moonbuggy

‘The father of a teenaged girl faces attempted murder charges for allegedly slamming his van into six people, including his daughter, outside a Scarborough, Ont., high school on Friday.

The six were sitting in a park near Stephen Leacock Collegiate Institute, near Birchmount Road and Sheppard Avenue when a van came speeding towards them, said police.

The daughter, her boyfriend and a friend of the couple were taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Witnesses allege the father was angry over the daughter’s relationship with her boyfriend.

“This was not an unintentional collision,” said Sgt. James Cassells of traffic services with Toronto police.’

‘Bus drivers are to be issued with DNA kits so that passengers who spit on them can be traced by police.

The “spit kits” are already supplied at all 275 Tube stations and are expected to be rolled out this summer across London’s 7,000-strong bus fleet.

It is the latest initiative against anti-social behaviour on buses and has coincided with the Mayor’s introduction of free bus travel for under-16s.

The DNA kits will allow drivers to take swabs of saliva that can be passed to the police and checked against criminal records. Transport for London says that about seven out of 10 samples provides a match.’

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‘The Bush administration said Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease.

The Agriculture Department tests fewer than 1 percent of slaughtered cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. A beef producer in the western state of Kansas, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, wants to test all of its cows.

Larger meat companies feared that move because, if Creekstone should test its meat and advertised it as safe, they might have to perform the expensive tests on their larger herds as well.

The Agriculture Department regulates the test and argued that widespread testing could lead to a false positive that would harm the meat industry.’

‘Canadian encryption vendor Certicom yesterday filed a wide-ranging lawsuit against Sony, claiming that many of the products offered by the electronics giant infringe on two Certicom patents. This might sound like business as usual until you realize what’s being targeted: AACS and (by extension) the PlayStation 3.

Certicom has done extensive work in elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), and the patents in question build on this work. The patents have already been licensed by groups like the US National Security Agency, which paid $25 million back in 2003 for the right to use 26 Certicom patents, including the two in the Sony case. Now, Certicom wants Sony to pay up, claiming that encryption present in several key Sony technologies violates Certicom patents on “Strengthened public key protocol” and “Digital signatures on a Smartcard.”

The biggest charge is that the encryption in AACS itself is infringing. The practical implications of this claim are huge; AACS is included in Sony’s Blu-ray players, PlayStation 3, and Blu-ray and PS3 discs. Certicom says Sony needs to take out a license for all of these uses.’

‘Two people police say were hoping to avoid drinking and driving chose instead to head home on horseback, and ended up under arrest anyway.

Culpeper police officers Lonnie Myers and Tim Chilton heard a disturbance last Thursday around midnight and found Culpeper residents Eric Kyff and Lauren Allen arguing, Sgt. Scott Jenkins said.

Kyff and Allen, who appeared to be intoxicated, wanted to “travel home several miles by horseback to avoid drinking and driving,” Jenkins said. [..]

The two were charged with public intoxication and taken to the county jail. The horses were held across the street in front of the police department.’

‘Researchers are seeking to formally classify a new family of abnormal sexual behaviours or “sexsomnias” that occur while people are asleep.

Ranging from masturbation to fondling to unconscious rape, sleep-related sexual abnormalities need to be properly categorized and labelled so physicians will recognize them when they crop up, according to a paper published today in the journal SLEEP.

“We wanted to call attention to how sexuality looms throughout all the known disorders of sleep,” says Dr. Carlos Schenck, a University of Minnesota psychiatrist and the paper’s lead author.’

This guy gets caught sleeping with his girlfriends best friend by that Cheaters TV show. He keeps telling the TV people to get out of his house, but they won’t leave.

So, it’s paintball time. :)

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‘A 43-year-old German man was taken to hospital in critical condition after he fell off a second storey balcony during a spitting contest with his 12-year-old son, police said Friday.

A spokesman for the police in the eastern town of Cottbus said the man in Forst had apparently lost his balance after thrusting too far forward in his attempt to outspit his son.

He tumbled over the ledge and landed on a balcony of the ground floor apartment, police said. He was taken to hospital in a rescue helicopter.’

‘There are shocking allegations against a Palm Bay city supervisor. A former employee said she was constantly flashing and using sexually explicit language in front of workers. He said, when he complained, he was fired and is now suing.

It’s unusual for a man to file a sexual harassment suit against a female. Usually, it’s the other way around. But the man who used to work with her said his boss was so vulgar and inappropriate, he had to take action

Boxes are filled with evidence backing Tom Rolfe’s sexual harassment case against the city of Palm Bay. He worked for the city as a meter reader for four years and said he was fired when he complained about his supervisor, Donna Elliot.

“She just dropped her pants, bent over and showed everybody everything,” Rolfe said.’

‘A Russian governor has promised an SUV, a TV or a fridge to every woman in his region who gives birth on upcoming Constitution Day in an attempt to help beat a demographic crisis, his office said on Thursday.

The governor of the southern Ulyanovsk region even suggested giving people time off work nine months before the June 12 celebration to boost their chances, although he was not being entirely serious, his spokesperson said. [..]

Existing mothers who give birth to another child on June 12 will be rewarded with a Patriot sports utility vehicle from local UAZ factory she said.’

‘A German couple had to call out the fire brigade after tying each other up in chains – and then losing the key to the padlock.

Jochen Ranstett, 56 and his wife Maria, from the town of Weiden, dressed up in leathers and chained each other to their beds, but lost the key during the romp.

After hours of trying to free themselves they finally gave up and called for help on Jochen’s mobile phone.

He said: “It was so embarrassing. We just wanted to try something a bit different and we ended up with this.

“I even had to be taken to hospital because my wrists had swollen so much from trying to get out of the handcuffs.”‘

It’s relatively obvious. :)

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‘An Indian court has ruled against a group of female flight attendants who were grounded from the national airline for being overweight.

The court said that state-owned Indian Airlines had the right to take the step in the interest of flight safety and in the face of growing competition.

The flight attendants had argued that the move was demeaning.

The airline began a system of measuring air hostesses based on their height and weight last year.

The Delhi High Court has ruled in favour of the airline, saying that with aircraft flying at higher altitudes, the safety of the passengers depended on the crew’s ability to perform.’

‘China’s heritage bureau has launched a probe into Chinese mining companies alleged to have brought down part of the Great Wall to allow their trucks to avoid paying road tolls, state media reported on Thursday.

Coal mining companies operating near Hujiayao village, on the border between the northern province of Shanxi and Inner Mongolia, had also taken soil from parts of the Ming-era (1368-1644) wall to build houses and piled “small mountains” of coal against it, Xinhua news agency reported, citing a local newspaper.

“Big trucks carrying coal had even opened a big gap in the Great Wall to make a coal shipping thoroughfare,” the paper said.’

‘A Dutch reality television show in which a supposedly dying woman had to pick one of three contestants to whom she would donate a kidney was revealed as an elaborate hoax on Friday.

The show, which the broadcaster had said aimed to focus attention on a shortage of donor organs in the Netherlands, was condemned by Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende before broadcast Friday night and sparked controversy worldwide.

Identified only as “Lisa,” the 37-year-old woman who had been said to be suffering from a brain tumor was to base her selection on the person’s history and conversations with the candidates’ families and friends.

In the last minutes of the program, she was revealed as a healthy actress and producers stunned viewers by saying “The Big Donorshow” was a hoax.

The contestants were also part of the deception, although all three are genuine kidney patients.’

Followup to Reality show prize: a kidney.

‘Before he became known as “Monster Pig,” the 1,051-pound hog shot in Delta was known by another name.

Fred.

Rhonda and Phil Blissitt told The Anniston Star on Thursday evening that, on April 29, four days before the hog was killed, Fred was one of many livestock on their farm.

Late Thursday evening, their claims were confirmed by Andy Howell, Game Warden for the Alabama Department of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries.

“I didn’t want to stir up anything,” Rhonda Blissitt said. “I just wanted the truth to be told. That wasn’t a wild pig.”

Added Phil Blissitt:

“If it went down in the record book, it would be deceiving, and we’d know that for the rest of our lives.”‘

Followup to Boy Bags Wild Hog Bigger Than ‘Hogzilla’.

Here’s a funny complaint letter someone sent regarding embedded images in HTML.

The tattoos on the face are a bit crazy. Others are kinda amusing. For example:

‘The United States and Russia have agreed on a plan to accelerate installation of radiation detection devices at 350 Russian border crossings so the system to prevent nuclear smuggling is fully operational by 2011, U.S. officials said on Friday.

“This announcement is a major cooperative step in counter-proliferation work in Russia,” which contains a major portion of the world’s nuclear material, said Will Tobey, deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Administration, a part of the U.S. Energy Department.

“It will help us prevent smuggling into and out of the region,” he told Reuters in an interview.

Russia identified more than 480 cases of illicit trafficking of nuclear and radioactive material in 2006. While U.S. officials said these cases were not believed to involve weapons-grade nuclear material, the number of cases underscores the scope of the problem.’

Leaping through the air solves a lot of problems.

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‘A man has been shot dead by a security guard for singing out of tune in a Philippine karaoke bar.

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.

When Mr Baligula ignored his comments and continued singing, Ortega pulled out his revolver and shot him in the chest.

Senior Superintendent Felipe Rojas said Mr Baligula died instantly. [..]

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.’

‘Researchers may have figured out what makes la vita so dolce in Rome. A report from Italy’s National Research Council released Thursday found that there are traces of cocaine and cannabis in the air of the Eternal City.

The institute made the discovery during a study of toxic substances in the air of Rome, Taranto, in the heel of boot-shaped Italy, as well as in Algiers. The results found that in Rome, there were traces of cocaine and cannabis – as well as nicotine, caffeine and benzopirene, which is commonly released in cigarette smoke and auto emissions.

“The highest concentrations of cocaine were found in the center of Rome and especially in the area of the University of La Sapienza,” said Dr. Angelo Cecinato, who led the investigation.’

‘President George W. Bush would like to see a lengthy U.S. troop presence in Iraq like the one in South Korea to provide stability but not in a frontline combat role, the White House said on Wednesday.

The United States has had thousands of U.S. troops in South Korea to guard against a North Korean invasion for 50 years.

Democrats in control of the U.S. Congress have been pressing Bush to agree to a timetable for pulling troops from Iraq, an idea firmly opposed by the president.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Bush would like to see a U.S. role in Iraq ultimately similar to that in South Korea in which “you get to a point in the future where you want it to be a purely support model.”‘

‘One year on, the torrent of mud gushing out of a drilling site on Java island shows no signs of abating.

Toll roads, railway tracks and factories have been submerged and 15,000 people have fled from their homes since May last year when mud began flowing from a “mud volcano” following an oil-drilling accident in Sidoarjo, an industrial suburb near provincial capital Surabaya.

The mud volcano has put an area four times the size of Monaco under hot mud.

An embankment has been built in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the mudflow.’

Followup to Indonesia plans new tactic to curb massive mud flow.

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‘Nearly half of all men are unhappy with the size of their willies — for no good reason, a study claims.

Researchers say there is no need to worry as 85 per cent of women ARE satisfied with their partner’s penis proportions.

The study found girth matters more than length to 90 per cent of women. The 60-year worldwide research — led by Dr Kevan Wylie of the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield — analysed 12,000 willies and quizzed 50,000 adults.

The average erect penis was 5.5ins to 6.2ins long (14cm-16cm) and 4.7ins to 5.1ins (12cm-13cm) in girth.’

‘In the most conspicuous sign yet of India’s unprecedented prosperity, the country’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, is building a new home in the financial hub of Mumbai: a 60-storey palace with helipad, health club and six floors of car parking.

The building, named Antilla after a mythical island, will have a total floor area greater than Versailles and be home for Mr Ambani, his mother, wife, three children and 600 full-time staff.

Draped in hanging gardens, the building will have a floor for a home theatre, a glass-fronted apartment for guests, and a two-storey health club. As the ceilings are three times as high as a normal building’s, the 173m (570ft) tower will only have 27 floors.’

‘Director Mike Figgis spent longer at LAX airport than intended. He’d arrived in Los Angeles, along with half the acting and directing world, for what is known as ‘pilot season’, when the big studios try out new scripts, directors and actors in a two-week frenzy of auditions and career make-or-breaks. When Figgis was being grilled by airport immigration, he was asked the purpose of his visit. Unthinking and tired after a long flight, Mike replied: ‘I’m here to shoot a pilot.’ After five hours in an interrogation cell (yes, really), he finally made it into town.’