moonbuggy

Poor fellow.

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Garage doors do not aid balance.

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‘A Polish worker has come up with an unusual excuse after being caught in the act with a vacuum cleaner.

The building contractor claimed he was cleaning his underpants with Henry Hoover when he was found naked and on his knees in a hospital’s staff canteen.

A stunned security guard stumbled onto the man in the middle of a compromising act with the cleaner, which has a large smiley face painted on its front and a hose protruding from its “nose”. [..]

The security guard, suitably horrified, told the man to “clean himself and the hoover” before asking him to leave and informing his bosses.

When later questioned by his employers, the man said he was vacuuming his underpants, which was “a common practice in Poland”. He has since been fired.’

‘Oh, shit.’

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Jumping from one roof to another.. What could go wrong? 🙂

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‘A British teacher is facing up to six months in jail after being convicted of defamation for comments she made in exposing pedophiles at a children’s charity in Ethiopia 10 years ago.

Jill Campbell and her husband Gary Campbell compiled evidence in 1999 that helped convict the director of an Ethiopian orphanage run by the Swiss charity Terre Des Hommes-Lausanne. The charity acknowledged the abuse took place, but brought a successful defamation case against the Campbells for their claims that the charity’s senior staff covered up the scandal.

Jill Campbell will be sentenced Friday.

“We asked them to stop defaming us and they said no,” said Colin Tucker, child protection manager for Terre Des Hommes in Switzerland. “Then the court asked them to stop defaming us and she said no again.”

The Campbells, who have lived in Ethiopia for more than a decade, have drawn wide support in Ethiopia. A group formed to support them, Stop Institutional Pedophilia in Ethiopia, said the charity is “forcing Gary and Jill to apologize for blowing the whistle.”‘

‘man was killed Sunday when he accidentally stabbed himself while cooking.

Chief Deputy Coroner Charlie Boseman said that Michael Downing, 32, was cooking food for himself and his 8- and 10-year-old sons on Sunday afternoon while his fiance was at work.

Downing burned himself, jerked his hand away and accidentally stabbed himself with a steak knife that he was holding in his hand, Boseman said.

Downing was able to call 911 and explained what had happened. Downing’s 10-year-old son got on the phone with the dispatcher and followed instructions to try to save his father. [..]

Boseman said that the knife had pierced Downing’s heart, causing his death. He said that the knife went between Downing’s ribs, 2 to 3 inches into his chest.’

‘You know you don’t have to do this, right?’

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‘Teenager Ashleigh Morris can’t go swimming, soak in a hot bath or enjoy a shower after a stressful day’s work – she’s allergic to water.

Even sweating brings the 19-year-old out in a painful rash.

Ashleigh, from Melbourne, Australia, is allergic to water of any temperature, a condition she’s lived with since she was 14.

She suffers from an extremely rare skin disorder called Aquagenic Urticaria – so unusual that only a handful of cases are documented worldwide.

When Ashleigh gets wet her body explodes in sore, itchy red lumps that take about two hours to ease.

She has to wash. But showering is a painful experience and she can only do it for a minute at a time.’

‘Prozac, the bestselling antidepressant taken by 40 million people worldwide, does not work and nor do similar drugs in the same class, according to a major review released today.

The study examined all available data on the drugs, including results from clinical trials that the manufacturers chose not to publish at the time. The trials compared the effect on patients taking the drugs with those given a placebo or sugar pill.

When all the data was pulled together, it appeared that patients had improved – but those on placebo improved just as much as those on the drugs.’

‘No person in their right mind aspires to be taken hostage, but now there’s even more reason to avoid the experience. According to a court ruling reached on Thursday in Berlin, Germans who are taken hostage abroad can now be required to cover the costs incurred by their release.

The ruling of the Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court is based on the case of Reinhilt Weigel. On Sept. 12, 2003, the Bremen physiotherapist, together with six other tourists, was kidnapped by leftist rebels while visiting the ruined ancient city of Ciudad Perdida in northern Colombia.

After 10 weeks in captivity, she and Spanish fellow hostage Huegun Etxeberria were rescued by helicopter from a jungle hide-out. But there was an unexpected postscript to the story two months after Weigel’s return home, when the German Foreign Ministry asked her to pay €12,640 ($18,735) for the helicopter flight.’

‘For most of us, making a cup of tea is one of life’s simpler tasks.

For Mavis Price, however, it is fraught with danger – because she can blow up kettles just by touching them.

The 60- year- old grandmother seems to have a freakishly high level of static electricity coursing through her body.

She estimates she has destroyed 15 kettles in the last few years. Housework has also become a problem, with 20 irons and ten vacuum cleaners biting the dust after falling foul of her apparently supercharged touch.

And her friends and family are often left with their hair standing on end after touching her.’

‘Employers can fire workers who use medical marijuana even if it was legally recommended by a doctor, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday, dealing the state another setback in its standoff with federal law enforcement.

The high court upheld a small Sacramento telecommunications company’s firing of a man who flunked a company-ordered drug test. Gary Ross held a medical marijuana card authorizing him to use the drug to treat a back injury sustained while serving in the Air Force.

The company, Ragingwire Inc., argued that it rightfully fired Ross because all marijuana use is illegal under federal law, which does not recognize the medical marijuana laws in California and 11 other states.

The justices upheld that argument in a 5-2 decision.’

‘A newborn baby has survived delivery despite its heart being outside the chest cavity.

The infant’s heart was born with its most vital organ exposed and is being treated in the intensive care unit of Shenzhen Children’s Hospital in China’s Guangdong Province.

The parents knew about the condition before the baby was born, but chose not to abort it.

The unusual and dangerous development was caused by a rare disease – less than five babies in one million are struck by it. The illness affects the child’s chest and abdomen.

Less than 200 cases have been recorded and it is the first modern case in China.

Most babies die from the disease before birth.

Doctors are expected to operate to repair the malformation when the infant is strong enough.’

A cunning and amusing way to diffuse a tense situation.

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”’The trouble with the monkeys at Silver Springs,” says Linda Wolfe, professor of anthropology at the University of Florida, ”is that they don’t know they are in Florida. They think they’re somewhere in Southern Asia and they go looking for other monkeys.”

Instinct has led members of the rhesus monkey colony living in a semiwild state at the Silver Springs tourist attraction into brushes with the law that have turned into a life and death struggle. [..]

The problem began when agitated young male monkeys, rejected as suitors by females, set out to find companions elsewhere.

But very few rhesus monkeys live in Florida, which is not their natural habitat, and the male monkeys’ searches became long, lonely forays into the surrounding countryside.

In recent years, stray monkeys have been found in the streets and parks of the nearby city of Ocala foraging in garbage cans, according to investigators for the game commission, which regulates the 300 wildlife exhibits in the state. [..]

”We have reports of monkeys turning up 120 miles away from Silver Springs and we have documented 17 known attacks,” said Capt. Kyle Hill, chief inspector for the commission.’

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Not the best place in the house for dancing.. 🙂

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‘The Gilbert Highland High community is outraged that a diorama they helped build has been destroyed after Texas museum officials said it was historically inaccurate.

The 10- by 5-foot diorama of the Battle at Palmetto Ranch, the last land battle of the Civil War, was shipped in August to the Texas Military Forces Museum at Camp Mabry in Austin to be on display along with four other dioramas built by Gilbert students. [..]

Highland history teacher Glen Frakes is especially outraged because more than 7,000 hours were put into the project by his students and other volunteers.

He supervised the after-school project, which involved more than 200 of his students. They helped build, paint and complete the diorama in a little more than three years. [..]

The diorama cost about $23,000, with labor worth between $60,000 and $130,000, Frakes said. [..]

“It looked like someone took their arm and back-swapped the whole thing,” Savoy said. “A master’s thesis doesn’t give you the right to destroy a diorama.”‘

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‘A restaurant owner has apologised after diners had their very own F word experience – without Gordon Ramsay.

Ten friends found the abusive and sexually-explicit message on their bill at Joe Delucci’s Italian restaurant in Bird Street, Lichfield, Staffordshire.

Diner Clare Watkin said she thought it was written after they complained about poor service.

The party from Walsall had gone to the restaurant on Friday. Owner Nigel Langsdon has begun an investigation.

Ms Watkin said: “I couldn’t believe it. The bill read ‘fish cakes’, which one of us had for a starter, and it was written right above it – absolutely disgusting language.’

‘A Central Florida woman whose 17-year-old daughter was killed in a murder-suicide apparently committed by her ex-boyfriend said the teen was told by police to stop calling for help or she’d be arrested.

Police said Clay Coffner shot his estranged girlfriend, Natasha Hall, in the head outside her DeLand home Friday before turning the gun on himself.

Hall’s mother, Sherry, said her daughter was concerned about Coffner and informed police.

In fact, Hall said her daughter called police so much that on Jan. 15 they threatened her.

“The police officer said if you call us one more time on him, I’m going to arrest you both,” Sherry Hall said. “So, the day she died, she knew she couldn’t talk to police. So, she handled it herself.”‘

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‘The Queensland government says there is no reason to change the law after a court found a teacher could legally slap a student in the face.

An assault charge against a Gold Coast high school teacher who admitted slapping a year eight student in class was thrown out yesterday.

The magistrate accepted the teacher was practising “domestic discipline” – a law that allows a teacher to use reasonable force “by way of correction, discipline, management or control”.

Southport Magistrates Court was told Upper Coomera State College teacher Justin Ransfield, 37, slapped Aidan Pascoe, 14, in the classroom in December 2006.

The court heard Ransfield and the student clashed physically after the boy disobeyed a direction to start work.’

That’s some good aiming.

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‘A car was dropped onto the roof of a building in an industrial park Sunday night, crashing through the ceiling and heavily damaging one business.

A forklift was used to hoist the 1966 Chevy Nova up and onto the roof of the Rancho Vista Business Park on Specialty Drive near Activity Drive about 7:30 p.m., said Sheriff’s Sgt. Jeff Maxin.

The car crashed into a business that specializes in the installation and repair of sliding glass doors and windows; it was heavily damaged, Maxin said.

It appears that both the heavy machinery as well as the car were parked somewhere near the site, Maxin said. The car was being repaired or refurbished, he said.

Witnesses said they saw a man running from the site.’

‘It is the biggest food recall in US history. About 65 million kilograms of beef products from a Californian slaughterhouse have been recalled because of concerns about the plant’s production line.

Some animals were unable to stand and that has prompted concerns about their ability to be tested for infections like mad cow’s disease.

The plant is now under investigation and two of its employees have been charged with animal cruelty.

Everything from sirloin to taco meat has been recalled, as have some of the more curious by-products of the beef industry such as salivary glands and six gallon containers of beef bile.’

A couple of decent attempts to injure the woman.. Hooray for machines on the rampage. 🙂

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‘Grover Cleveland High School Principal Bob Marks has his limits.

On Thursday, it was the labeled diagram of a vagina splashed across the front page of the student newspaper’s Valentine’s Day issue.

Flustered teachers rushed to confiscate the publication, but with some copies already in circulation and the Reseda campus in an uproar, it quickly became a hot read for the school’s roughly 3,700 students.

And some of the contraband issues made their way home, getting a quick reaction from parents.

“My phone’s been ringing off the hook,” Marks said. Only one parent asked why the paper was taken away; the others called to say they were offended, he said.

The drawing in question ran under the hot-pink headline “Have a happy Vagina Day!” and the four-page edition included stories titled “Ending shame for nature’s gift” and “Rejected!!!!!!!”‘

‘As a former child prodigy blessed with chiselled good looks, they called him the David Beckham of the classical violin. Now he is more likely to be known as the lad with the broken Strad.

David Garrett, 26, one of the nation’s foremost young concert performers, had an accident that every world-class musician must dread: at the end of a concert at the Barbican he tripped and landed on his violin.

The instrument is a 290-year-old Stradivarius, so rare that it would be almost impossible to estimate its value. Certainly there are people who would have gladly paid hundreds of thousands of pounds for it, before its glamorous owner did a turn as Mr Bean.

Now he has a badly damaged violin that will be out of use for at least eight months, and may never sound the same again. He is also facing a £60,000 repair bill.’