Snowflakes in Hell

Yves Rossy has to either be the craziest guy in the world, or the coolest guy in the world.  Quite possibly I think both.  It takes some balls to jump out of a plane with a jet wing you built strapped to your back.  Apparently he used it to cross the English Channel Friday.  Here’s some video:

His jet pack has a bunch of these strapped to the underside.  The funny thing is they only cost a few thousand bucks.  Here’s his web site.  Awesome.

Gus the talking groundhog was creepy enough, but now apparently the Pennsylvania lottery is promoting one of thier new games with giant walking phalli.

PETA is telling Ben and Jerry’s ice cream they need to start making their product out of human milk.

“PETA’s request comes in the wake of news reports that a Swiss restaurant owner will begin purchasing breast milk from nursing mothers and substituting breast milk for 75 percent of the cow’s milk in the food he serves,” the statement says.

PETA officials say a move to human breast milk would lessen the suffering of dairy cows and their babies on factory farms and benefit human health.

Eeew.

Now that it’s a confirmed hoax, it’s funny, I have to admire the hoaxsters a bit.  Taking advantage of people’s desire to believe — to just believe, man — is kind of a crappy thing to do except to people who deserve it.  This happened in Pennsylvania not too long ago, despite the fact that Pennsylvania Game Commisssion biologists said it was most definitely a mangy bear.  I can kind of understand why people want to believe in UFOs.  I can even grok the need to believe in highly unlikely government conspiracies.

But I can’t wrap my head around why people believe there just has to be a Bigfoot.  Certainly the idea that there are proto-humans living among the creatures in the wooded area behind the Wal-Mart is kind of cool, but this borders on religious for some people.   What’s the deal?

Detroit has a long standing problem of population loss.  Now it’s getting so bad, even the dead are leaving.  I think Mike Nutter needs to make Philadelphia’s new slogan “Philadelphia: We’re not Detroit.”  Pride has to start somewhere, you know.

UPDATE: Someone in the comments points out that this could be bad news for the Democratic Party, since the dead are an important political constituency for them.

I was looking around for a toy I had when I was a kid.  Basically a water powered rocket that you pumped up, and it would launch about 30 feet in the air.

“Well, if it goes so far up, then surely it would fly a good distance horizontally, especially if I aimed it at…. my sister!”

Well, turns out it hurts really bad to get beamed in the head with a water rocket, so it was no more rocket propelled toys for me after that.  I figured almost certainly the Safety Nazi Nanny Staters would have banned that bit of fun by now, but no…  You can still buy one.  Of course, the same basic principle eventually leads to this:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6943201001782160188

When I think of camouflage, BBQ sauce isn’t that high on the list.

Apparently in a French military demonstration, sixteen adults and children were wounded when someone mixed up blanks with live ammunition.  I wonder what kind of demo would involve shooting blanks at someone?  A firing squad demo?

Ahab has some thoughts on a comment that appeared last night on the blog.  Normally, I’ll delete crazy shit like that, but sometimes I think we have to confront the skeletons in the closet of our movement.  I tend to think most folks like that are internet brave, and actually wouldn’t follow through with their threat.  But there are folks out there, thankfully a small minority, who don’t believe violence against a government is an absolute last resort; a measure only to be resorted to when there’s no legal or political option left for the protecton of constitutional rights.  They believe they get to be judge, jury and executioner when it comes to enforcing their own interpretation of their right to bear arms.  It’s an attitude that I think needs to be confronted, rather than swept under the rug.

“British Columbia Severed Feet Mystery Deepens.” I tend to think when you have severed feet washing up on shore, complete with socks and shoes, that mystery is starting off on a level that’s already about as deep as you can get.  I’m also rather surprised that this article reveals that body parts washing up on shore isn’t all that unusual.  I don’t know about you, but if I’m out in the surf with a boogie board, and I notice an uninvited passenger that turns out to be an arm, leg, or severed head — that’s it man, my ocean going days are over.

Grown from cat poop.   No, seriously.

Bruce seems to have found a mystery object.  I’m stumped.  Any of you have an idea?

This is very wrong.  This is a joke right?  It is April Fools Day, after all.

UPDATE: My friend Jason tells me that when it comes to putting stuffed cats onto guns, the Israeli Defense Forces don’t fool around.

High tension lines really can light up fluorescent lights.  The Barenaked Ladies even wrote a song about it:

A Hydro-field cuts through my neighborhood
Somehow that always just made me feel good
I can put a spare bulb in my hand
And light up my yard

I have to agree with Tam on this one.

Holy Thorazine batman!  I think there’s a spaceship hiding behind a comet that’s waiting for this guy.

Allentown police caught this guy, who is charged with two counts of  murder:

Torres was driving on Turner Street Friday afternoon when he was pulled over by police and arrested. He was wearing a hooded sweartshirt with a skull-head pattern on it, pajama bottoms and fuzzy lion-faced slippers at the time. He was still wearing the get-up when he was arraigned after midnight at Lehigh County prison.

Follow the link for the picture.  I’m going to be, probably not the first to say, that this whole wearing pajamas in public fashion has now officially gone way too far.

A Pennsylvania man finds himself suddenly faced with charges for killing his wife:

A kinky sex escapade ended this week with the electrocution death of a Pennsylvania woman and the arrest of her husband for manslaughter. According to cops, Toby Taylor, 37, first claimed that his wife Kirsten was shocked by her hair dryer. But he then admitted that the couple was “into weird sexual behaviors,” according to a probable cause affidavit. Taylor then explained that he hooks clips to his wife’s nipples and “plugs the cord into a electric strip” and shocks her. On Wednesday evening, Taylor said, Kirsten removed her clothes, attached the clips, and shocked herself. He then picked up the electric strip and shocked her several more times, adding that he had placed a piece of electric tape over her mouth during the jolts. After the last shock, Kirsten, 29, “fell over on to her face.” Taylor initially thought his wife was joking, but quickly realized she was unconscious. He then dressed her in preparation for driving to the hospital, but instead called 911 when she stopped breathing.

Ouch! He stands charged with involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment. This lead to a discussion with Bitter as to whether justice is really served by charges here. If I were the DA for York County, I’d probably offer a plea to reckless charge in exchange for dropping the manslaughter, but most normal human beings are aware that hooking up someone else’s nipples to a power strip in all its 120V 60Hz 20 amp glory runs a severe risk of killing that person.

If you’re into kinky electrocution sex, get yourself one of these. While I’m sure that use will invalidate the manufacturer’s warranty, it’s far less likely to kill, and it even seems to come in kinky sex toy-like colors.

Since it doesn’t appear this couple had any children (I’d hate to think of how you explain that “Daddy is hurting mommy” to a kid anyway), I think these two are great possibilities for 2008 Darwin Award winners.

UPDATE: Perhaps electrofetish people could use this peculiar antecedent of the taser.

Well, I guess it’s not hell, but I think some people would probably say it is.

Politically incorrect ads from bygone times.  Quite offensive to women.   It’s hard to believe anyone ever got away with this.

Corn kills!

Apparently alligators in Florida think armed robbers car thieves are mighty tasty.

UPDATE: Apparently the reporter that wrote this doesn’t know what robbery is.

The bigfoot folks are going wild over a sighting in Pennsylvania, which they suggest is a juvenile sasquatch. The Pennsylvania Game Commission says it’s a bear with a severe case of mange. Clearly this is a conspiracy by biologists to cover up the existence of the sasquatch!

The tax on potatoes could be going up, to say, perhaps, 200 dollars?  Anyone know if this actually works?

I have to think that this guy is probably glad he’s dead.  It would be pretty difficult to live this down:

An autopsy was planned Tuesday to determine what killed a Snellville man who died after being head-butted during a fight with a man with no arms.

No charges have been filed against the armless man.

I’m guessing the guy figured an armless man would be an easy target, and wasn’t expecting the armless guy to be the head butting world champion.  I don’t know if there is a world champion for head butting, but if there isn’t, they ought to make one for this guy.

I’m a good bit more socially liberal than Clayton Cramer, but San Francisco still scares the crap out of me. Those links are not safe for work, or anywhere else really. I warned you! San Francisco was originally founded by the Spanish in 1776, so all the weirdos in the world could live in one place.

UPDATE: Kevin Baker’s comment on the whole thing is just wrong, but quite hilarious.