Cuppacafe

Yeah, that's apparently what happened to Megan Mariah Barnes in South Florida recently. Apparently, as the story goes, Barnes was driving to meet her boyfriend, something that she shouldn't have been doing in the first place (and no, it wasn't because Barnes' ex husband Charles Judy was in the passenger seat; it was because the day before, Barnes had been convicted of DUI and was driving with her license suspended. Further, Barnes had been ordered to impound her car, and her license had been revoked for five years. To make matters worse, after her suspension she was supposed to install a Breathalyzer ignition interlock device on any vehicle she drove. Not to mention that she, had also been sentenced to nine months' probation.

Anyway, the real fun starts because of what she was doing in the car at the time of the accident that she caused. Apparently the 37-year-old woman was:

...shaving her bikini area while her ex-husband took the wheel from the passenger seat.

According to the state trooper who arrived at the scene of the accident;

"She said she was meeting her boyfriend in Key West and wanted to be ready for the visit,"

Yeah, you read that right.

Barnes and Charles Judy were southbound in her Thunderbird at 11 a.m. when they slammed into the back of a 2006 Chevrolet pickup driven by David Schoff of Palm Bay. His passengers were a man and two women; the latter were treated for minor injuries at Lower Keys Medical Center, FHP spokesman Alex Annunziato said.

Schoff had slowed to about 5 mph to make a turn when the Thunderbird hit him, traveling about 45 mph, which was within the speed limit, Dunick said.

Barnes allegedly drove another half-mile, then switched seats with Judy, who allegedly claimed to be driving, Annunziato said.

If I saw this in a movie, I wouldn't have believed it.

The perfessor

To paraphrase Eddy Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop, "...don't worry about us. We got guns and coffee here. We're gonna get wired and have a big party." Yeah, here at Cuppa central, those are two things that we dearly love (Walt because he's a Texan, and me because, well I just like to get wired and blow stuff up).

Still, if we ever found ourselves out on the road, we know one coffeehouse we're surely gonna visit, and yep, that's Starbucks, for as surely as we all know that these establishments are the gateway to the Underworld, at least they support an open carry policy in their stores.

...in light of a renewed statement by Starbucks that’s it’s standing by a policy to allow people brandishing unloaded weapons into its stores. (Check out the good videos embedded in the story, as well.)

The quick backstory: The “open carry” movement, in which gun owners carry unconcealed handguns as they go about their everyday business, has been gaining serious traction in recent months. Gun-control advocates have been pushing to quash the movement, including by petitioning the Starbucks coffee chain to ban guns on its premises. Gun-rights advocates have been taking the battle, and their guns, to an ever-broadening range of retail establishments.

While some retail establishments have, for one reason or another, banned open carriers from their premises, others haven’t. Among those in the latter category: Starbucks.

Just when you thought it was safe to go out to a ball game, some over-eager yabbo with nothing better to do gives us this...

Yesterday, the American Academy of Pediatrics released a policy statement on Prevention of Choking Among Children (PDF). A laudable goal, no doubt. One particular recommendation found in the report, though, has got the American public's hackles up. The kiddie docs identified the hot dog as the food on which little Billy is most likely to choke and die. This is because of their "cylindrical, airway sized, and compressible" nature. And you thought Dan Aykroyd made them sound unappealing.

For a link to the video, go here

Seriously, though sometimes you just have to wonder how any of us made it as far as we have without killing ourselves because we didn't know that the stove was hot, we need to cross at the light, and knives are sharp. Personally, I'm with the guy on the street being interviewed who says, "You know what parents are going to learn what to do? They are going to have to learn how to watch their kids."

As an infant, my daughter chocked on a McDonald's french fry. I was paying attention and solved the problem, I didn't go out on a quest to change the shape of the way fries are made.

The Perfessor

In the past we've spoken about some over-the-top, extra-gung-ho folks who feel that it is necessary to "take it (way past) the limit" as it were.

While we shouldn't be surprised by the Zero Tolerance polices of some folk, we constantly are surprised by how — well extra stupid they play out in the real world. Well, apparently it has happened again.

On Monday, a teacher at Junior High School 190 in Queens caught 12-year-old Alexa Gonzalez doodling on her desk with a lime green magic marker. Instead of just erasing it, the school called police and the girl was walked out in handcuffs.

A day later, Principal Evelyn Mastroianni of Public School 52 on Staten Island nearly suspended 9-year-old Patrick Timoney for playing with an action figure who had a 2-inch gun.

Yep, you read that correctly, it was a 2" gun. As a matter of fact, it was a very tiny gun that is held by a very tiny Lego figure, so there is absolutely no way that this could be considered a working gun, even by the mos stringent of protocols. Yet still, the kid was hauled down to the Principal's office.

On another planet, in another lifetime, or perhaps as an SNL sketch all of this could be considered hilarious, except for the fact that not only is little Alexa throwing up every day, but little Patrick — an "A" student, in math no less — simply didn't want to go back to school. Now who's the asshat?

This type of high-minded moralizing, and out of control PC-fueled attempt to protect us from ourselves, is simply beyond stupid. I have to know where these teachers and principals are when the schoolyard bully is stuffing geeks into lockers and boosting kids' lunch money.

The Perfessor

So have you ever had this happen to you? You are looking through some old stuff and you find something of incredible value mixed in with all of the ordinary stuff? Yeah, me neither, but then again, neither of us are Lorianne Updike Toler. Ms Toler, a 30-year-old researcher recently had an up-close-and-personal encounter with history when she recently discovered a draft of the U.S. Constitution amongst a stack of archives at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Researcher Lorianne Updike Toler was intrigued by the centuries-old document at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

On the back of a treasured draft of the U.S. Constitution was a truncated version of the same document, starting with the familiar words: "We The People. . . ."

They had been scribbled upside down by one of the Constitution's framers, James Wilson, in the summer of 1787. The cursive continued, then abruptly stopped, as if pages were missing.

A mystery, Toler thought, until she examined other Wilson papers from the Historical Society's vault in Philadelphia and found what appeared to be the rest of the draft, titled "The Continuation of the Scheme."

As it turns out, Toler had unwittingly stumbled upon an earlier draft of the Constitution.

“This was the kind of moment historians dream about,” said Toler, 30, a lawyer and founding president of the Constitutional Sources Project, which promotes an understanding of and access to U.S. Constitution documents.

As it turns out, Toler had unwittingly stumbled upon an earlier draft of the Constitution.

Seriously, how cool is this?

The Perfessor

Two or three years ago I had minor surgery (for a hernia), and for the couple of weeks after the surgery I walked with a cane. As it happened, I had acquired one of my grandfather’s wooden canes, and that was the one that I used. Well, we had previously scheduled a trip to Florida around that time, and as a couple of weeks had passed, I decided not to use the cane while traveling as I was legitimately concerned about what airport security would have to say about me carrying (what was essentially) a weapon on board a plane.

Turns out, I was right:

Since 2002, TSA screeners have found more than 200 canes concealing either swords or knives. Many of these incidents involve elderly travelers who are just as surprised as the security screeners to find sabers hidden inside canes they may have inherited, found at antique shops, or received from charities. In September alone, four such incidents occurred according to documents provided by the TSA.

Apparently, there are quite a few folks who own “weaponized” canes:

On Sept. 15, an X-ray machine operator at San Diego International Airport discerned the outline of a 2 1/2-inch knife concealed in a cane. "The passenger stated that he bought the cane online and had no idea the knife was inside. The knife was removed from the cane and passenger was allowed to keep the cane," a TSA report said. That same day, when another woman's walking stick was found to contain a 13-inch sword at Philadelphia International, she explained that "her doctor recommended she use one and she just borrowed the prettiest one she found from a friend."

So I guess the moral of this story is always know what you’re carrying.

The Perfessor

I realize that this event happened back in June, but I just recently became aware of it. Apparently, 90-year-old great-grandmother, donated her 25th gallon of blood to The Red Cross. Now while you may realize how very cool this is right away, you have to understand that you only have about four quarts of blood in your body, and can only donate a pint at a time, and can only give every eight weeks.

This means that it takes just over a year (like a year and three months, give or take) to get a gallon. So, assuming that Margaret managed to give six-to-eight times a year, it would have taken her well over 30 years to give that much blood.

I bring this all up because I’ve been giving blood since I was about 18 and just last week I reached 15 gallons which means (at my current rate of giving) I should reach 25 gallons in about 13 years, so by the time I reach Margaret’s age, I should be hitting 68 gallons or so.

The Perfessor

You remember the Soup Nazi episode from Seinfeld? Well, that’s what I thought of when I read this article in The Wall Street Journal this morning.

COLTON, Calif. -- Last year, on the day before Thanksgiving, customers of Dorothy Pryor Rose's bakery who had been waiting in line for hours to buy her famous pies began shoving and shouting.

So for today, Ms. Rose decided she wasn't going to take any chances. She hired a security guard to keep the peace, and set up a barrier system to keep people in line. The line was expected to start forming before dawn and take as long as three hours to get through.

Although there is nothing she can do to prevent the occasional customer from scalping her treats in the parking lot -- a $12 pie can go for more than $20 -- she hopes her extra counter help will keep the line moving briskly.

Talk about your pie fights!

Ya just gotta love this holiday!

The Perfessor