6 Friday news bites (July 29)

Good morning one and all. It’s ever so close to the weekend! You’re probably run off your feet and a little frazzled so settle in and get caught up on the interesting, the worthy and the just plain bizarre making news this Friday. Here we go:

1. Broadcaster tells GetUp to ‘get stuffed’ as they complain about inaccurate segment

Alan Jones is being investigated by the Australian Communications and Media Authority after activist group GetUp complained about his broadcast of apparently inaccurate climate change facts. Mr Jones said on air that human beings were only responsible for about 0.0001 per cent of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. He now denies having said it. In any case, climate change experts said the figure was closer to 28 per cent. If the ACMA founds Mr Jones was misleading, he may be forced to apologise on air and retract the statement.

2. Driver crashes luxury car into several other luxury cars in expensive ding

This is just plain unfortunate. The driver of a $370,000 Bentley scraped into and past a Mercedes before continuing on to collide with a Ferrari, Porsche and then Aston Martin. It was possibly the world’s worst time and place to have a car accident: outside the Place du Casino in Monte Carlo during the Summer. All in all the total worth of the cars involved, $1 million, hopefully won’t be the damage bill too…

3. Sacked News of the World staff offered new jobs around the world, including Siberia

It’s not quite Wapping, the home of the now defunct paper, but some staff wishing to still remain under News Corporation have been offered jobs right around the world. One gig is for a ‘materials manager’ in Siberia. Around 283 people lost their jobs but there are only 200 jobs available, very few of which still in England.

4. Australian Federal Police look at calls of violence against political figures

It’s been a bizarre couple of weeks as calls for the assassination of certain political figures, particularly the Prime Minister Julia Gillard, have been made in the comment section of the Herald Sun website and on 2GB radio. This in light of the news that a Northern Territory Senator won a local cake baking competition depicting the PM being mauled by a crocodile. It was iced particularly carefully. Incitement of political violence is a crime, the AFP said, but comments also needed to be taken in the context in which they were delivered.

5. Hugh Hefner’s ex-fiancee rubbishes their sex life on radio

This whole saga has been played out publicly. First Crystal Harris runs away just days before her wedding to the 85-year-old Playboy founder (she’s 25) and then she starts a campaign of publicity to disparage the man. The latest being that she was never attracted to him and that the one time they had sex it only lasted two seconds. Hef hit back on Twitter, saying they had a great time together but he was now happy with his two new girlfriends.

6. Icelandic penis museum doing well with tourists

Yup, it’s a whole museum dedicated to penis specimens. They include more than 250 from 46 of Iceland’s mammals. The most recent addition? The bits from a human being, donated by a 95-year-old who passed away. It didn’t preserve so well and pales in comparison to a 1.7m, 70kg specimen from a sperm whale. Oh dear.