YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO SPAY OR NEUTER YOUR PET, DUMMY, NOT CLONE IT
If you’ve got way too much money weighing you down, a Californian company is ready to take $50,000 off your hands in order to create a clone of your favourite pet. Genetic Savings & Clone has begun their first batch of cloned pets and expects to have their first kittens born in November if the procedures are a success. Two years ago the company teamed up with Texas A&M University to create the world’s first cat clone which, so far, is still living healthfully. While five customers have already paid the $50,000 fee for cloned cats, and several hundred others have signed up to have tissue from their cats and dogs preserved for future cloning, detractors expect that most clients will be sorely disappointed. David Magnus, co-director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford University, pointed out that "the people who want this are spending huge sums of money to get their pet immortalized or to guarantee they’re getting a pet exactly like the one they had before - and it’s simply not possible." Another critic added, "I think people are going to be disappointed that Fluffy neither looks the same nor acts the same." The CEO of GS&C admits that the clones will be genetic twins but will differ in demeanor and "personality" from the original pets, and he claims they will provide a full refund if a customer is not happy. Within about five years, GS&C expects to create thousands of clones annually and predicts that the cost will come down to about $10,000 for a cat and $20,000 for a dog. (BBC)

DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN
The strange bedtime stories of a six-year-old boy have his parents convinced that he is the reincarnation of a 21-year-old Navy fighter pilot who died during World War II. James Leininger has been plagued by weird obsessions with planes and nightmares about flaming airplane crashes since the age of two. At age three, James began doing preflight checks on his toy planes, and pointing out obscure details about WWII-era planes. At bedtime, James would tell his parents extraordinary details about his death during the war, claiming that he flew with a man named Jack Larson, that his plane took off from the aircraft carrier Natoma, and that he was shot down over Iwo Jima. After documenting these stories, James’ father began during some historical research and found that all of the details of his son’s tale were true, and that a James M. Huston Jr. was killed in exactly the manner the six-year-old described. They contacted Huston’s sister, who now also believes the young boy’s story. "The child was so convincing in coming up with all the things that there is no way on the world he could know," she said. (ABC News)

WORLD’S BIGGEST LOSER
A man in India is trying to get into the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s worst politician by being defeated yet again in that country’s national elections. Ajit Kumar Jain is the veteran of seven national, nine state, and seven civic elections, all of which ended in his resounding defeat. If he can lose just one more time in the upcoming national elections he will enter the record book under the category of "maximum defeats by an individual in elections." Jain plans to spend about five dollars on his campaign. (Ananova)

DAMN NOISY HUMANS UPSTAIRS
Whale researchers off the coast of Washington and Oregon have found that noise pollution from the engines of whale-watching boats has caused the local orcas to begin screaming at each other and repeating their calls in order to communicate. The study, published in the science journal Nature, found that a five-fold increase in the number of boats following whales since 1990 has caused an abrupt and widespread change in the length of the animals’ primary calls when they are being trailed by boats. The researchers say these changes are the equivalent of whales shouting at each other and repeating words in order to be heard. The noise pollution is caused by an average of 22 boats now following each whale pod during daylight hours, as well as ocean cargo ships and the occasional testing of powerful sonar equipment by the U.S. Navy. As whale populations continue to decline due to toxic pollution and salmon shortages, the scientist studying the whales also fear that increased noise pollution may hamper the whales ability to hunt effectively. "I wouldn’t say this is causing their decline, by any means. But this doesn’t help," said Richard Osborne, one of the authors of the study. (The Oregonian)

---

CHECK OUT MY NEW E-BOOK

---

SOON TO BE RENAMED THE "WORLD DROWNING FATSO CHAMPIONSHIP"
Tragedy ruined the drunken fun at the World Belly Flop Championships in Wisconsin last week when a 52-year-old contestant plunged into the Rock River and died after being swept away by the undercurrent. The Belly Flop Championship had been sponsored by Diamond Jim’s Bar, and saw three overweight drunks plunge into the waters of the river before Dorl Gates took his fateful plunge. His best friend could not explain why he entered the contest, saying that "he doesn’t know how to swim." (Beloit Daily News)

YOU DON’T REALLY NEED A MACHINE TO TELL IF SOMEONE IS STUPID, DO YOU?
A Russian inventor believes he has invented a device which can measure the intelligence or stupidity of a subject. Lev Galenkevich, inventor of the "StupidMeter", says that the wires and spirals of his machine are sensitive to lepton fields in people, and that by placing the contraption near a person’s head he can instantly judge the person’s intellectual capacity. When the StupidMeter is put near a person’s head, the energy from his brain will create a moving impulse which will case the wires of the device to rotate. The more rotations it makes, the more intelligent the person. "I picked up the device description in ancient oriental manuscripts", claims Galenkevich. He says the average person can make his invention spin 2.5 times, but the students in his University class are only able to make it spin once. (Pravda)

HEROIC STUPIDITY
The official state media of North Korea claims that dozens of people died a "heroic death" last week trying to save portraits of their idolized leader Kim Jong-Il during last week’s train explosion in Ryongchon. The blast killed at least 161 people and injured 1,300, including many who tried to evacuate the portraits of their beloved leader rather than saving their family members. "They were buried under the collapsing building to die a heroic death when they were trying to come out with portraits of President Kim Il-sung and leader Kim Jong-il," claims the report. Historians say that the cult worship of North Korea’s "eternal president" surpasses that of Stalin and Mao. (Reuters)