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The Simpsons has been dropped from morning TV in Venezuela after being deemed unsuitable for children - and has been replaced by Baywatch.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

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.

The Good News

From BBC: Daily caffeine 'protects brain':

Coffee may cut the risk of dementia by blocking the damage cholesterol can inflict on the body, research suggests.

The drink has already been linked to a lower risk of Alzheimer's Disease, and a study by a US team for the Journal of Neuroinflammation may explain why.

A vital barrier between the brain and the main blood supply of rabbits fed a fat-rich diet was protected in those given a caffeine supplement.

I like when the news turns my bad habits into good habits.

From The Star: Selangor government probes multi-million ringgit cheating cases:

SHAH ALAM: The Selangor Government has opened investigations into allegations of massive land cheating cases said to run into hundreds of millions of ringgit in
the state.

Mentri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim will personally go through records of all land transactions “tainted” by allegations of fraud.

He will discuss the matter during a special meeting with all nine district officers in
the state today.

“We will look at all the records of cases where there have been complaints to ascertain if proper procedures were followed,” he said in an interview with The Star.

The opposition wasn't necessarily a mistake on our part.

And just cause I wanted the topic to be optimistic, here's the bad news. From The Star: Proposal to prosecute non-Muslims for khalwat:

KUALA LUMPUR: A seminar on Syariah Law review wants non-Muslims found committing khalwat (close proximity) with Muslims to also be held liable.

This was among the proposals made at the two-day seminar organised by the Islamic Institute of Understanding Malaysia (Ikim) and the Syariah Judiciary Department Malaysia.

Syariah Court of Appeal Judge Datuk Mohd Asri Abdullah said the seminar had proposed that non-Muslims committing khalwat with Muslims should also be sentenced accordingly, but in the civil courts.

“We don’t have the jurisdiction to sentence non-Muslims committing khalwat with Muslims,” he told reporters after closing the seminar on behalf of department director-general Datuk Ibrahim Lembut at Ikim here today.

“The Muslims can be sentenced in Syariah courts, and the non-Muslim partners can probably be sentenced in the civil courts, to be fair to both parties.”

Time to move? Yes, probably.