QuoteReplyTopic: The Silly News Thread Posted: 30-May-2007 at 05:18
Poland targets 'gay' Teletubbies
A senior Polish official has ordered psychologists to investigate whether the popular BBC TV show Teletubbies promotes a homosexual lifestyle.
The spokesperson for children's rights in Poland, Ewa Sowinska, singled out Tinky Winky, the purple character with a triangular aerial on his head.
"I noticed he was carrying a woman's handbag," she told a magazine. "At first, I didn't realise he was a boy."
EU officials have criticised Polish government policy towards homosexuals.
Ms Sowinska wants the psychologists to make a recommendation about whether the children's show should be broadcast on public television.
Poland's authorities have recently initiated a series of moves to outlaw the promotion of homosexuality among the nation's children.
Tinky Winky's psychological evaluation is being treated fairly light-heartedly by many people here.
One radio station asked its listeners to vote for the most suspicious children's show. Some e-mailed in, saying that Winnie the Pooh had only male friends.
Even Ms Sowinska has backtracked a little, insisting that she does not believe the Teletubbies is a threat to the nation's children. But the evaluation is still going ahead and her office can recommend that the show should be taken off the air.
Poland was criticised recently after its education ministry announced plans to sack teachers who promote homosexuality.
Last month the European Union singled out Poland for criticism in its resolution condemning homophobia in the 27-member bloc.
By ARON HELLER, Associated Press Writer Tue May 29, 6:03 PM ET
JERUSALEM - A man clad only in underwear and a T-shirt wrestled a wild leopard to the floor and pinned it for 20 minutes after the cat leapt through a window of his home and hopped into bed with his sleeping family.
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"This kind of thing doesn't happen every day," said 49-year-old Arthur Du Mosch, a nature guide. "I don't know why I did it. I wasn't thinking, I just acted."
Raviv Shapira, who heads the southern district of the Israel Nature and Parks Protection Authority, said a half dozen leopards have been spotted recently near Du Mosch's small community of Kibbutz Sde Boker in the Negev desert in southern Israel, although they rarely threaten humans." Israel Nature and Parks Protection Authority, said a half dozen leopards have been spotted recently near Du Mosch's small community of Kibbutz Sde Boker in the Negev desert in southern Israel, although they rarely threaten humans.
Shapira said it was probably food that lured the big cat. Leopards living near humans are usually too old to hunt in the wild and resort to chasing down domestic dogs and cats for food, he added.
Du Mosch's pet cat was in the bed with him at the time, along with his young daughter who had been frightened by a mosquito in her own room.
Shapira said the leopard was very weak when park rangers arrived at Du Mosch's home after the surprise late-night visit. He said nature officials would likely release it back into the wild.
Du Mosch said he probably would not have been able to control the big cat were it in better health. As a nature guide, he said, he was familiar with animals and did his best to hold down the leopard without harming it. He said he took it all in stride, "but the kids were excited."
Brave man.
No doubt there will be a connection to "Palestinian Teghor" discovered and airstrikes on Leopard farms by dinner
Interesting story Sparten. Leopards are very rare around Israel and the Golan heights nowadays, so it's a good thing he didn't kill it in the process. Very brave of him though, especially seeing as he wouldn't have known of the leopard's state of health.
If a commuter does not wind down his window or resists opening the vehicle door, the elephant stands in front of the car until the driver allows him to carry out his routine inspection.
Forestry officials told the newspaper that the elephant is old and is therefore looking for easy food.
"So far, it has not harmed anybody," said Sirish Mohanty, a forest ranger working in the state.
"We are telling commuters regularly not to tease the elephant. But if people don't heed to our advice and harass the tusker, then it can retaliate."
Elephants are a protected and endangered species in India, which has nearly half of the world's 60,000 Asian elephants.
But conservationists say its population has fallen rapidly in recent years because of loss of habitat as a result of human encroachment into forest areas.
Father in fight for life after being bitten by a hamster
A man nearly died after being bitten by his familys pet hamster.
The 50-year-old victim suffered an extreme allergic reaction and went into anaphylactic shock, which causes serious breathing problems.
He tried to treat himself with drugs he carries to treat a number of allergies but they had little effect.
Worried relatives dialled 999 and paramedics arrived to find the man unconscious and turning blue because his airway was blocked.
He was taken to hospital where doctors managed to improve his condition with a series of injections. Last night the man, who has not been named, was recovering in hospital in Redditch, Worcestershire.
Hamster experts said they had never heard of such a case in the UK, although a man in Japan died three years ago after a bite from his pet. A post-mortem found that the man, in his 40s, had suffered a fatal bout of asthma in an allergic reaction to a protein in the animals saliva.
Wendy Barry, secretary of the British Hamster Association, said last night: "I have kept hamsters for 20 years and Ive never heard of this scenario in this country.
"Someones immune system would have to be very, very compromised for there to be such drastic consequences.
"Hamsters dont normally carry any diseases that would affect humans. In fact, there is more chance of a hamster catching something from a human."
The drama on Monday night happened after the hamster escaped when the mans seven-year-old daughter took it out of its cage at their home near Evesham, Worcestershire.
It disappeared under floorboards and the victim was bitten as he tried to recapture it.
MANILA, Philippines -- A jobless man was shot dead by a security guard for singing out of tune in a karaoke bar, police said Thursday.
Romy Baligula, 29, was halfway through his song on Tuesday night in a bar in San Mateo town, east of Manila, when 43-year-old security guard Robilito Ortega yelled that he was out of tune.
As Baligula ignored his comments and continued singing, Ortega pulled out his revolver and shot him in the chest.
Senior Superintendent Felipe Rojas said Baligula died instantly.
The security guard was detained by an off-duty policeman shortly after the shooting.
Deaths and violence are not uncommon in Philippine karaoke bars.
The popular Frank Sinatra song "My Way" has been taken off many karaoke bars in Manila after it was found to be the cause of fights and even deaths when patrons sang out of tune.
Some peoples greatest talents remain hidden for their entire lives but this Saturday, Doug Williams will put his on display and, he hopes, achieve ever-lasting fame.
Williams, you see, has a five-inch nipple hair.
Thats not a misprint. Its a single hair, growing from his left nipple, and its five inches long.
On Saturday, the Williamsburg resident will have the hair officially measured and logged by the folks from the Guinness Book of World Records, who believe Williamss follicular feat may be the greatest on the planet.
Therell also be a barbecue.
And why not celebrate? Yes, most people have nipple hairs but no one has a nipple hair like Doug Williams.
Its mostly a genetic gift, said the 25-year-old, adding that he suspects though this cant be proven scientifically that the hairs unusual length has something to do with his habit of eating at least one cheeseburger every day (alas, hell never make the Guinness Book for that).
As with so many things in life, size matters but its not the only requirement. In accordance with the Guinness Books regulations, the hair will be washed and then measured three times by a local doctor. Anything over 4.5 inches will break the record yes, there is a current record-holder, Simon Mould of Great Britain.
Trouncing Mould at his own game would, of course, come with worldwide publicity, but thats not why Williams got into the nipple-hair racket.
I am not attempting this record for the money, he said. It is enough for me to know that I have inspired an entire generation of young people to grow long body hairs and achieve their own dreams.
An 80-year-old heart surgery patient leapt from his intensive care bed and used his walking stick to beat a deadly viper to death.
Miko Vukovic spotted the snake on the floor of the hospital in Ogulin in central Croatia.
The snake is believed to have been brought into the hospital in a giant bunch of flowers where a discarded snake skin was also found by staff. It then made its way into the intensive care ward as it looked for a new place to hide.
Vukovic was with three other cardiology department patients during the night when he noticed the poisonous "vipera berus" snake close to his bed.
He said: "I was fighting for 10 minutes before I managed to kill it with my walking stick. The bugger almost bit me in the leg but then I let it have it right between the eyes."
South Korean bank to help soldiers dumped because of military service
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - A South Korean bank is offering to help heartbroken soldiers dumped by girlfriends while away on mandatory military service by providing special interest rates for stilted troops.
Soldiers who can show letters or e-mail proving their break-up to a bank clerk can receive a new deposit plan with better rates and waived service fees, said Nonghyup Bank official Gil Yoon-Jung on Tuesday. The offer began Monday and runs through September.
Troops will get as much as a 0.3 percentage point premium a year for proving they are no longer romantically attached.
All young men in South Korea are required to serve two years in the military, as the country remains technically at war with neighbouring North Korea. The Korean War ended in a 1953 ceasefire that has never been replaced with a peace treaty.
The new plan will also be offered to female soldiers, family members of professional troops, wounded veterans, and trainees.
Nonghyup Bank said it will also donate 0.1 per cent of the new clients' balances for dead war heroes and wounded veterans.
TOKYO (AP) - A Japanese policeman distraught by working long hours and weekends for two months stabbed himself in the stomach with a knife to get some time off, police said Monday.
The 44-year-old officer knifed himself at his home in northwestern Japan on May 23, but told police he had been attacked, prompting an attempted murder investigation, Ishikawa prefecture police said in a statement.
Investigators became suspicious of his story after they could not find evidence of anyone who matched the description the officer had given of the supposed attacker, a police spokesman said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.
Suspicions also were raised because the officer had waited about an hour before reporting the alleged attack, the spokesman said. His wounds were not life-threatening.
The officer, whose name was not released by police, had been in charge of a disaster relief detail following a March 25 earthquake in the area that killed one person, injured more than 300 and damaged or destroyed more than 14,800 homes.
``He became very busy, he felt like he couldn't handle the work he had to do, and he felt the work was weighing him down,'' said the police spokesman.
The officer acknowledged he had stabbed himself following his May 31 release from the hospital, the spokesman said. The case is now being investigated as filing a false report, a misdemeanor.
Japanese workers often face long overtime hours and weekends with little or no compensation and frequently must make long commutes to work. Death from overwork, known as ``karoshi,'' has steadily increased since the Health Ministry first recognized the phenomenon in 1987.
A HOSPITAL in Spain has successfully transplanted a man's right hand onto his left arm, changing the location of the thumb in the process, a spokesman said overnight.
The unidentified 63-year-old man had lost his left hand in an accident four decades ago and three years ago he suffered a stroke which paralysed the right side of his body.
The 13-hour operation was carried out at the Virgen del Consuelo hospital in the Mediterranean port city of Valencia on April 29 by Doctor Pedro Cavadas who last year performed Spain's first double hand transplant.
"The patient is happy, he can already move his hand," said Virginia Cavadas, the doctor's sister who is also a member of a foundation he runs.
"He could not do anything and he needed help for everything," she said.
Transplants of body parts belonging to the same person have a much higher rate of success than those involving the transplant of body parts from a donor. They also do not require the patient to undergo anti-rejection treatments.
Hand transplant operations have been performed successfully since 1998.
Semi pushes man in wheelchair 4 miles down Red Arrow Highway
PAW PAW, Mich. A 21-year-old west Michigan man got the ride of a lifetime after his wheelchair became lodged in the grille of a semi-truck and was pushed down a highway, police said.
The man, whose name police did not release, was unharmed but was transferred to a hospital as a precaution, WWMT-TV of Kalamazoo reported. He was secured to his chair by a seat belt, WOOD-TV of Grand Rapids said.
About 4 p.m. Wednesday, a female caller told dispatchers, You are not going to believe this: There is a semi truck pushing a guy in a wheelchair on Red Arrow Highway, Michigan State Police said in a release.
Authorities initially wondered whether the report was a prank call until others called with similar reports.
Officers stopped the truck, wheelchair still attached, at the address of a trucking company and learned the man had steered his wheelchair in front of the truck as it left a gas station in Paw Paw in Van Buren County, about 140 miles west of Detroit. The wheelchairs handles lodged in the trucks grille, and the driver continued west on the highway for about four miles at speeds of roughly 50 mph before being stopped, police said.
The driver did not believe officers until he stepped from his cab and saw the man in front of his truck, police said.
The man apparently was unfazed by the incident. It was quite a ride, police quoted him as saying.
AP - A 41-year-old Wisconsin man drowned after getting stuck in a storm sewer trying to retrieve a mobile phone, police said.
The man weighed more that 135 kilograms and was wedged with his head and shoulders underwater in a vertical storm drain in front of his home in Sheboygan on Wednesday, a police spokesman said.
Neighbour Chris Van Erem said he saw the man kneeling over the sewer before he fell in. Police said the man pulled the iron gate off trying to get the mobile phone.
Then, a child from the neighbourhood ran toward Van Erem frantically. Van Erem said he then saw the man's feet sticking up out of the grate.
"I ran over and tried to pull him on out," he said. "Absolutely helpless was the feeling. I couldn't budge him."
Van Erem had the child called emergency services as he continued to try to free the man.
"I could see his head and his shoulders were completely under the water," he said. "His legs weren't moving. He was completely unresponsive."
Van Erem said it ultimately took six firefighters to pull the man, already dead, from the sewer.
The man's mobile phone was later found at the bottom of the sewer, police said.
MAN partially sawed off his own leg with a pocket knife after he was pinned under a tree in California.
Al Hill, 66, was clearing trees in rural California when a large tree fell on him, the Associated Press quoted the local Auburn Journal newspaper as saying.
Mr Hill spent up to 10 hours trapped in the remote area before trying to saw off his left leg to escape.
"He partially amputated his own leg just below the knee with a pocket knife," Iowa Hill fire chief Luana Dowling told the Journal.
Mr Hill was eventually found by another local, Eric Bookey, who heard his cries for help.
Mr Bookey and another man freed Mr Hill and drove him to Iowa Hill, from where he was flown to hospital and had his leg amputated, the paper said.
"Only me, Al and God were there that day," Mr Bookey said.
Mr Hill was in a serious condition shortly after his ordeal, but visitors said he was in good spirits.
"He's a pretty remarkable person," Ms Dowling told the Associated Press.
The town of Iowa Hill, population 200, is in the gold mining district of California.
In May 2003, a 27-year-old Colorado man used a pocket knife to amputate his own arm below the elbow to free himself after being trapped for five days under an 363kg boulder in a national park in Utah.
Christianity hoax exposed; bogus belief system baffles western civilization for 2,000 years
Rome, Italy Earlier today at the Coliseum, Pope Benedict XVI
made history by unexpectedly dissolving Catholicism before a stunned
crowed of thousands of believers. This startling decision can only be
described as shocking, as millions of people were thrown into an acute
spiritual crisis.
Couple pretend to have 16 children to claim 125,000 in benefits
A couple claimed more than 125,000 in benefit payments after inventing 16 children, a court heard.
Heavy gambler David Wilshaw, 57, and his alcoholic partner Nancy Stevenson, 58, launched their four- year assault on the system in 2003 before they were finally trapped by their greed.
At first, the couple legally applied for tax credits for two of Stevenson's real children.
After realising that no one had asked to see birth certificates or any other identification, they made up the names of 16 more children and pocketed 400 each week which they spent on gambling and alcohol.
At one stage, Wilshaw was losing up to 600 a week in betting shops while his partner admitted that she had been drinking at least two bottles of brandy a day.
When unemployed Wilshaw was finally caught, he claimed he had done a 'public service' by exposing the benefits loophole.
"I claimed for a couple of twins, then another and another," he told investigators. "It was easy. Nobody ever checked up on us until last week."
After no checks were made on her children the pair set about inventing 16 fictitious offspring.
The names they chose were: Gareth Wilshaw, Simon Wilshaw, Sandra Wilshaw, Brian Wilshaw, Jason Wilshaw, Rebecca Stevenson, Phillip Stevenson, Edith Stevenson, Terry Stevenson, Barbara Stevenson, Amanda Phillips, Jessica Phillips, Miranda Evans, Jemma Williams, Danny Evans and Amber Mitchell.
The couple were arrested three months ago after Inland Revenue investigators visited their home.
Earlier this week, Wilshaw pleaded guilty at North Somerset Magistrates' Court to 20 charges of fraudulent payments of tax credits and 22 counts of fraudulent activity to obtain tax credits between February and December 2006.
The additional charges related to Wilshaw also claiming money for missing Giro cheques with the highest being worth 350. Wilshaw pocketed a total of 75,000 in both frauds.
He also admitted handling stolen goods. The court heard he used stolen Lloyds TSB cheques to buy Tom-Tom satellite navigations units worth nearly 5,000 from stores in Bristol and Bridgwater.
Stevenson admitted one charge of tax credit fraud but entered no plea for eight identical counts between 2004 and 2007 at the hearing.
Oliver Willmott, prosecuting, said Stevenson made 50,000 from the fraudulent claims.
A COUPLE who forced a Jamaica-bound plane to land in Bermuda are facing a J$3.8 million bill.
The pair had attacked cabin crew who stopped them having sex, and now run the risk of national shame back in England after United Kingdom tabloid The Sun ran the story with an appeal for the public to name and shame them.
It said stunned passengers watched in horror as the randy couple attacked cabin crew after being told to return to their seats.
They shouted abuse and spat as they grappled with the British Airways staff who forced them back into their business class seats.
And despite being restrained with plastic handcuffs, the pilot decided he had no choice but to divert the Boeing 777 jet to Bermuda.
The airline said the jumbo jet, with 262 passengers aboard, left Bermuda an hour later without further incident after the two disruptive passengers had been removed.
The "sex rage" incident, as The Sun described it, began when they started drinking heavily on the 10-hour flight from Gatwick to Kingston, Jamaica, on Monday.
WENT BERSERK
They joined the "mile-high club" in one of the toilets. But after their noisy passion was overheard by flight staff they were ordered out and went berserk.
A passenger said: "They were asked politely to return to their seats but went ballistic. They were shouting vile abuse and spitting at staff." Another said: "The captain tried to calm them down but they were just as abusive to him."
The couple, who were booked on a two-week holiday, were held by police in Bermuda and on Wednesday put on a flight back to Gatwick where they were arrested. Now the pair from Luton, England face being charged with air rage and the 34,000 cost of diverting the plane.
Bermuda Airport manager Jim Howes said: "It's always the joke among us pilots, and I am a pilot, about have you joined the mile high club?"
When asked if he had, Mr. Howes said: "I can't comment and you can quote me on that." Although he did say that on that long haul flight the couple had probably joined the seven-mile high club.
Asked if he had ever come across the phrase "sex rage" Mr. Howes said: "I can't say I have but I guess if they were caught by flight attendants in the flagrante delecto they would be a little perturbed by that."
Asked about the J$3.8 cost of the tryst Mr. Howes said: "I just hope it was worth it."
A burglar from the Belgian town Anderlecht has been arrested thursdaynight after returning to his victims house and ringing for entry. He did so to ask for the drugs he lost while burgling the house, so reports 'Het Belang van Limburg'.
The victim immediately called the police when he saw the burglar at his door. Officers found 18 bags of marihuana, 11 bags of crack and 88 hormone pills in the basement of the house.
The burglar was know to the police from previous housebreaking and drug-related incidents.
Two Romanian pickpockets arrested after picking the pocket of a plainclothes officer.
Man accidentally jumps off viaduct while trying to get away from the police. He was stopped for drunken driving and decided to jump a fence to get away without noticing the fence was the edge of an overpass.
Man fined for keeping a dead porpoise whale in his freezer. Porpoises are a protected species.
Nigerian man refused a job because of a racist dog. Owner of the dog declared that his dog went mad whenever black people came near, and he therefore refused to hire black people. He denied any racial motives from his side were involved in the matter. A Belgian union has declared they will pursue the matter further.
And gay couples in Rotterdam are adviced to make social calls with their immigrant neighbours to show them they lead a normal and decent life, by the local organisation for Homosexuals. This will hopefully decrease homophobia, as people are less likely to judge people they have met in a friendly way, and as a common understanding can be reached between the two groups based on their common experiences with discrimination.
Edited by Aelfgifu - 10-Jun-2007 at 10:48
Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears.
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