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

A Canadian town has plumbed new depths in the bureaucratic curtailment of individual rights and freedoms.

A Canadian town in the Gulf of St. Lawrence has become the first municipality in the country to officially require a QR code to enter and leave.

Officials say that the requirement of a QR code to enter or leave the archipelago Îles-de-la-Madeleine will only be for tourists, while residents will be required to show their driver’s licence to enter or leave.

The decision to require a QR code and identification for the municipality’s 12,000+ residents came after the municipal government announced they would begin charging all visitors who come to Îles-de-la-Madeleine $30, something which hasn’t gone down well with the locals or their family members who visit them.

Of the many concerns, one that officials sought to address was ensuring that visitors had paid their fees before leaving, hence the introduction of a mandatory QR code to leave the islands. If you don’t pay, you can’t get the QR code and won’t be able to leave.

This was initially intended for residents, too, but following an outpour of criticism, officials backed down and now say that residents only have to show their driver’s licence.

Residents, however, aren’t happy about this either, saying it’s absolutely ludicrous to have to prove their identity whenever they want to leave their homes and go to other places within their own country.

Many have also stated that this is an attack on their Charter Rights, which officials have denied.

There's more at the link.

I can't for the life of me figure out how any city council can dictate to residents and visitors whether or not they may enter and/or leave.  Just who the hell do they think they are?  What happened to individual rights and freedoms?  Where and how do some bureaucrats get the idea that they can be petty dictators like this?  Who gave them the right to insist that the rest of us are at their beck and call?

It's quite amusing to contemplate what would happen in my northern Texas town were our Mayor and Council to try anything similar.  The result would be a short, sharp and somewhat profane discussion between them and the citizens, followed by the use of rails, tar and feathers to indicate to them that they should consider rapid relocation elsewhere.  The local cops certainly would never dream of trying to enforce such an ordinance.  They want to go home after their shifts . . . and they know just how many townsfolk would object, ballistically, to any attempt to apply such restrictions.

Perhaps a bunch of us should plan a visit to Îles-de-la-Madeleine - without bothering to get the QR code on our phones, even if we agree to pay the fee - then dare the local cops to do something about it.  That might make for pay-per-view-level entertainment on local channels.

Peter

It's hard to feel much sympathy for the deceased in this faked crime.

Rasshauud Scott, 22, was seen on surveillance footage late Jan. 27 running up to a couple filling up their car at a Chevron gas station in Houston, Texas, according to court documents shared by Fox News Digital.

After seemingly robbing the pair of a purse and wallet, he turned and ran — before an alarmed witness pulled out a gun and shot him in the head, killing him, the affidavit notes.

However, a series of messages later showed that Scott wasn’t even really robbing the couple — with his widow, Sade Beverly, telling cops it “was a set up” as part of an ongoing crime ring, the docs said.

His alleged accomplice, William Winfrey, 30, told Scott the fatal robbery would be the “usual gas pump s–t,” telling him to “make all that s–t look real,” according to the affidavit.

In a police interview, one of the pretend victims “confirmed that the robbery was in fact a set-up, and the purpose of the scheme is to obtain a U-visa,” the affidavit said.

That refers to “U Nonimmigrant Status,” which is granted to victims of certain crimes who have suffered mental or physical abuse and are helpful to authorities investigating or prosecuting suspects.

Police then realized there was a “pattern” of similar reported robberies — and that the victims “had applied for, or been granted U-visas due to their status as victims of these crimes,” the affidavit said.

Winfrey was arrested Wednesday and charged with murder in connection with Scottt’s death. He was denied bond Monday.

There's more at the link.

I've learned to assume that at least one in five of the people I see around me every day in north Texas are armed.  It used to be less, but now that Texas is a constitutional carry state (i.e. not requiring a permit to carry a gun), it could well be more.  People are fed up with criminals trying to make an easy buck off locals;  and they're ready, willing and able to do something about it.  Texas grand juries, too, have frequently proved to be less than sympathetic to deceased criminals, often no-true-billing those who shot them even when strictly speaking, they didn't have sufficient legal grounds to do so.  (See this recent case, also in Houston, for an example.)

Congratulations and thanks to the bystander who shot the criminal.  He obviously feared getting into trouble for his actions, because he initially fled, but he later handed himself over to police and was exonerated of any offense.  Scott's partner in crime, however, now stands accused of murder, because he was part of a crime that resulted in a death.  That's entirely as it should be, IMHO.  The late Mr. Scott thought he could get away with the same fake crime, repeatedly.  He learned better - or, rather, his surviving family and friends learned better.  It's a pity he no longer has that opportunity, but that's his own fault.

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

As a former prison chaplain, with a fair amount of experience in dealing with US inmates (including the most dangerous, high-security variety), I was flabbergasted to read this report.

As part of [prison] reforms, which are based on Norway’s model, California’s prisons are moving away from punishment and toward rehabilitation, education, and re-entry.

The transformation dovetails with a decade of sentencing and parole reforms as authorities move to depopulate and close facilities statewide.

But the reality inside California’s prisons, insiders say, is increasingly dangerous for both inmates and staff.

In the first six weeks of 2024, there were six homicides in California prisons, according to the corrections department. Five were inmate-on-inmate homicides and one involved a correctional officer shooting an inmate to prevent him from fatally stabbing another inmate.

Additionally, an Epoch Times review of the department’s statistics reveals a dramatic increase over the past several years in total incident reports, as well as in important categories including assault and battery on inmates and officers, use of force, and sexual assaults.

. . .

Patrick “Jimmy” Kitlas, who began serving a life sentence in 2007 and is now eligible for parole, told The Epoch Times by phone that there have been many “really sweeping and drastic” policy changes—but they are often contradictory or not implemented.

“This place has definitely become a less structured, a less secure, and a much more violent place,” he said from San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, where he’s been since 2015 ... A new policy will often hit inmates and staff at the same time, he said, resulting in chaos.

“No one ever seems to really have a firm grasp of where the policy came from, what its purpose is, and how is the best way to implement it—which is super dangerous,” he said.

There's more at the link.

I have no problem with Norway's prison reforms:  indeed, in that country, for its particular society, they seem to be working very well.  However, US prison inmates are not Norwegians!  They have a radically different culture, often formed in what are effectively inner-city ghettoes, with a heavy emphasis on gangs and violence.  What idiot thought that a program or policy that worked for relatively well educated first-world-oriented Norwegians would automatically be effective when applied to relatively poorly educated gang-bangers from a ghetto or poverty-stricken South American country?

Some truths apply almost universally.  For example, I was able to understand and work with American prison gangs because of many years of experience with African tribes.  The tribal mindset, culture and structure carried over almost entirely to the gangs I encountered, so approaching them as if they were tribespeople paid dividends in getting through to them and gaining their trust.  However, I never made the mistake of assuming that because they resembled tribes, the gangs were as trustworthy as (some) tribes.  If a gang-banger wanted to be admitted to a prison program, one's first task was to find out what he expected to get out of it.  All too often it was to use it as an avenue to communicate with his homies outside the walls, or have things smuggled in to him, or get him closer to another inmate whom he wanted to blackmail, or assault, or even kill.  Believe me, we're very careful about that aspect of prison work!

I'll bet a pound to a penny that many of those who've signed up for these reformist programs in California see them as nothing other than a "soft touch".  Others will be using them as an avenue to continue their criminal careers.  (Don't forget, in prison, virtually all the inmates are predators:  but we've removed them from open society where there are lots of victims for them to predate.  Since they haven't changed their nature, they still predate, but now it's on each other and on the staff:  and since there are so many predators concentrated in one small place, the problem is intensified.  See my memoir about prison ministry for examples.)

I'm not surprised Norwegian policies are failing in California, because California inmates have very different backgrounds, education and cultures to Norwegian inmates.  End of story.

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

I'm still a bit mind-boggled after reading this report.

New details have emerged after a shooting injured two women at Guaranteed Rate Field during a Chicago White Sox game on Friday night.

On Tuesday, ESPN Chicago reporter Peggy Kusinski said that the gun was snuck into the stadium by one of the women who was hit. The shooting was "an accidental discharge" by the woman whose injury was previously identified as "a graze wound."

"She reportedly snuck the gun in past metal detectors hiding it in the folds of her belly fat," Kusinski said in a post on X.

Police previously said that a 42-year-old woman "sustained one gun-shot wound to the leg" and a 26-year-old woman "also sustained a graze wound to the abdomen."

There's more at the link.

I'm not surprised at the way she tried (and apparently succeeded) to conceal her firearm.  I've worked in prisons, remember?  Most prisons these days have body orifice security scanners (like this one, for example).  They're essential equipment because of the many weird and wonderful things inmates try to conceal in body cavities (including shanks and small firearms, and no, I'm not joking about the latter!).  If the lady (?) in question had great big rolls of body fat, they'd work to conceal a small firearm just as her body's orifices would.  It's a yucky, nasty thought, and I'd hate to have to handle that firearm afterwards ("Double gloves, STAT!"), but it happens.  (I wonder whether body orifice security scanners will have to become standard equipment at stadium entry points?  If this goes on, they might . . . )

Nor am I surprised that the gun went off.  She was probably fiddling with it, adjusting how it was nestled into her body fat to make it more comfortable.  (I don't see how it would have gone off through the working of her body fat alone, unless she had muscles in her fat rolls that the rest of us are lacking.  That's a mental picture I didn't need!)

What does surprise me is that she felt it necessary to sneak a gun into a baseball stadium in the first place.  If she felt that seriously threatened by potential attackers, she shouldn't have been exposed in a public place at all.  She should have been hunkered down in a more secure location.  Besides, carrying the gun in that way meant she probably couldn't have got it out in a hurry, possibly having to remove some of her clothing in order to draw it:  so it wouldn't have helped much if she'd needed to defend herself.  Its presence also exposed her to potential arrest by cops summoned by security personnel if they'd found it, which is a needless risk.

No, carrying it into a baseball stadium, and particularly in that way, just doesn't make sense . . . but then, people who'd do things like that seldom make sense.  Logical thinking is foreign to most of them.  That's why so many of them are in prison.  Sadly, now that the story has come out, I suspect we'll see more people try to do the same thing.  They don't need a reason except that "Hey, if LatorraShaniquaHoneychile can do it, I can too!"

I suspect we may have to add sports stadiums to the list of what John Farnam calls "stupid places", as in his time-honored advice:  "Don’t go to stupid places. Don’t associate with stupid people. Don’t do stupid things."  The lady (?) in this incident broke all of his rules, and probably a few more besides - and she'll doubtless inspire others to do the same.

*Sigh*

Peter

A friend sent me this preview of what appears to be an utterly ghastly movie called "Deathbone".  Yes, it really exists!

After washing out my eyes, a thought occurred to me.  I'm sure my readers know of other such movie schlock out there - movies so bad, so inept, so ridiculous, that they deserve to be remembered.  If you can think of similar cinematic monstrosities, please post their names (and, if possible, a link to their trailers/previews) in Comments below.  I'll pick out the best of them and publish them here over a few days, so we can all enjoy (?) them.

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

Once again, someone uses a cellphone instead of concentrating on their job, and havoc results.

A ship operator, distracted from his lookout while texting on his phone, caused his ship to crash into another, resulting in damages of over $12 million to both ships.

Bunun Queen, a 590-foot-long bulk carrier, collided with Thunder, a 250-foot-long supply vessel, off the coast of Louisiana on July 23. And it was all because of a distracted ship operator, a report by the National Transportation Safety Board revealed on May 22. 

Minutes before the crash, the operator on watch was using his cell phone to make a "personal call," the report stated. The Bunun Queen was heading to the Gulf of Mexico when the crash occurred. 

"The call lasted about a minute; after that, the master used voice dictation on his phone to send multiple text messages, all of which were personal in nature," per the NTSB's report. 

The regulator added that while the operator was preoccupied with his phone, the other members of his team had gone to the ship's mess to have lunch. 

By the time the crew was alerted to the incoming Thunder vessel, it was too late to steer clear of it, resulting in a collision, per the NTSB.

. . .

Bunun Queen racked up damages worth $680,000, while operators of Thunder had to fork out $11.6 million  in repair costs. 

The collision happened "​in good visibility, daylight and fair-weather conditions," the report said.

There's more at the link.

I suppose there's no surprise that the crewman became distracted, or just plain didn't bother to do his job.  Back in my dim and distant past, I volunteered for South Africa's National Sea Rescue Institute, and also had maritime connections through my service in the South African Defense Force.  Almost every time there was a marine accident, somebody somewhere proved to have been preoccupied with something other than their job, and the distraction led to the incident.

I lost count of the number of small craft sailors I heard about who got into difficulty, saw a passing ship, and signaled for help (using radio, flares, flags, and anything else that might be seen by the other vessel) - only to see it sail onward into the distance, unheeding and uncaring.  In many cases, subsequent flypasts by a maritime patrol aircraft revealed nobody on the bridge at all.  The ship was being steered by autopilot, with its radar set to sound an alarm if another vessel came within five miles or so, at which time (hopefully) someone would do something about it.  If your vessel was too small to trigger the alarm . . . sucked to be you.

In a busy traffic lane such as the Mississippi Delta and surrounding seas, I'd have expected any professional seaman to be a lot more attentive to his job, because the number of vessels in the area (not to mention oil and gas platforms, fishing boats, etc.) warrants such care.  Clearly, my expectations would have been wrong . . .

Peter

It's all very well to tow a stuck vehicle back onto the road . . . provided that other road-users can see what's going on, and avoid problems.

Cyclists tend to keep their heads down, rather than up and looking around.  This becomes a problem.  Twitter user AnarchyDreams shows us how.  Click over there and see for yourself.

Errrr... oops?

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

Readers may remember the idiot tourist poor lady who was tossed by a buffalo back in 2020, after getting rather too close to it for the animal's comfort.  She lost her jeans during the buffalo's charge, and it ran around for a while with them fluttering from its horn.

Now her misadventures have been commemorated in - of all things - a snow sculpture.  A tip o' the hat to Andrew in Australia for sending me the link.

Fortunately, the woman who was attacked in South Dakota recovered from her injuries – but the image of her pants hanging from the bison horn remains a recurring theme for wildlife-lovers around the country.

That includes artist Heather Friedli of St. Paul, Minnesota – who with her friends, Juliana Welter and Kelly Thune, sculpted their own rendition of the iconic image. Their work received the third place award and the “Artist’s Choice Award” at last year’s Minnesota Snow Sculpting competition.

The ladies, who call themselves “Team Kwe” (which means “Team Woman” in the Anishinaabemowin language), are a competitive all women’s snow sculpting team from Minnesota.

. . .

Friedli said the trio ‘tossed around’ other ideas before deciding to depict the Custer State Park incident at the Minnesota State competition in St. Paul last year.

“At first we were just going to do a bison with an eagle, kind of laughing and talking, and then my friend was like, ‘Wait a minute, remember when that bison got that lady that one time a couple of years ago, and it was big on Native TikTok and Twitter and all that?’” Friedli said. “‘We should totally do pants,’ and we’re like, ‘Oh my God, we should totally do the pants.’”

The sculpture received third place at the competition, and was a crowd favorite.

“People loved it,” said Friedli. “And we got Artist’s Choice, too, which is always important, to be recognized by fellow artists.”

There's more at the link, including a photograph of the sculpture.  I have no idea how they managed to keep the jeans hanging intact from the horn, dealing as they were with snow rather than something more durable, but they did.

I've never understood such daft behavior in the presence of potentially dangerous animals.  I've mentioned before the foreign kayakers who wanted to transit the Limpopo River in South Africa to the sea.  Some of us on the river bank warned them very specifically about the hippo herd visible from their landing-place, but they brushed aside our cautionary words.  I think they preferred to believe Disney's version of hippos, rather than what those of us who lived with them in real life had to say.  Sure enough, they got too close, and their leader got chomped.  His body was never found - I daresay the crocodiles took care of whatever the hippos left.  His kayak was recovered downriver, having been literally bitten in half.  Hippos don't mess around.

(The rest of the tourist group abandoned their journey, having found out the hard way that Africa wasn't all unicorn farts and rainbows.  To add insult to injury, the dead man's family wanted to sue the government because it hadn't posted uniformed wildlife rangers to warn tourists of the danger.  When it was pointed out to them that warning signs existed, and locals had provided just such a warning, they dismissed the latter on the grounds that we hadn't been in uniform, and therefore had no "official standing" to provide such a warning, and therefore they had no duty to listen to us.  Sheesh...)

Anyway, in this case it was Bison 1, Daft Tourist 0, and the jeans victory flag was raised high.  Good for the bison!

Peter

Old NFO posted this social media message on MeWe yesterday.  It concerns the winter storms that were hitting California at that time.  I had to laugh while reading it, because the deputy sheriff or administrative assistant who wrote it was clearly very, very tired of dealing with idiots members of the public who were taking unnecessary risks.

That's something I could never understand while volunteering with emergency services in South Africa.  Why do people defy the evidence of their own eyes, and put themselves in danger by ignoring the conditions around them and official warnings?  They may not make it, and even if they do, they put other people's lives at risk to rescue them.  It's thoughtless, self-centered and stupid.

Unfortunately, it also seems to be human nature . . .

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 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