It all started with Friday’s edition of Talk of the Day, a regular blog on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s website, STLtoday.com. Talk of the Day is exactly that. A conversation around the water-cooler topic of the day. Friday’s edition is often a little lighter. Last week, it was about the strangest things you’ve ever eaten, loosely pegged on a story about deer meat.
By mid-morning, a number of folks had commented about their experiences with Bird’s Nest Soup, octopus, cow brains and rattlesnake. Then, while I was in our 10 a.m. news meeting, someone posted in reply a single word, a vulgar expression for a part of a woman’s anatomy. It was there only a minute before a colleague deleted it.
A few minutes later, the same guy posted the same single-word comment again. I deleted it, but noticed in the WordPress e-mail alert that his comment had come from an IP address at a local school. So I called the school. They were happy to have me forward the e-mail, though I wasn’t sure what they’d be able to do with the meager information it included.
About six hours later, I heard from the school’s headmaster. The school’s IT director took a shine to the challenge. Long story short: Using the time-frame of the comments, our website location and the IP addresses in the WordPress e-mail, he tracked it back to a specific computer. The headmaster confronted the employee, who resigned on the spot.
I’m not identifying the guy who posted the comment because, obviously, I don’t know who it was. I’m not identifying the school because, frankly, it’s not important to the story and I have no interest in embarrassing the people there.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Long Island Wal-mart
2008 Wal-Mart Worker Dies When Shoppers Break Down Doors
Black Friday took a grim turn when a New York Wal-Mart employee died after bargain hunters broke down the doors to the store, pushing him to the ground.
The 34-year-old male employee was pronounced dead an hour after shoppers breached the doors to the shopping center in Valley Stream, Long Island, about 5 a.m. Friday and knocked him down, police said.
"He was rushed by 200 people," Jimmy Overby, the man's 43-year-old co-worker, said. "They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too ... I literally had to fight people off my back."
A 28-year-old pregnant woman was also taken in for observation and three other shoppers suffered minor injuries during the incident, police said. The pregnant woman and the unborn baby were reported to be OK, said Sgt. Anthony Repalone, a Nassau County police spokesman.
Nassau County Police spokesman Lt. Michael Fleming described the scene as "utter chaos." "This crowd was out of control," he said.Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in Bentonville, Ark., closed the store in Valley Stream for several hours after the stampede. It reopened shortly after 1 p.m
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2009 Fire Breaks Out Among Christmas Trees at Walmart
Police in Westbury, N.Y. say a fire has broken out among Christmas trees for sale outside a Wal-Mart on New York's Long Island during a busy holiday shopping weekend.
Nassau County Police say in a statement that the blaze was reported around 2:30 p.m. Saturday at the Westbury store. There are no immediate reports of injuries.
Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc. spokesman Dan Fogelman says the busy store was evacuated because of the fire in the store's garden shop.
Fogelman says it is unclear how many people were in the store at the time or how much damage was caused. The cause of the fire is under investigation.
The store remains closed and will reopen on Sunday.
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Black Friday took a grim turn when a New York Wal-Mart employee died after bargain hunters broke down the doors to the store, pushing him to the ground.
The 34-year-old male employee was pronounced dead an hour after shoppers breached the doors to the shopping center in Valley Stream, Long Island, about 5 a.m. Friday and knocked him down, police said.
"He was rushed by 200 people," Jimmy Overby, the man's 43-year-old co-worker, said. "They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too ... I literally had to fight people off my back."
A 28-year-old pregnant woman was also taken in for observation and three other shoppers suffered minor injuries during the incident, police said. The pregnant woman and the unborn baby were reported to be OK, said Sgt. Anthony Repalone, a Nassau County police spokesman.
Nassau County Police spokesman Lt. Michael Fleming described the scene as "utter chaos." "This crowd was out of control," he said.Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in Bentonville, Ark., closed the store in Valley Stream for several hours after the stampede. It reopened shortly after 1 p.m
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2009 Fire Breaks Out Among Christmas Trees at Walmart
Police in Westbury, N.Y. say a fire has broken out among Christmas trees for sale outside a Wal-Mart on New York's Long Island during a busy holiday shopping weekend.
Nassau County Police say in a statement that the blaze was reported around 2:30 p.m. Saturday at the Westbury store. There are no immediate reports of injuries.
Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc. spokesman Dan Fogelman says the busy store was evacuated because of the fire in the store's garden shop.
Fogelman says it is unclear how many people were in the store at the time or how much damage was caused. The cause of the fire is under investigation.
The store remains closed and will reopen on Sunday.
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Woman finds long lost dad but…
When Emily Wallis tracked down the dad she had never met they had more in common than she expected… including their taste in shoes, dresses and make-up.Instead of the “Italian Stallion” her mother Ann had described, Clive Harrison was a lipstick-wearing, bewigged transvestite who now calls himself Chloe, and has EIGHTY-TWO pairs of high- heeled shoes.
Emily, 22, says: “Chloe was squeezed into a silver dress and wearing make-up and a wig. I had no idea what to do so I said, ‘You look better than me… and I really like your shoes’.”
Emily adds: “For years I had dreamed of us all being reunited. I’d even secretly harbored a hope that Clive and Mum might get back together. But when I saw my dad I realized that certainly wasn’t going to happen!”
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Men get your wife something special for Christmas
A garden center has provoked a feminist backlash from customers after suggesting men made their wives "feel special this Christmas" by buying a rotary clothesline as a present.Hillier delivered a four page brochure promoting a range of festive gift ideas for the home and garden to 900,000 homes.
But the company, which has 14 stores, was inundated with complaints just hours later after the £44.99 clothesline was featured as a perfect gift for women.
Equal rights groups have also condemned the chain, saying the advert is like something from the 1970s and promotes the idea that a woman's place is in the home.
The "Vento lightweight aluminum rotary clothesline" is pictured in a perfectly manicured garden with the headline: "Make her feel special with a clothesline this Christmas."
Managers at the garden center said they have received about 100 complaints from customers and admitted the "joke" was ill advised.
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Children Playing + Charger = FIRE
Fire that struck two Brockton triple-deckers and left 33 residents homeless was started by children jumping on a bed.Brockton Fire Lieutenant Edward Williams said Friday that the Thursday night fire was ignited when the children bounced up and down on two mattresses that were against a wall where a cell phone charger was plugged. He said the back-and-forth motion of the mattresses abraded a transformer for a cell phone charger which caused sparks or a short circuit.
Williams said the fire flared up just after 8 p.m. Thursday, causing $150,000 in damages to one building and $50,000 to a nearby apartment building.
Two firefighters suffered puncture wounds and cuts, but neither was hospitalized.
No other injuries were reported.
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Saturday, November 28, 2009
Dad Locked Kids in Trunk
A Massachusetts father who locked his two young boys in the trunk of his car as he ran an errand has pleaded not guilty to assault and reckless endangerment of a child.
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Small Bits of News You Didn’t Know you Needed
Pet pig farting prompts gas leak fears
A pig with flatulence triggered a minor emergency near Bendigo this week when smells wafting from the 120kg porker sparked fears of a potentially dangerous gas leak.
Two Country Fire Authority tankers and 15 firefighters turned out in darkness to search the source of the leak at a property at Axedale, east of Bendigo. But the likely culprit was soon sniffed out, the pet sow startled from slumber in the dead of night.
"She got very excited when two trucks and 15 firefighters turned up and she squealed and farted and squealed and farted," said fire chief Peter Harkins.
"I haven't heard too many pigs fart but I would describe it as very full-on."
Mr. Harkins said the family had done the right thing by calling 000 to report a suspected gas leak: "It's all bottled gas up here and a leaking cylinder could pose a major fire risk.
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Japanese cops cross-dress for bag snatcher
Patrolling in high heels, wigs and designer bags, Japanese black-belt policemen have been cross-dressing in a bid to beat off bag-snatchers, a report said Wednesday.
The all-male squad has been deployed since last month on night patrols in central Aichi prefecture, wearing skirts and stockings and carrying eye-catching handbags as bait for potential thieves, the Asahi daily reported.
So far the unit has failed to nab any muggers, the Asahi said, and Aichi police declined to comment to AFP on the report.
To qualify for the special squad, police have to be young, slim and hold the top rank of a black belt in a martial art such as karate or judo, the report said.
A 26-year-old officer -- measuring 1.71 meters (5.6 feet) in height and weighing in at a dainty 61 kilograms (134 pounds) -- expressed pride in the mission, telling the daily: "It's cowardly to target women who are weak."
The operation has not been without its pitfalls. Some of the stylish policemen have become targets themselves -- of cat-calls and lewd propositions.
One 25-year-old officer said he "panicked" one night when a male driver leaned out of his car window and asked if he wanted to go for a drive.
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Vietnamese slept beside dead wife for 5 years
A Vietnamese man dug up his wife's corpse and slept beside it for five years because he wanted to hug her in bed, an online newspaper reported on Thursday.
The 55-year-old man from a small town in the central province of Quang Nam opened up his wife's grave in 2004, molded clay around the remains to give the figure of a woman put clothes on her and then placed her in his bed.
The man, Le Van, told the website that after his wife died in 2003 he slept on top of her grave, but about 20 months later he worried about rain, wind and cold, so he decided to dig a tunnel into the grave "to sleep with her."
His children found out, though, and prevented him from going to the grave. So one night in November 2004 he dug up his wife's remains and took them home.
The website carried a photo of Van with the figure of his wife, which is still in his home.
The father of seven said neighbors did not dare visit the house for several years."I'm a person that does things differently. I'm not like normal people," he was quoted as saying.
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A pig with flatulence triggered a minor emergency near Bendigo this week when smells wafting from the 120kg porker sparked fears of a potentially dangerous gas leak.
Two Country Fire Authority tankers and 15 firefighters turned out in darkness to search the source of the leak at a property at Axedale, east of Bendigo. But the likely culprit was soon sniffed out, the pet sow startled from slumber in the dead of night.
"She got very excited when two trucks and 15 firefighters turned up and she squealed and farted and squealed and farted," said fire chief Peter Harkins.
"I haven't heard too many pigs fart but I would describe it as very full-on."
Mr. Harkins said the family had done the right thing by calling 000 to report a suspected gas leak: "It's all bottled gas up here and a leaking cylinder could pose a major fire risk.
.
Japanese cops cross-dress for bag snatcher
Patrolling in high heels, wigs and designer bags, Japanese black-belt policemen have been cross-dressing in a bid to beat off bag-snatchers, a report said Wednesday.
The all-male squad has been deployed since last month on night patrols in central Aichi prefecture, wearing skirts and stockings and carrying eye-catching handbags as bait for potential thieves, the Asahi daily reported.
So far the unit has failed to nab any muggers, the Asahi said, and Aichi police declined to comment to AFP on the report.
To qualify for the special squad, police have to be young, slim and hold the top rank of a black belt in a martial art such as karate or judo, the report said.
A 26-year-old officer -- measuring 1.71 meters (5.6 feet) in height and weighing in at a dainty 61 kilograms (134 pounds) -- expressed pride in the mission, telling the daily: "It's cowardly to target women who are weak."
The operation has not been without its pitfalls. Some of the stylish policemen have become targets themselves -- of cat-calls and lewd propositions.
One 25-year-old officer said he "panicked" one night when a male driver leaned out of his car window and asked if he wanted to go for a drive.
.
Vietnamese slept beside dead wife for 5 years
A Vietnamese man dug up his wife's corpse and slept beside it for five years because he wanted to hug her in bed, an online newspaper reported on Thursday.
The 55-year-old man from a small town in the central province of Quang Nam opened up his wife's grave in 2004, molded clay around the remains to give the figure of a woman put clothes on her and then placed her in his bed.
The man, Le Van, told the website that after his wife died in 2003 he slept on top of her grave, but about 20 months later he worried about rain, wind and cold, so he decided to dig a tunnel into the grave "to sleep with her."
His children found out, though, and prevented him from going to the grave. So one night in November 2004 he dug up his wife's remains and took them home.
The website carried a photo of Van with the figure of his wife, which is still in his home.
The father of seven said neighbors did not dare visit the house for several years."I'm a person that does things differently. I'm not like normal people," he was quoted as saying.
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Monday, November 23, 2009
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