We Hated It So Much That We Bought Ten More Of The Same Thing

The couple suing the Catskills resort for lack of sex returned to the same resort nine days later for a followup visit, the Daily News reports:

A couple who filed a $20 million lawsuit against a Catskills hotel after allegedly being attacked by bedbugs returned to the resort for another stay just nine days later, a lawyer for the hotel told the Daily News yesterday.

Leslie Fox and Stephen Cohen checked in at the Nevele Hotel on July 15, 2005 — then returned from July 24 to July 29, attorney Joseph O’Connor said.

“The claim for a $20 million injury is not substantiated by her willingness to stay in the same section of the hotel two weeks later,” he said.

Fox, 54, claims in a suit filed in Brooklyn Federal Court that she experienced “great physical and mental pain” after suffering 500 bedbug bites during a July 10-15 visit to the Nevele.

Fox told The News yesterday that she returned to the hotel a second time because her husband was under contract to give a lecture on Jewish humor and she wanted to go with him.

“I was absolutely loath to have to go back there, and I went back with great apprehension,” Fox said.

She did not mention the second visit during a news conference on Tuesday. In fact, she said then that she balked at the hotel’s offer of two free nights to make up for their alleged ordeal.

Technology Rules

New York City schools use the coolest 24 technology to pick off plagiarists like Bauer busts terrorists:

A growing number of New York City schools are asking students to submit their papers through Turnitin.com, a service that compares students’ papers against everything on the Internet and a database of more than 15 million student papers.

In effort to curb plagiarism and emphasize the importance of original work, private schools like Xavier and Riverdale and top public schools like Stuyvesant and Midwood are among the 278 high schools statewide, including 52 in the city, that subscribe to the service.

Within a few minutes, papers are scanned against every known Internet source and every other paper that has ever been submitted to the site. The program highlights passages in the paper and identifies its original source, in addition to giving it an overall originality rating.

About a third of the papers submitted to the site are found to be more than 25% unoriginal, the CEO of iParadigms, John Barrie, said. His company owns Turnitin.

When Facing Left, It Is The Omote Manji, Representing Love And Mercy

Idiots! Backwards-writing swastika-painting idiots:

If you’re gonna hate, at least get it right.

A vandal described by cops as “some knucklehead” put Nazi swastikas on a Bronx Jewish center early yesterday — spray-painting them backward.

But the vandalism was enough to bring out a delegation of religious leaders and local elected officials to denounce the act and speak against religious intolerance.

Police were investigating the incident at the Pelham Parkway Jewish Center, where the vandal, described a teenager by an eyewitness who saw the crime from an apartment window, spray-painted three large swastikas — backward — on the side wall of the center, at 900 Pelham Parkway South and Muliner Ave.

The Police Department bias unit has been called into the case, police said.

“These knuckleheads don’t even know how to do it right, much less understand what something like this stands for,” said a police source.

It was the second time in a year that the center has been vandalized with swastikas.

(Title swiped from here.)

It Was Colonel Mustard Wrapped Around The Battered Dashboard After Crashing His Chevrolet Astro Into A Defenseless Tree

If you drive, don’t drink, but if you happen to drink and drive, always remember to clean out your minivan before you crash into a tree:

A drunken off-duty Department of Transportation employee crashed his mini-van into a tree on Targee Street, cops told the Advance.

Spilling onto the street was everything from a donkey-shaped pinata, the board game “Clue,” CDs, toolboxes, and a video game system, to orange juice containers, soda bottles, a broken bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey, mouthwash, and numerous other tidbits.

Inside the van, cops found nearly a dozen guns.

Police also found a significant quantity of unknown chemicals in the minivan, which heightened concerns. A sign with a skull and crossbones posted on a rear driver’s side window read “Warning. Keep Out. Poison. Baited Area.

Glenn Kittel, 45, of Smith Terrace, Stapleton, was arrested and listed in stable condition in Staten Island University Hospital, Ocean Breeze.

Kittel — burly, unshaven and with a bloodied face — had to be extricated from under the dashboard of his gray Chevrolet Astro. He was alone in the vehicle.

From Kittel’s minivan, which hit a tree in front of 892 Targee Street at about 11:12 p.m., Emergency Service Unit police removed nearly a dozen firearms.

Included were what appeared to be a tommy-gun, a pump-action shotgun and numerous high-powered hunting rifles with sniper scopes — some with wood finish, some sheathed in protective camouflage cases.

“That’s the real deal,” said a cop, pointing to the weapons being removed.

. . .

Firefighters from Rescue Co. 5, Engine Co. 160 and Ladder Co. 81 operated Hurst power tools for close to 10 minutes in an effort to “disentangle the man’s body,” Thornton added.

The extrication also was hindered by the quantity of loose items that had to be taken out of the minivan before the man could be reached.

As onlookers stared quizzically at all the knickknacks being thrown out of the minivan, they were quick to denounce the intersection as “accident-prone.”

“They need a light here,” said one woman.

First They’ll Print A Picture Of You Sleeping In Their Tabloid Paper, Then They’ll Google You And Interview Your Family And Friends

A gentle reminder never to get on the Post’s bad side:

Wayne Wiggins, 37, the subway-station agent caught snoozing on the clock Sunday, has a history of sleepworking — and even brags to friends and relatives about getting paid for nap time, sources said yesterday.

He earned almost $77,000 last year sitting, and sometimes snoring, in his booth but, given his disciplinary record — including at least one citation for sleeping — transit sources say the MTA may soon be singing him a lulla-bye-bye.

“I thought he learned his lesson,” Wiggins’ 15-year-old son, Kevon, told The Post. “But he does seem to work a lot. And he’s really tired when he comes home.”

When Wiggins returns to work Thursday, sources said there’s a good chance transit officials will be waiting for him.

“They’ll probably try to fire him,” one source said. “With everything going on, they will want to make an example of him. It’s too bad because he has two kids.”

Lexis-Nexian Murdochian Wonder Post Power — Activate! Form of — damning quotes from the union newspaper:

In the weeks leading up to last month’s transit strike, Wiggins was outspoken about the MTA’s plans to make station-booth clerks do more work such as cleaning around the turnstiles.

“Transit sent around this list of, like, nine things they wanted us to start doing — changing light bulbs, cleaning the booths, policing the area around the booths,” he told The Chief Leader newspaper in December.

The agency has removed agents from many booths, and made them customer-service agents in the stations, and plans to expand this program.

“Hey, if they want to give me $15 more an hour because they’ve given me the work of four people, maybe we can talk, but otherwise, why should I do more so they can cut more jobs from the union?” he said.

“If we’re doing our jobs well enough that the MTA’s got a billion in the bank, then it’s time to share that wealth and give where it’s due.”

He also had harsh words for his supervisors.

“I think NYC Transit’s the only company in America where you can be a great worker but get fired because you came to work late twice in one year.”

Transit officials said they are still investigating the case. Sleep violations are not common, one official said, and they are taken very seriously.

In spite of his record, Wiggins — who could not be reached for comment yesterday — frequently boasted of this job perk.

“He used to say how easy it was [to sleep on the job],” said Carlos Henry, a tenant in Wiggins’ Queens Village home. “He probably worked a double shift and I guess it caught up with him.”

(Are cell-phone pictures of sleeping token booth attendants a modern form of scalp hunting?)