A british bloke who tried to flog a deactivated Soviet FROG missile on Ebay has fallen foul of one of the auction site's more bizarre rules.

Richard Moore, from Cambridgeshire, was told to remove the missile offer, because he broke eBay regulations. According to Reuters, it was not the fact that he was selling a missile which could have once been used to deliver a weapon of mass destruction that broke the rules.

Ebay was miffed that he had chosen to sell the missile in the same auction as its fully functional rocket launcher. Ebay said that the missile should have appeared as a separate item. This is because the auctioneer bans the sale of any ammunition, replica guns or firearms on its sites. If missile and launcher were put together they become a complete 'weapon' said Ebay.

West Palm Beach — As commuters may recall, West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel took advantage of a roadside sign along the North Dixie Highway reconstruction project to express empathy with traffic-bound drivers this month. "I Am Mad Too! - Lois," her message flashed.

Now, someone has responded anonymously to the mayor's frustration. Tuesday morning, the electronic board displayed an obscene message.

Whoever left the message then locked the metal box housing the sign's keyboard, so that road workers were unable to change the words and had to shut the sign off altogether, which they did shortly after 9 a.m. Someone from the sign leasing company arrived with the key later in the day.

The mayor, for her part, took it in stride. "Happy Thanksgiving," she said. "It's a silly response. I understand the frustration, but this is a very special week for us to give joy for all the blessings that we have."

Police say an officer and his dog were bitten by a man resisting arrest in Kansas City.

Officer David Magruder tried to arrest the man, suspected of dodging a cab fare, early on Friday morning.

The man began to punch Mr Magruder, who then released police dog "Soty" from the patrol vehicle using a remote control, a local newspaper reported.

Soty bit the man, who then bit back, according to police, nearly taking off the dog's ear. He also bit Mr Magruder.

The dog's ear had to be stitched back on by a vet, but he has lost a small piece, according to the Kansas City Star newspaper, which carried the story.

The very citizen journalists who very nearly pushed John Kerry into the White House have continued with their stellar work, uncovering a shocking photo naming policy on a shared Netscape/CNN site.

Citizen journalists traveling to this page discovered a dubious name for the file of the photo showing a lovable Laura Bush holding her ape-faced hubby. Until late last night, the photo was unpleasantly called asshole.jpg. It has now been changed to the more innocuous georgelaura135.jpg. The old photo page now chucks up an error message.

The photo name raises some obvious questions. Does CNN or Netscape hate the President? Have these organizations allowed unbiased web monkeys into their midsts? Is W. an asshole?

CNN has fingered a Netscape employee as the culprit, and Netscape agrees.

AN adult sex toy shut down a key regional airport for almost an hour today when it was mistaken for a bomb, Queensland police said.

The vibrating object was discovered at Mackay Airport by a security officer who noticed the suspicious package inside a rubbish bin at the terminal cafeteria at 9.15am (AEST), a police spokeswoman said.

Cafeteria manager Lynne Bryant said her staff had been cleaning tables when they noticed a strange humming noise coming from the rubbish bin.

Ms Bryant said at the time of the upheaval the airport had been quite busy with two main flights due in and out of the airport - wreaking havoc with people's schedules.

She said in retrospect the humming sounded exactly like a vibrator - but it was better to be safe then sorry.

Callers reporting faults to phone giants NTL yesterday were greeted by a recorded message telling them to f*** off.

A gruff man with a strong Geordie accent made the foul-mouthed announcement.

He said: "Hello. You are through to NTL customer services. We don't give a f*** about you. We are never here.

"We just will f*** you about, basically, and we are not going to handle any of your complaints. Just f*** off and leave us alone. Get a life."

It was on a line for call centres in Manchester, Swansea and Lanarkshire.

Company sources said an outside hacker breaking into the NTL system was the most likely culprit, though an employee with a grudge was not ruled out.

Giuseppe Cannella had a big surprise for his mother-in-law when he put a jet engine on the back of her wheelchair.

Mr Cannella says the chair can now do top speeds of more than 60mph and has proved the star of a model plane championship during the Bank Holiday.

"Originally it was a gimmick. I had a jet engine and I was going to put it on a go cart."

"But the missus says put it on something unusual and so I put it on the mother-in-law's wheelchair," said Mr Cannella, who is from Luton in Bedfordshire.

Her son-in-law has been collecting money for the Parkinson's Disease Society and hopes to collect up to £1,500 during the shows at the British Model Flying Association national championship.

Step forward "Robert-Alan Lucht", who has been sending out invoices for use of @. That's right, and it's a pretty good deal, too - just ten bucks a year grants you electronic publishing rights for @ "Internet and E-Mail use". Remember, these rights are only conferred on users with a "valid account", so you'd better cough up before the IP Stasi kick in your front door. Full details of how to pay are at the bottom of Lucht's missive:

This is the international copyright holder for at or commercial at: @. You get it by pressing the keys: Alt Gr and Q. This is your 2004 license for Internet and E-Mail online communications. Yearly private use cost you 10 US-Dollar or Euro in licensing fees. Usage and electronic publishing rights for your @ in multiple contexts for Internet and E-Mail use are only granted by transfer with a valid account. With way more than 238 million users: "E-Mail & Internet" are the biggest online services. All rights reserved.

It's easy to dismiss Nigerian 419 advance fee fraudsters as a bunch of chancers who prey on the gullible and the greedy and occasionally get lucky. After all, a fool and his money are soon parted, and the victims of these scams have brought financial misfortune on themselves, isn't that right?

This is a rather sinister twist on 419, where instead of just duping the greedy and stupid, this actually will terrify some new web users, like my grandparents. Imagine this was within the first 100 emails you had ever seen...

Apparently, someone in London recently sent an urgent video tape via courier which duly arrived in the post room at said outpost of The Corporation. One of the operatives therein - noticing that the label was peeling off - decided to replace it with a new one. He removed the original and stuck it on the fridge, intending to copy the address after lunch.

The next morning, the sender of the tape was surprised to find this voice message (mp3) on his mobile. Enjoy.

In response to those readers who have requested, nay demanded, a transcript of the voice message, here it is:

"First saved message: message received yesterday at 9.20am."

"Hi Paul, this is Beth. We have an emergency. Apparently you gave the courier a six-foot fridge to be delivered to BBC Bristol instead of the tape we need in the studio today. Could you call me on 0117-xxx-xxxx as soon as you get this message? Bye."