Welcome to the World Wide Weird

Here’s one to add to your calendar. July 20 is being billed as World Jump Day (link). The theory is that if enough people JUMP at the right time, then we’ll have the effect of changing the Earth’s orbit. Why you ask?

Scientific research has proven that this change of planetary positioning would very likely stop global warming, extend daytime hours and create a more homogeneous climate

Izzatso? And this scientific research has been conducted by whom? Scientists? The same scientists that invented an alarm clock that moves around or how to best scratch instant lottery tickets? Or the ones that told us that rats like to be tickled?

It is going to take the combined populace of Oztralia just to counteract the effects of Kirsty Alley shuffling off to the refrigerator for an early-mid morning snack. If someone can get Ms Alley to jump a couple of dozen times we’re likely to find the Earth heading to Jupiter; which can’t be good.

On the other hand, here in Sydney it’s about 27C and fine every single day. We’re quite happy as it is thank you. So what if some other country around the world didn’t get a summer last season and we’re having two.

Wouldn’t it be spiffy if all email tools had a feature that ensured you didnt send emails to thew wrong person?

How so you ask?

This so!

Job Applicant Sends Wrong ‘Resume’
E-Mail Meant For Friend Goes To Human Resources
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — A Dutch law school graduate isn’t making the first impression that he desired.

Reinder Eekhof wrote a crude e-mail to a friend saying, among other things, that he had “finally finished this stupid education,” and is “now looking for someone crazy enough to dump a suitcase full of money in my lap every month.”

Unfortunately, he accidentally sent it to someone in the human resources department at a law firm, and now nearly everyone in legal circles in the Netherlands is in on the joke. His “resume” has been forwarded to dozens of law firms.

Some people are adding their own messages, such as: “The advantage is that now everyone in the legal profession in Holland knows your name.”

Yes, Cap Slog can OFFICIALLY state that the U.S. has won the war that began 9/11 (though we record it 11/9 here) with the terrorist attack on the World Trade Buildings.

This story comes ironically from Florida USA, the same place the Terrorists were trained to fly (but not to take off or land) 767s, and I append it verbatim because it is too good to have to read elsewhere.

St. Petersburg 5-year-old cuffed after school outburst
Associated Press
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – A 5-year-old girl was arrested, cuffed and put in back of a police cruiser after an outburst at school where she threw books and boxes, kicked a teacher in the shins, smashed a candy dish, hit an assistant principal in the stomach and drew on the walls.

The students were counting jelly beans as part of a math exercise at Fairmount Park Elementary School when the little girl began acting silly. That’s when her teacher took away her jelly beans, outraging the child.

Minutes later, the 40-pound girl was in the back of a police cruiser, under arrest for battery. Her hands were bound with plastic ties, her ankles in handcuffs.

“I don’t want to go to jail,” she said moments after her arrest Monday.

No charges were filed and the girl went home with her mother.

While police say their actions were proper, school officials were not pleased with the outcome.

“We never want to have 5-year-old children arrested,” said Michael Bessette, the district’s Area III superintendent.

The district’s campus police should have been called to help and not local police, he said.
Bessette said campus police routinely deal with children and are trained to calm them in such situations.

Under the district’s code of student conduct, students are to be suspended for 10 days and recommended for expulsion for unprovoked attacks, even if they don’t result in serious injury. But district spokesman Ron Stone said that rule wouldn’t apply to kindergartners.

“She’s been appropriately disciplined under the circumstances,” he said.

The girl’s mother, Inda Akins, said she is consulting an attorney.

“She’s never going back to that school,” Akins said. “They set my baby up.”

This story tells us two things; one, when we see that naughty 5 year-olds are being cuffed and thrown in the back of a cop car, then it goes without saying that all the REAL bad dudes in the world (say for instance, Osama Bin Something or other) must have been locked up ages ago, and two, don’t take the kid’s jelly beans if you know what is good for you.

I wonder if perhaps the school shouldn’t consider running some fund raisers in order to raise money to buy a Tazer. Put one of these suckers in the Principal’s office and there will be no more outbursts of THIS kind I can tell you.

But then I’m wondering that if they are doing this to 5 year-olds, what are they going to do to Michael Jackson?

Fresh from selling a time machine on eBay, some tool going by the username iknowrodeo is selling what he describes as a shrinking machine

By all means have a looksie if you are so inclined but really this sort of thing gets very tired very quickly.

Selling ridiculous stuff like this (c’mon, it isn’t even funny) is of course just one of the thing wrong with eBay, along with the trading of illegal and stolen items and falsely inflated bids. If this is globalisation then I argue we don’t need it.

Or at least I thought it was going to be. Instead I have two WWW worthy stories, both of which you’ll find in today’s Sydney Morning Herald (www.smh.com.au)

The first is contained under the headline Motorist run over and killed by his own car (so you know it’s going to be good) and is reported thus:-

A man was killed when he was hit by his own car in Sydney’s south-west, police said today. The 45-year-old Bossley Park man was believed to have lost his footing while pushing his car, which had broken down in Wetherill Park about 4.30pm yesterday. He suffered fatal head injuries when he was trapped as his car hit another car that was waiting at traffic lights. His car then continued into a parked car.

Truly a tragic set of events, but one is left asking exactly how fast was this dude pushing his broken down car into a stationary vehicle in order to inflict such injuries?

And lastly, we have Police red-faced after officer leaves DNA evidence on train. Hey people leave stuff on the trains all the time, so what makes this so special. Well how about the fact that this important piece of evidence was a white T-shirt with 11 semen stains on it. The T-shirt was to be used in the trial of two men accused of indecently assaulting a teenage girl and is still
missing.

So CapSlog’s advice to anyone finding a T-shirt on the 1:33 City to Emu Plains service is to hand it in to Lost Property Pronto! Or, failing that, at least to wash it before you try it on.

Gibbo has requested more “Ride-on Lawn Mower” stories – by that he just means more weirdness. I tips me hat to you Gibbo and hope you enjoy the following.

You’ve all heard of the Darwin Awards, and when I found this story, it is suggested that the Wally in question may have just moved himself (posthumously) into favouritism for that prize. You can go to snopes yourself to check the veracity of this story, but I post it here in it’s entirety:-

The following mind-boggling attempt at a crime spree in Washington appeared to be the robber’s first (and last), due to his lack of a previous record of violence, and his terminally stupid choices:
1. His target was H&J Leather & Firearms, a gun shop specializing in handguns.
2. The shop was full of customers – firearms customers.
3. To enter the shop, the robber had to step around a marked police car parked at the front door.
4. A uniformed officer was standing at the counter, having coffee before work. Upon seeing the officer, the would-be robber announced a hold-up, and fired a few wild shots from a .22 target pistol. The officer and a clerk promptly returned fire, the police officer with a 9mm Glock 17, the clerk with a .50 Desert Eagle, assisted by several customers who also drew their guns, several of whom also fired. The robber was pronounced dead at the scene by Paramedics. Crime scene investigators located 47 expended cartridge cases in the shop. The subsequent autopsy revealed 23 gunshot wounds. Ballistics identified rounds from 7 different weapons. No one else was hurt in the exchange of fire.

Now I’m only an average guy standing around with a bag on his head, so what would I know? But I DO know that coming up with the idea robbing a gun store isn’t exactly an “Einstein moment”. An armed robbery is an even dumber one, a point I hoped was touched upon in the Eulogy. But if you ARE dumb enough to commit an armed robbery in a gun store (forgetting for the moment that theys have guns in there) it is probably worth keeping an eye out for the Pol-ese. And I’m guessing John (Bang Bang) Doe did just that, moving purposely and without drawing attention to himself to the door of the TARGET, and all the while checking for the Pol-ese.

Cool, no cops, opens door, moves into TARGET and commences step 1 of his brilliant plan to perform armed robbery (note: there is no step 2). Somewhere between “cool, no cops”, and “this is a stick-up” the ex would be armed robbers brain obviously forget all about the checking for cops bit. Who’s expect a cop in a gun store, holding a gun, thinking to himself “if only some poor schmuck wandered in here trying to rob the place, I could blow him away. Man that’s really make my day. An armed schmuck would be even better!”

Quicker than you could say “Boys the paperwork is going to be mighty easy on this one” the cop is going to taking said schmuck down quick. Well he had to be quick if he wanted to beat every other guy in the store that was also armed.

So what do we learn from this sad event. Sure it is wrong to try and rob a store; it is good to remember that the Police are our friends (but they’ll empty a magazine of 9mm rounds into your chest in a heartbeat if they think they have to); and whatever your point of view on gun control there are at least some instances where armed citizens have protected innocent people, but tons more where they haven’t.