Monday, June 4 in the news....
- A union official is under investigation over an alleged death threat made against inspectors from the Federal Government's construction industry watchdog. Australian Building and Construction Commission head John Lloyd has said he called in police after a threat was made, News Limited reports today. Lloyd said his team knew it was a threat from the union because the caller making the threat asked them if he had got the number right on the phone pad this time.
- Students from some of Australia's most exclusive private schools are organising 'fight clubs' in which teenagers ruthlessly beat one another while others video the violence before posting it on the internet. Meanwhile, public school kids can't afford mobile video cameras or the internet so their fight clubs continue unpublicised.
- A terror cell with links to radical Islam plotted to launch a catastrophic terrorist strike on New York's JFK Airport. It involved scouting the targets using the web-based satellite imaging tool Google Earth. Constantly getting distracted with the mapping system, the terrorists would print out pictures of the White House and the Pentagon and draw rockets and planes hitting them, making the explosion noises with their mouths.
- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who triggered outrage in the West two years ago when he said Israel should be 'wiped off the map', said Sunday that "with God's help, the countdown button for the destruction of the Zionist regime has been pushed by the hands of the children of Lebanon and Palestine." When asked where he was getting his constant streams of colourful rhetoric from, Ahmadinejad told the reporter he didn't know what he was talking about, denying claims he has the largest collection of Batman comics in Central Asia.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin said he considers U.S. plans to build an eastern European anti-missile site to shoot down Iranian missiles a provocation aimed at Russia. "What kind of steps are we going to take in response? Of course, we are going to get new targets in Europe," Mr. Putin said in an interview. When asked why he doesn't just build his own missile defence shield in response and quit pissing and moaning with threats that are technically well known and accounted for in the West anyhow, the journalist was whisked off, poisoned, and replaced by another journalist.
- People eat more when they are glued to the television, and the more entertaining the program, the more they eat, according to research presented on Saturday. Al Gore said he really needs to cut down on watching the weather channel.
- A railway worker who emerged from a 19-year coma woke to a radically altered Poland and is learning to adapt to his new life, Polish media reported. He was shocked at the changes in Poland's economy - especially its stores: "He remembered shelves filled with mustard and vinegar only" under communism. Now he is surprised at such things as the prevalence of cell phones among youth on the streets and Poland's burgeoning strategic relationship with the West and the United States. Reflecting on the changes over the last 19 years, there was one thing he was not surprised to discover though: "I see the Russians are still arseholes".
- Five Walt Disney World visitors and an employee were injured last Tuesday after a water ride that simulates a trip down a rain forest river malfunctioned, authorities said. Disney closed the ride to investigate the cause. It has not ruled out global warming.
