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04 Jun 2011 17:14

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Offbeat, U.S.: Homeowner revenge: Bank of America branch gets foreclosed

  • They’ve ignored our calls, ignored our letters, legally this is the next step to get my clients compensated.
  • Attorney Todd Allen • Describing the process he went through to get his clients their money back. That’s right, he foreclosed on the bank, forcing the bank to pay back attorney’s fees by padlocking the doors. Maurenn Nyergers and her husband, Florida residents who paid for their home in cash, received a false foreclosure request from Bank of America, forcing them to fight the charges in court. The homeowners won their case, but Bank of America didn’t pay the fees after five months, so (with a little help from the Sheriff’s Department), on went the padlocks and out went the computers, furniture and money from the tellers’ drawers. An hour later, the bank manager resolved it like that. Gotta love it. source

02 Sep 2009 23:29

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Music: The Revenge of the Revenge of Roxanne Shanté’s Revenge



Nothing like unsubstantiated claims to brighten an evening. Roxanne Shanté, above, was a hip-hop icon before hip hop had its big mainstream breakthrough. Everyone forgot about her for a good twenty years, until this New York Daily News story broke, claiming that Warner Music paid for her to get a doctorate at Cornell. Problem is, it's not true.
  • The lies As reported by the New York Daily News (which will have an interesting retraction to write), the hip-hop icon (who scored her one-hit wonder at 14) had a clause in her contract saying they would pay for her education for life. She fought hard to get the label to pay for her education, eventually earning a doctorate at Cornell in 2001. She’s now a “hip-hop” psychologist.
  • The truth According to Slate, Warner never had a contract with Shanté. School records say that she went to Marymount Manhattan College, but never graduated. She admitted to Slate that she never got a Ph.D. from Cornell or elsewhere. She doesn’t have a license to practice psychology. And Warner says the Daily News never tried to contact them, like the story says.
  • Slate’s dirty workBen Sheffner put together an article for Slate that ranks up there with anything The Smoking Gun has put together in recent memory. It’s just devastating. The way he dissected the Daily News’ article is admirable. The paper only quoted two sources in the article – Shanté and hip-hop Russell Simmons. Protip: When a story’s this good, fact-check your sources. source

18 Aug 2009 11:15

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World: An awful act of relationship revenge in Kuwait kills dozens

  • 43 people died after an ex-wife set a wedding tent ablaze source