Weird News Compilation

[Hornbein]

+ Xuan Kha Pham, who allegedly beat two Democratic Congressional staffers for Rep. Gerry Connolly with a baseball bat on Monday, had recently filed a $29 million lawsuit against the CIA, claiming the Agency had imprisoned him in “Book World… in a lower perspective based on physics” and that he was being tortured “from the Fourth Dimension.”

https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/05/19/roaming-charges-92/

 

[BillTre]

 

[Astronuc]

Officials investigate mysterious disappearance of 30-Ton shipment of explosive chemicals in California
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/officials-investigate-mysterious-disappearance-30-100049718.html

Approximately 61,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate, a chemical used as both fertilizer and an ingredient in explosives, went missing when it was shipped by rail from Wyoming to California last month, prompting officials to begin investigating the mysterious disappearance.

It was in pellet form.

"The railcar was sealed when it left the Cheyenne facility, and the seals were still intact when it arrived in Saltdale. The initial assessment is that a leak through the bottom gate on the railcar may have developed in transit," the company told KQED News.

Maybe one of the gates leaked? I've seen that happen before with powder material, e.g., betonite clay.

 

[Borg]

Hmm, I wonder what happens when I pull the pin on a grenade? The stupidity of some people never ceases to amaze me.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...ured-grenade-detonates-indiana-home-rcna85474

 

[Grelbr42]

View attachment 326787

I'm wondering whether it would be cheaper to build a new bridge or re-direct the water flow back under the existing bridge. I'm supposing you would only need to move the dirt a little more than the length of the bridge.

 

[phinds]

I'm wondering whether it would be cheaper to build a new bridge or re-direct the water flow back under the existing bridge. I'm supposing you would only need to move the dirt a little more than the length of the bridge.

You can't fool mother nature !

 

[Astronuc]

Passenger opens exit door during airplane flight in South Korea; 12 people injured slightly​

https://www.yahoo.com/news/south-korean-passenger-plane-flies-064030380.html

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A passenger opened an emergency exit door during a plane flight in South Korea on Friday, causing air to blast inside the cabin and slightly injure 12 people, officials said. The plane landed safely.

Some people aboard the Asiana Airlines Airbus A321 aircraft tried to stop the person, who was able to partially open the door, the Transport Ministry said.

The person was detained by airport police on suspicion of violating the aviation security law, a ministry statement said. The person's identity and motive weren't immediately released.

The law bars passengers from handling exit doors . . . especially mid-flight!

 

[Astronuc]

Southwest pilot crawled in through the plane's window after being locked out of the cockpit before takeoff
https://www.yahoo.com/news/southwest-pilot-crawled-planes-window-084436728.html

Good thing he was on the ground.

 

[Hornbein]

Southwest pilot crawled in through the plane's window after being locked out of the cockpit before takeoff
https://www.yahoo.com/news/southwest-pilot-crawled-planes-window-084436728.html

Good thing he was on the ground.

No keys for the door? And those windows open? Huh.

 

[Astronuc]

No keys for the door? And those windows open? Huh.

I had the same thoughts. They sometimes have windows open to talk or pass paperwork to ground crew once the plane doors are closed. Locking oneself out of the cockpit on the ground is inconvenient, but locking oneself out in the air could be fatal. I would expect though that someone is in the cockpit to allow the pilot or co-pilot back in, unless a situation like that of co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, who crashed Germanwings Flight 9525 after locking the pilot out of the cockpit.

 

[fresh_42]

 

[dlgoff]

I just saw this on the TV news. They said the door was locked. I'm wondering why someone couldn't unlock and open it?

 

[fresh_42]

They said the door was locked. I'm wondering why someone couldn't unlock and open it?

9/11 - the doors cannot be opened from the cabin.

 

[dlgoff]

9/11 - the doors cannot be opened from the cabin.

Okay. Thanks.

 

[berkeman]

Looks like he had to break the window to get in. Time to call Safelite!

 

[fresh_42]

Hong KongCNN — A social media influencer died soon after live-streaming himself drinking several bottles of strong alcohol on China’s version of TikTok, state-run media in the country are reporting, in a development likely to renew debate about how to regulate the industry.

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/27/asia/chinese-livestreamer-drinking-baijiu-intl-hnk/

I recently read a meme that said:
"Maybe it's time to remove all those warning signs and let evolution do its job."

Another one that came to mind:
"What are you doing?" - "I'm an influencer!" - "Yeah, I haven't learned anything either."

 

[pinball1970]

There are distinct stages of decomposition of an animal with factors affecting the rate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpse_decomposition

So this is weird.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...019-death-draws-hundreds-rural-miss-rcna87080

 

[pinball1970]

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2023.0061

 

[phinds]

In the midst of some of the worst wildfires in Canadian history, we have this:

https://www.foxnews.com/world/canad...air-day-fires-continue-ravage-northeastern-us

Canada's Clean Air Day is to 'recognize how important good air quality is to our health, our environment, and the economy'

 

[Tom.G]

Deer finds mammal-eating friend to swim with​

https://www.foxweather.com/earth-sp..._weather_outbrain&dicbo=v4-0mfpSCX-1081348180

 

[berkeman]

I think he's going to have trouble dating after this...

LAKE BARRINGTON, Ill. (WGN) — A suburban Illinois man with a revoked FOID card has been arrested and charged after he accidentally shot himself while dreaming, according to the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.

Deputies said they responded to a report of a Lake Barrington resident with a gunshot wound around 9:50 p.m. on April 10. When deputies arrived at the home, they found 62-year-old Mark Dicara with a gunshot wound to the leg.

Deputies applied a tourniquet to Dicara’s leg, as he was losing a significant amount of blood.

Further investigation revealed Dicara had a dream that someone was breaking into his home. In his dream, he retrieved his .357 magnum revolver and shot at who he believed was the intruder, the sheriff’s office said in a news release.

When he fired, he shot himself instead and apparently woke up from the dream, the release stated.

Dicara was taken to a local hospital where he was treated for his wounds and later released.

 

[BillTre]

I think he's going to have trouble dating after this...

Kind of like a delayed Darwin Award.

 

[pinball1970]

There are variants of thermodynamics of hell/thermodynamics question for a students essay.

The story I remember hell is exothermic because hell is not freezing over as per https://www-users.york.ac.uk/~ss44/joke/exoendo.htm

Not this one, freezing over (but still exothermic?) https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/...on-is-hell-exothermic-of-endothermic-1.910166

The dog story follows which I have a hard time believing and that is not how you spell Colchester.

 

[jack action]

California Man’s Plot to Avoid Tickets With ‘NULL’ Vanity Plate Nets Him $12K in Fines​

Recounting his experience at this year's DEF CON hacking conference, an information security researcher who goes by the handle "Droogie" cheekily attempted to fool the DMV's computer system by registering a vanity plate that read "NULL," the computer programming shorthand for a non-existent value. If all went to plan, any and all tickets issued to the plate "NULL" would, at the end of the day, be issued to no plate at all.

[...]

Things seemed fine for the uneventful first year he owned the plate but when he tried to renew the tags, entering "NULL" into the California DMV's online registration renewal site broke the page. Shortly after that, Droogie's car got slapped with a parking ticket, an event that triggered thousands of dollars worth of tickets to be mailed to his house, all addressed to him. All in all, Droogie appeared to be on the hook for over $12,000 in fines.

Apparently, a privately operated citation processing center kept a database of outstanding tickets attributed to a NULL plate—these are tickets with missing or incomplete plate data, not plates that literally read "NULL," like the one Droogie owns. Unfortunately for the California I.T. professional, the system in question wasn't sophisticated enough to differentiate the two inputs, automatically sending all NULL tickets his way.

 

[Ibix]

So has anyone registered ';drop tables;? Asking for a friend.

 

[Swamp Thing]

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/17/us/yellowstone-man-dissolved-trnd/

A 23-year-old Oregon man essentially dissolved inside a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming after he accidentally fell into it.
...
"In a very short order, there was a significant amount of dissolving," Veress said.

Darwin Award?

A geochemist maybe, who was totally absorbed in his work?

 

[Hornbein]

How I learned to stop worrying and love the totalitarian state.

 

[berkeman]

https://www.firehouse.com/apparatus...ked-with-robotaxis-tangling-with-firefighters

Robotaxis keep tangling with firefighters on the streets of San Francisco, and the fire chief is fed up.

"They're not ready for prime time," Chief Jeanine Nicholson said.

Nicholson is talking about the driverless taxis from Waymo and Cruise that are picking up passengers and dropping them off in designated sections of the city. Now those companies want to rapidly expand service throughout the entire city, in unlimited numbers, in any kind of weather, day or night. And state regulators appear ready to approve their request.

City leaders are worried — not only in San Francisco, but in Los Angeles and Santa Monica, too, where Waymo and another robotaxi company, Motional, say they're ready to deploy their AI-operated robotaxi service as soon as state regulators flash the green light.

The robotaxi industry is being allowed to move too fast and break things, these officials say, putting more robotaxis on public streets even as they prove inept at dealing with firetrucks, ambulances and police cars. And, they say, California state agencies have set up the rules so cities have little say in autonomous vehicle regulation.

The Fire Department incidents include reports of robotaxis:

• Running through yellow emergency tape and ignoring warning signs to enter a street strewn with storm-damaged electrical wires, then driving past emergency vehicles with some of those wires snarled around rooftop lidar sensors.
• Twice blocking firehouse driveways, requiring another firehouse to dispatch an ambulance to a medical emergency.
• Sitting motionless on a one-way street and forcing a firetruck to back up and take another route to a blazing building.
• Pulling up behind a firetruck that was flashing its emergency lights and parking there, interfering with firefighters unloading ladders.
• Entering an active fire scene, then parking with one of its tires on top of a fire hose.

After a mass shooting June 9 that wounded nine people, a robotaxi blocked a lane in front of emergency responders in the city's Mission District. Another lane was open, but in a news release, the Fire Department said on a narrower street, the blockage could have been "catastrophic."

 

[Astronuc]

Shark attack video in Florida Everglades shows man being bitten, pulled from boat​

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/shark-attack-video-florida-everglades-125359707.html

It is unclear which species of shark bit the man, but one species of shark known to inhabit the Everglades is the bull shark − a mid-size predatory shark that can inhabit both freshwater and saltwater habitats. Bull sharks are often considered to be the most dangerous sharks to humans because of their aggressive tendencies, according to the National Wildlife Foundation.

 

[fresh_42]

About 200 swans landed in a poppy field in Slovakia. For months the animals got high on the plants. Now they're going to a detox clinic.
...
At first, it was just a few swans that settled in the poppy field in Patince, Slovakia, on the Hungarian border. After heavy rainfall, a pond had formed there from which the birds wanted to drink. But pretty quickly they apparently took a liking to the poppies that organic farmer Balint Pem grows in the field, and they stayed.

https://www.fnp.de/welt/zu-schwaene...-sich-200-tiere-an-mohnpflanzen-92345593.html

 

[pinball1970]

https://www.fnp.de/welt/zu-schwaene...-sich-200-tiere-an-mohnpflanzen-92345593.html

Some mammals eat fruit that has fermented naturally. It's right there what is the issue?

 

[pinball1970]

I cannot read this, pay wall. Do mammals get drunk in the wild or not?

 

[fresh_42]

Some mammals eat fruit that has fermented naturally. It's right there what is the issue?

It's one thing to get drunk, but another to get addicted to opium for months. And especially funny in the article was that the number of swans constantly increased.

 

[pinball1970]

It's one thing to get drunk, but another to get addicted to opium for months. And especially funny in the article was that the number of swans constantly increased.

Yes I believe opiates are quite moorish.

Could ergot get in there? That's a mischievous little thing.

 

[nsaspook]

https://cowboystatedaily.com/2023/0...s-at-150-mph-destroys-scottsbluff-solar-farm/