Do your homework OR ELSE

A teacher in Egypt killed his student because he didn't do his homework.

Haitham Nabeel Abdelhamid, 23, is accused of beating Islam Badr Ibrahim with a ruler before taking him outside the class and hitting him savagely in the stomach.

The boy then collapsed in a faint and was taken to hospital - but he died of heart failure.

I bet his classmates will be sure to do their homework from now on.

Annoying? Go to Jail

A town in Michigan has made it illegal to be annoying.

The Brighton City Council on Thursday approved an ordinance allowing police in the Livingston County community to ticket and fine anyone who is annoying in public "by word of mouth, sign or motions."

A city attorney says there could be situations where the measure would violate freedom of speech, but that those cases will be reviewed by the city.

Doesn't sound very American does it? Getting a citation because you're annoying?

Caviar for the Homeless

The homeless in Italy will be dining in style after eighty-eight pounds of contraband caviar was confiscated from smugglers.

The caviar has been given to Italian charities to be served alongside the traditional foods they feed the poor on Christmas — like lentils, pasta and cake — officials said Saturday.

Italy and many other countries ban beluga caviar — often the most expensive variety — in hopes of saving the dwindling population of sturgeon who produce the salty eggs.

Officials in the government decided that instead of destroying the caviar like they have done in the past that they would donate it to charities that feed the poor and the elderly on Christmas.

Burried with a cell phone

The under forty set is increasingly being buried with their portable electronic devices.

It seems that everyone under 40 who dies takes their cell phone with them,” says Noelle Potvin, family service counselor for Hollywood Forever, a funeral home and cemetery in Hollywood, Calif. “It’s a trend with BlackBerrys, too. We even had one guy who was buried with his Game Boy.”

As for the reason why people are asking to be buried with their cell phones it varies. Some do so as a memento of the person just as they would bury a football or other memento. While others leave the phones in the casket and plan to call their dead loved one in the future.

“Some people will call the deceased just as they’re lowering the coffin into the ground,” he says. “It’ll be prearranged and you’ll hear a faint ring. It’s like the new version of ‘Taps’ for people who are identified as being on the phone all the time.”

Apparently the fear of being buried alive is not one of the reasons that people are choosing to be buried with the cell phones. We are very trusting that medical officials will make sure we're dead before we're buried.

No drunkenness for teachers in Britian

A new teacher code in Britian could give teachers disciplinary action for being drunk and disorderly on their own time.

A new code of conduct, published in draft form yesterday, says teachers could face sanctions if they damage "public trust and confidence" in their profession.

Keith Bartley, chief executive of the General Teaching Council for England (GTC), the profession's watchdog, said teachers needed to "consider their place in society", and act as role models.

When asked what the watchdog would do if teachers were drunk and rowdy at the weekend, Bartley said the GTC would look at the individual circumstances before deciding if they should face disciplinary tribunals.

Teachers didn't have to be exemplary citizens every second, Bartley said. Nevertheless, their behaviour could be "lawful but not acceptable".

This is just absurd. I'm all for encouraging teachers to act nicely but what does it matter if there are no students around? No teacher should lose their job because of somthing they did legally on the weekend away from kids. Teachers have as much right to get drunk as everyone else.

The code also insists that teachers report suspected abuse and from using school computers for non-school interests.

Giraffe Pug

No story to go along with this picture. It's just cute and sad at the same time. My pugs would never put up with that costume.

For more of the best cute animal pictures of the year go here.

Shark goes down waterslide

A shark in the Bahamas jumped out of it's aquarium and went down a waterslide before landing in a resort swimming pool.

The female reef shark, one of various exotic creatures in the popular Mayan Temple aquarium at the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas, tumbled down the slide – known as the Leap of Faith – after vaulting the one foot high and 18 in wide barrier around its pool.

Although the creature survived the journey its body could not cope with the chlorinated water in the swimming pool at the bottom of the slide. Rescuers managed to return the 12-year-old shark to its own pool but it died shortly afterwards.

Poor shark. It just wanted to go on the waterslide.

Hotel managers say that no humans were at risk during the incident.

Don't try this. Ever!

A man in China is upset that the Guinness Book of World Records wil not give him credit for pulling cars with hooks laced through holes in his eye sockets.

Luo Deyuan, 21, said his feat of ocular strength was kept out of the record books because officials decided it was too dangerous, Britain's The Sun reported Thursday.

However, Luo said he has not given up on his dreams of Guinness Book glory. He plans to submit more stunt proposals to the world record authority -- including lifting buckets of water with his eyebrows, walking on sharp blades and stopping electric fans with his tongue.

Sounds like he's got a real need to be maimed. I hope someone tells him to stop it before he gets hurt.

Too many birds!

A man in Berlin had 1500 parakeets in his small apartment.

Berlin officials cleared about 1,500 budgies and parakeets on Tuesday evening from a two-room apartment occupied by a retired man in the Spandau district of Berlin, according to city veterinarian Margit Platzer, who said it took more than seven hours to catch all the birds.

He had been collecting the animals for ten years and let them fly freely around his apartment perching on rods that he'd installed. The birds went to the bathroom on the floor of his apartment and there were inches of the stuff on the floor when it was found.

"Unfortunately this isn't an isolated situation," said Wolfgang Apel, head of Berlin's animal protection services. "The number of so-called animal hoarders has risen drastically." Around 160 other pets have been recovered from similar conditions around Berlin in the past week, ranging from cats and dogs to monkeys and goats.

Eew! Can you imagine the smell, and the drips. People, you don't live in a zoo, so don't keep that many pets.

Awwww, baby hippo

Awww, how cute is she?

Her name is Paula.

She lives in a Berlin Zoo and is the first hippo calf born in three years.

She rests on her mothers back when she gets tired of running in the water.

More pictures and a video here.

Monks and their tiger pets

A Buddhist temple in Thailand is not just the home to monks, it is also the home of many tigers.

They call it the Tiger Temple, and its story is the stuff of fairy tales. According to Abbot Pra-Acharn Phusit, a tiger cub orphaned by poachers was brought to the temple years ago.

The abbot cared for her and, as word spread, more people brought sickly and orphaned cubs to the temple's doorstep. Those cubs went on to have their own cubs, and nine years on there are now 34 tigers living here.

Buddhists believe in reincarnation and the abbot also that these tigers are his family.

The temple is also a tourist spot and tourists can not only look at the tigers but can also get up close with them. Tourists like that, animal activists, not too much.

The tigers have yet to bite anyones head off.

Man lands on cow

A vintage plane pilot hit a cow while making an emergency landing in a bi-plane.

"I had to put the aircraft down straight away and spotted a likely field where I could see there were cows. They were all on my right hand side except one on my left. I narrowly missed a fence and touched down and then the silly cow ran across to join her mates on the other side of the field," Wotton was quoted as saying in the Telegraph newspaper.

"I clipped her and she went rolling away but seemed unhurt and carried on grazing. The aircraft was very slightly damaged."

The man says that he might paint a cow on the side of his plane to commemorate the cow landing.

He had a camera on board and posted the video on youtube.

Poor cow. Being hit by a cow has got to be traumatic.

Christmas tree decorated with sex offenders

A police department in Ohio has decorated their Christmas tree with ornaments that include pictures of the areas eight sex offenders.

The top and bottom of the tree explain the decor, with ribbons reading: "North Baltimore sex offenders."

"I just wanted to raise awareness for the public," Baer said. "We have a lot of foot traffic that comes in and out of here. So I thought this would be a unique way to get their attention" about local sex offenders.

Now that sounds festive.

School mispells sign for spelling bee winner

A middle school student in North Carolina returned from his spelling bee to find a sign congratulating him, and immediately noticed it was misspelled.

Joe Smith said when his son, Michael, returned to Carmel Middle School Wednesday after his involvement in a spelling contest, he quickly noticed a pair of misspelled words on the school sign congratulating his efforts, The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer said.

Smith said the sign not only misspelled congratulations, but even offered an incorrect spelling of his son's first name. The misspelling of Michael was not reported and the congratulations error was tentatively blamed on scrunched signboard letters.

The student thought the misspellings were funny and the school blamed the misspellings on a student who had made the sign and corrected the problems.

Please return Al Capone

A family in the UK is offering a reward for the return of their Al Capone yard statue.

Pauline McCook said the statue of the notorious gangster at her Isle of Sheppy, England, home was like "part of the family" and would be covered in decorations annually for Christmas, the BBC reported Monday.

A police representative said the statue, which is believed to have been taken between Dec. 1 and Dec. 10, was "an extremely unusual item to steal." Police said the "extremely heavy" fiberglass statue would have required more than one person to move and the thieves would have required a vehicle for transport.

My first question is how exactly do they decorate Al Capone for Christmas? My second is why would you steal Al Capone? Stealing a mobster doesn't seem like a smart idea. Hopefully it will show up someplace strange like the local high school because it sounds like the McCook family misses it.

Cops find herd of stolen lighted reindeer

Police in California accidentally found a stash of missing Christmas lawn decorations after responding to a domestic disturbance call.

Officers responded to a routine domestic disturbance report Monday at the home of Vuong Pham, 48, and inside allegedly found a herd of wicker reindeer in the living room, many strings of Christmas lights -- some plugged in, imitation Christmas trees, as well as several snowmen and inflatable Santa Claus figures, The Los Angeles Times reported.

There was allegedly so much Christmas booty inside the home, Officer Cameron Knauerhaze told the newspaper, "We had to use two city trucks and a police truck to take all the property to the police station. This guy had something in every room."

No word as to why this man had such an obsession with Christmas lawn decorations and why he kept his stolen decorations inside the house.

Mean Santa

A Santa in Canada is upset because people are taking pictures of him for free instead of paying fourteen dollars for the pictures that his service uses. He claims that parents are teaching their kids to steal by taking pictures of their kids with Santa with their cell phones or personal cameras and doesn't hesitate to call mall security on these people.

"What message are you sending your children; 'Look Tommy and Sally, see what your parents stole you for Christmas,'" Young said. "This is a private enterprise and these people do this to make a living ... it's really not that expensive."

He said it's free for a child to sit on his lap and talk about presents and wishes, but he doesn't hesitate to ask mall security to stop parents from taking pictures with cell phones and digital cameras. That's led to some people using "four-letter words" and having "tantrums" when asked to stop taking pictures, Young said.

I personally think that taking pictures with your own camera instead of paying $14 for overpriced mall photos is teaching your child to be thrifty. The manager of the mall feels the same way I do, he's said that he'll think about hiring a Santa next year and allowing people to take their own pictures if they wish.

"I'm a grandfather, and if my grandson was on Santa's lap, I'd take a picture," he said.

Good for him!

Is the sand too hot for your toes?

A hotel in Dubai is going to put heat absorbing pipes underneath the sand in their beach so that hotel goers don't have to burn their feet on the hot beach.

The revolutionary beach will sit next to the new Palazzo Versace hotel and will include a system of heat-absorbing pipes built under the sand and giant wind blowers, designed to keep tourists cool in the searing 40-50C heat.

Soheil Abedian, president of Palazzo Versace, said: 'We will suck the heat out of the sand to keep it cool enough to lie on. This is the kind of luxury that top people want.'

Environmentalists predictability are outraged at the impact on climate change this hotel will have with their energy output.

Playspaces for the exceptionally rich sure are extravagant. What will they think of next?

No light sabers for kids

Woolworths department stores in the UK are refusing to sell light sabers to kids under eighteen years old because they apparently look too much like a real gun.

"Some companies are going the whole hog and are banning the sale of any weapon-style products to anyone under the age of 18, even if they are clearly toys like these," said Brandon Cook, who specializes in restricted sales issues for the Trading Standards Institute.

Really? How does a light saber look like a gun? Or a weapon at all. It doesn't even look like a sword or a knife.

Man gets prison for chicken attack

A Michigan man will get three to six years in prison after attacking his mother with a fork and then attacking a woman with ten pounds of frozen chicken.

Prosecutors say McKaney stabbed his mother with a fork at her house and later exchanged words with another woman as he rode a stolen bicycle. They say McKaney hit her in the head with a plastic bag of frozen chicken, opening a wound that required five surgical staples to close.

No word as to why he chose to attack her with chicken rather than a rump roast or celery.

Monkeys in the bath

Apparently these Japanese Snow Monkeys like to take baths in the hot springs and hang out there all year.

Click here for more pictures of cuteness.

Christmas Funeral

A man in England would like to have a Christmas funeral. He would like the pal bearers to be elves and everyone else that attends to dress like Santa.

The coffin will also come equipped with reindeer to pull the makeshift holiday sleigh and a holiday message from Queen Elizabeth II will be played during the ceremony, Park said.

The Mail said an undertaker has estimated the event, which will also include a performance of the song "Merry Xmas Everybody," will cost nearly $104,600.

The man who is 44 and healthy and has said that he wants his funeral attendees to have a good time at his funeral.

The rest of us just think he's weird.

Robber held captive by ghosts

A burglar in Malaysia says that he was held hostage in the house he was trying to rob for three days without food or water.

The man told police that every time he tried to escape, a "supernatural figure" shoved him to the ground.

The owners of the house called the police when they returned from vacation and found him dehydrated.

What a good ghost. I wish I had a ghost that would protect my house from robbers. Sounds much more effective than an alarm system.

CrapWrap

A popular website in the UK is offering a service called CrapWrap charges customers to wrap Christmas presents badly so that their recipients will think they wrapped the presents themselves.

Wrapper Kevin Smith said those who decide to pay for the $5.90 holiday service from Firebox.com will receive a gift wrapped with little or no skill so any individual can claim to have wrapped it themselves, The Mail on Sunday reported.

"I am rubbish," Smith said of his gift-wrapping skills. "We're not given any instructions. I'm just asked to make a hash of it, using lots of brown tape and making sure there are rips and untidy folds."

This service is almost as popular as the websites regular wrapping service as it makes the recipient think that the gift was wrapped by the sender.