LEAST COMPETENT CRIMINALS

The December attempted robbery of a BB&T Bank in Chesapeak, Va. was aborted when the robber and the teller arrived at a stalemate. The robber pushed a holdup note across the counter, but the teller read it, said, "I can't accept this," and passed it back. The robber pushed the note through a second time. The teller wadded the note up and tossed it back at the robber, who picked it up and walked out. (2) And the robbery of a liquor store in Greenville, S.C., in February was aborted when the clerk ran out of the store after the perp told him to empty the register, while pointing his bare index finger at him, simulating a gun.

 

THINNING THE HERD

A 44-year old man was crushed to death by a slow-moving tractor-trailer when he jumped underneath it to get the reportly "well- worn"baseball cap that had just blown off his head (Lethbridge, Alberta, November), said police, during or moments after stabbing his wife numerous times in a domestic altercation (Keen, N.H., December). And a 23-year old man was hit by a subway car at New York City's 34th Street Station when he leaned over the tracks to see the oncoming train, not realizing that it was coming from the other direction (December; the last press report available said the man was in critical condition).

 

 

Chuck Shepard

 

Scientists: Alcohol Makes Others Better-Looking
'The 'Beer-Goggle Effect' Does Actually Exist'

LONDON (Aug 20) - Want to be more attractive? -- then make sure those around you are having a drink.

British scientists have found even modest amounts of alcohol will make the opposite sex appear better-looking.

"We have carried out experiments which show that what is known in the trade as the 'beer-goggle effect' does actually exist," Barry Jones, professor of psychology at Glasgow University, told Reuters on Monday.

The study of 120 male and female students found drinking up to four units of alcohol -- about two pints (one litre) of beer or four glasses of wine -- increased the perceived attractiveness of members of the opposite sex by about 25 percent.

Jones said alcohol apparently stimulates a part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens, which judges facial attractiveness.

"There is a strong link between facial attractiveness and signals about the quality of a potential mate," Jones said.

The professor said the study had been prompted by the causal link between risky sex and alcohol consumption.

Its findings come at a time when young Britons are increasingly binge drinking, which has serious health risks.

(Reuters)

 

SU CASA, MI CASA

 

In April, police in Broomfield, CO, issued a trespassing summons to Krisopher C. Ward, 36, who apparently had moved a female companion, all their furniture and two dogs into a vacant house belonging to Michael Deetz. When Deetz brought a police officer around to evict the squatters, Ward said he had been trying to get in touch with Deetz and decided the best way to bump into him was just to move in and wait until he dropped by.

 

 

 

WONDER WHERE HE WENT FOR A VACATION

 

In April, a judge in Ottawa, Ontario, ruled against inmate Herbert Miller in his lawsuit against the Bowden correctional institution in Alberta. Miller had just lost his prison job, which was aimed at preparing him for work on the outside, and was demanding more than $3,000 (US) in back pay, vacacation pay and overtime.

 

 

 

AWESOME DOGS: CASEY, A GOLDEN RETRIEVER IN RAYTOWN,

 

MO, that made the news in April by recovering from three gunshot wounds to the head. And Susie, a German shepherd in Granite City, IL, that in March was fine after surgery to remove $7.37 in coins she had swallowed. And the husky Whitey, which with local residents' help has eluded animal control officers in the town of Laconia, NH for more than a year now, despite officers' frequent sightings.

 

 

 

LOOSE CHANGE

 

York County (PA) reported in June that its Resource Recovery Center had found about $43,000 in carelessly discarded coins among the last year's trash. Also in June, the Miami-Dade County (FL) government announced the demotion of an administrator in charge of processing parking meter collections; the 21-year veteran had just not gotten around to bank-depositing about $150,000 in coins collected over a four-year period.)

 

 

 

LEAST COMPETENT CRIMINALS

 

In May, according to officials at the Brookings (SD) County Jail, on the day before trusty inmate Jeffrey Cumm was to be released, he swiped three deputy's shirts and and two prison uniforms and hid them outside on the grounds so he could retrieve them the next day after he got out. (He was caught and sentenced to six more months.)

 

 

 

NOTABLE PASSING

 

In February, Don Giuseppe Avarna, 83 (the Duke of Gualtieri),died in Messina, Sicily. The duke achieved celebrity in the 1980's when he abandoned his family and took up with a young American female flight attendant and then proceeded to irritate his wife for years by ringing a chapel bell in the village every time he and the young woman made love.

 

 

 

THE UNIBOMBER WOULD BE PROUD

In April in Fayetteville, AK, exploding beans and rice tore a hole in the roof of Steve Tate's home. Tate had packed the food in frozen carbon dioxide in six foot long pipes for later storage at a cabin, but the gas needed some room to expand. Bomb technicians from nearby Springdale exploded the other pipefuls Tate had prepared.

 

 

IT'S ALL FUN AND GAMES UNTIL SOMEBODY LOSES AN EYE

In February, Japanese tourists, Satoshi Kinoshida, 48, was hospitalized in Taiwan, after he tripped at hotel and fell onto a chopstick he was holding and had it penetrate about an inch into his right eye socket. (It missed his eyeball and he was not seriously hurt.) And in March, a 20 year old man in Thistead, Denmark, had to be taken from a bar to a machine shop late at night so a technician could disassemble a condom machine in which his finger had become stuck.

 

 

 

OOPS!

Latest Highway Truck Spills: Several tons of chocolate bars on Interstate 80 near Grinnell, Iowa, March (which caught fire and burned out of control because of the chocolate's oil); a truckload of rock salt in Pittsburgh, March (giving great protection against ice to a small of East Parson Street); a tanker truck of tequila near Opelousas, LA, June; and 20 tons of explosive black powder just before rush hour in Springfield, VA, at the Capital Beltway's busiest interstate interchange.

 

 

Chuck Shepard