Category: Beliefs


Man Leaves Dead Uncle To Go Gambling

Filed Under: Beliefs, Stupid Criminals by Wayne Hall — 3 Comments
February 23, 2011

I don’t understand some people. I know gambling can be an addiction, but this? And that’s not the worst of it!

Here’s the story from the CBS Sacramento station’s website:

>>Deputies: Man Left Dead Uncle In Home For 30 Days

MERCED, Calif. (CBS13) — A man has been arrested on a number of charges after allegedly failing to notify authorities that his uncle died and then stealing money from the victim’s account.

The Merced County Sheriff’s Department said a relative of a 63-year-old man flagged down deputies and told them the man was dead inside his home on the 2000 block of Beachwood Drive on Monday.

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Computer Defeats Humans At ‘Jeopardy’

Filed Under: Beliefs, Computers/The Web, Science Fiction, Television/Movies by Wayne Hall — Leave a comment
February 17, 2011

It’s an old sci-fi staple that computers would one day be better than humans at everyday tasks.

Well, the syndicated show Jeopardy found that computers were better than humans when it comes to playing that game.

Here’s the story from myway.com:

>>Final score on ‘Jeopardy!’: Computer 1, humans 0
By FRAZIER MOORE

NEW YORK (AP) – Note to self: Never play “Jeopardy!” with a supercomputer.

That’s a useful lesson for me or any mortal who has followed the Man vs. Machine faceoff this week on the popular trivia game show, where on Wednesday the second of two exhibition matches sealed the deal: Watson, the IBM-created megabrain, officially buried his flesh-and-blood opponents, veteran “Jeopardy!” champs Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter.

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Check Your Co-Workers Occasionally

Filed Under: Beliefs by Wayne Hall — Leave a comment
February 16, 2011

When you leave your job to go home, you might want to check on the person working near you … they just may have given their all to their job.

Here’s the story from KTLA:

>>L.A. County Employee Dead in Cubicle a Day Before Being Noticed

The exact cause of death remains unclear.

DOWNEY (KTLA) — An L.A. County employee apparently died while working in her cubicle on Friday, but no one noticed for quite some time.

51-year-old Rebecca Wells was found by a security guard on Saturday afternoon.

She was slumped over on her desk in the L.A. County Department of Internal Services.

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Stupid Criminals: Stealing A Scooter?

Filed Under: Beliefs, Stupid Criminals by Wayne Hall — Leave a comment
February 15, 2011

Yesterday, I focused on a story of a woman in a motorized cart who tried to escape in that slow-moving vehicle from a store with $600 worth of electronics in it.

I thought that was something until I noticed thieves who actually stole a motorized cart from a Wal-Mart for nefarious reasons. Check out the story from wsfa.com below:

>>Couple steals motorized cart, making 2 mph getaway

HUNTINGTON, WV (NBC) November 17, 2010- A West Virginia couple is accused of stealing a motorized shopping cart from a Walmart store and taking it on a joy ride to a strip club.

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Stupid Criminals: Shoplifting From A Scooter?

Filed Under: Beliefs, Stupid Criminals by Wayne Hall — Leave a comment
February 14, 2011

It’s hard enough getting away from the police on foot, but a woman actually tried to leave a store on a motorized cart that got stuck.

Here’s the story from macombdaily.com:

>>400-pound woman caught shoplifting when motorized cart gets stuck at Rochester Hills Meijer … police use Taser to subdue her

A Pontiac woman’s alleged theft attempt was foiled this week when her motorized cart became stuck at a Rochester Hills Meijer.

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Are There Times When Protocol Should Be Bypassed?

Filed Under: Beliefs by Wayne Hall — Leave a comment
February 11, 2011

I used to work for an Adventist healthcare organization, and I always was heartened by how important it was to provide the best care possible. I fear that with lawsuits and the notion that hospitals and other healthcare groups should be run more like a business has lead to some “unhealthy” changes.

For instance, take this story about Portland Adventist Hospital from msn.com:

>>Man dies in hospital parking lot — waiting for ambulance

PORTLAND – An injured man who had just crashed his car in a hospital parking lot was forced to wait for an ambulance because of hospital procedure, Portland police said.

Investigators said 61-year-old Birgilio Marin-Fuentes died afterwards from cardiac complications.

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Is This Animal Cruelty?

Filed Under: Beliefs by Wayne Hall — Leave a comment
February 10, 2011

I’m very much for humane treatment of animals. For instance, when a co-worker caught a mouse in a glue trap, I went to her home and took it to the animal shelter where it could be put down properly. The poor thing had been trying to get free and had struggled so long that the bones in its legs were basically jelly. I told her that I’d buy a trap for her next time that would be more humane if she needed it.

But this story from Jackson, Michigan, kind of bothers me. Check it out from mlive.com:

>>Man faces misdemeanor charge of animal cruelty after his dog kills young raccoon that caused some damage to garage

Seth Foster, 23, said he found his family garage in disarray last summer and sent his dog in the building to investigate.

Grizz, a blue heeler, returned with the culprit, a young raccoon.

As two teenage boys watched, one of them filming its actions with a cell phone, Grizz killed the coon, Foster said.

Now, Foster is facing a misdemeanor charge of animal cruelty resulting in death, which is punishable by a maximum of 90 days in jail and a $500 fine. A jury trial is scheduled for Feb. 25 in Jackson County District Court.

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A News Story That Haunts Me

Filed Under: Beliefs by Wayne Hall — Leave a comment
February 8, 2011

A few weeks back when New York City was buried (again!) with snow, I came across the following news article that still haunts me.

Here it is, from the New York Daily News:

>>The body of a Long Island man who shot himself to death was found entombed in a snow-covered car on a residential block in Queens Tuesday, police said.

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Whatever Happened To ‘Agreeing To Disagree?’

Filed Under: Beliefs by Wayne Hall — Leave a comment
February 7, 2011

I don’t usually like to talk politics, which is ironic in that I live in the Washington, DC, area. I find that these “discussions” often have a lot of heat, but very little light.

But I wonder–Has the world really changed so much since I was back in college? I had close friends I didn’t agree with about politics at all, but we could “agree to disagree.”

With all the recent talk about civility, where did it go?

We’ve reached such a polarized state that if someone disagrees, they’re “wrong.” It’s not that they have another opinion. If another political party wins an election, the end of the world is upon is. When did that happen?

Now the talk is about civility, and yet political figures are still compared to Adolf Hitler and accusations are made without any proof or basis in fact. The answer seems to be, “Everyone knows that’s true!” And I fear that “civility” has turned into a way to make certain points of view simply shut up.

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Snowstorm Paralyzes DC Area

Filed Under: Beliefs by Wayne Hall — Leave a comment
January 27, 2011

What a wild night last night was! People took more than 12 hours to get home taking a commute that often took less than an hour.

Here’s a video from the local NBC station talking with a woman stuck in the snow:

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