career choice. I mean, if she had stopped at 14 she never would have been on television or in magazines, and would just be another sad fat woman loading up on "Juicy Juice" at Costco. But no, Michelle Duggar went all the way and achieve fame and fortune -- through her birth canal.

Menopause is going to be a bitch for her. I wonder if her husband will go out and find a younger woman with ripe ovaries to start a new litter...

If you want to watch the video of the happy announcement on the "Today Show" here is a link. Just be warned that it might cause you to throw your computer across the room.

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Over the Edge

I am not a very good driver. Actually, I am a pretty bad driver. No one I know will let me drive unless they have no other option. For instance, right now my father is unable to drive because of his brace, so I have been ferrying him around. I try not to take it personally that he keeps his eyes closed and hums "There's got to be a morning after" until we reach our destination.

My sub-par driving skills are precisely why I am especially tickled with today's Story O' the Day. No matter what scrape I get into (and I literally mean scrape) I can say I have never done this...

Police investigating bizarre parking garage accident
May 5, 2008

A bizarre accident this morning at the beginning of the workday sent a woman over the edge of a downtown parking garage. The accident happened after the driver drove her SUV through a barrier and it fell down more than 20 feet.

We may never really know what caused the woman to drive over the edge because, according to police, she doesn't remember herself. But she survived and is expected to recover from quite a fall.

"I heard this loud crash. [I] thought it was coming from outside, maybe a car accident in the street," explained parking attendant Dave Robertson. "I'm surprised that this would happen, with a steel railing that's welded to the foundation and everything. That's pretty surprising."

It was just after 8:00 this morning when the woman, whose name has still not been released by the police, drove over the edge and down two stories in a parking garage located near 200 South and State Street.

Right now, the leading theories are that she blacked out, was on medication, or may have panicked when she accidentally hit the gas instead of the brakes.

Regardless of the cause, police do know she did accelerate over the edge, and her rescue was very complicated. "They called the heavy-rescue team so they could stabilize the car and went in and found the lady unrestrained," explained Capt. Karleen Montanez, with the Salt Lake City Fire Department.

The victim works at a nearby building in the downtown area and had just picked up some groceries. She told rescuers she did not remember anything after being at the grocery store.

The woman's small Toyota SUV was damaged in the fall, and she suffered injuries to her arms. She remains in the hospital tonight in serious condition.

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At Least It Quieted the Kid Down

Today's Story O' the Day is either an example of extreme cultural stupidity, or really bad parenting. Either way it still rocks. It all happened when a man tried to buy a leomonade for his son at a ballgame. Oh, and for those of you gasping at how outlandish this story is -- it really isn't. I had a friend who was a fourth grade teacher who on several occasions had to take wine coolers away from kids who had packed their own lunches and grabbed what they thought was "punch." Those were very happy days in the teacher's lounge.

Enjoy.

Hard lemonade, hard price

If you watch much television, you've probably heard of a product called Mike's Hard Lemonade.
And if you ask Christopher Ratte and his wife how they lost custody of their 7-year-old son, the short version is that nobody in the Ratte family watches much television.
The way police and child protection workers figure it, Ratte should have known that what a Comerica Park vendor handed over when Ratte ordered a lemonade for his boy three Saturdays ago contained alcohol, and Ratte's ignorance justified placing young Leo in foster care until his dad got up to speed on the commercial beverage industry.
Even if, in hindsight, that decision seems a bit, um, idiotic.
Ratte is a tenured professor of classical archaeology at the University of Michigan, which means that, on a given day, he's more likely to be excavating ancient burial sites in Turkey than watching "Dancing with the Stars" -- or even the History Channel, for that matter.
The 47-year-old academic says he wasn't even aware alcoholic lemonade existed when he and Leo stopped at a concession stand on the way to their seats in Section 114.
"I'd never drunk it, never purchased it, never heard of it," Ratte of Ann Arbor told me sheepishly last week.
"And it's certainly not what I expected when I ordered a lemonade for my 7-year-old."
But it wasn't until the top of the ninth inning that a Comerica Park security guard noticed the bottle in young Leo's hand.
"You know this is an alcoholic beverage?" the guard asked the professor.
"You've got to be kidding," Ratte replied. He asked for the bottle, but the security guard snatched it before Ratte could examine the label.
Mistake or child neglect?

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Story O' the Day

As some of you know, I make my living in the news business. Yes, yes, it's all very glamorous. I have been doing this now for (gulp) 12 years, and yet, every day I am still shocked and amused by at least one story. And now I will be bringing those stories to you. Introducing a new feature here on LibbyLogic -- the Story O' the Day.

Today's story was so obvious it basically jumped off the page and slapped me. It features unthinkable cruelty, incest, and Austrians... Really, what could be better? Enjoy.

AMSTETTEN, Austria (AP) -- A man has confessed to imprisoning his daughter for 24 years in a windowless cell with a soundproofed door and fathering seven children with her including three who "never saw sunlight," police said Monday.
Josef Fritzl, now 73, also told investigators that he tossed the body of one of the children in an incinerator when the infant died shortly after birth, said Franz Polzer, head of the Lower Austrian Bureau of Criminal Affairs. "We are being confronted with an unfathomable crime," Interior Minister Guenther Platter said.
The daughter, who is now 42, had been missing since 1984 and was found by police in the town of Amstetten on Saturday evening after police received a tip. She and the children have been placed under psychiatric care in an undisclosed location.
Authorities on Monday released several photos showing parts of the cramped basement cell, with a small bathroom and a narrow passageway leading to a tiny bedroom. Investigators said an electronic keyless-entry system apparently kept the daughter from escaping from the cell, which was made of solid reinforced concrete.
After initially withholding Friztl's full name, police released it along with a photograph at a news conference Monday. Fritzl's identity was widely reported by media in Austria and elsewhere in Europe. He briefly appeared in court Monday in the city of St. Poelten, where he was to be held in pre-trial detention. "He admitted that he locked his daughter, who was 18 at the time, in the cellar, that he repeatedly had sex with her, and that he is the father of her seven children," Polzer told The Associated Press.
Three of the surviving children lived with the grandparents and were registered with authorities. The other three -- aged 19, 18 and 5 -- were confined during their entire lives to the darkness of their cell, Polzer said.
Hans-Heinz Lenze, a senior local official, said the suspect's wife apparently had "no idea" of what went on and was devastated. "You have to imagine that this woman's world fell apart," he said.

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