Carolina Politics Online

I had to read this three times to make sure I was really reading what I thought I was reading.

A 65-year-old Rock Hill woman told police burglars broke into her home, cleaned her TV and watched VH1.

The woman left her home around 1:30 p.m. Tuesday and returned home at 4:15 p.m. to find that her Standard Street apartment had been entered by an unknown suspect, according to a Rock Hill police report.

She normally places tape on her door knob, but the tape had been removed. Also, she told police she sets up traps behind her door with bottles and powder, and the boxes had been moved, the report states. There was no forced entry.

She noticed her television was on VH1, a channel she doesn’t watch, and suspects the burglar cleaned her TV because the television had a layer of dust on it before she left, the report states.

The Herald

It’s strange enough that someone broke into her house, not to rob her, but just to watch tv after cleaning it for her.  But then to read on that she normally sets booby traps before she leaves?  What the hell?  Who does that??  Is it a common theme for people to illegally enter her home and clean it against her will?

Then, Timothy Peeler called 911.

Peeler, of Vanada Drive in Casar, is a self-proclaimed “South Mountain man.” He’s surrounded by woods and a ridge worthy of postcards.

It was June 5 when Peeler supposedly spotted a man-beast, upwards of 10 feet tall, that screeched like “a night bird” and grunted in the warm night air.

The creature sported dark hair, Peeler said, with a grey beard stretching to its navel.

Authorities were dispatched that morning around 3 a.m., according to a report from Cleveland County Communications.

The Star

So over the weekend an enjoyable little video made the rounds.

Apparently someone decided his night wouldn’t be complete without a good streaking in downtown Wrightsville Beach. I know that feeling. I’ve often felt that a night at the beach just ain’t finished ’till  I strip down and show my Irish Pride to the world.

Unfortunately for Mr. Streaky, the brief time he spent showing the world his shortcomings will be forever immortalized online- someone with a cell phone camera caught most of it. At least, the part right after the tasing and police gang tackle.

Unfortunately, this must-see tv was ruined by Dep. Barney Fife and his ignorance of the law. Kinda ironic… considering it’s job to enforce the law. Yes, the cameraman was perfectly within his rights to record this incident, and I’m glad Dep. Fife got dressed down by Sheriff Taylor.

The North Carolina Republican Party is not pleased with the outcome of the 8th District primary and are throwing everything including the kitchen sink at Tim D’Annunzio in the hopes of derailing his Congressional bid in the upcoming run off election between he and Republican Harold Johnson.

“Mr. D’Annunzio has disqualified himself by his background, his record and his behavior,” said Tom Fetzer, North Carolina’s Republican Party chairman. He said the GOP embraces the tea party but doesn’t believe a person with such a checkered past should be the party’s nominee.

In Hoke County divorce records, his wife said in 1995 that D’Annunzio had claimed to be the Messiah, had traveled to New Jersey to raise his stepfather from the dead, believed God would drop a 1,000-mile high pyramid as the New Jerusalem on Greenland and found the Ark of the Covenant in Arizona. A doctor’s evaluation the following month said D’Annunzio used marijuana almost daily, had been living with another woman for several months, had once been in drug treatment for heroin dependence and was jailed a couple times as a teenager.

The AP

Oh my….

I’m guessing this was quite a bitter divorce and it’s possible that things were said that nobody really meant.  Or hell, maybe it was just the drugs.  One thing I do know, Fetzer had better hope that his tactic works for the sake of his party, because if D’Annunzio does win the run off, this outing of his alleged past is going to back fire on the GOP in a very ugly way.  Kissell will use all of this ammunition in the general election and will secure himself a second term.  In fact, Kissell has got to be loving every minute of this.  I’m rather enjoying it all myself.  I can say that of all the political chaos that has broken out this past week around the country, Rand Paul, Nikki Haley, etc., this is certainly the most bizarre.

At about 2 p.m., airport police saw McVey get out of a maroon car with Ohio plates and that he had a sidearm, Smith said. Both airport police and the Secret Service questioned him and he was taken into custody. The suspect was nowhere near the president’s plane, which had just departed, and was in a rental car return lot that is open to the public, Smith said.

His car was equipped with clear LED law enforcement-style strobe lights in the front and rear dash, Smith said. The car also had a mounted digital camera in the front window, four large antennas on the trunk lid, and under the steering wheel was a working siren box. Smith said McVey was not in law enforcement.

When McVey got out of the car, he was listening to a handheld scanner and radio that had a remote earpiece, Smith said. Police said he was monitoring local agencies and had formulas for rifle scopes on a note in his cup holder. Police did not immediately elaborate on what the formulas might mean and Smith was not available to comment late Sunday.

McVey gave authorities an Ohio driver’s license, but a computer check failed to show the number was valid, police said. His hometown of Coshocton is about halfway between Pittsburgh and Columbus, Ohio.

When Officer Kaleb Rice asked him what he was doing, McVey told him he heard the president was in town and wanted to see him.

Rice removed the firearm and took McVey into custody. He was being held at the Buncombe County jail on $100,000 bond.

The investigation into what McVey was doing with a gun, with formulas for rifle scopes and why his car was equipped with police gear was continuing, Smith said. The Secret Service had no comment on the arrest, deferring to airport police.

Fox News

Am I the only one who took interest in this guy’s name being McVey?  Yeah, I know, it’s spelled differently, but phonetically it’s the same.  Why is a guy from Ohio driving all the way down to Asheville, North Carolina, where the president is appearing, in a car with police gear, including scanners which evidently did not work well, rifle scope formulas, and a gun all on airport property?  He says to see the president.  Yeah, see him so he can whack him.  What an idiot.  Did this guy really think that at an airport of all places security wasn’t going to be extra stringent and he wouldn’t stand out?

It’s too bad he wasted all that time driving down to Asheville.  That’s quite a long trip and I suspect the trip home will be significantly longer.  Maybe 10 to 20?

Heh, right in my own backyard.  Fortunately, I have never met Mr. Smith nor his six foot snake.

A Charleston woman was charged with shoplifting after she made a hot dog at a Myrtle Beach store, offered to pay for it tomorrow and then threw it away because she said it didn’t taste good, according to a police report.

Shelia Diane Anderson, 60, was charged with shoplifting after police were called to the Circle K at 1101 N. Kings Highway, police said.

The Sun News

Town officials pressured David Bowden on Thursday, saying they will levy fines against the Cary man if he doesn’t remove or tone down a bright protest sign painted in huge, orange letters on the front of his house.

He has seven days.

In a statement, town officials say attempts to negotiate with Bowden have failed to resolve an impasse that started in July, when he had “Screwed By The Town of Cary” painted on his home at 305 SW Maynard Road.

The N&O

I’ve driven past this house. Honestly, I think the sign provides a nice contrast from the suburban monotony along Maynard.

Bowden, who says his house was damaged by runoff caused by town road construction, refuses to budge. The slogan is a free speech issue, he says, a stance that has the backing of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina.

Like the odd comet or the government voluntarily making itself smaller, sometimes incredibly rare things happen that you didn’t ever imagine seeing in your lifetime, and this is one of them. I am actually going to agree with the ACLU. I guess even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Town officials offered to install a trench drain and new drainage pipe to re-route water away from Bowden’s home. Bowden declined the offer and issued his own ultimatum: The sign wouldn’t come down until the town buys his house. Bowden also declined third-party mediation, according to a town statement issued Thursday.

Is this guy being a stubborn jerk? You bet. Can he and should he work with the town to resolve this? Probably. Should the government force him? Nope, no, and Hell No. His house, his paint, his complaint. If he had a blaring bullhorn that would be one thing, but a bad paint job is another.

Sorry neighbors. If this is really getting to you, plant a hedge or something.

What the hell is this, 1974?

“Waxhaw? People running nude in Waxhaw?” Brambier asked.

A naked jogger has been spotted running through downtown in the middle of the night, past a barber shop, computer store and over the famous railroad bridge.

John Tiley got the first e-mails and posted them on his Waxhaw Gazette blog.

WCNC

Rock Hill police were called to a home on Wilhurst Court on Thursday after a mother said two of her children were fighting over the last piece of chicken.

The mother told police her 8-year-old son and her 12-year-old daughter got into an argument over who would eat the last piece of chicken and started threatening each other, according to a Rock Hill police report. Another sibling, 9, stepped in to try to ease the situation. He pushed the 8-year-old to the ground and held him down until police arrived, the report states.

The Herald

Parents like this tempt me to almost want to support forced sterilization.

I told him if he’s that desperate to find a whore, not a horse!

A Conway woman who had video surveillance of a man having sexual intercourse with one of her horses said she found the suspect behind her barn Monday night and pointed a shotgun at his head until police arrived and arrested him.

Rodell Vereen, 50, of Longs, is charged with buggery and trespassing after Barbara Kenley, who owns Lazy B Stables on Coates Road in the Wampee section of Horry County, told officers she had video of the suspect having sex with a horse then wanted to catch him at her barn.

The Sun News

I guess it’s called buggery in Conway.  LOL!

What kind of demented, twisted mind does something like this?  I mean, seriously, who does this just for the hell of it?  A sane and normal functioning human being does not chop up a dog with a chainsaw because he feels like it.

It’s a horrific crime one that’s hard to even hear: a dog killed, its body cut up with a chainsaw.

The little boy from South Carolina who owned him is devastated. His mother says she can’t bear to tell him the truth.

The little boy has a backyard full of things that are fun, but one thing is missing: his dog named Buddy.

WIS10

Wow. I thought I’d seen it all. And my friends, let me tell you, I’ve seen a lot, but I have never seen this.

Back during crossover, Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Greensboro Democrat, got a little bill (H 1353) through the House that would prohibit cities and counties from adopting blanket prohibitions on clotheslines.

The idea, according to Harrison, is to allow people who want to save energy by hanging out their laundry (rather than use their dryers) even if some folks in the community turn up their nose at the idea. Originally, the bill started out as an effort to keep homeowners associations from adopting restrictive covenants prohibiting clotheslines, but Harrison took that out of the bill after getting a lot of resistance.

So the bill came before the Senate Commerce Committee today … and it was doomed.

There was philosophical opposition, yes.

“I also think we ought to let cities and counties to elect local ordinances that govern these types of things, I don’t think the state should have an umbrella ordinance for clotheslines…we just can’t legislate everything,” said Sen. Malcolm Graham.

But you really knew the bill was going down when Senators started openly mocking it.

“Is there any kind of a dress code required when you’re hanging out your clothes,” asked Sen. Tony Rand. The question was a sideswipe at what was being whispered around the committee table: who wants to see their neighbors’ unmentionables? (Or, not to put too fine a point on it, who wants to see a senator’s unmentionables?)

As other members asked questions of staff, a few Senators had a separate dialogue going.

“So what they’re saying is if it’s your own property we can string our panties up,” Sen. Debbie Clary said to Graham, prompting Graham to reply, “String it up baby!”

Clary continued, questioning how people down at the beach might feel about watching other people’s undies flap in the ocean breeze.

“I can just see Clark stringing up his underwear on the line right outside the beach house,” Sen. Debbie Clary said, referring to Sen. Clark Jenkins.

The News-Record

I can’t quote the entire article, so  I encourage you to visit the News-Record Web site and read the rest because it’s quite a hoot.

Look, I understand what Pricey Harrison was trying to do and I support her in principle, although probably not according to her exact principles.  She sees this bill as a combatant to global “warming.”  I see it as an attempt to protect private property rights.  Both can be categorized as noble causes (even though I don’t believe in man made global “warming”).  However, when she allowed an exemption for HOAs she in effect neutered her own bill.

All that aside, this was a sad, sad day in North Carolina legislative history when our lawmakers have to take time out of their day to debate whether or not they, the government, will be the guardians of our laundry.  A sad day indeed.

It looks like blob of wriggling pudding staring out through a single, puckered eye. You can see it caught on camera, clinging to the concrete pipes below Raleigh’s Cameron Village: the Sewer Monster.

It’s really a colony of prehistoric creatures known either as bryozoans or moss animacules, thousands of wormlike animals, biologists report. Clustered together in a glistening mass, they feed through tentacles on whatever floats past. More common in ponds, they have turned up in a set of sanitary sewer pipes under one of the country’s oldest shopping centers.

Shacked up in a six-inch sewer main, the clusters of worms are about the size of a golf ball, estimates Ed Buchan, an environmental coordinator with the city. But the video footage, captured with a tiny, snakelike camera, makes the monster appear at man-eating size to viewers watching at home.

The N&O

South Carolina may be fifth in the nation for fat-assery, but North Carolina has a sewer monster! Nyah Nyahhh!!!

Nude is natural, you know.  Give the guy a break.  Sometimes you just have to let it all hang out.

After a male passenger removed his clothes mid-flight, a US Airways flight from Charlotte to Los Angeles was diverted to Albuquerque, N.M.

Dan Jiron, a spokesman for the Albuquerque airport, says 50-year-old Keith Wright of New York disrobed Tuesday while sitting in his seat in the back of the aircraft.

Jiron says Wright was unresponsive when a flight attendant asked him repeatedly to get dressed and refused to be covered with a blanket.

Jiron says law enforcement employees who were passengers on the plane helped subdue and handcuff Wright before the flight landed.

Charlotte Observer

I’m guessing they had to subdue him while he was in the buff.  That must have been awkward…….

They’ll be bearing it all on July 11th at Ocean Isle Beach to break  a Guiness Book World Record, the most simultaneous skinny dippers in one dip.  I can just envision this event including folks of all ages, shapes, and sizes.  Why am I frightened that this is going to look far too similar to one of those Animal Planet videos with the walruses sunbathing on the rocks?

It must be a slow news day at the Observer

She heard her son and his cousin giggling.

What’s so funny? she asked.

“Mom, look at this!”

Spivock was shocked to discover that in this issue, the Caped Crusader’s female counterpart – Batgirl – had ditched her clothes, her cape, everything but her mask.

The comic book, published last August, contains 10 pages depicting an unusual confrontation between Batgirl and Catwoman. The crafty criminal has stolen an important notebook that Batgirl needs. To get away, Catwoman ducks into a meeting of the Gotham City’s Hedonist Society.

Batgirl follows – donning only her mask (Holy Hedonist, Batman!) to blend in with the naked pleasure-seekers inside.

Charlotte Observer

Oh, the humanity!

Why is this news worthy?  The woman called the library and told them about it.  Case closed.  Why did she have to call the newspaper to report it to them and why did they feel the need to write about it?  Everyone is so dramatic today about the littlest thing.

Big deal, lady.  So your kid saw an illustration of a naked woman with a bowl of fruit over her naughty bits.  You think it’s the first time?

Either the grits were too bland or he’s Mike Tyson’s long lost brother.

Henderson is accused of grabbing the buttocks and nibbling the ear of an 18-year-old employee of Waffle House, 1530 E. Main St., Duncan, on May 14.

The victim told deputies she was wiping down a table when a man the victim later identified as Henderson walked behind her and said, “Oh baby” in her ear. The victim said she turned around and backhanded the man, who left on a blue mo-ped.

The Herald-Journal

Baltimore County police say when officers arrested a South Carolina woman accused of neglecting her 555-pound son’s health she showed signs of wanting to hurt herself and was taken to a hospital.

County police spokesman Bill Toohey says 49-year-old Jerri Gray was found with her son, 14-year-old Alexander Draper, at a laundry in the Baltimore suburb of Woodlawn. Police found the pair after calls on the mother’s cell phone were traced to the community.

The Associated Press

How does a 14 year old child reach 555 pounds?  Better yet, how do you lose a child of 555 pounds?  The mother and the kid went on the lamb to avoid authorities here in South Carolina and they couldn’t be found.  They had to trace her cell phone to find them.  I am thinking that a 555 pound child stands out in a crowd.