News of the Weird

[Tellos Athenaios]

Emergency Contraception Has No Effect On BBW

Presumably a matter of dosage and choice of drug. With these type of drugs the quest has been for lowest dose and least invasive drug possible, since you're basically administering a hormonal kick which risks side effects and general discomfort. So if they simply dust off the recipe from the 1970's, say, they'll have a working drug for the obese, albeit a less pleasant one for some.

[Ronin]

Emergency Contraception Has No Effect On BBW

probably because they expected the BBW part to be enough of a contraceptive.

[Lemur]

Fargo Man Arrested For Clearing Snow With Flamethrower



Fargo, ND – Local resident Todd Fox has been detained for “reckless endangerment” and “illegal use of high-powered fire-breathing weaponry” for attacking snow with his flamethrower. Fox reportedly became so fed up with the week-long blowing snow epidemic in his area that he decided to KILL IT WITH FIRE.

The neighborhood was treated with quite a show last night as Fox unleashed an inferno upon the mountainous snow palace that was his front yard. Neighbors to his immediate right and left noticed a bright orange cloud and could hear what they thought was “puff the magic dragon spewing mayhem all over hell”, which prompted one of them to notify police.

Fox stated that he was simply “fed up with battling the elements” and that he did not possess the willpower necessary to move “four billion tons of white bull****”.

Police say that Fox surrendered his efforts immediately upon their arrival and that his front yard “looked like a hydrogen bomb had gone off”. They think he was just happy to be done with snow removal, even if it did mean a trip to jail.

[Beskar]

Hah! I know exactly how this went down... Not so worried about the NSA now for some reason. Playing WoW all day... lol

US and UK 'spy on virtual games' http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25310774

I heard a Defcon-1 was issued when Theramore was bombed. Chief suspects were Al Qaeda and it was almost used a proxy to invade Iran. Further research into the matter, they realised 'Garroash' is not a farsi codename for Ali Khamenei.

Though, on a more factual basis, this is the logo of the US Spy Satellite that was recently launched.


As always, Rule-34 quickly follows:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Video clip

[Kadagar_AV]

Only in Africa, people...

Only. In. Africa.

http://news.sky.com/story/1180724/ma...igner-was-fake

[InsaneApache]

I. There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the Population Reference Bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per house hold, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each.

II. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th. of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second < 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a pokey 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.

III. The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the Oflying¹ reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them; Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).

IV. 600,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second crates enormous air resistance < this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth¹s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion Joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporised within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in a milli-second, would be subjected to centrifugal forces of 17,500 G¹s. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo.

V. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now.

[Kadagar_AV]

You couldn't have written HUGE SPOILER ALERT!!??

[Lemur]

[Gregoshi]

Was it chicken?

[Kadagar_AV]

Was it chicken?

And if so, leg or breast?

[rvg]

And if so, leg or breast?

The picture clearly shows that it was both white and dark meat.

[Montmorency]

What was the breakdown?

1/3 of the elderly experience varying degrees of memory degeneration, and 2/3 retain the same level of function they had in their youth?

I guess the breakdown is similar for erectile performance...

[Lemur]

Delta Airlines Very Sorry for “H8GAYS” Confirmation Code (but I bet it's way better than last year's "H8JEWS")



That’s the confirmation code a Delta Airlines customer saw on his boarding pass earlier this month. Naturally, he was pretty shocked.

“At first I didn’t think I read it right,” Jeff White, a student at the University of West Florida, tells the Washington Post. “I was worried that another customer might think I somehow picked that code. If I were a gay male, I might have thought that a Delta worker purposely gave me that code, and that would have made me extremely uncomfortable.”

Delta has apologized for any “concern or misunderstanding” and explained that the codes are always computer-generated completely random. A Delta rep tells the Post that the airline will make every effort to prevent a similar combination of letters and numbers in the future.

So yes, this was probably just an honest, computer-generated error. But as White points out, it’s a bit surprising that Delta didn’t block this particular combination as a possibility. “I’m sure they removed many four-letter words that would be seen as offensive,” he tells the Post. ”I’m surprised that ‘gays’ and ‘H8’ weren’t blocked as well.”

If anything, perhaps airlines should begin deliberately generating more positive codes to please their customers. Who wouldn’t enjoy looking down at a boarding pass and seeing URAQT or LUV4CATZ?

[Kadagar_AV]

New café idea... Customers get charged after how polite / rude they are.

Saying "hello" and "please", as an example, will drastically lower the price.



http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-n...french-2918930

[Kadagar_AV]

http://www.thelocal.se/20131221/swed...ched-yet-again

Out of all the seasons traditions, this one happens to be my favourite... Article is well worth a read.

You KNOW it's christmas when the goat gets torched.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Eggheads give two robots vodka and tell them to text each other FOR SCIENCE

Academics have developed a method for delivering text messages through vodka spritzed into the air.

Unlike conventional vodka-powered texts – which involve lemon drops, smartphones and lingering regret – this new experimental system uses the alcohol itself as the medium for delivery.

[Lemur]

Two alligators, a pole dancer and pot at shooting scene



Thurston County sheriff’s deputies called to a house near Olympia on the report of a shooting Monday night were quick to edge away from a room after being greeted by two hissing alligators guarding a large marijuana stash.

Alligators, a pot growing operation, an exotic dancer and gunfire were all elements of the criminal investigation inside the house in the normally quiet Scott Lake neighborhood. Sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Greg Elwin said that at one point a detective compared the scene to a Hollywood film. [...]

While inside the home, investigators found a floor to ceiling brass pole and talked to an exotic dancer, Elwin said. When detectives tried to walk into another room they were met by two five-foot long alligators hissing at them from the floor.

“They were there for protection for the marijuana grow area. They were just crawling around on the floor,” Elwin said. The detectives immediately shut the door.

The 41-year-old suspect, who was arrested for investigation of attempted murder, offered to help the detectives corral his gators. He managed to get them into a nearby bathroom where they were left in the water-filled bathtub. Because it wasn’t clear how long the alligators would be there, they were left with some raw chicken parts to gnaw on, Elwin said.

Thurston County Animal Control officials have been contacted, Elwin said.

“We don’t know what the legalities are of keeping alligators, it could be just fine,” he added.

[Lemur]

Oregon man on meth fights off 12 cops while masturbating in bar



It took a Taser and more than a dozen officers on Sunday to finally subdue Andrew Frey inside Iggy's Bar & Grill on Portland Road Northeast, the Marion County Sheriff's office said.

The 37-year-old man later told authorities he had used methamphetamine the day before and had no recollection of the alleged wild behavior, according to officials.

The man, identified as Frey [...] made his way to Iggy's Bar & Grill.

That's when Frey's behavior allegedly took a turn for the vulgar, Marion County officials said.

A bartender told authorities that Frey exposed his genitals and started masturbating at the bar, officials said. By the time a Marion County deputy arrived on scene, Frey had moved from the bar to the bathroom, but reportedly had not stopped pleasuring himself.

Frey allegedly resisted arrest, forcing the deputy to zap the suspect with a Taser multiple times, officials said. The Taser had no effect on Frey, who then allegedly starting fighting with the deputy, officials said.

At least 15 police officers from Salem, Keizer and Marion County rushed to the bar and were eventually able to take the suspect into custody, officials said.

[Lemur]

Surgical elf ears. Because FREEDOM.

[a completely inoffensive name]

You just couldn't wait for the backroom to reopen like the rest of us. :D I commend you for your dedication to spreading the news...of the wierd.

[Lemur]

Most years I do a temp-NotW thread in the Frontroom. Weird News waits on no Christmas Truce! Speaking of which ...

Firewood TV Show Creates Split for Norwegians



OSLO — The TV program, on the topic of firewood, consisted mostly of people in parkas chatting and chopping in the woods and then eight hours of a fire burning in a fireplace. Yet no sooner had it begun, on prime time on Friday night, than the angry responses came pouring in.

“We received about 60 text messages from people complaining about the stacking in the program,” said Lars Mytting, whose best-selling book “Solid Wood: All About Chopping, Drying and Stacking Wood — and the Soul of Wood-Burning” inspired the broadcast. “Fifty percent complained that the bark was facing up, and the rest complained that the bark was facing down.”

He explained, “One thing that really divides Norway is bark.” [...]

In a country where 1.2 million households have fireplaces or wood stoves, said Rune Moeklebust, NRK’s head of programs in the west coast city of Bergen, the subject naturally lends itself to television.

“My first thought was, ‘Well, why not make a TV series about firewood?’” Mr. Moeklebust said in an interview. “And that eventually cut down to a 12-hour show, with four hours of ordinary produced television, and then eight hours of showing a fireplace live.”

There is no question that it is a popular topic. “Solid Wood” spent more than a year on the nonfiction best-seller list in Norway. [...]

“National Firewood Night,” as Friday’s program was called, opened with the host, Rebecca Nedregotten Strand, promising to “try to get to the core of Norwegian firewood culture — because firewood is the foundation of our lives.” Various people discussed its historical and personal significance. “We’ll be sawing, we’ll be splitting, we’ll be stacking and we’ll be burning,” Ms. Nedregotten Strand said.

[The Stranger]

dis is old...

[Kadagar_AV]

Something... something... wood = sign of men's arousal... something...add something about Norway...

I'm to tired for this, but I guess Gregoshi can work from my notes.

[Gregoshi]

Something... something... wood = sign of men's arousal... something...add something about Norway...

I'm to tired for this, but I guess Gregoshi can work from my notes.

The Beatles already did a song: Norwegian Wood.

[Kadagar_AV]

[Lemur]

Giant inflatable duck explodes in Taiwan, possibly due to eagle attack



A giant yellow duck on display in a northern Taiwan port exploded just hours before it was expected to attract a big crowd to count down the new year.

The 18m-tall duck on show at Keelung burst around noon and deflated into a floating yellow disc, only 11 days after it went on display.

It was the second time that a inflatable duck - a bath toy replica created by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman - had burst while on show in Taiwan.

"We want to apologise to the fans of the yellow rubber duck.... the weather is fine today and we haven't found the cause of the problem. We will carefully examine the duck to determine the cause," organiser Huang Jing-tai told reporters. [...]

The Central News Agency cited an eyewitness as saying the rubber bird might have fallen victim to eagles which scratched it with their claws.

[Lemur]

Humorless Brit court refuses trial by combat



A court has rejected a 60-year-old man's attempt to invoke the ancient right to trial by combat, rather than pay a £25 fine for a minor motoring offence.

Leon Humphreys remained adamant yesterday that his right to fight a champion nominated by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) was still valid under European human rights legislation. He said it would have been a "reasonable" way to settle the matter.

Magistrates sitting at Bury St Edmunds on Friday had disagreed and instead of accepting his offer to take on a clerk from Swansea with "samurai swords, Ghurka knives or heavy hammers", fined him £200 with £100 costs.

Humphreys, an unemployed mechanic, was taken to court after refusing to pay the original £25 fixed penalty for failing to notify the DVLA that his Suzuki motorcycle was off the road.

After entering a not guilty plea, he threw down his unconventional challenge. Humphreys, from Bury St Edmunds, said: "I was willing to fight a champion put up by the DVLA, but it would have been a fight to the death."

[Kadagar_AV]

All jokes aside, I have a new hero.

Damn courts and their stupid "laws".

[Husar]

Giant inflatable duck explodes in Taiwan, possibly due to eagle attack



A giant yellow duck on display in a northern Taiwan port exploded just hours before it was expected to attract a big crowd to count down the new year.

The 18m-tall duck on show at Keelung burst around noon and deflated into a floating yellow disc, only 11 days after it went on display.

It was the second time that a inflatable duck - a bath toy replica created by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman - had burst while on show in Taiwan.

"We want to apologise to the fans of the yellow rubber duck.... the weather is fine today and we haven't found the cause of the problem. We will carefully examine the duck to determine the cause," organiser Huang Jing-tai told reporters. [...]

The Central News Agency cited an eyewitness as saying the rubber bird might have fallen victim to eagles which scratched it with their claws.

Breaks my heart, I love giant rubber duckies...

This in a larger resolution has been (and still is) my notebook wallpaper for over a year now: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-e...ustralia-M.jpg

[Ironside]

All jokes aside, I have a new hero.

Damn courts and their stupid "laws".

"DVLA kills a man over a £25 fine."

Stupid, stupid lawmakers and their "laws".