Oh, for crying out loud

Have these people never heard of veal?

Bah! Humbug!

A robber who claimed to “hate Christmas” made off with a red kettle full of donations for the Salvation Army on Saturday night outside The Andersons store on Illinois Avenue in Maumee, according to Maumee police.

The unidentified man approached the volunteer bell ringer about 6:25 p.m. He grabbed the kettle and tripod from which it was hanging. The bell ringer grabbed the chain, and the two fought for the kettle, according to Maumee police reports.

Maumee Police Sgt. David Tullis said the robber pushed the volunteer, and pulled the kettle away from her. He put the kettle and tripod in the back of a pickup truck after telling her, “I can’t stand you and your bell-ringing. I hate Christmas.”

Toledo Blade

Air travel already pisses me off, but this is too much

All Nippon Airways (ANA) claims that empty bladders mean lighter passengers, a lighter aircraft and thus lower fuel use.

Airline staff will be present at boarding gates in terminals to ask passengers waiting to fly to relieve themselves before boarding, The Independent reported.

ANA hopes the weight saved will lead to a five-tonne reduction in carbon emissions over the course of 30 days.

Mail Online

Damn criminals

Last March, Sally Harpold bought a box of Zyrtec-D cold medicine for her husband, then a few days later bought a box of Mucinex-D cold medicine for her grown daughter. That put her over the limit for how much pseudoephedrine-laced cold meds you can buy in a week in her small Indiana town, so she was arrested along with 16 other potential meth makers earlier this month.

Consumerist

Hey, life is unfair, see ya’

“A North Carolina Honeybaked Ham store manager was shot in an attempted store robbery in April, and has been recovering on worker’s compensation since the shooting. Now that his benefits have run out, the store very thoughtfully has terminated his employment.”

Consumerist

Idle thought: Who would rob a ham store?

Lions and Tigers and Bears are nothing

Watch out for those spruce trees!

Tricky gets a vanity plate for his new ride

Great photo of Nixon at Disneyland.

Do you know me?

“Did you hear about the identity thief in Seattle who tried to open a JC Penney credit card account with one of the very women whose identity she had stolen?”

Consumerist has the details.

The story originated with the Seattle Times Newspaper.

Line of the night

“A Vincent Van Gogh drawing stolen from a Santa Fe home in May was recovered Thursday from a consignment shop in Raton, where it was on sale for $250, police said.”

Santa Fe New Mexican

What is it about South Carolina?

“S.C. man accused of sex with horse — again”

On Deadline – USATODAY.com

If you were smart would you work there?

Guy: I’d like the two-for-one sundae deal.

Employee, agitated: It’s not two-for-one!

Guy: It’s not?

Employee: It’s “buy one, get one free”!

–6th St & 1st Ave

Overheard in New York

Doesn’t anyone JUST get married anymore?

We Are Gathered Here Today To Take It To The House

Redux post of the day

A motorist was unknowingly caught in an automated speed trap that measured his speed using radar and photographed his car. He later received in the mail a ticket for $40 and a photo of his car.

Instead of payment, he sent the police department a photograph of $40.

Several days later, he received a letter from the police that contained another picture, this time of handcuffs.

He immediately mailed in his $40.

Top Idiots

Follow the link. There are several good stories.

First posted on July 22, 2007.

Was President Barack Obama wearing ‘mom jeans’?

“We can finally stop talking about the first lady’s penchant for showing off her toned arms and the national conversation can turn to something substantive: her husband’s unflattering, baggy blue jeans.”

Ellen Warren — Chicago Tribune

Hey, it’s hard to wear tight jeans (let alone throw the ball) when you’ve got on kevlar underwear.

New assignment

A reserve soldier who said he should not have to go to Afghanistan because Barack Obama was never legally eligible to be the president has had his deployment orders revoked, the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reported Wednesday.
. . .

Cook believes that Obama was ineligible to become president and commander-in-chief because he was is not a natural-born U.S. citizen, the paper reported. Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961.

ajc.com

Here’s hoping his next deployment is to Leavenworth.

The armed customer IS always right

PORT ANGELES — A 37-year-old woman was arrested after the Clallam County Sheriff’s Department said she threatened several people with a handgun in the Wal-Mart parking lot.
. . .

No one was injured.

Peregrin said Dumdie had argued with customers in the store after they had asked her to stop cursing and yelling at an employee.

He said she was upset with the employee, saying she had sold her the wrong kind of ammunition.

Olympic Peninsula Daily news

Darwin Award nominee

PORTLAND, Ore. — A check-cashing store employee was still recovering at an area hospital Thursday after a Comcast employee attacked and robbed her, police said.

At about 10:45 a.m. Wednesday, the man walked into the Ace Checks Cashed on Southeast 73rd Avenue and Powell Street, where he attacked and robbed a woman who works in the store, police said. Officers have identified the employee as 37-year-old Nicole Loundree, of Portland.

Workers at a nearby business said they noticed something suspicious at the check-cashing store and then saw a man in a Comcast uniform rush out and leave in a Comcast van.

KPTV Portland

He was arrested shortly thereafter.

That is WAY TOO CLOSE to SnoLepard’s house. What kind of a neighborhood do you live in Bro?

Yeah, and who taught him?

Daniel McCoy, of Grants, was arrested Friday after a Bernalillo County Sheriff’s deputy spotted him near Dennis Chavez and 118th SW speeding and crossing over the center yellow lines into oncoming traffic, according to a criminal complaint.

The deputy stopped McCoy, and observed a little girl sitting on McCoy’s lap. The complaint said when the deputy asked McCoy what the girl might be doing on his lap while he was driving, McCoy replied, “I’m trying to teach my daughter how to drive.”

McCoy was charged with child abuse. 

ABQNews Lights and Sirens

Most times-they-are-a-changin’ lines of the day

“BOULDER — Boulder police are investigating whether more people were involved in a Tuesday afternoon robbery of a medical-marijuana distributor in Boulder.”
. . .

“A clinic employee told police two men posing as customers robbed New Options of cash, two 20-gallon barrels of marijuana and its surveillance equipment just after 3:30 p.m.”

The Denver Post

The mind boggles

“A dropped watermelon may have led to the deadly shooting of a 6-year-old boy by his grandfather Sunday afternoon.”

ajc.com

“Two longtime friends today were accused of murdering a suspected drug dealer, dismembering the body, and then cooking the remains at a Walpole concrete business.”

The Boston Globe

Most startling line of the day

“Eight people were killed when a sport utility vehicle carrying 27 suspected illegal immigrants “stacked like logs” rolled over near Sonoita [Arizona] late Saturday.”

www.azstarnet.com ®

Those cheerleader moms

Via Sideline Chatter:

Two bits, four bits, six bits, a court date.

A grand jury in Wintersville, W.Va., has indicted Linda Tate, 47, on charges she used her computer to send nude pictures of her daughter’s cheerleading rival at Indian Creek High School, Wheeling’s WTRF-TV reported.

How’d she get the photos?

Another item from Sideline Chatter:

Question: Why do so many kids play soccer?

Answer: So they don’t have to watch it.

Suicide by the mathematically-challenged

“Each participant pulled the trigger on two occasions; the victim discharged the fatal bullet on his third attempt. [...] Four of the victims had pulled the trigger at least 3 times before their fatality.”

Via kottke from a study on Russian Roulette incidents in Kentucky.

The Kentucky schools need to teach a little bit more about mathematical chance. If you pull the trigger enough times that one bullet will, in fact, come out.

Of course, it may not be the math, but rather the meth.

No mail today

Our country’s postal employees have a well-deserved day off today. However, let this New York mail carrier’s mistake serve as a lesson for the Internet age: don’t do anything stupid in public, ever, because someone will probably be surreptitiously filming you.

Lazy: Brooklyn Heights Postman Lifts With Neither Knees Nor Back [22-second video]

Turn it off!

Sitting in Atlanta airport and CNN is going on and on and on about Scott Peterson. Who cares?

Oops! I guess this is some other Peterson alleged wife killer. Still.