Emergency Landing

Is not a phrase anyone wants to hear. In this case, however, the culprit was a squirrel, and the diversion was Honolulu. While kind of funny in retrospect, the furry bugger could have gnawed through wiring and caused a problem...as that did not happen, wouldn't it be great if you were on a plane that had to be diverted to Hawaii? Even if it were only for a day or so. Actually the main reason I wanted to post on this article is the last line: "Fearing it might have been carrying rabies, authorities had the rodent killed." Now, there may have been some fear of rabies, but that is not the reason they killed it. Hawaii, like California, Austrailia, and many other places, does not want any plants or animals brought there and crazy quarantine rules apply if you want to try. More importantly, squirrels are not even close to endangered, and in the absence of a random squirrel lover to take on the burden, financial and otherwise, of dealing with it, it is going to end up dead. The rabies thing sounds like someone's idea to keep crazy PETA people away. "We destroyed the squirrel, um, uh, because it might have had rabies? Yea, that's it, we didn't want anyone to be endangered by what was obviously a terrorist act by a rodent that was likely deranged by some communicable disease that we are familiar with." I wonder what role TSA had in the spin.

As an aside, don't you wish, sometimes that there were more religions that forbade the consumption of pigs so that bacon would cost less?

The Internet is for Porn

So much more than just a funny video on youtube. This survey talks about child exposure to internet porn, willful and not. I kind of wonder whether it's really all that new. Kids playing doctor, finding dad's/older brother's/friend's Playboy, catching a glimpse of a porn movie (like on a tv) or the like. There may be more of an expectation issue as a result of this than real damage (size, symmetry, what "should" feel good/be acceptable to partner, et cetera).

Brak: Oh, man, that's funny. I can't stop laughing.

...at the city of Boston. So Cartoon network had this viral marketing for Adult Swim, specifically "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" which placed the light-bright like devices seen in the photo around Boston and 9 or 10 other cities. Boston freaked out, thinking they were bombs (check out the gloves on the guy holding the ad). No other city did. Now they are looking to press charges because they were too incompetent and want to pass the blame onto the people who thought up the idea. TBS (which owns Cartoon Network) has actually apologized...presumably to the citizens of Boston for having idiots in charge of their security. I don't watch Adult Swim as much as I used too, but I think that they have some pretty clever people on staff.