Reason #832 not to buy an iPad…criminals will rip your finger off to get it.
Ultimately, it was decided that a portion of his left pinky would need to be amputated. In a message to the robber(s), he says, “I hope you understand what you’ve done to my life and my family’s life for a simple piece of apparatus that’ll be junk in a couple of years.”
Key and the other two Americans safely made their way back to Baltimore. The day after the battle, Key put his thoughts into verse in a poem he called “Defence of Fort McHenry.” Ironically, Key’s lyrics were later put to the tune of a popular British drinking song called “The Anacreontic Song” (a.k.a. “To Anacreon in Heaven”), to which many tavern brawls were fought and drunken affairs consummated!
The song would later be renamed the “Star-Spangled Banner” and, by an act of Congress in 1931, it was made our National Anthem. Sometimes, the most unlikely of events end up shaping history, a history that is always infinitely more fascinating than anything imagined by Hollywood scriptwriters!
Have you ever suspected that your city or town is trying too hard to catch traffic scofflaws in the pursuit of ticket revenue? A Florida woman received a ticket based on evidence from a red light camera, but believed the ticket was unfair because the yellow light was too short. The power of math proved that she was correct..
Her math tutor husband took a stopwatch to the intersection where she received the ticket, and set out to vindicate her. He discovered that yellow lights at that intersection are eight tenths of a second shorter than county guidelines require.
“I said, ‘If it’s really short, then you got short-changed and you got a ticket illegally,'” said [Mike] Mogil.
The speed limit on Collier Boulevard, where she was cited, is 45 mph. According to county guidelines, the yellow light should be 4.5 seconds.Mogil said he tested it 15 times with an average of only 3.8 seconds.
The only downside to this is the victim of the prank is left holding a stick that could be used to settle things up with the one doing the prank!
Crime prediction software? Ummm, even Hollywood couldn’t make that look like a good idea. What makes anyone think it would be a good idea in the real life?
The Florida State Department of Juvenile Justice will use analysis software to predict crime by young delinquents, putting potential offenders under specific prevention and education programs. Goodbye, human rights! They will use this software on juvenile delinquents, using a series of variables to determine the potential for these people to commit another crime.
