Taking our culture’s temperature

…Apparently, we are delusional from fever right now. I hope that’s the cause.

• Bin Laden hunter: I wanted to haul him to US alive.
  Okay, hooray for initiative. That’s the American spirit: if it needs doing, why, get up, get out there, and get it done! However…the image that this headline about Gary Faulkner evokes for me is Faulkner’s dragging the 6-foot-7, be-robed Bin Laden through the Denver International Airport in a headlock. That image is more amusing that satisfying, more slapstick than gumption. But that’s how my mind works, folks.
• Cops: Siblings brawl over butter in mac and cheese.
  This one needs to be quoted:

  WATERVILLE, Wash. – An argument over butter in a macaroni and cheese recipe churned into violence between a brother and sister. A 21-year-old man called police June 6 to say his 17-year-old sister tried to cut his neck with the serrated edge of a spatula.
  The police report said the sister was making macaroni and cheese when her brother asked if she was using butter. That led to an argument over the difference between butter and margarine. And, then butter battle escalated.

  She tried to cut his throat over butter v. margarine. Look, I loves me some mac’n'cheese with a passion, but it takes a little more than concern over which creamy dairy or dairy-substitute product will enhance my mac to set me off. Let’s reserve the assaults for life-and-death situations, okay?

  Makes me wonder what other violent arguments these two have had. Good thing they weren’t alive during the VHS v. Betamax fight. Somebody would’ve been cut over watching E.T. in the wrong format.

• Someone bought Marilyn Monroe’s X-rays for 45,000 dollars.
  Is nothing private any more? Plus, if you love a star so much that you want to know what their insides look like, you love them way, way too much, and you might not be safe to be around unsupervised children or…well, anyone.
• A raccoon caused major power outages in Memphis, Tennessee.
  That’s not the odd part. Someone described the raccoon to the AP as “mean-spirited”. Really? People, please. That animal did not wake up that morning thinking, “Oh, I am gonna rock Memphis’ world. Gonna take ‘em down!”
  Now, if anyone has received prank calls from this raccoon, or had this raccoon roll his front yard, please let me know, and I will retract my statement.

Knitting and your pets

Yarn used in forensics

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Originally published at The Haunted Palace. Please leave any comments there.

It once was an afghan.

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Originally published at The Haunted Palace. Please leave any comments there.

They said NO, don’t ask again.

Two recent bans of note, found via the BBC:

1. no hamsters in Vietman:

The Ministry of Agriculture says anyone caught with a hamster will be fined up to 30m dong ($1,900)—almost double the average annual wage in Vietnam.
The authorities say the creatures are a potential source of disease.
Officials have also expressed concern that the animals are imported from China and Thailand without proper licensing or controls.
…a combination of factors including growing incomes and the Chinese Year of the Rat have made the beady-eyed rodents highly desirable. They have been trading for $10 to $20 each and are reported to be a hit with the young population of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, spawning a whole sub-culture of hamster forums and hamster clubs.

2. Google Maps/Street-View banned from Pentagon:

The US defence department has banned the giant internet search engine Google from filming inside and making detailed studies of US military bases…
The move follows the discovery of images of the Fort Sam Houston army base in Texas on Google Maps.

Originally published at The Haunted Palace. Please leave any comments there.