Turning a routine shoplifting into an adventure

Some folks absolutely must make a simple job difficult, like this guy in upstate South Carolina:

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SPARTANBURG COUNTY, S.C. -- A man was arrested Saturday after deputies say that he stole meat from a grocery store by stuffing it down his pants, according to an incident report.

Deputies said the manager of the Ingles at 2120 E. Main St. called police after an employee said he saw a man, later identified as Terry Campbell, walking out with meat in his pants ...

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But wait, there's more, according to WYFF News:

The perp had several packages of meat stuffed down there.

The store manager himself reached in the guy's pants to recover the meat -- by then you'd better be sure a crime is being committed; 'cause I can't think of any other reason to stage a TSA-style search.'

The perp took off, tried to start his car. The operative word here is "tried," as he had to throw it into neutral and give it a push start.

Finally he took off on foot and was easily captured.

And complained of chest pains after he was arrested.

And you think you have those days at your job where everything goes wrong?

Read more: http://www.wyff4.com/news/28508374/detail.html#ixzz1S6RGWade

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A cookie endorsement I'd like to see

Just how good are those Thin Mint cookies?

Good enough to fight over.

Seems a pair of roommates in Florida had a real knock-down drag-out, including chasing one another with scissors, because one apparently stole the other's Girl Scout cookies.

Here's the story, according to the Associated Press:

"Police say the roommate's husband tried to separate them. The roommate said she gave the cookies to Howard's children ... Howard is charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. She was released Monday on $10,000 bail."

OK. I like Thin Mints myself, and when I get them I tend to protect my stash. But there may be some over-the-line behavior here. Maybe.

What do you think?

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'Hey y'all, watch this' part 3,682: Chainsaw in pants

Thief with chainsaw in his pants doesn't get very far - NBCActionNews.com - Kansas City

I love this. According to Chickasha, Oklahoma police, the guy may have been intoxicated.

Ya think?

But here's the story. Guy walks into a hardware store, sees an Echo chainsaw, and decides to walk off with it. He needs to hide it.

By stuffing it down the front of his pants.

It took a minute for store employee Richard Largent to catch on to what was happening. "I felt sorry for him; I thought the gentleman was crippled." But another employee saw the bar of the chainsaw between the man's legs, and the chase was on.

NBC affiliate KSHB reports it this way:

"Employees cornered Black in a nearby field, where he ditched the chainsaw, climbed a tree, and scrambled down into someone’s house ... when the person inside kicked him out, the Ross employees chased Black to a creek where he dove in—headfirst.

I can't make this stuff up. But just think, that chain saw was this close to causing a little unnatural selection.

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Would you like a wedgie with that?

Not sure which is worse here ... Phils' first baseman Ryan Howard pulls up lame while running the bases, and while being helped off the field gets the mother of all wedgies.

Howard's being helped off the field here by a trainer and Phillies' manager Charlie Manuel (right) during the first inning of Sunday's game against the Washington Nationals. Seems he jammed his ankle and messed up his elbow on the play, but X rays were negative.

He'll be all right, once he dislodges his underdrawers.

Footnote: The play where Howard was hurt was shown by video at a Met's game in New York's Citi Field, and according to sports blogger Jonathan Sacks, the Mets' fans cheered. I could make comments about New York fans and sports rivalries, but that's a rant for another day.

H/T: The Huffington Post

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Lightning strike gives woman a Blackberry brand

When you think about it, there's almost something poetic about the whole thing, unfortunate as it is:

Lightning bolts cause problems across area:

"HANAHAN -- A lightning blast seared through a television cable into a laptop computer and burned a woman in her bedroom Monday. The blast was so strong that it left on her ear an impression of the screen of a Blackberry device she was listening to."

I live about a mile from there, as the crow flies. That thunderstorm blew hot and heavy in my neighborhood, and it had me plenty worried. I left my computer running, but shut down my cable modem and disconnected it until the storm passed. It did give me an excuse to knock off from work for a little bit, anyway.

When I reconnected everything, I had no Internet signal for a couple of hours. Apparently a lightning strike blew something out. Withdrawal symptoms were minimal. But I'm fine now, and playing some catch-up.

Now, I don't know this lady who got, uhh, branded. But there are quite a few folks I know that are so married to their cell phones and crackberries, and are so rude about it that, if something like this happened to them I would have to laugh.

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Unnatural selection: Alcohol and trains don't mix

Folks, I can't make this stuff up.

This is from Summerville, a town just a few miles down the road from me.

Man dies after attempting to ‘slap the train’ outside bar: "A Summerville man celebrating his 23rd birthday died early this morning after he apparently tried to “slap the train” running past a local bar and was sucked into it."

From room-to-rent ad: Guess who gets the benefits?

I ran across this ad in Craigslist today, and it gives me an idea of what this world is coming to:

Male Musician with 2 bedroom apartment looking for female musician roomate with benefits ... someone who is a light drinker and 420 friendly ... no hard drugs and I will be able to find out if you do use them ... your cost would be $500 per month which includes electric, water, sattlelite tv and internet ... I keep a clean apartment and you must do the same ... You MUST have verifiable employment ... I have young children that visit me ... you will have access to pa system and recording gear ...

I'm totally serious. This is a real ad. I edited it some to get rid of the obviously identifiable details -- partly because I know a lot of musicians in this neck of the woods, many of them know me, and I don't feel like getting death threats right now.

Meanwhile, let's take a look at the ad, running it through the bravo sierra translator:

Roommate with benefits: Guess.

420 friendly: Doesn't mind the occasional left-handed cigarette. Like, every half hour. This may be required for said benefits.

I will be able to find out if you use them: Creepazoid. Stalker in training. Next question?

$500 per month: Keeping in mind this is an apartment. Also known as being screwed twice.

Young children that visit me: Just what they need to see, Dad passing around a left-handed cigarette and collecting the aforementioned benefits. Horrendously maladjusted already, and they will likely grow up to be just like Dad. New roommate gets to babysit while Dad goes out and does what he does. During visits the young children will sleep in one of the two bedrooms, meaning the applicant gets to sleep ... guess again.

Access to a PA system and recording gear: You know this isn't free. See: Benefits.

If this cat actually gets takers, he will really be dipping in the shallow end of the gene pool.

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Theft suspect arrested after running out of gas (AP)

Uhh, isn't this part of Larceny 101?

1) Make sure your getaway vehicle has enough gas to get you away.
2) Make sure you know where the keys are.
3) If you use a getaway driver, make sure he has a license ... and is sober.

Planning. Planning. Planning. Like any business endeavor.

This happened in Wenatchee, Washington, and the guy's from Tacoma. To his credit, he did manage to go 50 feet before his car crapped out.

Now let's see the story:


Theft suspect arrested after running out of gas
(AP): "AP - Don't call him Lucky."

It's just not this guy's day.

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Alvin ... AL-vin ... ALVIN!

So formerly-unknown Senatorial candidate Alvin Greene wants to debate incumbent Jim DeMint?

This ought to be good. Or maybe not.

The Big Picture, whoever they are, spent a little time talking to Greene recently. To his credit, he sounds a little more together in this interview, but it still doesn't bode well for his debate chances:

This campaign isn't even going to be funny ...

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Airport security: A modest proposal

I'm not sure who originally wrote this, but I like the idea. It was one of those Fw: emails that crosses my transom, sent by my mom.


In all, it sounds like a good workable solution. Later with all these pat-downs at the airport security line and invading your carry-on luggage. This is quick, clean (well, sort of), and cheap in the long run.


Here it is:


Here's the solution to all the controversy over full-body scanners and racial profiling at the airports:


Have a booth that you can step into that will not x-ray you, but will detonate any explosive device you may have on your body. It would be a win-win for everyone, and there would be none of this crap about racial profiling and this method would eliminate a long and expensive trial. Justice would be quick and swift.


This is so simple that it's brilliant. I can see it now. You're in the airport terminal and you hear a muffled explosion. Shortly thereafter an announcement comes over the PA system, "Attention standby passengers. We now have a seat available on flight number 4665 .... Paging maintenance. Shop Vac needed in booth number 4."


See, it could work. Who's with me on this?

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What is it about South Carolina and sex scandals?

Yeah, yeah, so people may be wondering what it is about South Carolina. First, Gov. Mark Sanford didn't hike the Appalachian Trail. Now, some blogger is saying he had something going on with guberatorial candidate (and Republican frontrunner) Nikki Haley.

And The New York Times, that stodgy newspaper from way back, is picking up on it. Here's the skinny from NewsBusters:

N.Y. Times Published Unproven Adultery Claims of Nikki Haley -- After a John Edwards Blackout: "

Clay Waters of MRC's Times Watch project noticed this week that the The New York Times was just as guilty as The Washington Post of jumping on the unsubstantiated adultery charges against female GOP gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley in South Carolina:

[Reporter Shaila] Dewan used the sex scandal of former South Carolina Republican Gov. Mark Sanford as an excuse to suggest, without substance like emails or phone messages, that the claims by blogger Will Folks fit a pattern of sexual bad behavior in the Palmetto State:  “Scandal Rattles Politics In South Carolina, Again.” The text box to Wednesday's print story worked in the party identification: “A blogger says he had an affair with a G.O.P. candidate for governor.”

The treatment of a fairly obscure Republican politician stands in sharp contrast to the paper's blackout of the amply documented affair of former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards. The Times totally ignored the Edwards affair until the candidate himself confessed on ABC News, then, when its own public editor criticized the paper's lack of coverage, editors made hypocritical excuses.

Dewan certainly didn't do much hedging around the claims of blogger Will Folks, relaying the accusation with a tone of near-giddiness:

Virginia may be for lovers, but sultry South Carolina is beginning to earn a reputation as the state for extramarital madness.

This state was just starting to shake off the embarrassing spectacle of Gov. Mark Sanford, who is limping out of office after admitting to an affair last year, giving late-night hosts a new laugh line with his initial cover-up: that he had been hiking on the Appalachian Trail.

But now, one of Mr. Sanford’s political allies -- who is a top contender to succeed him -- finds herself embroiled in a possible sex scandal of her own.

Only two weeks before a highly competitive Republican primary for governor, the candidate, State Representative Nikki Haley, has been hit by charges, leveled by one of her supporters, that she had an “inappropriate physical relationship” with him three years ago.

On Tuesday the supporter, Will Folks, a blogger and political consultant, promised to document claims that he had had a relationship with Ms. Haley.

Ms. Haley, who leapt to frontrunner status last week, days after an endorsement by Sarah Palin, issued a strong denial, saying, “I have been 100 percent faithful to my husband throughout our 13 years of marriage.”

A couple of thoughts here. Nothing's proved yet, and the accuser, a Columbia-based blogger named Will Folks, who calls himself "Sic Willie," is highly suspect. Check out his blog (which he bills as "unfair, imbalanced") sometime. Folks himself -- well, the word is he's pretty sketchy. Don't know whether it's his 2005 guilty plea to a domestic violence charge  or his "hot as hell" description of Haley in 2008 that feeds this. 

According to Sic Willie:

"We’re frequently accused of showing a little too much love to S.C. Rep. Nikki Haley, to which we can only say “we wish” (ba doom ching) ... but seriously, why wouldn’t we show love to Nikki? In addition to being one of the few fiscal conservatives in state government willing to stand up for what she believes in, Haley is hot as hell, people, and if showering her with our unceasing affection is wrong, we don’t wanna be right ..."

Folks sounds like one of those NATO types to me:

No Action, Talk Only. 

And it seems like a lot of voters are seeing right through him. Haley still holds a 10-point lead in the Republican primary; that has not budged. She's picked up endorsements from the Republican Liberty Caucus and Myrtle Beach TEA Party just within the past couple of days.

If rumors of an affair are true, than Haley should probably step out of the race. 

For having bad taste.

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How to tweet your job away, in six easy steps

I've been known to tweet. That's using Twitter to send 140 characters' worth of twaddle to the other tweeps (or is it twerps?) out there in Twitter Land. I'll admit, it's a lot of fun, and once you figure out how to get past the ridiculous signal-to-noise ratio on that microblogging site, it can be useful.

I've used Twitter to spot trends, to get up-to-the-second dispatches on some news event, and even to grab some background information on whatever I'm writing. 

But then, we have a lot of folks who use Twitter just to massage their diseased egos, or to spread a whole bunch of mundane crap all over the world. While many people have used Twitter to find jobs, quite a few used Twitter as a way to lose whatever job they had.

I got this from MentalFloss, and it's a hoot. i urge you to read the article:

How to Tweet Your Way Out of a Job:

"Hate your job? Want to leave without giving two weeks notice? Thanks to Twitter, it’s never been easier to get fired. All you have to do is sign up for an account and follow these simple steps. You’ll be unemployed in no time!"

Step 1: Drunk Tweet

Well, yeah, this goes without saying. You know your boss -- or potential boss -- may be monitoring you on Twitter, Facebook, and all the other social media. But Mike Bacsik, a former ballplayer and now, ex-sports-show host, found out what happens when you mix the tweets with the Lone Stars. Or whatever he was drinking.

Step 2: Break the Law (or Just Anger Your Governor)

I tell you, you need to read the article.

Step 3: Have an NSFW Lifestyle

Step 4: Question Company Policy

D'oh! Never a good idea -- especially if you don't want your boss to know.

Step 5: Make a Celebrity Look Bad

Step 6: Don’t Get Hired in the First Place

From MentalFloss: " ... when recent college grad Skye Riley heard back from Cisco, the computer networking giant, about her job application, one of her first instincts was to tweet about it. Unfortunately, this is what she tweeted: 

@theconnor: Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.

The unfortunate part? An employee of Cisco, Tim Levad, came across her post while doing a Twitter search for Cisco. He replied to her by saying:

@timmylevad: Who is the hiring manager. I’m sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the web.

Whoooops!

You see, these computers, handhelds, and smart phones are dangerous toys. Too dangerous to be in the hands of idiots.

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Earthquake map brings seismic updates, anxiety

How close are we to the Big One?

Or, was that last shaker really the Big One?

Might it be a good idea to buy property in Arizona, thinking it may become coastal land?

Or am I talking through my tinfoil hat again?

Anyway, here's a Web site that gives the latest fault line activity, by the hour, by the magnitude, and all that good stuff. If you live in,  say, California (like I used to), this might give you hours of anxiety-fueling entertainment. Or not.

Enjoy.

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What do baby boomers think about today?

We'll let Peter Yarrow tell you:

If the name doesn't ring a bell, kiddies, think Peter, Paul, and Mary -- the great folk trio from the 1960s. If you're still lost, think "Puff The Magic Dragon." Got it?

And now it's come to this ...

Killer stopped, killed by his own low-hanging britches

From The New York Post, by way of Fox News:

... A career criminal who slaughtered three members of a family in their apartment in New York's trendy Upper West Side Thursday plunged to his death after tripping over his baggy pants ... 

According to police, gunman Hector Quinones shot 24-year-old Carlos Rodriguez Jr. and his father, and stabbed Rodriguez' grandfather to death. Quinones then lunged after 49-year-old Gisela Rodriguez, he tripped over his pants.

It gets better:

... fleeing empty-handed, Quinones ditched his gun, a .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol loaded with hollow-point bullets, and made a dash down a rear fire escape. But again, his low-slung pants fell to his ankles, tripping him and sending him falling three stories to his death, authorities said ...

See, there is justice.

Some reasons to avoid H1N1 vaccine are better than others

I'm stubborn. I'm still not getting my H1N1 flu shot. And it looks like a lot of people are with me there.

Like more than half the population. I'm getting my numbers from a CNN poll:

According to the poll, 55 percent of adults don't want to get the swine flu vaccine, and don't plan to get a shot. Another one in five say they want to get inoculated but haven't taken any steps to do so, 14 percent want a shot and have tried to get it but have been unsuccessful. Just 7 percent have been inoculated for H1N1.

H'mmm. Interesting, yes?

I have my own reasons for avoiding the needle. I've never had a flu shot, and I don't plan to start now. If I get some sort of flu -- which I get every few years, I usually let it run its course, dose myself with vitamin C, slam down a bunch of juice and water, gobble aspirin, pile the blankets on top of me, and sweat it out by force. Then I'm done with that for the year; I usually don't get sick again.

I've known too many people who got sick off a flu shot -- basically it's an innoculation, which introduces a small (controlled, they say) amount of the virus into your system so you can build up your antibodies. Taking the longer view, it's an effective way to go -- that was how we essentially wiped out smallpox. But thinking short-range, when that sample of the flu virus is injected into your system, what your body does with it is sometimes a crapshoot.

So, no flu shot for me. Rather than burden my body with what is basically a false alarm, I'd rather it raise up the antibodies as needed, legions and legions of them, and stamp that flu out like ... well, like a disease. That's my strategy, and I'm sticking to it.

Here's how CNN interprets its findings:

"The perception that the vaccine has dangerous side effects is the top reason," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Roughly half of those who don't want a swine flu shot say that the possibility of side effects is one reason why they don't plan to get the vaccine. That works out to 28 percent of the adult population who don't plan to get inoculated due to the risk of dangerous side effects."

While the H1N1 (the bug formerly known as Swine Flu) seems to be a particularly nasty virus, all indications show it won't be any more deadly than your standard-issue flu that strikes every year.

I wrote this last month:

According to the CDC (I got these numbers from the World Almanac), various influenza viruses will hospitalize 200,000 and kill about 36,000 people in the United States every year. That's every year.

But these are good, sound reasons for someone to avoid the flu shot. I've heard some really crazy reasons, too. Ready to hear one?

Good. It seems that a famous Croatian priest, Miroslav Bustruk, is saying the H1N1 vaccine carries a microchip.

Don't give me any trouble, OK? While I may have a good imagination, I can't make this stuff up. But here's the story from Macedonia Online:

“I appeal to you, to not get vaccinated for the so called Swine Flu under any circumstance. There is a plan for massive destruction of humanity worldwide. For this purpose we will see new diseases springing up everywhere” reports Croatian daily “Jutarnji List”, quoting father Bustruk. “The H1N1 vaccine itself is a very sophisticated weapon whose implanted microchip will control the health of the human being” added the Croatian priest which prompted a great deal of disagreement by Croatian officials ...

Did y'all get that? Implanted microchip? While I've been accused of harboring some pretty strange ideas (comes with the territory when you write a blog), this one's a little goofy even for me. The ol' microchip-in-the-flu-vaccine trick isn't on my list of favorite conspiracies.

For the record: I ain't skeered of no flu bug, and I ain't skeered of no microchip. Got that?

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Cockroaches are too efficient to PP

(This one's going out to my brother Rick, who turns 56 today. He loves this kind of useless information even more than I do. Happy birthday, Rick!)

* * *

I can't stand them, especially when they take over my kitchen and require more than one bullet to kill them. But I still have to marvel at the cockroach.

They can live anywhere, on nothing. I used to argue that they would be the one species that would survive a nuclear holocaust, an environmental disaster, fire, flood, famine, or asteroid strike. Even high-grade poison might kill off the first generation, but the second generation would tap dance in it.

I'm not a cat owner, but that animal amazes me because of its incredible quickness and balance (the tail acts as a counterweight). Mice, I understand, cannot burp or pass gas. Ants can carry many times their own weight and never break a sweat. But let's give the lowly cucaracha its due. If you want a survival machine, that's it.

What is it about the common cockroach? Its metabolism is so efficient it doesn't even urinate. This is according to Wired (and watch out for the popup ad that races across the screen like a ... well ...):

... researchers who sequenced the Blattabacterium genome have found that it converts waste into molecules necessary for a roach to survive. Every cockroach is a testimony to the power of recycling — thanks to their microbes, they don’t even need to pee ... “Blattabacterium can produce all of the essential amino acids, various vitamins, and other required compounds from a limited palette of metabolic substrates,” write entomologists in a study published Monday in the researchers have known that cockroaches need the microbes to survive: Kill Blattabacterium with antibiotics, and the insects die. They also knew that roaches store excess nitrogen — one of life’s essential elements, needed to make proteins, amino acids and DNA — inside their bodies, in tiny deposits of uric acid. But researchers didn’t know exactly what became of the uric acid after it was stored, or precisely what Blattabacterium did ...

Wow ... they can live in spilled coffee or even in puddles of beer, and never even need to run to the bathroom ...

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Burglary 101: Don't leave your cell phone at the scene

This guy obviously needs lots of practice ... can he try your house?

This is from TV station KARE in the Twin Cities:

Hastings police say Jordan Waleski's first mistake was leaving his cell phone at a home he is accused of burglarizing ... according to the criminal complaint, officers were called a home in Hastings on Sept. 25th after the homeowner heard noses coming from the upstairs area of his house ... the homeowner said he went to check on the noise and found a man holding his wife's jewelry box and a Wii gaming system. The burglar dropped everything he was carrying and fled the scene. The homeowner followed the man, later identified as 18-year old Jordan Waleski ...

Well, let's give Waleski his props here. At least he didn't realize the cell phone was gone and return to the crime scene to find it. But this is plenty bad enough.

Bird-borne parasite may have felled Tyrannosaurus

Remember that T-rex that scared you silly in Jurassic Park? The one that even ate lawyers?

Scientists are now suggesting one specimen, a 7-ton monster now on display in Chicago, may have been killed by something you'd need a microscope to find.

This is from Yahoo! News:

... the remains of Sue, a star attraction of the Field Museum in Chicago, possess holes in her jaw that some believed were battle scars, the result of bloody combat with another dinosaur, possibly another T. rex ... Now researchers suggest these scars did not result from a clash of titans, but rather from a lowly parasite. The infection in Sue's throat and mouth may have been so severe that the 42-foot-long, 7-ton dinosaur starved to death.... the ailment the scientists propose felled Sue and other T. rexes is trichomonosis, also known as trichomoniasis. In birds, the disease is caused by Trichomonas gallinae, a single-celled protozoan. Although some birds, such as pigeons, commonly host the parasite but suffer few ill effects, in birds of prey such as falcons and hawks, the germ causes a pattern of serious lesions in the lower beak that closely matches the holes in the jaws of Sue and occurs in the same anatomical location ... "It's ironic to think that an animal as mighty as 'Sue' probably died as a result of a parasitic infection. I'll never look at a feral pigeon the same way again," said researcher Steven Salisbury at the University of Queensland in Australia ...

I just had to include this scene. For me, it was one of those rare uplifting moments in cinematic history. Folks in the movie house thought I was crazy when I gave it a standing ovation. OK. That's another story.

Video: From Jurassic Park, Universal Pictures.

Medical mixup wipes out wild jaguar population

This medical mixup proved to be costly, as the last wild jaguar in the United States was extinguished.

I can hear the Game And Fish people in Arizona right now: "Whoops, clumsy me!"

This is from New Times, an alternative newspaper in Phoenix:

In February, Game and Fish trapped and tagged a jaguar named "Macho B," as part of an effort to track the migration patterns of mountain lions and other animals near the Mexico-Arizona border ... it was released back into the wild until March, when they recaptured the jaguar and determined it was suffering kidney failure ... that was the end of the road for "Macho" and he was euthanized ... as medical records later showed, "Macho B," who happened to be the last known wild Jaguar in the United States, was more likely dehydrated than suffering kidney failure, and giving the animal a little water probably would have done the trick ... oops.

Now, that's an error that's a little hard to fix, yes?

Photo: Well, that's the last of 'em. "Macho B," in healthier times. Photo by the Arizona Fish And Game Department.