Category: WTF?

Woman arrested for DWI, mysteriously bleeds profusely while interrogation video off

Potentially disturbing video warning.

This is a video of a woman being processed in a police interrogation room after an arrest for DWI. Mysteriously, at one point during the processing, the video camera is turned off. When it is turned back on, the woman is lying in a pool of her own blood, and shortly afterwards taken away on stretcher to the hospital.dwi-beating.jpg She ends up with two black eyes, two broken teeth, bruises, and, as noted, loss of lots of blood.

The officer has been fired, but is appealing the firing. His attorney claims the officer turned of the tape …in accordance with normal practice. So far, I’ve found no explanation of what normal practice leads to turning off video taping while processing an arrestee. I suspect it is something like “When beating someone, it is normally wise to do so where no video evidence nor eye witnesses can be used against use.” I could be wrong, though – that’s just a theory. The officer explains what happened, thankfully. Again, through the officer’s attorney:

The suspect again tried to leave the room. In the process of stopping her, she fell and injured herself.

I can’t recall the last time I fell while someone tried to stop me from going through a door and I ended up in the condition shown above, but maybe you other folks can help me out on this one.  Anyone got a similar experience where you fell about 10 feet away from the door you are trying to go through (at least, that’s about what it loos to me in the video) and ended up with such injuries?

[tags]DWI, Police, She fell down[/tags]

Beef recall? Can it *really* be that bad?

So, maybe you’ve heard about the huge, nation-wide beef recall? Maybe you don’t know just why this is happening. And maybe you are wondering, well just how bad could it really be?

A disturbing video of cows too sick to walk being pulled to their feet by chains in order to pass slaughterhouse inspections has prompted the largest recall of beef in American history.

. . .

The undercover footage, obtained by the Humane Society of the United States, shows workers kicking crippled cows, spraying them with water and using electric shocks, trucks and chains to force the cattle to walk and pass USDA inspection.

. . .

The recall covers beef produced since February 2006 and distributed nationwide to wholesalers for use in products such as burrito filling, meatballs and sausage.

Of course, a lot, probably most of the beef in question has already been consumed. But if you weren’t already wary of beef, maybe this will help you to think about your food before you buy it. I love me some beef, but I rarely eat it any more. This recall is making me appreciate not having any lately.

Oh, and why the hell is it that the best story I can find about a US product recall is from a British news site?

[tags]Beef, Recall, USDA, Mmmmm[/tags]

If warning label is not in place to warn, do not use?!?

OK, so on this paper cutter at the office, there’s this interesting little cap over the spring attached to the blade handle. Am I the only person who sees a problem with this?

cutter.jpg

So, um, how exactly would someone know they should not use the cutter if the guard weren’t in place when they arrived?  Maybe a label on the cutting board warning against using the cutter if the spring guard is not in place?

[tags]Stupid, Cutter, Do not operate, User interface, Design flaws[/tags]

Floridians against evolution?

tb_evolutionpoll_graph225.jpgResults from a badly worded survey are in, and if the numbers are to be believed (hint: they aren’t to be believed), approximately 50% of Floridians are in favor of teaching creationism in place of evolution as science.

Only 22 percent want public schools to teach an evolution-only curriculum, while 50 percent want only faith-based theories such as creationism or intelligent design, according to a new St. Petersburg Times survey.

Here’s a clue. If you only use penicillin to deal with your occasional infection, you can make a reasonable claim that you don’t buy in to the theory of evolution. If, however, you use such as Azithromycin, Ciprofloxacin, Amoxicillin, or any of the other updated penicillin alternatives or medications which fight some of the same classes of illness, then you are getting medicated based on evolution theory. If there were no evolution, you wouldn’t need to fight penicillin-resistant medications, as penicillin would always work against the class of ailments for which penicillin worked many years ago.

If you want to believe in some higher power, that’s great. But don’t confuse faith issues with science and try to get evolution taken out of school just because the science disagrees with your faith. If you feel children must be taught Intelligent Design or Creationism, take them to church and get your Sunday School teachers to educate them. Because as appealing as these concepts are, they are most certainly not science.

I lack the proper command of the language and sufficient depth in the subject to write a very good post about this, but I do know the difference between science and non-science, and am so tired of people trying to teach one as the other. (via Pharyngula)

[tags]Pharyngula, Science, Evolution, Creationism, Intelligent Design[/tags]

Yahoo! working on AOL merger talks again?

Because allowing Microsoft to buy Yahoo! *and* AOL next year would apparently be so much better than just letting the company consume Yahoo! this year, there is talk of Yahoo! seeking another shot at merging with AOL.

It said Yahoo and AOL had previously tried to join forces, but were unable to agree on the price of a deal.

I’m guessing both companies appeared stronger at previous talks than this time around.   But I’m not sure how a generally successful company like Yahoo! merging with a downward trending company like AOL will save Yahoo!, but I guess that’s why I’m not a multi-billionaire industry executive (NOTE: I also called the iPhone’s popularity wrong – further proof that I should remain a tech peon).

[tags]AOL, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Merger[/tags]

Stolen paintings

Thieves pull off a brazen heist of $163 million worth of art-work in Zurich.

ZURICH, Switzerland – Three armed men in ski masks stole four paintings by Cezanne, Degas, van Gogh and Monet worth $163.2 million from a Zurich museum in one of Europe’s largest ever art heists, police said Monday.

. . .

The three masked men wearing dark clothing entered the museum a half-hour before closing Sunday, police said. While one of the men used a pistol to force museum personnel to the floor, the two others went into the exhibition hall and collected the four paintings.

Now I always wonder WTF is going on when I hear about something like this.  As the full article explains briefly, selling this artwork is very difficult, what with the publicity and police investigations going on.  On the other hand, there are over 30,000 stolen art pieces sought by law enforcement internationally.  Some shady rich guy will end up buying this art, and likely little of it will ever been seen again by public eyes.

[tags]Art theft, Monet, Degas, van Gogh, Cezanne, $163 million, Zurich, Switzerland[/tags]

Sumotori

I hadn’t even heard of this game before, but Sumotori looks worth trying just based on these videos and the 96K download size. In fact, if you are still stuck on a 1200 baud modem connection and find 96K too large (psssst – this page is bigger than that), you can instead get a tiny 29K version.

Drunk cubism fighters? Sign me up.

[tags]Sumotori, Gaming, YouTube, Drunken Cubism[/tags]

Anyone remember when he just danced in his underwear?

“You know you’re the only one that can really help.”

Tom Cruise explains why Scientology is so important.  The above quote?  Well, that’s why a Scientologist must stop to help when they see an accident.  No one but a Scientologist can help.

I think I’d rather see him nailing Rebecca De Mornay on a subway again – he was much more entertaining before he started calling Psychiatry ebil, ebil, EBIL I tell you and telling the world that Brooke Shields is a bad mother.

Props to Defamer for catching this for our viewing, um, pleasure (?) before YouTube ripped it down.

Didn’t get a chance to watch the terrifyingly creepy Tom Cruise video yesterday before Scientologists pulled it off YouTube? Well, we’ve managed to get our hands on a copy and now we’d like to invite you to watch in all its technicolor glory.

Tom rules you all.  Oh, and this video is painfully stupid to watch and listen to.

[tags]Scientology, Tom Cruise, WTF, Stupid, Really – WTF?, I mean it – WTF?, Bat Shit Crazy[/tags]