It's Jesus the monster truck! Do check out the "Cease and Desist" gallery as well...

4:59 PM | link

Shoplifter leaves purse and baby at the scene of the crime. This is one for the Dumb Crooks files...

4:54 PM | link

Acting superintendent of prison literally throws away the keys.

4:51 PM | link

Ten questions the American media can't/won't answer.

4:47 PM | link

A BLACK ROOM EDITORIAL

There's been a fair bit of media kerfuffle lately about the government. John Howard is under attack for allegedly misleading the Australian public with regards to the present boat people business; photographs supposedly showing refugees hurling their kids into the sea apparently show no such thing. This is bad for the government, but it probably won't kill them (more's the pity).

What is deadly is the fuss around Governor-General Peter Hollingworth, and the accusations that he covered up a number of sexual abuse cases in the Brisbane Anglican church when he was Archbishop in the late 1990s. Hollingworth supposedly knew these things were happening and yet refused to do anything about it, and indeed paid one alleged victim money in order to shut them up.

I think there's something to the charge someone else levelled that these people are only coming out of the woodwork again now that Hollingworth's in the top job. He's a high profile target now, or at least higher than when he was Archbishop. Still, be that as it may, these are heavy accusations. Normally a politician who was under investigation for wrongdoing would be made to step down while the investigation was going on. However, Hollingworth refuses to go, and Howard refuses to fire him. Good yes-men are hard to find, after all.

What offends me is this comment from his statement released the other day:

Allegation: That for three years after the rape of Marj's daughter, Guy would rape or sexually abuse up to 80 girls at this school.

There is no evidence to support this allegation.

Guy's suicide note named 20 girls from Toowoomba Prep and another school interstate. The school and the Toowoomba Hospital Suspected Child Abuse Network (SCAN) team followed up with each of their families. I have recently been informed by a senior Toowoomba paediatrician, Dr Prebble, that no cases were reported to the SCAN team and that there was accordingly nothing for them to investigate.

The available evidence to date is that no more than 3 girls were sexually abused by Guy at Toowoomba Prep.

No more than three, eh? Is that supposed to make things all right? Three's better than eighty, is that the idea? Just get out, Hollingworth. Go. Show some integrity at last, resign, and escape with what little dignity you have left before you lose even that and bring yourself and the Governor-General's office into further disrepute.

11:13 PM | link

Brain Study Casts Doubt on Theory of How Human Intelligence Evolved. Study finds there is, in fact, no such thing as human intelligence.

10:41 PM | link

There seems to have been a spate of American journalists falsifying stories lately, according to this. This latest one involves a fictionalised tale of slavery in Africa.

10:34 PM | link

Did the UN give illegal paramilitary assault rifles to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's guards?

10:30 PM | link

Vet retrieves child's toy by sticking his arm down a Komodo dragon's throat.

10:27 PM | link

Study shows Mormons use more antidepressants than anyone else in the US.

10:25 PM | link

Canadian professor walks out of his own constitutional challenge of STOP signs. According to him, the word STOP is too vague, and he left the trial because medication was making him unable to concentrate. Is it just me, or do you think medication's done a little bit more to him than just that?

10:22 PM | link

Alice Cooper produces and appears in school variety show. Astonishingly, him and his wife appear to have been doing this for fourteen years now. That's what amazes me.

10:18 PM | link

George Dubya Bush says the US and Japan have been best friends for 150 years. So Pearl Harbour and that business with the A-bombs was just a slight misunderstanding between mates, then?

10:13 PM | link

20 years ago, 50 corporations controlled the American media.. In 2002, it's six. This is something to be very scared of, and also why the efforts of the Australian government to aid media monopolies by changing the cross-media ownership laws are evil. We have few enough as it is, we don't need even less.

10:08 PM | link

Ralph Nader says September 11 would never have happened if the American people had voted him in as president. Why? Was he going to stand next to the World Trade Centre and catch those two planes with his bare hands or something?

4:28 PM | link

Gays caused the collapse of Enron. And here was me thinking it was the Jews or the Freemasons or the CIA or the Bavarian Illuminati...

4:25 PM | link

Dog with 17-inch tongue. Her owner says "every day there is something she does that we will never forget." I'll bet...

4:20 PM | link

The Northwest Territories of Canada will not be renamed "Bob". That's a relief. I think.

4:14 PM | link

Do not utter the words "New Jersey", "Mars", "Snickers" or "Wisconsin" around this man. He may attack and kill you.

5:18 PM | link

Bank telephone service users get hooked up to gay chatline. That was a service I reckon the bank's customers didn't know it offered. Still, as one person said, look on the bright side: "Perhaps someone will find a date through it."

5:14 PM | link

Judge rules pimps must pay value added tax. The pimps in question had been trying to dodge paying VAT on the grounds that their business is illegal. Can anyone else spot the peculiar lapse in logic at work here?

5:08 PM | link

The Salt Lake City winter Olympics finally get their first drug scandal, as a Belarussian skater flees the village after being found with a steroid level 400 times the legal limit.

4:46 PM | link

Petersburg Philharmonic pisspots ordered off plane. Clearly all those people lamenting the death of the old-time rock star just need to look to the classics for their fix of bad musician behaviour...

4:34 PM | link

Police Catch Man After His Flaming Pants Fall. This is a bizarre one. Poor man... charged with resisting arrest? I'm surprised they didn't try and pin arson on him too...

4:30 PM | link

And I thought the health services here were kind of fucked.

9:26 PM | link

The magnificent tale of Steven Bradbury. A couple of days old, yes, but God what a hoot. This is on a par with Eric Moussambani's solo swim at the Sydney Olympics.

9:18 PM | link

Karaoke: it's a killer. Or at least some of the people who do it are.

9:14 PM | link

Man who tried to torch a crowded club faces 3000 years in jail. Damn that's hardcore. Are they going to keep him alive for those three millennia as well?

9:11 PM | link

That story about the corpses found in sheds near that crematory just gets weirder and worse. Some at the Yahoo Colin Wilson club reckons necrophilia's involved, and I must say I'm damned if I can think of many other rational explanations for this grisly little number...

9:08 PM | link

Run! It's the bloodthirsty flesh-eating sheep! Ah, where would the world be without British tabloid newspapers... actually, probably a lot better off...

9:04 PM | link

The Image of Librarians in Pornography. Has especial relevance for me since I'm doing a library and information services course at TAFE at the moment.

11:45 AM | link

Here's a fantastic Shockwave toy: a theremin for your desktop. In PC and Mac formats.

11:42 AM | link

Beer ad criticised for calling milk "boring". Um... it kind of is a bit dull, isn't it, in some ways?

7:22 PM | link

Manhattan chef names one of his dishes after Viagra. Viagra manufacturers threaten stiff penalties. As it were.

7:10 PM | link

Supposedly confidential list of police informants becomes available on the street. Seems that some drugs task force threw out some old computers without wiping the info on them. Doesn't that just bolster your faith in police? I'm just glad I'm not on witness protection at the moment...

7:08 PM | link

Three dozen corpses found in sheds near crematory. That's a lot of dead people. I should actually send this to my old boss at Waverley Cemetery...

7:04 PM | link