May 13th, 2012 at 9:00AM:
Ah, the Good Old Days, when everyone lived in a perpetual Renaissance Festival quaffing ale and shouting "Huzzah!" It must have been wonderful.
Not!
People died young, the cities were filled with rats and open sewers, and God help you if you ever got arrested. You'd be taken to a torture chamber in order to "confess" while being subjected to various imaginative torture devices, like the ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
criminal posts
Torture Museums Look At The Dark Side Of History
May 13th, 2012 at 9:00AM:
Ah, the Good Old Days, when everyone lived in a perpetual Renaissance Festival quaffing ale and shouting "Huzzah!" It must have been wonderful.
Not!
People died young, the cities were filled with rats and open sewers, and God help you if you ever got arrested. You'd be taken to a torture chamber in order to "confess" while being subjected to various imaginative torture devices, like the ...Naked hiker jailed for 21 months
Aug 25th, 2011 at 12:30PM: Nudist activist Steven Gough has been given 657 days in a Scottish prison only a minute after finishing his previous sentence.
The BBC reports that the naked hiker has served numerous terms in jail for public nudity and appearing in court nude. He insists it's his right to bare all wherever and whenever he wants. His refusal to wear clothes has led to an epic fight with the legal system in ...Politics and people: an immigrant's impressions of Spain's Basque region
Jun 3rd, 2011 at 3:00PM: One downside to being an immigrant is that you have to learn a whole new set of politics and social divisions. Since moving to Madrid six years ago, I've heard a lot of people talking about Spain's Basque region. Everyone has an opinion about it but most haven't actually been there.
I've recently returned from six days hiking in the Basque region with a group of Americans and two Basque guides. ...Blackbeard's pirate ship gives up its anchor
May 28th, 2011 at 12:00PM:
A pirate ship owned by the notorious Blackbeard is being investigated by archaeologists, who have just retrieved one of its anchors.
The Queen Anne's Revenge, was grounded in 1718 while trying to enter Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina. Blackbeard had just come from blockading Charleston until he received a ransom. Currently the wreck lies in only 20 feet of water, as easily accessible to ...Junkie steals 100-year-old morphine, doesn't get high
Apr 21st, 2011 at 10:00AM:
There's nobody quite as determined or stupid as a junkie.
Maybe it's hard to buy a hit on the streets of Cashmere, Washington, or maybe this particular junkie was short of cash. In any case, someone with a craving for drugs broke into the Cashmere Historic Museum and Pioneer Village and made off with a bottle of morphine pills dating back to World War One.
A doctor interviewed by the ...Zimbabwe safari parks, resorts seized by land invaders
Jan 28th, 2011 at 9:00AM: Tourist sites are the latest targets for land seizures in Zimbabwe, reports SW Radio Africa.
A mob of about 150 people took over Lake Chivero Recreational Park, the Kumba Shiri resort, and several other sites around the lake, forbidding guests and employees from leaving.
This is one of a string of land grabs across the country committed by semi-legal mobs taking advantage of the ...Why your state sucks: the depressing but true map of America
Jan 27th, 2011 at 9:00AM:
The folks over at Pleated Jeans have come up with a funny yet painful new map of America. It doesn't show our cities or rivers or mountains, it shows our flaws. As you can see, each state is singled out for what they're worst at. Maps reveal a lot about the territory they cover, and this one shows more than some people may want to see.
I've lived in three different states and I have to say ...Piracy reached record levels in 2010
Jan 18th, 2011 at 9:30AM:
Pirate hijackings in the Red Sea and nearby waters reached their highest levels ever, the Associated Press reports.
Pirate hijackings worldwide claimed 1,181 hostages and 53 vessels, a rise of ten percent since 2009. Of these, 49 ships were taken by Somali gunmen in the Red Sea or nearby waters in the Indian Ocean. Somali piracy has been the biggest problem area despite an international fleet ...Detroit airport cop and TSA worker accused of stealing pizza and punching clerk
May 3rd, 2010 at 11:00AM:
Ladies and gentlemen, we have two new contenders for the "dumbest TSA workers of the year" award. An airport cop and TSA worker both showed up at a Hartland Township, MI gas station to buy some booze in order to continue their buzz (which means they drove there drunk already). The two paid for the booze, then Renee Zima, the TSA officer, is accused of stealing two pieces of pizza, and leaving ...
Phony IRS agent gets probation for lying to live in hotel
Apr 22nd, 2010 at 11:30AM: Eventually, the law will catch up with you. Sherry Lynn Vertoch just got probation and was ordered to repay $55,000 to the people she affected. What did Vertoch do? Well, she accumulated that monstrous tab while posing as an IRS agent and stiffing the Inn Marin hotel in Novato, California. The five-year probation sentence was sent down largely because of her illnesses, including diabetes and high ...Is the U.S. Forest Service spying on visitors?
Apr 8th, 2010 at 3:30PM: Our country's national parks and forests are intended as sanctuaries, zones of peace and quiet where visitors can get away from the give and take of modern life. But don't expect to have it all to yourself: these days you might be joined by hidden cameras, placed by the U.S. Forest Service. Don't break out the tinfoil hat just yet; this "conspiracy theory" may have some truth to it. According to a ...Feds Try to Halt Starwood Suit of Hilton to Chase Criminal Charges
Feb 25th, 2010 at 2:00PM: Usually, it's what goes on inside the hotels that is mysterious. Illicit trysts, quiet business deals and the occasional rendez-vous of spies (very occasional, I suspect) are what we'd love to believe happens in behind the closed doors of hotels up-market and down. The reality, however, is far more interesting. There is plenty of espionage going on in the hotel world, but it's the hotels ...Pablo Escobar's Hacienda popular with tourists
Nov 11th, 2009 at 1:30PM: Visiting the former home of a famous person is pretty common. Tourists flock to Elvis' Graceland and who wouldn't love a look inside the creepy world of Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch? But exploring the former compound of a Colombian drug lord....well that seems a little less likely. Yet aparently Pablo Escobar's Hacienda Napoles, located outside of Bogota, Colombia, is a hit with tourists.
...Carnival cruise passengers spend weekend in Antigua ... in jail
Sep 9th, 2009 at 8:30AM: It looks like Carnival could use some new passengers. Not even a week after banning a family for life – and then reversing the ban – six passengers on one of its ships have been detained in Antigua. Now, if you're going to get stuck someplace, Antigua isn't bad, but I'd rather be in a resort than involved with the criminal justice system – it just seems more fun.
Dolores Lalanne, ...London pickpockets are giving the money back
Aug 26th, 2009 at 2:00PM: Visitors to London may find that if they aren't careful, they could wind up with some strange fingers in their pockets or purses. And while that's nothing new, this time it might not be a bad thing. A group of former pick-pockets is working the streets of London this month, but instead of stealing money, they are giving it away to their unsuspecting "victims".
The "put-pocketing" plan is being ...Mona Lisa assaulted with coffee mug
Aug 12th, 2009 at 4:00PM: A Russian woman threw an empty terra cotta mug at the most famous painting on display at the Louvre. Despite the propelling of kitchenware, the Mona Lisa was not damaged, though the mug didn't fare as well. It shattered – a side effect of moving at a rapid speed toward a hard object that isn't going to move.
The unusual attack triggered the alarms on the painting immediately, and police ...
