Thursday 10 April 2008

Things that should never have happened

I didn't really want to put these in the same post as the previous. From BBC: Burma migrants suffocate in lorry:

More than 50 Burmese illegal migrants have suffocated in the back of a lorry taking them into southern Thailand, Thai police say.

The 54 migrants were found dead inside the packed container lorry after dozens more managed to escape from the vehicle and flag down police.

Police said the migrants had suffocated after the air-conditioning failed.

They had been packed into an airtight lorry for the journey to the resort island of Phuket, Col Kraithong Chanthongbai said, but the ventilation failed.

"When police got to the scene, they found that 54 of the workers were already dead in the packed container truck," the Associated Press news agency quoted him as saying.

Twenty-one other workers were taken to hospital, he said. As many as 46 other workers did not require hospital treatment and were detained.

The driver of the lorry fled the scene.

No, this should never have happened.

Priceless

From BBC: Simpsons ditched by Venezuelan TV:

The Simpsons has been dropped from morning TV in Venezuela after being deemed unsuitable for children - and has been replaced by Baywatch.

The popular US cartoon about the yellow dysfunctional family was branded "inappropriate" and pulled by the country's television authorities.

Caracas TV station Televen has started showing episodes of the beachside show in the same mid-morning slot.

It became famous for its bikini-clad stars, including Pamela Anderson.

Yes. Baywatch is much better for kids than Simpsons. Totally.

Tuesday 8 April 2008

The news is disturbing in more ways than one

So I was surfing The Star Online as usual and I saw the most disturbing ad. Click for full view, and I suggest you do:

I don't know about you, but that disturbs me.

Holy Incest, Batman!

I always knew there was something wrong with them. From BBC: Australia incest pair in TV plea:

An Australian man and his daughter have asked for understanding after revealing on national TV they have an incestuous relationship, and have a daughter.

John Deaves, 61, appeared on the TV show 60 Minutes with daughter Jenny, 39, and nine-month-old Celeste - to whom he is both father and grandfather.

Last month a judge banned them from having sex with each other and revealed they had a child in 2001 who died.

But they insisted on the programme that they were "normal intellectual adults".

Mr Deaves said they both "had careers, had a normal life like everybody else".

He added: "But [we have] fallen in love with each other when we are biologically related, when we've discovered each other later in life."

And I bet there was incest going on here as well. From BBC: Hundreds leave Texas sect ranch:

Authorities in Texas have removed more than 400 children and 130 women from a compound belonging to a polygamist sect as part of a child abuse inquiry.

They moved in on Friday after a teenage girl phoned to say she had been abused at the ranch in Eldorado County.

The sect's prophet is Warren Jeffs, a self-confessed polygamist who was jailed last year for being an accomplice to the rape of a 14-year-old girl who married her cousin.

The 16-year-old who phoned said she had been sexually and physically abused.

She also said she had given birth at the age of 15 to a child fathered by her 50-year-old husband.

His 10,000-strong sect, which dominates the towns of Colorado City in Arizona, and Hildale, Utah, split from the mainstream Mormon church more than a century ago.

Members believe a man must marry at least three wives in order to ascend to heaven. Women are meanwhile taught that their path to heaven depends on being subservient to their husband.

See what men make women do? I suppose I shouldn't be so 'prickly' about it. From BBC: NZ man 'used hedgehog as weapon':

A man in New Zealand has been charged with using a hedgehog as a weapon, the New Zealand Herald has reported.

Police said William Singalargh, 27, had hurled the hedgehog about 5m (16ft) at a 15-year-old boy.

"It hit the victim in the leg, causing a large, red welt and several puncture marks," said Senior Sgt Bruce Jenkins, in the North Island town of Whakatane.

It was unclear whether the hedgehog was still alive when it was thrown, though it was dead when collected as evidence.

See what I did there? Porcupine as a weapon. Awesome.