Strange & Stupid: Amusing News

Whale harpooned, hauled in by Japanese boat in front of whale-watching tourists
SAPPORO — Eco-tourists on a whale-watching vessel, looking forward to observing the mighty creatures in their natural habitat, were instead greeted by the sight of a harpooned whale being dragged in by a Japanese whaling vessel on Friday.

At about 10:44 a.m. on Friday, a whale was spotted spraying water from its blowhole near a whaling boat, about 3.5 kilometers away from the whale-watching vessel off the coast of Hokkaido’s Shiretoko Peninsula. But when the vessel approached, the passengers on board found that the whalers had harpooned the Baird’s beaked whale, and it was hauled in by the whaling boat about 20 minutes later.

About 20 passengers on the whale-watching vessel looked on, voicing their pity as the whale was captured. A French woman who was on the vessel with her husband reportedly said the experience made her feel ill.
There were two other whale-watching boats nearby, but one of them left after a child started crying.

The 46-year-old captain of the passenger vessel was disappointed by the incident, which took place about 14 kilometers east of Rausu Port in Hokkaido.

“It’s my job to show people whales and it’s the whalers’ job to catch them, but I wonder how this can be avoided,” he said.
One of the two whaling companies operating the whaling ship, meanwhile, filed a protest against the whale watching vessel with the Rausu town government.

“The passenger boat approached us, which was extremely dangerous. We think this could be considered dangerous sailing, and we want you to issue a warning,” the protest said. (Mainichi)
oh shit, PWN3D

Which is tragic and absolutely no laughing matter. What is a little funny, however, is that you would try to off yourself over a breakup. Granted, Kate Hudson is fabulous, but you are the homewrecker in this situation, remember? Remember the happy trifecta? Nor Ryder has to deal with Dax, and that is your fault. Way to go. On second thought, about that suicide attempt….
no, just kidding. suicide is still not funny.

Mimes, however…perpetually funny. Owen Wilson, only ephemerally so.

Prep Football: Photo raises a furor in Carroll

Three Carroll High School football players face a one-game suspension for making what the school has deemed obscene hand gestures in a team photograph.

This photo of the Carroll High School football team ran in the Carroll Daily Times Herald on Monday. The newspaper altered the photo before publication to “blur” four players, three of whom were making similar hand gestures and a fourth whom the paper judged not to be acting in a “respectable manner.”
The decision prompted one boy’s father to resign as a booster club president and left the local newspaper explaining its decision to publish an altered version of the photo.
The newspaper “blurred” four players in the photo, three of whom were making similar hand gestures and a fourth whom the newspaper judged not to be acting in a “respectable manner.” The fourth player was not suspended from playing.

Mike Bach, the father of one of the suspended players, contended that the hand gesture the boys made is not obscene and has been commonly displayed by athletes in other sports at the school, as well as by widely known college athletes.

The gesture had become so accepted at the school, Bach said, that a varsity head coach at Carroll High used a picture of a player showing the gesture as a screen saver on his school computer.

“There was absolutely no intention at all to disrespect themselves or Carroll High School or the general public,” Bach said of the suspended boys. He said he has requested that the school reconsider its decision.

Carroll High Superintendent Rob Cordes would not comment on the players’ suspensions. He said the coach mentioned by Bach voluntarily removed the screen saver and had been unaware that the gesture could be interpreted as offensive.

The gesture, involving the middle, index and pinky fingers, goes by various names including “the shocker” when the connotation is sexual in nature. [when is it NOT?]

First suicide at Burning Man; friends thought it was performance

Burningman83007
First the big wooden man got burned a week early by some stoned idiot - thankfully, they are going to rebuild it for the end - And now, this.

For the first time in 21 years of Burning Man, a Burner has committed suicide, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

A man was found hanging inside a two-story-high tent this morning, said the federal Bureau of Land Management, which oversees the festival on the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada. The man’s identity has not been released pending notification of his family.
He dangled for two hours before anyone in the big tent thought to bring him down, said Mark Pirtle, special agent in charge.

“His friends thought he was doing an art piece,” he said.
So far, an estimated 36,000 people have arrived at the gathering, with 46,000 expected by the time things end Saturday with the burning of a 40-foot-tall wooden man. Earlier this week, a participant set the structure ablaze and was charged with arson. Burning Man organizers say the man will be rebuilt in time for the official burn.

…it’s just so sad. First, that a man took his life, but more-so that his doltish oaf friends were too high to know that a man hanging from a noose was not art.

HILLIARD, Ohio — A high school student who tricked football fans from a crosstown rival school into holding up squares of construction paper at a stadium that together spelled out, “We Suck,” was suspended for the prank, students said.
Kyle Garchar, a senior at Hilliard Davidson High School in suburban Columbus, said he spent about 20 hours over three days plotting the trick, which was captured on video and posted on the video-sharing Web site YouTube.

Garchar said he was inspired by a similar prank pulled by Yale students in 2004, when Harvard fans were duped into holding up cards with the same message.
At the end of the video, Garchar wryly thanks the 800 parents, staff and alumni from Hillard Darby High School who raised the cards at the start of the third quarter during last Friday’s game played at Crew Stadium, home of Columbus’ Major League Soccer team.
“It couldn’t have been done without you,” reads the closing frame of the video, which had been viewed more than 4,400 times by Thursday.
Garchar, 17, first went to Crew Stadium to take a picture of the seats. Then he created a grid to plan how the message would be spelled out once fans in three sections held up either a black or white piece of construction paper.

Directions left on stadium seats instructed fans to check that the number listed on their papers matched their seat numbers. Darby supporters were told the message would read “Go Darby.”
“It was tedious,” Garchar said. “I didn’t really think it was going to work.”

But it did, and everyone at Hilliard Davidson has been talking about the trick, said Jordan Moore, a junior.
“That was the ultimate in-your-face,” he said. “I think it was ingenious.”

Davidson Principal John Bandow had told students he expected them to show sportsmanship at Friday’s football game, which Darby won 21-10 in the first meeting between the two schools.
Bandow called Garchar to his office Monday morning, and gave him three days of in-school suspension and also banned him from participating in school activities for a semester, students said. Two other students who helped organize the trick received the same punishment.

Hilliard schools spokeswoman Michelle Wray couldn’t confirm the students’ punishment today because the Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act forbids the release of student disciplinary information.
But Jen Trimmer, 17, one of the students involved in the prank, said the suspensions for the three students began Wednesday and were to end Friday.
“We weren’t expecting it to be such a severe punishment,” she said today. “We just thought it was all in good fun.”

Stephen Bell, a Darby freshman, was at the stadium but missed the big moment.
“It was sneaky, knifing and down right clever,” he said Wednesday. “But we’ll get them back.”

seriously, this is what you are.

Amazing, fabulous douchebags.

“Young, black and famous

With money hangin’

Out the anus”

–Puff Daddy and Mase’s ‘Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down’

I think #4 should be #1, though Sade’s “Coast to Coast - L.A. to Chicago - I Can’t refute too much. It is a work of pure genius.

The entire list.

The mother of a student who was suspended for violating her school system’s dress code says the rules unfairly target religion, WRTV in Indianapolis reported.

Tracy Prochnow said Highland High School in Indiana suspended her daughter, Brittany Brown, on Monday because the junior wore a Christian-themed T-shirt.
Monday was the fourth time Brittany violated the code, which the city’s school board implemented this year and requires students to wear khakis and polo shirts.

Prochnow said the school may be violating her daughter’s rights, and she has asked the school board to change the code.
“I don’t believe it matters what she’s wearing — whether it be a T-shirt and jeans or polo and khakis — as to what she’s going to learn,” Prochnow told WRTV.

The front of Brittany’s T-shirt features a cross and the words “This Shirt Is Illegal In 51 Countries.” The back quotes the Bible’s Romans 1:16: “I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God … the salvation of everyone who believes.”

“The school is basically saying I can’t wear a shirt that talks about Jesus or Christ or God or any religious type of T-shirt because we have to wear a polo,” Brittany said.

No, you dumb slut, it’s saying that you can’t wear a god damned T-shirt. [God damned used in the most ironic sense, as it is Godly and all, yes.]

The school’s principal, Mark Finger, said the dress code doesn’t target religious beliefs.

“The policy states there are to be no logos or slogans on a shirt,” Finger said.
A city council member, Ollie Dixon, said he would work to change the policy. It wasn’t clear what changes he would favor.

So what we can conclude is this: Jesus freaks are DUMB. Can’t you think of another way to express your undying love, adoration, and devotion to JC? Perhaps through a headband, scarf, or belt? Maybe you could put a J on one loafer, and a C on the other, with big Justice crosses on the back. Fuck, write Jesus across your tush like its Juicy Couture…so long as it’s on khakis.
[I love Justice.]

Cat faeces ‘may be killing whales’

The following correction was printed in the Guardian’s Corrections and clarifications column, Friday August 31 2007

The article below should have referred to cat faeces, not cat litter, throughout. This has been corrected.

Pet owners who flush cat faeces down the lavatory may be responsible for the deaths of whales, dolphins and porpoises around Britain’s coast, according to academics and public health experts.

They have found evidence of a common parasite in dead marine mammals and say family cats could be be the unwitting source. Cats are essential to the life cycle of toxoplasma gondii, which can infect most mammals and birds but only as part of the food chain.

The possible link to dolphin deaths has been raised by staff from Swansea and Glamorgan universities and the National Public Health Service for Wales in a letter to the Veterinary Record. They say that in California concern that cat faeces have contributed to sea otter deaths has led to disposal warnings on bags of cat litter. But little is known about infection in marine species around Britain.

Blood samples from dead stranded cetaceans revealed infection in one in 70 harbour porpoises, in six of 21 common dolphins and in the only hump-backed whale tested. Nearly one in eight Swansea University and health service employees admitted flushing cat faeces away.
HAhahaha cat shit is killing the whales. I know whales dying is sad and not funny (unless they are being killed by Japanese whalers in front of a whale watch) but I just LOVE this.

I only have one question here: which dude is stupider? The one that said “hey, let me sit on your lap, I’ve always wanted to drive!”
or the responder…” Sure, yeah. I’ll be your legs! Here, hop on my lap! Oh wait, you can’t hop? No legs? ok…..ill pick you up and put ya in my lap, pal. Of course, man, I love you too, man….”

(AP) ABBOTSFORD, Wis. Two men, driving the same pickup truck, have been cited for driving drunk in central Wisconsin.

Police stopped their truck in Abbotsford, Wis. recently and found 43-year-old Harvey Miller was steering the truck. Miller has no legs.

Officers say 55-year-old Edwin Marzinske was operating the gas pedals and brake.

The police report says Miller admitted he was too drunk to drive, but argued he wasn’t actually operating the truck because he couldn’t push the gas pedal. Officers disagreed and cited him for drunken driving, third offense.

Marzinske was cited for his second drunken driving offense.

Both men were also cited for operating a vehicle after revocation.

Classic Midwestern trash. Are you serious? “I wasn’t operating the car, just steering? What a cock and balls excuse.

Now I’m all for granting assylum to those in fear for their lives, but I hope we scoff at this ass-wipe.

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia said on Monday it had seized $400 million in property, including a Caribbean island, from a cocaine baron arrested in Brazil this month and is awaiting extradition to the United States on drug charges. [An ISLAND? This dude is a serious baller. As a serious aside, I hope to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph that this island is literally just one giant rock of blow.]

Some 322 properties including farms, apartment buildings, a hotel, a gymnasium and an Island off the port of Cartagena were stripped from Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia, nicknamed Lollipop, or Chupeta in Colombian Spanish, authorities said.

Ramirez Abadia, who gained notoriety in the 1990s as a leader of the still powerful Norte del Valle cartel based near Cali, used plastic surgery to change his appearance in a bid to avoid being identified.

He was captured notwithstanding in an August 7 raid on a luxury home near Sao Paulo, from which authorities say he oversaw a multibillion-dollar drug ring stretching to Europe and the United States.

Ramirez Abadia, 44, has served prison time in his native Colombia for drug trafficking but there are a number of outstanding accusations against him.

Since his arrest, Ramirez Abadia has made it clear he wants to be extradited to the United States, saying he would fear for his life if returned to Colombia.

Early this year, police found about $90 million in cash hidden in several apartments in the southwestern city of Cali, which authorities said had been stashed by Ramirez Abadia. [kind of like those sluts in Mexico.]