What about joke section

[Paiute3]

NASCAR's Jeff Gordon's

This announcement followed NASCAR driver #24 Jeff Gordon's decision to take advantage of the government's scheme to employ some Harlem youngsters.

The decision to hire them was brought about by a recent documentary on how unemployed youths from Harlem were able to remove a set of wheels in less than six seconds without proper equipment, whereas Gordon's existing crew could only do it in 8 second with millions of dollars worth of high tech equipment.

It was thought to be an excellent and bold move by Jeff Gordon's management team as most races are won or lost in the pits.

However, Gordon got more than he bargained for! At the crew's first practice session, not only was the inexperienced crew able to change all 4 wheels in under 6 seconds, but within 12 seconds they had resprayed, rebadged and sold the car to Dale Earnhardt Jr for ten cases of Bud, a bag of weed, and some photos of Jeff Gordon's wife in the shower.

[Paiute3]

Law and Order

I had to read this a couple times!! You couldn't make anything up more bizarre!!

Do you like to read a good murder mystery? Not even Law and Order would

attempt to capture this mess. This is an unbelievable twist of fate!!!!

At the 1994 annual awards dinner given for Forensic Science, AAFS

President Dr. Don Harper Mills astounded his audience with the legal

complications of a bizarre death. 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 ten-story building intending to commit

suicide...

-----

He left a note to the 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 and that Ronald Opus

would not have been able to complete his suicide the way he had planned.

-----

'Ordinarily, ' Dr Mills continued, 'Someone who sets out to commit suicide

and ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he

intended, is still defined as committing suicide.' That Mr. Opus was

shot on the way to certain death, but probably would not have been

successful because of the safety net, caused the medical examiner to feel that he had a homicide on his hands.

-----

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.

-----

Now comes the exquisite twist... 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 ten-story building on March 23rd, 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.

A true story from Associated Press, (Reported by Kurt Westerville)

[Paiute3]

The Stella Awards

Get a load of these!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can you even believe it???

It's time again for the annual 'Stella Awards'!

For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are named

after 79-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot

coffee on herself and successfully sued the McDonald's

in New Mexico where she purchased the coffee. You

remember, she took the lid off the coffee and put it

between her knees while she was driving. Who would

ever think one could get burned doing that, right?

That's right; these are awards for the most outlandish

lawsuits and verdicts in the U.S. You know, the kinds

of cases that make you scratch your head. So keep your

head scratcher handy.

Here are the Stella's for the past year :

7T H PLACE :

Kathleen Robertson of Austin , Texas was awarded

$80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her

ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a

furniture store. The store owners were understandably

surprised by the verdict, considering the running

toddler was her own son.

6TH PLACE :

Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles , California won

$74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbor ran

over his hand with a Honda Accord. Truman apparently

didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the

car when he was trying to steal his neighbor's

hubcaps.

Go ahead, grab your head scratcher.

5TH PLACE :

Terrence Dickson, of Bristol , Pennsylvania , was

leaving a house he had just burglarized by way of the

garage. Unfortunately for Dickson, the automatic

garage door opener malfunctioned and he could not get

the garage door to open. Worse, he couldn't re-enter

the house because the door connecting the garage to

the house locked when Dickson pulled it shut. Forced

to sit for eight, count 'em, EIGHT , days on a case of

Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, he sued the

homeowner's insurance company claiming undue mental

anguish.

Amazingly, the jury said the insurance company must

pay Dickson $500,000 for his anguish. We should all

have this kind of anguish.

Keep scratching. There are more...

4TH PLACE

Jerry Williams, of Little Rock , Arkansas , garnered

4th Place in the Stella's when he was awarded $14,500

plus medical expenses after being bitten on the butt

by his next door neighbor's beagle - even though the

beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard.

Williams did not get as much as he asked for because

the jury believed the beagle might have been provoked

at the time of the butt bite because Williams had

climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly

shot the dog with a pellet gun.

Grrrrr. Scratch, scratch.

3RD PLACE :

Amber Carson of Lancaster , Pennsylvania because a

jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her

$113,500 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and

broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on

the floor - Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend

30 seconds earlier during an argument. Whatever

happened to people being responsible for their own

actions?

Scratch, scratch, scratch. Hang in there; there are

only two more Stellas to go...

2ND PLACE :

Kara Walton, of Claymont , Delaware sued the owner of

a night club in a nearby city because she fell from

the bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two

front teeth. Even though Ms. Walton was trying to

sneak through the ladies room window to avoid paying

the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the night club

had to pay her $12,000 - oh, yeah, plus dental

expenses. Go figure.

1ST PLACE : (May I have a fanfare played on 50 kazoos

please?)

This year's runaway First Place Stella Award winner

was Mrs. Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City , Oklahoma ,

who purchased a new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On

her first trip home, from an OU football game, having

driven on to the freeway, she set the cruise control

at 70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go to

the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich.

Not surprisingly, the motor home left the freeway,

crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs.

Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the

owner's manual that she couldn't actually leave the

driver's seat while the cruise control was set. The

Oklahoma jury awarded her, are you sitting down,

$1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually

changed their manuals as a result of this suit, just

in case Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also

buy a motor home.

Are we, as a society, getting more stupid?

Ya think??!?