Shoplifting 101 - When NOT To Shoplift

In a move that would have fit right into the movie Dumb and Dumber, two young men were caught shoplifting... from a store full of more than sixty uniformed police officers. The annual 'Shop With A Cop' event in Portland marks the beginning of the school year as the officers take dozens of needy children to a local store to purchase school supplies. Store security notified the police that the two men were stuffing their backpacks with items. The men stated "we thought the police would be distracted." You can read more about it here.

More News That Sounds Like A Joke

First came the wedgie. Then there were Indian Burns. Back when I was in middle school, the "funny" thing for kids to do was giving each other purple nurples. But times have changed. Now kids are into 'Sack Tapping'. It's the latest fad in schoolyard violence... a boy will try to slap or flick the groin of another boy to inflict discomfort or pain. Unfortunately, this game can cause serious, permanent injury. Dr. Scott Wheeler, a pediatric urologist in Minnesota, says he is seeing more instances of young boys coming in with major damage to the testicles because of a "tap" that hit too hard. The trauma sustained by sack tapping can be severe enough to rupture a testicle, an injury that can require surgery or even the amputation of the testicle. I don't know about you guys, but this doesn't sound like fun to me.

One Stop Weird News Shopping

Chuck might get an entire week's worth of material from this. Mischief makers, thefts, bear costumes, calling 911 because she was hungry, disturbances, one animal complaint after another, suspicious situations and more! I just want to say that after reading this police blotter from Cleveland, Ohio's Sun Star Courier, I feel much better about myself, and the small town in which I live.

(The image is from the July, 1946 issue of Popular Science.)

You Better Not Have an Emergency

If you live in Lake County, Colorado, the last thing you want to do is get hurt. Or have your house catch on fire. Why? Because the current Lake County sheriff, Ed Holte, is using the county's emergency services as a political tool. Even going so far as to instruct dispatchers to send sheriff's deputies to all emergency calls first, including medical and fire calls. The situation came to a head when the captain of the fire department, Dan Dailey, was handcuffed and placed in a cell while responding to an emergency medical call. Read the article for more.

Psst Kid, Wanna Buy a Goldfish?

Every so often you come across an article in the news that leaves you shaking your head and wondering what the world is coming to. This is one of those stories. Joan Higgens, aged 66, a pet shop owner in northern England has been fined, given a curfew and electronically tagged, because she sold a goldfish to a fourteen year old. Apparently it is illegal to sell pets to anyone under the age of sixteen, as minors are deemed incapable of taking care of the animals.

First Ever Monster Truck Backflip

The USA cannot pass any useful laws or put its citizens to work. But we can spin giant polluting machinery in the air.

Death Wish

Police in North Vernon, Indiana say it is obvious this man had a death wish. That may not be so uncommon for men his age and perhaps in his profession, but he accomplished it in a very disturbing fashion. I've followed the events in The North Vernon Plain Dealer & Sun, but I do find it somewhat unnerving that the story is making the rounds through many newspapers in central and southern Indiana, as I fear widespread dissemination of the story may open the door to copycats.
UPDATE: Meth, unsuprisingly, played a role. Greensburg Daily News

Unrelated bonus mugshot from the same paper of Nikkiah C. Weddle, a loving mother, that just appears slothful. I feel that her having smoked marijuana three weeks earlier will play a heavy role in her defense, since we've all smoked a joint that we took almost a full month to recover from.

Secret Techniques of the Electric Company & Party of Five:  Not Much Brighter Than the Original

I have two news oddities to present from one of my local papers. The first from The Greensburg Daily News I didn't think was so odd, I would expect the electric company to do such things to avoid displacing wildlife, but I couldn't figure out if the 'secret technique' was really an extraordinary trade secret (I would actually expect them to want to share such info so other companies could put it to use), or just a case of a lazy reporter.
The second from the same paper details five new residents of the county jail. Alas, there is only one mugshot. These five actually had uniformed police knock on their door, and they didn't answer. So the police set up a perimeter around their apartment for two hours while waiting for the search warrant. With two hours to play with, none of the suspects noticed a cop banging on the door or the perimeter placed around their apartment? And they couldn't destroy a small amount of dope and paraphernalia in the meantime?

Runaway Snowmobile

Lions And Tigers And Bears, Oh My!

A couple visiting a safari park in Johannesburg, South Africa got a bit closer to nature than they expected after one of the Lions, a juvenile male, calmly got hold of the rear door handle in his teeth and pulled it open. After a shocked moment, the driver gunned the engine and the vehicle took off with the lion in hot pursuit. It was finally driven off by wardens at the exit gates (Daily Mail).

Meanwhile Mr Zhu, a 61 year-old retired teacher from China’s Jiangxi province, let his curiosity get the better of him during a vistit to the circus in Nankang, and put his hand though the bars of a tiger’s cage to feel its fur. The tiger promptly bit off four of his fingers. Zhu collapsed on the spot with shock, but survived to receive 3500 yuan (about $500) in compensation. The tiger was unharmed by the incident, but felt hungry again 15 minutes later (Times of India).

Less aggressive, but equally troubling, is the giant bear that has made its home near Lake Tahoe, Nevada, described by one resident as “super smart”. The residents of Incline Village are enduring almost nightly visits from a 700 lb black bear that has already caused $70000 of damage this year. The bear has evaded the traps set for it and the patrols looking for it, and has even survived a couple of rounds from a .44 magnum, one of which reportedly bounced off its skull (Las Vegas Sun).

In other (not actually) bear news, Australian marsupial pinup the Koala is looking at a bleak future according to recent reports. The loss of eucalyptus trees through deforestation, dog attacks and car accidents are stressing the animals to such an extent that they are succumbing to usually harmless viral infections. Frank Carrick of Queensland University’s Koala Study Program said the koalas were in “diabolical trouble” and that their numbers were “declining alarmingly”. (Washington Post). The Australian Koala Foundation estimates that there are fewer than 100000 koalas left in the wild, maybe as few as 43000, and the mainland population could go extinct in as little as 30 years (New Scientist).

Finally, a crocodile bit of more than it could chew this week when it strayed too close to a bloat of hippopotami and their young, who promptly formed a threatening defensive ring. Startled, the crocodile attempted to escape over the backs of the angry hippos, a fatal mistake. The croc’s scaly hide was no defence against the 3000-4000 lbs of bite pressure of an adult hippo, and it was soon crushed to death in their jaws (Telegraph).

It's a far cry from the cretaceous period where, according to new fossil finds, crocodiles were the extraordinarily successful inhabitants of a swampy region that was to become the Sahara Desert. Given nicknames like "boarcroc" and "ratcroc", the fossils show a plethora of different crocodile species living alongside each other, with each adapted to different ways of life. Some, like "dogcroc" and "duckcroc" have oddly shaped braincases that suggest they may have been considerably more intelligent than their modern descendants (Times).

All original content in posts is Copyright © 2008 by the author of the post, either Alex Boese ("Alex"), Paul Di Filippo ("Paul"), or Chuck Shepherd ("Chuck"). All rights reserved. The banner illustration at the top of this page is Copyright © 2008 by Rick Altergott.