Martin world news

ITEM:  How about someone getting fired for a mistake anyone could make?

India's public TV channel has sacked a newsreader for slipping up over the name of visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping - apparently mistaking his surname for the Roman numeral XI, and calling him "Eleven Jinping" on air.

Xi's visit is a big deal for the Indian government, and Doordarshan TV sacked the anchor quickly. "It's true we have sacked the concerned newsreader," Jawhar Sircar, head of the Prasar Bharti public broadcaster, tells the Quartz news website. "We are putting systems in place to make sure such things don't happen in future." (Courtesy BBC)

Apparently you are supposed to pronounce it "SHEE chin-PING".  And the site that told me this also had some fun with a man named "Shee":

• Xi’s all that
• That’s what Xi said
• Xi doesn’t know who I am (and Xi doesn’t give a damn about me)
• Murder, Xi wrote
• Xi’s way out of my league
• He said, Xi said
• Xi loves me, Xi loves me not
• Xi loves me, yeah, yeah, yeah
• Xi’s the one for me
• Xi’s gotta have it

(Courtesy Eastasiastudent.net)

My one question is, if this was in India, shouldn't the news person have been doing this in Sanskrit?  Thus, it should have came out

ਸ਼ੀ ਚਿਨਫਿੰਗ   

Which doesn't look like "eleven" in Roman numerals to me...


ITEM:  More mistakes anybody could... well, maybe not any... well, actually, this one (from BBC) took a little talent.

Italy's separatist Northern League says it feels close to Scotland's independence campaigners - but apparently not close enough to get their capital city right.

The political party said on Thursday that Councillor Angelo Ciocca would go with youth members to witness the referendum results in Scotland's capital - Hamburg. But Hamburg's in Germany. Someone must have had a word so they corrected it to Strasbourg, only Strasbourg's in France. At the third attempt they finally got it right with Edinburgh - but that wasn't fast enough to escape mockery in the Italian media.


Well, Europe is one big community now, so I suppose it's understandable... right?

Il Giornale newspaper was particularly withering, suggesting that Ciocca was looking forward to "the sounds of Gaelic replacing English at midnight" as the delegation celebrated "with their fellow Celts". The paper wasn't sure if senior League MEP Matteo Salvini went on the trip: "Perhaps he waited to find out where the heck the plane was going to land".
But that wasn't the League's only gaffe. They put on special T-shirts emblazoned with the Scottish Saltire flag and a Northern League emblem as an expression of unity. But the League's chosen symbol on this occasion is the Cross of St George - also the flag of England.



Perhaps they should have read the brochure...

ITEM:  And not all mistakes are in the verbal range...

Police investigating a potential murder scene in a temple garden in South Korea got a shock when they discovered the "dead body" was actually an inflatable doll, it's reported.

Following a tip-off from a witness picnicking nearby with his family, some 50 officers arrived at the scene in Gyeonggi Province, near the capital Seoul, Tong-a Ilbo newspaper says. There appeared to be a dead female body near a waterway, wearing stockings and tied up with denim fabric and blue tape. But trepidation turned to relief when they examined the "corpse" and realised it was an inflatable sex doll - albeit a very realistic one. "The skin texture [was so] similar to that of an actual person that when the policeman touched it he mistook it for a human body," a police source says. 


Now, some people might wonder why anyone would leave a tied up sex doll outside.  But this IS Korea, and in Korea...


Officials say the doll in question is imported from Japan and sells in adult stores - but seems to be popping up in brothels as well. The Chosun Ilbo newspaper reports on the ambiguities surrounding "doll experience" rooms for rent, saying it isn't clear if they violate South Korea's anti-prostitution laws. Since then, the issue has become even murkier, as sex robots have appeared on the market. The Humanity Centered Robotics Initiative says animatronic rent-a-doll "escort" services are especially popular in Japan and South Korea. 


.... Avoid arrest as a john, hire a plastic hooker.  And when you're done, take your pet cabbage for a walk.


ITEM:  That was, of course, a reference to a previous item in MWN.  And here, referencing another previous item, we go from Kazakhstan to Lithuania...

A creative and active group of friends (called Z999) decided to draw people’s attention to the very poor condition of Lithuanian roads by creating a photo shoot around potholes in Kaunas.

The aim of this was to laugh at the absurdity of this situation and to draw our government’s attention to it so that they might take action and repair our roads. Two professional photographers, Arturas Artiusenka and Eurika Balciute, attended this fun photo shoot. Not only this was a great experience for us, many Lithuanian magazines became interested in the project and these pictures as well.

None of the photos were made to offend our government; it was just a fun way to express Lithuanian citizens’ thoughts.

(Photos courtesy Boredpanda.com)

Beats the crap out of papier mache legs, dontcha think?


ITEM:  And now form the great state of Idaho, through FoxNews:


BOISE, Idaho –  A SUV full of teenagers crashed in Idaho after one of the passengers lit the driver's armpit hair on fire with a lighter, authorities said Wednesday.
All five young people in the Ford Bronco were hurt in the crash Sunday and received medical treatment, the Ada County Sheriff's Office said.

Two of the passengers, ages 15 and 16, were thrown from the vehicle, but none of the five suffered life-threatening injuries.
The sheriff's department said the rollover occurred after a 16-year-old boy was goofing off in the front seat and lit 18-year-old Tristian Myers' armpit hair on fire while Myers was driving. The crash happened at about 5:30 a.m. in southeast Boise.

If ever a reason existed for shaving awareness, there you go.


ITEM:  Remember last new phone launch, when the gullible thought there was an app to make your phone waterproof?  Remember all the idiots who fell for it- including the guy who said his wife was divorcing him over it?  You think that the next wave of consumers would be smarter?  Don't bet on it:

It’s not a stretch to think that people paying through the nose for a tech gadget, or queuing for hours,days or even weeks before the device is even available might be a little gullible to false marketing and hoaxes, and this time around it’s no different.
Yesterday an image started trending on Twitter that claimed a new feature in iOS 8 called “Wave” allowed for iPhones to be recharged quickly in a microwave. The poster which can be seen below looks official enough, it even displays a warning not to “charge” for more than 300 seconds! But like many before it, it’s false, yet people have still fallen for it. 

ITEM:  My latest scam e-mail puts a new twist on an old game:

Attention: Beneficiary .
 
Am writing to make you understand that this is AGENT GARRY WALKER  representing the office of the FBI Director and our fraud department in which i head has been informed about your refusal to comply with the directives from the FBI and we are going ahead with the arrest by today
and tomorrow.
 
We monitored your contact with this con men through our global tracking device that detect all the incoming and outgoing e-mails and telephone calls globally from all the countries of the world.  We have your e-mail address under our monitoring device set-up any more e-mails to the fraudsters from you will be automatically detected.

Our concern in this issue is for your name to be cleared from the scammers list which has already been submitted to all the crimes agencies in Benin, Nigeria Germany and United States Of America. We make sure that the laws are followed to the core and this is why the Nigeria Government which its citizen carried out the fraudulent activities with your information's which you sent to them have to compensate you with the amount as regards the FBI Laws of Sub-Section 12/13 Of the United States Anti-crimes laws.
 
We have in our file your details which you sent to them and we have checked and found out that you are a honest and hard working person and by this regards we decided to persuade the Nigeria  Government to compensate you for the evil deeds that was carried out with your name.
 
The German man knows that you are a the person because he was duped with your identity and this fraudulent activities was carried out by the same people who you have been forwarding your information's/details to all this while with the pretense of dealing with the right offices in Africa and other countries of the world.
 
You will have to get the CLEARANCE FORM from the office of the High Court of Justice in Nigeria at the sum of $175 Usd. (One Hundred United States Dollars Only) This certificate will enable you to get access to the compensation funds of $12Million Usd which was offered to you by the Nigeria Government and don't forget that you need to get the document within 2 days from now as you already know the deadline given to you to secure the document.

If not for the fact that we checked your data before acting towards this directives given to us, you would have been arrested by now and jailed because of your association with criminals in the internet and don't forget our warnings to you.
 
You will have to forward your bank account details to us where you want the $12Million Usd to be transferred into as soon as you secure the CLEARANCE FORM.
 
The German business man who was duped with your identity has reported this case to the world court and it will involve the Government of  both countries which are Germany and USA and that is the reason why you must get this document immediately so as to avoid anybody calling your name as being among the fraudsters.
 
With the Certificate, you are free from any form of crimes as your data shows that you are a honest and respectable person in the society. You will have to send the fees to the High Court of Justice over there in Nigeria within 2days from now so that our local agent can be able to apply our modalities with the High Court of Justice to issue the CLEARANCE FORM to you.
 
Send the fees of $175 Usd through   Money Transfer or money gram with the name of the account officer in High Court of  Justice.
 
Receivers Name:EKE  JOHN
Country: Nigeria
City: Lagos
Text Question: In God
Text Answer: We Trust
Amount: $175 Usd.
 
As soon as you send the fees, you will have to get back to us with the following details which are Senders Name and Address, MTCN Number, Text Question and Answer Used and the amount Sent.
 
As soon as all this requirements are in place, the Certificate will be issued to you and then the compensation funds of $12Million Usd will transferred into your bank account.
                       
To avoid the riot of the law on your and your entire family, we have been pleased to allow you secure the document from the High Court of  Justice so that your name could be cleared off the fraudulent list and we also argued with the Nigeria  Government about your compensations and that was the reason why you were compensated with the sum of $12,000,000 Usd.
 
Thanks as I wait for your response

 Respectively
AGENT GARRY WALKER
FBI SPECIAL AGENT
 Okay, this has a lot of fun things in it, so let me unpack the ones I put in bold print.

First, I'm going to be arrested!  Or given $12 million, one of the two.

Second, I am "a honest and hard working person".  Well, thanks for that, at least.

Third, WTH is the German man??? He is mentioned several times but never really explained.

Fourth,  In numbers, it costs $175, but spelled out gets you a $75 discount.

Fifth, Darn my hide, associating with you criminals!

Sixth, "The High Court of Justice over there in Nigeria."  Had to chuckle.  Send yer money in, y'all!

Seventh, "the riot of the law."  Somebody's been watching to much Ferguson coverage over there on CNN...


BTW, It has been a week and Agent Walker has yet to show up with handcuffs.  Maybe he got the German man by accident.

ITEM:  Finally, the igNobel awards have been given out, and here are the highlights:

PHYSICS: Kiyoshi Mabuchi, of Kitasato University, Japan, and colleagues, for measuring the amount of friction between a shoe and a banana skin, and between a banana skin and the floor, when a person steps on a banana skin that's on the floor.


NEUROSCIENCE: Kang Lee, of the University of Toronto, Canada, and colleagues for trying to understand what happens in the brains of people who see the face of Jesus in a piece of toast.

PSYCHOLOGY: Peter Jonason, of the University of Western Sydney, Australia, and colleagues for amassing evidence that people who habitually stay up late are, on average, more self-admiring, more manipulative, and more psychopathic than people who habitually arise early in the morning.


( I had to read that one to Laurie... she fits the profile...)


PUBLIC HEALTH: Jaroslav Flegr, of Charles University, Czech Republic, and colleagues for investigating whether it is mentally hazardous for a human being to own a cat.



BIOLOGY: Vlastimil Hart, of the Czech University of Life Sciences, and colleagues for carefully documenting that when dogs defecate and urinate, they prefer to align their body axis with Earth's north-south geomagnetic field lines.

(To avoid peeing on oneself, since the dog can't see it's weiner while peeing...)


ART: Marina de Tommaso, of the University of Bari, Italy, and colleagues for measuring the relative pain people suffer while looking at an ugly painting, rather than a pretty painting, while being shot [in the hand] by a powerful laser beam.

(Wonder whether this works with tasers while robbing banks vs convenience stores...)


ECONOMICS: The Italian government's National Institute of Statistics, for proudly taking the lead in fulfilling the European Union mandate for each country to increase the official size of its national economy by including revenues from prostitution, illegal drug sales, smuggling, and all other unlawful financial transactions between willing participants.

(And does this include streetwalking blow-up dolls?  Because Korea's really got them there.)

MEDICINE: Ian Humphreys, of Michigan State University, US, and colleagues, for treating "uncontrollable" nosebleeds, using the method of nasal-packing-with-strips-of-cured-pork.

(Yet another imaginative use for bacon...)

ARCTIC SCIENCE: Eigil Reimers, of the University of Oslo, Norway, and colleagues, for testing how reindeer react to seeing humans who are disguised as polar bears.

(You wonder why Santa never shows up at halloween parties...)



NUTRITION: Raquel Rubio, of IRTA, Spain, and colleagues, for their study titled "Characterization of Lactic Acid Bacteria Isolated from Infant Faeces as Potential Probiotic Starter Cultures for Fermented Sausages."


I am NOT eating sausages in Spain, EVER!!!!!!!!