Author: The Goof (Page 43 of 43)

Check out this story… I pity the people who live in rural areas at the best of times. Now they are being the victims of silly regulations and policies.

Cross-Border Church Visit Costs U.S. Man $10,000
Mon Feb 9, 5:23 PM ET

By Charles Grandmont

MONTREAL (Reuters) – Crossing the U.S.-Canada border to go to church on a Sunday cost a U.S. citizen $10,000 for breaching Washington’s tough new security rules.

The expensive trip to church was a surprise for Richard Albert, a resident of rural Maine who lives so close to the Canadian border the U.S. customs office is right next door to his house.

Like the other half-dozen residents of Township 15 Range 15, crossing the border is a daily ritual for Albert. The nearby Quebec village of St. Pamphile is where they shop, eat and pray.

There are many such situations in rural areas along the largely unguarded 8,900-km (5,530-mile) border between Canada and the United States — which in some cases actually runs down the middle of streets or through buildings.

As a result, Albert says did not expect any problems three weeks ago when he returned home to the United States after attending mass in Canada, as usual.

The local U.S. customs station is closed on Sundays, so he just drove around the locked gate, as he had done every weekend since the gate appeared last May, following a tightening of border security.

Two days later, Albert was summoned to the customs office, where an officer told him he had been caught on camera crossing the border illegally.

“It didn’t deny it, I’ve always done that,” said the 52 year-old Maine native.

Ottawa has granted special passes to some 300 U.S. citizens in that region so they can enter the country when Canadian customs posts are closed, but the United States canceled a similar program last May.

That forces local residents to make a 320-kilometer (200-mile) detour along treacherous logging roads to get home via the nearest staffed border checkpoint.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection would not comment specifically on Albert’s case because of privacy laws.

“Since 9/11, we’ve enhanced our security and, yes, some of the situations require inconvenience to people, so we have to go along with what the regulations are,” said Janet Rapaport, a public affairs officer with the bureau. She added that local residents had been told about the stricter controls.

Albert has appealed the fine, but he has not attended a Sunday mass since.

“I feel like I’m living in a jail,” he said.

ARKANSAS CITY (EAP) — A Little Rock woman was killed yesterday after leaping through her moving car’s sun roof during an incident best described as “a mistaken rapture” by dozens of eye witnesses.

Thirteen other people were injured after a twenty-car pile up resulted from people trying to avoid hitting the woman who was apparently convinced that the rapture was occurring when she saw twelve people floating up into the air, and then passed a man on the side of the road who she claimed was Jesus.

“She started screaming, ‘He’s back, He’s back,’ and climbed right out of the sunroof and jumped off the roof of the car,” said Everet Williams, husband of 28-year-old Georgann Williams, who was pronounced dead at the
scene.

“I was slowing down but she wouldn’t wait till I stopped,” Williams said. “She thought the rapture was happening and was convinced that Jesus was gonna lift her up into the sky,” he went on to say.

“This is the strangest thing I’ve seen since I’ve been on the force,” said Paul Madison, first officer on the scene.

Madison questioned the man who looked like Jesus and discovered that he was dressed up as Jesus and was on his way to a toga costume party when the tarp covering the bed of his pickup truck came loose and released twelve blow-up sex dolls filled with helium which floated up into the air.

Ernie Jenkins, 32, of Fort Smith, who’s been told by several of his friends that he looks like Jesus, pulled over and lifted his arms into the air in frustration, and said, “Come back here,” just as the Williams’ car passed him, and Mrs. Williams was sure that it was Jesus lifting people up into the sky as they passed by him, according to her husband, who says his wife loved Jesus more than anything else.

When asked for comments about the twelve sex dolls, Jenkins replied, “This is all just too weird for me. I never expected anything like this to happen.”