It wasn’t Clara Bell. Crusty, maybe, but not Clara Bell

The Boulder Police Department is looking for a cross-dressing man wearing clown makeup who robbed a liquor store on Saturday night…

The witnesses described the robber as a man wearing red and white face makeup, a red and purple wig, a fake nose and a denim dress. Employees told police they didn’t think anything was peculiar when he walked into the store because of the Pridefest events happening over the weekend in Denver,

via Cross-Dressing Clown Robs Liquor Store- KMGH Denver.

In some places they’re food

The French Government faces punishment for failing to look after its hamsters.

The European Commission has brought a case in the European Court for allowing the great hamster of Alsace, the only wild hamster in Western Europe, to decline to the point of extinction.

via France faces court for hamster neglect – Environment – NZ Herald News.

There probably was a reason for this…maybe

Standing room only

A Chinese budget airline has applied for permission to sell cut price standing room only tickets. Passengers would pay a reduced price to stand in the aisles during flights, reports IC Media.

Spring Airlines president Wang Zhenghua said tickets would go on sale as soon as the government agreed the proposals.

via Ananova – Budget airline plans standing tickets.

Did you ever wonder?

My wife and I went to a concert yesterday afternoon and one of the pieces that was performed was Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony. So if the symphony is “unfinished” how do you know when you’ve finished ?

(Now I’ll wait for people to  point out that I’m an idiot.)

Hot stuff

Indian scientists are to put one of the world’s hottest chilli powders into hand grenades. They say the devices will be used to control rioters and in counter-insurgency operations.

Defence researchers say the idea is to replace explosives in small hand grenades with a certain variety of red chilli to immobilise people without killing them, reports the BBC.

The chilli, known as Bhut Jolokia, is said to be 1,000 times hotter than commonly used kitchen chilli.

via Ananova – Hot chilli grenades.

Let’s have another little look at those plans, shall we?

It’s going to be tough getting this manhole cover off.

Via Fail Blog

Royal Fruitcakes

George III of Great Britain and Ireland was being driven through Windsor Great Park when he ordered his carriage driver to stop. The King got out, walked over to an oak tree, shook hands with one of its branches and talked to it for several minutes. He thought he was talking to the King of Prussia.

Princess Alexandra of Bavaria was convinced that as a child she had swallowed a full-size grand piano. Nothing could ever shake her from this belief.

There’s more at  Our Strange World.

Not bad for a machine with a 90 day warranty

Spirit remains stationary on the west side of Home Plate in the location called “Troy”. The rover continues to be busy with an ambitious observation campaign employing both remote sensing and in-situ (contact) science with the robotic arm (instrument deployment device, IDD).

The soil disturbed by the rover’s embedding has been the subject of extensive science investigation. Five out of the past seven sols have involved using the instruments on the end of the robotic arm to collect images and composition spectra of five distinct targets.

More via Spirit Undertaking More Soil Investigation.

Assault with a deadly weapon Cheeto

“A…couple arrested on domestic assault charges Sunday had an unusual choice of alleged weaponry — Cheetos.

Warrents filed by Cpl. Kevin Roddy, of the Bedford County Sheriff’s Department, stated he responded to a call at a home on Pass Road, where 40-year-old James Earl Taylor and Mary S. Childers, 44, were allegedly involved in an argument.

According to Roddy’s report, the pair became “involved in a verbal altercation” with each other “at which time Cheetos potato chips were used in the assault.”

via jhn brssndn

It takes a lot of rain to move a tank…

Heavy rains have washed a Second World War Russian tank ashore in the Danube River in Austria. Munitions experts in Bad Deutsch deactivated 50 live shells, grenades and machine gun rounds before the machine was taken to a military museum.

Central Europe has been hit by record rainfall in the last week and experts believe this coupled with increased boat traffic could have dislodged the tank after 65 years at the bottom of the river.

via Ananova – Rain washes tank ashore.

“Crop circles blamed on stoned wallabies.” Well, that’s one possibility. Not.

Drugged up wallabies are being blamed for creating crop circles in Tasmania.

Authorities on the island say the animals eat opium poppies, get high and then hop around in circles, reports the Mercury.

There’s more at Ananova – Crop circles blamed on stoned wallabies.

‘Ark of the Covenant’ ? Well, maybe.

The patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia says he will announce to the world Friday the unveiling of the Ark of the Covenant, perhaps the world’s most prized archaeological and spiritual artifact, which he says has been hidden away in a church in his country for millennia, according to the Italian news agency Adnkronos.

More at ‘Ark of the Covenant’ about to be unveiled?.

I know! We’ll spray paint the camera. They’ll never catch us then!

This clever burglar had a cunning plan to spray paint the security camera so he couldn’t be identified. Evidently his plan failed to take into account one small detail…

It’s a pretty good portrait though.

ARRRRRR!

Russian firms have begun offering cruises, aboard luxury yachts, designed to lure Somali pirates to attack. The vessels, which carry a squad of ex special forces troops, will respond to attacks with grenade launchers, machine guns and rocket launchers.

Want to join the “fun”? You can for £3,500 per day. For an extra £5 a day you can rent an AK-47 and get an extra hundred round of ammunition.

Via Ananova

A ‘hole in the clouds’

This image of an exploding volcano was captured from the ISS which happened to be positioned directly above an eruption of Sarychev Peak on a remote Russian north Pacific island.

The white cap on the eruption is caused “…the rapid rising and then cooling of the air directly above the ash column. When moist, warm air rises quickly it creates a cloud.”

More pictures and an article at   Mail Online.

Beware the kitten!

Royal Mail has warned a family their mail could be stopped after a postman was scratched by their pet kitten.

Ken Ridge, 65, and his son Bradley, 30, received the warning after the postman was targeted by kitten Illy at their home in Clapham.

via Ananova – Royal Mail threat after kitten attacks postman.

New meaning for “fishing hole”

The old fishing hole

A Chinese farmer dug a 50ft hole inside his house to go fishing. Li Huiyan, of Chongqing, hired 30 villagers for six months to dig the hole in his kitchen, reports IC Media.

He wanted to reach an underground river which he suspected was full of fish.

The river had been over ground but had disappeared 30 years ago when the local authorities bombed part of a mountain to pave a road.

Li explained: “The river used to have so many fish, and by simply putting a net there, hundreds of fish would be caught.”

After digging his pit down to the river, Li installed a fishing net across it and regularly hauls out fish, so far earning his family nearly £2,000.

via Ananova – Man digs 50ft hole to fish – in his kitchen.

Crime tip: When stealing a trailer be sure the owner isn’t inside

Dozy thieves fled empty handed after stealing a caravan in Sweden – while the owner was fast asleep inside.

Terrified holidaymaker Bjorn Feldbaek woke up to find himself being towed away in his mobile home after the crooks hitched it to their getaway car in Skovde.

But he sent them packing when they stopped and broke into the caravan by screaming so loudly that the thieves abandoned their car and fled on foot.

via Ananova – Thieves steal caravan – with owner inside.

Darn that global warming! It’s making things cold!

…For the second time in little over a year, it looks as though the world may be heading for a serious food crisis, thanks to our old friend “climate change”. In many parts of the world recently the weather has not been too brilliant for farmers. After a fearsomely cold winter, June brought heavy snowfall across large parts of western Canada and the northern states of the American Midwest. In Manitoba last week, it was -4ºC. North Dakota had its first June snow for 60 years.

There was midsummer snow not just in Norway and the Cairngorms, but even in Saudi Arabia. At least in the southern hemisphere it is winter, but snowfalls in New Zealand and Australia have been abnormal. There have been frosts in Brazil, elsewhere in South America they have had prolonged droughts, while in China they have had to cope with abnormal rain and freak hailstorms, which in one province killed 20 people…

More at  Telegraph.