News of the Weird

[KukriKhan]

The cow wasn't mad, just upset. Don't you Brits have to be careful tossing a term like "mad cow" about?

Mad or contented, some folks think their total output is a problem that needs solving.

Farmed ruminant animals are thought to be responsible for up to a quarter of "man-made" methane emissions worldwide though, contrary to common belief, most gas emerges from their front, not rear ends.

I'm old enough to remember the derisive laughter that ensued when Reagan suggested this.

[Louis VI the Fat]

What is the motto of the French navy?

Ba-bum-tish!

:o)

Zis begs for revanche!


What is the plural of 'un petit beurre'? It's des touioux!
'Un petit beurre des touioux
Un petit beurre des touioux
Un petit beurre des Apache
Un petit beurre des touioux!'

Hint:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXP0...eature=related

~~-~~-~~<<o0o>>~~-~~-~~

"If you're American when you go to the men's room, and you're American when you come back... what are you when you're IN the Men's Room?"

Un Yank qui oui oui. *


*Now that should get me a Nobel prize. Really.

[KukriKhan]

*Now that should get me a Nobel prize. Really.

Oui. Oui.

[naut]

Tadpole Rain.

As rainy season approaches, Japan’s Ishikawa prefecture has been receiving some unusual precipitation — it’s been raining tadpoles.

[Hosakawa Tito]

The Entrepreneurial Spirit!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

In a nondescript building next to a mosque in downtown Karachi, Pakistan, the Qadeer brothers discreetly make and market a million dollars' worth of fetish and bondage products a year for Americans and Europeans (through sales to stores and on eBay). In fact, if the radical Islamic office down the street knew about the Qadeers' work, they might be in trouble, according to an April New York Times dispatch, but fortunately, the gag balls, corsets and whips such as the "Mistress Flogger" are so odd for Pakistan that even the veiled women who sew them for the Qadeers do not understand that Americans use them for sex play. Customs officials, for example, were puzzled about how to categorize the items for tax purposes. "If our mom knew (the nature of our business)," said brother Adnan, "she would disown us." [New York Times, 4-28-09]

[Lemur]

14-year-old hit by meteorite, survives

Gerrit Blank, 14, was on his way to school when he saw "ball of light" heading straight towards him from the sky. A red hot, pea-sized piece of rock then hit his hand before bouncing off and causing a foot wide crater in the ground.

The teenager survived the strike, the chances of which are just 1 in a million — but with a nasty three-inch long scar on his hand.

He said: "At first I just saw a large ball of light, and then I suddenly felt a pain in my hand. "Then a split second after that there was an enormous bang like a crash of thunder."

"The noise that came after the flash of light was so loud that my ears were ringing for hours afterwards. "When it hit me it knocked me flying and then was still going fast enough to bury itself into the road," he explained.

[Gregoshi]

14-year-old hit by meteorite, survives

And that is how Gerrit Blank became...Meteor Boy, the next great super hero.

[InsaneApache]

Stay tuned. Same time. Same channel.

Now here's a word from our sponsor.....

*Cue Twilight Zone with Rod Serling*

do-do-do-do.....

[KukriKhan]

"Bouncing off" his hand, then creating a crater. Somehow, those two events don't go together.

Hmmm...

I've been to Essen. Maybe the drinking water there makes their skin armour-clad. I remember the local bier being pretty strong stuff.

[Lemur]

I expect the phrasing is misleading. There is no way a 30,000 mph meteor is going to bounce off a hand. More likely it grazed his hand at an angle before burying itself in the road.

[Husar]

No, you're all wrong, I also live in Essen and it's pretty normal for meteors to bounce off peoples' heads and then destroy a housing complex but usually noone gets hurt.

[Marshal Murat]

Iowa woman discovers a new cloud, some cloud nerds interested.

Looking out the 11th floor window of her law office, Jane Wiggins did a double take and grabbed her camera. The dark, undulating clouds hovering outside were unlike anything she'd seen before.

"They (the clouds) were the first ones that I noted of this type and I was unsure which category to put them under," said Pretor-Pinney, author of "The Cloudspotter's Guide." "When we put pictures up online we list the category, and I wasn't sure how to categorize it."

[Lemur]

Alaska's Rat Island finally rat-free, after only 229 years!

Alaska's Rat Island is finally rat-free, 229 years after a Japanese shipwreck spilled rampaging rodents onto the remote Aleutian island, decimating the local bird population.

After dropping poison onto the island from helicopter-hoisted buckets for a week and a half last autumn, there are no signs of living rats and some birds have returned, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. [...]

Now there are signs that several species of birds, including Aleutian cackling geese, ptarmigan, peregrine falcons and black oystercatchers, are starting to nest again on the 10-square-mile (26-sq-km) island.

It is too soon to say that Rat Island is definitively rat-free, however. That can only be established after at least two years of monitoring, said Bruce Woods, a spokesman for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Anchorage.

"We don't know that there's not a couple of happy rats hiding away that are going to spring out and repopulate the island," he said.

[Crazed Rabbit]

The Man Who Likes to be a Carpet:

Bartender, Make It a Stiletto

By KIRK SEMPLE
Published: June 12, 2009

A MAN walks into a bar. He’s carrying a carpet under his arm. He wraps himself in the carpet, lies on the floor, covers his face and waits for people to step on him. A sign taped to the bar reads: “Step on carpet.”

EVERY ROUND IS ON HIM A couple step on Georgio. Don’t be shy. “The more people who pile on, the better,” he says.

People step on the carpet — dozens, in fact. The more people who step on the carpet, particularly if they are women in heels, the happier the man is. Some are timid, others are audacious. Some dance on the man. Some step on him while ordering their drinks, completely unaware that a live body is underfoot. Some just stand there, frozen, looking totally freaked out.

Four hours later, the man slips out from beneath his carpet, folds it up, tucks it under his arm and heads home. “It was a nice party,” he says cheerily, as if he were talking about something far more ordinary, like, say, a backyard barbecue.

Also, an exciting new toilet product from...Japan!

CR

[Viking]

No, you're all wrong, I also live in Essen and it's pretty normal for meteors to bounce off peoples' heads and then destroy a housing complex but usually noone gets hurt.

I don't know about Essen, but I heard that the comet/asteroid that killed the dinosaurs first struck the tail of a Stegosaurus, then jumped into the top of a palm tree; got reflected and hit the ground whereupon it created a crater 180 km in diameter, and vaporized thousands of tonnes of material. Makes perfect sense.

Btw, not the first dubious "young German boy does something extraordinary astronomy related"-story.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Obama and 'petit Nicolas' seeing eye to eye:





('Little Nicolas': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petit_nicolas)

[KukriKhan]

Also, an exciting new toilet product from...Japan!

CR

I'll do a lot for the Porcelain Goddess; kneeling on pink kneelers to make my offering is a step too far, though.

[Crazed Rabbit]

The World Stinging Nettle Eating Championship.

The beginnings of the contest:

"One of them said, 'I'll eat any nettle of yours that's longer than mine"' said Rory Macleod, 34, the pub landlord. "And so they had a competition. They're both dead now.

Also, insightful comments from the crowd:

"There are some events you just have to be at," said Harry Kinsella, 23, a trainee solicitor from Kettering.

"I've always liked nettles. When I was at university we had a nude stinging nettle rolling competition and it was the best thing ever, although this may be even better."

CR

[rasoforos]

They do make excellent pie when cooked though

[Lemur]

Swiss Cows Fight to be Queen

Furie and Cigale eye each other warily, take a step forward and lock horns.

It's an ancient ritual, one that plays out each summer high in the Swiss Alps, as cows battle to be queen and villagers come to watch.

Judges record every fight as spectators sit on the surrounding mountainside, sipping local wines and cheering their family herd. But it is the cows who choose who to fight and who will reign supreme at the end of the season. [...]

There is no prize money for the winner, but owners can fetch a handsome price — up to $30,000 (euro21,000) — if they choose to sell a queen.

Most important, says local Albert Salamin, is the respect.

The winner's owner is "king of the village for the year. He's more respected than the mayor," Salamin says.

[Hosakawa Tito]

I always wondered why they call it Yellowstone.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Two workers at Yellowstone National Park were fired in May after being caught on surveillance video urinating into the Old Faithful geyser. [MSNBC-AP, 5-14-09]

The Puppet Master.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Timothy Martin, 44, was arrested in Federal Way, Wash., in May for felony indecent exposure after he was spotted standing partially nude with a string attached to his penis and, according to police, apparently "manipulating it with the string like a puppet." [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 5-20-09]

Like...Hey...Bow-wow, man...

[Lemur]

The Puppet Master.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Timothy Martin, 44, was arrested in Federal Way, Wash., in May for felony indecent exposure after he was spotted standing partially nude with a string attached to his penis and, according to police, apparently "manipulating it with the string like a puppet." [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 5-20-09]

You gotta get up a lot earlier in the morning if you want to find a man-uses-penis-as-puppet story that I'm not all over.

[Hosakawa Tito]

You gotta get up a lot earlier in the morning if you want to find a man-uses-penis-as-puppet story that I'm not all over.

DOH! If you shake that puppet more than once you're playing with it.

[Hosakawa Tito]

I bet she's platinum blonde.

[InsaneApache]

You did what to the dog!

[KukriKhan]

You did what to the dog!

Puppy's new name:

[Hosakawa Tito]

In before da Lemur. Great Art.

[InsaneApache]

Two Royal Navy sailors from HMS Manchester have appeared in court in Chile for stealing a life-size statue from a McDonald's restaurant.

A judge at the court in Valparaiso fined the pair £350 for damage to a plastic figure of Ronald McDonald, said a Ministry of Defence (MoD) spokesman.

HMS Manchester had arrived in the Chilean port on Monday and the sailors were arrested later that day.

The MoD said: "As far as I am aware they threw the statue in the harbour."

The spokesman added: "The sailors in question are now back on board HMS Manchester.

"They have formally apologised to McDonald's for the incident.

"The Navy does not condone unlawful activity."

HMS Manchester is currently in Chile on exercise with the French, Brazilian and Chilean Navies.

The Ronald McDonald statue was dumped in the harbour in Valparaiso


Until Monday the crew had been on an eight-week patrol in the South Atlantic and is due to return to the UK in August.

When in the UK the ship is based in Portsmouth, where many of the crew live.

A source in Chile told BBC News: "The story has had considerable coverage here in Chile, being featured on local television and radio.

"Most Chileans have laughed at the pair's antics."

The vessel, which is the third to carry the City of Manchester name and coat of arms on its funnel, had been in service since 1980.

In 2006 the crew of HMS Manchester were given the honour of the freedom of Manchester.

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/engla...er/8106103.stm

[Marshal Murat]

California's Novel Idea to save Millions in Welfare

With steep state budget cuts under debate in Sacramento, Los Angeles County supervisors voted Tuesday to push for changes to CalWorks and other government aid programs they said would save nearly $270 million.

Included in their suggestions is a novel proposal: Put unemployed parents to work caring for their own children.

[Crazed Rabbit]

"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. I would like to...ghhak...urk...blecgh..."*thud*

A Continental Airlines flight from Brussels has landed safely at Newark Liberty International Airport after the plane's captain died mid-flight Thursday morning, CBS 2 has learned.

Federal Aviation Administration officials say Continental Flight 61, a Boeing 777 with 247 passengers on board, landed at Newark at 11:49 a.m. Newark was the flight's final destination. The plane departed Brussels at 9:45 a.m., and the captain died about three to four hours into the flight. A doctor on board pronounced the pilot dead.

Continental officials tell CBS 2 the 61-year-old pilot died of natural causes. His identity has not yet been released, but officials say he worked for the company for 21 years and was based out of Newark.

CR