As summed up by a Vox.com writer: "The absurdity runs deep." America uses American military equipment to bomb American military equipment that ISIS captured (from inept Iraqi soldiers, inept in part since America disbanded Iraq's professional military in 2003). America's Kurdish allies, fighting ISIS, use inferior Russian weapons they captured in the 1980s. ISIS has a so-far-safer haven in Syria because America declined to arm moderate Syrian rebels, largely out of fear that radicals like the future ISIS would capture weapons America provided. "So now (America is) bombing the guns that (it) didn't mean to give ISIS because (America) didn't give guns to their enemies because then ISIS might get guns."
Thomas Clark, 28, of Crawley, England, beat one of society's most foreboding charges in July when he was acquitted of voyeurism even after admitting that he had hidden that video camera in a workplace rest room, and even despite evidence that he formerly worked in the pornography industry. Clark persuaded a Horsham Magistrates Court judge that he suffered an extreme phobia of diarrhea and vomit and that, by hiding the camera, he was thinking only of ascertaining that the rest room was clean before he entered.
Kayla McKenzie, 22, was charged with DUI in Bismarck, North Dakota, a condition that led her to crash into five separate vehicles or structures on Aug. 12 - while, according to police, three unsecured children were in her car, including a year-old infant riding in her lap. Nonetheless, said the 0.252 blood-alcohol driver, "I look like a bad mother, but I'm not. I'm actually a really good mom."
Rayvon Campos, 22, pleaded guilty in San Antonio in August to first-degree felony assault of his 1-month-old daughter that resulted in brain hemorrhaging. Nonetheless, he reassured the judge, "This is the first time I've ever been in trouble. ... I'm a real good dude."
A fire hydrant at 393 University Ave. has brought in more parking ticket revenue (since 2008) than any other hydrant in Toronto - $289,620 on 2,962 violations, according to an August Toronto Star report. While hydrants are usually located at curbside to facilitate fire-engine access, the one at 393 University Ave. was placed about 20 feet from the curb, in the middle of a sidewalk, and obscured by a tree in a planter about 8 feet long. (Nonetheless, the law's wording treats the hydrant, for illegal-parking and revenue-earning purposes, as if it were curbside.)
A woman hiking in Down Valley Park near Placerville, Colorado, told Denver's KUSA-TV in August of her narrow escape from a mountain lion that had stalked her for a half-hour (crouching menacingly each time she attempted to retreat). At the closest point, recalled Kyra Kopestonsky, it was about 8 feet away. At that point, she told the reporter, "I don't know why," but "I just started singing opera really loud." The mountain lion "sort of put its ears down and ... backed away."
In July, a jury in Brooklyn, New York, awarded Kevin Jarman, 50, $510,000 from the city for the broken ankle he suffered during his arrest for shoplifting in May 2011 (a charge to which he eventually pleaded guilty). Among his other New York City income: a $20,000 settlement for false arrest on a drug charge in 2013.
Gloria Baca-Lucero, 48, was arrested in Albuquerque in July after allegedly holding a Comcast cable installer's tool bag at gunpoint in her home. She said she believed that her service call was free, but the installer told her otherwise, and she apparently decided to detain the tool bag.
Princeton University professor John Mulvey, 67 was charged in July with stealing 21 yard signs around the town of Princeton - signs for a computer repair business owned by a man with whom he was feuding.
