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Two Six Flags Great America employees were ejected from the Gurnee theme park Monday afternoon after allegedly attacking a female employee dressed as “Porky Pig.”

Taras Sikalchuk, 20, and Dmytro Petrychenko, 19, took a photo with Porky Pig about 2:20 p.m. Monday at Six Flags Great America in the far north suburb, then punched the mascot in the head 10 to 15 times, Gurnee police said Tuesday.

respect the pig!

Both men are employees of the park and were visiting on their day off, Gurnee police Sgt. Jon Ward said.

Park security detained the men and Gurnee police responded about 4:30 p.m., Ward said.

Sikalchuk and Petrychenko, both of Waukegan, were issued local ordinance citations for battery and were ejected from the park, Ward said.

The suspects denied the attack, but witnesses confirmed the story, police said.

The 24-year-old woman inside the mascot costume suffered headaches and a stiff neck, but did not require hospitalization, Ward said.

The sergeant said the mascots are accompanied by a security guard, and attacks on mascots happen once or twice a year.

A Six Flags Great America spokesperson was not available for comment Tuesday evening.

I dare you to ride me!

PERTH, Australia — A man ejected from a pub in Australia broke into a zoo and climbed onto the back of a crocodile named Fatso, which bit him on the leg but then let him go. Police said they’re surprised the croc didn’t inflict worse damage. The 36-year-old man, who police said had just been thrown out of a pub for being drunk, told officials he scaled the barbed wire fence surrounding the Broome Crocodile Park in remote northwest Australia on Monday night because he wanted to give the 16-foot Fatso a pat.

“He has attempted to sit on its back and the croc has taken offense to that and has spun around and bit him on the right leg,” Broome Police Sgt. Roger Haynes said.

The saltwater crocodile then inexplicably let the man go, and he climbed back over the fence to safety, police said.

The man, who was a tourist from eastern Australia and whose name was not released, suffered some “very nasty lacerations” and was taken to a hospital, Haynes said.

“Saltwater crocodiles … once they get hold of you, are not renowned for letting you go,” Haynes said. “He’s lucky to have escaped with his life.”

Saltwater crocodiles are the world’s largest reptile and can grow up to 23 feet (7 meters). They have become increasingly common in Australia’s tropical north since hunting that almost extinguished the species was banned in 1971.

(originally posted on Snafu-ed 2/09)

You remember the famous scene with Sharon Stone in “Basic Instinct,” right? ‘Nuff said. A 16-year-old teenager at Sickles High School in Florida is now facing the same “problem,” as a result of going “commando” so as to avoid panty lines in a yearbook picture. Unfortunately, it’s now resulted in the “yearbook crotch photo” incident.

Yes, the young girl, according to reports, is displaying her crotch in her photo on P. 219 of the Sickles High School yearbook, a la Britney Spears
. According to a local report, she found out about the photo when seniors got their yearbooks on Monday, and she has not been back to school since.

“I started crying, I was freaking out and I didn’t know what to do. This is my junior year, it’s so important. I didn’t think I could go back to school knowing that everyone knew and had seen the picture.”

Naturally her parents want to sue the school. The parents want the photo to be re-taken, but honestly in this time of recession, do we want a school to have to pay for reprinting? Some may say it was their fault for not noticing the crotch shot in the yearbook before printing, but based on what people are saying, the area in the photo is hard to make out.

Simple fix: a permanent marker. Collect any yearbooks that have gone out, wipe out the area, viola.

and finally- the guy who thinks it’s funny to photocopy his ass…

Niels van Quaquebeke and Steffen R. Giessner, researchers at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, compiled refereeing data from seven seasons of the German Bundesliga and the UEFA Champions League, as well as three World Cups (123,844 fouls in total), and showed that on average the perpetrators of fouls were about one-third of an inch taller than the victims. When two players were involved in illicit contact, the referee was more likely to call an infraction against the taller guy, especially as the height difference increased. When the disparity was relatively small, less than two inches, the smaller players got the call 52% of the time. But when one player had at least 3.9 inches on the other, the taller one was whistled about 59% of the time.

The researchers admit that taller players could just be bigger, stronger, and more likely to foul, but they also argue that an unconscious bias is involved in the referee’s decisions. To strengthen the claim, they performed an additional study in which sports fans were shown pictures of players of differing heights running toward the ball and were told that one of them ended up on the ground. When the smaller player hit the turf, fans were more likely to assume that he hadn’t taken a dive but had been fouled Austin Kelley
Height Bias?

A new study shows that when two soccer players are involved in a collision, the taller player is more likely to get called for the foul.
HEIGHT DIFFERENCE PROBABILITY OF FOUL AGAINST TALLER PLAYER
1-5 cm 52.0%
6-10 cm 55.4%
> 10 cm 58.8%
Avg. Height of Perpetrator Avg. Height of Victim
182.4 cm 181.5 cm

New York Jets coach Rex Ryan will not be fined by the NFL for making an obscene gesture at a mixed-martial- arts event last weekend.

League spokesman Greg Aiello said yesterday that Ryan would not face additional discipline by the NFL after the Jets fined him $50,000 on Tuesday.

The coach was caught on a cell phone camera flipping his middle finger at a fan during the MMA competition in Sunrise, Fla., on Saturday night. The image of Ryan quickly spread across the Internet and made its way onto the back pages of New York tabloids.

Ryan apologized the next day in a statement, calling his actions “stupid and inappropriate.”