A bit of weirdness I just received by email.

If you look at this photo you’ll probably see a man’s head between the two people. But if you look closer you’ll see it’s nothing more than a little girl sitting on the man’s knee. She’s wearing a bonnet and the illusion of an eye is formed by her face.

AP NEW YORK – Police were reviewing video from surveillance cameras in an attempt to identify who trampled to death a Wal-Mart worker after a crowd of post-Thanksgiving shoppers burst through the doors at a suburban store and knocked him down.

Criminal charges were possible, but identifying individual shoppers in Friday’s video may prove difficult, said Detective Lt. Michael Fleming, a Nassau County police spokesman.

Other workers were trampled as they tried to rescue the man, and customers stepped over him and became irate when officials said the store was closing because of the death, police and witnesses said.

At least four other people, including a woman who was eight months pregnant, were taken to hospitals for observation or minor injuries. The store in Valley Stream on Long Island closed for several hours before reopening.

Kimberly Cribbs, who witnessed the stampede, said shoppers were acting like “savages.”

“When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling `I’ve been on line since yesterday morning,’” she said. “They kept shopping.”

A question: Is ok to kill a man for a 10% discount or do the saving need to be at least 15% before you’re allowed to trample someone to death and not feel bad about it?

Heartless, uncaring, unfeeling animals…

Ananova –Back in April a German man survived a 25ft plunge down a lift shaft when he landed on a woman who had fallen down it a day before.

Jens Wilhelms, 27, was unhurt after landing on the 57-year-old woman and managed to free himself from the shaft at the apartment block in Frankfurt am Main where he lived.

He called out rescue services who took the woman to hospital. Doctors said she is in a critical condition after sustaining injuries in her original fall - and then again when Wilhelms landed on her.

Police spokesman Manfred Vonhausen said: “The woman had been lying unconscious in the shaft for some time already.

Wilhelms said he had slipped as he walked past the lift shaft which had been left open as it was undergoing repairs.

“I live on one the top floor and it was quite a nuisance to always climb the stairs,” he said.

“I saw the door open and I just wanted to check whether somebody was finally working on the elevator.

“I took a closer look inside the shaft as it was pitch black, and must have slipped off the edge somehow.”

Two people in a row fall down the shaft. Do you think they fixed it yet or did they just put up more caution tape?

BBC –A man has been attacked by a panda at a park in southern China, after he climbed into its enclosure hoping to cuddle the creature.

It seems this fool’s odd behavior frightened the panda who responded by biting the man on the arms and legs.

The man - named only as Liu - was taken to hospital. He underwent an operation and doctors said he would stay in hospital for a few days, although his life was not in danger.

“Yang Yang was so cute and I just wanted to cuddle him,” he told reporters from his hospital bed.

“I didn’t expect he would attack… I don’t remember how many bites I got.”

Yang Yang - whose name means sun - is seven years old and weighs 80kg (176lb). Keepers said he had recovered from the incident and was eating and playing as normal.

From International Herald Tribune:

Dan Mirvish, who with Eitan Gorlin created an elaborate Internet hoax complete with a fake policy institute and a phony adviser to Senator John McCain. (Axel Koester for The New York Times)

It was among the juicier post-election recriminations: Fox News Channel quoted an unnamed McCain campaign figure as saying that Sarah Palin did not know that Africa was a continent.

Who would say such a thing? On Monday the answer popped up on a blog and popped out of the mouth of David Shuster, an MSNBC anchor. “Turns out it was Martin Eisenstadt, a McCain policy adviser, who has come forward today to identify himself as the source of the leaks,” Shuster said.

Trouble is, Martin Eisenstadt doesn’t exist. His blog does, but it’s a put-on. The think tank where he is a senior fellow — the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy — is just a Web site. The TV clips of him on YouTube are fakes.

And the claim of credit for the Africa anecdote is just the latest ruse by Eisenstadt, who turns out to be a very elaborate hoax that has been going on for months. MSNBC, which quickly corrected the mistake, has plenty of company in being taken in by an Eisenstadt hoax, including The New Republic and The Los Angeles Times.

This whole ridiculous scam was started by a pair of obscure filmmakers as a way of promoting an idea for a TV series based on the character, who was a valet spouting nonsense in support of Giuliani. Giuliani dropped out and the idea morphed into this latest incarnation.

They chose the name because all the Bush Neocon advisers have Jewish last names and Christian first names.

They then created this completely fictional character and ran with it.

They say the blame lies not with them but with shoddiness in the traditional news media and especially the blogosphere.

“With the 24-hour news cycle they rush into anything they can find,” said Mirvish, 40.

Gorlin, 39, argued that Eisenstadt was no more of a joke than half the bloggers or political commentators on the Internet or television.

They conned some of the best? news teams in the country. –Now that’s sad commentary on the state of news reporting in it’s current format.
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The next hoax is going to turn out to be “Sex with a Hedgehog.” Assuming for the moment that anyone cares enough to give it a close look. –It’s on blogs all over the net and never seems to be filed in humor.

I read about it on Rich’s blog; My View of the World.

I called him and discussed it. After the initial laughter died down we agreed that it was extremely unlikely that the event actually occurred.

Especially when you take into consideration that the original –and as far as I have been able to determine– only source is The Sun.

We both are very suspicious. Rich immediately offered me 3 to 1 odds that it was a complete and utter fraud. –I declined to take the bet… I hate losing.

It’s still one of the funniest things I’ve read in a long time.