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Well, I’ve just seen the funniest news story, that could only come out of that quirkiest of countries; Italy!

That’s right - the hypnotoad hint may have given it away. By the way, all hail the glory of the hypnotoad :-p

I’ve just noticed on the BBC News website, a story that makes me think of Derren Brown and Little Britain more than anything.

This just goes to show the power of NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming). I prefer to call it this than hypnosis.

I’d love to have been that poor woman’s boss. Can you imagine the conversation when she tilled up:

Manager: “You’re €800 down!”

Worker: “Huh, how’d that happen?”

Manager: “Well you must’ve stolen it”

Worker: “No, I’m telling you I really don’t know how it’s happened. One minute I’m talking to this guy and the next the money has gone.”

Manager: “Oh right, so I’m supposed to believe that this guy blanked your mind, like he hypnotised you or something.”

Security Guard: “Ummm boss, you may want to have a look at this CCTV video!”

What I’m going to do here is point you towards three news stories that have caught my eye today. I’m going to try and do this once a week and bring you three stories from three different areas of news.

The first story this week is a UK story that is tragic yet humorous (yes, I have a sick sense of humour). BBC Wales are reporting that a man has died in a cake eating competition that was held in Swansea over the weekend. It almost enough to put you off of fairy cakes - however, it will be interesting to find out what he actually died of. Nobody has reported that, just that it wasn’t suspicious. Did he choke etc.? I want to know!

The second story speaks for itself in the clip below - legendary outburst - no chance in getting a passport now!

The last story is an international and technical one - that Pakistani authorities have ordered all local ISPs to block access to Google as blasphemous images of the Prophet Mohammed had made their way onto the file-sharing site. The really funny thing about this story is that, because an over zealous ISP in Pakistan got something wrong, not only was youTube taken off-line for 40 minutes, but the whole of Pakistan was removed from the Internet as well!

Today Ryanair released two press releases slamming ASA decisions against them.

Firstly, the ASA claims that a picture of a fully clothed model, which ran in three UK daily newspapers “appeared to link teenage girls with sexually provocative behaviour and was irresponsible and likely to cause serious or widespread offence”.

The response by Peter Sherrard, head of communications for Ryanair, was fantastic - “This isn’t advertising regulation, it is simply censorship. This bunch of unelected, self appointed dimwits are clearly incapable of fairly and impartially ruling on advertising.” He also goes on to describe the ASA as Pythonesque!

The ASA’s second ruling claims that, even though Ryanair’s advertisement confirmed that its (Lowest Fares from Britain, all-inclusive) £10 seats were “subject to availability” this somehow “suggested wrongly that the quoted price applied to every seat.”

Sherrard responds with such class - “This is yet another clear example of a ridiculous ruling by the ASA quango whose council must consist of Alice, the White Rabbit and the Mad Hatter. Only in the ASA’s fairytale world could someone claim that a fare, which is ‘subject to availability’, should be available on every seat on every flight. Clearly, the ASA needs English lessons as the normal use of the language confuses them.”

I won’t spoil it all, catch the press releases here:

http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/news.php?yr=08&month=jan&story=reg-en-300108-2

http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/news.php?yr=08&month=jan&story=reg-en-300108

Superb!

Despite being wholly unrepresentative of Ultra-Orthodox Judaism or the Jewish people in general, many of the images of the widely condemned Iranian Holocaust Denial conference featured members of the Neturei Karta sect. The conference featured an unsavory variety of Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites under the false guise of promoting “freedom of speech”.

While some of the media may have given Neturei Karta unwarranted airtime and newspaper columns, the Jewish world has made it abundantly clear that this extreme fringe represents nobody but themselves.

The Satmar, the largest Ultra-Orthodox movement published an unprecedented statement calling on the public to disassociate themselves from those Neturei Karta who attended the Iranian conference, while Israeli Chief Rabbi Yonah Metzger also called for a boycott.

British Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks also condemned Neturei Karta, saying:

“Lest those unfamiliar with Neturei Karta take it to represent a significant strand within Jewry, it should be made clear that it is an extremely small and unrepresentative sect whose views are rejected by the overwhelming majority of Jews, religious and secular alike.”

HonestReporting urges subscribers to ensure that the media does not mislead the general public into thinking that Neturei Karta is the legitimate face of world Jewry despite this group’s existence far beyond the accepted and recognized framework of the Jewish people. Neturei Karta is definitely not Kosher.

You gotta admit that they have a great sense of humour there!!