Health insurance ‘benefits'

In April, Richard Huether, the manager of the HoneyBaked Ham outlet in Cary, N.C., was shot in the stomach during a robbery of the store and hospitalized, with medical bills paid through worker compensation and his employee health benefits. In September, when his worker compensation expired (and though still at least three months away from returning to work), HoneyBaked fired him (forcing him to begin paying 100 percent of his insurance premiums and making subsequent insurance prohibitively expensive because of his new "pre-existing condition"). However, HoneyBaked human resources executive Maggie DeCan told WRAL-TV that the firing was for Huether's own good, in that it would clear the way for him to receive Social Security disability payments. Said DeCan, "We couldn't feel any worse for Rich, and we would do anything we could for him." Except for, apparently, keeping him on the payroll.

Overhead costs

The price of gasoline for U.S. troops in Afghanistan is about $400 per gallon, according to a U.S. House subcommittee in October, citing Pentagon officials (factoring in the security necessary to bring fuel through Pakistan).

Patient Jim Bujalski complained to St. Anthony's Central Hospital in Littleton, Colo., in September about the cost of his prescription Plavix and Crestor tablets, which he was forced to "buy" from the hospital because it administers only drugs under its control. The Plavix was $248 each (he pays $8 at home), and his Crestor ($3 at home) was $65. The medications were part of his $58,000, one-day hospital stay.

Unclear on the concept

On July 13, William Thomson, 55, feeling bad recently about having violently resisted arrest by the Salisbury, Mass., police in a drunk-driving incident in 1997, brought hot coffee to a Salisbury station house and sought symbolic forgiveness from the officers on duty. The very next day, however, Thomson was arrested again in a drunk-driving incident, and again he forcefully resisted, punching a Breathalyzer machine, threatening an officer and attempting to flood a lock-up cell in the station house.

Chutzpah!

In Ogden, Utah, in October, Adam Manning, 30, accompanied his pregnant girlfriend to the McKay-Dee Hospital emergency room as she was going into labor. According to witnesses, as a nurse attended to the woman, Manning began flirting with her, complimenting the nurse's looks and giving her neck rubs. When Manning then allegedly groped the nurse, she called for security, and Manning was eventually arrested and taken to jail, thus missing the birth of his child.

After James Cedar admitted to police that he was the one spotted peeping into his Toronto neighbor's window at night, the victim, Patricia Marshall, installed a video camera at that window to discourage him from re-offending. In September, when all parties reported to court for a final resolution of the peeping case, Cedar's lawyer served legal papers on Marshall, threatening to sue her over the camera. Since Cedar's house sits within the view outside Marshall's window, he complained that the camera could capture images through his windows and thus invades his privacy.

Least competent criminals

Three men and a woman from Atlantic City, N.J., were arrested in August and charged with robbing the Artisans Bank in Bear, Del. Their escape after the robbery had been delayed when they accidentally left the keys to the getaway car in the bank.

Andrew Burwitz, 20, was arrested in Appleton, Wis., in November and charged with drive-by shootings into two residences. No one was hit, and the major damage was done to Burwitz's car, in that Burwitz fired the first shot before he remembered to roll down the window.

Recurring themes

Thousands of airline passengers continue to attempt to bring prohibited carry-on items on board. The New York Post reported in September that the Transportation Security Administration had confiscated 123,000 items so far this year from just the three main airports serving New York City. Included were 43 explosives, 1,600 knives, a 10-point deer antler, several fire extinguishers, a tree branch, nunchucks, a grill, a baby alligator, a gassed-up chain saw and a kitchen sink.