Strange news

Flemingovia

Flemingovia

TNPer
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The truth is often stranger (and funnier) than fiction. This thread is for all those bits of news that are just ... wrong.
 
It has been revealed that the Royal Navy has for years been conducting decompression experiments on goats because their skulls are the same shape as human skulls.

The experiment involved putting goats into a decompression chamber and seeing what happened when they decompressed VERY FAST.

The experiments stopped last year after protests. But the defence of the Ministry of Defence spokesman was priceless. He said the experiments were not cruel because (wait for it)....


.,,,


...

"The goats were not left alone in the decompression chamber; there were other goats with them."
 
When teenager Joanne Raine had her boyfriend's nickname "Roo" tattooed on her stomach it was supposed to be a sign of her undying love.

The 19-year-old from Darlington paid £80 for the Chinese artwork in 2004 and was delighted with the results.

That was until she showed it off in a Chinese takeaway and found out it actually spelled "supermarket."

The pair have now split up, but Miss Raine said she will keep the tattoo because she cannot afford a new one.

She said: "I did it because I wanted to show him how much I loved him and he had one done as well.

"I did not think about whether it meant forever. I'm just going to have to keep it as I can't afford to get another one done."
 
goat.jpeg


A Sudanese man has been forced to take a goat as his "wife", after he was caught having sex with the animal.

The goat's owner, Mr Alifi, said he surprised the man with his goat and took him to a council of elders.

They ordered the man, Mr Tombe, to pay a dowry of 15,000 Sudanese dinars ($50) to Mr Alifi.

"We have given him the goat, and as far as we know they are still together," Mr Alifi said.

Mr Alifi, of Hai Malakal in Upper Nile State, told the Juba Post newspaper that he heard a loud noise around midnight on 13 February and immediately rushed outside to find Mr Tombe with his goat.

"When I asked him: 'What are you doing there?', he fell off the back of the goat, so I captured and tied him up."

Mr Alifi then called elders to decide how to deal with the case.

"They said I should not take him to the police, but rather let him pay a dowry for my goat because he used it as his wife," Mr Alifi told the newspaper.
 
Tokyo marathon runner solves mystery of sore nipples
Tue Feb 19, 2008 1:43am EST

By Alastair Himmer

TOKYO (Reuters Life!) - Choking pollution and sapping heat will be the major concerns for the world's elite marathon runners at this year's Beijing Olympics.

But for millions of other marathon men and women, concerns are of an altogether more painful nature.

After his first assault at a marathon last year banker Brian Jones was shocked to discover the sharp pain in his chest was not cardiovascular, but bleeding nipples.

"When I took my shirt off at the end it was white -- apart from two particular parts of it," he told Reuters in an interview after completing his second Tokyo Marathon at the weekend.

"It looked like I had been shot by a sniper. This year I bought some Vaseline. It worked, although I had nasty chafing elsewhere."
 
These days thieves are becoming so sophisticated that their creativity spreads fear. Some of them have already designed special electronic scanners that can break car alarm codes; others have used cranes to drag away vehicles. But the most impressive theft took place in Moscow not very long ago. The crime was performed with such eloquence that even the victims themselves could not help expressing their admiration, Moskovskiy Komsomolets reports.

This is how the stealing was performed – one hot afternoon the Balashikh beach on the Moscow-River shore received special visitors: three extremely attractive girls in an SUV. They got out of the car, approached the water and… took off all their clothes. Then the hotties began splashing near the shore, laughing and capturing everyone’s attention.

On top of that the witnesses claimed that the girls even gave a minor lesbian show and started playfully washing each other, which was met with high approval and wild excitement by the male observers.

While these naked women with sexy bodies gathered around themselves a crowd of admirers, a group of thieves approached the fans’ abandoned cars. Within some fifteen minutes ten cars were robbed clean and four very expensive ones were stolen! As for the three nymphs, after completing their show they quickly got into their car and disappeared in some unknown direction.

Currently both the cars and the performers are being sought by the police. However, the investigators say that it would be very hard to prove the girls’ fault. After all, they were simply bathing…
 
Bet this never happens in Manhattan....

A cow and a bull were caught during an act of love in public, which they arranged in the Kaliningrad region of Russia. The two loving animals "did it" in an office supplies shop.

"A cow unexpectedly barged into the open doors of an office supplies shop in the town of Pionersky, in Russia's Kaliningrad enclave. A bull followed the cow and entered the shop too. Several seconds later the bull mounted the cow and the animals started making love right in front of the eyes of the flabbergasted salesgirl. The animals were passionate: several counter displays were crushed in the act of love," an eyewitness said. The woman ran out of the shop and even forgot to push the emergency button underneath the counter. Passers-by and security guards could not stop the animals from completing the reproduction process, Interfax reports. When they pushed the animals out of the shop, eight counters were found in ruins.
 
Man Utd Star Darren Ferguson Knocked Out Cold By Toilet Door

Mar 10 2008 Exclusive by Keith Mcleod

FOOTBALL star Darren Fletcher was left unconscious and bleeding when a toilet door fell on his head.

The Scotland midfielder was revived in the Old Trafford dressing room after he starred in Manchester United's 1-0 Champions League win over Lyon.

As boss Sir Alex Ferguson was being interviewed yards away, Darren, 24, was being treated by club medics.

He needed stitches in his gaping head gash.

A club insider said: "It happened half an hour after the end of the match. It looked very, very nasty.

"I saw blood pouring out and the medical staff had to treat him there and then.

"I know he got stitches. He looked pretty dazed and pretty shocked.

"You don't expect a door to just fall on you."

United reached the quarter finals with a 2-1 aggregate win.

The source said: "The dressing room was relaxed and happy after the match - it was a case of job done.

"It seems that there was something seriously wrong with the toilet door.

"I don't know if fittings had come loose or what - but when Darren went to open the door, it came away and clobbered him.

"It was a nasty wound but it could have been worse.

"The other players were looking about scratching their heads in disbelief but at least medical staff were right there on the spot."

Fletcher's mishap is the latest in a series of bizarre incidents around the Old Trafford dressing rooms.

In February 2003, David Beckham suffered a head graze after a flying boot hit him full on the face.

It is believed the boot was kicked by an angry Fergie.

In October 2004, there were reports of flying pizza following a bad-tempered match with Arsenal.

Other strange football injuries include Chelsea keeper Dave Beasant who hurt his foot after he let a salad cream bottle slip from his grasp.

Leeds star David Batty hurt his ankle after a toddler drove over it on a tricycle.

Midfielder Darren Barnard of Barnsley damaged knee ligaments when he slipped in a puddle of puppy urine.

And Dundee striker Derek Lyle had to miss Saturday's 2-0 Scottish Cup defeat by Queen of the South after he fell through a coffee table and cut his stomach.
 
Sheriff: Kansas Woman Sat on Boyfriend's Toilet for 2 Years; Didn't Want to Leave Bathroom

(AP) 07:27:49 PM (ET), Wednesday, March 12, 2008 (WICHITA, Kan.)
Authorities are considering charges in the bizarre case of a woman who sat on her boyfriend's toilet for two years _ so long that her body was stuck to the seat by the time the boyfriend finally called police.

Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said it appeared the 35-year-old Ness City woman's skin had grown around the seat. She initially refused emergency medical services but was finally convinced by responders and her boyfriend that she needed to be checked out at a hospital.

"We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital," Whipple said. "The hospital removed it."

Whipple said investigators planned to present their report Wednesday to the county attorney, who will determine whether any charges should be filed against the woman's 36-year-old boyfriend.

"She was not glued. She was not tied. She was just physically stuck by her body," Whipple said. "It is hard to imagine. ... I still have a hard time imagining it myself."

He told investigators he brought his girlfriend food and water, and asked her every day to come out of the bathroom.

"And her reply would be, `Maybe tomorrow,'" Whipple said. "According to him, she did not want to leave the bathroom."

The boyfriend called police on Feb. 27 to report that "there was something wrong with his girlfriend," Whipple said, adding that he never explained why it took him two years to call.

Police found the clothed woman sitting on the toilet, her sweat pants down to her mid-thigh. She was "somewhat disoriented," and her legs looked like they had atrophied, Whipple said.

"She said that she didn't need any help, that she was OK and did not want to leave," he said.
 
A Hawaiian hospital has restated its rules on pets after a man took a horse up in a lift in a bid to cheer up a sick relative with his favourite steed.

Man and beast were stopped by security guards only after reaching the third floor, after apparently passing through the lobby unchallenged.

The patient was allowed to see them but it turned out to be the wrong horse.

A hospital spokeswoman said there was a visitation policy for dogs and cats, but not for horses.

"We just hope people understand this is not a place for a horse," said Lani Yukimura at Wilcox Memorial Hospital.

"It's a very dangerous thing. Our greatest concern is patient care."

Security managed to remove the visitor and the horse with "just a few scuff marks", she added.

According to the Star Bulletin newspaper, the man had arrived after staff at the front desk went home, and called from the lobby to announce his arrival.

After he and the horse were escorted out, he put the animal in a trailer in the car park and left, the paper adds.
 
Fri Jun 27, 10:23 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - A meat company has been branded Dickensian after forcing its employees to clock-off every time they want to go to the toilet.

The union Unite has criticized the meat processor for "essentially stopping staff pay when they visit the toilet."

The company, based in Dumfriesshire, insists anyone wanting to be excused from the system has to provide medical evidence, the union added.

Unite, joint general secretary, Tony Woodley said in a statement on its website: "We believe these are Dickensian employment practices.

"It's outrageous that in 2008 workers should have to endure the indignity of clocking out for toilet breaks as well as other practices which we believe invade their privacy."

It has called on Tesco to force its supplier to end such a practice.

"Brown Brothers have refused to change its policy, but the union is demanding that Tesco the UK's largest retailer ensures decent employment standards within its supply chain," Woodley added.

"The workers at Brown Brothers are essentially having their pay stopped for going to the toilet. Tesco must do everything in its power to investigate these practices and put an end to them."

Nobody was immediately available for comment from Brown Brothers.

Media reports quoted the company as saying the policy was part of a special pay deal agreed with workers and unions to ensure production ran smoothly.

Workers have to clock out, take off their wellies, overalls and hairnets before leaving for the toilet.

Staff received extra money as part of the pay deal which was aimed at focusing toilet breaks at set times of the day, the BBC quoted the company as saying.

Tesco said in a statement: "We take the issue of labor standards very seriously and require all our suppliers to meet strict independent audited criteria."
 
Scientists: Nothing to fear from atom-smasher

By DOUGLAS BIRCH, Associated Press Writer Sat Jun 28, 3:08 PM ET

MEYRIN, Switzerland - The most powerful atom-smasher ever built could make some bizarre discoveries, such as invisible matter or extra dimensions in space, after it is switched on in August.
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But some critics fear the Large Hadron Collider could exceed physicists' wildest conjectures: Will it spawn a black hole that could swallow Earth? Or spit out particles that could turn the planet into a hot dead clump?

Ridiculous, say scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known by its French initials CERN — some of whom have been working for a generation on the $5.8 billion collider, or LHC.

"Obviously, the world will not end when the LHC switches on," said project leader Lyn Evans.

David Francis, a physicist on the collider's huge ATLAS particle detector, smiled when asked whether he worried about black holes and hypothetical killer particles known as strangelets.

"If I thought that this was going to happen, I would be well away from here," he said.

The collider basically consists of a ring of supercooled magnets 17 miles in circumference attached to huge barrel-shaped detectors. The ring, which straddles the French and Swiss border, is buried 330 feet underground.

The machine, which has been called the largest scientific experiment in history, isn't expected to begin test runs until August, and ramping up to full power could take months. But once it is working, it is expected to produce some startling findings.

Scientists plan to hunt for signs of the invisible "dark matter" and "dark energy" that make up more than 96 percent of the universe, and hope to glimpse the elusive Higgs boson, a so-far undiscovered particle thought to give matter its mass.

The collider could find evidence of extra dimensions, a boon for superstring theory, which holds that quarks, the particles that make up atoms, are infinitesimal vibrating strings.

The theory could resolve many of physics' unanswered questions, but requires about 10 dimensions — far more than the three spatial dimensions our senses experience.

The safety of the collider, which will generate energies seven times higher than its most powerful rival, at Fermilab near Chicago, has been debated for years. The physicist Martin Rees has estimated the chance of an accelerator producing a global catastrophe at one in 50 million — long odds, to be sure, but about the same as winning some lotteries.

By contrast, a CERN team this month issued a report concluding that there is "no conceivable danger" of a cataclysmic event. The report essentially confirmed the findings of a 2003 CERN safety report, and a panel of five prominent scientists not affiliated with CERN, including one Nobel laureate, endorsed its conclusions.

Critics of the LHC filed a lawsuit in a Hawaiian court in March seeking to block its startup, alleging that there was "a significant risk that ... operation of the Collider may have unintended consequences which could ultimately result in the destruction of our planet."

One of the plaintiffs, Walter L. Wagner, a physicist and lawyer, said Wednesday CERN's safety report, released June 20, "has several major flaws," and his views on the risks of using the particle accelerator had not changed.

On Tuesday, U.S. Justice Department lawyers representing the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation filed a motion to dismiss the case.

The two agencies have contributed $531 million to building the collider, and the NSF has agreed to pay $87 million of its annual operating costs. Hundreds of American scientists will participate in the research.

The lawyers called the plaintiffs' allegations "extraordinarily speculative," and said "there is no basis for any conceivable threat" from black holes or other objects the LHC might produce. A hearing on the motion is expected in late July or August.

In rebutting doomsday scenarios, CERN scientists point out that cosmic rays have been bombarding the earth, and triggering collisions similar to those planned for the collider, since the solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago.

And so far, Earth has survived.

"The LHC is only going to reproduce what nature does every second, what it has been doing for billions of years," said John Ellis, a British theoretical physicist at CERN.

Critics like Wagner have said the collisions caused by accelerators could be more hazardous than those of cosmic rays.

Both may produce micro black holes, subatomic versions of cosmic black holes — collapsed stars whose gravity fields are so powerful that they can suck in planets and other stars.

But micro black holes produced by cosmic ray collisions would likely be traveling so fast they would pass harmlessly through the earth.

Micro black holes produced by a collider, the skeptics theorize, would move more slowly and might be trapped inside the earth's gravitational field — and eventually threaten the planet.

Ellis said doomsayers assume that the collider will create micro black holes in the first place, which he called unlikely. And even if they appeared, he said, they would instantly evaporate, as predicted by the British physicist Stephen Hawking.

As for strangelets, CERN scientists point out that they have never been proven to exist. They said that even if these particles formed inside the Collider they would quickly break down.

When the LHC is finally at full power, two beams of protons will race around the huge ring 11,000 times a second in opposite directions. They will travel in two tubes about the width of fire hoses, speeding through a vacuum that is colder and emptier than outer space.

Their trajectory will be curved by supercooled magnets — to guide the beams around the rings and prevent the packets of protons from cutting through the surrounding magnets like a blowtorch.

The paths of these beams will cross, and a few of the protons in them will collide, at a series of cylindrical detectors along the ring. The two largest detectors are essentially huge digital cameras, each weighing thousands of tons, capable of taking millions of snapshots a second.

Each year the detectors will generate 15 petabytes of data, the equivalent of a stack of CDs 12 miles tall. The data will require a high speed global network of computers for analysis.

Wagner and others filed a lawsuit to halt operation of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, or RHIC, at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York state in 1999. The courts dismissed the suit.

The leafy campus of CERN, a short drive from the shores of Lake Geneva, hardly seems like ground zero for doomsday. And locals don't seem overly concerned. Thousands attended an open house here this spring.

"There is a huge army of scientists who know what they are talking about and are sleeping quite soundly as far as concerns the LHC," said project leader Evans.
 
Thu Jul 24, 5:41 AM ET

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - A family court judge in New Zealand has had enough with parents giving their children bizarre names here, and did something about it.

Just ask Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii. He had her renamed.

Judge Rob Murfitt made the 9-year-old girl a ward of the court so that her name could be changed, he said in a ruling made public Thursday. The girl was involved in a custody battle, he said.

The new name was not made public to protect the girl's privacy.

"The court is profoundly concerned about the very poor judgment which this child's parents have shown in choosing this name," he wrote. "It makes a fool of the child and sets her up with a social disability and handicap, unnecessarily."

The girl had been so embarrassed at the name that she had never told her closest friends what it was. She told people to call her "K" instead, the girl's lawyer, Colleen MacLeod, told the court.

In his ruling, Murfitt cited a list of the unfortunate names.

Registration officials blocked some names, including Fish and Chips, Yeah Detroit, Keenan Got Lucy and Sex Fruit, he said. But others were allowed, including Number 16 Bus Shelter "and tragically, Violence," he said.

New Zealand law does not allow names that would cause offense to a reasonable person, among other conditions, said Brian Clarke, the registrar general of Births, Deaths and Marriages.

Clarke said officials usually talked to parents who proposed unusual names to convince them about the potential for embarrassment.
Click to expand...

One of worst names I ever heard was bestowed by a not-too-well-liked middle school English teacher named Mrs. Tissue. She named her son Scott. If that wasn't bad enough, she would refer to him as "My little Scotty."
 
US man charged for shooting mower


A 56-year-old man from the Midwestern US state of Wisconsin has been arrested after shooting his lawn mower in his garden because it would not start.

Keith Walendowski was charged by police in Milwaukee with disorderly conduct and possession of a sawn-off shotgun.

He could face a fine of up to $11,000 and a maximum prison sentence of six-and-a-half years if convicted.

Police officers said Mr Walendowski had told them: "It's my lawn mower and my yard, so I can shoot it if I want."

Police found the shotgun, a handgun and a stungun, as well as ammunition, when they detained Mr Walendowski in the basement of his house.

Witnesses told police that he appeared to have been drinking.

The lawn mower was found sitting outside Mr Walendowski's house, which he shares with his mother, with the rubbish on Friday.

A local retailer said that Mr Walendowski might now have difficulty getting his lawn mower repaired.

"Anything not factory recommended would void the warranty," said Dick Wagner, of Wagner's Garden Mart in Milwaukee.
 
DALLAS - A robber rolled into a Dallas convenience store came armed with a bat and a knife. He left with a lot of condoms and an energy drink.
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Dallas police Cpl. Kevin Janse said Friday that a man in a wheelchair entered a Dallas 7-Eleven Wednesday afternoon, rolled straight toward the cash register and beat it with a baseball bat until it opened.

But he didn't grab any cash. Instead, police say he stole 10 boxes of condoms and an energy drink before making his getaway Wednesday afternoon.

Janse says the suspect may have been homeless and was likely intoxicated at the time of the robbery.
 
Online divorcee jailed after killing virtual hubby

By MARI YAMAGUCHI, Associated Press

TOKYO: A 43-year-old Japanese woman whose sudden divorce in a virtual game world made her so angry that she killed her online husband's digital persona has been arrested on suspicion of hacking, police said Thursday.

The woman, who is jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his identification and password to log onto popular interactive game "Maple Story" to carry out the virtual murder in mid-May, a police official in northern Sapporo said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.

"I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry," the official quoted her as telling investigators and admitting the allegations.

The woman had not plotted any revenge in the real world, the official said.

She has not yet been formally charged, but if convicted could face a prison term of up to five years or a fine up to $5,000.

Players in "Maple Story" raise and manipulate digital images called "avatars" that represent themselves, while engaging in relationships, social activities and fighting against monsters and other obstacles.

The woman used login information she got from the 33-year-old office worker when their characters were happily married, and killed the character. The man complained to police when he discovered that his beloved online avatar was dead.

:rofl:
 
I read that this morning. People are ridiculous.

Prompted me to log in to MapleStory to see if my account was still alive, which, surprisingly enough after years of inactivity, it still is.
 
So who's more ridiculous, the woman that deletes the guy's account for suddenly "divorcing" her, or the guy that calls the real police upon discovering his account was deleted?
 
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