Today's award goes to a particularly dense TikTok user who filmed herself committing a felony. She threw a stolen gun off the Cross Lake Bridge in Shreveport, and then posted the video on social media. That was a bad idea.
You can watch another brief video of the proceedings at X.com. It's giggle-worthy, as are the comments about it from other viewers (you need to be logged in to X to view them).
Peter
Today's award goes to a bank robber in Ohio.
A 42-year-old man was arrested Friday morning after robbing the Huntington Bank on West State Street, marking the city’s first bank robbery since 2010.
According to the Alliance Police Department, Jauan L. Mason, recently moved to Alliance from Akron, entered the bank around 9:20 a.m. and claimed he had a weapon. He demanded cash and fled on foot with approximately $400 in one-dollar bills.
Police responded immediately and searched the area. Patrolman Paul Vesco located Mason walking on South Union Avenue near State Street. Mason had changed clothes and was carrying the stolen money.
. . .
During his arrest, he reportedly asked police to deposit the stolen cash into his jail commissary account.
There's more at the link.
It's weird how many criminals regard what they've stolen as theirs. "If I steal it, it's automatically mine!" - except that the law doesn't see it that way. I've encountered that attitude time and again among prison inmates during my time as a chaplain. I'm sure the police had a lot of fun pointing out to him that his deposit was going to be a big fat zero.
In this case, kudos to the teller who kept several big bundles of $1 bills in his/her drawer. It looks like a lot of cash, but in actual value it's not worth much. The robber simply grabbed the big bundles, doubtless congratulating himself on his score, and ran off with them without counting them.
Peter
Some doofi and their doofidities are so weird, so flatly daft, that it's hard to believe they actually happened. Today's is one example. See this video clip on X of a cop who was stopped by two ladies (?) complaining that the illegal drugs they were illegally trying to sell had been stolen by someone else.
What's a poor cop to do???
Verily, the mind doth boggle . . .
Peter
Courtesy of Cederq, posting at Phil's place, we find this pearl of wisdom:
To anyone who believes that, may I gently suggest that sexual intercourse might be a lot more to blame than any other politically-correct factor?
Sheesh!!!
Peter
Today's award goes to Minnesota's state legislature.
Come July, common keys for houses, cars, boats, and motorcycles will be illegal in Minnesota, save for uncertain intervention from the state Legislature.
That's when the state's ban on the manufacture, sale, or import of keys, toys, dishes, and other common items containing more than a tiny percentage of lead or cadmium goes into effect.
The purpose of that law was to remove dangerous heavy metals from products that come into contact with children. The trouble is that almost all keys sold today have more lead than the new law's 0.09 percent limit on lead content.
Locksmiths have been warning that the state's lead ban will outlaw most of the products they sell. Alternative metals would require lengthy and expensive transition to using less functional materials, they say.
"Approximately 75 percent of all products that we stock have become prohibited for sale," said Rob Justen of Doyle Security Products.
There's more at the link.
So, in their efforts to become "greener than thou", Minnesota's politicians have condemned their electorate to being unable to get duplicate keys for almost everything they use. One might ask why the legislators didn't bother to find out more about what they were so gleefully banning before they voted, but they're politicians. Their minds don't work like that. They belong to the school of "Don't just stand there, do something!" instead of asking "What, if anything, should be done about the problem?"
It doesn't even matter if they were Democrat or Republican. I'm beginning to think that all career politicians mislay their common sense gene at or soon after birth . . .
Peter
Today's award goes to a dubiously artistic "cryptocurrency entrepreneur". The BBC reports:
Maurizio Cattelan's provocative artwork of a banana duct-taped to a wall has fetched $6.2m (£4.9m) at Sotheby's in New York - four times higher than pre-sale estimates.
The auction house says Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun outbid six other rivals to get the "Comedian" installation of the Italian visual artist on Wednesday.
"In the coming days, I will personally eat the banana as part of this unique artistic experience," Mr Sun was quoted as saying.
The taped banana - now perhaps one of the most expensive fruits ever sold - was actually bought earlier in the day for a mere $0.35, according to the New York Times.
There's more at the link.
If eating a banana is a "unique artistic experience", then I daresay my next steak dinner is going to be a carnivorous Aztec ritual dismemberment! And as for paying over $6 million for it . . . words fail me.
How anyone can claim that a banana taped to a wall is "art", is utterly beyond me. It's like saying the scribbles on the wall by a three-year-old with a box of crayons is art, instead of meaningless disfigurement. What about a cabbage instead? Or a rutabaga? Or (shudder) arugula?
Oy gevalt . . .
Peter
Today's award goes to the designers of a new fire station in Stadtallendorf, Germany.
A multi-million euro fire station in western Germany has burned down, along with 10 fire engines on the site – because it did not have any fire alarms installed.
. . .
According to Oberhessische Presse, the fire station had not been fitted with fire alarms when it was constructed.
. . .
“It is a nightmare for a firefighter. No one wants to have to extinguish his own fire station,” Lars Schafer, the district fire inspector, told reporters after firefighters failed to bring the blaze under control.
The fire has caused estimated damage of € 20 million (about US $21.7 million), including the loss of 10 fire engines.
There's more at the link.
A tad embarrassing, that! I wonder who was the bright spark (you should pardon the expression) who failed to include alarms in the design? And what's the bet that the replacement fire station will have fire alarms?
Peter
Today's award goes to the Los Angeles Police Department, and one officer in particular.
The incident’s details were described in a lawsuit filed by the owners of a Los Angeles medical imaging center, who allege that their business was wrongly targeted by LAPD during a raid in October 2023.
. . .
The plaintiffs say the officers’ behavior was “nothing short of a disorganized circus, with no apparent rules, procedures, or even a hint of coordination.”
At one point, an officer walked into an MRI room, past a sign warning that metal was prohibited inside, with his rifle “dangling… in his right hand, with an unsecured strap,” the lawsuit said. The MRI machine’s magnetic force then allegedly sucked his rifle across the room, pinning it against the machine. MRI machines are tube-shaped scanners that use incredibly strong magnetic fields to create images of the brain, bones, joints and other internal organs.
An officer then allegedly pulled a sealed emergency release button that shut the MRI machine down, deactivating it, evaporating thousands of liters of helium gas and damaging the machine in the process. The officer then grabbed his rifle and left the room, leaving behind a magazine filled with bullets on the office floor, according to the lawsuit.
There's more at the link.
I don't know the cost of restoring and reactivating the MRI unit, but it's got to run into tens of thousands of dollars, given the price of helium and hourly rates for specialist technician assistance. To add insult to injury, no criminal activity or other evidence was found at the clinic.
I've had MRI's done in the past, and always - always - the technicians have warned me ahead of time not to take any metal object with me into the room. It's a very real danger. It's literally killed people before. I think that cop was very fortunate that his rifle didn't discharge as a result of being snatched out of his hands like that.
As for the fruitless raid, and the antics of the officers (all captured on video by the clinic's security system) . . . when did professionalism cease to be a requirement for LAPD's officers?
Peter
Today's award goes to a Canadian lady "seeking spiritual insight through 'ego death' " in a Colorado wilderness trip. The award is shared with the organization that arranged her trip, which (on the basis of the report) doesn't seem to have known what it was doing.
Searchers spent four days looking for the 53-year-old last month outside Norwood. Chase was deliberately fasting as part of the experience.
. . .
"I pushed Gina more on this, looking specifically for what the desired physiological response they were seeking was as opposed to their spiritual goal," [Sergeant] Donnellon wrote in the report. "Gina told me the act of fasting does not have the desired goal of hallucinating but to causes a person to crack a little bit. Gina told me when she fasted before her solo that she was, 'Hoping nature would speak back to me.'"
But by the time she was reported missing and searchers had started to gather for the mission, Chase had been without food and water for 36 hours, according to the report.
. . .
Another sergeant with the sheriff's office, Lane Masters, was told by an Animas Valley Institute guide that communication with the campers would be difficult. The sergeant, as recounted in the report, asked the guide for the campers' general location. He intended to send his deputies out to those locations to instruct the other campers.
The guide, Masters wrote, "pulled out a handwritten note from one camper, and read it to me. The directions were ludicrously poor, such as 'Take a left at the small meadow and walk for a while.'"
As deputies tried to contact the other campers, Masters inquired about the gear Chase had with her. He was told green, a color recommended by the Animas Valley Institute, according to Chase's husband, so Chase could "be closer to nature."
"I pointed out how stupid this was from a safety perspective," Sgt. Masters wrote in the report, "as these colors were difficult to see in wooded terrain."
He added: "(The guide) then pointed at the map where they thought the subject may be. (The guide) pointed directly to our current location in the command area, a fact which I related to her. (The guide) commented 'Oh.' I pointed out to (the guide) that this was a serious problem, the relevance of which seemed to be lost on (the guide)."
. . .
Chase, expecting to be away 10 minutes, walked away from her camp only with a whistle, space blanket, matches, and a water bottle. Left behind were her tent, sleeping bag, inflatable sleeping pad, 12 liters of water and a three-day supply of emergency food, if needed, according to the report.
. . .
Chase blew her whistle at passing helicopters that she assumed were looking for her, but the searchers did not see her nor the shiny space blanket she was keeping in the trees ... There was also a meadow a short distance away, and investigators expressed dismay that Chase did not place her space blanket or other items in the open area where they could be seen from overhead.
There's more at the link. It's worth reading in full for the unending series of accidents, mishaps, mistakes and stupidity that nearly killed the lady. I think she might well be described as "an accident looking for a place to happen" - and she found one!
It boggles my mind how New Age, "woke", sanity-fluid individuals so often get themselves into life-threatening situations through complete and utter inability to ask the most basic questions, get the most basic training in the environment in question, and prepare themselves in even the most basic ways. It's as if they have some sort of death wish. Trouble is, those who have to rescue them end up exposed to the same dangers, and sometimes suffer the consequences.
I hope the lady, and the organization that organized the "adventure", are made to pay the entire cost of the rescue mission. A solid hit to their joint and several pocketbooks might teach them something!
Peter
Today's award goes to a gun-owner in Chesterfield, Virginia. This brief video report tells the story.
Chesterfield County Fire and EMS were understandably not terribly happy about it.
I have no idea why anybody would store a gun - much less a loaded gun - in an oven. There doesn't seem to be any logical reason to do so. One hopes the gun's owner has now learned his or her lesson . . . but that level of stupidity may take more than one incident to drive the point home (or should that be the hollow-point?).
Peter
Today's award goes to an unnamed Colonel and a Chief Warrant Officer in the Utah National Guard.
When a Utah National Guard helicopter crashed earlier this year, it was under the control of a fighter jet pilot without the necessary qualifications.
The February 12 accident is described in an investigative report FOX 13 News obtained though a public records request. The crash happened during what’s called an “orientation flight” to demonstrate the attack helicopter’s capabilities for a colonel in the Air Force Reserves, an F-35 pilot.
Flying a jet is not the same as flying a helicopter, and the investigators said that was key to the crash. Before the flight, the colonel’s Apache experience consisted of about 35 minutes in a simulator.
The flight in the real helicopter lasted 90 minutes. On the return to the West Jordan airport, the colonel tried three times to hover and land, according to the investigative report. Each time, the chief warrant officer in the cockpit had to assume the controls.
The colonel tried a fourth time.
“In a moment of panic and due to his great unfamiliarity with the… helicopter flight controls,” an investigator wrote, “the [colonel] reverted to his fixed-wing… training and applied downward movement…. This motion…was not the proper input in a [rotor wing] aircraft.”
The Apache rotated and fell from about 10 feet above ground before the chief warrant officer could grab the controls.
There's more at the link.
What was the Chief Warrant Officer thinking - to allow a fixed-wing jet pilot to try to land one of the most advanced, sophisticated rotary-wing aircraft in the US inventory, a plane requiring a whole lot of training and experience to handle? He may even have been ordered to allow it - but why did he not immediately protest the order, and log his objections in writing? He would at least have had some cover, legally speaking - but he (apparently) failed to do so, and therefore his rank and career are probably on the line right along with the Colonel's.
I recall one incident in the South African Air Force when I was still living in that country, where a helicopter pilot allowed a fixed-wing pilot to try his hand at the controls. There was no accident and no damage, but the helicopter pilot was still court-martialed for allowing the attempt at all, and the jet pilot was court-martialed for flying an aircraft he was not licensed and certified to fly (even for only a few minutes). The powers that be were Not. Amused. at the potential risk to other people and aircraft in the vicinity, even though that risk did not actually lead to any harm.
I wonder who's going to pay for the medical treatment both men required, and for the (very expensive) repairs to the helicopter? Doofi indeed!
Peter
Today's award goes to the Hong Kong Education Bureau, which appears to have planted both its bureaucratic feet firmly in its institutional mouth.
It may be an innocent enough racquet sport, but Hong Kong's Education Bureau has unintentionally given badminton a whole new meaning.
In teaching materials it released last week, a module titled adolescents and intimate relationships for Secondary Year 3, suggested that teenagers who wanted to have sex with each other could "go out to play badminton together" instead.
The materials also include a form called "My Commitment" aimed at getting "young lovers" to attest that they would exercise "self-discipline, self-control, and resistance to pornography".
The new materials have raised eyebrows and attracted criticism for being "out of touch". But officials have defended the decision.
Meanwhile social media has been flooded with jokes centered around "playing badminton".
"FWB [Friends with benefits]?? Friends with badminton," read one comment on Instagram that had more than 1,000 likes.
"In English: Netflix and chill? In Cantonese, play badminton together?" read a Facebook post which was shared more than 500 times.
Even Olympics badminton player Tse Ying Suet could not resist a comment.
"Everyone is making an appointment to play badminton. Is everyone really into badminton?" she asked on Threads with a smirking face emoji.
. . .
Local lawmaker Doreen Kong said the documents showed that the education bureau did not understand young people. She specifically criticised the badminton suggestion as unrealistic.
"How could they borrow a badminton racket on the spot if it happens?" She asked.
There's more at the link.
I suppose the effort was well-intended, but it's reduced the local teenage population to giggles, innuendo and snarky comments. Some of them are very funny indeed. The whole affair has made quite a racket (you should pardon the expression). I suppose it's inevitable that I read about this over the Net - the internet, that is, rather than the badminton net! As for the use of shuttlecocks . . . the less said, the better!
Peter
I guess this post could also be titled "Headline Of The Day":
A man was arrested Monday after he allegedly used fake IDs and information to make purchases at several St. Tammany Parish stores.
Later that same day, his believed accomplice was also arrested for using a fake ID to try and bond him out of jail.
One would think that, knowing your buddy had just been arrested over fake ID's, you might perhaps consider that the cops would be familiar with them and looking for more, wouldn't you?
Oh, well. Looks like itinerant criminals are now in the business of providing entertainment to otherwise bored cops in Louisiana!
Peter
Today's award goes to Artemio Sanchez-Ortega of New Mexico, who decided to demonstrate his burning passion for his former girlfriend literally rather than figuratively. A full report may be found here, or you can simply watch the video below.
I'm very grateful that there were no casualties among his intended victims. I hope the police catch him soon, before he has any more bright ideas. Of course, he could try exercising matchless ingenuity . . .
Peter
While searching for something else, I came across a half-hour video collection of bloopers, mistakes and foul-ups, mostly involving construction, repair or demolition of buildings. It's almost mesmerizing, seeing just how much can go wrong! I can't embed it here, because the owner doesn't allow that: but click over to it on YouTube and watch it there.
Doofi indeed . . .
Peter
I was struck by a blog post over at Come And Make It. He's an American expat living and working in the Philippines.
Office girl took a class and was not paying attention. Basically she failed it. Now today I sent her to get a letter I need for my environment permit.
However since the girl did not pay attention, she has no clue what the gov regulation we are operating under, is called, much less what paperwork she is supposed to pick up. So then she starts a whole NEW line of useless paperwork instead of just calling me, because the person with my endorsement letter is out of the office.
Meanwhile the 2 new slightly smarter jokers, are unable to comprehend that they should put one scoop of shredded plastic from one barrel, then when that is fed in the machine, a handful of shredded plastic from a second barrel. so they just sticking it all in at once.
They fail to comprehend is that plastic from barrel number 2 sweeps the sticky stuff from barrel number one and makes the material extrude better.
Some days it is like chasing cats.
I'm very familiar with his problem, having worked for many years in the Third World. I used to call it the "doofus factor": employees who were absolutely incapable of doing a simple job by rote, even after it had been explained to them half a dozen times and they'd been stopped and corrected on multiple occasions. It's as if their minds switched off as soon as the machine was switched on.
The trouble is, that seems to be more and more a common experience in America now as well. I've spoken to several small businesses in recent weeks, and they all complain about the same thing. Not only are entry-level American workers slow, lazy and have a sense of entitlement ("I deserve this job! You can't fire me!" or "It's my right to use my phone/surf the Internet/carry on long private conversations on work time! That's freedom of speech!") They won't work hard, and they seem incapable of working accurately. Young workers who demonstrate that they will work hard, and can work accurately, are in very high demand, which creates another problem: employers try hard to poach them from each other, offering more money than they're currently earning. Pretty soon they get an inflated idea of their worth, and price themselves out of the market . . . and then they have to start again at the bottom, often disillusioned and resentful.
That, in turn, seems to be giving rise to a new determination among hard-working young people to enter fields that offer them the chance to work for themselves, no matter how hard that may be. Several have entered the armed forces, despite all the current disadvantages of doing so, because they want a good basic technical education. For example, if one becomes an electrical specialist in the military, many of those courses and qualifications carry over to civilian life, and one can become civilian-certified in a very short time. The same applies to many other fields. They reckon they can survive the not-always-pleasant military life for long enough to earn their qualifications, then quit and work for themselves. As one put it: "I'll never have to work for an a**hole boss again!" It's hard not to sympathize.
How about you, readers? Has anyone else noticed this trend? If so, please share it with us in Comments. This is worrying in terms of the future of our country and our economy.
Peter
Today's award goes to the mayor of St. Louis, Tishaura Jones, who spoke thus at the Black Mayors’ Coalition on Crime:
“We have a lot of violence around convenience stores and gas stations. So how can we hold those business owners accountable and also bring down crime? Some of the things are already doing, we’re finding other mayors are doing as well.”
Er . . . um . . . come again?
You're going to hold business owners accountable for the actions of criminals in and around the areas where those business owners operate?
WHOSE FAULT IS CRIME, ANYWAY?
If you're going to go after business owners for crimes committed by others, pretty soon you won't have any business owners within your city limits. Then your citizens won't be able to buy food, get their vehicles serviced, or do anything else that requires a business to provide the service. Then where will your precious city be???
I repeatedly think that we've plumbed the absolute depths of human stupidity . . . only to be proved wrong again and again by doofi such as Mayor Jones.
*Headdesk*
Peter
Today's award goes to Basketball Ireland and its appeal committees for a decision so daft, it could only be Irish.
Limerick Sport Eagles beat Portlaoise Panthers 80-78 on 23 March.
But the second-tier game finished in controversial fashion, with the Eagles' winning points coming from free throws awarded on the final buzzer.
Portlaoise appealed on the grounds the free throws should not have been allowed as the clock had expired at the same time the foul was called.
They were initially told by the National League Committee (NLC) that the result would stand as a referee's decision cannot be retrospectively overturned.
However, they were given the option to appeal to the National Appeals Committee (NAC).
The NAC ruled the match should be replayed in its entirety, but Basketball Ireland has since said the option to appeal was "granted in error".
The NLC then ruled the fixture would not be replayed in full, but that the remaining 0.3 seconds should be played.
There's more at the link.
Replay less than a third of a second of the match??? Has Basketball Ireland gone quite insane? Did they, collectively or individually, kiss the Blarney Stone and get a completely incomprehensible gift of the gab out of it? Their decision strongly suggests something like that. Or did they imbibe rather too much of the uisce beatha, to the point that their decision was not so much about the spirit of the game as it was the spirits influencing the judges?
Imagine the man with the ball sneezes as the buzzer sounds. By the time his sneeze is over, so too will be the game!
How do you say "Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat" in Gaelic?
Peter
Today's award goes to all the criminals who trusted the other criminals who ran a darknet narcotics site. Their trust has just backfired on them.
Borrowing from the playbook of ransomware purveyors, the darknet narcotics bazaar Incognito Market has begun extorting all of its vendors and buyers, threatening to publish cryptocurrency transaction and chat records of users who refuse to pay a fee ranging from $100 to $20,000. The bold mass extortion attempt comes just days after Incognito Market administrators reportedly pulled an “exit scam” that left users unable to withdraw millions of dollars worth of funds from the platform.
. . .
Incognito Market deals primarily in narcotics, so it’s likely many users are now worried about being outed as drug dealers.
. . .
The past is replete with examples of similar darknet market exit scams ... “Shadowcrew was the precursor to today’s Darknet Markets and laid the foundation for the way modern cybercrime channels still operate today,” Johnson said. “The Truth of Darknet Markets? ALL of them are Exit Scams. The only question is whether law enforcement can shut down the market and arrest its operators before the exit scam takes place.”
There's more at the link.
So, then:
WHAT ELSE DID THEY EXPECT???
Criminals gonna criminal. It's the way they are. You trust them at your peril, do business with them at your peril, and pay the price if (or, rather, when) things go wrong. That's just the way it is. I somehow doubt the prosecuting authorities and the courts are going to be very sympathetic when they catch up with those whose criminal tendencies and dealings are about to be revealed.
Peter
Today's award goes to a woman in Indianapolis who screwed up her own hate crime.
IMPD officers arrested a woman, who they labeled a “terrorist,” after she drove her car into a building that she thought was a Jewish school.
. . .
Ruba Almaghtheh, 34, was arrested on a preliminary charge of criminal recklessness.
According to a police report obtained by FOX59/CBS4, police were called to the building around 11:30 Friday night to investigate a hate crime. Officers said Almaghtheh backed her car into the building while several adults and children were inside.
Almaghtheh told officers she was watching news coverage of the Israel-Hamas war on television and decided to plan an attack on the building because she was offended by the “Hebrew Israelite” symbol on the front of the building.
Police said Almaghtheh passed by the building a couple times and called it the “Israel school.”
IMPD said she made reference to “her people back in Palestine” and told officers, “Yes. I did it on purpose.”
However, the Anti-Defamation League defines the Israelite School of Universal and Practical Knowledge as an “extreme and antisemitic” sect of the Black Hebrew Israelites. The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated the Black Hebrew Israelites as a hate group.
There's more at the link.
According to Wikipedia, "In 2017, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) listed the Black Hebrew Israelites as one of the 'black nationalist groups of concern', along with the Nation of Islam and others. The SPLC has also described the Black Hebrew Israelites as a hate group which supports racial segregation, Holocaust denial, homophobia, and promotes a race war, and as of December 2019, it 'lists 144 Black Hebrew Israelite organizations as black separatist hate groups because of their antisemitic and anti-white beliefs'."
A few days ago, a Jewish journalist posted video of a violent clash between Black Hebrew Israelite and pro-Hamas demonstrators, noting that "BHI believe they are the real Jews, and Jews like me are fake Khazarians. Did not have this on my 2023 bingo card." The BHI demonstrators weren't attacking the others to defend Israel, but because they regarded themselves as true Israelites and Israeli Jews as imposters and false believers. It gets complicated.
Anyway, to get back to the original report, Ms. Almaghtheh apparently attacked the BHI building because she thought it was a Jewish property marked with a Jewish symbol. In fact, she attacked an anti-semitic, racist, extremist group that appears to want to hurt Israel and Jews as much as she does. Talk about a jihadi own goal!
Peter
