Weird News

[Carruthers]

A moth got stuck inside a man's ear for two days and now takes pride of place on a bookshelf at his home.

Robert Fielding, from Aylesbury, said he accidentally pushed it into his ear canal after it flew at him while he was reading his tablet computer in bed.

He went to A&E, but it was so far inside he had to wait another 48 hours until specialists could remove it at another hospital.

The 1cm moth now sits on his bookshelf.

Mr Fielding described the "horrible sensation" he experienced while the moth was in his ear.

"It was right by my ear drum so it was making such a loud noise," he said.

"It was a horrible sensation. It was like an annoying tickle, but it was so spontaneous. I was jumping and twitching all the time.

"I certainly kept the taxi driver amused on the way to hospital."

The 43-year-old said when nurses first inspected the ear they could see a leg moving, but after a few hours the noises stopped and it was presumed the moth had died.

However, he had to wait a further two days until it could be removed by specialists in Oxford earlier this month.

"It made me feel quite ill and it affected my balance, so I had to miss my cousin's wedding," Mr Fielding said.

"It was really painful and there was a horrible 'pop' as it came out in one go.

"My kids found it amusing - as soon as I brought it home my son grabbed it and took it round to all his friend's houses to show them."

Moth trapped in Aylesbury man's ear for two days

[sexobon]

That's eerie.

[Gravdigr]

That belongs in 'Nightmare Fuel'...
______________________________________



The mystery of the 'sailing' stones in Death Valley has been discovered. Finally. This is one of those things I hoped I would live long enough to have explained for me.

Oh, thank God.

[Carruthers]

Russian authorities are hitting back at proposed sanctions against it by using an airport duty-free shop to deliver a message to Western and Ukrainian leaders.

A sign at Vladivostok airport provides a list of international politicians who are not allowed to pick up any cut-price vodka or cigarettes if they make a trip to the very far east of Russia.

The sign, photographed by a Swedish traveller, Anders Östlund, lists Barack Obama and David Cameron, together with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, President François Hollande of Francee, the Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, his Australian counterpart, Tony Abbott, and Shinzo Abe, prime minister of Japan....

All of these, the sign says, are “persons … not welcome here” who will not “be attended to a [sic] customer in this shop”.

Joining them are a number of Ukrainian VIPs, including President Petro Poroshenko, his prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the former PM Yulia Tymoshenko, Vitaly Klitschko, the heavyweight boxer and mayor of Kiev, the far-right politician Dmytro Yarosh and Oleh Lyashko, leader of the Radical party.

To add insult to injury, all the Ukrainians have their names spelled in the Russian style rather than their own version.

Mr Östlund tweeted: “Tough stuff.”

[Gravdigr]

Mysterious Fake Cellphone Towers Are Intercepting Calls All Over The US

From Reuters, via Business Insider, via YahooNews

Seventeen fake cellphone towers were discovered across the U.S. last week, according to a report in Popular Science.

Rather than offering you cellphone service, the towers appear to be connecting to nearby phones, bypassing their encryption, and either tapping calls or reading texts.

Les Goldsmith, the CEO of ESD America, used ESD's CryptoPhone 500 to detect 17 bogus cellphone towers. ESD is a leading American defense and law enforcement technology provider based in Las Vegas.

With most phones, these fake communication towers are undetectable. But not for the CryptoPhone 500, a customized Android device that is disguised as a Samsung Galaxy S III but has highly advanced encryption.

Goldsmith told Popular Science: " Interceptor use in the U.S. is much higher than people had anticipated. One of our customers took a road trip from Florida to North Carolina and he found eight different interceptors on that trip. We even found one at South Point Casino in Las Vegas.”

The towers were found in July, but the report implied that there may have been more out there.

Although it is unclear who owns the towers, ESD found that several of them were located near U.S. military bases.

"Whose interceptor is it? Who are they, that's listening to calls around military bases? Is it just the U.S. military, or are they foreign governments doing it? The point is: we don't really know whose they are," Goldsmith said to Popular Science.

It's probably not the NSA — that agency can tap all it wants without the need for bogus towers, VentureBeat reported:

Not the NSA, cloud security firm SilverSky CTO/SVP Andrew Jaquith told us. “The NSA doesn’t need a fake tower,” he said. “They can just go to the carrier” to tap your line.

ComputerWorld points out that the fake towers give themselves away by crushing down the performance of your phone from 4G to 2G while the intercept is taking place. So if you see your phone operating on a slow download signal while you're near a military base ... maybe make that call from somewhere else.

In an amazing coincidence, police departments in a handful of U.S. cities have been operating "Stingray" or "Hailstorm" towers, which — you guessed it — conduct surveillance on mobile phone activity. They do that by jamming mobile phone signals, forcing phones to drop down from 4G and 3G network bands to the older, more insecure 2G band.

[monster]

Goldfish has brain tumor removed

[DanaC]

Awwwwww. The pic of him knocked out for his op, with his little fins all droopy.

Awesome that they did that.

[footfootfoot]

A fish that special...

[orthodoc]

... has to be named Wanda.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by photo caption

Vets say the operation went swimmingly, and that George can be discharged soon

OBJECTION! Surely we can all agree there is a line of decency that has been crossed here.

[Carruthers]

A dog obsessed with eating thong underwear had to have an emergency operation to remove one of his lacy snacks

A dog had to be rushed to the vets for emergency surgery after eating too many pairs of its owner’s knickers.

Kaye Banks 47, became worried when her pet Brian, a four-year-old Samoyed, was unable to digest its food.

She took the animal to Abbey Vets in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, where staff were stunned to discover its owner’s silk thongs were clogging up the animal’s stomach.

They carried out an emergency two-hour operation to save Brian’s life — and after four days, the dog was deemed well enough to return home.

But within hours of being back at home in Rotherham, the dog raided the washing basket again, swallowing another set of underwear.

Its owner took the dog straight back to the vets, where it was given medication to make it vomit, narrowly avoiding further surgery.

Ms Banks said: “I’d spotted him nibbling on some of the washing and I got really worried when he wasn’t eating properly and he regurgitated his food undigested.

“We took him to the vet and they could see a big bulge on the X-ray but they weren’t sure what it was.

“When they pulled out a black lacy thong everyone had a bit of a shock.

“After a two-hour operation we finally managed to bring him home.

“He’s a bit cheeky and he often roots through handbags or bags of shopping and he’s occasionally chewed on the odd sock, but nothing like this. I couldn’t believe it when we’d just got him home and it happened again.

“We’d seen him go near the washing and my daughter Charlotte came in and said, 'I put a pink lace thong in the washing basket earlier and now it’s gone.’

“So straightaway we took him back the vets to see if they could help and they managed to get it out without more surgery.

“We just couldn’t believe that after an operation and four days at the vets he comes home and does it again.

“It’s a warning to other pet owners to be really careful, because Brian needed major surgery and he’s lucky to come out OK.

“As for us, it’s underwear straight into the washing machine where he can’t get at them.”

Tony Duffy, the vet who carried out the operation on Brian, said: “It never fails to amaze me what dogs will swallow, but swallowing three thongs in such a short space of time must beat them all.”

Daily Telegraph



OK, let's just look at the problem dispassionately and with rigorous scientific analysis.

The dog persistently destroys, by eating, items of ladies' underwear and cannot be cured of his compulsion.

Applying my razor sharp intellect to the problem, I'd say it's definitely a case of the thong is ended but the malady lingers on.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Carruthers

Applying my razor sharp intellect to the problem, I'd say it's definitely a case of the thong is ended but the malady lingers on.

*blinks* that has to contravene some sort of punning bye law....

[Carruthers]

Originally Posted by DanaC

*blinks* that has to contravene some sort of punning bye law....

I'm here all week...

[Gravdigr]

...her pet Brian, a four-year-old Samoyed...

If'n I had a (prolly) white dog, with a black nose, and I named him Brian...

...I'd have to make the whole trip and give him a red collar and call him Brian Griffin.

[Carruthers]

A driver has discovered one way to stop his car from being towed away, by simply driving it off the tow truck.

The footage was taken in Walthamstow, east London, after a motorist returned to his illegally parked Vauxhall Astra to find it mid-way through being towed.

Rather than break out the ‘I was only popping into the shop to buy a paper’ excuse, this driver got a little more hands on.

He can be seen jumping in his car, putting it in reverse and letting gravity do the rest before speeding off.

The car crashes to the ground with a horrible bang, and appears to receive damage worth far more than the driver would have had to pay in tow fees.

Police said the car was not licensed to the man seen driving it, however they confirmed they will not be investigating the matter any further as it is a civil matter.

While children can be heard in the video giggling at the driver’s renegade ways, others say the incident should not be seen as a humorous one.

Waltham Forest councillor Clyde Loakes called the video ‘shocking’.

He added: ‘The man had an utter disregard for anyone on the street and what he did was extremely dangerous.’

Driver’s revenge