Weird News

[Gravdigr]

I just figured the reindeer were being emotional children...

[tw]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

I just figured the reindeer were being emotional children...

Clearly they were only having a tantrum.

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

I just figured the reindeer were being emotional children...

Originally Posted by tw

Clearly they were only having a tantrum.

[Carruthers]

British woman accidentally dials Massachusetts police to report crash in England

A British woman trying to report a car crash to police mistakenly dialed authorities in Barnstable, Massachusetts, instead of police Barnstaple, England.

The call went on for more than two minutes before the dispatcher and caller realized they were in different countries, according to audio of the call.

The woman called to report a car crash on Muddiford Road on Thursday, and struggled to describe the area to the confused police officer.

A British woman trying to report a car crash to police mistakenly dialed authorities in Barnstable, Massachusetts, instead of police Barnstaple, England.

The call went on for more than two minutes before the dispatcher and caller realized they were in different countries, according to audio of the call.

The woman called to report a car crash on Muddiford Road on Thursday, and struggled to describe the area to the confused police officer.

Barnstable Police Officer Mark McWilliams said he didn't know the area the woman was talking about, and suddenly they realized the error.

The caller laughed and said, "you can't help me then."

McWilliams joked back, saying "Yeah, our response is going to be about six hours."

It was not immediately clear if Barnstaple police responded to the crash the woman called about.

Audio of the call + article here: Masslive.

Since this report surfaced over here, more information has emerged which rather dilutes the weirdness factor:

"My friends asked Cortana and the phone number came up so I pressed it and that's how I was speaking to police in Massachusetts."

Barnstable, Massachusetts is twinned with the north Devon town.

BBC Report

[Clodfobble]

85% of problems are directly traceable to Santa.

[sexobon]

Too bad DanaC doesn't live here. We may have a developing career field for her in academia. It's off to a rocky start though:

The government is hiring people to grow marijuana, but no one wants the job

Saying you grow marijuana "for research" sounds like an excuse an 18-year-old college student would give to campus security. But the Drug Enforcement Administration is looking for candidates to do just that.

The agency is reportedly recruiting people to grow marijuana for federally sanctioned research in the US.

In August, the DEA sent waves of hope through the medical marijuana community when it announced it would finally allow new institutions to obtain grow licenses. There's just one problem: The DEA has no takers.

Health news site STAT contacted almost a dozen agriculture schools last month and found that not one was interested or planned to apply for registration with the DEA.

STAT put in calls to universities from coast to coast, including schools in pot-friendly states, such as the University of California – Davis, Colorado State University, and Oregon State University, which offers a sociology class on "marijuana policy in the 21st century."

Other schools that were contacted include Cornell University, Virginia Tech, University of Vermont, Michigan State University, and Purdue University.

STAT's Andrew Joseph learned from speaking with researchers that many are wary of the costs associated with opening a cultivation facility. Construction alone could set growers back millions of dollars, according to an attorney who formerly coordinated Illinois' medical marijuana program.

Growers must also show evidence they have security measures in place to keep the marijuana safe from prying hands, which adds to the expenditures.

The DEA has also implied*it's not looking for candidates with*"previous experience handling controlled substances," regardless of marijuana's legal status in the state where they reside. The disclaimer is enough to scare away applicants who have dabbled in cultivating pot.

Until now, the University of Mississippi has cornered the market on marijuana manufacturing.

Over four decades ago, the DEA teamed up with the University of Mississippi to grow weed legally and distribute it for federally authorized studies. Because of this monopoly, scientists had to wait years to get their hands on research-grade drugs that meet their specifications. Allowing more universities to grow means there will be more strains available for study.

The DEA's move to open its application process clears a major hurdle for researchers wanting to build evidence in support of the plant's medicinal use. Now the agency just needs volunteers.

[Gravdigr]

Yeah, that qualifies as weird, alright.

[footfootfoot]

And now we've gotten to the heart of the centralized or outsourced emergency call center controversy.

[Gravdigr]

Thank God for the War on Drugs.

I bet the people of Thurmont, Maryland feel a lot safer now...

Undercover operation, in which officer worked at Burger King, netted 5 grams of marijuana, 2 pills

[glatt]

Almost two months of undercover work to get those couple grams of drugs off the street.

[xoxoxoBruce]

The most expensive war ever.

[Undertoad]

If you can skip through good times for two months with ANY list of hourly BK employees, and not score more weed than that, you are probably not a very good, or a very undercover, undercover cop.

Five grams and they found felony charges to make it all worthwhile. what heroes

[Clodfobble]

Professional house-moving company was moving a house to a new location in downtown Austin. Professional house-moving company did not measure the width of the streets they were traveling down. House got stuck. House stayed stuck for 6 days, until city approved a special bond to pay to cut it free.

Then professional house-moving company got the same house stuck in Kyle.

[Gravdigr]

Breaking News: Google to Donate Its Search Engine to the American Public

Asked how the new charity is supposed to get the money to maintain and grow the search engine’s massive index of 60 billion web pages, Schmidt introduced Amy Singhal, current head of Google search and future head of the new nonprofit.

According to Singhal, “We were worried about this at first, but then we contacted our friends at the NSA and the CIA, and they were just great. They helped fund the development of the Google search engine when its creators, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, peace be upon them, were graduate students at Stanford. The agencies were looking for a tool that could track what everyone was looking for on the internet, hoping they could catch people looking for directions on how to build bombs and all that. Our search engine has worked really well for them over the years, so I’m happy to announce that the NSA and the CIA have agreed to provide all of UYS’s operating costs - about $10 billion a year - for at least the next ten years.”

[xoxoxoBruce]

Gee, I hope porn doesn't become illegal.