Whacky News of the Day
There are times when newspapers report news stories or 'public interest stories' so out of whack with what most people feel to be normalcy or reality as they see it, that these stories are surely worth commenting on. Marvelling over also in the sense that people actually do these things, think up these antics, perform such ridiculous stunts, or have expectations that they reflect society at large. Good grief, what if they're right? That would leave me one awfully lonely individual. Are you with me? If you're not, I'd like to remind you, then you're with THEM! (Sorry for shouting so loud.)- U.S. evangelicals are making their presence in Canada to save one of the most godless cities on the continent: Montreal. Evidently, the evangelical group Jews for Jesus (oh, the pain of it!) declared Montreal to be one of North America's most "unreached" communities and arrived in downtown Montreal handing out leaflets. Also making their presence in the name of the Divine is a group called Sequoia, hoping to build a sprawling "Cross Training Facility"; worshop centre, school and sports facility. Oh right, there's also a newly-established Renaissance Church. (Good luck, have a nice day, and call me when this is all over...)
- What has been described as an "enormous study" evidently links autism to men over 40 siring children. The report on the study appearing in the Archives of General Psychiatry, found no significant effect associated with increasing maternal age. (Wow! and here we thought that it was us old babes were responsible for making babies late in our day that resulted in these wild anomalies, that women were cued in to that biological clock that men never had to listen to...)
- Marine scientists working for the University of Washington's Centre for Conservation Biology have enlisted the aid of dogs in helping them to determine the health and stress levels of marine animals like orcas and killer whales. These well trained dogs, eager to go to work, have been trained to sniff out whale excrement so it can be handily collected and scientifically parsed. (Cripes! I could have predicted any old day that dogs don't really need to be trained to sniff out, you know, that stuff; they love it! I guess, though the training comes into play to stop these high-discovery dogs from rolling in the stuff - much like our own sweet little pooches - nothing like a good roll in the feces of other animals, the more stinky, decomposed and oozing the better...)
- The dearly departed Steve Irwin, he of reptilian fame and fortune, a gift from Australia to an adoring world at large is being mourned by his countless critically bereft admirers. Mr. Irwin, whose stunts include feeding a monster crocodile fresh meat while hoisting his one-month-old son in his spare arm, assured critics at the time that everything was all right, he was in control. It would appear he wasn't quite in control of the situation when, swimming above a stingray for video footage, the creature lashed out and speared him lethally in the heart with its barbed tail. Mr. Irwin celebrated his tussles on camera with giant pythons, poisonous snakes and crocodiles, only to have been felled by a creature not normally associated with danger for humans. The stingray, it was explained "stung out of fear, not aggression". Either way, the man is dead. (Well, c'mon, is this a classic case of Hubris Going Before a Fatal Sting? Or isn't it?)
- In Birmingham, England a police officer described pulling over a British motorist veering across a road, only to discover that the driver, Omed Aziz, had lost both eyes in a bomb blast which also left him hearing impaired, and with leg tremors. Mr. Aziz claims he was perfectly safe, and denied a charge of dangerous driving, before being convicted. (Hmmm, it's not Mr. Aziz's safety I'd be concerned about, rather that of everyone else on the road. Guess that bomb blast left him bereft of cerebral function as well - and that's the kind of unconcerned nutbar we share the roadways with?)
- An oceanographic cartographer who drew pioneering maps of the world's oceans, whose observations from the late 50s through to the 70s helped scientists reconsider the geology of the undersea floor has died at age 86. With a collaborator Ms. Tharp published the first global map of the bottom of Earth's oceans in 1977. The map showed a dark world of deep canyons, impossibly broad plains and peaks higher than Mount Everest. (All right, all right, this doesn't qualify as a nutter entry, but it is impressive and more than a little amazing. We have an undersea environment that reflects dry Earth, but who might have guessed? Did you really think you knew the topography of the world you inhabit?)
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, September 05, 2006
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