Aug 1 2009 You're Doing It Wrong!: Woman Dragging Leashed Child Through A Verizon Store
Melissa Catherine Smith-Means (she is too!), 37, of Gaylesville, Alabama, was arrested for child abuse after dragging her unisex child through a Verizon Wireless store using a kiddy-leash. As punishment, Melissa is going to be leashed and dragged down every aisle of a Best Buy. Just sayin' -- it's Alabama, folks, they do things differently. Like talk and guns. I've lived there, I know.
Woman Drags Child Through Verizon Store [techeblog]
Thanks to trishna87 and gypsyking, who don't drag anything but their feet. Seriously, stop being so lazy you two.
May 15 2009 Woman Offers Man Baby As Taser Shield
A Missouri woman offered a man her 1-year old child for use as a taser shield when he was being confronted by cops. Now that's solid parenting.
Officers were at an apartment checking on an assault claim made by the woman when a man confronted them, making threats. One of the officers displayed a Taser as the man approached.
Police said the mother offered her child to the man, placing the toddler in the Taser's path. The man, 22, faces two counts of resisting arrest. The woman, 20, was charged with endangering the welfare of a child and interfering with an arrest. She was arrested Tuesday night and placed at the Marion County jail on a 24-hour hold.
Wow, just....wow. Thank God tasers weren't so prevalent when I was a kid or my parents would have probably put an ad in the newspaper. I can see it now:
FOR SALE: One child, male. Large head, cries a lot. Would make a great taser shield.
Mo. mom accused of using child to block Taser [yahoonews]
Thanks to Noah, who knows only teenagers should be used for blocking tasers. Also, lasers. PEW PEW!
Apr 6 2009 Creep Factor 12: Learning Robot Child
What is this, an entry in the world's creepiest robot competition? Shockingly not. It's 'Child-robot with Biomimetic Body' (CB2), a learning robot and harbinger of death. Just look into those eyes -- can you feel him stabbing you in your sleep? I can, and it burns. You see, he's using a laser knife. Technology: robots have it.
As you might expect, the bot hasn't simply spent its past two years of existence terrifying the staff at Osaka University, it's actually been learning, and it's now apparently able to make use of its 51 air-powered motors to move itself through a room "quite smoothly" -- with a helping hand, of course. What's more, the researchers behind CB2 are now also starting to talk about some of their future projects, including a new "robo species" that they say will have learning abilities "somewhere between those of a human and other primate species such as the chimpanzee."
Osaka, Osaka, Osaka, when will you learn? I say cut the robotics and actually make a positive contribution to humanity instead of trying to destroy us. Need some ideas for areas of study? Good, I happen to have a list: 1. cloning dinosaurs 2. cloning the things that came after dinosaurs but weren't dinosaurs but were still really sexy, like woolly mammoths and shit. 3. a shrinking ray.
Well, I think you've got your work cut out for you, now get cracking. Also, I'd be happy to intern if you ever successfully clone anything. No, really, I insist.
CB2 "Child Robot" returns: smarter, creepier than ever [engadget]
Thanks to Julian, Paul, Crystal, Spoonman and Soop, who thought the robot was cute and are therefore dead to me.
