Weird News

[xoxoxoBruce]

1- Japan is such a strange backward country...

A Japanese court has extended for another 10 days the detention of ousted Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn, who faces more charges of financial misdeeds.

Can you imagine locking this man up like a commoner instead of giving him a billion dollar golden parachute. How barbaric.

2- Fortunately for the 1/3rd...

A government-appointed monitor reported that some 16.7 million defective Takata airbag inflators have not yet been replaced, around one-third of the recalled units.

At least that 1/3rd is not endangered by an exploding package of talcum powder which might give them Ovarian cancer.

3- Recall shmeecall...

Ford is recalling nearly 900,000 F-series pickups from the 2015 through 2019 model years to correct a defect in the engine block heater that could result in a fire.

A fire? Well duh, doesn't that heat the engine? Buncha whining maggots.

4- Big tax write off for VW...

Volkswagen’s cleanup efforts from the diesel emissions cheating scandal will cost the automaker around $6.25 billion in 2018 and another $2 million in 2019.

Taxpayers come out on the short end again, I see unfilled potholes.

[Gravdigr]

Armed man surrenders following 10-hour siege after negotiator sings White Christmas to him

Wait, what?

by Jane Dalton of The Independent via YahooNews:

A man with a rifle who held off a team of armed police in a 10-hour siege gave himself up after an officer sang a Christmas carol to him.

Nathaniel Lewis, 34, allegedly started shooting at the specialised police who rushed to his home in Pennsylvania, US, when a relative reported him acting erratically on Christmas evening.

The shots hit a police vehicle, a house and another vehicle, and the Swat (Special Weapons and Tactics) team returned fire.

Chester County district attorney Thomas Hogan wrote on Facebook: “Over a long and cold night, they kept negotiating with the man, who eventually started shooting at the police and around the neighbourhood.”

During the wait, Mr Hogan took home-made biscuits to the Swat team, and the stand-off dragged on until eventually a negotiator got Lewis to surrender by singing the Bing Crosby festive classic White Christmas.

Lewis was taken into custody and reportedly charged with multiple counts of attempted homicide, aggravated assault and other offences.

Police did not say whether he surrendered because he liked the song or disliked the officer's rendition of it.

[Carruthers]

Multiple officers arrive at home to find Perth man with ‘serious fear’ of arachnids ‘trying to kill a spider’

Police in Western Australia have confirmed they sent multiple officers to an emergency call that turned out to be a screaming man with a “serious fear” of spiders.

A concerned passerby was walking outside a house in suburban Perth when they heard a toddler screaming and a man repeatedly shouting “Why don’t you die?”

After they called triple zero, officers arrived to find a man “trying to kill a spider”, who apologised for having an extreme fear of the arachnid.

Given that anything in Australia which isn't woolly is hell bent on visiting death upon the unwary, it's probably a reasonable stance to take.

The Guardian

ABC News

[Gravdigr]

That happened in a different Aussie city several months earlier. Same situation, spider-freaked fella screaming for it to die.

Given that it's Oz, I woulda just ran away. Screaming.

[Gravdigr]

That was a very interesting piece.

[glatt]

Yes. Yes it was.

[Carruthers]

A group of Heathen sailors aboard the USS John C Stennis gather to worship Norse gods

Sailors on the USS John C. Stennis operate a warship that brings American power to the Arabian Sea and deploys jets to bloody fronts in Afghanistan.

But occasionally some gather on their long boat to recognise another power, thought to rule the waves and command the winds.

“We do a lot of praying to the god of seafarers, Njord,” said Joshua Shaikoski, one of a small group of practising Heathens who take part in “sumbels”, or ceremonies to worship Norse gods.

These are led by Joshua Wood, an aviation electrician’s mate from Alaska. The US Navy said Mr Wood had practised Heathenry for five years.
“I took a world mythology class in high school and that opened my eyes to the Nordic Gods,” he said.

Contemporary efforts to revive the Norse religion of Odin and Thor have involved reconstructing the cosmology laid out in medieval Icelandic texts such as the Prose Edda, by the 13th-century politician Snorri Sturluson.

In Iceland, the revival was recently marked by the reconstruction of a Norse temple, although a high priest suggested that the religion was not necessarily taken literally.
“I don’t think anyone believes in a one-eyed man who is riding a horse with eight feet,” Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson told Reuters.
“We see the stories as poetic metaphors and a manifestation of the forces of nature and human psychology.”

In the US military, one manifestation of rising Heathenry was a successful appeal by a soldier to be allowed to wear a beard, in observance of his “Heathen, Norse Pagan faith”.
The hammer of Thor has been added to a list of symbols that may be carved on a veteran’s headstone in Arlington National Cemetery.

Mr Wood said the Edda made him realise he identified more with the polytheistic system of faith of the Vikings than his family’s Roman Catholicism. In San Diego he found a group of Norse worshippers and through them became “certified to lead services on this ship”.

Whatever floats your boat...

The Times

(It's paywalled, but there are ways and means).

[Griff]

If warriors need religion, why not a warrior's religion?

[tw]

Originally Posted by Griff

If warriors need religion, why not a warrior's religion?

It already exists. We will pay for their temple. $5 billion for a wall.

If they get their wall, they will not even say, "Thank you." Some religions are not even gracious. Some religions insist they are entitled. Then will demand another $20 billion to finish it.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Oh poppycock, it's not the military asking for the wall, it's Trump, 100%, this is his baby from the git-go to the end.


Oh, and Trump is as far from a warrior as possible.

[sexobon]

They can pray to Kahless that they be strong in battle and when they die they'll go to Sto'Vo'Kor.

[Happy Monkey]

Hopefully unrelated.

[Gravdigr]

1950s Western Predicted a Border Wall From a Fictional Con Man Named Trump

[Diaphone Jim]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Juzmly1yes

[xoxoxoBruce]

I guess in the Gibraltar autumn the airing cupboard isn't used much.