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The Short Version
While perusing the AP feed this morning, we came across a collection of stories that were at least amusing if not almost interesting. They range from a license to kill snakes to a moose in a basement and a baby with the same birthday as her parents. Oh, and a ferret got a pacemaker and a Florida pastor was caught naked with someone else’s wife. It’s been an interesting day.
First up, about those snakes …
Folks in Arizona tend to have a snake and rat problem. That’s largely because they’re trying to put towns and cities in the middle of a fucking desert; you know, that place where snakes and rats live. The problem is, it’s illegal to shoot them within city limits.
The reason isn’t so much because PETA argued that snake lives matter or any such thing. A 2000 law prohibits firing a gun in city limits. That law was passed after a teenager was killed by a bullet fired into the air in celebration. That law extends to the killing of any rodent, not just teenagers.
A bill currently under consideration in the Arizona state legislature would allow residents to shoot snakes and rats “using a small-caliber gun loaded with tiny pellets.” However, opponents claim this is just an attempt to get guns back into Arizona cities and that shooting at poisonous snakes can cause them to strike.
All depends on how good one’s aim is, I suppose.
Some problems are slightly larger
Idaho residents don’t have to worry so much about poisonous snakes in their yards, but apparently, they do have to worry about moose falling into their basements. I’m guessing that moose is too busy talking to the flying squirrel to pay attention (if you don’t get that reference, you’re too young to be reading this).
In this particular case, the female moose in Ketchum, Idaho didn’t know that glass isn’t a solid structure when it comes to holding up moose weight. The poor thing fell right through the glass and into the basement of a home. Once there, she wasn’t actually hurt, but she didn’t have a clue how to get out and was rather scared about the whole ordeal. We can all understand that feeling, can’t we?
Getting near the frightened moose was impossible. Moose can be quite deadly, after all. A fish and game officer shot the moose with a tranquilizer dart and once she was napping eight officers carried the 600-pound sleeping beauty up the stairs and outside. After about 15 minutes, she hopped up and trotted away.
Boy, is she going to have a story to tell at her next bridge group.
People love their pets
People have all kinds of pets, some of which don’t necessarily make any sense to the rest of us. Ferrets would fall into that category. They’re rodents. They’re fast rodents, so if they get loose catching them is almost impossible. It takes a special kind of person to love a ferret.
Carl Hobi of Olathe, KS is apparently one of those special people. When his ferret, Zelda [insert eye roll here], became ill he took her to the vet where it was determined she had a third-degree heart blockage. That blockage was the result of a low heart rate and lack of energy. Apparently, Zelda has lost her zip.
The veterinarian called up the folks at Kansas State Veterinary Health Center and the doctors there determined Zelda was a good candidate for a pacemaker, just like the kind Uncle Earl has, only a helluva lot smaller. After two weeks, Zelda was back up and running, getting into things, and causing her owner to question spending that much money on ferret health care.
The vet said Zelda should live a nice, long, ferret life. Good luck, Carl.
Happy Birthday to us!
Birthdays are largely random things for the most part. Rarely does a parent know exactly when their baby is going to be born. Finding someone born on your birthday and falling in love with them seems like it would be a pretty rare event in of itself, but that’s exactly what happened to Lisa Lowe and Michael Hall, both born on January 27. I’m sure they’re annoyingly sweet every time their birthday comes around.
All that sweetness was doubled, though, when Lisa gave birth to their first child, a girl, last week on, you guessed it, January 27. London’s due date was actually January 26, but due to complications, doctors ended up delivering the little one via cesarean section early on the morning of the 27th.
Mom Lisa said the six-pound, seven-ounce bundle of joy was the best gift either of them could have. Let’s see if she still feels the same way next year when the little one hogs all the birthday presents.
The preacher was caught bare
Churches across the South seem to have a problem with their pastors keeping their fly shut and their clothes on. From televangelist Jimmy Swaggert to countless others, more than one church has felt the disappointment of a bed-hopping preacher. Usually, though, the secret comes out through a lawsuit or other manner that allows both sides to respond civilly.
That’s not what happened in Tallahassee, FL last month. Pastor O. Jermaine Simmons of Tallahassee’s Jacob Chapel was caught bare-handed—and bare bottomed. It was the typical movie-plot scenario: Husband comes home from work in the middle of the afternoon to find his wife in bed with the preacher. The preacher runs out the back door, naked, and hides behind a fence. Just another day in the Flordia suburbs, right?
The husband rounded up the preacher’s clothes, wallet, and car keys. Someone called the cops for some strange reason and the police convinced the husband to give the preacher back his stuff. Simmons apologized tearfully to his congregation the next Sunday, as is the custom set forth by Mr. Swaggert. No word if he’s been asked to resign yet.
Now see, not everything on the planet needs a presidential order to fuck it up. Some things are just crazy all on their own.
The Sky Is Falling. On Florida. Again.
My personal disdain for almost everything Florida knows no limits. From its insane antics to its morally deprived and equally insane politics to its over-rated beaches and redneck behavior, There isn’t much about Florida that justifies people going there. Ever. There’s an equally good Disney attraction in Anaheim and dozens upon dozens of better beaches around the world. I mean, have you seen Hawai’i? So, I’m never surprised when the universe seems to take a shit on the god-forsaken state.
Well, it’s happened again, this time in the form of space trash that refused to burn up during re-entry. A piece of space junk used batteries from the space station that were supposed to burn up when they hit the earth’s atmosphere. This isn’t a fast process and normally it takes everything anywhere from two weeks to two months to make the trip. But not everything burned up this time. Instead, a piece about the size of a cell phone, if cell phones looked like a chunk of mastodon tusk, fell into a home in Naples, FL. When I say into I mean through the roof, the ceiling, and the floor. All the way through.
Alejandro Otero, the homeowner, said his son was at home when the event happened. There was a “tremendous” noise and then, boom, the sky fell onto the Otero’s home. No one was hurt, fortunately, but NASA says they’re going to have to “recalculate” how space trash re-enters the atmosphere.
Gee, ya’ think?
This isn’t the first time the sky has fallen on Florida or other places around the globe. Every time a new satellite goes up there has to be a projection for when/where it is expected to return when it leaves orbit. Most pieces are expected to burn up. The big pieces they hope will fall into an ocean. Those calculations are wrong to a somewhat frightening degree.
Granted, one is still more likely to get hit by a bus driven by a drunk Republican in Florida, or smashed by a raging bull elephant anywhere else. “Large uncertainties, primarily driven by fluctuating levels of atmospheric drag, prevent more precise predictions at this time,” according to the ESA (European Space Agency), which is one of NASA’s partners in the orbiting laboratory. That means, “We don’t know what the universe is going to throw at us, so maybe go ahead and duck.”
Since so much of what is in space leaves here from Florida, I guess we shouldn’t be too terribly surprised when the universe tries to send it back from whence it came. I’ll just add this to the already long list of reasons to stay the fuck out of Florida.
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