Former South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun committed suicide Saturday by leaping to his death from a hill behind his house, the South Korean government announced. He was 62. Roh, who was president from 2003 to 2008, had gone hiking near his home with an aide around 6:30 a.m. Saturday (5:30 p.m. ET Friday), the state-run Yonhap news agency said. He was found later with head injuries, and died at 9:30 a.m. after being taken to a hospital in Busan, police said.
A 6-year-old boy grabbed the wheel of his family’s pickup truck when his father passed out from low blood sugar, keeping the vehicle from crashing until an officer could bring it to a halt, police said. Tustin Mains was in the back seat with his 3-year-old brother Sunday when his father, Phillip Mains, slumped over at the wheel, the boy told police. The family had been driving home from a restaurant.
Consumers getting screwed at those BBQ propane tank exchange stations.
Backyard grillers may get a little steamed this holiday weekend when buying refilled propane tanks: They will be getting less fuel for their money than last Memorial Day. When oil prices soared in 2008, propane suppliers quietly reduced by two pounds the amount of gas pumped into each 20-pound tank, saying they wanted to avoid raising prices. Since then, propane prices have been cut in half as the price of oil has dropped. But smaller refills are still being sold nationwide by many dealers, and most buyers are unaware because the tank is the same size.
The Brits really starting to get it when it comes to Obama.
Watching Obama lose his screen on screen duel with Dick Cheney yesterday I was reminded of some lines from Paradise Lost. “Thus Belial with words clothed in reason’s garb Counselled ignoble ease and peaceful sloth, not peace.”
But while the silver-tongued minor devil Belial would no doubt have approved the President’s new surrender-monkey “realist” approach to the war on terror, I doubt he would have been so impressed with his oratorical skills. Never mind the bizarre reputation Obama has acquired as a great public speaker: his speeches are fast beginning to sound almost as excruciating as anything in his predecessor’s “enhanced interrogation program.”
Washington State’s first assisted suicide case is a 66 year old woman with terminal cancer.
Linda Fleming was diagnosed with terminal cancer and feared her last days would be filled with pain and ever-stronger doses of medication that would erode her mind. The 66-year-old woman with late-stage pancreatic cancer wanted to be clear-headed at death, so she became the first person to kill herself under Washington state’s new assisted suicide law, known as “death with dignity.” “I am a very spiritual person, and it was very important to me to be conscious, clear-minded and alert at the time of my death,” Fleming said in a statement released Friday. “The powerful pain medications were making it difficult to maintain the state of mind I wanted to have at my death. And I knew I would have to increase them.”
On Memorial Day weekend, President Obama paid tribute to the country’s troops in his weekly radio address.
“Our fighting men and women – and the military families who love them – embody what is best in America,” Obama said . “And we have a responsibility to serve all of them as well as they serve all of us.” Obama said that the public often does not live up to that responsibility. “We have failed to give them the support they need or pay them the respect they deserve,” the president said. “That is a betrayal of the sacred trust that America has with all who wear – and all who have worn – the proud uniform of our country.”
A passerby pushed a would-be suicide jumper off a bridge in southern China because he was angry at the jumper’s “selfish activity,” Chinese media reported Saturday. It happened Thursday in the city of Guangzhou as Chen Fuchao threatened to jump off Haizhu Bridge, China’s Xinhua news agency reported. The bridge has gained a “macabre” reputation with 11 jumpers having thrown themselves off the bridge since the start of April, Xinhua said.
Struggling to subdue a crazed suspect, an NYPD cop broke a cardinal rule of law enforcement and handed his gun to a Manhattan janitor, telling his stunned new deputy, “I need some help here,” The Post has learned. Even though his idea of backup usually involves clogged drains, Placido Contreras, 51, said he took hold of the weapon and pointed it at the floor after the cop told him, “Keep your eyes on him and shoot him if you have to.”
Hard times recently drew scores of locals and immigrants to a cold sidewalk in this town, where they spent an anxious night waiting to compete for jobs in a slaughterhouse. Burmese refugee Cho Aye traveled 60 miles from Nashville on a Thursday morning in late March to take a place at the head of the line outside Shelbyville’s state employment office. The next day, the office was to take applications for $9.35-an-hour jobs processing chicken at the local Tyson Foods plant. Directly behind Ms. Aye, sitting on blankets atop the concrete, were 16 more Burmese refugees who had come from as far away as Idaho and Florida.
An Oklahoma sheriff, undersheriff charged with stealing “more than $1,000” from detained motorist.
The sheriff and undersheriff of McIntosh County were charged in federal court Friday in connection with the alleged embezzlement of a large sum of cash that was confiscated from a detained motorist. Sheriff Terry Alan Jones, 36, and Undersheriff Mykol Travis Brookshire, 38, both of Eufaula, are charged in U.S. District Court with depriving Adan Sandival of his civil rights during a traffic stop on Thursday, said Sheldon Sperling, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Oklahoma in Muskogee.
FBI, U.S. Marshall computer networks infected with “mystery” virus.
Law enforcement computers were struck by a Mystery computer virus Thursday, forcing the FBI and the U.S. Marshals to shut down part of their networks as a precaution. The U.S. Marshals confirmed it disconnected from the Justice Department’s computers as a protective measure after being hit by the virus; an FBI official said only that that agency was experiencing similar issues and was working on the problem.
A rural northern Indiana couple was shaken when they arrived home to find a police SWAT team breaking down the door to their house, only to learn the officers were at the wrong address. Harvey Bontrager of Goshen says he had just pulled into the driveway Thursday evening when a vehicle blocked him in and officers began bashing in his door. Bontrager asked an officer what was going on. That’s when an officer asked Bontrager for his address.
Year-round students who skip school Monday have a new excuse — the Wake County Republican Party told me to. The county GOP took the unusual step Friday of encouraging families to keep their children out of school Monday to protest the Wake school system’s decision to have year-round schools open on Memorial Day. Claude Pope Jr., chairman of the Wake GOP, said it’s more important to honor the nation’s war dead Monday than to show up for classes.
[Say I wonder if these kids get Martin Luther King’s birthday off? I’ll have to look into that…..ed]
Quote of the day.
But in the right-wing media, they do have a right-wing bias. And they also have an agenda. So their agenda is: we’re an adjunct of the Republican Party, and we’re going push that agenda every day, and, as you say, brand these stories that help further the right-wing cause.
-Al Franken
[And this delusional idiot is one step away from a U.S. Senate seat….ed]