MalahatTwo7
12-29-2004, 01:21 PM
FROM THE NEWS:
Tara Brautigam Canadian Press Tuesday, December 28, 2004
(CP) - Life can be strange. Booze only makes it stranger.
Take the case of the 52-year-old Calgary man who became trapped inside a shopping cart. Firefighters and paramedics had to cut the cart apart to free the intoxicated man. Sometimes, just the whiff of alcohol can indicate something is amiss. {Job Security anyone?)
In Canning's Cove, Nfld., police pulled over a driver for a broken headlight. But that may not have been the only burnout they had on their hands.
Officers noticed the smell of liquor, but the driver insisted he hadn't been drinking due to medications he was taking. As proof, he handed them two pill cases from his jacket pocket.
One of the cases contained four grams of marijuana. The 51-year-old man was charged with drug possession - and the traffic offence.
Those were just two of the weird real-life episodes that made 2004 - the Chinese year of the monkey - resemble at times a Monty Python sketch.
In Timmins, Ont., a 55-year-old man with a taste for steak was given seven months in jail for stuffing T-bones and pork loin roasts down his pants.
"You might have pity on him and say he's trying to acquire the necessities of life," Crown attorney Dave Thomas told the court last month.
"But he's not stealing wieners." :eek:
Another man tried to argue that he pulled up to a drive-through window in Kitchener, Ont., without his pants because he spilled his coffee.
"I ask you to take judicial notice that Tim Hortons coffees are extremely hot," Wayne Jantzi's lawyer, Mark Nowak, told the judge.
That argument didn't help Jantzi, who was sentenced to a 45-day jail term.
Then there was the landmark case in Alberta, in which a judge awarded monthly dog support payments to a woman caring for Crunchy, her former common-law husband's four-year-old St. Bernard.
"I consider myself a pretty fair person," said Ken Duncan of Warburg, Alta., the losing party in the case.
"But there's no way that dog is eating $200 a month."
Barbara Dawn Boschee, his ex-wife, said the payment was fair because Crunchy has "lots of accidents."
"The carpet needs shampooing constantly," she said.
Rest assured, such legal absurdity wasn't confined to the provincial courts.
Last month the Supreme Court of Canada reserved judgment in the case of a Nanaimo, B.C., man caught masturbating in his living room. Daryl Clark's 15-minute solo gig earned him a four-month sentence for performing an indecent act in a public place after neighbours armed with binoculars, a telescope and a video camera witnessed his prime-time performance.
"In the words of the witnesses, he was 'amazingly visible,"' said Joyce Dewitt-Van Oosten, a lawyer for the B.C. attorney general's office.
"It was like a person on stage. He transformed that living room into a public venue."
The Supreme Court is now grappling with the issue after four years of appeals. It usually takes weeks or months to issue judgments in such matters.
And speedy squirrels were driving Edmonton golfers nuts this past summer by snatching balls and carrying them up trees, storing them in magpie nests.
One tree was stuffed with 250 balls. It's believed the squirrels were trying to scare the birds away. And like the meat thief in Timmins, it seems the meddling rodents had expensive tastes.
"People claim that the squirrels take only the good balls," said apprentice golf pro Dillon Wilder.
In the usually stoic world of Canadian politics, former New Democrat leader Ed Broadbent offered one of the most amusing moments this year. At 68, he came out of retirement and released a rap video in hopes of generating voter interest among youths.
"I'll warm the ice like a warm chinook, with social justice and a mean left hook," he huffed.
His rhyming skills were questionable, but Broadbent still managed to win in his riding of Ottawa Centre.
And let's not forget Fred Whan of Kingston, Ont., who has kept a year-old burnt fish stick in his freezer because he says it looks like Jesus.
Whan said he may auction off the sacrilegious snack on the online auction site EBay if he can find a buyer, inspired by a Florida woman who recently sold a decade-old, half-eaten grilled cheese with the purported image of the Virgin Mary for $28,000 US.
Still, Whan insists it's not about the money.
© The Canadian Press 2004
Tara Brautigam Canadian Press Tuesday, December 28, 2004
(CP) - Life can be strange. Booze only makes it stranger.
Take the case of the 52-year-old Calgary man who became trapped inside a shopping cart. Firefighters and paramedics had to cut the cart apart to free the intoxicated man. Sometimes, just the whiff of alcohol can indicate something is amiss. {Job Security anyone?)
In Canning's Cove, Nfld., police pulled over a driver for a broken headlight. But that may not have been the only burnout they had on their hands.
Officers noticed the smell of liquor, but the driver insisted he hadn't been drinking due to medications he was taking. As proof, he handed them two pill cases from his jacket pocket.
One of the cases contained four grams of marijuana. The 51-year-old man was charged with drug possession - and the traffic offence.
Those were just two of the weird real-life episodes that made 2004 - the Chinese year of the monkey - resemble at times a Monty Python sketch.
In Timmins, Ont., a 55-year-old man with a taste for steak was given seven months in jail for stuffing T-bones and pork loin roasts down his pants.
"You might have pity on him and say he's trying to acquire the necessities of life," Crown attorney Dave Thomas told the court last month.
"But he's not stealing wieners." :eek:
Another man tried to argue that he pulled up to a drive-through window in Kitchener, Ont., without his pants because he spilled his coffee.
"I ask you to take judicial notice that Tim Hortons coffees are extremely hot," Wayne Jantzi's lawyer, Mark Nowak, told the judge.
That argument didn't help Jantzi, who was sentenced to a 45-day jail term.
Then there was the landmark case in Alberta, in which a judge awarded monthly dog support payments to a woman caring for Crunchy, her former common-law husband's four-year-old St. Bernard.
"I consider myself a pretty fair person," said Ken Duncan of Warburg, Alta., the losing party in the case.
"But there's no way that dog is eating $200 a month."
Barbara Dawn Boschee, his ex-wife, said the payment was fair because Crunchy has "lots of accidents."
"The carpet needs shampooing constantly," she said.
Rest assured, such legal absurdity wasn't confined to the provincial courts.
Last month the Supreme Court of Canada reserved judgment in the case of a Nanaimo, B.C., man caught masturbating in his living room. Daryl Clark's 15-minute solo gig earned him a four-month sentence for performing an indecent act in a public place after neighbours armed with binoculars, a telescope and a video camera witnessed his prime-time performance.
"In the words of the witnesses, he was 'amazingly visible,"' said Joyce Dewitt-Van Oosten, a lawyer for the B.C. attorney general's office.
"It was like a person on stage. He transformed that living room into a public venue."
The Supreme Court is now grappling with the issue after four years of appeals. It usually takes weeks or months to issue judgments in such matters.
And speedy squirrels were driving Edmonton golfers nuts this past summer by snatching balls and carrying them up trees, storing them in magpie nests.
One tree was stuffed with 250 balls. It's believed the squirrels were trying to scare the birds away. And like the meat thief in Timmins, it seems the meddling rodents had expensive tastes.
"People claim that the squirrels take only the good balls," said apprentice golf pro Dillon Wilder.
In the usually stoic world of Canadian politics, former New Democrat leader Ed Broadbent offered one of the most amusing moments this year. At 68, he came out of retirement and released a rap video in hopes of generating voter interest among youths.
"I'll warm the ice like a warm chinook, with social justice and a mean left hook," he huffed.
His rhyming skills were questionable, but Broadbent still managed to win in his riding of Ottawa Centre.
And let's not forget Fred Whan of Kingston, Ont., who has kept a year-old burnt fish stick in his freezer because he says it looks like Jesus.
Whan said he may auction off the sacrilegious snack on the online auction site EBay if he can find a buyer, inspired by a Florida woman who recently sold a decade-old, half-eaten grilled cheese with the purported image of the Virgin Mary for $28,000 US.
Still, Whan insists it's not about the money.
© The Canadian Press 2004