Random News Stories

[Ryan Gallagher]

I must be missing something because I don't see where the gain is.

Just choosing random values, I have a car worth $50,000 with a $5000 insurance deductible.

I hire someone to wreck it for me and pay that guy something (because he probably won't do that for free).

I call the insurance company. "The bear ate my car."

The insurance guy looks at it. He says, "We'll fix that. Pay your $5000 deductible."

Or he says, "This is a write off. Here's $45,000, which is the value of your car less your deductible."

I don't see a scenario where the scammer comes out ahead here.

You assume the scammer got the car a legal way and had money into it already. Maybe if they can get the insurance to write it off it is a form of laundering a stolen car for a legit one?

[Leo Enticknap]

Very likely. The three vehicles involved were a Rolls-Royce and two Mercs. As I mentioned above, it is very rare to see that sort of car up in the San Bernardino Mountains: the narrow, twisty, steep roads that are the only route up and down them, added to the fact that if you live there, you will need to haul most of your groceries and the other necessities of life up from San Bernardino or Redlands, see to it that the majority of vehicles you'll see in communities like Arrowhead, Running Springs, etc. are either pickup trucks or AWD SUVs. Presumably the Roller and the Mercs were driven up there on the assumption that the insurance companies would have a very hard time believing that they were attacked by a bear in downtown San Bernardino.

But to put the icing on the cake, they really should have done this in nearby Big Bear City.

They are going to have a helluva time trying to empanel a jury for this case; specifically, finding 12 citizens in the locality who are utterly devoid of anything close to a sense of humor, to be able to sit through this trial with a straight face. The first time I was called for jury duty (less than a month after my naturalization ceremony!), a friend told me about the occasion in which she took part in the selection process for a trial in which some parents were suing a daycare, because, while supposedly being supervised by the daycare's staff, their kid inserted a Lego piece where the sun don't shine, and it got stuck so badly that surgery was required to remove it. The judge briefly explained the facts of the case, whereupon most of the potential jurors started giggling, such that they were kicked out immediately.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Yeah then there is the fact they could have probably just driven them into nearby woods, left the doors open, baited em with peanut butter, and with a little patience, let the real bears do the job. But that would have missed the key ingredient of the security cam footage.

Also i'm curious how one sets up insurance on a stolen vehicle anyway. So many questions.

[Leo Enticknap]

Continuing on the critter theme - Hamsters v. Airbus

More than 130 escaped hamsters ground plane for five days

Rodents run riot on passenger jet after breaking free from transport boxes during flight from Lisbon to the Azores

James Badcock, in Madrid
18 November 2024, 3.31pm GMT

More than 130 hamsters grounded a plane for five days after they broke free and ran riot inside the cargo hold.

The rodents had been on a flight from Lisbon to Ponta Delgada, on Portugal’s Sao Miguel Island, last Wednesday, along with ferrets and some caged birds that were due to be delivered to a pet store in the Azores archipelago.

However, when airport staff unloaded the hold they found that the hamsters’ transport boxes were empty.

The plane, belonging to Portugal’s TAP national airline, had to be grounded until all 132 hamsters were recaptured over fears that they might gnaw through the aircraft’s electrical cabling.

It took maintenance staff at Ponta Delgada Airport until Sunday to root out the last 16 hamsters on the plane.

Only then was the Airbus A321neo finally declared rodent-free and fit to return to Lisbon on a so-called “ferry flight” with no passengers on board.

The hamsters were due to be delivered to a pet store.

TAP Air Portugal said the plane would now undergo exhaustive checks to ensure that no significant damage had been done by the hamsters’ sharp teeth.

Like all rodent species, hamsters continually gnaw at hard materials to prevent their teeth, which grow throughout their lives, from becoming too long.

Portugal’s specialist aviation news site Aviacao TV reported that passengers and their luggage were also on board the flight.

It added: “Upon landing, the teams responsible for baggage collection noticed that the [hamster] boxes had been damaged and that rodents were loose.”

The boxes containing the hamsters were not accepted on a separate flight out of Lisbon as the containers were not considered to be compliant with hold requirements, according to Correio da Manhã, the Portuguese newspaper.

For some reason, it appears that the boxes were allowed on a subsequent flight to Ponta Delgada.

The Telegraph has contacted TAP for comment.

It comes after a horse forced a Belgium-bound Boeing 747 cargo jet to turn back to New York after it broke free on board last year.

Earlier in 2023, a bear freed itself from its crate on an Iraqi Airways flight from Dubai to Baghdad.

Last year, a giant albino rat shocked passengers on a flight from Bangkok to Taipei after escaping from a passenger’s luggage, along with an otter. The rodents sparked a frenzied search on the VietJet plane before being wrestled into plastic bags. In the tussle, the rat bit a flight attendant.

To add to that list, there was an incident back in the early '00s in which a British Airways 747 became infested with bedbugs. The eventual cost of dealing with them ran into the tens of millions (including both decontaminating the plane and the lost revenue while it was grounded), because the chemicals that are normally used to fumigate a serious bedbug infestation were not approved for use on board aircraft.

[Ed Gordon]

Curtain up – clothes off! Spain makes history by hosting the country’s first nude film screening.

Picture the scene.

Around 50 spectators enter a cinema, put their bags down and take off their coats
.
Nothing out of the ordinary.

Then, they proceed to spread a towel on the cinema seats and take off all their clothes. Naked as the day they were born, they start chatting with their neighbours before the lights go down and the film starts.

Now there’s a trip to the talkies worth remembering.

The nudist event took place in the Lys cinema in Valencia and the Girona cinema in Barcelona for the screening of Marisa Crespo and Moisés Romero’s Christmas thriller Tú no eres yo last Sunday, becoming the first nudist film screening in Spain’s history.

Sadly, the Madrid nudist screening was ultimately cancelled.

Source: https://www.euronews.com/culture/202...nema-screening

[Harold Hallikainen]

Another way to compete with streaming!

[Ryan Gallagher]

The age gap in nudist culture appears even wider than the age gap in cinema going culture. I'm not sure this is a way forward for cinemas. ;-) lol

[Leo Enticknap]

BBC

Trinidad and Tobago declares emergency as murders soar

Trinidad and Tobago has declared a state of emergency as gang violence in the Caribbean nation continues to escalate.

President Christine Carla Kangaloo issued the declaration on the advice of Prime Minister Keith Rowley, who had been under growing pressure to take action over worsening crime figures.

The twin-island republic has one of the highest homicide rates in Latin America and the Caribbean, with a record murder tally of more than 620 this year so far in a population of 1.5 million people.

Organised crime is responsible for the majority of the murders, many of them linked to the international drug trade.

According to the US state department, the country's close proximity to Venezuela, porous borders and direct transportation routes to Europe and North America make it "a prime location for narcotics trans-shipment".

In the latest violent incident, five men were shot dead in a shop in the poverty-stricken Laventille area on Sunday. Police believe the killings were in reprisal for the murder of a prominent gang member the previous day.

Under the state of emergency, police will have the authority to arrest people on suspicion of involvement in crimes. They will also have the power to "search and enter both public and private premises as necessary".

The prime minister's office issued a statement saying the intention was to "address individuals who pose a threat to public safety, particularly those involved in criminal activities and the illegal use of firearms".

However, it added that there were no plans to impose a curfew.

It is unclear how the state of emergency will affect Trinidad's world-renowned Carnival, which is set to culminate in a massive street parade on the Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday in early March.

The event is a major tourist attraction which brings in tens of thousands of visitors from overseas, but heightened security measures could put a damper on the festivities.

The move comes as Trinidad and Tobago gears up for a general election, which must be held by August 2025.

Rowley's governing People's National Movement party, in power since September 2015, faces a strong challenge from the opposition United National Congress, led by former Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

I would speculate that everyone working in President Kangaloo's office has either figured out the "add to dictionary" feature in Microsoft Word, or disabled the spelling autocorrect feature. Or both, just to be super safe.

The military leader who organized a coup in Papua New Guinea, Jack Tuat, is arguably at even greater typo risk, though...

[Frank Cox]

https://nationalpost.com/news/hamilt...ay-bike-stolen

Hamilton bank robber has getaway impeded by bike thief

At a time when cyclists around the country are plagued by bike theft, one cyclist-cum-bank-robber had his scheme foiled by a fellow criminal.

According to a news release from the Hamilton Police Service, on Dec. 18, a man entered a BMO branch over the lunch hour. Having cycled to the bank in Hamilton’s Westcliffe East neighbourhood, the modern-day Jesse James left his wheeled steed outside, and proceeded indoors

Passing the teller a note saying this was a stickup, and threatening the employee “while motioning they were in possession of a weapon,” the would-be robber attempted to get cash. He was, however, confronted by another employee and fled empty-handed.

Upon exiting the bank, and looking for his bike, the thief was reportedly “dazed and confused” upon realizing that some other enterprising bandito had made off with his bicycle.

With the only option left to him being his own two feet, the bandit then fled on foot, and remains at large. Hamilton police are seeking the would-be bank robber, who’s described as a white man between 5’4 and 5’8 in height. At the time of the attempted theft, the suspect was wearing a multi-coloured scarf, black sunglasses, a blue surgical mask, a black fur-trimmed jacket, black gloves, dark pants and white shoes.

The bike thief, who also remains at large, is described only as a male in dark clothes.

[Leo Enticknap]

Telegraph.

Pakistan Airlines advert shows plane flying into Eiffel Tower
Setback for state-owned carrier on same day flying ban to Europe lifted

James Warrington
Senior Business Reporter
10 January 2025 3:11pm GMT

Pakistan’s national airline has come under fire for a “tone deaf” advert that appears to show a plane flying into the Eiffel Tower.

Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), which was banned from flying to the UK, US and EU in 2020 amid safety concerns, on Friday announced it had resumed flights to Europe after the ban was lifted.

In a post on social media, the airline published an image showing a plane and the Eiffel Tower against the French tricolour flag, accompanied by the caption: “Paris, we’re coming today.”

But critics pointed out that the advert appeared to show the plane heading straight for the Paris landmark.

Omar R Quraishi, a Pakistani PR expert and former adviser to politician Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, branded the campaign “completely tone deaf”.

He wrote on X: “Did the idiot who designed this graphic not see a PIA plane heading for the Eiffel Tower? One of Europe’s iconic landmarks. Do they not know about the 9/11 tragedy – which used planes to attack buildings? Did they not think that this would be perceived in similar fashion?”

Mr Quraishi said the advert was particularly insensitive given Pakistan had often been accused of supporting terrorism. Osama bin Laden, who led Al-Qaeda, hid in Pakisan following 9/11 before being killed by US special forces at his compound in Abbottabad.

The backlash is a setback for the state-owned airline after the EU’s aviation safety agency lifted the four-year ban.

The restrictions were imposed in 2020 after a PIA plane crashed in Karachi, killing 97 people. An investigation found the crash was caused by pilot error and that almost a third of Pakistani pilots held fake licences or had cheated in exams.

In 2017, PIA came under scrutiny after admitting it overfilled a flight and allowed seven extra passengers to stand in the aisle.

The airline was also ridiculed after images circulated online of ground staff sacrificing a goat next to an aircraft just before take-off in a bid to ward off bad luck. That followed a crash that killed 47 people in 2016.

Shehbaz Sharif, Pakistan’s prime minister, said the lifting of the ban would improve the airline’s image.

PIA said its first flight from Islamabad to Paris was fully booked with more than 300 passengers.

It is not the first time the Pakistani airline has raised eyebrows with its adverts. A 1979 campaign for PIA showing the shadow of a jetliner against the Twin Towers resurfaced in the wake of the 9/11 attacks given its eerie similarities with America’s deadliest terrorist attack.

PIA has been contacted for comment.

image.png

Is there an official goat sacrificing procedure in the Boeing and Airbus operations manuals? Do the ground staff have to pass a type rating before they can do that (not that it really matters if they do, given that most of them have phony licenses)?

[Ryan Gallagher]

Parisians have had enough tragedy befall their cherished national monuments for a lifetime lately. Let's spare the tower please, even though it is actively trying to tear itself down on it's own with rust.

[Randy Stankey]

That ad was probably done by some intern who waited until the night before his deadline and tossed something together at the last minute. The boss, busy with a hundred other things on his mind, took one look and said, "Yup! Send it to print!" but didn't even consider what he was looking at.

An eighth grader could have done a better job using "Paint Shop!"

You could fix that ad, simply, by horizontally flipping the image of the airplane and repositioning it to make it look like it was flying OVER the Eiffel Tower and not into it!

It would have taken about an extra ninety seconds to fix, including the time it would have taken to e-mail the file to your boss.