‘Police started a missing person alert for a great-grandmother – only for her to turn up 12 hours later having been locked in a public loo overnight.
Gwyneth Coles, 77, of Pickering, North Yorkshire, got locked in the town’s toilets after nipping in following a bus journey on Monday evening.
Although an attendant locking up shouted to check the building was empty, he failed to hear her answer.
Flushed council officials apologised and sent Mrs Coles a bunch of flowers.’
‘Nalini Ghuman, an up-and-coming musicologist and expert on the British composer Edward Elgar, was stopped at the San Francisco airport in August last year and, without explanation, told that she was no longer allowed to enter the United States.
Her case has become a cause célèbre among musicologists and the subject of a protest campaign by the American Musicological Society and by academic leaders like Leon Botstein, the president of Bard College at Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., where Ms. Ghuman was to have participated last month in the Bard Music Festival, showcasing Elgar’s music.
But the door has remained closed to Ms. Ghuman, an assistant professor at Mills College in Oakland, Calif., who is British and who had lived, studied and worked in this country for 10 years before her abrupt exclusion.
The mystery of her case shows how difficult, if not impossible, it is to defend against such a decision once the secretive government process has been set in motion.’
‘Toilet paper dust caused a Southwest Airlines flight to make an unexpected landing in New Orleans on Friday. According to spokeswoman Mary Lee, a passenger noticed the white substance in the bathroom of a flight from Tampa to Las Vegas.
The pilot thought the threat was enough to land the plane as soon as possible; New Orleans’ Armstrong International Airport happened to be closest.
All passengers were taken off the plane, and inspectors determined that the substance was just dust from toilet paper. ‘
‘A scientist thinks Australia’s only non-commercial satellite may have run out of battery power.
The 58-kilogram FedSat has been operating since 2002.
It was only supposed to last for three years.
The University of South Australia has been responsible for its day-to-day operation and says it has lost contact with the public satellite.
Scientist Andrew Parfitt says it could orbit Earth for another century before burning up.’
‘A man tired of burglars nearly blew off his hand when bomb-like devices he set around his house exploded in his presence instead, authorities said.
Victor Iacobescu, 50, ran to a neighbor’s house Thursday with a bloody towel wrapped around his right hand.
“Apparently, he was trying to set booby traps to get the next guy who tried to break in,” fire Lt. Maggie Murphy said.
Iacobescu had been the victim of several break-ins, she said.
The neighbor, Patrick Struble, said the explosives were “like a pipe bomb. He accidentally triggered it, and it almost blew his hand off.”‘
‘A Gold Coast teenager was struck in the face by a boat propellor when he fell out of a dinghy while baring his buttocks at people on the shore.
The 17-year-old boy from Kanimbla was one of three males travelling in a dinghy along a canal off Huon Street at Broadbeach Waters on the Gold Coast about 4pm (AEST) yesterday.
It is believed all three males stood up to bare their buttocks at a group of people at a waterfront residence, causing the vessel to become unstable, and all three fell overboard, police said. [..]
Another occupant of the boat, a 20-year-old man from Rochedale South, in Brisbane’s south, has been charged with drink driving.’
‘Mrs. A. R is an active 76 year-old grandmother who lived on her own for several years. She had an uncomfortable vaginal lump for several years. Occasionally, this required reduction by her late family physician. The patient did not visit a physician after the death of her family doctor ten years earlier. She felt that prolapse is a woman’s lot and nothing could be done about it.
This patient was brought to the emergency room with a history of vaginal bleeding. Examination showed that the uterus was totally outside the vulva (prosidentia), atrophic and ulcerated vaginal mucosa and inflamed cervix. The bladder and rectum were also prolapsed with the uterus and the patient was unable to empty her bladder. X-rays of the kidneys, ureters and bladder with contrast (IVP) suggested chronic inflammation of the bladder.’
.. ‘the uterus was totally outside the vulva’ .. Do I need to stick a warning here? Don’t blame me if you don’t like what you see after you click. 🙂
‘In Alabama they come down hard on girls destroying your porn. Gina Carano of Birmingham, Alabama spent a few minutes checking out her boyfriend’s iPod while he was in the shower. After a few minutes of of shuffling through it, she found a video of her boyfriend and another girl having a little bedroom romp. Carano, in a fit of rage, stomped the iPod on the floor and then flushed it down the toilet.
Carano went to her boy friend who was still in the shower, slapped his face and told him what she had done. She told him that she had had enough and would never see him again. At least she thought she would never see him again. Two hours later the police came to her house and arrested her for assault and destroying private property.’
‘Liu Hua, a chinese man, has fingers thicker than his arm and hopes for a normal life once he finishes having surgery. The operation removed 11lbs of bone and tissue from his hand, which was deformed from birth.
Liu has a rare disease called macrodactyly which causes toes and fingers to grow abnormally large.’
see it here »
‘In 2005, the last time the American Society of Civil Engineers rated America’s infrastructure, bridges received a “C” grade; dams earned a “D.”
Even that rating may be generous, a Monitor analysis of dam-inspection data shows. Since 1999, the number of “high-hazard” dams rated “deficient” has more than doubled, according to data from the Association of State Dam Safety Officials (ASDSO) in Lexington, Ky. High-hazard dams are those whose failures could cause fatalities. In 1999, the US had 546 such dams rated deficient. By last year, it had 1,333.
A second category of “significant-hazard” dams (so-called because they threaten substantial property loss) saw a rise from 339 to 949 deficient dams over the same period. In all, 2.6 percent of the nation’s dams are deficient, according to the ASDSO.’
‘A Bosnian couple are getting divorced after finding out they had been secretly chatting each other up online under fake names.
Sana Klaric, 27, and husband Adnan, 32, from Zenica, poured out their hearts to each other over their marriage troubles, and both felt they had found their real soul mate.
The couple met on an online chat forum while he was at work and she in an internet cafe, and started chatting under the names Sweetie and Prince of Joy.
They eventually decided to meet up – but there was no happy ending when they realised what had happened. [..]
“To be honest I still find it hard to believe that the person, Sweetie, who wrote such wonderful things to me on the internet, is actually the same woman I married and who has not said a nice word to me for years.”‘
‘A group of soldiers find a location they suspect has an IED. They use a bomb defusing robot to neutrailize it but end up setting off the IED completely destroying the robot.’
(1.5meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘Many state laws targeting convicted sex offenders violate the rights of people who pose little risk, a leading human rights group said Wednesday. It called for repeal of laws restricting where these ex-offenders can live and for curbs on access to online registries.
Human Rights Watch depicted its report, two years in the making, as the first comprehensive study of sex-offender policies in the United States. It said many of the laws are of questionable value in protecting children from sex crimes, but expose offenders who have served their sentences to harassment and violence.
“These are laws that weren’t based on reason — they were based on a few horrific cases,” said Jamie Fellner, director of the U.S. program at Human Rights Watch. “But it’s very difficult for politicians to demonstrate the courage to urge changes in these laws.”‘
This is a longer version of a video I posted ages back called Bride Freaks Out And Cuts Off Her Hair.
Although, it’s allegedly a hoax.
(18meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘A man trying to call a news station to complain about not getting a FEMA trailer after Hurricane Katrina accidentally dialed 911 and was charged with making methamphetamine after police arrived, authorities said.
Curtiss Randall Coleman was trying to get the number for Biloxi’s WLOX-TV on Wednesday just before the 6 p.m. newscast, investigators said. He misdialed when trying to reach directory information and called 911 instead of 411.
When he hung up on the emergency dispatcher, the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department was sent to the home to see if anyone was in need of assistance.
Deputies said that when they arrived at Coleman’s house, no one answered the door. Officers broke in and allegedly found a methamphetamine lab.’
‘A batch of laptops pre-installed with Windows Vista Home Premium was found to have been infected with a 13-year-old boot sector virus.
Those of you with a long memory will vividly recall the year 1994: Nirvana’s lead singer Kurt Cobain died, South Africa held its first multi-racial elections, and Tony Blair became leader of the Labour party. Oh, and Microsoft’s operating system was the quaint, pre-NT Windows for Workgroups.
But it was a year that also saw the arrival of a boot sector computer virus known as Stoned.Angelina which moved the original master boot record to cylinder 0, head 0, sector 9.
It would appear that this teenage virus has not yet been consigned to the history books.
According to Virus Bulletin, the consignment of infected Medion laptops – which could number anything up to 100,000 shipments – had been sold in Danish and German branches of retail giant Aldi.’
‘Maharaj, 25, was all set to walk out of 1st District Court in Hempstead a free man, having already served the 10 days he was facing as his jail sentence.
But, according to Steven Schwartz, chief of the Nassau district attorney’s office District Court Bureau, Judge Norman St. George required Maharaj to surrender his conditional driver’s license as part of the plea deal.
Maharaj handed over the paper document to the judge’s clerk, who proceeded to open the folded-up record.
“She looked at it and was kind of stunned,” Schwartz said. In the creases of the paper was marijuana.”
The clerk then showed the loose buds to the judge, who had Maharaj rearrested for marijuana possession, Schwartz said.’
‘Alright, this dude decides to try the glass cutting trick underwater and it doesnt go so smooth. I guess part of the trick is the glass cant have air pockets which this wine glass did.’
Followup to How To Cut Glass With Scissors.
(940kB Flash video)
see it here »
‘Wayne and Kathie Boniface returned home from dinner Thursday night at a neighbor’s to find the man in their house. Wayne Boniface said the man made the mistake of grabbing his wife.
“As soon as he grabbed my wife, I had him in the kitchen wrestling him to the ground in a headlock and arm-lock,” Boniface said.
First, Boniface said, he ripped the man’s shirt off. Then, “his head was down over the railing, and in today’s world, pants are worn fairly loose. I pulled his pants, and his pants and underpants and shoes came completely off. He was completely nude.”
When police asked Boniface if he could identify the suspect, he said: “Oh, yeah. I believe he’s the only guy running nude in Duluth.”‘
‘An Italian woman died when she was struck in the head by a helicopter’s rotor blades following a joyride in outback Northern Territory, a report has found. [..]
A preliminary report released today said the pilot was asked by the station owner to take four adults and two children, all relatives of his from Italy, for a scenic tour of the station.
Afterwards the pilot – a station manager who had worked there for 12 years – lost control as he took off because of a gust of wind.
“The pilot reported that, just as he regained control of the aircraft, he heard and felt the main rotor blade strike something, and saw the woman fall forward,” the report said.’
‘A blind judo expert astounded a mugger by pinning him to the ground after he tried to steal his cigarettes, police said on Monday.
The assailant, a 17-year-old man of Asian origin, spotted the 33-year-old, who police identified only as Emil E., at a train station in the southwestern town of Giessen and thought he would be easy prey, police spokesman Rolf Wellershausen said.
But what the attacker did not know, the spokesman said, was that his victim was a world-class blind judo wrestler.
The 17-year-old threatened the blind man, then punched him in the face, at which point the martial artist flipped him and held him down until police arrived.’
It’s kinda cruel I think, but amusing none the less.
(22.1meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘Madonna and Britney Spears have been targeted as the spreaders of “Satanic culture”.
The aggressive comments were launched by spokesman and senior leader of Palestinian terror group The Popular Resistance Committees, a group based in the Gaza Strip and responsible for the increase in shootings and bombings in the region.
Muhammad Abdel-Al is quoted in new book ‘Schmoozing With Terrorists: From Hollywood to the Holy Land Jihadists Reveal their Global Plans – to a Jew!’ attacks the two pop stars, labelling them “prostitutes”.
Abdel-Al rants, “If I meet these whores I will have the honour – I repeat, I will have the honour – to be the first one to cut the heads off Madonna and Britney Spears if they will keep spreading their satanic culture against Islam.”‘
‘In a small district in southern Afghanistan, U.S.-backed Afghan drug forces opened fire on farmers who were blocking roads and throwing rocks to protest the destruction of their poppy fields earlier this year. Scores were injured in the firefight.
Poppy farmer
Undeterred by the violence, a group of angry farmers gathered around Masood Azizi, the Afghan official supervising the eradication. They maintained that cultivating poppy for opium is the only way they can survive. “We are hungry, thirsty, and we don’t have any money. We are in debt,” one said.
It’s a message that reverberates throughout this impoverished, war-torn country. [..]
Eradicating opium poppies has been a key pillar of U.S. policy in Afghanistan since 2004, said Doug Wankel, director of the U.S. Counter-Narcotics Task Force in Afghanistan.
Yet today, Afghanistan produces roughly 93 percent of the world’s illicit opium, according to the UNODC report, and the Taliban are making inroads in remote areas of the country thanks, in part, to proceeds from the drug trade.’
‘Our story begins with the sales call. It was a door-to-door salesman, and after going through everything I was satisfied with what was being offered. I made sure that everything (except one thing, and that would come back to haunt me) was written down. All the fees being waived? In writing, each listed separately. Cost? In writing. I filed away the paperwork and waited for the installation. Having read about installation horror stories (on the Consumerist), I decided to stay home and supervise the installation that Comcast was going to be doing. It’s a good thing I did.’
‘A police operation to covertly follow a Central Otago man came to an abrupt halt this week when the man found tracking devices planted in his car, ripped them out and listed them for sale on Trade Me. [..]
Williams said a cellphone sim card in one of the devices appeared to transmit messages to the mobile phone of Detective Sergeant Derek Shaw, of the Central Otago CIB.
Williams provided The Press with emails from Shaw saying: “If you have got something of ours it would be good to get it back. You can call me and I can come meet you.” [..]
Williams said he did not know why police were interested in him. He spent two years in jail “20 years ago” for selling marijuana to an undercover policeman, but had no convictions since then.
Williams said the devices were not hard to find and he described the operation as “a bumbling attempt” by “weirdos”.’
‘A man described in court as a “major alcoholic” has been banned from every pub in England and Wales for two years following an attack in a Devon bar.
Jon McGoff, 35, drank a litre of vodka before punching Dave Gover’s face and biting him, Exeter Crown Court heard. [..]
The prosecutor said; “When McGoff interrupted the landlady of the Kings Arms as she was serving drinks, Mr Gover went over to see what the problem was.”
He was then “punched in the face and knocked to the ground and McGoff took another swing at him then sunk his teeth into his arm causing five puncture wounds,” the prosecutor added.’
‘US scientists may have uncovered a genetic reason why lonely people may have poorer health.
The UCLA research, published in Genome Biology, found certain genes were more active in people who reported feelings of social isolation.
Many of the genes identified have links to the immune system and tissue inflammation – which may be damaging.
Other studies have shown clear links between lack of social support and illnesses such as heart disease.
The researchers said that quality, not quantity, of friendships, appeared to be important.’
