Weird News - Things that make you go 'hmmm'

Disgusting

The Kansas Legislature has formed its very own Senate Committee on Government Efficiency (COGE instead of DOGE) and has asked residents to submit their ideas on making government leaner, meaner and more attuned to the needs of South African-born billionaires! Ha, ha. Just joking a bit there, folks. I’m sure that the bigwigs behind the Kansas committee have your best interests at heart, just like those teens and twentysomethings poking around in D.C. buildings.

Soup to nuts

Slashdot Summary:

Since November, British telecom O2 has deployed an AI chatbot masquerading as a 78-year-old grandmother to waste scammers' time. The bot, named Daisy, engages fraudsters by discussing knitting patterns, recipes, and asking about tea preferences while feigning computer illiteracy. The Guardian has an update this week: In tests over several weeks, Daisy has kept individual scammers occupied for up to 40 minutes, with one case showing her being passed between four different callers. An excerpt from the story:

"When a third scammer tries to get her to download the Google Play Store, she replies: 'Dear, did you say pastry? I'm not really on the right page.' She then complains that her screen has gone blank, saying it has 'gone black like the night sky'."

Whoops, now worth $50k.

Not fishy at all

Signature /= footer

Resist

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/22038316

Mirror: https://archive.is/2025.01.30-220414/https://www.404media.co/zuckerberg-says-everything-i-say-leaks-in-leaked-meeting-audio/

Employees at Pho 21 restaurant in South San Jose had an unexpected showdown last weekend with what could be considered an attempted "robot kidnapper."

Do you even speak Cherokee brah?

That's dessssssspicable.

Forgot the pair of pliers at home. Rookie mistake, says Mr. Wallace.

• Court says elephants not human, cannot seek freedom
  

• Animal rights group says decision perpetuates an injustice

• Zoo called lawsuit frivolous, cites earlier rulings

Jan 22 (Reuters) - Five elderly African elephants at a Colorado zoo will stay there, after the state's highest court said the animals have no legal right to demand their release because they are not human.

Tuesday's 6-0 decision by Colorado's Supreme Court means Jambo, Kimba, LouLou, Lucky and Missy will remain at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs.

It followed a similar decision in 2022 by New York state's highest court, the Court of Appeals, that another aged elephant, Happy, had to remain at New York City's Bronx Zoo.

An animal rights non-profit, Nonhuman Rights Project, brought both cases on the elephants' behalf under a legal doctrine known as "habeas corpus," saying the animals should live in sanctuaries.

Citing affidavits from seven animal biologists, the group told the Colorado court that elephants are highly social and mobile, share many cognitive abilities with humans including empathy and self-awareness, and when confined in zoos can experience boredom and stress that could lead to brain damage.

But the court said Colorado's habeas statute applies to persons, not to nonhuman animals "no matter how cognitively, psychologically, or socially sophisticated" they might be.

It also said Nonhuman Rights Project's concession during oral argument that it was seeking only different confinement, not complete freedom, for the elephants was another reason to treat them and humans differently.

The case "does not turn on our regard for these majestic animals generally or these five elephants specifically," Justice Maria Berkenkotter wrote. "Because an elephant is not a person, the elephants here do not have standing to bring a habeas corpus claim."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/25076243

Yet another entry from the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction department, as drug-addicted rats have turned Houston’s police evidence storage into their personal stash house.

Oh, bother.