Suzi has commented throughout this report in red italics!US Halloween costumes mock Irwin's death
Tuesday Oct 31 10:15 AEDTBad taste Steve Irwin costumes, which include a bloody stingray barb attached to a khaki shirt, are among the top Halloween costumes in the US this year.
The macabre outfits have split Americans, with some condemning the costumes while others find them amusing.
Don't see the funny side myself!At least one US celebrity, comedian Bill Maher, has donned the Crocodile Hunter outfit.
Photos of Maher at a Halloween party in Los Angeles on the weekend dressed in khaki shorts and shirt with a bloody barb hanging out of his chest are circulating the internet.
Looks like an idiot and a very silly manThe comedian, who has a weekly talk show on the HBO TV network, has outraged some of his fans.
He IS an idiot!"I suppose he thought it was funny, but it was seriously lacking taste, decorum and respect for Steve's family," a Maher fan wrote on a blog on the comedian's official website.
Another fan wrote: "I am kind of torn on it - I have good sense of humour but this one is just kind of tacky".
The San Francisco Bay Guardian newspaper recently published an article entitled Great bad ideas for Halloween costumes, with the number one suggestion a Crocodile Hunter outfit.
The article came with an illustration of Irwin with a stingray on his chest.
"Kids and grown-ups alike will stare you down with white-hot horror when you strut around in your khaki ensemble with a pissed off sea creature piercing your chest," the article's authors, Cheryl Eddy and Kimberly Chun, wrote.
"Too soon? Hell, no.
"If Irwin's eight-year-old can get her own Discovery Kids television show, you can certainly make sport of her nature-loving pop's freaky demise.
"Group costume idea: bring along Roy Horn and Montecore, and Timothy Treadwell and the Big Red Machine, and you've got your very own When Animals Attack all-star team!"
VERY very very bad tasteMike Flint, the owner of Mallatt Pharmacy, a US leader in Halloween costumes based in Wisconsin, said bad taste outfits were always popular at Halloween.
Flint said he had customers this year who had khaki style Crocodile Hunter outfits but were seeking barbs to put in their chests.
"You would not believe some of the things people ask us to do," Flint said.
"When the movie Titanic came out what was popular that year was frozen victims of that disaster.
"Siegfried and Roy costumes were popular the year they had the accident with one of their lions."
You, Mr.Flint are an idiot also. It was NOT an accident and it WAS a tiger named Montecore. Roy had a stroke and Montecore tried to get him off the stage! The most misunderstood Tiger of all time!Flint said that adding to the popularity of the Crocodile Hunter outfit was it was cheap and easy to put together.
"With the khaki clothes, it is an easy costume," Flint said.
READ: More money for ME!İAAP 2006http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=157047Dragged to his death for a vanLes Kennedy
October 31, 2006 - 12:02PMA homicide investigation has been launched into the death of a 33-year-old delivery driver who fell under the wheels of his
furniture truck as he tried to stop two thieves from driving it away.
It was a van, like a courier/delivery van, not a ruddy great truck!Inspector Steve Messervy of Hurstville Police said the victim was a Chinese Malaysian immigrant who arrived in Australia only a year ago with his wife and five-year-old daughter.
Homicide detectives have joined Hurstville Police in hunting the carjackers.
Inspector Messervy told a news conference that the death appeared to be the result of "an opportunistic attempt to steal the vehicle".
He said the victim and a co-worker had carried furniture inside a home in Kerrie Crescent, Peakhurst, just after 5pm yesterday when they heard the truck's engine start up.
The victim ran out of the house as the vehicle with two suspects on board backed down the driveway and drove into the street.
He chased the van on foot to a nearby intersection with busy Henry Lawson Drive.
"Our information is that he ran to the driver's side of the vehicle," Inspector Messervy said.
"The driver's side window was open. He reached inside and tried to stop the thieves from driving away. He fell underneath the driver's side of the vehicle and was run over by the rear tyres of the vehicle."
The man, whose name has not been released, died from abdominal and head injuries at St George Hospital a short time later.
Inspector Messervy said the man had lived with his family at Blacktown and the death had been a "tragic incident".
The van, with furniture still on board, was abandoned less than one kilometre away in Weemala Avenue, Riverwood.
Inspector Messervy said police were compiling a description of the two thieves. They are thought to be aged between 20 and 30 and are possibly from the Hurstville area.
Last night Inspector Chris Lewis of Hurstville Police urged witnesses to come forward.
"We have a fair idea of who [the victim] is, but we must go through a formal identification procedure before we release his name," Inspector Lewis said.
"There would have been a few witnesses, particularly along Henry Lawson Drive. We've got a number of witnesses to speak to today and we would be looking for as many witnesses as possible to make themselves available."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/dragged-to-his-death-for-a-van/2006/10/31/1162056934196.htmlNOT worth dying for!Deadly sniper attack on champion horse
Jamie Pandaram
October 31, 2006 - 1:04PM
Ballistics tests will be carried out in the hunt for clues as to who shot dead a champion stock horse yesterday morning.
Mustang Cadbury, a star polo horse known to the family as Boxer, was shot twice - in the heart and the lung - in a paddock at the Carbrook property of Susan Robino and Dan Castles in Brisbane's south.
The couple, who lost their daughter Jennifer Robino to leukaemia just over seven years ago, are devastated at the killing of the 11-year-old gelding.
"It is definitely mind-blowing," said Mr Castles, a leading polo cross commentator, who is better known by his nickname "Pluto".
"We lost a daughter at the age of 29 to leukaemia, and now this."
A veterinarian who is conducting a post-mortem examination has just left the property in search of a metal detector to locate the two bullets that are still in the horse, said Mr Castles, who was in Coffs Harbour on business at the time of the shooting.
"They have a fair idea of where the bullets are but they don't want to make a mess, and speed things up."
Ms Robino's daughter Kate had stepped inside the house briefly about 9am yesterday to make a coffee when she heard the shots. The horse ran towards the house, crashed through the front gate and fell dead.
"I was the one to see him fall and die," a tearful Kate Robino, 34, said. "We're just devastated."
While police said the killing did not appear to be motivated by an industry dispute or jealousy, Kate Robino said: "I don't know the polo community that well."
"This doesn't appear to have anything to do with the polo community or jealousy or anything like that, it appears to be a random act," a police spokeswoman said.
An outraged Mr Castles said he hoped police found the culprit before he did.
"I don't want to take the law into my own hands, but if I found the bloke first I'd be going to jail as well.
"You just wonder what goes through someone's mind, to shoot a horse that wouldn't harm anyone, just eating grass in a paddock."
The horse had "six of the best years left in him", said Mr Castles, who has commentated polo Test matches between Australia and New Zealand.
Mustang Cadbury won the Champions Men's Horse Second Division and Australian Stock Horse Champion Second Division awards at the World Championships in South Africa three years ago.
"I was in Coffs Harbour at the time of the shooting ... I deliver chook manure to areas around there," Mr Castles said. "[My family] didn't tell me about it until I got home today, they thought it might have affected my driving.
"The horse was a part of our family. We love all our horses but he was special, he was definitely the leader of the pack, the boss."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/sniper-attack-on-champion-horse/2006/10/31/1162056959936.html 
Woman to sue Stones for scrapping show
Tuesday Oct 31 12:46 AEDTRosalie Druyan wants to stick the Rolling Stones between a rock and a hard place with a $US51 million ($A66.37 million) lawsuit.
Shattered when Mick Jagger's sore throat scrapped the Rolling Stones concert in Atlantic City - four hours before its scheduled start - the Stones superfan from Brooklyn is taking the wrinkly rockers to court.
In a class-action suit to be filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, Druyan contends the late cancellation cost her and other fans big bucks on non-refundable hotel reservations, forcing them to spend the night together in cold and rainy Atlantic City.
"Talk about no satisfaction," quipped lawyer Martin Druyan, who is representing his wife in the case.
The Stones - who are set to play the Beacon Theatre on Tuesday night for a Martin Scorcese concert film on the legendary band - cancelled their show at Boardwalk Hall when Jagger came down with a sore throat. But the bad news didn't come soon enough for Rosalie Druyan, who last month had bought a pair of tickets to the show for $US575 ($A74
.
"People came from all over to see the Stones," she said.
"When you talk about travel expenses, hotel and baby-sitting expenses, that's not a cheap day."
Druyan said she received a Ticketmaster e-mail on her BlackBerry notifying her of the cancellation when she was a few kilometres from Atlantic City. By then it was too late to cancel a $US300 ($A390) reservation at the Trump Taj Mahal and too rainy to drive back to Brooklyn.
"We were bored for nothing," said Druyan.
The Stones announced that another Atlantic City concert will be held on November 17 and that refunds are available for ticket holders who can't make that date.
But Druyan and her husband, who have attended nearly 50 Stones shows between them, won't be among those going back to Atlantic City. A spokeswoman for the band was not available for comment.
"We're real Stones fans, and we see them everywhere," Rosalie Druyan said.
"But we won't be seeing them at the make-up concert."
İAAP 2006Build a Bridge and get OVER it! 
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