Abaddon's Weird News of the World!

Wacky election candidates reveal problems at heart of Brazil politics


Suellem Rocha was invited to stand by the National Labour Party​

"What does a federal deputy do? Truly, I don't know. But vote for me and I will find out for you."

This is one of the political slogans of a man who is expected to enter the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Congress, in the general election on 3 October with the backing of more than a million voters.

If the phrase sounds like some sort of joke, perhaps you will not be surprised to learn that this particular candidate is a professional clown.

Francisco Everardo Oliveira Silva, or Tiririca as he is known, started working in a circus at the age of eight in the impoverished north-eastern state of Ceara, and is now a TV comedian.

Like Tiririca - which means grumpy - dozens of figures from Brazilian sport and showbusiness C-list are fighting for one of the Chamber's 513 seats, alongside experienced politicians, members of longstanding political clans and complete newcomers.

In all there are more than 6,000 candidates from 27 parties.

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Social media impact

While the mainstream media focuses on a presidential run which is probably already defined, with President Lula da Silva's choice Dilma Rousseff way ahead of her opponents in the polls, the "wacky race" for Congress dominates Brazil's blogosphere and social network websites.

Ex-footballer Romario says he will champion the poor Tiririca's videos, for example, have already been viewed by more than 3.5m people on YouTube, and his name remained as one of Twitter's trending topics for a few days.

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The death of James (Jimi) Heselden, the British owner of the company that makes the two-wheeled electric vehicle, has prompted the question.

Heselden, according to police, fell off a cliff in England while testing an all-terrain version of the Segway scooter Sunday. Heselden led a group of British investors who bought the company in December 2009.

A report published online today in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, says that injuries sustained while riding Segway transporters are on the rise, based on Washington, D.C., emergency room data.

The biggest problem seems to be Segway users are not wearing helmets.

Researchers examined the records of 44 patients who came to the emergency rooms with injuries sustained while riding a Segway. Only seven percent of the patients had worn helmets, which are not required by law for Segway riders in Washington.

The number of cases increased significantly over time, with three cases appearing in 2006, eight cases appearing in 2007 and 25 cases appearing in the first 11 months of 2008.

"All of the injuries were sustained by riders simply falling off, mostly from striking an inanimate object," said Dr. Mary Pat McKay of George Washington University in Washington, D.C

"Segways are pretty new to the marketplace and it's often only as products become popular that the risks involved become apparent. We urge the Consumer Product Safety Commission to assign the Segway a unique product code and collect data on injuries sustained from riding the Segway so we can develop a clearer idea of the scope of the problem,” says Dr. McKay.

Are Segway scooters more or less dangerous than bicycling or walking?

Pedestrian and cycling accident rates are well documented. But it’s harder to find good statistics on Segways, which is one reason McKay is calling for the CPSC to gather more data.

The Segway company doesn’t give out sales figures, but by some estimates there are as many as 80,000 Segways in use around the world.

One 2003 study of the stopping distances of Segway vehicles, shows that these electric scooters can be stopped in the same amount of time or a little faster than a bicycle traveling the equivalent speed.

But that same study notes that cycling on sidewalks produces a much higher accident rate than bicycling on the road. Most Segways are used on sidewalks.

The Segway company website lists the laws governing the vehicle’s use by state.

Alan Danley of Boston Gliders Segway Tours, insists that the message from Heselden’s death shouldn’t be that Segway’s are unsafe.

“We’ve had 41,000 people ride Segways around Boston and zero accidents,” he says.

He suggests that Heselden may have been careless by riding too close to the edge of a cliff. “If you stand in the middle of a storm with a lightning rod, you will get shocked.”

“Segways are extremely safe,” says Danley. “I commute to work on one. I’ve ridden one in 30 states.”

But he does say that while not required by law, helmets are mandatory for anyone 18- and under going on his company’s tours, and recommended for adults. “On our tours, everyone gets a helmet.”

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All the toddlers who brought out their best daisy dukes for Katy Perry's "Sesame Street" premiere are gonna be so cranky.

Thursday morning, the PBS children's show announced that a scheduled appearance by Perry, queen of the most inappropriate whipped-cream bra ever, had been canceled. On Monday, a clip of Perry wearing a sweetheart-cut dress, singing a G-rated version of her hit "Hot N Cold" and begging to "play" with Elmo, was leaked on the Web. Parents, outraged by Perry's C-cup-accentuating dress, immediately protested. "You're going to have to rename [Sesame Street] Cleavage Avenue," wrote one commenter, while another simply joked, "My kid wants milk now."

In response, "Sesame Street" yanked the segment, which was set to appear later this year as part of the show's 41st season. “Sesame Street has always been written on two levels, for the child and adult," a spokesperson said in a statement. "We use parodies and celebrity segments to interest adults in the show because we know that a child learns best when co-viewing with a parent or care-giver. We also value our viewers' opinions, and particularly those of parents. In light of the feedback we’ve received on the Katy Perry music video, which was released on YouTube only, we have decided we will not air the segment on the television broadcast of Sesame Street, which is aimed at preschoolers."

Perry' is pretty bummed that her street cred with the "Sesame Street" set has taken a hit. "I can totally tell you how to get to Sesame Street!" she tweeted this morning. "I've been, Elmo & I hang out." Some fans have taken to the Web to defend her, insisting that she's being punished for being a little curvy. Others wonder, why all the controversy? "Holy crap, people," wrote one outraged YouTube commenter. "Yes, women have breasts."

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Formaldehyde said:

Segway: Is It Safe? (apologies to Marathon Man author)

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Grisu said:

is this where we insers "only in America"?

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PERUWELZ, Belgium (Reuters) – Full moons are often associated with tides, insanity and creatures like werewolves, but it turns out they're also good for brewing beer.


In Peruwelz, a small, sleepy town in southern Belgium, a family-owned brewery has produced its first batch of specialist beer brewed by the light of a full autumnal moon.

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If doctors can figure out exactly how the cells repair and regenerate cardiac tissue, stem cell therapies could offer hope to more than 17.6 million Americans who suffer from coronary disease. The glow of the enzyme also means therapies would no longer require cutting into patients' chest cavities to monitor the healing.

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classical_hero said:

Of course this is about the controversy about Katy Perry on Sesame Street.

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classical_hero said:

^^How is that weird news?

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SAN ANTONIO — An American tourist was shot in the back of the head in Mexican waters on Thursday after being ambushed by armed boaters, a Texas sheriff said. It happened on a lake where run-ins with pirates had already put fishermen and Texas officials on alert.

Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez said a 30-year-old man and his wife were riding personal watercrafts back from Mexico when about six gunmen approached in two boats. Gonzalez said the man was shot as the couple sped away.

What happened to the man was unclear and the extent of his injuries was unknown. Gonzalez said the man's wife tried circling back to get him, but retreated back to U.S. waters after being fired upon again.

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"They saw them approaching and started revving it up back to the U.S. side," Gonzalez said. "The guys just started shooting at them from behind."

Gonzalez said he has contacted the Mexican consulate and asked them to look for the man. He said there was nothing else he could do.

One of the boats may have crossed the U.S. side of the lake to fire at the woman, said Mike Cox, a spokesman for the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department. The shooting renewed warnings of pirates on Falcon Lake, which is about 60 miles (96 kilometers)down the border from Laredo and is popular with water skiers and bass fishing.

Earlier this year, several fishermen were robbed at gunpoint on the lake's Mexican side. In those holdups, authorities say the gunmen traveled in the low-slung, underpowered commercial Mexican fishing boats that are familiar in the area. They asked for money, drugs and guns, and took what cash was available, but no one was hurt.

Gonzalez has previously chalked up the dangerous waters as the product of fighting between rival Mexican drug gangs.

"I would think that, right now, the prudent boater would want to stay on the Texas side," Cox said Thursday.

That is identical to what five boaters did in April when authorities said they were approached by men who identified themselves as "Federales" and asked for drugs. Those boaters handed over $200 before the pirates chased them back to U.S. waters.

Gonzalez said the woman raced her watercraft to the shores of the first lakeside homes she could reach and asked for help.

Violence on the Mexican side of the lake has been climbing for several months, as a fractured partnership between the region's dominant Gulf Cartel and its former enforcers, the Zetas, plunged many of the area's Mexican border cities into violence.

Falcon Lake is a dammed section of the Rio Grande that straddles the border. The border is marked by 14 partially submerged concrete towers that mark the Rio Grande's path before the lake was created in 1954.

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Less than a week after its debut in the South American country, the search engine giant withdrew the images following complaints.

One of the images posted last week on several websites included one that showed a body covered up with black plastic on a busy avenue in Rio de Janeiro.

It was surrounded by military police cars on the street corner in Belo Horizonte, as officers hold back a crowd of onlookers.

Another image appears to show a body lying at the edge of another Rio road, Avenida Presidente Vargas, as cars drive past. There does not appear to be any police cars or other bystanders visible.

It is not known if the drivers of the Street View cars saw the bodies.

Other internet blogs have reported bodies also showing up in street images of other cities in Latin America's biggest nation.

Brazil is the first South American country to get the controversial service. It was announced last week it would map Antarctica.

According to the latest figures available from the United Nations, there were more than 48,000 homicides recorded in Brazil in 2007. This was less than the 51,000 recorded in 2003.

A Google spokesman said in a statement that "all images of the bodies were removed" from its mapping service.

The tech giant has previously said that Street View images were “no different to what anyone might expect to see for themselves around the country”.

“Sometimes that means our cars inadvertently capture odd or inappropriate moments as they drive past,” the spokesman said.

''This is why we have put in place tools so that if people see what they believe to be inappropriate, they can report them to us using the simple reporting tool and the images will be quickly removed or further blurring applied.''

In August, a schoolgirl, Azura Beebeejaun, 10, sparked panic after she was photographed lying face down and seemingly dead on Google Street View.

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People living in Middle Road, St John's, Worcester, were so concerned they contacted Google in case a crime had gone undetected.

The brown-haired girl, who was wearing a pink and brown dress, was apparently dead with her legs lying across the curb and onto the road.

But the "body" was in fact a nine-year-old girl playing a prank with her friend. The Google Street View camera took the snap last summer.

The girl, Azura Beebeejaun, now 10, said: ''I didn't know anything about the Google Street View car. I fell over while I was playing with my friend and thought it would be funny to play dead.

''I heard a car go past me but had no idea I was having my picture taken, I was just playing a joke on my friend."

One resident, who did not wish to be named, said: ''When we heard about the Street View images we had a look at our street and thought it was really cool.

''It might have been a joke but lots of people were very worried.

''When you see a young girl face-down on the pavement you wonder what on earth has happened to her.

''The worrying thing is that Google didn't tell the police about the picture, after all they had no idea it was a prank.

''People here are just relieved it wasn't something serious but questions have to be asked about the responsibility of Google to report these things in case a crime has been committed.''

A spokesman for Google said: ''The imagery in Street View represents a snapshot in time of Britain's streets and is no different to what anyone might expect to see for themselves around the country.

''Sometimes that means our cars inadvertently capture odd or inappropriate moments as they drive past.

''This is why we have put in place tools so that if people see what they believe to be inappropriate, they can report them to us using the simple reporting tool and the images will be quickly removed or further blurring applied.''

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Auntie said:

The husband of a dinner lady who was warned that allowing a child a biscuit could be seen as grooming said she has had a "horrendous two years".

The local education body has been told to apologise for its handling of the investigation into the incident at the County Fermanagh primary school.

Pat Lavery had been asked by a pupil for a biscuit and she in turn asked a colleague to give one to the child.

Her husband said the school warned her that this could be seen as grooming.

The incident happened in May 2008 at St Mary's primary school in Brookeborough, but the details have just emerged.

Dinner lady, Mrs Lavery, who was a relative of the child, had to attend three meetings, firstly with the acting principal then two with the school principal.

One of the meetings with the principal lasted over an hour and he wanted her to attend a fourth.

Mrs Lavery decided to leave her job as she felt she had been subjected to a "grilling".

She made a complaint to the body responsible for education in the area, the Western Education and Library Board (WELB).

The NI Ombudsman Tom Frawley investigated the WELB's handling of the case.

His report found that the Board failed to address a complaint the Mrs Lavery made about her treatment "promptly and appropriately".

In a copy of the report, seen by local newspaper the Impartial Reporter, Mr Frawley said she had endured "gossip and rumours" over a period of two years.

'Shadow hanging over her'

Owen Lavery told the Talkback programme it had been "a horrendous two plus years" and that his wife had had "a shadow hanging over her".

He said that his wife had not been accused of grooming, but that the school said that his wife "could be seen by her actions as grooming a child."

Mr Lavery said that since the issue had been resolved his wife had returned to work at the school and stressed that the findings of the Ombudsman's report were directed at the WELB rather than the school

As well as finding that the board did not deal with the issue appropriately, the Ombudsman found there was no proper protocol in place under which board employees could raise grievances about non-board co-workers.

Mr Lavery recommended a consolatory payment and said the WELB should make a written apology to his wife.

In a statement, St Mary's primary school said the issues between the individuals involved had been resolved using mediation through the Labour Relations Agency.

"A confidentiality agreement was signed by all parties involved so it would not be appropriate to comment any further," it said.

"We have not received a copy of the Ombudsman's report so we cannot comment on a report that we have not seen," it added.

The WELB said the board had noted the findings of the Ombudsman's report and was "presently actioning the recommendations".

In a statement, the board pointed out that "at no time did it consider this to be a child protection issue, if it had, then appropriate action would have been implemented immediately."

The chair of the Stormont Education committee Mervyn Storey said that while rules were there to protect children and staff this was a case of "political correctness gone too far".

"I think it's a sad situation that schools are "so boxed in because of legislation."

He is to also write to the Permanent Secretary of the Department of Education to address the lack of policy as a "matter of urgency".

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