Bayou Renaissance Man

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:

1. Incognito Market is admittedly a criminal organization, selling an illegal product.
2. Notwithstanding this, its customers do business there - thereby effectively admitting that they're also criminals.
3. Yet, customers are upset that the criminals from whom they've been buying are now extorting the criminals to whom they were selling?

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

Today's award goes to the designer of a new garden bed at the Presbyterian Ladies’ College in Sydney, Australia.  A tip o' the hat to Australian reader Andrew for sending me the link.

A private girls’ school has been forced to redesign a garden bed it accidentally built in the shape of a penis.

. . .

Headmaster of the $39,000-a-year school, Paul Burgis, said he was unaware the garden had a distinct phallic outline during the design phase, but a former student had alerted him after drone footage captured a full aerial vista.

. . .

“As part of recording the updates we sent a drone up to take pictures. At a certain angle from up high, the garden with its room for chairs took on a phallic shape which was unintended and unexpected.

“As a result, the architects made some alterations which were completed within 72 hours of the drone pictures.”

. . .

“The immediate response was laughter: ‘you’ve got to be kidding me’. Photos have been circulating among the school as memes, saying ‘oh good morning’ and various kinds of jokes.”

There's more at the link.

Sounds like a flawed Pink Floyd lyric.  "We don't need no ed-dick-ation . . ."?

Of course, the Presbyterian Church does have something of a reputation to live down.  The Theological College at Edinburgh University, the heart of the Church of Scotland, has been renowned for many years for the graffiti left by (presumably) its students on the men's bathroom walls.  A couple of well-known examples collected by Nigel Rees (suitably censored for these family-friendly pages) include:

Written beneath the light switch:  "A light to enlighten the genitals"

Q:  "Why do people write '**** The Pope' on toilet walls?"
A:  "Because it's too much trouble to write '**** the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland'!"

It seems the Presbyterian Church in Australia is keeping up the old tradition . . .

Peter

I'm sure the lady concerned didn't find this incident amusing, but it made me laugh.

The woman, in her 70s, had popped the oven on before leaving with the intention of preheating it so she could get straight to cooking when she returned.

What she didn’t realize however was that she had also turned on the stovetop, upon which she had left a mostly full can of antibacterial Glen20 spray.

While she was out, the highly flammable can got so heated that it blasted up with such force that it not only went through the ceiling, but straight out the roof.

“It shot straight up like a rocket,” said Jake Whalan, director of DYAD Constructions, which was called in to address the aftermath.

There's more at the link, including photographs.

I wasn't surprised to read that the can exploded.  What did surprise me was its vertical launch at high velocity, leaving a neat round hole in the ceiling and then bursting out through the roof.  Nobody knows where it ended up.  I'd have expected the can to explode in every direction, breaking the pressure vessel inside it, but it seems it was better or more strongly designed than that.  (It made a heck of a mess of the stovetop, too!)

I'm glad nobody was at home when it went off.  That must have been a very loud noise indeed...

Peter

I can't embed Twitter videos here, so click over to this tweet and watch the 13-second video for yourself.

Verily, the mind doth boggle . . .

Who taught those idiots to do that?  In fact, did any firearms instructor tell them to do that, or did they figure it out for themselves?

One can only hope they didn't breed . . .

Peter

Courtesy of a link at Eatgrueldog, today's award goes to a particularly clueless woman who posted a video on Twitter of how she almost shot herself in the head.  Click on the link to view it - I can't embed Twitter videos here.

All I can say is that anyone who plays - plays!!! - with loaded guns deserves all they get.  Stupidity is its own reward.  Sadly, many of them end up hurting, or even killing, other innocent people who didn't deserve to get caught up in their stupidity.

I don't predict a stellar future for this lady . . .

Peter

Today's award goes to the organisers of the North Canterbury Hunting Competition in New Zealand.  The BBC reports:

A children's cat-hunting competition in New Zealand has been cancelled following backlash against the event.

Organisers of an annual hunt were criticised after announcing a new category for those aged 14 and under to hunt feral cats.

The animals are considered a pest and a risk to the country's biosecurity.

Youngsters were told to not kill pets, but they were otherwise encouraged to kill as many feral cats as possible for a prize.

The child who killed the most between mid-April and the end of June would have won NZ$250 (£124; $155).

. . .

The event had been announced as part of a June fundraiser hunt for a local school in North Canterbury in the South Island, a largely rural area of New Zealand where hunting is popular.

The competition each year typically sees hundreds - including children - compete to kill wild pigs, deer and hares.

There's more at the link.

I know that feral cats pose a grave risk to small indigenous animals and birds, and that their population needs to be controlled, if not eradicated (the latter almost impossible in practical terms).  However, to ask children to kill cats is dubious on several grounds.

• What about kids who have cats at home?  They're used to thinking of cats as pets, even friends.  Now they're told to kill them.  Conflict, much?
• What about the kids who will gleefully kill any and every cat they come across, including other people's pets, in an attempt to run up their score and win the competition?  You know as well as I do that such kids exist.  I've met too many of them, both as a child and as an adult.  Some of them will even take pleasure in torturing cats and other animals.  Yes, they're out there.
• The organizers must have been as thick as two short planks in failing to take into consideration the number of cat-lovers who'd object to their contest.  Did they have no public relations advisers at all among their number?

Peter

Today's award goes to the advertising department of McDonald's in England for this gaffe.

Burger giant McDonald's has said it will remove a "tasteless" sign opposite a crematorium in Cornwall after the unfortunate coincidental placement was pointed out by CornwallLive. Although the advertising hoarding has caused hilarity among motorists who spot it on the busy A39, others fear it may upset grieving families.

When a CornwallLive reporter asked people what they thought of the sign, someone replied: "I think how funny it is will probably depend on how long ago you followed the crematorium sign wearing a black tie."

When we shared an image of the sign, it was largely greeted with hilarity. Among the comments were:

"No worse than our local council entertaining the idea of allowing a crematorium to be built next door to a retirement village."

"Fell off the chair laughing." And, of course: "I’m lovin’ it" - the chain's slogan.

There's more at the link.

Hey, look on the bright side.  At least they picked a billboard near a crematorium, rather than a composting burial site!  That might have lent itself to an entirely new perspective on digestion...

Peter

Today's award goes to Spain's national railway company, Renfe, and the regional governments of the provinces of Cantabria and Asturias in that country.  The original article at The Times is paywalled, so (courtesy of Francis Turner) here's an archived version.

The comic characters Pepe Gotera and his bungling sidekick Otilio have long been a byword for rank incompetence by Spanish builders.

Local politicians have now compared botched efforts to secure 31 new trains at an estimated cost of €258 million [about US $277 million] with the characters, after officials discovered that the tunnels were too small for the carriages. The trains were intended to run through the mountainous northern regions of Asturias and Cantabria.

. . .

The mistake ... has caused uproar in Spain. Miguel Ángel Revilla, the head of Cantabria’s government, described it a “monumental botched job”.

The transport ministry reacted by sacking two senior officials and assuring that a modified design for the trains would be ready by the summer.

There's more at the link.

I've heard of a monetary squeeze, or a budgetary squeeze, but I've never seen a train smash squeeze!  I wonder whether they found out about the problem the hard way, by actually trying to run one of the new trains through the tunnels?  I think that would have given the driver conniption fits!

Given the usual ineptitude of government bureaucrats, I'm surprised they didn't decide to keep the new trains and rebuild the tunnels to accommodate them.  On the other hand, someone probably reminded them of the First Law of Holes:  "If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging".

Peter

Todays' award goes to a zoo in Linfen, China.  A tip o' the hat to Andrew in Australia for sending me the link.

A warm and fuzzy, cute and furry stunt at a zoo in China almost turned red and bloody with an unnecessary loss of life and/ or limb.

This was after the zookeepers there tried to do a symbolic passing of baton event for the Lunar New Year by putting a rabbit and tiger within close proximity of each other.

A video posted on Weibo showed exactly what happened next: The tiger, a juvenile, upon getting a whiff of the rabbit, decided to take a nice big bite out of a fellow mammal.

There's more at the link, including pictures.  The rabbit was rescued just in time.

What can I say?  You put an apex predator (albeit a juvenile one) right next to a big, fluffy piece of meat.  What the heck did they expect would happen???

One can only presume that the staff concerned had their full share of touchy-feely, politically correct, modern indoctrination - what passes for education these days.

Sheeeeesh!!!

Peter

I'd say it's time to elect an entire new school board in a Massachusetts school district.

For nearly a year and a half, a Massachusetts high school has been lit up around the clock because the district can’t turn off the roughly 7,000 lights in the sprawling building.

The lighting system was installed at Minnechaug Regional High School when it was built over a decade ago and was intended to save money and energy. But ever since the software that runs it failed on Aug. 24, 2021, the lights in the Springfield suburbs school have been on continuously, costing taxpayers a small fortune.

“We are very much aware this is costing taxpayers a significant amount of money,” Aaron Osborne, the assistant superintendent of finance at the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District, told NBC News. “And we have been doing everything we can to get this problem solved.”

. . .

The original high school building, which dates back to 1959, was replaced with the current 248,000-square foot structure in 2012.

One of the cost-saving measures the school board insisted on was a “green lighting system” run on software installed by a company called 5th Light to control the lights in the building. The system was designed to save energy — and thus save money — by automatically adjusting the lights as needed.

But in August 2021, staffers at the school noticed that the lights were not dimming in the daytime and burning brightly through the night.

“The lighting system went into default,” said Osborne. “And the default position for the lighting system is for the lights to be on.”

There's more at the link.

So, let me get this straight.  They installed (presumably at vast expense) a new, high-tech lighting system . . . with no on or off switches in each classroom?  And no master on/off switch controlling the entire shebang?

Just how did they expect to cope with this sort of problem?  Did they plan on necromancy, calling the executed Salem witches to control it with spells?

And as for "doing everything we can to get this problem solved" . . . just how the hell does leaving it unrepaired for more than a year qualify as "doing everything we can"?  Sounds more like dereliction of duty and waste of taxpayer dollars to me!  Couldn't a local electrical contractor have simply installed a master on/off switch as a temporary measure, saving thousands of dollars in electricity?

Why have the taxpayers of that school district not run the members of their School Board out of town on a rail, complete with tar and feathers?

Yea, verily, the mind doth boggle . . .

Peter

Today's Doofus is a drunken driver from Spokane, WA.  Apparently she believed that a recent change in State law meant that police could not legally pursue her.

As a trooper was on patrol in Spokane Valley, he spotted a Ford 150 swerving through lanes of traffic. As any officer would deduce, he reasonably believed the driver was driving under the influence.

It was reported that once the trooper pulled behind the vehicle and flicked the cruiser’s lights on, Baporis then sped up. She allegedly then started a pursuit that reached speeds of more than 100 miles per hour.

. . .

According to Washington State Patrol spokesman Trooper Ryan Senger ... the driver, Baporis, [believed] that her constitutional rights were “being violated” and therefore, [she] did not need to pull over.

In addition to refusing to pull over for the DUI suspect pursuit, it was reported that Baporis called 911 during the chase. She allegedly claimed that she was being illegally chased.

Senger responded to media by calling the 911 call- “hilarious”. You can add ironic and moronic to that.

Thankfully, the State Patrol was able to successfully and safely disable the vehicle from the DUI suspect pursuit.

There's more at the link.

I've seen this strange behavior many times before in criminals I have known.  They get it into their heads in some unknown fashion that their presumed "rights" override those of anyone else (particularly law enforcement), or give them the freedom to do as they please irrespective of any danger to others their actions may pose.  They insist that any attempt to enforce the law is a violation of their rights, and even (in some cases) appear to think that defending themselves against such enforcers is part of their right to self-defense.  They can't be persuaded otherwise, no matter how lawyers and courts may try to explain it to them.

What's even weirder is that, when a criminal has committed a crime, he/she will regard the proceeds of that crime as their property, giving them the right to defend it against anyone trying to take it from them - be that other criminals, or the original owner, or even police.  They regard it as theft to take what they've already stolen, and many end up in very serious legal trouble for acting on that impression.

On this occasion, the driver learned a lesson without it costing her too much.  She may not be so lucky next time...

Peter

Today's award goes to a doctor's surgery in Doncaster, England.  The BBC reports:

A GP surgery accidentally told patients they had aggressive lung cancer instead of wishing them a merry Christmas.

Askern Medical Practice sent the text message to people registered with the surgery in Doncaster on 23 December.

There's more at the link.

Understandably, the patients who received the wrong message are not happy about it.  One observed:  "If it's one of their admins that's sent out a mass text, I wouldn't be trusting them to empty the bins."  It's hard to argue with that sentiment.

After that, I daresay a Merry Christmas was not had by all concerned!

Peter

On Twitter, a video is circulating showing a Russian wrapping himself in what appears to be a cheap bulletproof vest (origin/source unknown), then inviting a friend to shoot him in the rear end to prove it works.  Short answer - it doesn't.

You'll find the video clip here.  There's a lot of swearing in Russian, and plenty of blood dribbling onto the floor, but no permanent damage that I could see - apart from the shootee's pride, that is!

Alcohol may have been a factor.  YMMV.

Peter