Idiocy in the News

I spent some time today looking at the news on the net and found some interesting bits and pieces which I will share:

I) Boy steals tram.
So this 15 year old kid in Melbourne (Australia), a self professed ?Tram-nut? waltzes into the tram depot and lifts a set of tram keys. Then twice (twice) takes a tram for a spin, firstly travelling just 50metres before bailing, the second time running a normal service for 30 minutes including stopping to collect passengers!!!!
Quote of the week has to go to police constable Barry Hills:
However, police said they saw no reason why the teenager could not become a tram driver in the future.
"If he stays on the straight and narrow, then it's certainly not going to affect his future," Mr Hills said.

So I?m thinking, ?What was possibly going through the unnamed teenager?s brain?? Did he really think he was going to escape? Was he planning to respray the tram and sell it on? And why a tram? They aren?t the most glamourous of vehicles, they have a low top speed, poor handling, no handbrake turn, and they are very difficult to customise (If you don?t believe me go to Halfords yourself).


II) Great Wall of China visible from space (again).
The Chinese were really disappointed when some astronauts said that despite the widely held belief, they could not see the Great Wall of China from space. So imagine their relief when a Chinese-American astronaut took a photo with his own (commercially available) camera which clearly showed the Wall. Unfortunately the photo also showed the road and railway which run alongside the wall, so the Chinese were disappointed again that the Great Wall is not despite the widely held belief the only manmade structure visible from space. (Also visible are the Pyramids and some larger airports, sorry Beijing.)
No doubt the Japanese will be trying to build something huge just to piss the Chinese off some more.
Note Space.com has a list of images taken from space, including palm island, Dubei
Or for REALLY BIG PICTURES (not naked eye): Geoserve


III) Argentinian jailed for 640 years for crimes against humanity.
Now I don?t want to comment on what this guy did (kidnapped people and threw them out of planes in the name of government security), but his sentencing in Spain saw him receive a 21 year sentence for each of the 30 people he ejected from planes, and a further five years each for torture and illegal imprisonment. Now this guy is obviously pretty nasty, but once he had received 630 years of detention do you think he really needed to have 10 more added? He is hardly going to be more likely to come out and start torturing or illegal imprisoning people is he.
Despite this long sentence (from the court, not my blog) the maximum anyone guilty of non-terrorist offences can spend in jail is 30 years, whatever the original sentence. So watch out in 2035 for an 88 year old Argie flight attendant.


IV) Elephants rampage through Seoul
Six elephants escaped from a circus and (get this) broke into a restaurant, before running amok through suburban Seoul. Apparently
?One elephant was briefly detained at a police station?

And god knows I ?m a lot small than an elephant (these days) but the coward of the week award goes to this Korean landlord:
One of the elephants ran into an alley and hit a 52-year-old woman with its trunk her landlord, who was standing with her when the elephant appeared, said he ran away scared

Erm I guess my news will have to wait until the world is a bit quieter.