There are always strange news reports in this strange world. Reading about the world of weird news is not the same as following the mainstream media. Here are a few of the oddball news items that have emerged over the past week or so, from all over the globe. Most reports never broke out of the regions in which these snippets were reported. Take these in bits and pieces and always remember that 99.9999 percent of what happens that is actually newsworthy is never reported.
You can drink, but don't dare swallow that brew: With high-profile Republican leaders - like Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz - recently admitting they smoked pot when they were younger, it's only fitting that the stodgy old Republican Party does a little more to help kids experiment with drugs - in this instance, alcohol - and if a Tennessee Republican Senator has his way, college students in the Volunteer State will be legally allowed to swish alcoholic beverages around in their mouths, as long as they don't swallow the mind- and mood-altering stuff, according
to a Feb. 24 online offering of
The Tennessean.
Although this is being done more for economic reasons than any effort to seem hip, slick, and cool, the Volunteer State is looking for young volunteers to taste their brewmeistering creations, as long as the fermented juices don't end up in their guts.
Tennessee Republican Sen. Bill Ketron is sponsoring a bill that would allow underage college students to taste beer they make in specially designed brewing courses catering to the expanding craft beer industry. The courses are tentatively planned to be offered at Tennessee colleges and universities.
The students, who would have to be at least 18, would be required to spit the beer out under the supervision of a professor, The Tennessean article reports.
Is this some sort of joke? Well, that's what another Tennessee Senator seems to think: "We've got to face reality," said Sen. Thelma Harper (D-Nashville). "For me, it doesn't make good sense."
Ketron said the bill would give students "the right kinds of smarts and skills and opportunities they'd need" to work in Tennessee's growing craft beer industry. Similar laws have passed in other states such as California that have large numbers of vineyards.
"It's an economic bill, it's a jobs bill, and it's a revenue bill," Ketron said.
Ketron's bill saw its impetus - at least in part - emanating from a conversation Ketron said he had with Provost Brad Bartel at Middle Tennessee State University. An MTSU spokesman said the university is in the first stages of considering beer and wine-making programs.
The Senate committee held off on a vote Tuesday, but plans were made to revisit the bill - probably as early as the first week of March. "We'll give this an opportunity to ferment," said committee Chairman Ken Yager (R-Kingston).
And what about those poor kids who accidentally drink the beer, take a real proclivity towards it, and flunk out of college because of a nasty alcohol problem? Well, there are plenty of bar-tending and bouncer jobs in those dank old southern roadhouses, right?
Pat Robertson, the astrophysicist: On Feb. 25, Pat Robertson spent time on The 700 Club telling NASA not to waste money going to Mars or searching for life beyond Earth because the TV evangelical minister said there is nothing out there in space except for “barren rocks” and “gaseous balls."
”“This planet is where God has got an experiment in what he wants to have accomplished,” Robertson stated. “But somehow, people want to spend a lot of money to go to Mars! I don’t want to think that Mars is someplace I want to visit, and it would take a lot of money to get there!”
According to
an article on
Salon's website dated Feb. 25, the writer writes: "One could roll their eyes at this rhetoric and dismiss it as Robertson’s typical bombastic and close-minded blather. But his `NASA is too expensive' thoughts are shared by politicians who hold the purse strings....This line of thought displays not only a lack of imagination, but also a lack of understanding of Earth’s finite resources."
And it also sort-of, kind-of, makes Pat Robertson an omniscient being, since he's speaking for God here. But Robertson's myopic universe-view also may serve to hinder space exploration, since he's a leading televangelist and many teabagging political leaders follow the dictates of Robertson's gospel as truth. Of course, these elected representatives would be more than happy taking money earmarked for NASA's space exploration projects to use for something in the area of grits, guns, real evidence of a fire-breathing God, and more fire-and-brimstone politicking and propaganda to spin the tales of how the progressive dread is hurting the nation and the world.
"Scientists including: Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye and Stephen Hawking have all made the case for space exploration as a necessity for mankind," Salon Assistant Editor Sarah Gray writes.
After you have your snowball fight, Senator Inhofe, can you explain this 'freezing fog' concept? Republican U.S. Sen. James Inhofe from Oklahoma, threw a snowball while addressing his peers on Feb. 26. He was grandstanding, of course, to prove that global warming isn't really happening.
"We keep hearing that 2014 has been the warmest year on record," Inhofe said. "So I ask the chair," — referring to Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) — "Do you know what this is? It's a snowball, from just outside here. So it's very, very cold out... very unseasonable." Inhofe then lobbed the softball-sized, white, pack-of-ice to a Senate page. He lapsed into deep silence, being very much the bad actor, with a silly smile across his face.
Inhofe is chair of the Senate's Environment and Public Works committee. And by his sophomoric and even juvenile snowball-throwing demonstration, it goes without saying that Inhofe is not going to do much paper shuffling for a healthier environment. And he's certainly not going to put pen-to-paper for anything that might save Mother Earth from the belching, burping, industrial dragons.
The current buzzword is "climate change," by the way, not "global warming," and whether Inhofe wants to admit it or not, the climate is changing. This winter's extremely cold temps in the northeastern and mid-west USA are currently being matched by unseasonably hot temperatures in other parts of the world.
"You don't need people's opinion on a fact. You might as well have a poll asking 'Which number is bigger, 15 or 5' or 'Do owls exist?' or 'Are there hats?' The debate on climate change ought not to be whether or not it exists, it's what we should do about it. There is a mountain of research on this topic," John Oliver is quoted as saying in a graphic that ran last year here, on Daily Kos.
The weather is short-term and the climate is more long-term. And scientists at NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have issued staunch and alarming warnings about the world's climate being in flux. Of course, Inhofe most likley does not care about scientists. No, not at all - he answers, like virtually all Republican Senators, to the omnipotent and omniscient dynamic duo, Charles and David Koch, who have no use for any of this climate change drivel. And after all, hasn't it been said, time and time again, that these billionaire industrialists from Wichita, Kan., own the Republican Congress?
But Senator Inhofe, can you explain this concept of "freezing fog" to me? I asked a science teacher of 30 years, who also is a certified meteorologist, today about freezing fog, and he did not have the foggiest notion of what it is. Maybe after the north Alberta rain forest is totally decimated and the climate conditions get even funkier in future winters, we'll be able to see a lot more of this beautiful, but very dangerous, climactic anomaly. And although freezing fog is most prevalent in forming over fresh water lakes, it can also be created by a warm, moist landmass, and you have plenty of that sort of stuff out there in Oklahoma. A few lakes, maybe, but mostly land that goes on and on and on....It might be wonderful to see freezing fog form over a large tract of land, as long as you're not staring at it at close range on an interstate highway.
South Korea quickly becomes a condom nation: On Feb. 26, South Korea's highest court nixed an ultra-conservative law that had been hanging over the heads of this Asian country's citizenry for decades that made adultery illegal.
Immediately, there was a surge in shares of stock for condom manufacturers and morning-after medications, according to Reuters.
The 1953 legal sanction made marital infidelity punishable with jail.
"The law is unconstitutional as it infringes people's right to make their own decisions on sex and secrecy and freedom of their private life, violating the principle banning excessive enforcement," said Seo Ki-seok, a Constitutional Court judge, reading an opinion on behalf of five judges. Seven of the nine-judge panel deemed this law unconstitutional.
After the ruling, shares in Unidus Corp, which makes latex products, including condoms, soared to the 15 percent daily limit gain.
Japan suffers bad H-2-woes: Water containing cesium and other radioactive elements draining into the Pacific Ocean near an electricity producing plant in Fukushima has outraged fishermen in Fukushima Prefecture.
These fishermen are criticizing Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) after news surfaced about this water pollution on Feb. 25. Fishermen are as mad as a school of sharks because Tepco didn't do a thing to prevent this spill from continuing, even though it's alleged the power company learned of this spill as early as last May. And even worse, they did not alert the public, nor did they inform Japan's commercial fishing industry, about this ongoing and rampant, radioactive, water pollution.
“I don’t understand why (Tepco) kept silent even though they knew about it. Fishery operators are absolutely shocked,” Masakazu Yabuki, chief of the Iwaki fisheries cooperative, said at a meeting with Tepco officials.
Yuji Moriyama, Tepco spokesman, said the utility did not disclose the information because there is no evidence of environmental impact. “We were aware that the levels of radioactive materials around the drainage ditch were higher than other places,” Moriyama said, adding that they have been investigating the sources of contamination since last spring.
The electric power utility concern admitted on Feb. 25 that it chose not to report leaks of rainwater containing radioactive substances from a drainage ditch at their industrial complex, despite the fact that corporate officials were aware of high radiation levels in the water since last spring.
Tepco reportedly recorded 29,400 becquerels of radioactive cesium per liter in water pooled on the rooftop. The water also contained 52,000 becquerels of beta-ray-emitting radioactive substances such as strontium-90. It also detected some 1,050 becquerels of radioactive cesium and 1,500 becquerels of beta ray-emitting radioactive materials per liter near an outlet leading to the sea.
Not to worry, though, since the utility giant reported that "there is no major change in the concentration of radioactive substances in seawater it sampled about 1 kilometer from the drainage outlet." And on Feb. 22, Tepco reported that water contaminated with high levels of radiation was flowing into the ocean at the plant’s port through another drainage ditch.
So if you happen to get a delicious slice of fish imported from Japan, it might not be flavored so well due to herbs and spices, but because of a nuclear fish-on (fission, get it?).
I saw it on Facebook, so it must be true: A team of American and Italian researchers testing how Facebookers would react to contrived, untrue, ridiculous conspiracy theories discovered a lot of very gullible folks who believed everything from stories about reptilian, shape-shifting overlords to outrageous tales about Illuminati,
Raw Story reported Feb. 24.
"These posts are clearly unsubstantiated claims, like the undisclosed news that infinite energy has been finally discovered, or that a new lamp made of actinides (e.g. plutonium and uranium) might solve problems of energy gathering with less impact on the environment, or that the chemical analysis revealed that chemtrails contains sildenafil citratum (the active ingredient of Viagra),” the researchers said. They found that 78 percent of those who “liked” these 4,709 troll posts interacted primarily with conspiracy theory pages, as were 81 percent of those who commented on them. Remember the old days when the old timers at the coffee shops always said, "I read it in the newspaper, so it must be true"? Well these days, it's the same schtick, except it's "I saw it on Facebook, so it has to be right."
Forget medicine, doctors should consult the constellations: Many Americans were horrified when they discovered that some of the decisions made by Ronald Reagan came by way of his wife, Nancy, whose advice came at the advice of Nancy Reagan's astrologist. Well, David Tredinnick, who sits on both the Health Select Committee and the Science and Technology Select Committee in England, told the Astrological Journal that he believes astrology ‘has a role to play in healthcare’
"‘I do believe that astrology and complementary medicine would help take the huge pressure off doctors….Ninety per cent of pregnant French women use homeopathy…..Astrology is a useful diagnostic tool enabling us to see strengths and weaknesses via the birth chart," Tredinnick was quoted as saying in a Feb. 24 online article of Metro.co.uk.
And he went on to say that people who didn’t think the positions of celestial bodies influenced human affairs were "bullies" who are "deeply prejudiced, and racially prejudiced".
Just count your lucky stars if you happen to end up in an emergency room in the U.K. in the distant future and leave with all your body parts functioning in good order.
Yikes!
Arresting baby squirrels? Is this homeland security or is it never-never-land insecurity and immaturity?: U.S. Customs and Border Protection apprehended a baby squirrel on Feb. 25 after the tiny rodent was found as a stowaway on a flight from Costa Rica to Houston. Airline employees spotted the squirrel after passengers departed the plane at George Bush Intercontinental Airport,
“During the course of performing our mission, we may encounter unusual opportunities to aid in the capture of seemingly harmless animals that have hitchhiked into the country,” said Port Director Charles Perez, according to the news release. “While there is a cute factor here, realistically, we understand that animals must be handled carefully.”
”An agency agriculture specialist boarded the plane and "caged the squirrel without incident" with assistance from an officer, according to the news release.
It remained unclear whether or not the squirrel had legal permission to enter the United States. Customs and Border Protection didn’t name the squirrel, which is apparently a minor and hasn’t been charged with any crime. Customs and Border Protection turned the squirrel over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Hopefully, the little animal was not imprisoned in some rodent-malevolent prison like a Gitmo for stowaway, infant, deadbeat tag-alongs.
Chicago Police Department reportedly uses a colossal Sears, Roebuck & Co. warehouse for interrogations: The Guardian published an article that claims the Chicago Police Department operates an “off-the-books interrogation compound” that some local defense lawyers called the domestic version of a secret CIA “black site,” but police officials responded that the facility isn’t used to violate suspects’ rights — and isn’t even secret, according to a Feb. 24 posting on the Chicago Sun-Times.
The amorphous Homan Square facility was at one time the gargantuan Sears, Roebuck & Co. warehouse on Chicago's West Side. The building now houses the police department’s Organized Crime Bureau, the Evidence and Recovered Property Section, its ballistics lab and the SWAT unit, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
“The secretive warehouse is the latest example of Chicago Police practices that echo the much-criticized detention abuses of the U.S. war on terrorism,” The Guardian article reads.
Marty Maloney, a spokesman for the police department, said interviews are handled no differently at Homan Square than at other police facilities, such as the department’s 22 districts or its three detective headquarters. “If lawyers have a client detained at Homan Square, just like any other facility, they are allowed to speak to and visit them....There are always records of anyone who is arrested by CPD, and this is not any different at Homan Square,” Maloney said.
Having cancer in Cornwall, Ontario, seems to have become part of life: Writer Jamie Gilcig, on Feb. 24, penned an opinion piece on the Cornwall Free Press complaining of what she sees as an epidemic of cancer in the Canadian city of Cornwall.
"My neighbor has cancer. My dog has cancer. One of our writers has cancer, one former mayor recently died of a rare cancer and another is so sick from his cancer(s) that he can’t attend court. Our current mayor is rumored to have cancer as are at least one of our current councilors and at least one that just left," Gilcig writes.
"Last week I read of a young woman, who died of cancer and was under 30. It’s scary. I don’t know a single person who hasn’t been touched by it somehow in this community,"
Gilcig writes.
Political maneuvering of an earlier time allowed for a toxic dump to be created in the center of Cornwall, right near the St. Lawrence River. This repository of sundry poisons does not have an integument to safeguard its toxicity to the environment, the public, or even animals and flora. The dump - still active - is used as a skiing hill in the winter, Gilcig writes. But like routine life in many industrial cities, townsfolk don't usually adopt the healthiest of lifestyles. Chain smoking, hard drinking, a blue collar labor pool that was all too eager to trade the health of their community for good paying jobs at pulp plants and other heavy industries, have made life here oftentimes look like a death wish.
"One person told me that when he moved to Cornwall the rain sometimes had an odd texture to it and that the snow when it fell sometimes wasn’t white," Gilcig adds.
"I was pelted by rocks!" - Bill "Kill, Kill Kill!" O'Reilly cries wolf yet again: Former colleagues of Bill O’Reilly, Fox News squawking head and writer of Killing (Just put a famous name here) has been accused of telling some walloping tales of all varieties as of late. Unfortunately for Mr. O'Reilly, his embellishments - some so far-fetched and filled with hyperbole they somehow sound ridiculous now - have tarnished his credibility. And when the crux of your target audience suffers from at least a bit of dementia at The Good American Nursing Home, tall tales seem to find stilts. And later, some sort of funky beanstalk is being considered....
Perhaps the strangest alleged mistruth, however, never got much notice yet. Some of O'Reilly's colleagues are now disputing his accounts of surviving a bombardment of bricks and rocks heaved his way while he covered the 1992 riots in Los Angeles.
Six people who covered the riots with O’Reilly in California for Inside Edition told The Guardian they did not recall an incident in which, as O’Reilly has claimed, “concrete was raining down on us” and “we were attacked by protesters”.
Several members of the team suggested that O’Reilly may instead be overstating a fracas involving a disgruntled Los Angeles resident, who smashed one of their cameras with a piece of rubble. And two members of the news teams who covered these riots said the man was angered - specifically by O’Reilly behaving disrespectfully - after arriving at the smoking remains of his neighbourhood in a limousine. At some point, the limo driver even began polishing the limo.
It's been told that O'Reilly even yelled at the man, asking, "Don't you know who I am?"
O'Reilly, 65, is one of the most influential figures in American broadcasting and publishing, and is reportedly paid $20 million a year to host his show, The O’Reilly Factor, which consistently ranks among the most-watched American current affairs staples. A journalist's credibility is everything and O'Reilly's alleged embellishments and outrageous fabrications have come on the heels of NBC Nightly News Anchor Brian Williams' lies, which cost Williams a six-month leave without pay. It's still up in the air whether Williams will return to his old job.
The new allegations about O'Reilly's spinning of yarns, however, follow what several of O'Reilly's colleagues have accused him of recently - and like Williams, O'Reilly's falsehoods primarily have to do with war-reporting incidents that others say never happened.
On Feb. 19, Mother Jones published an article that said O'Reilly couldn't have covered the Falklands War in 1982 because he wasn't anywhere near the military skirmish. Journalists who were involved with reporting on Latin America at the time, like Susan Zirinsky, a longtime CBS News producer, and Bob Schieffer, who was CBS News' lead correspondent covering the Falklands war, said O'Reilly was nowhere near the Falklands. "For us, you were a thousand miles from where the fighting was. So we had some great meals," Schieffer said. During the past week, O'Reilly was accused by a former colleague about lying about being present during a Florida suicide and also, lying about witnessing the murders of four El Salvadorian women.
Well that's it for now - make sure you surf around when you're informing yourself of the news-of-the-day. If you only rely on the mainstream media, you'll be shortchanged every day. Of course, you're obviously a Daily Kos reader and you don't need to be told this anyway. It's a given.
Happy travels.