Weird

Police may charge a BASE jumper who was rescued from a cliff face in national park in south-east Queensland. The man’s parachute failed seconds after he jumped, sending him crashing into the cliff at Christmas Creek near Beaudesert. His parachute tangled on a rock ledge about 50 metres from the top of the cliff and an SES volunteer was lowered to the man, before five men waiting at the top pulled them to safety

Unhappy when his Canadian bank, Vancouver-based Citizens Bank, began out-sourcing some of its credit card processing to the United States, Don Rogers lodged his protest via the bank’s online payment system, jamming its computers by making dozens of tiny payments a day — via Feòrag

An unidentified man swore at crew and passengers after being refused a bottle of wine on the four-hour flight from Manchester to Tenerife. He became so abusive the fed-up pilot diverted the Monarch Airlines Airbus to Porto Santo island off West Africa. After the plane touched down, the man was marched off by police and had his luggage dumped on the tarmac. The plane and its remaining passengers then took off again for Tenerife, where it landed almost four hours late after the unscheduled stop — via Boing Boing

A group of 40 drunken people dressed in Santa Claus outfits went on a rampage through Auckland, robbing stores, assaulting security guards and urinating from highway overpasses. The rampage, dubbed Santarchy by newspapers, began when the men, wearing ill-fitting Santa costumes, threw beer bottles and urinated on cars from an overpass. The men then rushed through a central city park, overturning garbage bins, throwing bottles at passing cars and spraying graffiti on office buildings. The Santas entered a convenience store and carried off beer and soft drinks — via The Register

The US Air Force has released its new mission statement, which reads: The mission of the United States Air Force is to deliver sovereign options for the defence of the United States of America and its global interests to fly and fight in Air, Space, and Cyberspace

An Albuquerque TV station has discovered strange landscape markings [BugMeNot] etched in New Mexico’s barren northern reaches, resemble crop circles that are recognisable only from a high altitude. Also, they are directly connected to the Church of Scientology. The loony fundies tried to persuade KRQE not to air its report about the aerial signposts marking a Scientology compound that includes a huge vault built into a mountainside that was constructed to protect the works of L Ron Hubbard, the late crap science fiction writer who founded the church in the 1950s — via Feòrag

He works at a Wendy’s, and his name is Ronald MacDonald — but now he may be known as the Hamburglar. Two workers at a Wendy’s in Manchester, New Hampshire, have been charged with taking money from the safe. One of the suspects is Ronald MacDonald. Police say the restaurant’s manager called them early Monday morning and said he saw MacDonald and the other man taking cash out of the restaurant’s safe — via Laridian

The web monkeys at Domain have added an interesting new property with some innovative features: Recently renovated, then remodeled again by specialist tunnel engineers, Views to China and back, Easy access to the tunnel and freeway, Icon of the northern beaches, Free flowing air ducts, Building manager (several) on site, High fences for extra security, Floating floorboards (inc floating bedroom), Entertainment room flowing onto 10 metre concrete balcony, 360 degree views (down), 1000 cubic metres of high grade quick drying concrete (ideal for a future pool or decking) and huge underground storage room — via lucie

A study at MIT has found that aluminium foil headwear — Among a fringe community of paranoids… the protective measure of choice against invasive radio signals — actually amplifies certain frequency bands allocated to the US government, as well as a mobile phone range, and is largely ineffective through the rest of the radio spectrum

A man who decapitated 17-year-old Morgan Jay Shepherd with a tomahawk in a suburban back yard later was said to have played with the teenager’s head, rolling it in a paddock as if it were a bowling ball. Christopher Clark Jones, 22, told detectives in the interview recorded in April that his co-accused, James Patrick Roughan, 25, stomped on Shepherd’s head several times before stabbing him with a kitchen knife, then decapitating him. We’d all had quite a bit to drink, he said — Warren Ellis

Oxford University student Kostydin Yankov, 19, died when he was sent flying through the air by a trebuchet and missed the safety net. He was part of an extreme sports club at the university — via Darren Barefoot

A subterranean bunker-city under a UK military base is for sale. The city is 100 hectares in area and has 100km of underground roads. It even includes a pub called the Rose and Crown. It was intended to house a Tory PM and 4,000 bureaucrats in the event of a nuclear attack. Already two uses are being considered: a massive data store for City firms or the biggest wine cellar in Europe. More outlandish ideas put forward include a nightclub for rave parties, a 1950s theme park or a reception centre for asylum seekers. The Ministry of Defence has ruled out any suggestion of using it to store nuclear waste or providing open public access because of the dangers that still lurk below — via Boing Boing

A 93-year-old driver in St Petersburg, Florida hit and killed a pedestrian last week. Then, he drove three miles with the body hanging out of his windshield. After he was stopped by police, the driver apparently said that the body fell from the sky. Obviously, he was confused, police officer Mike Jockers said. Incredibly confused — via Boing Boing