THIS is TRUE #811: 27 December
This is True
countries, this is the 811th weekly issue of...
THIS is TRUE: 27 December Copyright http://www.thisistrue.com
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ATTENTION DEFICIT: The Colorado State Patrol is investigating a delay by
Pueblo-based dispatchers to send a trooper to a minor accident near the
town of Fountain just before Christmas. A car had hit a deer at 1:30
a.m., and was left without any lights. A trooper wasn't sent out for
nine minutes, but four minutes after finally sending one another car
came along; the driver didn't see the unlit car until too late and
swerved, then rolled. The driver, Heather Clinton, 20, was killed; her
brother, Earl, 22, was seriously injured. The reason for the dispatch
delay? At least one dispatcher was "distracted," said Col. James
Wolfinbarger, chief of the Colorado State Patrol, because they were
"watching a Christmas movie" in the station. (Denver Post) ...And
another angel got her wings.
FOLLOW US: After the Exxon Valdez oil tanker struck Bligh Reef off Alaska
and created a devastating oil spill, officials ordered large tugboats
to escort tankers through the treacherous sound. The tug Pathfinder is
one of those. The 136-foot tug with a crew of six and a fuel capacity
of more than 100,000 gallons was out scouting for ice and ran aground
-- on Bligh Reef. Three of its four 65,000 gallon fuel tanks were
breached, which dumped tens of thousands of gallons of diesel into the
water. (Anchorage Daily News) ..."The blind leading the blind" -- 21st
Century edition.
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FAT CHANCE: The headlines captivated the world's news editors: Peruvian
police officials said a gang had been murdering people to harvest body
fat, which was supposedly being sold on the black market to European
cosmetic firms for $60,000 a gallon. At least 60 people were missing,
police said -- apparent fat gang victims. "My first reaction was,
'What?'," said anthropology professor Dr. William Mitchell of Monmouth
University in New Jersey, who has studied Peruvian myths. "This story
is so crazy that the only thing I could imagine was that the police
officers ...were trying to cover up something." Bingo, say later
reports: the missing people are victims of police death squads, local
papers say, noting human fat degrades quickly and can't be sold. The
head of the Peruvian police investigative unit, who was pushing the
story, has been dismissed. (AP, Time) ...The moron must have thought
everybody is a fathead.
QUICK KARMA: It appeared to be a drug killing. Hector Quinones, 44, "came
not wanting to leave fingerprints," police say -- he was wearing two
pairs of gloves. Quinones burst into a third-floor apartment in
Manhattan, N.Y., and started shooting. Before he was done, three people
were dead, including a man he had met in prison; another family member
was wounded. A fifth survived because Quinones's loose pants fell down,
tripping him, and when he tried to flee via the fire escape, he fell
out the window. Police found his body in the alley below, his pants
around his ankles. (New York Times) ...So he didn't leave any
fingerprints, but that was one hell of a buttprint.
NEXT TIME, DON'T OPEN IT: "Woman Opens Letter Telling Her She's Dead" --
Lancashire (England) Evening Post headline
DID YOU FIND an error? See http://www.thisistrue.com/errata.html
THERE'S AN EXTRA STORY with a great photo included on my blog: a robber
allegedly took a self-portrait with the victim's cell phone camera. The
woman had her phone set to send all photos to her computer, and sent
the shot to detectives. The dope has been arrested, and the photo is
priceless: http://ThisIsTrue.com/d-cellpic
I WAS READING an interview today with NBC News anchor Brian Williams, and
loved this exchange. Q: "Do you actually wear pants while doing the
news?" Williams: "I choose to. I know colleagues -- and I'm not going
to use any coy initials here, Al Roker -- I know people in the industry
who don't: Garrison Keillor. I don't celebrate that. I think it's a
tawdry trick, Matt Lauer." My respect for Williams just went up.
(Source: http://bit.ly/5djT49 -- Time magazine)
THE OTHER HALF OF THE STORIES: Man robs restaurant ...where his mom is
the manager. Woman shoplifts so much stuff from Walmart it takes her
multiple trips over two hours to haul it all outside. Robber takes
picture of himself with cellphone, it's automatically transmitted to
her computer. Burglar leaves his pants at scene ...with his cellphone
in the pocket, and.... Man's special collection is stolen, and it's
interesting why he didn't want to call the police (and MORE interesting
why he did!) You can still read them all: just ask for your upgrade to
start with the 27 December issue. http://thisistrue.com/upgrade.html
o o o
THE LAST ISSUE OF THE YEAR, and what a hell of a year it was. Not all
bad, for sure, but I definitely hope 2010 is better for us all. And if
I may say, this issue caps the year off well, with nine stories giving
a mix of tragedy from my adopted state, some comedy as per usual, and
some comi-tragedy (a murderer tripping over his too-loose pants and
falling out a window to his death? If you saw that in a movie it would
either be a laugh-out-loud scene, or the audience would be angry over
the "unrealistic" development!)
There are several changes coming in 2010, most of which you won't
really see, but will either make things better for you or easier for
me.
Delivery problems with Comcast subscribers, POBox.com subscribers, and
several others continue, but there's light at the end of the tunnel.
For the truly nerdy out there, it turned out to be a SORBS block due to
a too-short (for SORBS) TTL on the rDNS. For the non-nerdy, it pretty
much means overzealous spam filtering. But it was made worse by a
design flaw (uh, feature!) in Lyris, the software/service that does the
distribution of these issues, which I told them would be trouble, which
caused it not to even TRY to send subsequent issues because it "knew"
there was a block in place! But I have apparently been dismissed as
their beta-testing guinea pig now that the company's visionary founder
has sold the company. TRUE was their first big list -- just about no
one had a list with over 100,000 subscribers back then, and they
welcomed me in back in October 1997 (but only after they upgraded their
hardware to handle a list that big) in large part to help them find
problems with the software. I found them, and helped make Lyris great.
But now they're too big to listen, and it's suffering as a consequence.
Thus the first change for 2010 is a move away from Lyris, after more
than 12 years there. I've already started the change for this free
edition to a rock-solid service with excellent delivery metrics.
If you're seeing this paragraph, you're on the OLD SERVER and DO need
to resubscribe for the new service! Just come to the TRUE web site and
subscribe again -- there's a subscribe form on virtually every page:
http://www.thisistrue.com
Speaking of failing software, I'm giving up on my current shopping
cart. It has been slowly degrading with odd symptoms -- like telling
you your payment didn't go through when it did, quoting too-high
shipping charges (which we've been refunding when they come through,
but how many people have decided not to buy because the cart said it
cost $25 to ship $10 worth of GOOHF cards to England?), and other
oddities. The vendor has issued upgrades which may or may not have
fixed those problems; I paid for one (but didn't get it), and when I
went to inquire about the next revision, they had inexplicably closed
my support account (!) and then ignored my telephone and e-mail
inquiries. Fine: I'll give my business to someone who wants it. So if
you've had frustrations with my cart, I hear you, and hope to have that
replaced VERY soon.
So I'm feeling good about 2010, and am looking forward to it. May it be
better to us all.
o o o
AND AMONG THE LATEST postings to Jumbo Joke: More New Year's Resolutions
-- Over Time (a great follow-on to 2007's New Year's Eve entry).
http://www.JumboJoke.com
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TOP ON GROXX TODAY: "Florida Man Wanted Ride to a Bar, so He Called 911".
Just how think do you drunk he is?! Submit stories and vote on what
submissions are best, register for free at http://Groxx.com
TEN YEARS AGO IN TRUE: Principal helps students cheat on standardized
test ...which raises their scores to just 51 percent....
http://thisistrue.com/6957 -- And don't forget http://i.thisistrue.com
for a new story every day on your iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, or other
web-enabled phone!
BONZER WEB SITE OF THE WEEK: http://www.CatalogChoice.org -- Catalog
Choice. Was your mailbox STUFFED with catalogs advertising junk you
don't want? Catalog Choice works with more than 1,200 retailers who
pledge to stop sending you catalogs you don't want. It can take several
months to get a stop order to take full effect, so start now while it's
still fresh in your mind, and enjoy not getting deluged next year. As
they say, it's "Good for you, merchants, and the environment."
-- Bonzer Sites archive: http://www.BonzerSites.com
THIS WEEK'S HONORARY UNSUBSCRIBE goes to Kim Peek. You saw the movie he
inspired, but you've probably never heard about him and his "mount
Everest of memory." For the full story about the real-life "Rain Man"
see http://www.HonoraryUnsubscribe.com/kim_peek.html
NOTE: The full Honorary Unsubscribe is included in the Premium edition --
you don't have to click to a web site to read it. Support the
publication that brings it to you! http://thisistrue.com/upgrade.html
HONORARY SUBSCRIBE ARCHIVE: http://www.HonoraryUnsubscribe.com
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TIRED OF BEING TOLD WHERE TO GO? "Get Out of Hell Free" with our popular
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was doomed. http://www.GOOHF.com
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