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Curious Times No. 177
January 30, 2003MORE DEPRESSING STATISTICS
The Worldwatch Institute has released its 20th annual State of the World report, and it sounds a whole lot like last year's, and the year's before, and so on and so forth. This year the Institue warned that humanity has only one or two generations to reverse environmental and population trends in order to save itself. One of the worst trends is that now over 420 million people live in countries which cannot grow enough food to feed its own people. The Institute also estimates that about 1.2 billion people live in absolute poverty, which is defined as surviving on less than one U.S. dollar per day. As for the animal kingdom, nothing has improved since last year. According to their figures, a quarter of the world's mammal species and 12 per cent of birds are in danger of extinction. (Guardian UK)LET THERE BE SEX
A church in Minnesota is trying to have a sex shop near their church remove a sign outside their store which offers a "clergy discount." Church members are offended by the sign, which has a message on both sides of a sandwich board and stands outside of a sex shop called Pure Pleasure. On one side the message reads, "And God said go out into the world and have great sex." The other side of the sign reads "No need to mail order. Gay videos in stock. Clergy discount. Have good sex. Hallelujah!" (Star Tribune)I ONLY RAPE GODLESS HEATHENS
In what must be the strangest attempted rape in history, a man who was in the middle of sexually assaulting a woman in Tacoma abruptly stopped when she began to pray. When the rapist heard her prayers, he stood up and asked the woman if she was Christian. When she said yes, he zipped up his pants, apologized to her, shook her hand, warned her to lock her door in the future, and took off. (Tacoma New Tribune)THEY ALSO FOUND THAT PEOPLE WHO LIKE ALCOHOL DRINK MORE THAN THOSE WHO DON'T
The thoroughly useless "scientific" research papers just keep coming. This week, studies done at the Boston University School of Public Health found that college students who got drunk for the first time at a young age were more likely to have unplanned and unprotected sex than students who didn't drink in their early years. A study of 11,700 college students found that those who had gotten drunk before the age of 13 were twice as likely to have unplanned or unprotected sex than those who didn't drink until after the age of 19. In the conclusion of this research paper, the authors of this study have the gall to suggest that they're going to need to study this some more. (Ivanhoe.com)YOU GOT HIGH SPEED INTERNET ACCESS FOR THIS?
If you're still clinging to the hope that the internet might actually educate and enlighten the masses, you're probably grasping at straws. Yahoo.com announced last week that a website devoted to an injured cat which had been hit by a car was voted one of the most popular sites of 2002. A total of four million people (and who knows how many cats) logged on to cathospital.co.uk to follow the rehabilitation of Frank the cat.IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, UNTIL THAT ELECTRIC SPIKE ENTERS YOUR BRAIN
After reading the story about the $41 hamburger made out of Kobe beef, a few readers wanted to know the story behind the pampered cows from which Kobe beef comes. I found an article in the U.K.'s Telegraph which calls Kobe cows "gluttonous, obese, beer-drinking sloths." Apparently, Kobe cows live a highly luxurious lifestyle, spending their days lying on thick stacks of hay, with "their swollen bellies sprawling balloon-like between their thick, stocky legs." These cows never get any exercise, and are fed only the highest quality grains and a few gallons of premium beer every day, followed by a daily massage to keep them happy. These cows are overfed until they weight about 1,600 pounds - twice the normal weight of a cow - and produce some of the finest beef in the world, which sells for around $400 a pound.RHYMES WITH GRUNT
Despite the fact that women have reclaimed the C word "as a great word, as a word of strength" (according to Australia's Eros Foundation), using the word c*nt can still get you into a pile of trouble in that country. The debate over the use of obscene language is heading into an Australian courtroom after a man was fined $100 for wearing a T-shirt which read "Jesus is a C*nt." This is only the most recent in a string of C-word incidents over the past few months, beginning when a Labor MP called a member of the government "a really big c*nt" in a parlimentary debate. More recently, a cricket player was suspended for five matches after using the word in a slur against a Sri Lankan team. The lawyer for the man who was fined for wearing the t-shirt wants to use his client as a test case on offensive language. "The courts have lost the battle on shit and fuck," he explained, "maybe there has been a shift from what is acceptable. (The Australian)NOT SO GREAT BALLS OF FIRE
A nine-year-old Russian boy is undergoing physical and psychiatric evaluations after a bizarre 24-hour period in which the boy apparently produced fire balls with his eyes that flew around the house setting furniture, clothes and appliances on fire. The boy's mother, grandmother, and sister all witnessed the bizarre events, prompting his mom to bring a priest to their home to stop the strangeness. They claim to have seen a bright red glow similar to a laser beam coming from the boy's head. The glow would then fly around the house chaotically, splitting into small balls of fire which would set ablaze anything it touched. At last count, the boy has let out 106 of these bizarre fire balls, "but there are 212 balls still remaining inside of me," he says. (Pravda)
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