Category: Stupid

Unsolved mystery – tree robs bank – police mystified

I think we’ve got a case that will be extra tough to solve. It seems some clever criminal masterminded the ultimate bank robbery. With tree branches held on to his shirt and head by duct tape, one James Coldwell robbed a bank recently. Here’s some news of the robbery, as reported by police captain Dick Tracy (Hey! I’m not making this up – hit the link to see).

708a1bank2.jpgVideo surveillance of the Saturday morning robbery showed a thin white man leaving the bank in a shroud of tree branches, all duct-taped to his shirt and head. His short, dark hair and mustache were clearly visible between the leaves.

Tracy said police were tipped off by several anonymous callers after the footage appeared on a nightly news broadcasts.

“I think he was hoping the disguise would camouflage him enough that no one would recognize who he was,” Tracy said.


Checking out the image, I can’t see how he was identified. Maybe there’s hope for a not guilty verdict? Always a chance of reasonable doubt, right? Or maybenot guily by reason of stupidity.

[tags]Stupid crook, Dumb criminals, Tree robs bank[/tags]

But she’s “not a violent person”

This really isn’t the kind of thing you read about every day. At least, I hope it’s not the kind of thing you read about every day. It certainly isn’t something I’ve heard about too many times before.

A woman who ripped off her ex-boyfriend’s testicle with her bare hands has been sent to prison.

Amanda Monti, 24, flew into a rage when Geoffrey Jones, 37, rejected her advances at the end of a house party, Liverpool Crown Court heard.

She pulled off his left testicle and tried to swallow it, before spitting it out. A friend handed it back to Mr Jones saying: “That’s yours.”

. . .

In his statement, Mr Jones said she grabbed his genitals and “pulled hard”.

He added: “That caused my underpants to come off and I found I was completely naked and in excruciating pain.”

It does sound a little something like Ron Shock would talk about. But outside of that – yup, it’s a fairly rare story. By the way – if you ever have the chance to see Ron Shock, he is one of the funniest comedians I have ever seen. Go see one of his shows. Buy his videos after the show. You won’t regret it.
Also, that story headline here? It’s an actual quote from the lady who did the, ummm, ripping. And I must say, I know of no non-violent or loving way to rip a man’s testicle from his body.

[tags]Violent testicle removal, Unwilling partial castration, I’m not a violent person[/tags]

Guide: Smuggling liquids on a place

liquids-on-a-plane_resize.jpg Thankfully, there are more people out there that feel as I do about some of the so-called “security” we are getting for our tax dollars.  And they are way smarter than I am, so they write insightful things about the problem.  So there are frequently new posts out there from which I can draw.  The latest is this simple “guide” to taking your liquids on a plane with you.

My latest experiment with TSA security happened by accident. I recently flew to Memphis on business, and while I was there I bought my wife a souvenir bottle of Vidalia onion salad dressing (pictured at left [well, not on my site when I rip his text]). Vidalia onions are one of the four food groups of the South, the other three being barbecue, fried foods, and gravy.

. . .

I took my time packing up my things, watching her wrap the bottle loosely in the paper and drop it into the trash barrel.

I looked around casually. There weren’t very many TSA agents servicing the area, and they were joking around, screening oncoming passengers, watching the X-ray monitor. Everyone’s attention was focused elsewhere. No one was watching me.

I moseyed over to the walkway and glanced in the barrel. It was filled with half-empty coffee cups and discarded water bottles. There, on top of the trash, wrapped in its protective paper, was my salad dressing.

. . .

Calmly, I reached down into that unstable barrel of atomic liquid and grabbed my salad dressing. Then I calmly boarded the moving walkway, and stuffed the salad dressing down my pants. The TSA lets you keep things there, apparently.

No one came after me. I have to be honest, it was almost like they wanted me to take it. The hardest part was returning a few minutes later to take these pictures on my cameraphone.

Mission accomplished, I suppose.  Read the full article for more details and the camera phone pictures that go along with the story.  This story has been covered by several of my favorite web sites/blogs/smarty-smart folks.  Schneier rightly points out that this probably isn’t a smart thing to brag about online and that he probably wouldn’t have been so glib had he been caught.  Boingboing, other the other hand, looks at this from the critique of DHS security standpoint:

The reason this “smuggling” technique works, of course, is that liquids aren’t dangerous. Everyone knows this — even the TSA. That’s why they don’t guard the barrel after they confiscate your wine, water, and salad-dressing. The point of taking away your liquid isn’t to make airplanes safe, it’s to simultaneously make you afraid (of terrorists with magic water-bombs) and then make you feel safe (because the government is fighting off the magic water-bombs). It’s what Bruce Schneier calls “security theater.”

So take your pick of viewpoints – probably unwise and overly risky or possible because everyone realizes liquids aren’t that risky.  Or both, which is what I think – he wasn’t doing himself a favor by doing this, but it wasn’t likely to be caught given how non-dangerous liquids are and therefore unprotected after “disposal” anyway.

[tags]Liquids on a plane, How to smuggle liquids onto a plane, That Zug guy[/tags]

MA trying to emulate TX?

Have you heard the saying “Texas! Where men are men and sheep are scarred.” before? Well, looks like a young man in Massachussettsis trying to change the state that gets that claim.

A Sherborn teen was charged this afternoon with allegedly having sex with sheep at a farm near his home, a pattern police suggest may have gone on for nearly a year.

. . .

According to police reports, the incident at the farm in June 2007 was just the latest in at least a dozen break-ins. Prompted by the earlier incidents, the owner of the farm installed surveillance cameras, including one near the sheep pen.

Between 3 and 4 a.m. on June 27, the police report says, “the camera…captured and filmed a light-skinned black male subject identified as Roger Henderson II.

“Henderson is observed in sheep pen grabbing a sheep by its hind legs and dragging it to the corner of the stall. Henderson removes his clothes and appears to have sexual relations with the sheep. Upon finishing, Henderson puts his pants back on and leaves the barn area with his shirt in his hand.”

Really, things like this make me realize I need to add a WTF? category to the blahg.

Oh, and if anyone asks you, I hear it is customary to pet them before leaving. Mr. Henderson didn’t even have the decency to say “Thank you, ma’am.” and scratch her ears.

I do wonder, though, if maybe Roger just misunderstood what folks were saying when they said he was the black sheep of the family? It could have happened.

[tags]WTF?, Sheep abuse, MA looking to replace TX[/tags]

Alabama still stuck in 1954?

Andrew has this handy graphic to help understand the state of the state of Alabama:

kantor_alabama-stuck-in-1954.jpg

Now why would he intimate this? Well, let’s just take the quote he used and see if it tempts you to read the full story.

With the state’s weather forecasters not delivering much-needed rain, Gov. Bob Riley on Thursday turned to a higher power. The governor issued a proclamation calling for a week of prayer for rain, beginning Saturday.

Yes, there seems to be an attempt to solve a lack of rain through prayer. Now go see what Andrew has to say about it.

[tags]Alabama stuck in 1954?, Kantor highlights excellence in governance[/tags]

Disaster averted – for now

Thanks to the quick thinking of one man, we have one less vampire to threaten the world now.

A peacock that roamed into a fast-food restaurant parking lot was attacked by man who vilified the bird as a vampire, animal-control authorities said.

Beaten so fiercely that most of his tail feathers fell out, the bird was euthanized, said Richard Gentles, a spokesman for the city’s Center for Animal Care and Control.

Please don’t think I actually condone beating animals. I hate to think how many crazy people are out and about, hidden in plain sight. And here, I don’t mean “suffering from minor or major mental disabilities” crazy, but rather “potentially and likely dangerous but not recognized as such” crazy. It’s not hard (for me) to think that someone who would beat a peacock because they believe it to be a vampire as falling into both categories. I’m all for helping treat those in the first category and trying to help them function in the world as it is. I’m pretty much not so much in favor of helping the second category group back into society at large without major improvements at recognizing whether or not they actually still fall into the second category.

[tags]He started it!, The peacock was a vampire, Protecting the world from vampiric fowl[/tags]

Five people fail to be worth anything

Here’s a post of five worthless people doing nothing to justify their existence.

As stabbing victim LaShanda Calloway lay dying on the floor of a convenience store, five shoppers, including one who stopped to take a picture of her with a cell phone, stepped over the woman, police said.

So what reason is there for even having those five people around any more? And for the record, Ms. Calloway died later at the hospital.

[tags]Worthless people, LaShanda Calloway[/tags]

Fired for having a little fun on the job?

In a “What the hell was I thinking? I must be an idiot” moment, Norberto Cappas made a bad decision that has come back to haunt him:

An officer who ordered two women to put on a “sex show” in a jail cell will be fired. Norberto Cappas, 32, was found guilty by a police tribunal of conduct unbecoming an officer and lying during a departmental investigation and will lose his job following a 30-day suspension, the department said Tuesday.

nternal Affairs investigators found that Cappas ordered the two women to kiss and touch each other and expose their breasts in September 2003. The two had been picked up on suspicion of drug possession, but they had no drugs and were not charged with a crime.

Of course, that was a stupid move. Sounds like perhaps an abuse of power done by someone who thought he could get away with it, although honestly I’m not sure I believe ol’ Norberto has sufficient mental facilities to actually think about whether he could get away with it:

Cappas has denied wrongdoing and refused to talk to a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter seeking comment Tuesday.

The real kicker though, is this little tidbit in the story:

The case sat idle for years until the Inquirer raised questions about it last year.

Yup. Sounds like a case of limited thinking combined with departmental inertia and buearacracy let him do something stupidly abusive and almost get away with it.

[tags]Stupid criminal watchers?, Stupid abuse of powers, Dumb cop story[/tags]

We signalled for time-out! No fair!

Everyone knows the hand signal for a time-out, right? Make a “T” with your hands and everything comes to a temporary halt. Well, it turns out that some criminals are stupid enough to to think that applies in a polie chase, too.

Philippine police chased down an unfit thief on Tuesday after he ran out of breath and asked his pursuers for a “time out.”

“He was panting and gasping for air when we caught up with him after a 500 meter sprint,” Erwin Buenceso, one of the arresting officers, told local radio station dzBB.

On the plus side (for the stupid criminals), the police did wait for the men to catch their breath before arresting them and recovering the stolen goods. Read the full article for how that all played out.

[tags]Stupid, Dumb crook news, Stupid criminals, Sometimes time-out doesn’t count[/tags]

GPS users disengage brains?

I have insufficient proof to consider this an absolute truism, but I think that there is evidence to make one think that users of GPS systems operate them by turning off their brains.

A 20-year-old student’s car was wrecked by a train after she followed her sat nav system onto a railway track.

. . .

“I put my complete trust in the sat nav and it led me right into the path of a speeding train,” she said.

“The crossing wasn’t shown on the sat nav, there were no signs at all and it wasn’t lit up to warn of an oncoming train.

Unfortunately, if you read the full story, you’ll see that it is conceivable that this was more than just blind faith in the GPS. The rail crossing was unmarked, it was dark, and manual manipulation of the cross gates was required to cross. But that’s not all my evidence. You can see more examples if you keep reading.

Continue reading “GPS users disengage brains?”

Evil coming to DS, Wii, and PC

Beware! Unbeknownst to most of the world, evil has been declared a near-future release for the the Nintendo DS and Wii, as well as on the PC (but really, we’re pretty much used to evil on the PC, aren’t we?).

According to publisher THQ, there are a total of three new titles currently in development based on the popular doll line. The first two video games Bratz: 4 Real and Bratz Super Babyz will be both released on DS and Games for Windows platforms this Fall.

4 Real was actually based from the upcoming Bratz theatrical release. Furthermore, the other title will be known as Bratz: The Movie and will make an outing on Wii, PlayStation 2 (PS2), and even on GameBoy Advance (GBA).

Most disturbing of all is mention of the Bratz theatrical release. Soon, your eyes will be overwhelmed with the evil that is Bratz.

[tags]Evil announced for DS and Wii, Evil, Bratz in your hand, Bratz touch sensitive and motion activated[/tags]

Worst toys awards

Radar online has up the worst toys awards, featuring nearly a dozen bad toy ideas that still made it to market.

jarts.jpg

As soon as I saw the article title, I knew that one would make it. Reading on, I was quite astounded by this one:

Nothing says safety like an open hot plate. And nothing says fun like using that open hot plate to create molten, rubbery insects you can throw at your sister while narrowly avoiding setting the house ablaze. The 1964 Creepy Crawler Thingmaker from Mattel, a distant cousin of today’s Creepy Crawler toys, came with a series of molds, tubes of “plastigoop,” and an open-faced frier, which could heat up to a nerve-searing 310 degrees.

Heats up to 310 degrees? No wonder that got pulled. Guess that’s why I can’t find the old Hot Wheels car maker we had when I was a kid. Same premise, only the heated wax and car mold pouring bin were under a plastic shell.

[tags]Worst toys awards, Radar online covers the worst toy ideas[/tags]