Posts Tagged ‘united states’

He’s got a lighter.  Everyone down on the ground…

Smoking was never so dangerous – six police patrol cars were rushed to a scene where a man was carrying a hunting rifle in a Chinese city and the whole situation could have gotten very messy…if the hunting rifle wasn’t infact an oversized lighter.

Police in the Chinese city of Nanjing were suddenly inundated with emergency telephone calls claiming that there was a man on the loose brandishing a hunting rifle.

The police obviously responded to the emergency calls and were expecting a possible dangerous situation but instead they arrived at the scene to discover the man, clearly unaware that people around him were scared out of their skins, was simply carrying a gigantic lighter on his back.

“We sent out six patrol cars immediately, trying to stop the man before anything bad happened.

“On spotting the man, officers forced him to stop. The man was obviously very scared and said the gun was only a toy lighter, which he just won as an award in a restaurant,” commented a police spokesman.

Well, the flame was pretty hot.

After getting the supposed rifle back to the police station, the police tested the object but once they had pulled the trigger they realised the mistake that had been made as a small innocent flame poked out of the barrel of the gun.

Unfortunately the man who was allegedly stalking the streets with a deadly firearm was given a warning for carrying the lighter, which was confiscated.

The end of novelty lighters?

The news comes as fire officials in Louisville in the United States demanded that novelty lighters were removed from stores as they are apparently responsible for several deaths a year, although not because they are parading as hunting rifles.

The fire officers claimed that the lighters can easily be picked up by children who will play with what they think is a toy and then there is a strong possibility that a fire could start.

“Anytime a child can get to it and they think it’s a toy and they get by themselves in a closet and they’re playing with it and a fire starts, that’s the biggest concern we’ve got,” said Henry Ott of the Louisville Fire Department.

“Kids are playing with lighters, kids are cooking at home, using candles in the room, or they may lay a curling iron down.”

According to an arson investigator in Louisville children are responsible for around half of all fires in the United States.

No real proof…

However, the fires have not been connected with novelty lighters, partly because the United States Fire Administration only started to keep their eyes on the cigarette accessories since January of last year.

Although the move by the Fire Department doesn’t have the backing of some hardcore smokers, the plans do indeed have the unanimous backing of the Louisville Metro Council Public Safety Committee and the full council will be meeting next Thursday to vote on the move.

What do you think?

Is this proposal to ban joke lighters a good decision or is it just another example of how wrapped up in cotton we are as a culture?  Let us know…

Hair mail…

Some people don’t take break-ups very well – some people scream and shout, others send hurtful letters and emails, but one ex-girlfriend has decided to send bits of hair in letters to get back at her ex-boyfriend…

Ivo Mikesic from Croatia has been receiving mail from his ex-girlfriend with pieces of her hair stuck to them – somewhat of a weird method of getting back at the man who ended their relationship.

The ex in question apparently started the weird “hair mail” attacks with one postcard, but since then Mikesic has been receiving hairy postcard after hairy postcard.

Restraining order…

And now, understandably, Mikesic’s postman is getting a little fed up with the whole situation too.

Mikesic has pleaded with a court in Zagreb to provide a restraining order against the former girlfriend, which he is hoping, will put an end to the strange postcards arriving through his letter box.

Imagine throwing that postcard in the fire…

According to Mikesic after the first postcard came he tried to put it behind him, but then they started to come in torrents…

“I got one and just thought it was really weird and tried to ignore it.

“I have no idea why my ex is doing this but at the rate she is going she’s going to have no hair left soon.”

Better a postcard with a bit of hair than setting fire to your house!

However, it would seem as though Mikesic got away with an easy ride with the hairy postcards.  An ex-girlfriend in Milwaukee, in the United States, set a house on fire after a heated argument with her ex.

The fire broke out after the ex-boyfriend arrived back to his house with another girl.  What they didn’t know was that the man’s ex-girlfriend was waiting there for them.

The fire caused $55,000 in damages but luckily no lives were lost.

Tell us your story…

So break-ups can indeed be tough to those involved, but as you can see some take things a step or two too far…

Hairy postcards and houses on fire aside do you have any weird break up stories that you think the world is ready to hear?

Feel free to let us know so we can all have a bit of a chuckle!

The search is over?

The western world for the most part has been on the look out for the elusive Osama Bin Laden ever since the horrific September 11th attacks. Well, according to a geography professor the search could soon be over.

Bin Laden is almost sure to be residing in one of three houses in Pakistan, according to Thomas Gillespie, a geography professor at the University of California in Los Angeles – although if Bin Laden is keeping his beady eye on the web then what’s to say he hasn’t moved down the street?

However, according to Gillespie, there is a science behind his announcement – it wasn’t just a wild stab in the dark, thankfully.

Animal behaviour is the key!

Gillespie claimed to have studied animal behaviour and in particular the way the species spread providing him with what he believes to be the location of the man behind the world-changing attacks.

Along with these studies, Gillespie announced in a new study published on the Internet by the MIT International Review that simple facts, a fundamental understanding of geography and satellite imagery that is available to the public all helped Gillespie do what the United States intelligence agency could not.

Gillespie also considered Bin Laden’s needs for high ceilings to combat his tall frame, electricity, security and the obvious need for available room for his security guards, which led to the proposed three targets.

“If he’s still alive, he honestly could be sitting there right now,” commented Gillespie.

“It is still the safest tribal area and city in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of northwest Pakistan and one of the only tribal areas that the U.S. has not bombed with its unmanned Predators.”

Parachinar - Pakistan

The location that Gillespie is talking about is the location that has been deemed the mostly likely place for Bin Laden to be staying at – Parachinar, a town in northwest Pakistan.

This of course isn’t the first time the town has appeared in the news.  Parachinar is well known for providing a home for a number of mujahideen at the time of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

John A. Agnew, the co-author of the study who is also a geography professor at the University of California in Los Angeles, has underlined the fact that this solution to the search is the first scientific one of its kind, and has stated that the search could be easily reproduced.

“We believe our work represents the first scientific approach to establishing bin Laden’s current location.  The methods are repeatable and could easily be updated with new information obtained by the U.S. intelligence community,” said Agnew.

Criticism of course…

However, you can’t go claiming that you can easily find the hiding place of a man who has a $25 million reward tag on his head without expecting a fair old bit of criticism.

Kim Rossmo, of the Texas State University who has worked with the military to try to find terrorists in the past, has slated the method, saying, “The idea of identifying three buildings in a city of half a million especially one in a country the authors have likely never visited is somewhat overconfident.”

Step away from the burger…

Sometimes hunger and rage go hand in hand.  A little hypo-glycaemia doesn’t help either, and when you need your food you need your food…although one man in Florida took it a little too far when he called the police because the Burger King he was in ran out of lemonade.

Jean Fortune, a 66 year old man in Boynton Beach, Florida in the United States, has now been arrested for misusing the emergency phone services after he got so mad with Burger King because they didn’t have any lemonade.

When the police arrived at the scene, an employee at the fast food diner informed the officer that she had simply informed Fortune that the restaurant had no lemonade when he was parked up at the drive-through.

Fortune called for back-up – he wanted the lemonade…

That was the trigger for Fortune, who started to lash out at the Burger King employee.  Fortune, with what I am sure would have been a sore throat due to all the lack of lemonade, then started threatening to call the police over the matter, to which the employee responded, “go ahead”.

Fortune was also turning purple over the time period he was asked to wait for his food – 15 minutes.  He wanted his food and no one was going to stand in his way…but did he really think the police would be on his side?

“You cannot dial 911 because you are unhappy with your burger, ok. I know you don’t seriously think that the police need to make Burger King give you food faster,” explained the emergency phone operator to Fortune who took the call.

“If it takes 15 minutes to cook, it takes 15 minutes to cook, ok. You don’t need to call 911.”

You could always…move on somewhere else?

The argument between the operator and Fortune went on for around 3 minutes, until the operator realised that Fortune hadn’t even placed his order or handed over any money.

The operator explained to Fortune that he was actually in a position to simply drive away, but Fortune refused to do so and was then told that the police were coming and that he should discontinue blocking the drive-through for other customers.

Fortune now faces a court appearance for his angry fast food stunt and will probably be told to attend some anger management to deal with what can only be described as an unnecessary rage.

In this world of fast food, fast internet and fast living, are we actually getting caught up in the fast paced pressure of it all?  If they don’t sell lemonade, surely anyone else would have ordered a Coke, or a Fanta or simply would have driven on to the next fast food restaurant.

Would you do the same thing?

What do you think?  All for the fast food anger, or should we all just take a chill pill?  Let us know…