Weird News

[TheDaVinciChode]

Who wants to bet that the "less than lethal munition" was one of those bean-bag shotgun shells, shot from behind him, thus causing his fatal fall?

[classicman]

lol - that or a tazer.

[TheDaVinciChode]

Originally Posted by classicman

lol - that or a tazer.

Nah. Canadian Police have cornered the market of taser misuse.

[Crimson Ghost]

Technically, the "less than lethal munition" didn't kill him.

The sudden stop at the bottom of the cliff did.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Not, I think, all that high a reading on the weirdmeter -- but curious enough: Vicar Calls Out Parish for Archery Practice.

Nock, draw, loose!

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

Okay, if you stipulate all three must be male, that narrows it down, but if you allow two children per generation that puts is back up. And in older generations the average number was higher.

My high school mate shares his birthday with his daughter.

I reckon Pie knows this already, but ... how many people do you think you would need in a group to give a 50% or more chance that two people share a birthday?

I heard of this as a "bar bet" you win most of the time (i.e., >=50% chance of winning) with a random group of 23 people.

[classicman]

'I'm here to behead Bin Laden'

An American armed with a pistol, a dagger and a 40-inch sword claimed he was on a solo mission to kill Osama Bin Laden after being arrested in Pakistan.

Gary Faulkner, 52, told intelligence officers he intended to track down the fugitive Al Qaeda leader and decapitate him.

The Californian builder was picked up in a forest in the northern Chitral region late on Sunday.

A police source said he shouted 'Don't come closer to me or I'll open fire,' before finally surrendering his weapon.

When he was searched, police found he was also carrying night vision goggles, a book containing Christian verse and teachings and kidney medicine.

'We initially laughed when he told us that he wanted to kill Osama bin Laden,' Officer Mumtaz Ahmad Khan said.

But he added that, when officers seized the pistol, the 40in sword and night vision equipment, 'our suspicion grew'.

Mr Khan said police had asked Faulkner why he believed he had a chance of tracing Bin Laden.

'He said "God is with me, and I am confident I will be successful in killing him,"' he added.

'(Faulkner) says he is a kidney patient,' Mr Khan added. 'He was also carrying medicines for kidney and blood pressure treatment.

'He claimed he had suffered personal losses in the terror attacks of September 11.'

Self-styled Rambo Faulkner had entered Chitral as a tourist on June 3 and was assigned a police minder, a common practice for foreigners visiting remote parts of Pakistan.

But he gave him the slip and vanished into a densely wooded area. Police launched a hunt for him, finally locating him after a 10 hour search.

[Spexxvet]

Good for him. It's about time a christian extremist terrorist did to them what they've been doing to us. When is someone like Bill Gates going to finance the dirty bombing of Muhammed's tomb?

[classicman]

Maybe this should go in the WTF thread.

Woman died after being given smoker's lungs

The Government's "transplant tsar" insisted today that organ transplants were carried out on the basis of whether they would work - after it emerged that a cystic fibrosis sufferer died after receiving the lungs of a long-term smoker.

Chris Rudge, national clinical director for transplantation, said smoking was not the "issue" in the case of cystic fibrosis sufferer Lyndsey Scott, whose family have lodged a complaint after she received a double lung transplant from a 30-year smoker.

The 28-year-old, from Wigan, underwent the double transplant at Wythenshawe Hospital in Manchester in January last year and died in the July from pneumonia.

Her family have said they were not told that the donor smoked - and she would have been "horrified" to discover the organs were from a smoker of 30 years.

Mr Rudge, who said he did not know the "full details" of the case, and was speaking more generally, insisted that it mattered "far more" if lungs were working properly than if they were from a smoker.

"Lungs from a smoker can be working perfectly normally and be perfectly suitable for transplantation lungs from a non-smoker can not be working and not be suitable for transplantation," he told BBC Breakfast.

"Surgeons have to make decisions - about four out of every five lungs that become available for transplantation are not used because they are not working well enough.

"It is nothing to do with the history of the donor, it is whether the organ is working or not, whether it is going to produce a successful transplant or not, and, in this particular case, smoking isn't the issue."

more
I would have never imagined that a smokers lungs, nor a drinkers liver would be accepted for transplant.

[Rhianne]

Isn't it interesting that we find an armed Westerner, a Christian, with what would appear to be mental difficulties stalking his way through Pakistan amusing. I wonder how we would feel if a Muslim, maybe a Pakistani, with a similar mind set and as well equipped as Gary Faulkner was creeping around our streets looking for Mr. Obama or even Sylvester Stallone?

[Trilby]

Who's "we" -??

[Rhianne]

Convenient shorthand, nothing more.

The item was posted in an a thread titled, "Weird News".

[classicman]

Not amusing - WEIRD. Very weird.

You don't find it weird that an American went to one of the most rural and desolate parts of Pakistan armed with a sword to find and kill bin Laden alone?

[ZenGum]

Got a double today:

Act of God destroys Jesus statue


A giant statue of Jesus Christ has been destroyed by lightning in the US state of Ohio.

The 19-metre-high sculpture on a highway outside Cincinnati caught fire and burnt to the ground after being struck during a thunderstorm.

Insurance companies described the incident as an act of God.

- BBC

Puppy-hurling student escapes on bulldozer

A German student created a major traffic jam in Bavaria after making a rude gesture at a group of Hell's Angels motorcycle gang members, hurling a puppy at them and then escaping on a stolen bulldozer.

Police said that after making his getaway from the Hell's Angels club, the 26-year-old dumped the bulldozer, causing a five-kilometre traffic jam near the southern town of Allershausen.

He then fled to his home nearby where he was apprehended by the police.

"What motivated him to throw a puppy at the Hell's Angels is currently unclear," said a spokesman for local police, adding that the student had lately been suffering from depression.

The puppy was now in safe hands, the spokesman added.

- Reuters

[squirell nutkin]

a bulldozer that can outrun a motorcycle?