A truck almost made it under the bridge at Petone today.

I used to sit next to an ACC fraud investigator. These guys are the unsung heroes of ACC and are responsible for reducing fraud and in turn levies. This story interested me as unsurprisingly the police in New York decided that someone commiting insurance fraud may not be telling the truth when he says he was shooting a a turkey when he hit an invesigator.

William Wehnke, 51, claims to have spotted a wild turkey in his field in rural Annsville, New York (population 3,000). He took aim and fired at the turkey and managed to hit Matthew Brady, a workers comp investigator, who happened to be crouching in the field, dressed in camouflage. Brady was apparently performing surveillance on Wehnke, who is collecting workers comp benefits for an unspecified injury. Whatever his disability, Wehnke is obviously capable of operating a shotgun.

Local authorities are not buying Wehnke’s story about the turkey. He’s been arraigned on a three-count grand jury indictment that includes felony second-degree assault and unlawful manner of taking. He is even charged with using inappropriate ammunition for hunting turkeys. Wehnke is in a lot of trouble for his little turkey shoot.

Investigator Brady was hit in the side, back and legs. He underwent surgery and presumably filed his own workers comp claim for what is surely a work-related – if highly unusual – disability.

LightLane. This product allows you to project a cycle lane off the front and/or back of your bike to give motorist lots of warning they are approaching you and show a clear boundary. It is amazing what people will come up with once they have bounced off the bonnet of a car.

Missed this in time for Guy Faulkes . A collection of the best customers from Epic Fireworks. They were happy to load this much explosives in to a car and then put a section on their site about safety.

The ‘Safe Bedside Table’ has a removable leg that acts as a club and a top that doubles as a shield for self-defence. This is for people who are willing to take on an intruder, providing an easily accessible bat and shield.

If there is ever any doubt that health and safety is important. Check out these pictures of  Bhopal 25 years on from one of the worst industrial accidents of all time.

Reiki, Acupuncture, Homeopathy and many other “spiritual” healing techniques are advertised and charged for with apparent immunity from the the Consumer Guarantees Act. The question is if a worker is getting results from the placebo effect is it moral for a company to assist in paying for these “treatments?

I personally did not assess the risk of listening to Marcus Lush this morning and ended up catching the start of Michael Law’s rant against a new computer game called “Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 2″ and calling for the Chief Censor to resign. Now the game centres around a counter terrorist team and as such involves uses guns, bombs etc.  The part Mr Laws picked up (from a third party as he has not seen or played the game)  was that it is also possible to target is to kill civilians to create terror. What he did not mention was this scene is only a small fraction of the game where the player has infiltrated a terrorist cell.

At the beginning of the game, players encounter a mandatory “checkpoint” in which they are warned that an upcoming segment may contain disturbing elements and they can choose not to engage in the gameplay that involves this scene. The game was given an R18 rating putting it in the same category as Alcohol,  Cigarettes and the SAW movie series but 2 years older than buying a Dragunov.

When a caller who had played the game called in and pointed this out  Mr Laws stated that the culture of violence from the video games was a much bigger problem than Alcohol or Cigarettes.  This complete lack of understanding of risk factors and injury outcomes is startling from a Mayor of City with major alcohol and crime issues. Now Michael Laws appears to flip a coin to decide if the issue is “nanny state interfering” or “government not doing it’s job. This morning Mr Laws coin must have landed on a tail. Mr Laws needs to create discussion so I hope this was just one of those moments where he didn’t let truth get in the way of good talk back.

I’ll leave you with this quote  “Computer games don’t affect kids, I mean if Pac Man affected us as kids, we’d all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music” – Gareth Owens

As more news comes out about the tragic ferry disaster in Tonga it reminded me of this clip of comedy legend John Clarke playing the role of an Australian MP explaining a tanker spill.