This Is Just Too Weird To Comprehend
Parkland school shooting: Florida killer suspect Nikolas Cruz receives adoring fan mail in prison
Admirers send letters detailing their ‘attraction’ to alleged gunman, including his ‘beautiful eyes’, while offering support and companionship
Accused Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz has been receiving volumes of fan mail at the Florida prison where he is being held.
In a pattern seen before with other killers and men accused of violent crimes, Cruz, who is charged with 17 counts of murder for the massacre at the school, has been sent suggestive photographs, greeting cards, encouragement and other kind notes, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel, which obtained copies of some of the missives.
Broward County public defender Howard Finkelstein, whose office represents Cruz, said he was concerned about the notoriety Cruz was getting.
“The letters shake me up because they are written by regular, everyday teenage girls from across the nation,” he said. “That scares me. It’s perverted.”
The Sun Sentinel showed a thick stack of hundreds of pages of photocopies of the letters Cruz has been sent.
“You’re in a tough spot, Nik and that is something I know, because I’ve been there myself,” one letter writer wrote to Cruz. “If you need something, I can mail to you … ask. If you need to talk … I’ll listen.”
On 15 March, a person who identified themselves as an 18-year-old woman from Texas wrote: “When I saw your picture on the television, something attracted me to you.”
The letter was inside an envelope decorated with hearts and happy faces, the Sun Sentinel reported.
“Your eyes are beautiful and the freckles on your face make you so handsome.”
Another woman sent Cruz nine suggestive photos, the newspaper reported.
Mr Finkelstein told the Sun Sentinel that the “piles of letters” to Cruz was unlike anything he has seen before.
“In my 40 years as public defender, I’ve never seen this many letters to a defendant,” he said. “Everyone now and then gets a few, but nothing like this.”
Some of the correspondence is also from men. Mr Finkelstein told the newspaper that Cruz, who is on suicide watch, has not seen the letters. The Broward County Jail opens most mail for inmates, the Sun Sentinel reported; mail that is vulgar or deemed a security threat is returned to the sender.
“We read a few religious ones to him that extended wishes for his soul and to come to God, but we have not and will not read him the fan letters or share the photos of scantily-clad teenage girls,” Mr Finkelstein told the newspaper.
The $800 (£568) in Cruz’s commissary account has apparently been sent, at least in part, by fans, Finkelstein said.
Interesting Images
Cool Library
Watching the news in Damascus
Norwegian soldiers playing football on an ice flow with their rifles
Obama!
Go Bulletproof
Popular Science
If you’re a businessperson traveling to dangerous regions–or you are, perhaps, a tuxedo-wearing superspy–you probably want to stay safe and stylish at the same time. That’s a tall order, but it’s one that can be met with a few pieces of bulletproof clothing that provide protection from being shot at, stabbed, or even assaulted by hand. Here are a few items that might even get Q Branch’s grudging approval.
They say clothes make the man, so there’s no reason to sacrifice looking good for personal safety. Garrison Bespoke is a tailor in Toronto who will produce a suit to your personal specifications, including making it bulletproof. The suit is lined with lightweight sheets of the carbon nanotube material found in some body armor, which can reportedly stop .22, 9mm, and .45 caliber rounds.
The nanotubes harden when a ballistic round hits them, preventing the bullet from penetrating the suit. Of course, the impact of the bullet will probably give you at least some nasty bruises, and possibly some broken bones or internal injuries. But at least you won’t have to find a tailor to fix your bullet-hole-ridden duds–which is good, since the suit runs around $20,000.
Bulletproof Topcoat
NIJ IIIA BULLETPROOF LONG TOPCOAT
BulletBlocker
For colder climes, you might want bulletproof clothing that’s both protective and warm. That’s where Bulletblocker’s $1200 bulletproof topcoat comes in. The outside is a mix of wool and cashmere, but inside is a removable liner made of Kevlar, which the company says is rated to stop 9mm, .45 caliber, 357 and 44 Magnum, and even hollow-point rounds. And, as you can see, it looks great with a fedora (not bulletproof).
MTS MULTI-THREAT SHIELD
Force Training Institute
We can’t all afford a bulletproof suit, so for the cost-conscious business traveler, consider accessorizing with the $899 MTS Multi-Threat Shield. It looks like an ordinary attache case, but quickly unfolds into a three-foot tall Kevlar shield that can block bullets, knives, and even physical attacks. Granted, it weighs 8 pounds, which might be a bit heavier than your average bag, and it won’t actually hold your laptop. But it protects against handguns, shotguns, and submachine guns. With an optional armor plate slotted into a front pocket, it can even block a high-powered rifle.
Tailors at Garrison’s Bespoke in Toronto have lined a vest and suit jacket with several ultrathin sheets of carbon nanotubes: a state-of-the-art puncture-proof and bullet-resistant material.
An amateur rocket-maker finally launched himself off Earth. Now to prove it’s flat …
Washington Post
Mike Hughes, a California man who is most known for his belief that the Earth is shaped like a Frisbee, finally blasted off into the sky in a steam-powered rocket he had built himself.
The 61-year-old limo driver and daredevil-turned-rocket-maker soared about 1,875 feet above the Mojave Desert on Saturday afternoon, the Associated Press reported. Hughes’s white-and-green rocket, bearing the words “FLAT EARTH,” propelled vertically about 3 p.m. Pacific time and reached a speed of about 350 mph, Waldo Stakes, who has been helping Hughes, told the AP. Hughes deployed two parachutes while landing, the second one just moments before he plopped down not far from his launching point.
A video shows that the whole endeavor, from the moment his rocket went up to the moment he landed, lasted about a minute.
The vertical launch, which happened without a countdown more than 200 miles east of Los Angeles, came amid growing skepticism that Hughes would ever lift himself off. The launch had been postponed multiple times, partly because Hughes said he couldn’t get permission from a federal agency to conduct it on public land.
After he landed Saturday, Hughes told the AP that he was “relieved” but that he expected to feel the physical toll of it all the next day.
“Am I glad I did it? Yeah. I guess. I’ll feel it in the morning. I won’t be able to get out of bed,” he said. “At least I can go home and have dinner and see my cats tonight.”
He also said he’d been frustrated with assumptions that he “chickened out,” so he “manned up and did it.”
Hughes had been on a mission to prove that the Earth is flat and that NASA astronauts such as John Glenn and Neil Armstrong were merely paid actors performing in front of a computer-generated image of a round globe. His previous failed attempts, as well as the successful one on Saturday, are all part of his ultimate goal to propel himself at least 52 miles above Earth by the end of the year — and to prove once and for all that the planet is flat.
According to the AP, Hughes’s hard landing on Saturday left him injured, though it is unclear what type of injuries he suffered. Photos show paramedics carrying Hughes on a stretcher and into an ambulance.
Also among Hughes’s plans — aside from trying to get to space — is to run for governor.
“This is no joke,” he told the AP. “I want to do it.”
Got to admit, the guy’s got balls.
Russian Diplomats Get Booted Out
The United States and its European allies are expelling dozens of Russian diplomats in a co-ordinated response to the poisoning of a former Russian spy in the UK.
It is said to be the largest collective expulsion of Russian intelligence officers in history.
More than 20 countries have aligned with the UK, expelling more than 100 diplomats.
Russia vowed to retaliate to the “provocative gesture”.
Russia denies any role in the attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury, southern England. The pair remain in a critical but stable condition in hospital.
EU leaders agreed last week it was highly likely Russia was behind the nerve-agent poisoning.
Mrs May said: “President Putin’s regime is carrying out acts of aggression against our shared values and interests within our continent and beyond.
“And as a sovereign European democracy, the United Kingdom will stand shoulder to shoulder with the EU and with Nato to face down these threats together.”
Maybe Putin will think twice about using chemical weapons on foreign soil to eliminate his enemies. It was so traceable back to Russia. Why not just use a handgun with a silencer?
Expelled Russian diplomats arriving back in Moscow.
The Holden Hurricane
The Holden Hurricane is a two-seat concept car built by Holden in 1969. The Hurricane was one of the most advanced vehicles for its time, with Holden describing it as a research vehicle, allowing them “to study design trends, propulsion systems and other long range developments”.
The Hurricane stood at just 990 millimetres (39 in) tall and was powered by a mid-mounted high-compression 4.2 litre Holden V8 engine, producing 193 kilowatts (259 hp). The Hurricane did not feature conventional doors; instead, a hydraulically powered canopy swung forwards over the front wheels and the seats rose up and titled forward. Other features included Pathfinder, which used magnetic signals built into the road to guide the driver. It also contained digital instrument displays, automatic temperature control air conditioning called Comfortron, an auto-seek radio function and a rear-view camera, which consisted of a wide angle camera in the rear bumper connected to a closed-circuit television (CCTV) screen in the centre console.
The car was found by Corey Egan in 1988 in the Holden training centre. He was originally going to restore it. Instead, the managers decided to restore it after they got it out and cleaned it up. Forty-two years after the Holden Hurricane’s debut in 1969, the car has now been fully rebuilt and restored following the original design by Holden Design. Restoration began in 2006 and was finished in 2011, with the newly restored Hurricane first displayed in October 2011 at the Motorclassica classic car show in Melbourne.
Holden, formally known as General Motors Holden, is an Australian automobile importer and a former automobile manufacturer with its headquarters in Port Melbourne, Victoria. The company was founded in 1856 as a saddlery manufacturer in South Australia. In 1908 it moved into the automotive field, becoming a subsidiary of the United States-based General Motors (GM) in 1931, when the company was renamed General Motors-Holden’s Ltd. It was renamed Holden Ltd in 1998, and General Motors Holden in 2005.
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