Two stupid UK mothers sell pies and hamburgers to pupils to defy Jamie Oliver's healthy school meals scheme ...

He managed to persuade the Government to part with £220 million to improve school dinners.

But Jamie Oliver failed to convince two mothers who are now leading a junk food rebellion.

Instead of supporting his scheme to introduce healthier meals, they are running a delivery service offering fish and chips, hamburgers and soda drinks.

Julie Critchlow, 43, and Samantha Walker, 41, launched their "meals on wheels service" for school kids who they say are not interested in "low fat rubbish" served up at lunchtimes.

The mothers said that they would resist calls for them to be banned and insist that children should be given a choice to eat what they want.

Mrs Critchlow, whose daughter Rachel,15, and 11-year-old son Steven are both pupils at the school, said: "We go up at break time and take down the orders through the school fence. We then go back at 1pm to deliver the food and give them their change.

"We are now delivering around 50 to 60 meals a day and we have no intention of stopping."

The mothers launched their fast food campaign when the children returned to school from the summer vacation to be told that they were not allowed to leave the premises at lunchtime.

"It meant they couldn't go to the local takeaways," said Mrs Critchlow.

"They don't enjoy the school food, and as a result, they were left starving, so we had to do something about it.

"We just buy the food from the local takeaway and pass it onto the children who give us the money."

She insisted that her children ate a balanced diet at home, adding: "I prepare a meal every night and we have a varied diet.

"We eat meat and at the moment in my freezer you would find chicken, chops, mince and Chinese belly pork.

"I don't know what my kids weigh but its not always down to what they eat, it's as much to do with their genes."

Mrs Walker, whose 11-year-old son John also goes to the school, said: "This is all down to Jamie Oliver. He is forcing our kids to become more picky about their food.

"Who does he think he is being all high and mighty? He can feed whatever he wants to his kids, but he should realise that other parents think differently." [Actually, it's only stupid parents who think differently!]

A spokesman for Jamie Oliver said, "If these mums want to effectively shorten the lives of their kids and others kids, then that's down to them.

Under UK government guidelines, all schools must now serve children at least two servings of fruit and vegetables per day, oily fish every three weeks, bread every day, no more than two portions of deep fried food each week, along with nuts and seeds, with no salt, fat or sugar.

It comes after Oliver's nationwide campaign last year to remove junk food from all school menus.

His claim that British school dinners were the "laughing stock of Europe" sparked a major public debate and ministers made plans to encourage healthier eating.

[Well done, Jamie! Shame on you, idiot parents! You should be arrested!]

Foot note: This happened in 2006. The two idiot mothers have been stopped now.

The obesity noose ...

Canon employees are forbidden to sit down or walk at normal pace ...

You might think that your job sucks, but at least your boss isn't crazy enough to remove all the chairs and install alarms that go off if you don't walk fast enough.

The president of Canon Electronics, Hisashi Sakamaki, belives that forcing employees to stand not only saves money, but also increases productivity and enhances employee relationships.

In the hallway, if an employee walks slower than 5 meters every 3.6 seconds, an alarm and flashing lights go off, reminding workers that they are being inefficient.

Even better, there's a sign on the floor in the hallways that reads "Let's rush: If we don't, the company and world will perish."

[I think it's a great idea LOL]

Absolutely perverse!!! The Queen of England gets a Gold Plated Wii ...

THQ, the games company, have apparently presented the Queen of England [who, due to the current recession, was down to her last penny] with her very own Gold Plated Nintendo Wii.

[Apparently, the 21.8% of the UK population who live below 60% median income - in other words, close to poverty - are delighted for her.]

The Royal Wii was specially commissioned for the launch of THQ's latest game: BIG Family Games.

As well as getting a gold plated Wii, the queen also received one of the first copies of the game.

BIG Family Games is designed for all ages [and poverty levels] and features 24 unique games that are all from classic ranges such as tennis, golf, lawn darts, horseshoes and more.

The company said, "We thought that Her Majesty wouldn’t want to play on any old console, so an extra-special gold one was commissioned. We hope that she and the rest of the Royal Family enjoy the game!"

[Assholes! I suppose gold plated tupperware will be next on the list!]

Brainless, drunken, racist Bavarian beats East German tourist with a live swan ...

After an afternoon of heavy drinking near the banks of the river Isar, Sebastian P. from Munich in southern Germany took offence at an east German tourist's accent and shouted "Piss off you eastern pig, they should rebuild the Wall right up to the sky because of you."

He then grabbed a swan by its neck and swung it like a club at his victim.

The assailant has been given a two-year suspended sentence as a result of the attack, which resulted in minor injuries to the victim (who was also threatened with a variety of other objects including a burning barbeque).

[Thankfully, the swan managed to fly away unhurt and was not turned into a Bavarian sausage.]

A man from Ohio has pleaded not guilty after being charged with disorderly conduct for mowing the unkempt grass in a public park ...

Sandusky, Ohio, USA

John Hamilton plans to fight the charges against him.

Authorities arrested Hamilton at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday as the 48-year-old was mowing the foot-high grass in the city park. Police charged him with obstructing official business and persistent disorderly conduct.

He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment. His next hearing is scheduled for August.

"I am a citizen," he said.

[There is a strong possibility that if found guilty, Hamilton will be sentenced to community service - mowing the lawn in the park!]

As many as 10 or 15 people in the USA [that's definitely pandemic!] might die needlessly before a swine flu vaccine is ready in October ...

Above: Guilty Pig (you can see it in his eyes).

The Washington Post, May 29, 2009.

A U.S. health official said that a swine flu vaccine could be available as early as October, but only if production and testing run smoothly throughout the summer.

There have been more than 8,500 probable and confirmed cases in the United States [what on earth does that mean ... "probable" and "confirmed"!?].

Meanwhile, health officials in an Illinois county said that a 42-year-old man has died from complications of swine flu. Apparently the unfortunate victim had other medical problems as well [which seems to be the case in all swine flu-related deaths].

The man is the third person in the state to die from swine flu.

[In the USA alone, around 33,000 people die from gun shot wounds every year. So far this year there have been approximately 5,297 drunk driving deaths in America. Between 92,130 and 100,588 people - civilians and soldiers - have been killed in Iraq since the war began ... and that's a very conservative estimate. Swine flu is the least of our problems!]

Very stupid man calls 911 over bad service at McDonald's ...

An Oregon man spent a day in jail after dialing 911 to complain that a McDonald's worker was rude to him and didn't give him an orange juice he ordered.

Sheriff's Sgt. David Thompson said Raibin Osman ignored deputies who told him that the emergency number shouldn't be used for straightening out fast-food orders.

[And North Korea is threatening to blow up the planet!]

Idiot smashes cash machine after it 'swallows' his card ...

A bank customer in the UK was so frustrated when a Lloyds TSB cash machine swallowed his card that he dialled 999 and then threw a brick at the screen.

Mark Britten had already tried two other ATMs by the time he got to the Lloyds TSB machine and was denied cash yet again.

The 45-year-old said: "I was incensed by it all. I wanted the police to shut the machine down so it wouldn't happen to anyone else, but they said they were too busy, so I smashed it with a brick."

Britten said that he would "smash every bank machine in the town", but he eventually pleaded guilty to criminal damage.

Apparently Britten has a number of medical issues, but is now on the right level of medication.

[Yeah, right!]

Neighbor dispute over killer dog ends with 5 people shot and 1 dead (this could only happen in the US of A) ...

Above: Zombie Dog ... [Would you want this thing hanging around your neighborhood?]

Reporter: Jonathan Lowe

LENOIR, N.C. -- The Caldwell County Sheriff's Office and state agents are investigating after five people were shot, one fatally, Wednesday night.

The shooting began around 11 p.m. at two homes on Grandin Road near Blue Creek Road in an area called Kings Creek, north of Lenoir.

Officials say it started as an argument when one man’s dog killed his neighbor’s cat. The neighbor then shot the dog, prompting the dog’s owner to shoot his 50-year-old neighbor and the neighbor’s 8-year-old daughter. They are in fair and good condition, respectively.

"My daughter was across the road,” said Tammie Roberts, a neighbor of the shooter. “When she walked across the road, she heard the first gunshot."

"It was very terrifying hearing all the gunshots," she added, saying her family took cover.

When sheriff’s deputies came out to investigate, the man who shot the father and daughter began shooting at them. One deputy was hit multiple times and was flown to Carolinas Medical Center for treatment. He is expected to be released Friday.

Another deputy was hit in the arm. He was treated at a nearby hospital and released.

Deputies eventually moved in on the shooter, and more shots were fired, resulting in the suspect’s death. Sheriff's officials believe he was struck in the gunfire.

Deputy B.J. Fore says this incident was a painful reminder of other tragic events of the past year.

"We've had six officers shot over the last eight months," he said.

Two Caldwell County sheriff's deputies were shot on Sept. 19, 2008 while responding to a 911 hang-up call. Deputy Adam Klutz was killed in that shooting. Eight days earlier, two other deputies were shot serving a warrant in the Happy Valley area, near Boone. Both of those deputies survived.

No names have been released in the incident.

Resumés [like people] are getting dumber ...

by Jane Porter for The Wall Street Journal
Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Kristin Konopka sent out nearly 100 copies of her résumé in January in search of receptionist work, but got only one callback. That's when Ms. Konopka, a 29-year-old New York actress and yoga teacher, took her master's degree and academic teaching experience off her résumé.

The calls started coming in. The slimmer version of her résumé landed in 30 in-boxes and earned her three callbacks and two interviews. "It definitely picked up the interest," says Ms. Konopka, who realized quickly that people don't "want to hire anyone who is overqualified."

Securing work in a tight economy means more job seekers might find themselves applying for positions below their qualifications. Many unemployed professionals are willing to take paycuts for the promise of a paycheck. But to get a foot in the door, candidates are gearing down their résumés by hiding advanced degrees, changing too-lofty titles, shortening work experience descriptions, and removing awards and accolades.

In the past eight months, Jamaica Eilbes, an information-technology recruiter for Milwaukee employment agency Manpower, has had to weed out more overqualified résumés than usual from the stacks that cross her desk each day. "I'd never feel comfortable putting a really high-level candidate into a lower level position," says Ms. Eilbes, who recruits for Manpower and other clients. "We don't want to take you on if we think you are going to jump ship."

But in recent months, Ms. Eilbes has seen more master's and doctoral degrees at the bottom of résumés instead of at the top. She's also seen candidates omitting or trimming job descriptions that showed they had substantial years of work experience. Résumés on which job descriptions taper off as they progress down the page raise Ms. Eilbes's suspicions. "How do I know I can trust them later down the road if there's something on their résumé they decided to take off so they could have a better chance at getting that job?" she says.

Still, for some professionals who find themselves constantly rejected despite decades of experience, scaling back the truth -- or at the least, some of their experiences -- can feel like the only chance at an interview.

Lenora Kaplan, 49, has 26 years of marketing experience but doesn't want her résumé to show it. When she lost her job as vice president of public relations at a small Las Vegas marketing firm in January, Ms. Kaplan searched for work with little success. At an interview for a shopping-mall marketing-director position in February, she was told that the hiring budget had only enough for a junior-level employee and that her résumé showed she was overqualified.

Many of the jobs she comes across ask for far fewer years of experience than she has. "There is nothing to apply for" at my level, Ms. Kaplan says. She quickly realized her job experience was pricing her out of too many positions. Her solution: To try not to look as senior level as she really was. So she eliminated certain jobs and removed details about speaking engagements and board positions.

In some cases, job seekers are being told by hiring agencies to tone down their résumés if they want to get hired. When Bridget Lee, 29, moved to New York from Shanghai eight months ago and put her application in at three temporary agencies, she was told to play down her work experience before they would send her résumé to potential clients. The temp-agency version of her résumé changed titles like "manager" and "freelance trend researcher" to "staff" and "office support" and omitted entirely her title as partner of a small marketing agency. "It's been a lesson for how I present myself," Ms. Lee says.

Career counselors advise against making too many drastic changes. But they also say the demand for this kind of restructuring is on the rise. In the past three months, Tammy Kabell, a Kansas City, Mo., job-search coach, says more clients are requesting her help to "dumb down" their résumés, whether by changing job titles, playing down experience, or altogether omitting some impressive achievements. One recent client, a 61-year-old former chief learning officer at a tech company, insisted on omitting her C-level job title from her résumé. She was fearful her application would be weeded out by the Web search-optimization tools companies use to manage résumés.

Some résumé writers advise reworking a résumé into a functional one stressing transferable skills instead of past job titles and accomplishments. "Instead of focusing on the big achievements that might scare an employer away, you can spell out what you can bring to an employer in the next position," Ms. Kabell says.

Of course, reducing your résumé to a skeleton of what it truly should be isn't likely to land you the job you really want. While it took Ms. Lee eight months to get a call back for a job that matched her real experience, this month she landed a position as a temporary account manager -- with potential for permanent work -- at a New York design firm. The interview and job offer weren't earned using her dumbed-down résumé, but rather with the original.

"You have to make those creative edits when it comes to short-term work, but in terms of long-term work, you have to stay true to your experience," says Ms. Lee.

US wants to paint the world white to save energy ...

LONDON(AFP) (AFP) – US Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Tuesday the Obama administration wanted to paint roofs an energy-reflecting white, as he took part in a climate change symposium in London.

The Nobel laureate in physics called for a "new revolution" in energy generation to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

But he warned there was no silver bullet for tackling climate change, and said a range of measures should be introduced, including painting flat roofs white.

Making roads and roofs a paler colour could have the equivalent effect of taking every car in the world off the road for 11 years, Chu said.

It was a geo-engineering scheme that was "completely benign" and would keep buildings cooler and reduce energy use from air conditioning, as well as reflecting sunlight back away from the Earth.

For people who found white hard on the eye, scientists had also developed "cool colours" which looked to the human eye like normal ones, but reflect heat like pale colours even if they are darker shades.

And painting cars in cool or light colours could deliver considerable savings on energy use for air conditioning units, he said.

Speaking at the start of a symposium on climate change hosted by the Prince of Wales and attended by more than 20 Nobel laureates, Chu said fresh thinking was required to cut the amount of carbon created by power generation.

He said: "The industrial revolution was a revolution in the use of energy. It offloaded from human and animal power into using fossil fuels.

"We have to go to a different new revolution that can severely decrease the amount of carbon emissions in the generation of energy."

[My opinion: this is an excellent idea]

Atheists target UK schools (and about time, too!) ...

Atheists are targeting schools in a campaign designed to challenge Christian societies, collective worship and religious education.

The National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies (AHS) plans to launch a recruitment drive this summer.

Backed by professor Richard Dawkins and Anthony Grayling, the initiative aims to establish a network of atheist societies in schools to counter the role of Christianity.

It will coincide with the first atheist summer camp for children that will teach that religious belief and doctrines can prevent ethical and moral behaviour.

The federation aims to encourage students to lobby their schools and local authorities over what is taught in RE lessons and to call for daily acts of collective worship to be scrapped. It wants the societies to hold talks and educational events to persuade students not to believe in God.

Chloë Clifford-Frith, AHS co-founder, said that the societies would act as a direct challenge to the Christian message being taught in schools.

She expressed concern that Christian Unions could influence vulnerable teenagers looking for a club to belong to with fundamentalist doctrine.

In particular, she claimed that some students were being told that homosexuality is a sin and to believe the Biblical account of creation.

"We want to point out how silly some of these beliefs are and hope that these groups will help to do that," she said.

The federation's bid to improve co-ordination among atheists in schools follows a successful campaign at universities.

The number of groups reported by the AHS to be active on campuses has risen from seven in 2007/2008 academic year to 25 in 2008/2009, including societies at the universities of Oxford and Durham.

Leeds Atheist Society claims to have experienced discrimination, vandalism, theft and death threats from religious groups on campus who oppose the open expression of an atheist viewpoint and blasphemy.

Anthony Grayling, Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London, and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford, said: "As well as making the case for reason and science, it is great to know that the AHS will be standing up against religious privilege and discrimination.

"The AHS shows that increasing numbers of young people are unwilling to put up with it."

Simon Calvert of the Christian Institute said: "Atheists are becoming increasingly militant in their desperate [LOL] attempts to stamp out faith. It is deeply worrying that they now want to use children to attack the Christian ethos of their schools.

"Many parents will also be anxious at the thought of militant atheists targeting their children."

[What he's really saying is that many religious control-freaks will be anxious because their children will finally learn the truth about the god myth.]

In a further development to strengthen the role of atheism among the younger generation, the first summer camp for irreligious [bad choice of words. He should have said 'non-religious] children, or the children of nontheistic parents, is being held this summer.

Organisers say that Camp Quest, which originated in America, offers "a godless alternative to traditional religious summer camps, such as vacation Bible schools".

Finally common sense prevails: Cigarette makers lose appeal in landmark case ...

NEDRA PICKLER of AP reports on Friday, May 22

WASHINGTON – A federal appeals court on Friday agreed with the major elements of a 2006 landmark ruling that found the nation's top tobacco companies guilty of racketeering and fraud for deceiving the public about the dangers of smoking.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington upheld requirements that manufacturers change the way they market cigarettes. The requirements, which have been on hold pending appeal, would ban labels such as "low tar," "light," "ultra light" or "mild," since such cigarettes have been found to be no safer than others because of how people smoke them.

It also says the companies must publish "corrective statements" in newspapers and on their Web sites on the adverse health effects and addictiveness of smoking and nicotine.

Throughout the 10 years the case has been litigated, tobacco companies have denied committing fraud in the past and said changes in how cigarettes are sold now make it impossible for them to act fraudulently in the future. The companies have argued the ban on labels like "light" would cost them hundreds of millions of dollars.

Philip Morris USA and its parent company, Altria Group Inc., said they will appeal to the Supreme Court.

Read full article here

Perhaps it was only destiny that something called Swine Flu would have a special love for extremely overweight people ... ...

Survey Finds Link Between Obesity and Flu Severity.

By David Brown and Robin Shulman, Washington Post Staff Writers.

A survey of people hospitalized because of swine flu in California has raised the possibility that obesity is as much of a risk factor for serious complications from the flu as diabetes, heart disease and pregnancy, all known to raise a person's risk.

In all, about two-thirds of the California patients had some underlying medical condition, according to a report yesterday in the weekly bulletin of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Nationwide, 47 states and the District have reported 5,469 cases and six deaths since the start of the outbreak in late April, according to the CDC's count. Yesterday, officials in Missouri reported a seventh U.S. death -- that of a 44-year-old man who had no underlying medical problems, wire services reported.

"We were surprised by the frequency of obesity among the severe cases that we've been tracking," said Anne Schuchat, one of the CDC epidemiologists managing the outbreak. She said scientists are "looking into" the possibility that obese people should be at the head of the line along with other high-risk groups if a swine flu vaccine becomes available.

Other studies have shown that pregnant women are also at higher risk for serious influenza infection, especially in the third trimester, when the fetus and womb compress the lower parts of the lungs. This makes it harder to breathe deeply and cough forcefully; it may also alter blood flow in the chest. A similar thing may be occurring in severely overweight people, some experts speculated.

Full story here

Oxford scientists waste £300,000 to discover that ducks like water. Still no cure for cancer ...

Oxford University [unsuccessfully] attempts to defend three years of ridiculously expensive research that resulted in the obvious!

By Steven Morris of The Guardian

The assumption has always been that rainy weather is good for ducks. Now a three-year study funded to the tune of £300,000 by the taxpayer has proved it.

Two scientists from the University of Oxford gave a lucky group of farm ducks access to a pond, a water trough and a shower. They discovered that the ducks spent an awful lot of time under the shower, sometimes just standing there, others drinking from it.

Perhaps inevitably, the revelation that ducks seem to enjoy water washing over them has not impressed everyone. Susie Squire of the Taxpayers' Alliance, called the research a "bonkers waste of money".

She said: "It is common sense that ducks like rain and water. The last thing the government should be allocating scarce resources to is this sort of nonsense."

The Devon chairman of the National Farmers Union, Anthony Rew, said the study proved that Defra, the government department that oversees the care of farm animals, was – wait for it – "quackers".

He said: "They need to get out of London and get on a farm to see how the countryside works, to put policies in place that are practical and well costed. If they asked a farmer, he would tell them ducks like water."

It would be wrong to suggest the criticism washed over the scientists and Defra like water off a duck's back – but they did defend it stoutly.

Marian Stamp Dawkins, professor of animal behaviour at Oxford, said many would have expected the ducks to spend most of their time swimming in the pond. In fact, they seemed to prefer the shower to the pond, suggesting they were not very bothered about swimming.

She said it was unfair to portray the study as finding out simply that ducks liked water. It had been carried out to find the best way of providing water to farmed ducks because ponds quickly became dirty, unhygienic and took up a lot of water, making them environmentally questionable.

Defra insisted that the study did go further than just establishing that rainy weather was good for ducks, arguing it was all about making sure that farmed birds were well cared for.

[Idiots!]

Bush cronies land jobs charging for advice on how not to get eaten by the monsters they created

From USA Today:

More than one in four members of President George W. Bush's Cabinet have landed jobs with consulting or lobbying firms in which they can help clients navigate the departments they once oversaw. Michael Chertoff, who served as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) until January, launched a consulting business two months ago to provide "risk-management advice" [advice on how not to get screwed by the DHS] to private companies and governments.

For the full story (it's worth reading), click here

After the 'Day of Reckoning' arrives, Orlando atheist will deliver messages to those left behind ... (LOL)

There are those who believe in the 'Rapture' prophesied in the Bible.

And there is Joshua Witter (above), an avowed atheist.

They need each other.

Well, at least those willing to pay Witter to be their post-apocalyptic postman, delivering cards and letters to their non-believing friends, relatives and neighbors who will be left behind when the 'Day of Reckoning' arrives.

About 70 people have already paid the Orlando man about $5 apiece to get their messages to those doomed to face the plagues, pestilence and darkness of Armageddon.

As sure as these 'True Believers' are that they will escape this earth when the 'Rapture' arrives, Witter is just as certain that he will be left behind to deliver their mail. He has even committed blasphemy to make sure.

"Anyway you look at it, I'm screwed. It's too late for me," said Witter, a 24-year-old computer software engineer who wears long sideburns and hip black-framed glasses.

Witter started his website - postrapturepost.com - as a joke; a satiric jab at those who see things like the swine flu, economic collapse and the election of a liberal president as sure signs that the end is near.

But then he started receiving orders for his merchandise. Since 2005, Witter said he has sold more than 200 items, most of them T-shirts and coffee mugs, and many of those to friends and fellow atheists.

Among the best sellers are the line of I-Told-You-So cards, which sell for $8. Some of those who ordered the cards - Witter suspects they are not true Christians - are willing to pay extra to have them sent early as Christmas cards.

Witter doesn't have a stack of cards or letters with Post-Rapture messages in a dresser drawer or safety deposit box. All the messages are stored in his computer, encrypted to protect their privacy and backed up by a fail-safe system. His website might be all in jest, but when it comes to his paying customers, Witter is a responsible entrepreneur. He doesn't share the contents of the messages with his friends over beers, or mock those who take this whole end-of-the-world business seriously.

He does concede, however, that delivering on his promise to hand-deliver the cards and letters entrusted to him may be difficult. Witter has read all the books of the popular "Left Behind" series, so he knows what to expect. Covered with boils, he will have to fight his way through perpetual darkness, clouds of insects, and meteors falling from the sky to deliver the mail.

"Your hope lies with me. I am your mailman," he vows. "I'll do my best, come Hell or high water, to deliver those letters."

On the other hand, should the so-called 'Rapture' not arrive in his lifetime, he gets to keep the money, which he promises to use to subsidize his sinful lifestyle.

And don't even think about asking him to forward a message from the future for free.

"I turn people away who ask for free letters," he said. "I'm not a charity."

[LMAO!!!]

By Jeff Kunerth | Sentinel Staff Writer (with a few grammar improvements by yours truly)

Cat amasses half a million Twitter followers ... (yet further proof that the human species is intrinsically stupid)

A grey cat with white markings named Sockington has just cruised past the 500,000 follower mark on Twitter. Known as Socks for short, the cat lives near Boston with his human, Jason Scott. Check out this account of the cat's triumph.

As of this morning, 502,110 (very stupid) people (with absolutely nothing better to do) were apparently spellbound by such Tweets from Sockington as:

"and so I slept and then I walked around and then I slept again and then I saw a cobweb..."

I can hardly wait for the next gripping installment!

At least the cat writes better English than most kids these days ... and leads a more exciting life, by the sounds of it! :)

Angry British people ...

According to a new poll, the British are the angriest people in Europe with most Brits losing their temper four times a day on average.

Queue-jumping gets them most worked up, followed by traffic jams.

Italians, the second most angry, lose their cool 3.5 times a day on average.

The French are third in the poll, while Scandinavians are the most placid.

The top 10 frustrations for the British are:

1 Queue-jumpers.

2 Traffic jams.

3 Rude service in shops.

4 Ill-mannered neighbours.

5 Foreign call centres.

6 Racist and bigoted behaviour.

7 Erratic driving.

8 Swearing in public.

9 Spitting in the street.

10 Badly functioning computers.

Courtesy of the Daily Express

Good News (and about time, too!): Germany to ban paintball in wake of high school shooting

The German government is to ban paintball in response to the school shooting in which 16 people were killed in March.

Experts from Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives and her Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners have agreed to outlaw all games in which players shoot at each other with pellets.

The governing parties say paintball trivialises violence and risks lowering the threshold for committing violent acts.

Infringements to the new rules, which the cabinet hopes to pass before a general election in September, could incur fines of up to 5,000 euros (£4,400).

A 17-year-old shot dead 15 people in the southwestern town of Winnenden, before killing himself in March, stunning many Germans and leading politicians to call for tighter gun rules.

The teenager shot many of his victims in the head with his father's legally registered pistol. His father, a member of a shooting club, had 15 guns at home – fourteen were locked in a gun closet as required by law but the pistol was in the bedroom.

Germany toughened its gun laws in 2002 after Robert Steinhauser, 19, shot dead 16 people before turning the gun on himself at a high school in the eastern German city of Erfurt.

The changes raised the minimum age for gun ownership to 21 from 18 and required gun buyers under 25 to present a certificate of medical and psychological health. Gun laws already required applicants to pass rigorous exams that can take up to a year.

The new rules would also grant authorities more rights in conducting checks with people owning guns, the sources said.

Sources in the SPD said the parties were also moving towards on agreement on the creation of a nationwide weapons register and were considering setting up biometric security locks for weapons' stores.

Telegraph.co.uk

Something to think about ...

Click on image for larger view

Chuck Norris saves a bakery (LOL)

A bakery in Split, Croatia, has been broken into almost every week.

But not since the shop owners posted a life-sized photo of the toughest man in Hollywood - Chuck Norris - in the window.

The sign says: “This shop is under the protection of Chuck Norris.”

Now the bakery hasn't had a single burglary for more than a month.

Sales assistant Mirna Kovac said: "To be honest, we just started it as a joke, but it really has worked. Thieves haven't been anywhere near us for ages. People seem to respect him.

"Everyone around here has seen his films and he's quite a popular character, perhaps even among criminals, so they've decided to leave us alone."

She added though: "We have had a few customers come in and ask us whether they can get Chuck's autograph.

“They really believe he is sitting in our storeroom out the back ready to pounce on any burglars."

Quarantine for lonely Afghan pig

Afghanistan's only known pig has been quarantined because of fears over swine flu, officials from Kabul Zoo say.

The pig, a curiosity in a country where pork products are illegal, lives at the zoo, where he had previously enjoyed grazing next to deer and goats.

However visitors expressed fears that the animal could be carrying the H1N1 virus and he was moved into isolation.

The director of the zoo, Aziz Gul Saqib, says the pig, whose name is Khanzir, is strong and healthy.

Speaking to the BBC World Service, Mr Saqib says: "The only reason we moved him was because Afghan people don't have a lot of knowledge about swine flu, and so when they see a pig they get worried and think they will get ill."

The director says Khanzir, given to the zoo by China in 2002, has been moved to a large space with lots of windows and fresh air and that he hopes he will be quarantined for only a few days.

Acknowledging that being Afghanistan's only pig is a lonely existence, Mr Saqib says he hopes to find Khanzir a female companion soon.

However, he says, because of swine flu, "it is a dangerous and difficult time to get a new pig for our pig".

BBC