Random News Stories

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Presented without comment:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/08/11/what-you-should-know-about-exploding-caskets/

You've never heard of exploding casket syndrome (ask your mortician if it's right for you), but funeral directors and cemetery operators have. They sell so-called "protective" or "sealer" caskets at a premium worth hundreds of dollars each, with the promise that they'll keep out air and moisture that — they would have you believe — cause bodies to rapidly deteriorate. Like Tupperware for the dead, they "lock in the freshness!" with a rubber gasket.

But, in reality, you can't protect a corpse from itself. While you're insulating grandma from the outside air, she could be stewing in her own fluids, turning into a slurry from the work of anaerobic bacteria. When the weather turns warm, in some cases, that sealed casket becomes a pressure cooker and bursts from accumulated gases and fluids of the decomposing body. The next time relatives visit grandma, they could find her rotting remains oozing from her tomb in the form of a nauseating thick fluid.

Man, I was all for cremation before this but how can a guy pass up the opportunity to HAVE HIS CASKET EXPLODE.

[Junkenstein]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-28961229

A crew member on a US police reality TV show has been shot and killed after Nebraska police opened fire on a robbery suspect.

Bryce Dion, 38, was wearing a bulletproof vest but the bullet that hit him "slipped into a gap" in the arm and entered his chest, police said.

Dion was a sound operator on Cops for seven years, the show's producer said.

Police also killed the robbery suspect, Cortez Washington, who was on parole from prison.

I'm trying to work out how he got shot here. I've not got a better answer at the moment than "Sheer incompetence".

[P3nT4gR4m]

Cop was a nine year old with an Uzi?

[Cain]

I laffed

[Sita]

Having watched quite a few episodes of Cops I can honestly believe incompetence.

[Junkenstein]

The only situation that makes sense to me is something like:

Cops were shooting at the guy - Guy goes to flee - Runs out - Runs past camera crew - Cops keep turning and shooting - Guy gets shot because he's now in front of them.

I'm sure they won't even get a slap on the wrist for this. He must have signed disclaimer forms out the ass before being allowed to go anywhere with them.

[LMNO]

I'm not entirely sure how to react to this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-28948946

A nine year-old girl in the US has killed her shooting instructor by accident while being shown how to use a high-powered automatic weapon.

The instructor was giving the girl a lesson at a shooting range in Arizona when the recoil from the first shot caused her to lose control of the Uzi.

Charles Vacca, 39, was shot in the head and died after being airlifted to a hospital in Las Vegas.

Kinda fucked up. Then I saw the "Arizona" and it all made horrible sense.

I have a friend on FB who's got a rather dark sense of humor.  His most recent posts were suggested bumper stickers:

GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE. MY 9-YEAR-OLD KILLS PEOPLE.

ASK ME ABOUT MY GRANDCHILDREN'S CONFIRMED KILLS.

MY CHILD TOOK OUT A ROW OF HONOR STUDENTS AT LYNETTE FROMME INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL.



Is "cringelaugh" a thing?

[Junkenstein]

I'm not sure, my sense of humour is pitch black so I just laughed.

I laugh at most things now. It just seems that I'm noticing the jokes more frequently. For example: everything.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

We don't fuck around, here.  9 year olds with Uzis are kinda bog-standard.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

It bums me out that some little kid gets to be saddled with this trauma because a few adults were so stupid that they thought it would be cute to teach her to shoot an assault weapon that was too much for her to handle, but also making jokes about terrible, absurd, awful things that were a terrible idea in the first place is a way of both dealing with the conflicting emotions about the event, and also a way of socially highlighting WHAT THE FUCK THAT WAS FUCKING STUPID WHAT EVEN.

[Junkenstein]

I have no idea how I ended up looking at this, but I smell something strange:
http://w2.parentstv.org/main/About/FAQ.aspx

Does the PTC organize or advocate boycotts?

No.

Corporations need to advertise to sell their products. The PTC believes that corporations also have a sense of social responsibility. The PTC tries to appeal to a corporations' own standards by making a well-documented case that certain shows are unsuitable at certain times and in venues where children are presumed to have unrestricted access.

http://w2.parentstv.org/main/Toolkit/PTCSeal.aspx

The top ten leading companies from this list then comprise the Advertiser Seal of Approval winners. Recent Advertiser Seal of Approval winners are:
The Coca-Cola Company
The Campbell Soup Company
The Walt Disney Company
Ford Motor Company
Cingular Wireless
Altria Group [Parent company of Kraft Foods, Post Cereals, Jell-O desserts, Maxwell House coffees, Oscar Mayer foods, Miracle Whip, DiGiorno, Stove Top Stuffing, Crystal Light drink mixes, Kool-Aid, Cool Whip, Minute Rice, Shake 'n Bake, Country Time drink mixes, Altoids]
DreamWorks
Schering-Plough Corp. [Products include: Claritin, Dr. Scholls, Nasonex]
Darden Restaurants, Inc. [Parent company of Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Bahama Breeze, Smokey Bones BBQ]
Sears Holdings Corp.
- See more at: http://w2.parentstv.org/main/Toolkit/PTCSeal.aspx#sthash.jbW82LMm.dpuf

So it's some kind of lobby group against bad TV which considers the above companies good advertisers because they don't make TV shows filled with blood and breasts?

To say I find this odd is an understatement. Reams have been written regarding the evils of Coke and Disney so it's quite strange when someone claims that these are somehow responsible companies, in any way.

I need to dig out the big chart again because I suspect that the above own each other in various way (Coke-sears rings bells) which would again make everything even shadier.

The reviews section is suspect as fuck as well. "Guardians of the galaxy" - Red! Warning! Sex! Violence! Seal of approval! Wait, what?


Best guess - Either a lobby group, front for indirect advertising to extremely conservative people or just a tax dodge. There's no reason these are mutually exclusive. 

[Sita]

What I got from that is just that they don't mind the commercials that those companies put on tv. Not anything about the companies themselves.

It's a parent's group that wants anything remotely PG-13 to be on tv only after 8pm (because most kids are in bed by that time)

That's my understanding of them at least.

[Junkenstein]

Possibly, though I suspect there's more to it than that. Giving positive reviews to companies that sponsor you made me raise an eye.

Anyway, On to the "No Shit" files, #3331/1/1/G-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29053978

Victims of crime are being "encouraged" to investigate offences themselves, an inspection of police forces in England and Wales has found.

HM Inspectorate of Constabulary said criminal damage and car crime were "on the verge of being decriminalised" because forces had "almost given up".

The inspector who led the review, Roger Baker, said: "It's more a mindset, that we no longer deal with these things. And effectively what's happened is a number of crimes are on the verge of being decriminalised."

He added: "So it's not the fault of the individual staff; it's a mindset thing that's crept in to policing to say 'we've almost given up'."

This is a devastating report for the police because it appears to confirm what many of us have experienced over the years - that there are some crimes police simply don't attempt to investigate.

The report also found:

People received a different response from the police for the same kind of incident, depending on where they lived
Attendance rates at crime scenes varied from 39% in Warwickshire to 100% in Cleveland
About a third of forces were failing to identify vulnerable and repeat victims
There was "inadequate" use of technology by the police
Some forces were losing track of named suspects because they did not have effective systems in place

So in short the UK police force is a shitshow. I'm sure this shocks everyone.

[Cain]

It's a parent's group that wants anything remotely PG-13 to be on tv only after 8pm (because most kids are in bed by that time)

Oh, how I wish that were true.  I've worked in primary school, and know people who have worked in several other primary schools, and you would be amazed how many children do not have a set bedtime.

It's also usually strongly correlated with them having a TV in their room, though not always.

Not that this detracts from your point, but I felt it worth mentioning.

[Junkenstein]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/02/my-first-burning-man-grover-norquist

Grover Norquist went to Burning Man. And had a good time.

In other news, my decade long desire to go to Burning Man has suddenly vanished.