Here are a few wacky thing I stumbled across recently:
A funeral home in Mississippi were preparing to embalm a man when he kicked his way out of a body bag. The local coroner suspects that the man’s pacemaker may have stopped, then started working again by itself.
A woman on a tourist bus in Iceland ended up in a search party looking for herself for three hours, before she realised she was the one they were looking for. She’d gone to the bathroom at a tourist spot and changed her clothes. The other passengers didn’t recognise her in her new clothes and started a search for her.
A Japanese man was so drunk that he fell under a train, which cut his leg off. He was so drunk he slept through it.
And an American evangelical preacher has called for comedian Bill Maher to be flogged for blasphemy.
Ever wondered how Cosmo magazine gets around censorship in Middle east? Answer: it’s not easy, but it’s funny. More here .
An American sociology professor has been surveying his students for twenty-five years on whether they have a close friend of the opposite sex. Twenty five years ago it was one in ten, Today almost all have. That might not be funny, but I think it represents a change for the better.
And finally, an American student in Germany had to be freed by the fire brigade after getting himself stuck in a statue of a vagina.
So have you seen anything weird on the news lately? If so fell free to add a note or a link.
Some of you may have read of the funny answers Siri, the operating system on the iPhone, gives when you ask her questions about her own beliefs. Somebody has programmed her to give very evasive answers about herself. I was sitting with friends, one of whom had an iPhone, having coffee, and just for a joke, I tried to ask Siri about her and her religious beliefs. Here’s what happened.
Siri, do you believe in God?
I don’t believe that I have beliefs.
Siri, do you believe in life after death?
Humans have beliefs, computers have silicon.
Siri, do you go to church?
I believe in the separation of church and silicon.
Siri, do you believe God is a trinity?
I would suggest that you address your theological questions to someone qualified to answer them, preferably a human.
In Britain, a young woman has had her stomach removed after drinking a cocktail made with liquid nitrogen. Gaby Scanian, 18, a resident of Haysham in Lancashire, drank the cocktail at Oscars Bar in Lancaster. The bar had advertised the drink on its Facebook page. Adding liquid nitrogen to the cocktail makes it give off white smoke. Liquid nitrogen is often used to chill food and glasses, but if swallowed may burn your mouth, throat, and stomach. The bar has since stopped serving the drink.
Cocktail Picture by Lynn Kelley Author, WANA Commons
Scientist have discovered a new type of squid, named Vampyroteuthis infernalis, (Latin for “Vampire squid from Hell”). The squid lives at ocean depths so low that it can’t form muscle tissue, so it lives on dead things, and guess what else? Faeces. Yep, that’s right. Apparently this doesn’t require a whole lot of muscle development.
Some squid that live in the waters around the states of Victoria and Tasmania, Australia, use up so much energy in mating that they swim slower for half an hour afterwards. The “dumpling squid” only live a year, and become sexually mature at four months, so they have to get it while they can. Melbourne University Master of Science student Amanda Franklin studied the squid and published her findings in the Journal “Biology Letters.” According to Franklin, the squid have multiple partners and the males initiate sex “whenever they can.” Being slow to swim afterwards makes them vulnerable to predators, so they bury themselves in sand to hide.
A bride in the town of Jallias in western France gave birth to a baby, only minutes after the wedding ceremony. She was not due for a week, but felt unwell after a ceremony at the town hall and went back inside. Minutes later paramedics were called after her waters broke. The local mayor, Jean-Robert Gachet, said it was a very emotional moment for everyone when the baby was delivered. Yeah. sounds like bad planning to me. I wonder what the wedding photos will look like.
If anyone would like to alert me to weird stuff in their newspapers, please let me know.
ON A MORE SERIOUS NOTE: There has been a lot of discussion this last couple of weeks about the film “Innocence of the Muslims,” and the resulting riots in many counties, including at least a couple of dozen people who have been killed. I found this video by a Muslim man, Syed Mahmoud, urging his fellow Muslims not to demonstrate or riot. I agree. The film is an artless piece of junk that looks as tho a-14 year-old made it just to be provocative and seek attention. Mahmoud argues that by continuing to demonstrate, people are simply giving the film free publicity, for no good outcome. I agree, and here’s the link to his video.
Have a good week.
Richard Snow
My novel ‘Fire Damage,’ an action thriller, is available on Amazon Kindle, here :The novel is based on the Japanese religious cult Aum Shinrikyo, which released Sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo subway system in the 1990s. If you don’t have a Kindle, you can download the app to read it on your computer or phone from here.
Chess players with assault rifles? Sounds unlikely, doesn’t it? But first some other strange news:
A consumer agency in the US filed a law suit to ban the sale of “Bucky balls” (shapes that fit together with the aid of magnets inside them.) A total of twenty-two children had swallowed the magnets and suffered an injury, out of a total of 475 million magnets sold. Someone did a bit of mathematics, and calculated the rate of injuries per 100,000 people from Bucky balls, tennis, skate boarding, and dog bites. Guess what’s most likely to give you an injury that needs medical attention? Guess first. I’ll tell you at the end of this blog.
In Australia, a youth on the run from the police decided to hide in the roof cavity of a house when the police came to a party. He should have stayed still, because when the moved, he fell through the ceiling, and into the long arms of the law. I’m sure the cops were surprised too.
Can you imagine chess players with assault rifles? Neither can I. But it turns out that the Sicilian Defence, one of the most common chess openings, has a variation called the Kalashnikov variation What the Hell?? Well, the AK47 weapon was named after an Mikhail Kalashnikov, who invented it in 1947. Chess openings, as it happens, are often named after the city where they were first successfully used in an international tournament, or the player who made them famous by coming up with a new twist and winning unexpectedly. But the various chess websites and books I’ve consulted have no information as to which Mr Kalashnikov started the chess move. His first name appears lost to history.
AK 47 (photo from Wikipedia Commons)
And what about the Buckey balls? It turns out that tennis is more likely to cause you an injury than skateboarding, dog bites, accidental poisoning with household substances, and Buckey balls come last. Click here for the stats.
Richard Snow Writer 