The new creationism... and why there's apparently no need to be afraid of it.

3:38 PM | link

The bottom's already falling out of the Euro... or at least the middle is.

3:24 PM | link

Man seemingly unable to understand why his Nazi dolls are freaking people out. And while I don't have any problems with his explanations of himself, there's something about a Hitler doll that just seems weird.

3:17 PM | link

Have a ball at the Testicle Festival.

9:17 PM | link

Political nepotism in Australia. It's a family affair, all right.

6:15 PM | link

More bizarre September 11-related numerology. I'm kind of hoping this'll be the last example of it, too, cos frankly I'm long since fed up with it; however, if this one is true, then it was too good to pass up...

6:08 PM | link

Next time the weather sucks, blame the US military, not the bureau of meteorology. I still haven't worked out whether this story is merely bizarre or terrifying.

5:50 PM | link

The physics of scrunching up paper.

5:47 PM | link

76-year-old Greek man arrested for deserting—in 1949.. "It is an example of the phenomenon of bureacracy," says an embarrassed government representative. It is actually an example of complete fuckheadedness, say I. Though some might say the two are interchangeable.

5:38 PM | link

Members of the Mile High Club spark terrorist fear.

5:35 PM | link

Laura Bush says all-American Taliban man John Walker Lindh provides lessons for parents everywhere. Admittedly those kids she and Dubya had never took the terrorist route like young John, but they're not exactly pure as the driven snow themselves, are they? Still, you should never let hypocrisy get in the way of telling other people what to do...

5:24 PM | link

Queensland farmer breaks leg, spends two days in agony drinking warm beer and fending off wild dogs before being discovered. I wonder whether the pain, the dogs, or the warm beer was the hardest part for him to deal with...

5:19 PM | link

Shopper Beaten For Bringing 13 Items To Express Lane. Doesn't take much to set people off these days, does it? Next thing it'll be the checkout chicks doing the whacking...

5:14 PM | link

The Razzies have been announced. Much to my disappointment, there were no nominations for One Night At McCool's, which was the worst experience I had in a cinema last year...

5:03 PM | link

Still in New Zealand: Telecom has ordered an investigation after a customer received an account charging him a "penalty for being an arrogant bastard". And though there's no consumer law protecting the man from being called an arrogant bastard, it could still be defamation...

3:52 PM | link

Mysterious Kiwi Bra-Fence Baffles Locals. "However, Hemingway's not worried she's living next to kinky campers. She says her only worry with the bra-covered fence is that some of the larger cup sizes might catch the wind and blow the fence down."

3:48 PM | link

"My toilet terror". No further comment from me.

3:48 PM | link

Man holds dog for ransom in dispute over Nazi relic. The oddest blackmail story I've seen in a while...

3:37 PM | link

Welshmen more likely to find it OK for men to use mascara than anyone else in the UK. Thus saith FHM Magazine. What this may or may not reveal about Welshmen is something I'm not sure I want to speculate on.

3:31 PM | link

Norman Mailer mourns Jack Abbott. I never heard of Jack Abbott (who was found hanged in his cell, may or may not have been suicide) until today, for what it's worth; apparently he killed some people, him and Mailer struck up a correspondence in the late '70s, and his letters to Mailer were published in book form in 1981. Mailer helped him get out on parole. Six weeks later, Abbott repaid uncle Norm's kindness by killing some other guy. Which I suppose goes to show how carefully you really do need to choose your friends; perhaps Colin Wilson should be careful too...

3:18 PM | link

The Daily Telegraph gave arachnophobes everywhere a heart attack with its page three models today. I don't care if they're only deadly when provoked and more scared of us than we are of them. Fuck them. They're hideous. I do not need a picture of something I have a phobia about occupying half of page three, thank you very much...

2:44 PM | link

Schoolkids caught downloading porn on school-provided laptops. And the authorities responsible are surprised by this? Next thing they'll stop the kids getting access to books too, in case they actually learn anything...

2:22 PM | link

Get your .us domain name here! Show your US-loving jingoism in your URL! YEEEeeeeeeee... where does all the patriotism of late end?

2:17 PM | link

Man caught in Angola with 1304 uncut diamonds in his intestines. I honestly have no idea how to properly respond to this.

2:09 PM | link

The Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie: An Effective, Low-Cost Solution To Combating Mind-Control.

1:39 PM | link

How the web became a tool for popular progaganda after S11. Longish, graphics-intensive, but fascinating look at all those photoshopped pictures of Osama Bin Laden that have cropped up on the Net since September 11 last year. Should piss off right-wingers, and the pictures are fairly hardcore, so not really work-friendly. But very much worth reading.

7:21 PM | link

Religious warfare of a different sort... apparently half the deaths caused by dangerous driving in Samoa involve clergymen somehow. Me? I just want to know what the hell, even in Samoa, clergymen are doing working second jobs as taxi drivers...

5:59 PM | link

Pioneer 10 actually coming back our way? Seems that some hitherto undiscovered force is doing weird things to the speed of the venerable space probe, thirty years in space as of next month... though given that they apparently cut off contact with it five years ago, how do they know what it's doing now?

5:53 PM | link

Woody Allen disses the films of the Marx Bros and W.C. Fields. Woody just went down a few more points in my estimation of him, which is remarkable, cos I thought it couldn't get much lower.

5:44 PM | link

The music industry's activities against Internet music piracy have failed: it's kind of official. Even more to the point, the report claims that, despite wiping out and then co-opting Napster, the music industry may never be able to eradicate it entirely. Stephen Den Beste offers his commentary...

5:19 PM | link

There's going to be a film of Atlas Shrugged. Yes indeed. Apparently it will be a mini-series cos the thing's so long. Me, I just want to know these things: 1) who will be John Galt? 2) how do they propose to present his famous speech and how many hours of the mini-series will it occupy? 3) will even pain of death be enough to entice me to watch it? and 4) what is the webmaster's problem with Wil Wheaton?

5:02 PM | link

Hare Krishnas file for bankruptcy. What a shame some other churches couldn't file for moral bankruptcy... though what really grabbed me in that piece was a reference to this $400m lawsuit the Krishnas are facing over abuse allegations. I was amazed, cos I don't think I ever heard anything about that. If it's true then it sadly seems that some Christian churches don't hold the monopoly on that...

4:52 PM | link

Woman Falsely Declared Dead, Is Now Dead. Medical incompetence ahoy! No wonder Edgar Allan Poe feared premature burial, these idiots would like have been the ones to bury him...

4:31 PM | link

How to really get rid of telemarketers... by a former telemarketer. As they say, know thy enemy...

4:27 PM | link

Scientists Find Jurassic Age Dinosaur Vomit. I don't know, if I unearthed 160 million-year-old prehistoric puke, would I really want to be remembered for that? Somehow I think not...

4:22 PM | link

Larry Flynt still pissing them off: this time with an ad campaign apparently featuring models made up to look well below legal age. An employee of the modelling agency who provided the girls dismissed the fuss with this charming comment: "I find it hard to mix whores with tasteful, but that shoot was nice."

4:19 PM | link

Barry White to Serenade Sharks. Um. Yes. Hopefully the sharks will get a better view of the rotund romantic than some of the people at his allegedly in-the-round concert (who were stuck watching his back for the entire show cos the stage wouldn't revolve) at the Sydney Entertainment Centre a few months ago...

12:02 PM | link

The best spam I've received in ages: "Our U.S. based international ministry has the authority to ORDAIN you immediately." I liked the bit on the order form where you could choose the title you want, and the other bit where it says you can start your own church once you're properly ordained (funny, I thought you could do that sort of thing without needing credentials, least of all something acquired from a dodgy spammer)...

12:26 AM | link

Bible Fan Fiction... of a sort. "Ye Gods," I say.

11:53 PM | link

The worst ad on the Internet. "Go back to marketing school, PenisEnlargement.com. You have failed."

3:44 PM | link

Apparently the producers of Friends are planning to kill off Jennifer Aniston's character for the finale of the present season. But why stop there, I ask? Why not whack the rest of the bastards while they're at it?

2:37 PM | link

Getting rid of vermin with talk-radio. Thought this was kind of funny after that screed about Alan Jones yesterday.

2:24 PM | link

France sends philosopher to Kabul to muse about plight of Afghans. No doubt the people of Afghanistan are grateful for this gift, even if they would probably be better off with less important things like food...

2:07 PM | link

And this, quite frankly, is a fucking disgrace. Although apparently the school board who basically said it was OK for the kids to plagiarise is now being investigated, and rightly so.

1:57 PM | link

Princess Margaret died. Not that I really have much time for the Royals, but this is kind of sad, especially coming at the Queen's jubilee time, and just when the jubilee is looking like sucking. If you run a death pool, I think you'd be safe in adding the Queen Mother to it, cos I can't see her lasting into 2003...

1:49 PM | link

The White House doesn't like a cartoon showing a plane marked "Bush Budget" flying into a pair of towers marked "Social" and "Security". Bad taste, perhaps, and the paper has apologised for running it, but damn, aren't newspaper cartoonists supposed to do that sort of thing, even at the risk of causing offence to some folks?

1:43 PM | link