Thursday, March 05, 2009

Recent Stories I Have NOT Seen In The MSM... Yet

Being sick (again) seems like a bit of a cop out for not posting anything, so I grabbed several of the links I read last week and added my own commentary:

A "friend"-ly warning:
A new variant of the old "Koobface" worm has been rewritten for FaceBook. It tricks unsuspecting users into going to a fake YouTube site, downloading the worm, and then the worm takes over their computer, replicates and sends itself to everyone in their FaceBook friend list.
With friends like that who needs frenemies?

No fear of God:
Some brazen thief robbed a large church in Nebraska (7,000 member congregation is large to me) of their weekly offering... of $145,000! He walked in, said he was there for the weekly deposits, they handed it over, and he calmly walked out with them none the wiser -- because he had an armored car uniform on! 15 minutes later the real guard got there and they realized they'd been robbed.
I'm the treasurer at my church -- we've never had a weekly offering that large. Anyone want to change that?

Bad day:
While moving containers at a shipping yard in Turkey, a tractor trailer pulled in front of a train, got hit, was pushed across a parking lot until the cab of the truck slammed into a concrete wall, and the trailer smashed into another trailer parked nearby.
Worse day:
The man standing next to the tracks saw the truck go by, but not the oncoming train. He got hit by the (then sliding) truck so hard that his helmet was knocked off and went flying... then the truck went over him. (See video below... no sound included)

Beautiful day:
The train stayed on the tracks (so didn't fall on him), the man went under the trailer between the wheels, awakened with no memory of the crash, and had only minor injuries. Dumb luck?

Fruits of his labors:
The recent election of our current President has not only caused a run on guns and ammunition nationwide, but also a backlog of 95,000 people seeking concealed weapons permits -- that's 95,000 just in Florida! Might be faster to take a few self-defense classes, or enroll in the martial arts.

No wonder people don't like leftovers:
From the company that brought the world "kangaroo-poo paper" (in 2005) we can now purchase green OR gold paper made from... the poo of wombats!
Yuck.
"Going green" I can understand, "Being Brown" I cannot. (The company name "Creative Paper" is literally a "gross" understatement... of less-than-epic proportions.)
Just don't forget and lick your fingers while you're turning the pages.

"Green" I can believe in:
A French firm has developed the "AirPod" -- a car that runs on compressed air. The 46 gallon tank can take you approximately 140 miles, and recharging can be accomplished in a few minutes at specialized gas stations, or you can plug it in overnight (~8 hours) and the on-board compressor will fill the tank. Retailing for the equivalent of $7,500, it sounds like a great deal to me. The only drawback is the current version only holds 3 passengers -- I have a wife and 4 kids.

Cashing in on our dead relatives:
It seems that one of the best ways to collect a debt in today's economy is to get it from surviving relatives. New technology is enabling debt collectors to quickly file claims after the death of a debtor. In many cases, the surviving family isn't legally required to pay these bills from their own personal assets, but most do -- some even send "Thank You" letters afterward! Talk about selling an ice maker to an Eskimo.

A new low in passing counterfeit bills:
Five $20 counterfeit bills were used to purchase cookies from Girl Scouts' Troop 40411 in Bremen Washington. The troop is going to have to "eat" the losses. Girl Scout cookies aren't "necessary expenditures" for making ends meet or surviving, what kind of bum would scam little kids?

Stupid criminal file:
An obviously unintelligent thief attempted to rob a gun store in subruban Chicago (Waukegan). He took 1 in the leg and 2 in the chest before the cops got there to save...er... I mean arrest him. Charges unlikely against the store clerk.
(This idiot is lucky to be alive. There's a nice little gun store a few blocks south of O'Hare that I like to visit when I'm in Chi-town. About 10 years ago an idiot tried to rob that store, too. Just "happened" to be several off-duty cops and several clerks in the store at the time -- all were carrying. In his report, the M.E. wasn't exactly sure whose bullet killed him -- he was full of holes.)

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