Don't Panic! Lighten Up!S


Smiley

Bear Run! Black Bear Chills in Wisconsin Beer Cooler


The Associated Press
Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:03 UTC
Shoppers in a Wisconsin grocery store got an unexpected surprise when a 125-pound black bear wandered inside and headed straight for the beer cooler.

The bear stopped Friday night at Marketplace Foods in Hayward, about 140 miles northeast of Minneapolis, sauntering through the automatic doors and heading straight for the liquor department.

It calmly climbed up 12 feet onto a shelf in the beer cooler where it sat for about an hour while employees helped evacuate customers and summoned wildlife officials.

Officials from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources tranquilized the animal and took it out of the store.
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Fish

Jellyfish Pay the Penalty in Ocean Version of Football

Robin Turner
Wales News
Sat, 17 Oct 2009 05:00 UTC
bottlenose dolphins
© newsteam / Sea Watch FoundationThe bottlenose dolphins, which were off the Welsh coastline at the time, were caught on video for the first time playing jellyfish football.
Scientists working off the Welsh coastline have made an astonishing discovery - dolphins playing football using jellyfish as a ball.

A team of marine biologists working in Cardigan Bay were amazed to see dolphins swim under a jellyfish and, with a sudden flick of their tails, shoot it out of the water.

The wild bottlenose dolphins were caught on video at Tremadog Bay for the first time playing "jellyfish football".

And - in an impressive aquatic bid to bend it like Beckham - one dolphin is seen flipping the barrel jellyfish as high as six feet into the air.

Experts believe the game goes back hundreds of thousands of years and that it may go some way towards explaining why dolphins in captivity are so skillful with balls at sea life parks across the world.
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Sheeple

Massachusetts Town Using Goats as Lawn Mowers


United Press International
Sat, 17 Oct 2009 15:01 UTC
Officials in Andover, Massachusetts, say they are using goats to keep one of the town's public meadows trimmed, even as they trim a bit of government spending.

Bob Decelle, special projects manager for the Andover Conservation Commission, said by allowing six goats to eat their fill of the grass at a public meadow, the town is saving money and helping the environment, The Boston Globe reported Saturday.

"Everyone benefits," Decelle said. "The town benefits, the goats benefit, and the environment benefits."

Instead of using town funds to hire people to mow the 3-acre meadow with heavy equipment, the town has dairy goat club leader Lucy McKain bring the goats to the site each day for an all-natural buffet.

"They're very good browsers," McKain said. "It's a win-win. It's pretty neat."
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Telephone

Netherlands: Rotterdam installs 'cynicism hotline'


NRC Handelsblad
Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:55 UTC
The city of Rotterdam is encouraging its civil servants to report 'cynical' colleagues.

Since last week civil servants in Rotterdam can report ill-tempered colleagues to an online 'cynicism' hotline. The city says the move is part of a drive to improve the working environment.
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Smiley

An Open Letter to Rep. Alan Grayson in Defense of Neanderthals

Afarensis
Afarensis: Anthropology, Evolution, and Science
Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:27 UTC
Dear Rep. Grayson,

Although I applaud your stand on health care and you efforts to take the offensive against the Republicans, I do have to take exception to your characterization of Republicans as "...foot-dragging, knuckle-dragging Neanderthals..." This is a gross mischaracterization of Neanderthals on several levels. First, Neanderthals did not drag their feet or knuckles. They walked in a fully erect bipedal fashion just like you or I do. Second, Neanderthals took care of their sick or injured fellows. Take Shanidar I for example:
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Smiley

Satire: If God Had Wanted Me To Be Accepting Of Gays, He Would Have Given Me The Warmth And Compassion To Do So

Jane Kendricks
The Onion
Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:53 UTC
Kendricks
© The OnionJane Kendricks
I don't question God. The Lord is my Shepherd and I shall put none above Him. Which is why I know that if it were part of God's plan for me to stop viciously condemning others based solely on their sexual preference, He would have seen fit - in His infinite wisdom and all - to have given me the tiniest bit of human empathy necessary to do so.

It's a simple matter of logic, really. God made me who I am, and who I am is a cold, anti-gay zealot. Thus, I abhor gay people because God made me that way. Why is that so hard to understand?
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Bizarro Earth

North Carolina church to burn 'Satan's books,' including works of Mother Teresa

Kathleen Miller
Raw Story
Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:05 UTC
A Baptist Church near Asheville, N.C., is hosting a "Halloween book burning" to purge the area of "Satan's" works, which include all non-King James versions of the Bible, popular books by many religious authors and even country music.

The website for the Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, N.C., says there are "scriptural bases" for the book burning. The site quotes Acts 19:18-20: "And many that believed, came and confessed and shewed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts, brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed."
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Pumpkin

Nobel Committee Admits Getting into Derivatives Trading in Giving Peace Prize to Obama

Drew Westen
AlterNet
Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:43 UTC
What led to the unusual decision to bet on futures rather than follow the century-old precedent of selecting someone who has actually accomplished something?

A spokesman from the Nobel Committee yesterday spoke on condition of anonymity about the controversial decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama, who as yet has solved no international crisis or created peaceful resolution to any conflict but has delivered some awesome speeches that have breathed new life into the Norwegian stock exchange, the Red Herring 500, according to the committee member. "There's derivatives trading now in virtually every commodity known to humankind," noted the source. "So why not peace?" He added that rare commodities with unpredictable futures are particularly attractive to derivatives traders, and that peace certainly falls into that category. With many on the right objecting that Obama hasn't done anything to earn the prize and many on the left complaining that his record domestically has been to deliver magnificent speeches without following up with any decisive actions and to paper over conflicts with inspiring words and half-measures, the Nobel Committee member admitted on background that he wasn't sure whether the action of the committee technically could be considered hedging or derivatives trading, but he was counting on it to create a competitive market for both peace and Obama memorabilia.
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Pumpkin

Marge Simpson makes cover of Playboy

Jill Serjeant
Reuters
Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:04 UTC
Marge Simpson
© PlayboyMarge Simpson is seen on the cover of the November issue of Playboy magazine.
"D'oh!" doesn't even start to cover it.

Marge Simpson -- the blue beehived matriarch of America's most loved dysfunctional family - is Playboy magazine's November cover, the magazine said on Friday.

Simpson, tastefully concealing her assets behind a signature Playboy Bunny chair, is the first cartoon character ever to front the glossy adult magazine, joining the ranks of sex symbols like Marilyn Monroe and Cindy Crawford.

Playboy said the cover and a three-page picture spread inside was a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the The Simpsons and part of a plan to appeal to a younger generation of readers.
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War Whore

Obama Will Go Naked to Oslo

John Walsh
AntiWar.com
Fri, 09 Oct 2009 23:06 UTC
Obama, Kissinger, Wilson, Roosevelt and Moniz.

Quick. What do Barack Obama, Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Kissinger and Egar Moniz have in common? All won the Nobel Prize, the first four for "peace" either as sitting presidents, or in Kissinger's case, while his bombs were falling on innocents in Vietnam. Moniz won the prize in Physiology or Medicine for his invention of the lobotomy. Of these five he wrought the least carnage.

Today we awoke to news that Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Some looked quick to see whether it was April 1. Most often folks mumbled resignedly "War is Peace." I prefer the Vietnam era formulation that warring for peace is like fu**ing for virginity. A few wept tears of disappointment, certainly mainstream Medea Benjamin who, having recently come out definitively as a hawk, must have thought that with this adjustment the Nobel was certainly in sight. Code Pink needs a new name now. Justin Raimondo suggests Code Yellow. But I believe Whores for Wars might be better. (That would only apply to Medea and the national leadership, many of the local Code Pinkers being genuine anti-interventionists who cannot stomach the narcissistic national leadership like mainstream Medea.)
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