Over 5,000 people joined a Facebook group inspired by an episode of South Park that encouraged people to “Kick a Ginger” on National Kick A Ginger Day 2008.

Following a recent episode of the controversial cartoon South Park where fat character Cartman calls all people with red hair “soulless and evil” a 14 year old boy from Vancouver Canada started the Facebook group and saw it’s popularity rocket with thousands joining.

National Kick A Ginger Day was held on Thursday 20th November, and despite school teachers and parents pleading with gingerists to ignore the Facebook site, ginger children around the globe have reported being kicked and slapped that day by their peers.

Many people reported their attacks on the Facebook group page, boasting how they “kicked a ginger”.

The creator of the Facebook group, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has apologised to all gingers claiming it was only meant as a joke. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police however are investigating the situation as a “hate crime”.

“We do treat this sort of thing seriously,” a police spokeswoman told the Vancouver Sun newspaper. “This is sort of inciting hate. It’s a hate crime, really.”

This week is Canada’s bullying awareness week.

In retaliation to the campaign several opposing Facebook groups have been created with names ranging from the imaginatively titled “Don’t Kick A Ginger Day” with 16 members, to the slightly less impressive “kick a ginger day is predigest and stupid” with just 6 members, who are likely bad spellers.

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Filed under: Internet, Offbeat News by Earl Morningstarr Copyright © 2008 The Morningstarr*

Detective chief superintendent Len Hynds, from the UK’s National Hi-Tech Crime Unit has publicly called for websites with content concerning subjects such as necrophilia and cannibalism to be shut down because they incite crime.

Hynds says the reason for this thought policing is to protect vulnerable members of society from “corrupting influences”.

“For the internet to take the final step to adulthood it must first deal with those fringe elements that choose to promote abhorrent activities like cannibalism and necrophilia,” Hynds said.

Hynds says he intends to make the internet a more law abiding place by censoring it and criminalising people. His words have angered many people, including The Morningstarr* team, who believe the internet’s greatest strength is it’s wide range of subjects free from censorship.

This call for censorship is yet another knee jerk reaction to real life crime being blamed on media influences. Last month a teacher was murdered by a man who allegedly frequented sites about necrophilia, the victim’s family have called for such sites to be outlawed.

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Filed under: Cannibalism, Crime, Internet, Offbeat News by Earl Morningstarr Copyright © 2008 The Morningstarr*

Jodi Ann Arias is standing trial for the first degree murder of her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander.

Mr Alexander was discovered with his throat slashed from ear to ear, decomposing in his shower back in June this year. A digital camera found at the scene of the crime has revealed a startling insight into Mr Alexander’s final hours alive.

The camera was found in the washing machine at Mr Alexander’s Arizona home, it was badly water damaged but the memory card was salvaged and deleted photographs on it were restored to reveal important information regarding the gruesome murder.

Pictures on the memory card showed Jodi Ann Arias posing naked and provocatively on Mr Alexander’s bed at around 13:40hrs on the afternoon of June 4th. Later pictures show Mr Alexander naked in the shower at 17:22hrs and at 17:30hrs the photos show Mr Alexander bleeding to death on his bathroom floor.

In the fatal attack Mr Alexander suffered 26 stab wounds, his throat slit and a single gunshot wound to the face. DNA and bloody palm prints also place Miss Arias at the scene of the crime, but she has denied seeing Mr Alexander since April 2008 and is pleading not guilty to the charges against her.

On Miss Arias’ MySpace page she started a tribute photo album in remembrance of Mr Alexander, here is her profile. MySpace Jodi Arias.

Miss Arias has been described by Mr Alexander’s friends and family as “obsessive”, they were in a relationship for five months in 2007 but remained sexual partners after the relationship ended in June 2007.

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Filed under: Crime, Death, Internet, Offbeat News by Earl Morningstarr Copyright © 2008 The Morningstarr*

A 40 year old woman in Sydney Australia has been jailed for at least three years for distributing child pornography.

When police raided the home of Suzanne McDonald they found over 2,000 images and 150 videos on her computer depicting the most vile child abuse available on the internet.

McDonald was using the illegal material to form relationships with men on the internet, she would meet men online and send them the images and videos of child rape claiming that she was the victim in them. At the time McDonald was abusing drugs heavily, and claims she wasn’t even aware the material was genuine and that they were actual images of real child abuse.

McDonald told the court she collected the material to use in conversation with men she met on online dating sites, and said she would pretend to be the children involved. One of the men she tried this with informed the police that she had sent him over 70 illegal images.

Justice Paul Conlon told the court that the material was some of the worst in existence, on a scale of one to ten the material rated easily between eight and ten. Ten being the most violent and depraved.

Justice Conlon said it was “horrific material of the worst kind” and one particularly brutal video showed a young girl fighting as a man dragged her into a bedroom, where she was then tied to a bed and sexually abused. Another image showed a baby being anally penetrated by a man, and one showed a girl performing a sex act on a dog.

He explained to the court that McDonald thought the material was just “harmless pictures” and were simply part of her role playing.

“She never thought her behaviour would amount to criminal behaviour and, because of the amount of drugs in her system, she never gave it a thought.” He said.

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Filed under: Crime, Internet, Offbeat News by Earl Morningstarr Copyright © 2008 The Morningstarr*

Kwok Chun-wai has made history by being the first person ever to be sent to prison for uploading pornographic images to the internet.

Kwok from Hong Kong was convicted under Chinese law which forbids the production, duplication, selling or circulation of pornographic products. The 24 year old was caught uploading 140 explicit images of Edison Chen who has recently been at the centre of an internet sex scandal.

Since the Chen scandal the Chinese Police have been said to have started a “witch hunt” for those responsible for uploading the pictures, and China’s most popular search engine Baidu has been censored and reprimanded for linking to the explicit pics. Even Triad gangs have put out contracts on Chen’s life!

Kwok was sentenced to two months in prison for his part in the scandal, and the Chinese authorities seem to be doing a pretty good job as The Morningstarr* was unfortunately unable to track down the infamous images.

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Filed under: Crime, Internet, Offbeat News, Sex by Earl Morningstarr Copyright © 2008 The Morningstarr*