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What's the Dumbest Thing You've SEEN Today?

Saw some business dweeb driving a bicycle down St James in Winnipeg on Tuesday night, over a very shoddily ploughed road, with a brief case in one hand and a handle bar in the other...and wobbling dangerously all over both lanes.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it illegal in most places to be driving a bike during times of snow accumulation??!!

This dude should be in the Darwin Thread...
 
Some big cities allow bikes in winter but regulate the type of tire to be used as well as the usual safety gear.  Many do not regulate it.  DND only regulates bikes on base in the winter because the base is a workplace and you can get away with claiming benefits if you hurt yourself on a bike in the winter if you work on base. 
 
It's plain retarded and unsafe, regardless.  Besides, the Highway Traffic Act does apply to cyclists - they have to drive safely as much as you or I do in our cars and trucks, and more so in fact, since they have no exterior armour around them.  I guess to cap it off - he had no helmet on.  Oh well...

MM
 
medicineman said:
Saw some business dweeb driving a bicycle down St James in Winnipeg on Tuesday night, over a very shoddily ploughed road, with a brief case in one hand and a handle bar in the other...and wobbling dangerously all over both lanes.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it illegal in most places to be driving a bike during times of snow accumulation??!!

This dude should be in the Darwin Thread...

Winnipeg is full of morons who think they should bike everyplace and have the run of the road. They constantly break laws then ***** and whine that they get no respect.

The bicycle has a fat bumper.

The bicycle has a fat bumper.
 
Jim Seggie said:
Winnipeg is full of morons who think they should bike everyplace and have the run of the road. They constantly break laws then ***** and whine that they get no respect.

The bicycle has a fat bumper.

The bicycle has a fat bumper.

Shouldn't that be "The bicycle has a fat WANKER" instead?

;D
 
Digital camouflage scheme applied to an F-18. It seems designed to blind enemy pilots (no word on if the plane's pilot is subject to epileptic seizures):
 
My fave:

Daphné à Monique: Il y a le feu à l'agence de voyage. Inutile de s'y rendre.

Daphné à Monique: Il y a le feu à l'agence de voyage. Inutile de s'y rendre.

Just let 'er burn, boys.
 
blackberet17 said:
My fave:

Daphné à Monique: Il y a le feu à l'agence de voyage. Inutile de s'y rendre.

Daphné à Monique: Il y a le feu à l'agence de voyage. Inutile de s'y rendre.

Just let 'er burn, boys.


Ummmm...the eagle flies high in the noonday sun?

Or Daphne and Monique are having a discreet.......
 
Parent of dying boy has to prove her son can’t take standardized test

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/02/04/parent-of-dying-boy-has-to-prove-her-son-cant-take-standardized-test/?hpid=z5

Andrea Rediske’s 11-year-old son Ethan, is dying. Last year, Ethan, who was born with brain damage, has cerebral palsy and is blind, was forced to take a version of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test over the space of two weeks because the state of Florida required that every student take one.

Ethan wasn’t the only brain-damaged child in Florida to be forced to take a standardized test; I have written in the past about Michael, another Florida boy who was born with only a brain stem — not a brain — and can’t tell the difference between an apple and an orange, but was also forced to take a version of the FCAT. (See here, here and here.) And there are many others, in Florida and across the country as well.

Why does Florida — and other states, as well as the U.S. Department of Education — force kids with impaired cognitive ability to take standardized tests? Because, they say, nearly every child can learn something and be assessed in some fashion.  Even, apparently, a boy born without a brain.

Publicity last year in Florida about some of these cases sparked interest among some state lawmakers to pass legislation to make it easier for severely disabled students to get waivers from taking these tests. The U.S. Department of Education sent a letter warning lawmakers to keep assessing all children, and one Florida Education Department spokesman told me that “waivers do not apply to students with a chronic situation.” Legislation did get passed but it wasn’t what some had hoped. It allows parents to request a waiver (Michael’s parents abandoned him shortly after he was born, and he lives in an Orlando care facility for children called the Russell House), and the state has set out a long series of actions that have to be taken — including approval by the education commission — to get a waiver.

Ethan got a waiver, but now there is a new obscenity transpiring. His mother sent an e-mail Tuesday to Orange County School Board member Rick Roach and to Scott Maxwell, who has movingly written about Ethan and similar cases for the Orlando Sentinel, that the state is requiring her to prove that her son still can’t take another standardized test and can therefore keep his waiver. The e-mail says:

Rick and Scott,

I’m writing to appeal for your advocacy on our behalf. Ethan is dying. He has been in hospice care for the past month. We are in the last days of his life. His loving and dedicated teacher, Jennifer Rose has been visiting him every day, bringing some love, peace, and light into these last days. How do we know that he knows that she is there? Because he opens his eyes and gives her a little smile. He is content and comforted after she leaves.

Jennifer is the greatest example of what a dedicated teacher should be.  About a week ago, Jennifer hesitantly told me that the district required a medical update for continuation of the med waiver for the adapted FCAT. Apparently, my communication through her that he was in hospice wasn’t enough: they required a letter from the hospice company to say that he was dying. Every day that she comes to visit, she is required to do paperwork to document his “progress.” Seriously? Why is Ethan Rediske not meeting his 6th-grade hospital homebound curriculum requirements? BECAUSE HE IS IN A MORPHINE COMA. We expect him to go any day. He is tenaciously clinging to life.

This madness has got to stop. Please help us.

Thank you,

Andrea Rediske
 
Mor*ns. Reminds me of that report of those Iraqi soldiers who tried to surrender to a US UAV/RPV during the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm.

Or those angry protestors in Pakistan who threw stones at a local KFC branch in the mass anger that gripped the Islamic world after that Danish cartoonist drew their prophet.  ::)

Angry Afghan Villagers stoning wreck of U.S. Predator Drone

(theaviationist.com)
Jan 31 2014

Drone-stoned.png


It allegedly shows what seems to be a group of Afghans stoning the wreck of a (most probably American) MQ-1 Predator drone, while other people cheer and laugh.


YouTube Video Link >>>
 
A different bunch burned one of the Sperwers that I signed out and didn't sign back in.
 
The Taliban believe they've captured one of the US military's "top dogs" since apparently it's got a colonel's insignia.    ::) ::)

:facepalm:

Military.com Video



Taliban Claims to Capture US Military Dog .
Posted 1 day ago by  vlogger 

The Taliban claims to have taken a military working dog as a prisoner in a video where Taliban members show off the dog and rifles supposedly obtained after a firefight with U.S. forces in December. A NATO spokesman has confirmed U.S. forces have been missing a working dog since December, which adds credibility to the Taliban's claim. However, NATO officials would not confirm if the dog in the video was one affiliated with a coalition unit. "We can confirm that a military working dog went missing following an ISAF mission in December, 2013. It is ISAF policy to defer identification to the appropriate national authorities," NATO's International Security Assistance Force-Afghanistan said in a statement sent to Military.com. The dog in the video appears to be a Belgian Malinois wearing a black vest held by a group of alleged members of the Taliban. During the video, one of the Taliban members refers to the dog as colonel, which is a rank they found on the dog's vest.


 
:facepalm:

9-Year-Old's 'My Little Pony' Backpack Banned by School

By ABC News

One backpack is at the center of a national firestorm.

The always cheerful cartoon horses of "My Little Pony" have made Grayson Bruce, 9, the subject of bullying at his Buncombe County, N.C., elementary school.

"It made me feel devastated," Grayson told ABC News of the behavior he has endured. "I didn't think I was going to get the reaction that I got."

But it's the school's response to the situation that is generating controversy.

"The principal told me that we could no longer bring the bag to school," Grayson's mother, Noreen Bruce, explained. "That he as a principal had the right to ban anything that he believed was a distraction."

That triggered an outpouring of support for Grayson and the backpack he uses as a lunchbox.

Nearly 50,000 likes on the "Support for Grayson" Facebook page and a Change.org petition reaching more than 6,000 signatures and counting, calling for the school to allow Grayson to bring his backpack.

"Saying a lunchbox is a trigger for bullying is like saying a short skirt is a trigger for rape," said Bruce. "It's flawed logic."

"I didn't know why they weren't focusing on the big picture," Grayson added.

"The focus should have been more on educating the entire school body instead of actually isolating the child who is being bullied," said parenting expert Dr. Karyn Gordon
.

(...EDITED)

ABC News via Yahoo newsfeed
 
Where to start...

Two Mondays ago, my girlfriend and I woke to the smell of furnace oil, at about 0635. As we got up and dressed, we heard a door slam, which was our next door neighbour's screen door slamming closed (0640). We thought that was odd, he never left the house until almost 0900 usually. I went down to the basement, as the smell got stronger, and saw furnace fuel on the clay basement floor. Peeked around the furnace, and saw a portion of the basement hall collapsed inwards, by the furnace oil tanks.

I ran upstairs, shut off the furnace switch on the way, txt'd the landlord (0650), changed slippers for rubber boots, and ran back to the basement. Closer inspection revealed the collapsing wall, a mix of sandstone and brick (100+ yo house), had hit the oil tanks, causing a break somewhere I couldn't see, allowing fuel to gush out. I ran back upstairs, and started looking for anything I could use to plug the hole, shutting off the furnace emergency switch on the way, and sent the landlord a sitrep (0700).

Not finding anything I could use (the hose is about a quarter of an inch round), I ran back downstairs to see if the tanks had shutoff valves. By moving some of the rubble, I found one shutoff valve, which stopped fuel running from tank #2...but I could still hear it running. By moving more rubble, I got to the valve for tank#1, which was closest to the collapsed wall. That stopped all flow of fuel. Essentially, the collapsing wall had knocked off the fuel lines at the tanks, thankfully on this side of the shutoffs.

After making sure there was no further fuel leak, and no electrical running into or around the spill, I ran back upstairs, sent the landlord another sitrep (0713), then the girlfriend and I started packing clothes and stuff quickly. By 0720, the landlord had arrived, mentioning he'd just heard from the neighbour as he was pulling up.

Then the fun started, as the provincial department of the environment arrived, then a cleanup crew to suck up the fuel from the floor, then a construction crew...

By 1030, we were out of the house, and trying to sort ourselves out - places to stay, something to eat, civilian employers, etc.

Two days later, we run into the neighbour while at the house (it's an old house turned duplex at some point) to check on things. We're chatting, figuring out timelines, where we've each ended up considering the environmental disaster now beneath us. I ask our neighbour, a quiet man in his mid to late thirties or early forties, if he heard anything the morning of the collapse. He tells us he was asleep on his couch that morning, which was right above the section of wall that collapsed, and heard everything, felt it through the couch, it's what woke him up.

We didn't hear anything, our bedroom was on the second floor, opposite side of the house.

I'm trying to keep a straight face as the neighbour continues his tale, adding when he smelled the furnace oil, he ran upstairs, showered, packed a few belongings, and...then...left...slamming his doors shut as he went...up the street...and...away...

So, aside from our awesome neighbourly neighbour, the story gets better!

The first construction crew was removing contaminated soil (estimate of 60-80L of furnace oil leaked out) all the first week, by hand and using buckets.  They were pretty confident they got most of it, but not without some work: the furnace was disconnected, dismantled and moved, ditto the furnace oil tanks, and a large hole made to ground level where the wall collapsed so they could remove the soil to the outside. The oil company was called to have an alternate line run and heat source set up, to keep pipes from freezing, then cancelled because the weather was warming up, so it was all disconnected anyway.

There are support beams and jack posts inside, and plywood sheets to cover the hole at ground level, traffic markers and a large waste disposal bin outside, next to that side of the house. A halt was called for the weekend, so the landlord could work out the next steps with contractors, DoE, etc.

Sometime on Monday or Tuesday of this week, so a week into this whole adventure, the oil company shows up, for automatic delivery...the guy starts pumping furnace oil...into a basement with no tanks...another 60L later...

...digging recommences...
 
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