Weird News Files

Gary Hesterberg was in a national park in San Francisco with his two lap dogs. A park ranger saw him with his dogs and told him that the dogs must be leashed. She asked for his name and told him to not to leave. When he started walking away, she shot him in the back with her “electric-shock weapon.”

Rancho Corral de Tierra has long been an off-leash walking spot for local dog owners. In December, the area became part of the national park system, which requires that all dogs be on a leash, Levitt said.

The ranger was trying to educate residents of the rule, Park Service spokesman Howard Levitt said.

Witnesses said the use of a stun gun and the arrest seemed excessive for someone walking two small dogs off leash.

“It was really scary,” said Michelle Babcock, who said she had seen the incident as she and her husband were walking their two border collies. “I just felt so bad for him.”

Babcock said Hesterberg had repeatedly asked the ranger why he was being detained. She didn’t answer him, Babcock said.

“He just tried to walk away. She never gave him a reason,” Babcock said.

The ranger shot Hesterberg in the back with her shock weapon as he walked off, Babcock said.

“We were like in disbelief,” she said. “It didn’t make any sense.”

Rancho Corral de Tierra has long been an off-leash walking spot for local dog owners. In December, the area became part of the national park system, which requires that all dogs be on a leash, Levitt said.

The ranger was trying to educate residents of the rule, Levitt said.

The park service is investigating the incident, he said.

Source:  SFGate

A bunch of Brooklyn bees have been coming home looking flushed.

New York City beekeeper Cerise (seh-REEZ’) Mayo was puzzled when her bees started showing up with mysterious red coloring. Their honey also turned as red as cough syrup. She tells The New York Times a friend joked that the bees were imbibing the runoff at Dell’s Maraschino Cherries Company, in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. Mayo — whose first name means “cherry” in French — raises bees in that neighborhood and across the water on Governor’s Island.

Tests confirmed the bees were riddled with Red Dye No. 40 — the same food coloring found in the cherry juice. Bee expert Andrew Cote tells the newspaper that bees had been creating a big nuisance at the factory.

The solution? Put up screens or provide a closer source of sweet nectar.

The Chia Obama, a Chia pet-style Obama sculpture on which people can cultivate a head of green hair, has been recalled from Walgreens’ and RiteAid stores throughout the US.
The Chia Obama is a tiny bust of the 44th president that you water until a mini green ’fro covers his head. Some say the product is downright racist, while others say at the very least it’s in very bad taste. Still, others say people are getting just a little too touchy when it comes to feelings about the nation’s first African-American president.

The complaints were enough to prompt some Walgreens and RiteAid stores to pull it off the shelves. Store officials say the product “is not appropriate for the company’s corporate image.”

A California woman who befriended a homeless woman and let her sleep in her car told police she didn’t know where to turn when the woman unexpectedly died — so she drove the body around for months along with a box of baking soda to hide the smell, authorities said Thursday.

Officers with the Costa Mesa police found the unidentified body Monday after getting a call about a car partially blocking a driveway, Sgt. Ed Everett told The Associated Press. When officers arrived, they noticed a stench and saw a leg poking out from a blanket and some clothes, he said.

The partially mummified remains consisted of mostly skin and bones and weighed about 30 pounds, he said.

An autopsy showed no signs of foul play but police are still investigating the role of the car’s driver.

The woman driving the car told police she met a homeless woman in a park in nearby Fountain Valley and told her she could sleep in her car, Everett said. But when the woman died in her car 10 months ago, she was afraid to go to the police, he said.

The woman who drives the car, a 57-year-old who herself had fallen on hard times and was living with friends, told officers she had last seen the woman alive in December. It wasn’t clear when she discovered the body in the car, he said.

“She felt she would be accused of something and with everything going on in her life, she didn’t want to deal with that,” Everett said.

Police also found a box of baking soda in the car, which the driver had used to try to cover up the smell, Everett said.

The dead woman is believed to be in her 50s or 60s, with a first name of Signe.
source: SFGate  link

A top level Republican IT consultant who was set to testify in a case alleging GOP election tampering in Ohio died in a plane crash late Friday night.

Michael Connell, founder of Ohio-based New Media Communications, which created campaign Web sites for George W. Bush and John McCain — died instantly after his single-prop, private aircraft smashed into a vacant home in suburban Lake Township, Ohio.

“The plane was attempting to land around 6 p.m. Friday at Akron-Canton Airport when it crashed about three miles short of the runway,” reports the Akron Beacon Journal

Connell’s exploits as a top GOP IT ‘guru’ have been followed by RAW STORY’s investigative team.

The interest in Mike Connell stems from his association with a firm called GovTech, which he had spun off from his own New Media Communications under his wife Heather Connell’s name. GovTech was hired by Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell to set up an official election website at election.sos.state.oh.us to presented the 2004 presidential returns as they came in.

Connell is a long-time GOP operative, whose New Media Communications provided web services for the Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign, the US Chamber of Commerce, the Republican National Committee and many Republican candidates. This in itself might have raised questions about his involvement in creating Ohio’s official state election website.

However, the alternative media group ePlubibus Media further discovered in November 2006 that election.sos.state.oh.us was hosted on the servers of a company in Chattanooga, TN called SmarTech, which also provided hosting for a long list of Republican Internet domains.

“Since early this decade, top Internet ‘gurus’ in Ohio have been coordinating web services with their GOP counterparts in Chattanooga, wiring up a major hub that in 2004, first served as a conduit for Ohio’s live election night results,” researchers at ePluribus Media wrote.

A few months after this revelation, when a scandal erupted surrounding the firing of US Attorneys for reasons of White House policy, other researchers found that the gwb43 domain used by members of the White House staff to evade freedom of information laws by sending emails outside of official White House channels was hosted on those same SmarTech servers.

Given that the Bush White House used SmarTech servers to send and receive email, the use of one of those servers in tabulating Ohio’s election returns has raised eyebrows. Ohio gave Bush the decisive margin in the Electoral College to secure his reelection in 2004.

IT expert Stephen Spoonamore says the SmartTech server could have functioned as a routing point for malicious activity and remains a weakness in electronic voting tabulation.

“…I have reason to believe that the alternate accounts were used to communicate with US Attorneys involved in political prosecutions, like that of Don Siegelman,” said RAW STORY’s Investigative News Editor, Larisa Alexandrovna, on her personal blog Saturday morning. “This is what I have been working on to prove for over a year. In fact, it was through following the Siegelman-Rove trail that I found evidence leading to Connell. That is how I became aware of him. Mike was getting ready to talk. He was frightened.

“He has flown his private plane for years without incident. I know he was going to DC last night, but I don’t know why. He apparently ran out of gas, something I find hard to believe. I am not saying that this was a hit nor am I resigned to this being simply an accident either. I am no expert on aviation and cannot provide an opinion on the matter. What I am saying, however, is that given the context, this event needs to be examined carefully.”

“Mr. Connell has confided that he was being threatened, something that his attorneys also told the judge in the Ohio election fraud case,” concluded Alexandrovna.

An FAA investigation into the causes of Connell’s plane crash is underway, but no results are expected for several weeks.

Source: The Raw Story Link filed under Weird U.S. News

A cardboard figure of a person inside a Somerset County bank kept police at bay for 90 minutes last night, authorities said.

The standoff at the PNC Bank on Routes 518 and 601 in the Skillman section of Montgomery Township ended about 10:20 p.m., Somerset County Prosecutor Wayne Forrest said.

Police said an alarm went off about 8:40 p.m.

When officers arrived, they saw what they thought was at least one person through the windows of the bank, which had its blinds drawn, according to authorities.

Police sealed off the area to traffic and evacuated residents in three nearby apartment buildings.

“I drove in the parking lot (of my apartment building) and see all these guys with guns,” said Ross Stout, who lives nearby.

Authorities tried to make contact with whoever might be in the building. Officers used bullhorns and then tried to call inside the building, Forrest said.

After failing to get any response from the figure inside, the SWAT team entered.

To their chagrin, they discovered the “person” seen inside the building was a full-size cardboard figure, Forrest said.

Source: Star Ledger Link  filed under Weird U.S. News