Weird News Compilation

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In summary, a man who used to be a Fox News guest analyst and claimed to be a CIA agent was sentenced to 33 months in prison for lying about his security clearance, criminal history, and finances.
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Evo
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I'm always finding weird things in the news and thought it might be fun if we all shared odd stories we came across. Please feel free to post odd, funny or unusual stories in this thread.

Turns out that Zoobyshoe beat me in posting about this in another thread, so he will officially be known as the starter of this thread. :smile:

Here's one where a man appears to have a painting that is not painted by a famous author, but is suing the famous author for saying it's not his and a judge is actually letting it go to court even though the famous author has proof it wasn't painted by him. (only in the US).

Artist sued for $5M over painting he insists he didn’t paint

OK, Peter Doig may have tried LSD a few times when he was growing up in Canada during the 1970s. But he knows, he said, when a painting is or isn’t his.

So when Doig — whose eerie, magical landscapes have made him one of the world’s most popular artists — was sent a photograph of a canvas he said he didn’t recognize, he disavowed it.

“This case is a scam, and I’m being forced to jump through hoops to prove my whereabouts over 40 years ago,” he said.

To Doig’s surprise — and the astonishment of others in the art world — a federal judge in Chicago has set the case for trial next month in U.S. District Court.

Art-law experts say they can’t recall anything like it, certainly not for a major artist like Doig.
continued...
http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/artist-sued-for-5m-over-painting-he-insists-he-didnt-paint/
 
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Physics news on Phys.org
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Even though I beat you in posting about the artist in Random Thoughts, I'll play your little game. Here's some weird news:

WEATHERFORD, Texas — Authorities say several inmates at a Texas jail broke out of a holding cell to help save an armed guard after they saw him lose consciousness...

http://nypost.com/2016/07/10/inmates-break-out-of-jail-cell-to-save-guard/
 
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In the local news in my area there's a report of couple of dogs who were damaging cars for months.
Several owners of cars reported someone damaged them and tore tires. After looking at recordings from cameras, police saw it was done by a couple of dogs. The bigger dark one bit and scratched the parked cars for no apparent reason, while smaller white dog was watching out for humans who could catch them.
This behaviour lasted for a few months. The police and public tried to catch them, but were not successful for a long time. Finally, the black one was caught and put into shelter. Soon after that, the white one came voluntarily and let himself be caught, too.
Both dogs are peaceful and show no signs of aggression to humans.
The newspaper is looking for someone to adopt them both because they have strong bonds with each other.
 
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A woman in Birmingham, England, is heading to jail for two weeks because she had sex so loud that it annoyed her neighbors.

... This isn’t the first time loud sex has led to legal trouble. Last year, an unidentified woman on a Virgin Airlines flight to Las Vegas was restrained and later questioned by authorities when the plane crew busted up a loud, mile-high tryst with another passenger in the restroom.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/01/gemma-wale-woman-jailed-loud-sex_n_7484020.html

You just don't go on a Virgin aircraft and do that sort of thing.
 
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July 10, 2016
"A caller reported that a man, who had come inside a local convenience store, was suffering from a stab wound he received earlier while walking and playing Pokémon Go on his phone. Officers responded to the store, where the 22-year-old man had come into buy chips and beer, as well as find a Pokémon. The man was able to give a description of his attacker, who allegedly stabbed the victim as they passed each other near 19th Avenue and Filbert Street. The victim refused medical treatment and continued his Pokémon hunt. The incident is under investigation." [ref]
 
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Former Fox News analyst who said he was CIA agent gets 33 months in prison
Wayne Simmons was a professional football player, a drug trafficker, a nightclub doorman, a Fox News guest analyst and an intelligence adviser in Afghanistan.

What Simmons , 62, was not, according to all available evidence, was a CIA agent. In federal court in Virginia Friday, just before he was sentenced to 33 months in prison, he apologized for lying about his security clearance, his criminal history and his finances.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-former-fox-news-analyst-prison-20160715-story.html

Some cable expert analysts aren't experts. They just play them on cable TV news shows. :rolleyes:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/enter...bc-cable-experts-repeat25-20141225-story.html
 
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It appears to be a rocket launch, whatever it is I'm pretty sure its one of ours. cool video.
 
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  • #18
StevieTNZ said:

It looks like a distant rocket launch where either the sun isn't far below the horizon or there's a lot of moonlight, and the exhaust includes water or something similar which gives a vapour (or ice) trail. As the booster rises, the air pressure decreases and the trail becomes wider.

Edit: Looking at the clip again, the sky seems lighter towards the horizon on the right, which would suggest that the light comes from the sun just below the horizon.

Of course the date and time of the clip would make it easy to identify the launch. I think most of the recent night-time ones have been SpaceX.

Do you remember the missile test off the California coast last year? Scared a lot of people in LA and around there.
 
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Jonathan Scott said:
Do you remember the missile test off the California coast last year? Scared a lot of people in LA and around there.
Yeah, it looks almost identical to the trident missile that they launched here, unannounced, and which scared the crap outa me.
 
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1oldman2 said:
It appears to be a rocket launch, whatever it is I'm pretty sure its one of ours. cool video.

yes, a sort of common visual occurrence
there's a number of videos on youtube over the last few years of similar trails from rocket launches
 
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  • #21
Jonathan Scott said:
Of course the date and time of the clip would make it easy to identify the launch. I think most of the recent night-time ones have been SpaceX.
As launches normally head east and it was heading towards the light horizon, I Googled for "pre-dawn launch". I see that it matches the Atlas 5 launch of MUOS-4 on Sept 2nd 2015, for which there are various videos, and I also found some news articles which came to the same conclusion.
 
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  • #22
I don't know if this qualifies as weird, or just an example of stupidity.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/tigers-kill-one-injure-one-china-wildlife-park-073520104.html
Tigers kill one, injure one in China wildlife park
Tigers at a wildlife park in Beijing killed one woman and injured another after the pair left their vehicle following an argument, Chinese media reported on Sunday.

The attack took place at Beijing Badaling Wildlife World Saturday, Chinanews.com reported, when one of the women left the vehicle following an altercation.
A video shows the passenger exiting the passenger side and walking around the car to the driver's side. The driver opens the door, then a tiger grabs the woman passenger from behind and takes off with her. The driver then goes after the tiger!

There is a reason one is supposed to stay in the car when visiting a tiger exhibit where the tigers are roaming freely.
 
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  • #23
Jonathan Scott said:
As launches normally head east and it was heading towards the light horizon, I Googled for "pre-dawn launch". I see that it matches the Atlas 5 launch of MUOS-4 on Sept 2nd 2015, for which there are various videos, and I also found some news articles which came to the same conclusion.

don't forget about the ones that go west from California :wink:

there's been several of those as test rockets from vandenberg air force base
Dave
 
  • #26
hmmm... I never thought about this side effect:

In a first, Oregon State Fair to feature marijuana plants
July 27, 2016
Morse said the plants will have ribbons just like any other prize-winning crop. The plants will come to the fair having already been judged by a panel of marijuana growers, including Ed Rosenthal, a well-known author and cannabis expert.

"We are doing it 4H style," he said. "You get a blue, purple or yellow ribbon. We are celebrating the plant as a farm crop from Oregon."

Fairgoers hoping for a sample will be disappointed, Morse said.

"We are not promoting the use of cannabis," he said. "We are there to show plants to people over 21 what award-winning cannabis plants look like."

Older, and more funny than weird, news:

Marijuana shops now outnumber McDonald's and Starbucks in Oregon
11/08/2015
Since Oregon’s marijuana dispensaries opened for recreational retail sales on October 1 [2015], business has been good.
 
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Evo said:
If only it were true. Based on the other stories on the politics tab, that looks like a UK version of The Onion. :oldtongue:
Hillary Clinton’s emails mostly cat gifs and Harry Potter fanfic, confirms Russia

Vladimir Putin has confirmed that Hillary Clinton’s 30,000 private emails are mostly just animated cat pictures and Harry Potter fan fiction.

Putin, who was asked by Donald trump to hack Clinton’s server, released tens of thousands of mails this morning, more than 65% of which featured vines of fluffy animals falling off furniture, acting vaguely like people, or what she simply called ‘Random cutes!1 xoxox’.
 
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  • #30
Evo said:
Guess we've missed this one too.
Good thing I got that reservation at Milliways, the restaurant at the end of the Universe. Thanks DNA!
 
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  • #31
Astronuc said:
Tigers kill one, injure one in China wildlife park.
Heh, this reminds me of a large sign outside a local Lion Park here, carrying the warning:

Trespassers will be eaten.

I just figured out what's wrong with humans: intelligence is bounded above, but unbounded below. :confused:
 
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I think it may have been in 1980 when I first encountered the end of the world at the age of five. It was supposed to be a result of a planetary alignment and the term "Jupiter Effect" was thrown about. Anyway, when the day arrived only two noteworthy events occurred. One was a particularly spectacular sunset. The other was the birth of a sceptic.
 
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