16 year old marries 40 year old coach!

Wow, isn’t this illegal?        

The Hagers are trying to figure out how life went off track for their teenage daughter, Windy.   

They envisioned that life for the good student and promising athlete would be filled with dreams of the prom and college, but that all changed this week when Windy, 16, married her high school track coach.

“She was a dream kid,” said her mother, Betty Hager. “We’d never have to worry about Windy trying to get by with something.”

At South Brunswick High School in North Carolina, Windy’s greatest passion was track and field.“She just always was outside, always running, and her name’s Windy — I guess she was predestined to do love to do that,” Betty said.

But that passion led her down a troubling path.

Special Attention From Coach

During Windy’s freshman year, her 38-year-old track coach, Brenton Wuchae, began taking a more active interest in her, offering to give the 14-year-old rides home from practice.

“He just seemed like a genuine guy, like he was there for the kids,” said Windy’s father, Dennis Hager.

But the Hagers eventually grew uneasy. Their phone bills showed text messages between Wuchae and Windy as late as 2 a.m.

They also discovered worrying e-mails. In one, Windy wrote to a friend, “I don’t care to look at anyone other than him. He is the apple of my eye, I’ve never felt this way for someone, but I just don’t want to lose him because of my parents’ power trips.”

The Hagers confronted Wuchae.

“He assured me there was nothing like that going on, [and that] they were just friends. His intentions were purely appropriate,” Dennis said.

Not satisfied with that answer, the Hagers turned to the school district, which spoke to the coach.

The principal of the high school wrote to the Hagers, “I have seen nothing but a cooperative attitude from the teacher, and to the best of my knowledge, he has not had any contact with Windy since then.”

“School officials can’t be responsible for what happens the other hours of the day, and I would think the relationship developed much more outside of school,” said Brian Shaw, an attorney for the school district.

The Hagers contacted police; they even tried to get a restraining order.

“We’ve tried everybody. We’ve been to the law. We’ve been to the school board,” Betty said. “Our family has come and tried to talk to her. We’ve had people on the phone with her for hours,€” family, friends. We’ve been to our pastor asking for guidance. We’ve been to his pastor.” 

Meanwhile, the Hagers say Windy withdrew, refusing to speak to them until she asked them to sign a consent form so that she and her coach, a man more than twice her age,€” could get married.

Although anguished, her weary parents gave in.

“Signing those consent forms was the hardest thing I did in my whole life, but we had to move on, it was going to kill us all,” Dennis said.

Monday, Windy and Wuchae married, and he resigned from the school.

But was Windy really old enough to understand her decision? Experts say it’s a difficult situation.

“With most teenagers, they’re not sure yet who’s who and what’s what and what should be done,” said Henry Paul, author of the book “Is My Teenager OK?” “It’s obviously up to the adult figure to set the boundaries.”

Windy and her new husband would not comment for this story, but the Hagers realize what they’ve lost.

“She could have done anything,” Betty said. “She could have set the world on fire. She threw it all away.” 

     Ok, well maybe this thing is illegal in California, but I’m not terribly surprised to hear this story arising from  North Carolina!  

There is only one way to resolve this issue between parents and newlyweds… either a reality tv show or an appearance on Jerry Springer!

 Mark

Free online classifieds 

Wifi zombies?

Attack of the killer wifi peripherals!

Danger on the airwaves: Is the Wi-Fi revolution a health time bomb?

It’s on every high street and in every coffee shop and school. But experts have serious concerns about the effects of electronic smog from wireless networks linking our laptops and mobiles, reports Geoffrey Lean

Published: 22 April 2007

 

 

Being “wired-up” used to be shorthand for being at the cutting edge, connected to all that is cool. No longer. Wireless is now the only thing to be.

Go into a Starbucks, a hotel bar or an airport departure lounge and you are bound to see people tapping away at their laptops, invisibly connected to the internet. Visit friends, and you are likely to be shown their newly installed system.

Lecture at a university and you’ll find the students in your audience tapping away, checking your assertions on the world wide web almost as soon as you make them. And now the technology is spreading like a Wi-Fi wildfire throughout Britain’s primary and secondary schools.

The technological explosion is even bigger than the mobile phone explosion that preceded it. And, as with mobiles, it is being followed by fears about its effect on health – particularly the health of children. Recent research, which suggests that the worst fears about mobiles are proving to be justified, only heightens concern about the electronic soup in which we are increasingly spending our lives.

Now, as we report today, Sir William Stewart (pictured below right), the man who has issued the most authoritative British warnings about the hazards of mobiles, is becoming worried about the spread of Wi-Fi. The chairman of the Health Protection Agency – and a former chief scientific adviser to the Government – is privately pressing for an official investigation of the risks it may pose.

Health concerns show no sign of slowing the wireless expansion. One in five of all adult Britons now own a wireless-enabled laptop. There are 35,000 public hotspots where they can use them, usually at a price.

In the past 18 months 1.6 million Wi-Fi terminals have been sold in Britain for use in homes, offices and a host of other buildings. By some estimates, half of all primary schools and four fifths of all secondary schools have installed them.

Whole cities are going wireless. First up is the genteel, almost bucolic, burgh of Norwich, which has installed a network covering almost the whole of its centre, spanning a 4km radius from City Hall. It takes in key sites further away, including the University of East Anglia and a local hospital, and will be expanded to take in rural parts of the south of the county.

More than 200 small aerials were attached to lamp posts to create the network, which anyone can use free for an hour. There is nothing to stop the 1,000 people who use it each day logging off when their time is up, and logging on again for another costless session.

“We wanted to see if something like this could be done,” says Anne Carey, the network’s project manager. “People are using it and finding it helpful. It is, I think, currently the largest network of its kind.”

Not for much longer. Brighton plans to launch a city-wide network next year, and Manchester is planning one covering over 400 square miles, providing free access to 2.2 million people.

So far only a few, faint warnings have been raised, mainly by people who are so sensitised to the electromagnetic radiation emitted by mobiles, their masts and Wi-Fi that they become ill in its presence. The World Health Organisation estimates that up to three out of every hundred people are “electrosensitive” to some extent. But scientists and doctors – and some European governments – are adding their voices to the alarm as it becomes clear that the almost universal use of mobile phones may be storing up medical catastrophe for the future.

A recent authoritative Finnish study has found that people who have used mobiles for more than ten years are 40 per cent more likely to get a brain tumour on the same side of the head as they hold their handset; Swedish research suggests that the risk is almost four times as great. And further research from Sweden claims that the radiation kills off brain cells, which could lead to today’s younger generation going senile in their forties and fifties.

Professor Lawrie Challis, who heads the Government’s official mobile safety research, this year said that the mobile could turn out to be “the cigarette of the 21st century”.

There has been less concern about masts, as they emit very much less radiation than mobile phones. But people living – or attending schools – near them are consistently exposed and studies reveal a worrying incidence of symptoms such as headaches, fatigue, nausea, dizziness and memory problems. There is also some suggestion that there may be an increase in cancers and heart disease.

Wi-Fi systems essentially take small versions of these masts into the home and classroom – they emit much the same kind of radiation. Though virtually no research has been carried out, campaigners and some scientists expect them to have similar ill-effects. They say that we are all now living in a soup of electromagnetic radiation one billion times stronger than the natural fields in which living cells have developed over the last 3.8 billion years. This, they add, is bound to cause trouble

Prof Leif Salford, of Lund University – who showed that the radiation kills off brain cells – is also deeply worried about wi-fi’s addition to “electronic smog”.

There is particular concern about children partly because they are more vulnerable – as their skulls are thinner and their nervous systems are still developing – and because they will be exposed to more of the radiation during their lives.

The Austrian Medical Association is lobbying against the deployment of Wi-Fi in schools. The authorities of the province of Salzburg has already advised schools not to install it, and is now considering a ban. Dr Gerd Oberfeld, Salzburg’s head of environmental health and medicine, says that the Wi-Fi is “dangerous” to sensitive people and that “the number of people and the danger are both growing”.

In Britain, Stowe School removed Wi-Fi from part of its premises after a classics master, Michael Bevington – who had taught there for 28 years – developed headaches and nausea as soon as it was installed.

Ian Gibson, the MP for the newly wireless city Norwich is calling for an official inquiry into the risks of Wi-Fi. The Professional Association of Teachers is to write to Education Secretary Alan Johnson this week to call for one.

Philip Parkin, the general secretary of the union, says; “I am concerned that so many wireless networks are being installed in schools and colleges without any understanding of the possible long-term consequences.

“The proliferation of wireless networks could be having serious implications for the health of some staff and pupils without the cause being recognised.”

But, he added, there are huge commercial pressures” which may be why there has not yet been “any significant action”.

Guidelines that were ignored

The first Stewart Report, published in May 2000, produced a series of sensible recommendations. They included: discouraging children from using mobiles, and stopping the industry from promoting them to the young; publicising the radiation levels of different handsets so that customers could choose the lowest; making the erection of phone masts subject to democratic control through the planning system; and stopping the building of masts where the radiation “beam of greatest intensity” fell on schools, unless the school and parents agreed.

The Government accepted most of these recommendations, but then, as ‘The Independent on Sunday’ has repeatedly pointed out, failed to implement them. Probably, it has lost any chance to curb the use of mobiles by children and teenagers. Since the first report, mobile use by the young has doubled.

Has anybody ever read Stephen King’s “Cell”?  About the zombies (of sorts) that are created by a pulse sent via cell phones.  Well if you haven’t, go read it.  Then be afraid of the coming zombie apocalypse.  Be very afraid!

Mark

Free online classified ads

Orwell to turn in grave

I found this story from the Foreign Policy blog, and it links to this BBC article:

 

‘Talking’ CCTV scolds offenders

CCTV in action

“Talking” CCTV cameras that tell off people dropping litter or committing anti-social behaviour are to be extended to 20 areas across England. They are already used in Middlesbrough where people seen misbehaving can be told to stop via a loudspeaker, controlled by control centre staff.

About £500,000 will be spent adding speaker facilities to existing cameras.

Shadow home affairs minister James Brokenshire said the government should be “very careful” over the cameras.

An example of how talking cameras work

Home Secretary John Reid told BBC News there would be some people, “in the minority who will be more concerned about what they claim are civil liberties intrusions”.

“But the vast majority of people find that their life is more upset by people who make their life a misery in the inner cities because they can’t go out and feel safe and secure in a healthy, clean environment because of a minority of people,” he added.

What really upsets people is their night out being destroyed or their environment being destroyed by a fairly small minority of people John Reid

The talking cameras did not constitute “secret surveillance”, he said.

“It’s very public, it’s interactive.”

Competitions would also be held at schools in many of the areas for children to become the voice of the cameras, Mr Reid said.

Downing Street’s “respect tsar”, Louise Casey, said the cameras “nipped problems in the bud” and reduced bureaucracy.

“It gets across the message, ‘please don’t litter our streets because someone else will have to pay to pick up that litter again’,” she told BBC News.

“Half a billion pounds a year is spent picking up litter.”

‘Scarecrow policing’

Mr Brokenshire told the BBC he had a number of concerns about the use of the talking cameras.

“Whether this is moving down a track of almost ‘scarecrow’ policing rather than real policing – actually insuring that we have more bobbies on the beat – I think that’s what we really want to see, albeit that an initiative like this may be an effective tool in certain circumstances.

“We need to be very careful about applying this more generally.”

The talking cameras will be installed in Southwark, Barking and Dagenham, in London, Reading, Harlow, Norwich, Ipswich, Plymouth, Gloucester, Derby, Northampton, Mansfield, Nottingham, Coventry, Sandwell, Wirral, Blackpool, Salford, South Tyneside and Darlington.

HAVE YOUR SAY A very silly idea from a government that is bereft of wisdom and out of touch Stuart, Dunstable Send us your comments

In Middlesbrough, staff in a control centre monitor pictures from 12 talking cameras and can communicate directly with people on the street.

Local councillor Barry Coppinger says the scheme has prevented fights and criminal damage and cut litter levels.

“Generally, I think it has raised awareness that the town centre is a safe place to visit and also that we are keeping an eye open to make sure it is safe,” he said.

But opponent and campaigner Steve Hills said: “Apart from being absurd, I think it’s rather sad that we should have faceless cameras barking at us on orders from who? Who sets these cameras up?”

There are an estimated 4.2 million CCTV cameras in Britain.

A recent study by the government’s privacy watchdog, the Information Commissioner, warned that Britain was becoming a “surveillance society”.

Now as Orwellian and foreboding as this is, I still think it would be fun to be the guy on the microphone watching the camera. “Hey, jackass with the stupid looking yellow hat, yeah you. Stop leaving your shit on the floor, clean it up!”

All kinds of potential for fun and abuse. =P

Mark

Free online classifieds

Keith Richards snorted his father’s ashes!

From the wonderful, colorful bizarro world of Keith Richards.

LONDON – Keith Richards has acknowledged consuming a raft of illegal substances in his time, but this may top them all.

In comments published Tuesday, the 63-year-old Rolling Stones guitarist said he had snorted his father’s ashes mixed with cocaine.

“The strangest thing I’ve tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father,” Richards was quoted as saying by British music magazine NME.

 

“He was cremated, and I couldn’t resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn’t have cared,” he said, adding that “it went down pretty well, and I’m still alive.”

Richards’ father, Bert, died in 2002, at 84.

Richards, one of rock’s legendary wild men, told the magazine that his survival was the result of luck, and advised young musicians against trying to emulate him.

“I did it because that was the way I did it. Now people think it’s a way of life,” he was quoted as saying.

“I’ve no pretensions about immortality,” he added. “I’m the same as everyone … just kind of lucky.

“I was No. 1 on the ‘who’s likely to die’ list for 10 years. I mean, I was really disappointed when I fell off the list,” Richards said.

The rocker, who underwent an operation in New Zealand last year after reportedly falling out of a tree in Fiji, also took a swipe at some of the big musical acts of today.

“Everyone’s a load of crap,” he said. “They are trying to be somebody else, and they ain’t being themselves. Libertines, Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party? Load of crap, load of crap. Posers, rubbish.”

Of course on the Rolling Stones website he made this statement:

“The complete story is lost in the usual slanting! The truth of the matter is that I planted a sturdy English Oak . I took the lid off the box of ashes and he is now growing oak trees and would love me for it!!! I was trying to say how tight Bert and I were. That tight!!! I wouldn’t take cocaine at this point in my life unless I wished to commit suicide.”

Of course it’s hard to tell how much Keith Richards may even remember of the discussion or the last several years of his life in general. The guy is nuts. I bet when they cremate him, everybody in attendance will get high from the smoke!

Mark

free online classifieds

Egyptians go to France to recover stolen mummy hairs!

I guess they really like their ancient hairs:

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt sent an archaeological team to France on Thursday to retrieve 3,200-year-old strands of hair from the mummy of Pharaoh Ramses II, who presided over an era of great military expansion in Egypt, state media said.

The existence of the hair came to light last year when some of the strands were offered for sale on the Internet for between 2,000 and 2,500 euros ($2,668 and $3,336), in addition to tiny pieces of resin and embalmed cloth taken from the mummy.

The seller had said he obtained the relics from his deceased father, who had worked in a French laboratory entrusted with analysing and restoring the body of Ramses in the 1970s. He had offered to provide certificates of authenticity to buyers.

 

French archaeologists had reacted with horror to news that the hairs were on sale and French authorities arrested the suspected seller in November.

Egyptian antiquities chief Zahi Hawass praised the efforts of French authorities to stop the sale of the hair, and said that the “theft of the mummy’s hair was not appropriate behavior”, state news agency MENA said.

Ramses II, also known as Ramses the Great, was born around 1304 BC and ruled Egypt for more than 60 years during the 19th dynasty of pharaohs. He is a popular feature on Egyptian postcards and is traditionally believed to be the pharaoh mentioned in the biblical story of Moses.

Ramses’s mummy was discovered in 1881 and shortly afterwards moved to Cairo’s Egyptian Museum. In the early 1970s authorities noticed his body was deteriorating and sent it to Paris, where it was treated for a fungal infection.

 

Don’t they know about the ancient Egyptian mummy hair curse? If you take a mummy’s hair you will wind up growing very hairy palms, which would make life (and other things) a lot harder.

 

I can already hear what my girlfriend would say. “If he still has hair after thousands of years, I have to know what kind of shampoo and conditioner he used!” =P

 

Mark

 

Free online classifieds

Woman marries corpse!

I suppose that’s a pretty touching devotion.

AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) – An Indian woman, despairing over her lover’s accidental death when he fell down a well soon after their engagement, insisted on ceremonially marrying his corpse just minutes before the cremation.

“It was for just few minutes the girl was dressed as a bride and then as a widow,” K.M. Kapadia, a police officer in the town of Anand in western Gujarat state, said on Saturday.

Wedding attendees sat the corpse up by a fire, the traditional center of Hindu wedding ceremonies, and chanted some marriage prayers before cremating the body, police said.

“The girl refused to give away the body of her lover for the cremation till she tied the knot with him,” Kapadia said.

The bride’s parents opposed the marriage but later attended the wedding ceremony and gave their 22-year-old daughter Tulsi Devipujak clothes and utensils as gifts, according to the Hindu tradition.

I suggest we refer to her from now on as the Corpse Bride! =P

I wonder if she did this just to get free utensils and clothes or if she was really that devoted. Maybe both.

Mark

Free classifieds

Clowns are creepy, but this is too much.

Colombia clowns killed on stage

Two circus clowns have been shot dead during a performance in the eastern Colombian city of Cucuta, police say.

The attacker jumped into the arena and fired before fleeing, police chief Jose Humberto Henao told Efe news agency.

Local reports say the audience of about 20 people, mostly children, thought the shooting was part of the show before realising both men had been killed.

Last year, a prominent circus clown, known as Pepe, was also shot dead by a unknown assailant in Cucuta.

The motive for the latest killing remains unclear, police said. Local media reports suggest two attackers may have been involved.

One clown was shot in the head as he performed on stage, about an hour into the Circo del Sol’s evening show.

The second, named as 18-year-old Franklin Leal, from Cucuta, was then shot as he stood by the ticket booth, according to the newspaper La Opinion.

The travelling circus had set up in a suburb of Cucuta, capital of Norte de Santander province near the Venezuelan border, about 10 days earlier, the paper says.

As wretched as this all is, the only thing I can say is: “Homey don’t play that.”
Mark

Free online classifieds

Russian soldiers as male prostitutes?

Evidently Russian soldiers are being forced into male prostitution…

The Russian military is reported to be investigating claims that army conscripts were forced to work as male prostitutes in St Petersburg.

The command of the interior ministry unit denied the claims made by the Soldiers’ Mothers human rights group.

The group says it was contacted by a parent of a conscript who had been forced to work as a male prostitute.

Last year, an 18-year-old soldier was so badly beaten that he had to have his legs and genitals amputated.

The BBC’s James Rodgers in Moscow says the latest claims follow a series of scandals which have damaged the Russian army’s reputation.

A spokeswoman for the Soldiers’ Mothers, Ella Polyakova, told the BBC that in St Petersburg there was “a network of clients” who would pay for sex with soldiers.

Older servicemen are said to have forced younger conscripts into prostitution and then taken the money for themselves.

Brutality

The Sychev bullying case drew worldwide attention to Russian army abuses.

Private Andrei Sychev was forced to squat for several hours by fellow soldiers and then tied to a chair and brutally beaten up last year.

As a result he developed gangrene in his legs and genitals, which had to be amputated.

Now permanently disabled, Pte Sychev has just announced that he is to write a book about his ordeal.

Such cases have highlighted the appalling conditions suffered by some Russian service personnel at a time when Russia is seeking a greater role on the world stage, our correspondent says.

Wow, no amount of vodka will tend to that kind of wounded pride. Having your legs cut off is a terrible fate, having the family jewels removed is possibly worse, suffering both is just incredibly awful.

It probably wouldn’t be so bad if women were paying to have sex with them, but more likely it would be other men who’d come sodomize them… That blows.

Mark

Free online classifieds

Sex Offender convinced child molesters he was 12

This has to be one of the best news stories ever!

Preteen’ boy toy dupes Az men, is found to be 29

‘This is the weirdest case I’ve seen in 18 years’

BOB CHRISTIE
The Associated Press

PHOENIX – A 29-year-old convicted sex offender from Oklahoma allegedly conned two Arizona men into believing he was a 12-year-old boy, moving into their home and having an ongoing sexual relationship with them, sheriff’s officials in Yavapai County said Friday.

The ruse was discovered Wednesday after one of the men tried to enroll the fake 12 year old in a charter school in Chino Valley, about 90 miles northwest of Phoenix, using the name Casey Price.

School officials became suspicious and called deputies, telling them they thought the guardianship papers and birth certificate presented by a man who said he was the “12 year old’s” grandfather appeared to be fake and that “Price” looked much older than 12, said Susan Quayle, a spokeswoman for the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office.

“They were very upset when the detectives told them they had been having a sexual relationship with a 29-year-old man and not a pre-teen boy,” Quayle said, referring to the two men.

Sheriff’s detectives investigating the case learned that the “grandfather” was Lonnie Stiffler, 61, who lived in a home in Chino Valley with Robert James Snow, 43, a sex offender who had failed to register with authorities, and the “12-year-old.”

Deputies served a search warrant at the home Thursday and found Stiffler, Snow, Brian J. Nellis, 34, and the phony pre-teen boy, who turned out to be Neil Havens Rodreick II, 29.

Oklahoma Department of Corrections online records show that Rodreick was convicted in 1996 of lewd and indecent proposal to a minor and served time in prison from Nov. 19, 1996, to Jan. 30, 2002. The records show that Nellis was convicted in 1997 of lewd molestation and was imprisoned from July 24, 1997, to July 28, 2000.

During interviews with the men, detectives learned that Stiffler and Snow met Rodreick through an Internet chat about two years ago, Quayle said, and they began to trade sexually explicit photos. He convinced them he was “Casey Price” and was only 12.

Stiffler and Show went to Oklahoma and met Rodreick at a hotel, then brought him back to live with them in Arizona and began an ongoing sexual relationship, Quayle said.

Rodreick apparently shaved his body hair and used makeup to keep up his guise as a pre-teen boy, Quayle said. He also dressed as a juvenile and tried to act and talk like a pre-teen.

“He looks young, I would not have guessed that he’s almost 30,” Quayle said, though she noted he certainly looked much older than 12.

When detectives unraveled the case and told Stiffler and Snow that “Price” was named Rodreick and was in fact 29, Quayle said they became dismayed and angry that they had been “conned.”

Nellis was apparently Rodreick’s cell mate in an Oklahoma prison and is also a registered sex offender, Quayle said.

Detectives have evidence that Stiffler and Snow enrolled Rodreick in other Arizona schools, possibly in Payson, El Mirage and Prescott Valley. They have notified law enforcement agencies in those jurisdictions to begin investigating, Quayle said.

“I think what we’re looking at is that he’s being used to troll for other kids,” she said.

All four men made an initial appearance in Yavapai County Justice Court Thursday, with all but Stiffler being held on $50,000 bond on a charge of failing to register as sex offenders. Stiffler was booked on two counts of forgery and one count of hindering prosecution and ordered held on $100,000 cash bond.

All four men were assigned public defenders, but Yavapai County Public Defender Janet Lincoln said her office had not seen any reports by Friday afternoon or met with the men and would have no comment. The county attorney’s office issued a statement saying that decisions on additional charges would be made by Monday afternoon. Quayle said deputies are looking into other possible charges, but are not asking for child molestation charges involving Rodreick.

“We can’t charge them with child molest because he was not a child,” Quayle said.

Quayle praised officials at the Mingus Springs Charter School where Rodreick tried to enroll Wednesday.

“This school, they really deserve congratulations,” she said. “They jumped on it, they were not fooled and they called us right way.

“This is the weirdest case I’ve seen in 18 years,” Quayle said. “Even the detectives said it was the weirdest. If it wasn’t so sad it would be funny.”

I think the best part (by far) is that they became so upset to find out that their pre-teen butt buddy was in fact an adult almost 30 years old… It’s so strange that they only like pre-teen boys for their homo urges and not adults, kind of disgusting actually.

In any case, this is a wonderful example of the lowest rungs of humanity!

Mark

San Diego classified ads