Student Runs School Board

Seth Konkel, a Kansas high school student, decided that he wanted to run for the school board, and in an effort to become more informed, he looked into district spending. What caught his eye was thousands of dollars in credit card bills charged by the Superintendent. Only minutes after Konkel met with the School Board to discuss these charges, the Superintendent resigned. What followed was public outrage that culminated in Konkel’s landslide victory, and the ousting of three incumbents from the School Board

Bimbo Extraordinaire

Jennifer Abrams, bimbo extraordinaire, has created a web site condemning the South Rivers police for the ‘murder’ of her equally stupid, shotgun wielding brother. But when she started to get negative feedback on her site, which is essentially a public forum, who did she run crying to for help — the police of course. In Jenny’s fantasy world, you can have your cake and eat it too.

Beards

Some clean shaven guys could find themselves in a hairy situation in a couple of weeks. Beard growing is now mandatory in Macclesfield, North Carolina. Any male without at least some stubble growing by 15 April will be subject to arrest and/or a US$25 fine

Weather Toast

If you’ve ever wanted the weather forecast nicely toasted into a piece of bread, Robin Southgate, a final year Industrial Design student at Brunel University in the UK, is the man to see.

Bird Barbeque

A 6m highly polished concave steel mirror sculpture in Nottingham will have to be shielded to prevent it focusing the sun’s rays and baking passing birds during Summer Solstice — just a minor design flaw.

Pre-empted Shooting

A New Zealand teenager is being praised by the FBI in alerting them to a Pennsylvanian teenager who alluded to planning his own school shoot-up. But some of the users of the web site, where the incident came to light, are claiming she overstepped her bounds. So apparently it would have been better for her to wait until after the fact instead of offering the boy the help he needs now — what a bunch of small-minded wankers.

Day Release

When you run correctional facility, handing out day release to a convicted killer and mental patient with a history of paranoid schizophrenia probably wouldn’t rate as a standard practice. Melbourne’s Thomas Embling psychiatric hospital have other ideas and one of their prisoners took advantage of the lax regulations and did a runner

Beached Seal

Cape Town office workers shaking off the Monday morning blues after the weekend found the entrance to their posh, waterfront office building blocked by a 900kg beached seal.

Killer Sheep

Shepherd Mokhtar Adam Fadl was sleeping soundly beside his flock when he was shot dead. Hours later police found the killer — it was one of his sheep.

Tom Forsythe’s Barbie Art

San Francisco artist, Tom Forsythe, can continue using Barbie dolls in his photographic renderings, when Mattel’s preliminary injunction was recently denied. Forsythe uses Barbies to ‘to critique the materialistic and gender-oppressive values’ he believes the doll embody, Mattel wanted the court to order Forsythe to hand over all the negatives of his work so they could be destroyed.

Death by Wheelie Bin

The combination of alcohol, wheelie bins and the world’s steepest street proved too much to resist for one Kiwi pair this weekend. But as one of the brain donors — who, I kid you not, studied physical education — managed to successfully remove herself from the gene pool, I can see an honourable mention in this year’s Darwin Awards coming her way.

Software Based Toddler

Hal, a software based toddler, is said to have fooled independent experts into believing they were reading conversations between an adult and a real 15 month old child. The last thing I want is intelligent computers, because the first thing they’ll discover is that humans are a blight on the planet and destroy us all.

Weird, Wildlife

Donkey Ban

Not everyone in this world drives, but Geoff Roder has been banned from a drive-in cinema for watching movies on the back of a donkey.

True Romance

Trevor Tasker, a 28 year old British man, proved that the course of true romance rarely runs smooth, when he flew to America to meet his chat room ‘love’. His intended turned out to be a 68 year old pensioner with a body in her freezer.