Across Difficult Country

A pair of tortoises set fire to a home in Fordingbridge, the Salisbury Journal reports . Remember how we all laughed at the Ugandan policeman who shot and killed a fleeing tortoise , after it aggressively and violently chased him? Maybe we owe him an apology.

Last week bandits in Guinea stole vials of Ebola infected blood . Were I not preoccupied with a multitude of existing charity efforts I would create and distribute an infographic illustrating items Guinean bandits should steal (cash, jewels, gold bars, etc.), and items Guinean bandits should not steal (old couches, gum wrappers, rocks, vials of Ebola infected blood, etc.).

The Ferguson verdict to be announced soon , and I have offered to go there and run over rioters with one of those armored vehicles police need now because society is collapsing. I mention this because I’m often accused of not being civic-minded.

A reader named Garland forwards an incredible story from Uganda : In a bizarre incident in Nebbi district, a policeman says he was attacked by an aggressive tortoise at his home.  Charles Onegiu, who is attached to Ndew Police Post in Ndew sub-county, says he was in his grass-thatched hut sipping away on a cup of tea when the incident happened. The tortoise crept in and when Onegiu tried to scare it off, the hard-shelled creature appeared unfazed, and instead turned aggressive. The policeman, who had just returned home after a long field day training crime preventers, tried to wave off his unwanted visitor.  “I tried to scare it but the tortoise became very aggressive. I took a stick to chase it but it instead became more violent making me to make alarm. “I immediately picked a plastic chair to hit it. It then got out of the hut and moved towards the latrine as people rushed to my rescue,” he told New Vision.  The shaken Onegiu then instinctively reached for ...

Two shotguns, a double stove, a dishwasher, a microwave, a refrigerator, a washer, dryer, a sofa, a chair, a coffee table, a space heater, hand tools, a popcorn maker,  three barbecue grills and a table were stolen between Feb. 1 and Friday from a residence on Alabama Avenue. . .  The New Madrid County Sheriff's Department is on the look out for a stolen BBQ grill from Marston . The United Steelworkers Union Hall in Marston reported the stolen grill on Monday. The grill is mounted on a trailer which was chained and locked to one of the building's columns. Both locks were cut and the grill was pulled away. The grill was last seen around 8 p.m. on Friday, May 2. . .  A Rogersville man returned home to find burglars had stolen a gas grill, stove, kerosene heater and refrigerator. .   A stainless-steel Kenmore four-burner gas grill with two propane tanks valued at $560 was stolen between 10:30 p.m. April 25 and 7:15 a.m. April 26 from the back y...

The Khaleej Times reports the drummer of the Scorpions is being held captive in Dubai . If this were the 80’s I would scour the dive bars, pool halls, and fast food restaurant parking lots to assemble a crack team of metalheads and hard rockers, and we would go give the Mussulmen what for. But this is the 21st Century. I don’t even know where those guys are these days. Some got fat, some are dead, some drink white wine and listen to Mumford & Sons. What the rest are doing, I don’t want to find out.

A Florida man began the new year by attacking his girlfriend with a banana. Just think, in the near future, after bananas have been wiped out by a putrefying fungus , this sort of assault will be carried out with a mango, or an apple, or a pomegranate, or in tragic circumstances, a potato.

In Zimbabwe the beheading of an overly demanding goblin went awry, producing  an explosion which destroyed a house  and killed five people. In other Zimbabwe news, six women were arrested after a bag they had stolen attracted the attention of a crowd by talking. Zimbabwe used to look like this , back when it was called Rhodesia and run by evil racists. I've joked about Whitby falling into the sea , now Whitby is falling into the sea . Painter Georg Baselitz reminds me of a Bernhard character. Sad news from Timmanakumeri , where  Ramakrishna Acharya  drowned while bathing in a stream.  Research indicates nothing else has ever happened in Timmanakumeri. Children in Catterick Garrison, have been reading to dogs to boost their confidence, the Northern Echo reports . Why the dogs lack confidence the article does not say. Stanley drivers can check if their child car seats are fitted correctly at clinics sponsored by the Good Egg Ca...

Near the River Ouse at Barlby, the sinister allure of the white van proved irresistible to a maniac (or does driving white vans turn normal men into maniacs?), who used one to run over a boy in a tent. The BBC reports on " Sri Lanka's sinister white van abductions " (I wrote the BBC and asked them to stop stealing my material). A white van crashed into the Town of Lee’s Nice-N-Easy “several times” before heading “south toward Rome” like Ceaser did in 49 BC, said a police schooled in ancient history, whom I made up. The motive for the attack is not known, which surprises none of us because incomprehensible motives is the white van modus operandi . Warminster Township police are baffled by an incident where two men attempted to lure a teen into a gold van.  “Are you sure it was not a white van?” police asked her. The teen insists the van was gold. I will monitor this potential development. In Minneapolis a perverted Mexican exposed himself to a you...

I can’t always remember their names, but in my nightmares I can see their faces. As the commissioner of the Georgia Department of Corrections from 1992 until 1995, I oversaw five executions. The first two were Thomas Dean Stevens and Christopher Burger, accomplices in a monstrous crime: as teenagers in 1977, they robbed and raped a cabdriver, put him in the trunk of a car, and pushed the vehicle into a pond . I had no doubt that they were guilty: they admitted it to me. But now it was 1993 and they were in their 30s. All these years later, after a little frontal-lobe development, they were entirely different people . - Allen Ault, " I Ordered Death in Georgia ."

Scientists say God put taste buds in our lungs because He wants us to smoke tobacco . To save money, the Telegraph newspaper no longer uses proofreaders . The Burmese jungle teems with sneezing monkeys that look like Michael Jackson in his later stages . Gruesome thought: could they be Jacko-Bubbles hybrids ? Recall the rumors of a secret laboratory in the caverns beneath the Neverland ranch. I will report back once the results of DNA tests are in. Ghoulish Russian bears are digging up and eating corpses in graveyards : "In Karelia one bear learned how to do it [open a coffin]. He then taught the others," she added, suggesting: "They are pretty quick learners." When I observed “ bears are capable of crimes more heinous than stealing picnic baskets ,” I had no idea just how horrible they were. Russian “yetis” declare war on bears , and who can blame them? Some people think the Russian yetis (also known as Almasti) are actually Neanderthals .

Multiple attempts by at least two different drivers to lure children into white vans in the Pittsburgh area - six in the past three weeks. Police urge everyone to “stay alert”, but refused to comment when asked if they believe, as some do, that falling into a reverie causes the white vans to appear. In Sydney, Australia, a man tried to “entice” a 12 year old girl into his white van . Earlier in the day in another part of town, a white van stalked a 15 year old boy on the way to school. L ike a dreamer awoken from a nightmare t he youth vividly recounted the terror he felt as the white van pursued him, but was “unable to provide a description of any occupants of the vehicle”. Police “don’t believe any of the incidents are linked”, despite the glaringly obvious white van connection. A man in a white van was observed “ fighting with himself ” in Grass Valley, California. A New Zealand woman was “ grabbed on Te Ngae Rd and dragged into the ...

Interviewed last Sunday , retired General Colin Powell admitted illegal aliens are “all over” at his house, “doing things”. He also claimed “immigration is what's keeping this country's lifeblood moving forward”, but did not explain why the country’s lifeblood needs moving, or how it‘s moved. Does he think immigrants tow the country's lifeblood using taco trucks? He didn’t elaborate. The establishment considers Powell one of “ Washington's venerable ‘wise men ,’” which tells you a lot about Washington and the establishment. Harboring illegals isn’t the only criminal activity Powell has been connected to since leaving the military: in 2008 he celebrated Nigerian cyber crime at a festival in London , prior to that he was Secretary of State.

Deep in the Texas woods cryptozoologists searching for Sasquatch found something far worse: a sinister forest donkey , lurking suspiciously. Could the entire Bigfoot phenomenon be a hoax perpetrated by donkeys? The cryptozoological community should strongly consider it. Meanwhile, in Lapland (when was the last time you heard that?), a Thai berry picker vanished after reporting by cell phone “Something weird is following me, it's like a dog or something.” Could the poor berry picker have been followed, then abducted, by a forest donkey? The local Poliisi should strongly consider it.

From Gaza another report of a Mussulman donkey turning suicide bomber . Given my animal bombs expertise and my low opinion of donkeys* it’s a disgrace the government hasn’t sought my advice on this growing threat . Donkeys who aren’t religious fanatics are still nasty creatures. After a Colombian donkey’s attempts to seduce two children failed, he viciously attacked them, sending both to the hospital. An acquaintance of the donkey said: "This donkey is no gentle dove...One may look at him with his ears down and his eyes half-closed and think he would not kill a fly, but when he is horny, dear mother, you have to be very careful." *Oddly, I once urged everyone to buy a donkey .

Knockover poker tournaments .

In a case eerily similar to the murder of Aisia A. Johnson , three gunmen broke into an apartment near Indian School Road and 67th Avenue and began shooting , killing one of the occupants and wounding another. Two of the shooters then fled in a white van. A white van was seen lurking near an athletic equipment shed in Lynchburg, then it was gone. 15 minutes later the athletic equipment shed burst into flames . In Kissimmee motorists observed a white van intentionally hit a motorcycle , causing it to crash. The motorcyclist died at the scene. The homicidal white van remains at large. A white van driven by a man named Jesus led police on a wild chase through Bloomfield Township , “smashing into several cars and construction barrels”. After crashing into an SUV on Big Beaver road, Jesus leapt from the wreckage and began throwing punches at police, who responded with Tasers. Following the zapping, Jesus became unresponsive, was taken to a hospital, and pronounced dead. In Port St. ...

A despicable thief driving a white van remains at large in Espanola : The Espanola Lions Club and Espanola Volunteer Firefighters held a food drive, a door-to-door drive, in town in June…They asked for people to leave out bagged non-perishable items on their doorsteps for pick up around 5:00 pm in the evening. However, someone, as far as we know, driving a white van, went around earlier in the afternoon and picked up items. Perverts driving white vans tried to abduct boys in Sydney and Fall River , and some girls in Fort Dodge . In St. Louis a pair of masked men gunned down Aisia A. Johnson , then sped off in a white van. In West Wolds a white van "pulled up and a male asked the informant if he had any scrap metal. The van has since been seen in the area by other neighbours and seems to go down every street very slowly” "Have any scrap metal?” is, of course, street lingo for “ do you have a goat I could fornicate with ?”

Anger in the accursed town of Whitby over donors being charged to give blood . Imagine the fury if Whitbians knew most of their donated blood goes not to hospitals but to local necromancers for use in occult rituals. There would be riots in Whitby’s doo-doo bestrewn streets . Whitby isn’t the only place where strange, bloody things are going on. In Ghana a man took a ride with some men in black in “a green ford bus (with tainted glass)” and barely escaped with his life : What was supposed to be an incident free ride from Pokuase, near Achimota to Suhum in the Eastern Region, landed a 29-year old man in a mysterious room surrounded by men drawling blood from his legs. “Lying half conscious on a sheepskin and surrounded by lighted candles in a very large hall, my only prayer was on how to make it back home alive. Through my half-opened eyes, I could see three naked girls across the hall with their hands tied behind them, and above me was a very large mirror built into the ceiling fro...

An owl in North Carolina killed a woman then framed her husband for the murder . The man now sits in jail, while the owl is free to flap about in the woods. Think of this the next time you hear some jackass gurgling about how wonderful nature is.