Bizarre News - March 21, 2015

Greetings fellow Bizarros:

Remember the scare film from 1939; Reefer Madness? It was propaganda designed to show parents that if they let their kids smoke 'Mary-Jane' they would turn into sex-addicted, violent sociopaths. Even back then the movie was laughable to all but the most naive audiences, and now we are able to look back on it as the ignorant paranoia that it is... except that it totally isn't! A recent incident in South Dakota makes the mayhem depicted in Reefer Madness look like mischievous hijinks.

The story starts with a teenager smoking pot with two friends in the basement of his father's house. Mistake no. 1; don't smoke pot indoors if there is a risk of being detected. That smell is impossible to hide.

So the father discovered them and ordered the two friends to leave, but when his son wanted to leave with his friends his father refused to let him go. That's when a scuffle broke out.

Dad was able to hold both of them while he called the police, but no arrests or report was made because he just wanted his son's friends to leave.

You would think that narrowly avoiding arrest for possession and consumption of marijuana would be enough adventure for a couple of teens for one night, but these two, cranked up on the sticky-icky, immediately went to round up 20 of their watery-eyed friends and laid in wait for the dad.

When he went outside to move a car parked in his driveway, the mob surrounded the car and started beating on it and smashing the windows.

Finding himself in a scene out of a horror movie, the victim threw that hooptie in gear and took off across the lawn.

One neighbor said, "All of a sudden, I saw a car going 30 to 40 mph hit the curb. All you could see is headlights and kids running all over, then I saw a kid get hit while he was coming off the curb. That's when they switched to start chasing each other in their cars."

The neighbor called police to report the incident. He tried to get the plates of the vehicles the teens were in but was unsuccessful.

"Then it was just constant cars flying down these roads. They were hitting and swerving at each other. You don't even see this stuff on TV."

Eventually, the mob dispersed. The victim was able to identify a few of the teens but didn't know most of them.

One witness said he thinks both the teens and the victim should be arrested. He said the victim was trying to run the teens over and could have handled the situation better.

Bizarrely,
Lewis

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*-- Parents climb walls in India to help students cheat --*
PATNA, India (UPI) - Parents in India's Bihar state were caught on camera scaling school walls to help 10th grade students cheat on their exams. Officials said more than 600 students -- possibly up to 1,600 -- were expelled in Bihar after being caught cheating on exams Wednesday and Thursday as 1.4 million 10th grade students sat for the tests. Education officials said many students smuggled in textbooks and notes, while pictures and video shot outside several of the state's schools recorded parents and other family members scaling walls to pass cheat sheets to students. Education minister PK Shahi said it would be impossible to completely eradicate cheating without the cooperation of parents in the state. "It is impossible to hold completely fair examination without the cooperation of the parents. There are over 1.4 million examinees and with each of them there are usually three-four people. Managing six to seven million people is not a cup of tea for any administration. It requires parental and societal support as well," Shahi told the Hindustan Times. Prasad Sinha, who formerly served as chair of the Bihar School Examination Board, said part of the problem is the low quality of instruction in schools. "After all, unless they are taught in schools, how can they be expected to answer? Just passing the test should not be the goal, but unfortunately that is the mindset," Sinha said. Bihar, one of India's poorest states, has only a 64 percent literacy rate, compared to 74 percent for the country as a whole.


* Fire extinguisher factory burns down in Chicago *
CHICAGO (UPI) - More than 150 Chicago firefighters were called to fight flames at a building housing one of the department's closest allies -- a fire extinguisher factory. Chicago Fire Department officials said the building in the Archer Heights neighborhood on the southwest side of the city ignited Thursday night and the fire worsened to three alarms about 9:30 p.m., leading to a total 156 firefighters responding with 26 pieces of equipment. A portion of the building, which firefighters said housed a fire extinguisher manufacturing business, collapsed as a result of the intense fire, the department said. First Deputy Fire Commissioner Charles Stewart III said the nature of the blaze made it difficult to reach the flames with water. "We had one engine feed another engine to another engine until we got water on the fire," he told WMAQ-TV. Firefighters said no injuries were reported and the cause of the fire remained under investigation Friday.


*-- READER COMMENTS --*
That roleplay story was just plain old creepy. But what do you expect? The guy was a lawyer. - Paul
[Actually kinky sex and violence seems a little tame. From a lawyer I expect animal sacrifice and demon worship.]

So a marriage was broken up because of math? Math ruins everything!

A marriage usually ends because of infidelity or jealously or money, but math? Come on, I've been married for over 35 years and I couldn't balance a checkbook to save my life. That's why I got married. -Ed

*-- END OF READER COMMENTS --*
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