Thursday, August 27, 2009 Random Image: Morning Glory Clouds

A not-entirely understood meteorological phenomenon that occurs each year above a small town in northern Australia.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009 This Time, They Really Are Mad!

Nature continues to go wild! If you think the only way cows can kill you is from clogged arteries, guess again. From Reuters:

Farmers issue warning after fatal cow attacks

Tue Aug 25, 2009 12:01pm EDT
By Alexander Monro

LONDON (Reuters) - The deaths of no fewer than four people after being trampled by cows in the past two months has prompted Britain's main farming union to issue a warning about the dangers of provoking the normally docile animals.

Cows can become aggressive and charge, especially when calves are present and walkers are accompanied by dogs, said the National Farmers Union (NFU).

The union and the Ramblers' Association both advise that walkers release dogs from their leads when passing through a field of cows.

"The cattle are interested in the dog, not the walker," said Robert Sheasby, Rural Surveyor at the NFU.

"As the cattle try to get the dog, there's a high chance they will get the walker too."

Britain has 7.5 million cows but in the past eight years there have only been 18 deaths involving cattle, including bulls whose dangers are well-known.

The current spate of attacks by cows began on the Pennine Hills on June 21, when Liz Crowsley, a veterinary surgeon from Warrington, was crushed against a wall and then trampled underfoot while out walking with her two dogs.

On July 15, another attack took place in Derbyshire, when Barry Pilgrim, a 65-year old from the area, was trampled to death by a cow as his wife looked on.

Three days later, Anita Hinchey, a 63-year-old, was walking her dog near Cardiff when a cow attacked her and trampled her to death.

The fourth fatal attack claimed the life of Harold Lee, a 75-year-old farmer from Burtle in the West Country. He was killed by his own herd, which may have been made nervous by the siren of a passing ambulance.

The risk is especially high in the spring when many of the calves are only a month or two old and the mothers are therefore especially protective, the NFU said.

"It's to do with spring and autumn calving," said Sheasby.

"In the autumn, cattle will be coming into winter housing but in spring you want them out grazing the grass."

Cow-charging incidents received extended coverage when former Home Secretary David Blunkett was attacked by one in June as his guide dog led him across a field in England's Peak District.

Blunkett broke a rib and was heavily bruised but survived.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009 Minnesota's Wolf City

If I were Ken Hite, right now I'd be turning out an entire column linking a lupine-infested Twin Cities with the twins Romulus and Remus, demi-gods suckled by wolves.

The article excerpted below can be read in full at the Minneapolis-St. Paul StarTribune website.

Rise of wolves putting Minnesota pets at risk

Complaints - and fears - about attacks on dogs are increasing along with wolf numbers in northern Minnesota.

By Doug Smith, Star Tribune
Last update: August 24, 2009 - 12:29 PM

When Bruce Mell left the Twin Cities and retired to a lakeside cabin in northern Minnesota two years ago, he took along his canine companion, Sadie.

"She and I retired together," Mell, who is 61 and divorced, said of the 80-pound black Lab-mix he had rescued from an animal shelter. "We've been together for 10 years. Every morning when I got up to fix coffee and some breakfast, I'd let her outside. She never went far, just stayed around the yard."

But one recent morning, Mell went out to tinker with equipment on his 5 acres in the woods near Hill City and immediately noticed something was wrong.

"No dog," he said. "At first I didn't think much of it, but then I started to worry."

Mell found Sadie's remains in the woods not far from his cabin. Wolves had killed and eaten her.

"There was almost nothing left: The end of her tail, a bit of rib cage and her collar," he said. "Your heart just drops. Me and her were pretty tight."

Sadie is among seven dogs federal officials have confirmed were killed by wolves so far this year in Minnesota -- part of a recent spate of dog-wolf encounters and an overall increase in wolf attacks on domestic animals -- mostly livestock.

"I'd say [depredation] complaints are up 10 percent to 20 percent this year," said John Hart, district supervisor for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services, which investigates wolf incidents and traps and kills problem wolves.

As of last week, his agency had received 131 complaints of domestic animals killed or injured by wolves. Last year, officials hadn't receive that many complaints until mid-November. Sixty of the complaints have been verified, compared with 75 all of last year.

While livestock deaths are the most common complaint, wolf attacks on pets tend to make news. There have been several dogs attacked and either killed or injured by wolves in the Grand Rapids-Hill City region this summer. "It's the talk of the town," said Mell.

Dogs often simply disappear, as was the case of a small dog near Grand Rapids. Its owner spotted a wolf in a field shortly before the dog disappeared. And several dogs, including another Lab in the Hill City area, have been seriously injured by wolf attacks.

"This is wolf city up here," Mell said.

Let me just point out that at this time there is absolutely no evidence that anything other than ordinary wolves are involved in the current situation. There is no reason at all to start any rumors about lycanthropy, werewolves, or hyper-intelligent canine off-shoots encroaching on our urban areas. Nope, no reason at all.

I probably should have written that post about silver bullets, shouldn't I have?

Monday, August 24, 2009 Ugandan Witch Cult

I know witch scares are common in that part of the world, but this story seems to have some weight behind it. The accused aren't old women or other social pariahs out in the sticks, but well-to-do individuals in a large city. From the August 19th on-line edition of the Observer (Uganda):

New blood thirsty cult confirmed in Uganda

Written by Shifa Mwesigye
Wednesday, 19 August 2009 17:52

Police say the cult whose members are mainly wealthy Kampalans originated from West Africa

Police are investigating a religious cult of predominantly wealthy people linked to human sacrifice in the country.

The Observer has learnt that Police earlier this year, acting on a tip-off, sanctioned an investigation into claims that some wealthy people in the country are responsible for the spiralling acts of child human sacrifice in the country.

The Acting Commissioner of the Police Investigations Department, Moses Binoga, told The Observer in an interview last Thursday at CID headquarters in Kibuli that the Police are taking these allegations seriously.

Since the start of the year, his department has gathered information on this cult whose activities are mainly concentrated in Kampala. He says the cult originated from West Africa.

Authorities in West Africa have in the recent past fought running battles with cult members. On August 6, cult members shot and killed a policeman in Nigeria who was considered a threat to the cult’s activities in Adigbe area.

In the same country, 13 students were killed in clashes between cults calling themselves the Black Axe and the Black Eye, all said to be practising black magic. Some of their activities include killing, rape, extortion and theft.

Nigeria Police also clashed with the Boko Haram cult, killing 700 people and arresting hundreds of members of the group.

“We are investigating a cult which makes them [followers] take human blood periodically. It is a devil cult,” Binoga says of the Kampala cult.

Binoga, who also heads the Collation Crime Intelligence Unit, could however not discuss their findings so far, citing fear of jeopardising the investigations.

“It is an open secret everyone is talking about it, they say if you don’t take blood, the wealth will go,” Binoga says.

More details, including a brief history of human sacrifice in Uganda, are available at the link above.

Random Notes 8/24/09

• On a whim, I checked my StatCounter account and found that two metric buttloads of hits came from people looking for pictures of Catherine Zeta Jones' ass. Apparently, the image I hotlinked to in my post about a gang of international jewel thieves was from a nude celebrity site, and Google image search was somehow directing people here, where they were no doubt vastly disappointed. I've changed the hotlink to a different source, which would eliminate the problem if I hadn't just typed "nude", "celebrity", and "Catherine Zeta Jones' ass" above.

• Mmm... hot links! My buddy Garz is a huge fan of Smokin M's, a little BBQ joint a few blocks from the Sanctum, so much so that he has a picture of their mascot (whom Garz has dubbed the Evil Pig) as the background on his phone. However, the image is a not-very-good snapshot he took of the restaurant's front window with his phone's camera. Because I am helpful, friendly, and courteous (if not cheerful and reverent), I've located a better quality replacement for him and cleaned it up to the best of my ability. I yoinked it from a Chicago food forum, where one of the friendly folks had this to say to an employee of Smokin M's who posted to the thread:

"Let's hope that bulk mail center keeps you in a steady flow of peeps that can't tell good BBQ from the undercooked/overcooked pork covered in non tasty sauce you serve. Thank Famous Liquors for the flow because that's where most get their lunch before getting your dinners."

Man, some people will never miss an opportunity to be an asshole, will they?

• NPR has done a piece on the zombie math story making the rounds last week. Always good to see mainstream coverage on the ongoing zombie menace.

• From the Onion via RPG.net is a story about the latest attempt to cash in on the Twilight phenom. I hesitated on posting this for a while, because although my friends and I enjoy ragging on Twilight, a lot of them read this blog from the office and this particular item is Not Safe for Work. It is however, both creepy and hilarious.

• JG Thirwell's The Venture Bros. soundtrack is Kicking. My. Ass. One of the benefits of living alone is that there's no one to bludgeon me for playing "Fumblestealth" over and over again at high volume.

• I've finally finished switching out all the weak and flimsy ImageShack links on the site with hearty, broad-hipped Photobucket replacements. And cripes, what a pain it was. Still, that should take care of my image hosting problems, so please let me know if any still fail to load.

Saturday, August 22, 2009 Nothing Up His Sleeve

The story's popping up all over this weekend, but everyone seems to be sourcing Ananova:

Magician provokes riot

An Indian conjuror needed an armed guard out of town after his 'magic' provoked a riot.

Rajeev Patel had been performing on the street in Berhampur, eastern India, when he asked a young boy to join him for a special magic trick.

Witnesses said he then pulled down the boy's pants and asked him to hold a piece of clay before saying he would change it into a sweet.

One man in the crowd said: "We were all shocked when he just pulled the boy's pants down but if that wasn't enough he didn't even manage to do the spell and a lot of people though he was just putting it on so he could look at the boy's backside.

"They got furious and started shouting at him and then when he said he would try it again they just went mad."

"He failed and the crowd turned violent," added a police spokesman, after officers took two hours to quell a riot and give the hapless magician an armed guard out of town.

There's so much wrong with this story that even Evil Fozzie wouldn't comment. He just muttered something about pulling stuff out of your ass, then shook his head and went back to working on "stoned" jokes for next year's Gotmar festival.

Thursday, August 20, 2009 If You Ever Wondered What an Indian Rock Festival Was Like...

... it's basically a bunch of idiots throwing stones at each other. Go Team!

From iafrica.com:

Stoning festival banned

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:30

A centuries-old festival in which residents from rival Indian villages throw stones at each other — often leaving people dead or injured — has been banned, an official said on Thursday.

The annual Gotmar festival in an impoverished central region of the country involved teams competing to capture a tree placed in a river running between two villages as crowds pelted rocks and pebbles across the divide.

The origin of the custom is unclear, but many locals in Madhya Pradesh state believe it developed from the tale of two young lovers who lived on either side of the river and wanted to elope together.

As they tried to escape, residents of the two villages started throwing stones at each other and killed the couple, according to folklore.

In last year's clash between Saargaon and Pandhurhna, one person was reported killed and more than 400 injured.

District civil servant Nikunj Srivastava said the event, scheduled to be held on Friday, had been banned after the state authority Madhya Pradesh Human Rights Commission described it as "inhuman and criminal."

"The act of injuring each other by hurling stones is done in the name of tradition, but traditions like Sati are banned and so this is now banned too," Srivastava said.

"Not all local people support the stone-throwing but they do not speak out against it because they fear a backlash from the villagers who favour it."

Sati is the outlawed Hindu custom of a widow being cremated on the funeral pyre of her husband as an indication of her devotion.

Attempts to replace the stones with rubber balls in 2001 and 2002 failed as villagers refused to use them.

One of those who fought against the practice of widow-burning was General Charles James Napier, a governor in India under the British Raj. When locals complained about the British authorities outlawing the practice of sati, Napier is famously said to have responded:

"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

I always dug that quote.