Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Why you don't just go along with robbers

Police: Man Gives Money To Robber, Gets Shot Anyway
Police are looking for a robber who they said shot a pedestrian even though he handed over his money.

The hold-up happened about 11 p.m. Monday as the pedestrian was walking on Spring Street toward Campbell Avenue, according to a press release from police. A masked man confronted him, pointing a dark-colored handgun at his face.

The robber demanded money, which the pedestrian handed over. The gunman shot him anyway, police said. The pedestrian survived the gunshot wound on his arm.

Paramedics revive a 24 week gestational infant

From the UCONN Hospital newsletter comes this story that sounds like a ready made Lifetime movie of the week.

Paramedics from a small town ambulance service revive a 24 week gestational baby born at home that was delivered by a police officer first responder.

24 weeks! Born at home!

Simsbury Ambulance paramedics Barbara Carter and Karin Stewart have a great working relationship. Each usually comes in an half hour before crew change to relieve the other. One Monday evening last month shortly after Carter arrived to relieve Stewart a call came in for “vaginal bleeding.” Stewart accompanied Carter in the fly car to see if an extra hand was needed and to be able to return the fly car to the base should Carter need to accompany the ambulance crew to the hospital. Both their hearts raced when, just before their arrival on scene, came the update “baby born.”

When they entered the house, Simsbury Police Department officer and first responder Tim May handed Carter a profoundly premature dusky 24-week gestational infant. The baby, who weighed only 0.77 kilograms, wasn’t much longer than Carter’s outstretched hand. Call it training, call it education, or call it grace under pressure, Carter and Stewart, mothers themselves, did what EMS responders do. They went to work. They wrapped the child in a towel, used a bulb syringe to clear secretions from its airway, assisted the baby’s struggling ventilations and cut the umbilical chord. While Simsbury EMTs Chris Collins and Erin Komidar stayed to care for the mother with Granby Ambulance responding to the scene as mutual aid, Stewart and Carter quickly moved the child to the Simsbury ambulance and EMT Donna Anderson began the urgent transport to John Dempsey Hospital.

The baby’s oxygen saturation (the SPO2 sensor wrapped around its foot) was in the 80’s. The child was sluggish and cyanotic. Carter noticed its heart rate falling, down to 80, then 76, 72… She began chest compressions with a single finger on the baby’s sternum. Stewart continued ventilating with a neonatal bag-valve mask. Neither paramedic was certain the child was even big enough to be viable, but they were cheered as “the fighter kid,” as Stewart came to refer to the baby, seemed to clench its fists. The duskiness slowly turned to pink.

The crew, who provided crucial early notification to John Dempsey Hospital of the premature birth, arrived at JDH to find an open ED door and the hospital’s NICU team and ED staffs awaiting their precious patient. The efforts of the Simsbury crew ensured the child was kept viable long enough that the team was able to successfully resuscitate and stabilize the child, who now with confirmed pulse and blood pressure, was rushed to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). The child survived the critical first 24 hours and continues to grow and make progress.

R.N. Beth Thompson, a member of the NICU team called the EMS crew’s response “remarkable.” John Dempsey EMS Director Richard Kamin cited the crew’s hard work and diligence that paid off when it counted most. “This is what EMS is all about,” he said. Both medics had effusive praise for the hospital response. “I was so impressed with the staff and equipment that was waiting for us when we arrived,” Carter said. “They were great!” said Stewart.

Chevy Logo too much like cross?

An Egyptian sheikh has declared Chevrolet products forbidden because "the Chevrolet bowtie logo looks too similar to a cross."

I don't see it, absent some photoshop magic.


One can only hope that hardliners also find that airplanes look too much like crosses and then boycott flying.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Shame


A man who spent two years in solitary confinement after getting arrested for DWI was awarded $22 million for suffering inhumane treatment in New Mexico's Dona Ana County Jail.

I spent a summer in law school working for a NYS Court of Claims judge. I worked on all manner of prisoner Pro Se claims against NY prisons and learned that many, if not most prisoner complaints are marginal at best.

Man arrested, put in county jail & left there for 2 years with no trial, no medical care, and often left completely inside his solitary cell for months at a time.

Before this judgment came down I don't know if I would have believed such a thing possible in the United States. I'd certainly never heard of anything like this in the U.S. before, and I hope it never happens again.

Evil people did this, whether they wears labels of incompetence or sadism, they are pure evil.

Via Clayton Cramer

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Regulation vs Equality

"The easiest way to get everybody on the same level is with a steamroller." -- Me

Refuses to quit!

Stop Pippa too!


Did my part to fight for online freedom

Well, I did my part.

I didn't take a shower this morning.

You know, to help Stop SOAP!

Monday, January 16, 2012

Life is too short to own cheap X

Surprising few unique responses to a Google search reveal fairly consistent believe by internet writers on what you shouldn't cheap out on.

"Life is too short to own cheap" ...

flashlights

cheap, ugly handguns

guns

knives

dogs

tools

Here's an big list compiled by Australians -- Life is too short for...


Which I suppose could be summed up as simply tools, dogs and shoes.

For everything else, I suppose, frugality is A OK.
A Corvette towing a corvette shaped trailer towing a smaller covette shaped trailer towning a smaller yet corvette shaped trailer.

Original found at Clayton Cramer's Blog.

Better version spotted here.

QOTD


"Cynicism is just a fancy word for pattern recognition."

             -- Commenter "davelog" over at boingboing.com

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Thanks, but no thanks, I've already got more problems than I need.

If someone on the other end of a telephone call tells you to not defend yourself with the best means possible, you can pretty much write off everything else they tell you as well. In a situation that stressful (four men breaking into your home), the last thing you need is a delay brought about by trying to satisfy the voice on the phone AND doing what you need to stay alive.
'Do not, while I’m on the phone, do not fire that firearm, OK?' the dispatcher says

'What if another one comes in the house, ma'am?' he asked.

'Let me know, OK, if you see anybody. I will let you know (when a deputy gets to the house),' the dispatcher responded.

I wonder if the dispatcher saying that is in their SOPs or if they went off book?

Spotted here.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Al Quaeda gets its just desserts

 
Latest terrorist treat?
 
            The Molotov cupcake.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Apparently Batman didn't always eschew guns



From this post over at The Batman Universe.

But how many of us know that the original Batman of the comic books started out using guns? As written by Bob Kane, Batman would occasionally make use of a gun to level the playing field against the criminals he faced. It wasn’t until later that the mythos of Batman was revised and he renounced the weapon that was responsible for the deaths of his mother and father.

NOTE: Image not from the Bob Kane era.