“A man with a chainsaw attacked four people at KNLJ Channel 25 Saturday, leaving two critically injured. Police say twenty-eight year old Matthew Watkins is originally from the St. Louis area and authorities say he’s been staying at the homeless shelter that sits on the grounds of the T.V. station for the past couple weeks.

When deputies arrived on the scene just after two o’clock p.m.Saturday they found the suspect wielding a chainsaw.  Deputies then arrested the suspect at gunpoint.”

I only mention it because it happened just up the road in New Bloomfield. (For the record, I didn’t write the last sentence in the first ‘graph.)

Update: “One of our staff members apparently had a mental breakdown – I guess you could say he went ballistic,” Tom Branham, an employee, tells the Fulton Sun. “First he was running around poking people – he poked a guy in the neck with, I think, a pencil – then he came after people with a chainsaw.” [USA Today]

“A (Wisconsin) man accused of murdering his wife told a jury today that he shoved a ceramic candy dish down her throat so she would shut up — but he didn’t mean to kill her. Patrick Zurkowski of Spencer also says his wife, June, attacked him with a paring knife.

The 40-year-old Zurkowski is charged with first-degree intentional homicide in the March 2006 death of his wife.

An autopsy determined June Zurkowski had been beaten and suffocated after pieces of an Easter bunny-shaped plate were lodged in her throat. Prosecutors say Zurkowski killed his wife of 3 and a half years after an argument over money.

Zurkowski testified for about two hours this afternoon and was the only defense witness called as the trial winds down.” [WCCN Radio]

A chilling hidden-camera video of an encounter with a St. George, MO (near St. Louis) cop. I hope some of the local media pick this up and ask some questions. Here’s my imaginary scene at this morning’s roll call at St. George PD:

First Cop: “Hey, Kenline! I watched you go ape shit on that kid out the commuter parking lot this weekend.”
Sgt. Kenline: “What are you talking about?”
First Cop: “The kid had a camera rolling and your voice came through lound and clear. You got any vacation time coming, you need to take it, dude. But look at the bright side… you made the home page of Digg!”
Sgt. Kenline: “Uh, what’s dig?

Update 9/11/07: St. George Police Chief Scott Uhrig says his officers “are not trained and taught to act like that” …and Sgt. James Kuehnlein on unpaid suspension pending further investigation. [StLToday.com]

Update 9/12/07: Brett Darrow (the guy getting his ass chewed by the cop) met with St. George Police Chief Scott Uhrig for more than an hour Tuesday afternoon and also filed a formal complaint against the officer, Sgt. James Kuehnlein. During the meeting Darrow asked to see the videotape from Kuehnlein’s police car. But according to Uhrig, that footage, inexplicably, is nowhere to be found. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch] If the officer did nothing wrong, wouldn’t the patrol car video have cleared him? Hmmm?

Moral of the Story: Live each day like it’s gonna be on YouTube tomorrow.

“Today the U.S. Supreme Court considers its first major dispute on student free-speech rights in nearly 20 years, a case about the power of school authorities to censor what they viewed as a pro-drug message at a school-sponsored event. At issue is whether a high school principal in Juneau, Alaska, violated a student’s free-speech rights by suspending him for unfurling a banner that read “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.” Student Joseph Frederick says the banner’s language was designed to be meaningless and funny in an effort to get on television as the Winter Olympic torch relay passed by the school in January 2002. But school officials say the phrase “bong hits” referred to smoking marijuana. Principal Deborah Morse suspended Frederick for 10 days because she said the banner advocated or promoted illegal drug use in violation of school policy.”

— Reuters

Update: (5:53 p.m. Central) Supreme struggles with case. I’m gonna leave the masthead up for another day. I kinda like it.

The kids at Boing Boing pointed us to this Smoking Gun photo of a guy arrested after attempting to buy spray paint at a hardware store. A sharp-eyed employee noticed the guy’s face was covered with gold paint and called the cops. While there, I discovered TSG’s favorite mug shots of 2002 and laughed until I peed just a little bit.

NEWSWEEK has obtained a copy of the book’s key chapter from “a source who asked not to be identified because of the ongoing controversy.” Very hard to read O. J.’s “this is how I’d have done it” and not be convinced he “done it.”

“The Rev. Ted Haggard, who has resigned as one of the nation’s top evangelical leaders, admitted Friday he had contacted a male prostitute for a massage and bought methamphetamine.

“I was buying it for me, but I never used it,” said Haggard, 50, sitting in the driver’s seat of a car with his wife, Gayle, at his side during an impromptu interview with CNN Denver affiliate KUSA-TV.

“I never kept it very long because it was wrong. I was tempted. I bought it. But I never used it.” Haggard also acknowledged contacting Mike Jones but has denied Jones’ accusation that the two men regularly had sex over three years.” — CNN

I bought the meth but didn’t use it. I knew the gay prostitute but we never had sex. He just gave me a massage.

As all naughty children know, before you do something you shouldn’t, get your “what-if-I-get-caught” story ready. You might want to try in on a friend to see how it flies.