So you are a bank teller and someone comes in to rob the bank wearing a hood and a scarf to hide his features. How do you identify the criminal? You might just try asking him to take off his disguise.

Police said Brian Waltermyer, 33, walked into the Integrity Bank in York on Thursday evening. He was wearing a hood. As he approached the teller, carrying a note demanding money, the teller asked him to remove the hood. He did, giving the bank surveillance cameras a crystal-clear view of his face.

Officers who watched the tape recognized Waltermyer and tellers were able to identify him from a photo lineup, police said.

You have to like compliant criminals.

SciFi.com’s Dvice blog had news about a new railgun the navy has. I find myself discourage that we continue to find more ways to kill each other and yet I must admit that the guy in me also has the reaction of “13,000 miles per hour, 10 megajoules, cool”! Sue me, it’s the testosterone.

Just take a look at the image above! It shows the first demonstration of this crazy magnetic railgun, which fired a shell at 5,600 miles per hour using 10 megajoules of energy. And that’s just the beginning. When this thing is done, it’ll be firing shots at over 13,000 miles per hour. Oh, and it’ll be accurate enough to hit a 5 meter target from 200 nautical miles away while shooting at 10 shots per minute. Even though it won’t be ready until 2020 to 2025, I’m going to start getting on the Navy’s good side now.

I found this speech by Barak Obama to support my impression that he is an interesting candidate. I continue to see him as someone who sounds reasonable. I wish that were not such a rare quality in a polititian. In this speech he talks somewhat about his personal faith but more about the role of faith in politics. He charts a course in between the left and the right extremes.

I am a swing voter (registered Republican) and generally find politics distasteful… ok, let’s say “slimy”. My podcast about faith (The Bible Study Podcast) is particularly labeled as free of politics. So for me to even take the time to listen to a political speech is rare, let alone one almost 40 minutes long.

In particular I share Obama’s view that the value of the separation of church and state is not just for the state. “Folks tend to forget that during our founding it wasn’t the athiests and the civil libertarians who were the most effective champions of the first ammendment”.

Do I agree with all of Obama’s politics? I doubt it. Do I think having someone who seems intelligent and reasonable in the oval office would be a nice change. I do.

When I showed my co-workers the video from CES of Bill Gates last day one of them was reminded of a similar short video from Bill Clinton’s last days in office.

I am sure someone somewhere in the Whole Foods management chain thinks this was a good idea but this story originally reported in mlive.com (I saw it on the Church of the Customer Blog) just has me scratching my head.

John Schultz says he lost his job at Whole Foods Market in Ann Arbor after he tried to stop a shoplifter from making a getaway. But the company says he went too far and violated a policy that prohibits employees from physically touching a customer – even if that person is carrying a bag of stolen goods.

Schultz says he had just punched out for a break at 7 p.m. on Sunday when he heard a commotion at the front door of the store, 3135 Washtenaw Ave. He said he came to the aid of the manager who yelled for help in stopping a shoplifter. Schultz, the manager and another employee cornered the shoplifter between two cars in the parking lot.

Schultz said he told the shoplifter he was making a citizens arrest and to wait for the police to arrive, but the shoplifter broke away from the group and ran across Washtenaw Avenue and toward a gas station at the corner of Huron Parkway.

Before the man could cross Huron Parkway, Schultz caught up and grabbed the man’s jacket and put his leg behind the man’s legs. When the manager arrived at the intersection, Schultz said, the manager told him to release the shoplifter, and he complied, and the shoplifter got away.

Schultz said he was called to the store’s office the next day, on Christmas Eve, and was fired because he violated a company policy prohibiting employees from having any physical contact with a customer.

I think it is good for a company to have rules. I think not manhandling customers is not a bad rule. But I think a company should also not be stupid. This was stupid.

The headlines practically writes itself in this stupid criminal story:

BOSTON – An alleged bank robber in Boston should have been more aware of who was behind him in line. Police said Adam Grennan, 39, of Hull, passed a note to a teller at Mt. Washington Bank in Dorchester on Monday, demanding large bills and no “funny money.”

He didn’t notice that officer Kamau Pritchard was in uniform right behind him.

Pritchand, who was working a security detail, pulled out his gun and placed Grennan under arrest.

Pritchard told The Boston Globe he was in a back room watching surveillance cameras when Grennan walked in. He said the suspect was wearing large white gloves, an oversized hooded parka and a scarf that covered his face.

A friend of mine has a friend who’s a retired DC cop. The ex-cop had Christmas dinner at my friends house, where he told a great old story:

Patrolling the streets one day, a man flagged him down, waving his arms enthusiastically…

Told him, “That guy over there stole my boom box, and that’s the box on his shoulder”.

Cop, “OK, let’s go check it out…”

Cop to Suspect: “First man says this is his boom box.”

Suspect: “No man, this box is mine!”

First man: “Look, I can prove it.”

Cop: “How?”

First man: “My pot stash is in the handle.”

Cop: “OK, only you would know that. Let’s see it.”

Stash is in fact in handle

Cop to first man: “You’re right. And you’re under arrest for possession.”

Cop to second man: “You’re under arrest for theft.”

What happens when a simple generous act of buying coffee for a stranger meets the holiday spirit. It might become contagious as it did this week near Seattle, Washington.

MARYSVILLE — Lindsey Molstad of Stanwood was pleasantly surprised Wednesday afternoon when a man in a sports car with Texas plates paid for her vanilla latte and her daughters’ hot chocolates.

She wasn’t the first to receive the holiday cheer.

At the Starbucks on 116th Street NE in Marysville, a chain of more than 350 people bought coffee for the people in line behind them — either in the drive-through or inside — starting with a woman who first came in about 8 a.m.

“I think it’s awesome,” said Molstad, 28, who had just picked up her daughters on her way home from work. “I feel really bad because I ordered drinks for my kids, and the person behind me only had one.”

Starbucks employee Michael Smith of Marysville was working the drive-through window when the first woman drove through and paid for the next customer.

When he explained to the next person what happened, that customer decided to pass the good will along, Starbucks shift supervisor Sarah Nix said.

Then the next person followed suit. And the next person. And the next person.

Once the chain picked up, Smith refused to leave the drive-through window. He saw it as a special trust given to him by that first customer.

“I’m really worried they’re going to stop,” he said Wednesday afternoon, after the chain surpassed 250 people.

During the holidays, it’s not uncommon for customers to occasionally buy coffee for whomever is next in line, said Nix, who used to work at the Starbucks in Lake Stevens.

But she’s never seen anything like this.

“I’m really shocked,” Nix said. “This makes Christmas so much nicer, knowing people care.”

5 year old Harry Cordaiy is now called “Mousetrap Man” by his class mates. He and his classmates had been the victim of a thief or thieves at their school before Harry sprung into action. He devised a homemade ink bomb using a mousetrap and food coloring attached to a $5 note. Using his homemade device he and his classmates were able to catch the thief “red handed”, well technically “green handed” in this case.

Fark had a story about a man who made an unwise decision regarding a lost hat:

A man who fell six stories into a trash compactor that activated when he hit survived the ordeal, Moline police said.

Police were called to the building by a resident who could hear a male voice yelling for help near the elevator shaft, Patrick said.

Building maintenance responded, released the trash compactor and pulled the man out of the bin, he said.

Patrick said that Alfonzo Gomez, 26, explained that he was at a party on the sixth floor when he went to throw some trash out. As he threw the bag into the chute, his hat fell off his head and went into the chute.

Gomez reached into the chute to retrieve his hat, but could not see or feel his hat. He climbed into the chute feet first believing he could reach his hat. But he slipped and fell six floors to the compactor.

When he hit the bottom, the compactor activated and compressed two pressure plates against Gomez, Patrick said. The plates held the man until the compactor was turned off.

Gomez told police he was in the compactor for 30-45 minutes yelling for help. He had no feeling in the lower part of his legs for several minutes and was advised to seek medical attention.

Patrick added that it was not known if Gomez retrieved his hat.

Must have been a nice hat.