Stardate 20040325.2316

(On Screen): There's an apocryphal story of a man, on trial for having murdered his parents, asking for mercy because he was an orphan. This approaches that story on the chutzpah scale:

When Rebecca Messier asked for her money back, she drew snickers from the courtroom crowd. The cash she requested was $8,500 from a failed bribe to a prosecutor that got her and her husband arrested.

Messier appeared in Hartford Superior Court on Thursday to argue that she is entitled to the money she gave a bagman for a crooked prosecutor six years ago.

The bagman was to give the money to the prosecutor, who was to argue for the early release from prison of Messier's husband, convicted child molester Joseph Messier.

The Messiers got in trouble because the prosecutor wasn't on the take, and the bagman was an undercover investigator with the chief state's attorney's office.

Rebecca Messier now wants the state to return her money, which was found in a safe at the chief state's attorney's office in Rocky Hill in December. Her lawyer, James Armentano, filed a motion that was heard in court Wednesday.

Ooookay, whatever you say.

Update 20040326: But both of those pale beside this:

Palestinians accused the United States on Friday of granting Israel a license to kill by vetoing U.N. condemnation of its assassination of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. ...

"I'm afraid this U.S. veto will be taken by Israel as encouragement to continue on the path of violence and escalation, assassinations and reoccupation" of Palestinian territory, cabinet minister Saeb Erekat told Reuters.

Calling the United States the "chairman of the axis of evil in the world," Hamas political leader Mohammad Ghazal said the veto was "Israel's green light to carry out assaults and crimes."

Engineering reports that the chutzpah detectors have just overloaded.