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Bad Monkey (novel)
''Bad Monkey'' is a 2013 novel by Carl Hiaasen. Plot summary In mid-July, a sportfisherman tourist off the Florida Keys reels in a severed human arm. Monroe County Sheriff Sonny Summers, who is hyper-sensitive to any threat to the Keys' tourist trade, asks former detective Andrew Yancy to transport the arm to Miami and ensure that any investigation is handled by the Dade County authorities. In Miami, Yancy meets Dr. Rosa Campesino, the Assistant Dade County coroner, who tells him there is not enough evidence to connect the severed arm with any unsolved crimes in Dade County. Yancy's colleague Rogelio Burton advises him to drop the arm on the roadside on his way home, but he rebelliously decides to keep it preserved in his freezer. Yancy is currently on suspension, having assaulted the husband of his lover Bonnie Witt, and is forced to work as a Health Inspector for the Department of Hotels and Restaurants. During their last night together before she moves to Sarasota with her ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carl Hiaasen
Carl Hiaasen (; born March 12, 1953) is an American journalist and novelist. He began his career as a newspaper reporter and by the late 1970s had begun writing novels in his spare time, both for adults and for young-adult readers. Two of his novels have been made into feature films. Hiaasen's adult novels are humorous crime thrillers set in Florida. They feature casts of eccentric, sometimes grotesque characters and satirize aspects of American popular culture. Many of the novels include themes related to environmentalism and political corruption in his native state. Early life and education Hiaasen was born in 1953 and raised in Plantation, Florida, then a rural suburb of Fort Lauderdale. He was the first of four children born to Odel and Patricia Hiaasen. He has Norwegian and Irish ancestry. He started writing at age six when his father bought him a typewriter for Christmas. After graduating from Plantation High School in 1970, he entered Emory University, where he contrib ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bail Jumping
Bail is a set of pre-trial restrictions that are imposed on a suspect to ensure that they will not hamper the judicial process. Bail is the conditional release of a defendant with the promise to appear in court when required. In some countries, especially the United States, bail usually implies a bail bond, a deposit of money or some form of property to the court by the suspect in return for the release from pre-trial detention. If the suspect does not return to court, the bail is forfeited and the suspect may possibly be brought up on charges of the crime of failure to appear. If the suspect returns to make all their required appearances, bail is returned after the trial is concluded. In other countries, such as the United Kingdom, bail is more likely to consist of a set of restrictions that the suspect will have to abide by for a set period of time. Under this usage, bail can be given both before and after charge. For minor crimes, a defendant may be summoned to court withou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paraplegic
Paraplegia, or paraparesis, is an impairment in motor or sensory function of the lower extremities. The word comes from Ionic Greek () "half-stricken". It is usually caused by spinal cord injury or a congenital condition that affects the neural (brain) elements of the spinal canal. The area of the spinal canal that is affected in paraplegia is either the thoracic, lumbar, or sacral regions. If four limbs are affected by paralysis, tetraplegia or quadriplegia is the correct term. If only one limb is affected, the correct term is monoplegia. Spastic paraplegia is a form of paraplegia defined by spasticity of the affected muscles, rather than flaccid paralysis. The American Spinal Injury Association classifies spinal cord injury severity in the following manner. ASIA A is the complete loss of sensory function and motor skills below the injury. ASIA B is having some sensory function below the injury, but no motor function. In ASIA C, there is some motor function below the level of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amputate
Amputation is the removal of a limb by trauma, medical illness, or surgery. As a surgical measure, it is used to control pain or a disease process in the affected limb, such as malignancy or gangrene. In some cases, it is carried out on individuals as a preventive surgery for such problems. A special case is that of congenital amputation, a congenital disorder, where fetal limbs have been cut off by constrictive bands. In some countries, amputation is currently used to punish people who commit crimes. Amputation has also been used as a tactic in war and acts of terrorism; it may also occur as a war injury. In some cultures and religions, minor amputations or mutilations are considered a ritual accomplishment. When done by a person, the person executing the amputation is an amputator. The oldest evidence of this practice comes from a skeleton found buried in Liang Tebo cave, East Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo dating back to at least 31,000 years ago, where it was done when ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Faked Death
A faked death, also called a staged death or pseudocide, is the act of an individual purposely deceiving other people into believing that the individual is dead, when the person is, in fact, still alive. People who commit pseudocide can do so by leaving evidence, clues, or through other methods. In fandom slang, pseudocide is faking a suicide. Death hoaxes can also be created and spread solely by third-parties for various purposes. Committing pseudocide may be done for a variety of reasons, such as to fraudulently collect insurance money, to evade pursuit, to escape from captivity, to arouse false sympathy, or as a practical joke. While faking one's own death is not inherently illegal, it may be part of a fraudulent or illicit activity such as tax evasion, insurance fraud, or avoiding a criminal prosecution. History Deaths have been faked since ancient times, but the rate increased significantly in the middle of the 19th century, when life insurance, and therefore insurance frau ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indictment
An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a legal person, person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felony, felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concept often use that of an indictable offence, an offence that requires an indictment. Australia Section 80 of the Constitution of Australia provides that "the trial on indictment of any offence against any law of the Commonwealth shall be by jury". The High Court of Australia has consistently used a narrow interpretation of this clause, allowing the Parliament of Australia to define which offences proceed on indictment rather than conferring a universal right to a jury trial. Section 4G of the ''Crimes Act 1914'' provides that "offences against a law of the Commonwealth punishable by imprisonment for a period exceeding 12 months are indictable offences, unless the contrary intention appears". Canada A direct indictment is one in which the ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seaplane
A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of takeoff, taking off and water landing, landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their technological characteristics: floatplanes and flying boats; the latter are generally far larger and can carry far more. Seaplanes that can also take off and land on airfields are in a subclass called amphibious aircraft, or amphibians. Seaplanes were sometimes called ''hydroplanes'', but currently this term applies instead to Hydroplane (boat), motor-powered watercraft that use the technique of Planing (boat), hydrodynamic lift to skim the surface of water when running at speed. The use of seaplanes gradually tapered off after World War II, partially because of the investments in airports during the war but mainly because landplanes were less constrained by weather conditions that could result in sea states being too high to operate seaplan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Capuchin Monkey
The capuchin monkeys () are New World monkeys of the subfamily Cebinae. They are readily identified as the " organ grinder" monkey, and have been used in many movies and television shows. The range of capuchin monkeys includes some tropical forests in Central America and South America as far south as northern Argentina. In Central America, where they are called white-faced monkeys ("carablanca"), they usually occupy the wet lowland forests on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica and Panama and deciduous dry forest on the Pacific coast. Etymology The word "capuchin" derives from a group of friars named the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, an offshoot from the Franciscans, who wear brown robes with large hoods. When Portuguese explorers reached the Americas in the 15th century, they found small monkeys whose coloring resembled these friars, especially when in their robes with hoods down, and named them capuchins. When the scientists described a specimen (thought to be a golden-bel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Haitian Vodou
Haitian Vodou is an African diasporic religion that developed in Haiti between the 16th and 19th centuries. It arose through a process of syncretism between several traditional religions of West and Central Africa and Roman Catholicism. There is no central authority in control of the religion and much diversity exists among practitioners, who are known as Vodouists, Vodouisants, or Serviteurs. Vodou revolves around spirits known as '' lwa.'' Typically deriving their names and attributes from traditional West and Central African divinities, they are equated with Roman Catholic saints. The lwa divide up into different groups, the ''nanchon'' ("nations"), most notably the Rada and the Petwo. Various myths and stories are told about these lwa, which are regarded as subservient to a transcendent creator deity, Bondye. This theology has been labelled both monotheistic and polytheistic. An initiatory tradition, Vodouists usually meet to venerate the lwa in an ''ounfò'' (temple), run ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andros, Bahamas
Andros Island is an archipelago within the Bahamas, the largest of the Bahamian Islands. Politically considered a single island, Andros in total has an area greater than all the other 700 Bahamian islands combined. The land area of Andros consists of hundreds of small islets and cays connected by mangrove estuaries and tidal swamplands, together with three major islands: North Andros, Mangrove Cay, and South Andros. The three main islands are separated by bights, estuaries that trifurcate the island from east to west. It is long by wide at the widest point. Etymology The indigenous Lucayan people called the island ''Habacoa'' (or ''Babucca'') meaning "large upper outer land". Originally named ''Espiritu Santu'' by the Spanish, Andros Island was given its present name sometime early during the period of British colonial rule. Several eighteenth-century British documents refer to it as Andrews Island. A 1782 map refers to the island as San Andreas. The modern name is believed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tourbillon
In horology, a tourbillon (; "whirlwind") is an addition to the mechanics of a watch escapement to increase accuracy. It was developed around 1795 and patented by the Swiss-French watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet on June 26, 1801. In a tourbillon the escapement and balance wheel are mounted in a rotating cage, with the goal of eliminating errors of poise in the balance giving a uniform weight. Tourbillons are still included in some modern wristwatches, the mechanism is usually exposed on the watch's face to showcase it. Types of tourbillon Single axis tourbillon Patented by Breguet in 1801, the single axis tourbillon minimizes the difference in rate between positions caused by poise errors. The tourbillon was invented to complement the split bi-metallic balance which was inherently difficult to poise. In the most common implementation of this, the tourbillon carriage is carried by the fourth pinion, within a stationary fourth wheel. The escape pinion is engaged with this ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Life Insurance
Life insurance (or life assurance, especially in the Commonwealth of Nations) is a contract between an insurance policy holder and an insurer or assurer, where the insurer promises to pay a designated beneficiary a sum of money upon the death of an insured person (often the policyholder). Depending on the contract, other events such as terminal illness or critical illness can also trigger payment. The policyholder typically pays a premium, either regularly or as one lump sum. The benefits may include other expenses, such as funeral expenses. Life policies are legal contracts and the terms of each contract describe the limitations of the insured events. Often, specific exclusions written into the contract limit the liability of the insurer; common examples include claims relating to suicide, fraud, war, riot, and civil commotion. Difficulties may arise where an event is not clearly defined, for example, the insured knowingly incurred a risk by consenting to an experimental m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
