Wednesday, May 16 in the news....
- A suicide bomber who killed 25 people in an attack on a crowded hotel in Pakistan left a grisly warning taped to his leg aimed at American spies. The bombing ruined some of the message though and at first it appeared to be a warning not to make any more sequels to American Pie.
- A U.S. troop pullout from Iraq would turn the country into a 'terrorist Disneyland' a leading al Qaeda expert said on Tuesday. He also said if the U.S. doesn't bomb Iran they would become a Universal Studios of Islamic militancy, and the Gaza Strip is already the Coney Island of violence. Meanwhile Lebanon is still being referred to as a local cinema playing movies from the 1940's.
- Environmental activists are building a replica of Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat — where the biblical vessel is said to have landed after the great flood — in an appeal for action on global warming, Greenpeace said Wednesday. Al Gore said if global warming does cause another Great Flood he'll command the high seas, but the weightier former US Vice President agreed to only eat some animals, and he insisted that the dove be sent out to locate a KFC and bring back a wet towel as proof.
- More than 800 Hong Kong residents have called on authorities to reclassify the Bible as "indecent" due to its sexual and violent content, following an uproar over a sex column in a university student journal. If the charge is proven only those over 18 would be able to buy the holy book and it would need to be sealed in a wrapper with a statutory warning notice. Once this occurs it is expected that men in hats and glasses will be entering book shops all over Hong Kong and asking where the bible section is.
- A court in Germany has convicted three men of stealing over four km (2.5 miles) of rail track, weighing nearly 500 tonnes, to sell as scrap metal. The crime has become so famous that the regional education ministry has used it as a model for a math exam, asking pupils to calculate the weight, volume and value of the stolen steel. The three men and the pupils follow a grand tradition of Germany where criminal acts are well thought out and efficiently executed.
- Britain's Prince Harry will not be deployed to Iraq after military commanders decided it would be too dangerous, Britain's Ministry of Defense said on Wednesday. Instead, Prince Harry will continue his tour of duty in British nightclubs.
