Peanut butter atrocity
THE American presidential election is turning really nasty. A woman in Amherst Junction, Wisconsin, spread peanut butter on the cars of 30 Trump supporters after she had been ejected from their meeting, where she had stormed in yelling about how much she hates Trump.
Unfortunately, according to the Huffington Post, she had found the wrong meeting. It was actually a gathering of conservationists.
The police were called and they noted slurred speech and "a strong smell. of intoxicants" as the woman continued yelling about how she hates Trump and loves Hillary Clinton; also that peanut butter is better than the fire-bombing Trump wants.
She was charged with disorderly conduct. As an officer remarked afterwards, at least the peanut butter was smooth and would not damage the cars' paintwork the way whole-nut peanut butter would.
Only a couple of weeks to go now.
Happy families
AN EXTRAORDINARY account comes this way of a murder in the US with strange legal complications, described at an awards dinner of the American Association for Forensic Science by association president Dr Don Harper Mills. It happened back in 1994.
Here is the story:
On March 23, 1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head.
Mr Opus had jumped from the top of a 10-storey building intending to commit suicide.
He left a note to that effect, indicating his despondency.
As he fell past the ninth floor, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast passing through a window, which killed him instantly.
Neither the shooter nor the deceased was aware that a safety net had been installed just below the eighth floor level to protect some building workers.
Ronald Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide the way he had planned.
The room on the ninth floor, where the shotgun blast emanated, was occupied by an elderly man and his wife.They were arguing vigorously and he was threatening her with a shotgun.
The man was so upset that when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the window, striking Mr Opus.
When one intends to kill subject "A" but kills subject "B" in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject "B".
When confronted with the murder charge, the old man and his wife were both adamant and both said that they thought the shotgun was not loaded. The old man said it was a long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her.
Therefore the killing of Mr Opus appeared to be an accident; that is, assuming the gun had been accidentally loaded.
The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's son loading the shotgun about six weeks prior to the fatal accident.
It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother.
Since the loader of the gun was aware of this, he was guilty of the murder even though he didn't actually pull the trigger.
The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son, for the death of Ronald Opus.
But now the plot thickens.
Further investigation revealed that the son was, in fact, Ronald Opus. He had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to > engineer his mother's murder.This led him to jump off the 10-storey building on March 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast passing through the ninth story window.
The son, Ronald Opus, had actually murdered himself. So the medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.
Are they having us on? It's a fair yarn anyway.
Tailpiece
SCOTSMEN Jimmy and Wullie have a meal in a swish restaurant. The call the waiter for the bill.
Wullie: "Don't worry aboot the tab, Jimmy, I'm payin' for everythin'."
Next day Jimmy's body is found in an alley. A newspaper headline reads: "Horrible murder of Scottish ventriloquist."
Last word
Being a woman is a terribly difficult task since it consists principally in dealing with men.
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