Children who attend St. Laurence School in Bradford on Avon in Wiltshire in southwest England got a lesson in swear words. Now their parents are so mad they could shove a pitchfork up the headmaster's &*@@# sideways until the little @*^**@# screams, &*%$#& in his pants and promises never to do something so @#&*$@** stupid again. The kids say the words were written on the board and the children had to shout them out. The school said the goal of the lesson, part of a sex and relationship curriculum, is to rob profanity of its mystique. "This is a total disgrace," a parent said. "Our children go to school to gain an education, not qualifications in swear words. Most kids had no idea what the words meant and were forced to grow up faster than their parents want. Heads should roll for this."

Firefighters in the UK are allowed to run into burning buildings on the verge of collapse, brave the toxic smoke, and endure the 1000 degree heat as long as they don't climb a step ladder while they are inside. Big ladders are fine, but the little ones are out due to health and safety concerns. They have been told to use a special telescopic rod when checking and fitting smoke alarms rather than using step ladders. One said, "It is preposterous. Climbing a ladder safely is an integral part of being a firefighter. It is what we do and we receive expert training to ensure we do it properly. To now be told we are not to be trusted with a set of step ladders is ludicrous. We will be banned from tackling fires because they can get quite hot."

Just to be safe you shouldn't think about words that end that way either.

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Dan Tynan offers up 7 'even dirtier IT jobs' in a follow-up of last year's 7 dirtiest jobs in IT. Number four? Zombie console monkey. 'Wanted: Individuals with low self-esteem and high boredom threshold willing to spend long hours poring over server logs and watching blinking lights on a network console.'"

Barence writes "A Google Street View car has been chased out of a British village by angry residents. The car was taking photographs of Broughton in Buckinghamshire for Google's when it was spotted by a local resident who warned the car not to enter the village then roused his neighbors, who surrounded the vehicle until the driver performed a U-turn and left. 'This is an affluent area,' protester Paul Jacobs said. 'We've already had three burglaries locally in the past six weeks. If our houses are plastered all over Google it's an invitation for more criminals to strike. I was determined to make a stand, so I called the police.'"

ByOhTek writes "A man is being charged for driving under the influence, on a motorized bar stool. He stated that it was only a minor accident, from the report, nobody else was injured. According to the police report, 'Wygle claims his unique vehicle can reach a speed of 38 miles per hour, though at the time of the crash he was going around 20.' At 38 miles per hour, he could do a lot of harm if he struck someone. Should such a vehicle be considered when DUI charges are applied?"

denouement writes "At only $3.59 plus S&H, the Sno-Isle Libraries Kindle predecessor is still a hot item with over 5 million units sold. Joe Bezos is even quoted at saying 'Brilliant, simple design. Low cost, makes reading a pleasure!'"

Perhaps inspired by President Obama's wish for his daughters to grow up in a world of equal opportunity, Robert Daniel Webb decided to empower his young girl by taking her on an armed robbery. Surveillance camera's show a suspect, believed to be Webb, pointing a large handgun at the store clerk, with the young girl by his side. Kittitas County Under Sheriff Clayton Myers, oblivious to what a huge step forward bringing your daughter to a robbery is, calls Webb's actions the height of parental irresponsibility. "Committing an armed robbery with your child at your side... You never know how someone is going to react when you pull a gun in a public place like that, so we're viewing this as a child endangerment, extreme risk to the child. Our first priority is locating her and taking her into protective custody."

pegdhcp writes "The latest winner of Miss Universe Contest had visited the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, and as far as I can read (before my brain started to melt and drain from my ears) she wants to stay there forever. It seems that the original blog entry is off the air at the moment but that probably would not be the end of this story."

It has four different settings: mist, spray, massage, and electrocute.

The wolf-pigeon is doing a great job.

A Norwegian priest had to improvise during a baptism ceremony when it was discovered the church taps had been turned off because of freezing temperatures. His solution was to use lemon-flavored cola. Priest Paal Dale said the family was informed about the switch after the ceremony. He added, "It had gone flat. Only the lemon smell made this unusual." This enduring covenant between god and your child is brought to you by Coca-Cola.

Dozens of unemployed people got the chance to show off their skills at "Pin the blame on the boss," "Office-Phone Skee-Ball," and other games at the Unemployment Olympics in Manhattan. The organizer, Nick Goddard, said that a light-hearted attitude towards being unemployed was pretty much his aim, "Just to get unemployed people psyched that they're unemployed," he said. Prizes were offered by merchants from the surrounding Lower East Side neighborhood.

Fishing like this may be unusual, but it's the only way to get the really big ones to come up.

A JetBlue employee was discovered by baggage handlers at Boston's Logan International Airport after falling asleep in a plane's cargo bin while in New York. He said he'd been accidentally locked inside the pressurized luggage compartment while taking a nap and called JetBlue officials when he realized he was in the air. The man wasn't charged with any crime and was returned to New York when it was determined he wasn't dangerous. The impromptu flight has led some JetBlue officials to consider a new ultra-cheap "roll around with the luggage" travel option for more adventurous passengers.

Liam Hoekstra is only 19 months old but he already has washboard abs and amazing strength. Liam suffers from a rare genetic condition called myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy. The condition promotes above-normal growth of the skeletal muscles; it doesn't affect the heart and has no known negative side effects, according to experts. Liam has about 40 percent more muscle mass than normal and needs a lot of food because of his increased metabolism. "He's hungry for a full meal about every hour because of his rapid metabolism," said his adoptive mother, Dana Hoekstra. "He's already eating me out of house and home." When Liam wants a toy, Liam gets a toy.

If you think that's bad, you should see the other car.

An anonymous reader writes "A woman in Bushton, Wilts, has been told by the Performing Rights Society (PRS for Music) that she needs to pay an annual fee in order to play classical music from the radio to the horses in her stable, something that she has been doing for the past 20 years. The PRS claims that it's not about the horses — rather, it's about her staff of over two people, which puts Mrs. Greenway in the same category as shops, bars and cafes. 'The staff are not bothered whether they have the radio on or not, in fact they don't particularly like my music and turn if off when I'm not around,' said Mrs. Greenway, 62. 'Especially on windy days I try to play it — it gives [the horses] a nice quiet atmosphere, you can only exercise one horse at a time so it helps the others to stay calm. We are right next to the RAF Lyneham air base so it dulls the noise from the aircraft as well.'"

jamie dubs writes "Find yourself spending all day on Slashdot? Facebook? Gmail? Getting clean can be hard, but thankfully Steve Lambert is here to help. "SelfControl" is an open-source Mac application that will completely block access to a list of websites for a specified period of time."

Kofi, a Gambian pouched rat, is being trained to sniff out explosive devices. Gambian pouched rats have one of the best senses of smell in the animal kingdom and are used to hunt for land mines in Africa. Kofi spends 20 minutes a day training by staff at the Porfell Wildlife Park and Sanctuary near Liskeard, Cornwall. His handler Wendy Winstanley now plans to contact the Army and the police anti-terror unit to offer her rats' services for use both home and abroad. She said, "Kofi is amazing, his sniff ability is really incredible. People think of rats as vermin but they are highly intelligent creatures. They have a more heightened sense of smell than dogs and because they are so much lighter they have less chance of setting off an explosive." Isn't this how NIMH started?