This really does fulfill the man bites dog news test.

A blind man who allegedly bit his guide dog was arrested by police today.

David Todd is accused of sinking his teeth into the animal’s head in a busy street in Edinburgh.

From PA News in The Scotsman

I’ve embarked on a little test today with Wikinews. I’ve just posted a story about Montserratian refugees to the submit a story page (title: Refugees Risk Deportation). It will be interesting to see how long it takes it to make it onto the main news pages (if at all) and also how it is edited.

UPDATE 12:39 pm: I’ve just edited the title to “Montserrat Refugees Risk Deportation from United States” for obvious reasons.

UPDATE 4:00 pm: I got a bit frustrated with nothing happening to my story so I attempted to submit the article myself (at the moment it is languishing in a queue of stories waiting to be edited). Unfortunately, this turned out to be less simple than I thought, so I gave up halfway through!

UPDATE Feb 24, 12:30pm: My story is still sitting in the moderation cue. It doesn’t look like anyone has changed anything to the text. In fact, it doesn’t look like anyone has even looked at the story!

UPDATE Feb 25, 2:33 pm: Still no movement on my story and no indication whether it has even been considered by the editors.

Yiddish With Dick And Jane? (Hat tip: Normblog)

Leeds Rhinos 30 St Helens 18

It was another hard match for Leeds. They started off like true champions. Despite early St Helens pressure, they quickly got into their stride and slick passing saw first Mark Calderwood and then Chev Walker cross the line. Sinfield added the conversion and within ten minutes they were 12 – 0 ahead. But it was clear that the Saints were not there just to make up the numbers. They applied pressure and Paul Sculthorpe came up with one of his specials. Taking the ball at the play-the-ball he suddenly accelerated between two Leeds forwards, knocking them aside, charged down field and the backing up three quarters were able to outpace the Leeds cover. The Saints then really applied pressure and Cunningham scored a special from close in. Leeds were really rattled. The opposition were finding weaknesses on the Leeds left and around the ruck at the play-the-ball. Leeds were really missing Matt Diskin.

Nevertheless, as at Hull, Leeds always had the class to hit back. A pinpoint pass by McGuire put Mathers through the Saints’ defence. In reply the visitors had a kick through to the Leeds line covered by Mathers who spent so much time waiting for it to go dead that he let in Talau to score for the Saints. At half time the score was 18 all.

In the second half Saints made ferocious efforts to break down the Leeds defence but this time Leeds did not have their customary second half wilt. They absorbed everything that was thrown at them and hit back. They opened the half with a Poching try and spent the next twenty minutes meeting everything that Saints could throw at them. Then as the visitors started to tire they made the game safe twelve minutes from time with a second try by Calderwood. The final minutes saw Leeds controlling the game as a tired Saints side ran out of steam.

It had been a thrilling game and a full stadium seemed to thoroughly enjoy the match. There were too many errors on both sides but this seemed to be caused more by the pressure which each side exerted in its defensive aggression rather than any lack of skill. The fact that Saints tired at the end when Leeds still seemed to have something spare suggests that the visitors had played above their standards whereas the Leeds side still do not seem to have quite reached their peak. Perhaps they will not reach this peak until Diskin is back from injury.