In honor of my friends who are going to Australia on their honeymoon today

Came across this piece of news yesterday:

100,000 dead bats fall from the sky in Australia

A heat wave in the state of Queensland that has temperatures rising above 109 degrees Fahrenheit caused nearly 100,000 bats to just fall from the sky and forced some unfortunate reporter to write the following sentence:

"About 100,000 bats have fallen from the sky and died during a heatwave in Australia that has left the trees and earth littered with dead creatures."

Oh, and also this one:

"The stench from the rotting carcasses has begun to disturb residents of Brisbane and large towns. Authorities have dispatched rubbish collectors to pick up thousands of carcasses from populated areas."

Watch your head out there! Also: Do not eat.

UM WHAT?

Oh Em GEE. Have you heard about the police officer in NYC who was recently arrested for plotting, on multiple occasions, to "kidnap, rape, cook and eat women"?!?!

This is a real story, and like many real stories, it is incredibly bizarre. It has recently been discovered (by the FBI, no less) that NYC police officer Gilberto Valle, aged 28, married, with a one-year-old daughter, liked to spend his free time on his home computer chatting with various people via IM about the logistics of kidnapping and/or cooking women. Not only that, but he also created upwards of 100 files that contained information about various women that he knew, including their addresses, physical descriptions, and photographs. He also went so far as to look up various women in a federal database, and to offer to kidnap some of them for money.

The federal complaint filed against him is fascinating, and creepy as hell. For example, here's the FBI's description of Gilberto chatting with his "co-conspirator #1" (CC-1) about the logistics of silence-of-the-lambsing one particular woman:

And let's not forget about the kidnapping, plotted with Co-Conspirator #2!

Valle's lawyer claims that he is "at worst is someone who has sexual fantasies about people he knows and he talks about it on the Internet" and that "nothing has happened....it's just talk," and that may be legally true. But I can't imagine that his wife--who turned him in, by the way--or his job--which he used to access federal database information about potential victims--will take kindly to any of his talk.

People can be really creepy sometimes.

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In other news, THERE IS A HURRICANE OUTSIDE.

From The Cat in the Hat

Home for a week = Critical thinking faculties are on vacation

Some random stuff:

I secretly think that our children are not going to grow up in a world that is better than the one we grew up in.  Neither does Newsweek, I infer, as they recently published this article: Today's youngest Americans are likely to be worse [economically] off than their parents.

Meanwhile, while we're becoming poorer and poorer, we're also possibly harboring eyelash lice.  EYELASH. LICE. Let that sink in.

And! Even worse, our dishwashers are out to get us.

But on the upside, rising gas prices might make us skinnier.

Gratuitous picture of my nephew, with whom I spent the whole day.

Dare to keep kids off drugs?

...Or dare them to do drugs? Let's just tell them about the flesh-eating levamisole that cocaine has allegedly been laced with, then see how bad they want to try it.

According to this article, "69 percent of cocaine shipments seized entering the United States contain levamisole, a veterinary drug linked to serious weakening of the immune system in humans." Says ABC, "the drug, used to deworm cattle, pigs and sheep, can rot the skin off noses, ears and cheeks."  Check out that picture I took from the ABC website. Ew!

This isn't just a sensational news story, either.  Even justice.gov warns of the dangers of laced cocaine--as of 2009, they report, 71% of tested wholesale cocaine samples contained levamisole.  And it's not just cocaine; New York State (from which I am proud to be from!) says that Heroin has also been laced with levamisole.

YUM.  And who said DARE doesn't work!

First grocery carts, now BART seats

It's probably not safe to touch anything. Ever.

The thing that surprises me most about this New York Times article about the disgusting bacteria hiding in the seats on BART is that the BART police received only 245 complaints of urinating or defecating on BART last year. That's not even one complaint per day! Perhaps humanity is cleaner than I suspected.

Side note: BART police? Sounds like a cushy job. Pun intended! Yuk Yuk.

Don't ever touch a grocery cart again

No, really.

A group of researchers at the University of Arizona recently released a study in which they analyzed the bacteria found on reusable shopping bags and grocery carts. As this article summarizes:

Researchers at the University of Arizona say shopping carts and reusable grocery bags are teeming with fecal matter and bacteria, often more than a typical bathroom.

...

72 percent of the carts [tested] had a positive marker for fecal bacteria and half had Escherichia coli (E. coli). He also found reusable shopping bags that are not washed regularly are swarming with bacteria.

Gag.

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Sensible update, March 7:
If you wash your hands after grocery shopping you'll probably be fine.