Weird News of the World Thread - Part 1

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Airplane drops fish bombs to repopulate lake

If you think you're looking at an engine blowing out in the plane above, you wouldn't exactly be right. The plane is actually stocking a remote lake with fish by dropping them into the water from the air like it would a bomb. It's a method that's used all around the country but looks completely nutty when you see it up close.

[YT]kSpLcs199Z8[/YT]

Those fish must be freaking out for a few seconds there

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Supremely Chill Dude Loses Job After Buying Spokane’s First Legal Weed

Imagine the kind of person who would camp outside a dispensary for 19 hours to become the first legal weed buyer in his city, and chances are you'll land not far from Mike Boyer. He's a portly man, smile on his face, and he's wearing a trippy tie-dye t-shirt he says he's been "rockin'…for about 12 years now." When he talks, he sounds like a mellowed-out Kenny Powers.

[YT]8Wu9Tc1cRO8[/YT]

Boyer became a local celebrity in Spokane, Washington this week after local news crews captured him waiting in line outside Green Leaf, the city's first recreational dispensary, to ensure his place in line. He chants ("What do we want? Marijuana. When do we want it? 2 p.m."); he chums it up with his fellow campers; he drops knowledge on pot varieties ("I'm here for sativa, some of the rarer of the herbs").

The publicity cost Boyer his job after a client saw him on TV and ratted him out to his employer, Kodiak Security Services. He seems unfazed. "Yeah, it was kind of a buzzkill," he told Vocativ. "But I wasn't going to let it ruin an awesome day."

Also: "I'm still the captain! I'm still number one! I mean, a man can always get a job. But a man can only be the first person to buy recreational cannabis in Spokane once."

In an effort to capitalize on his newfound microfame and get back into the workforce, Boyer threw his resume up on Craigslist. Reads the intro:

I lost my job due to the news coverage of me being the FIRST PERSON TO BUY MARIJUANA LEGALLY IN SPOKANE! I regret nothing. But now im jobless and have decided to post my resume here. Thanks for reviewing it.

If you know anyone in search of a consummately laid-back security professional, be a friend and get in touch.

http://www.vocativ.com/underworld/drugs/spokanes-first-weed-buyer-sees-job-go-smoke/

I don't get how he can be fired for doing something that is legal in his state. Wouldn't the constitute as discrimination?

 

[guitarsingerguy]

Airplane drops fish bombs to repopulate lake

Those fish must be freaking out for a few seconds there

Idk some people pay big $ to skydive, so actually these fish should be paying good money for that experience!

 

[Doctor Evo]

Supremely Chill Dude Loses Job After Buying Spokane’s First Legal Weed

http://www.vocativ.com/underworld/drugs/spokanes-first-weed-buyer-sees-job-go-smoke/

I don't get how he can be fired for doing something that is legal in his state. Wouldn't the constitute as discrimination?

Isn't discrimination reserved for things like race, religion and sexuality? Employers still have the right to fire you for smoking weed, even if it is legal.

 

[blksuperman2]

Yeah, it's the same if he showed up to work drunk. Just because you can legally drink alcohol doesn't mean your employer will allow it.

 

[Feenix]

If he was high on the job or skipped work to buy the weed, then his employer has every right to fire him. But, I don't see how his employer could fire him for buying it. That would be like your boss firing you for buying alcohol or cigarettes. They can fire you if they want, but it would be a headache of a "terminted without cause" issue.

 

[blksuperman2]

The employer did a urinalysis and when he failed, they fired him. I don't see what the issue is here.

 

[charl_huntress]

Some jobs don't allow you to use certain drugs, and if you're an at-will employee most employers can fire you for violating their policies.

Just to add, a friend of mine who lives in CA has a medicinal marijuana license. She got hired at an insurance firm where she had to take a piss test. Of course, she failed and didn't get the job, but she tried valiantly to use her medical MJ license as a defense....to no avail.

 

[Guts]

Dead or Meditating?

One of the wealthiest spiritual leaders in India has either been dead or in a transcendental meditative state since January. The Telegraph's Dean Nelson reports from New Delhi that a court has now been asked to settle the matter.

Ashutosh Maharaj is presently in a commercial freezer in his ashram, guarded by elders within the multinational sect (or, self-described "socio-spiritual-cultural, not-for profit organization") that he created. His followers insist that Maharaj is in a state of transcendent bliss called samadhi, a central tenet of traditional yoga in which a yogi becomes one with the universe. Upon moving all of your prana (currents of energy) up your spine and into your head, according to the seminal yoga manual Hatha Yoga Pradipika, a yogi can become "as if dead."

This would seem to be at odds with the assessment of a team of local physicians who examined Maharaj in February. After performing an ECG that showed no heartbeats, noting that he had no respiratory movements, and seeing that his pupils were fixed and dilated, the physicians declared him "clinically dead."

The sect's website states, "His Holiness Shri Ashutosh Maharaj Ji has been in a deep meditative state (samadhi) since January 29, 2014." Though, a representative from the sect did say on February 3, "About 4:00 PM yesterday, some changes were noticed in his skin (it became greenish). The body was then shifted to a freezer," which may or may not be part of the traditional protocol for transcendent bliss.

The guru's son and wife corroborate that he died of a heart attack in January, and that his followers are keeping his body in order to retain control of his financial empire, including the ten billion rupee ($170 million) estate where the corpse resides.

Because Maharaj had (has) not (yet) named a successor, his wealth is to be deposited in a charitable trust (at the time of his death). Some say this is not in the interest of the elders, who "turned greedy," with an eye to usurping his property.

Maharaj's family has filed a court application for further investigation and release of the body for last rites and cremation. Police initially agreed with the physicians that Maharaj was dead, and the Punjab High Court corroborated in April that Maharaj died a natural death, but Nelson reports that local government officials say as a spiritual matter, the guru's followers cannot be forced to believe that he is dead.

http://m.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/05/dead-or-meditating/371846/

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Man Finds Goddamn Python Under the Hood of Broken-Down Car

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Jackson Ault pulled over to the side of the road to help a woman whose car had broken down in Santa Fe recently. When he popped the hood, he found a goddamn 7-foot, 20-pound python inside.

"Looking right at me, it flicked its little tongue, and I kinda freaked out a little bit," he told local news outlet KOAT.

Ault and the woman called the police, and the officer who responded was happy to remove the giant snake. An animal control officer believes the young python could eventually grow to twice its current length, and that it probably slithered under the hood for warmth.

After the incident, Ault said, he's "hesitant to pop [his] own hood, even though that sounds ridiculous. Weird day."

http://www.koat.com/news/sneaky-surprise-giant-snake-found-in-car/26891958#!bcSLab

Ya that would trip me out a bit

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

UPDATE: Spokane's Pot-Smoking Hero Gets His Job Back

Mike Boyer, the national treasure and inspiration to us all who lost his job after becoming Spokane, Wa.'s first legal weed buyer, is going back to work.

Newsweek reports that TrueBlue, a staffing agency that employs Boyer, changed its mind about firing him:

"TrueBlue got ahold of me and offered me my job back," Mike told Newsweek. "I'll accept it and we'll see where it goes from there," he said. "The reason they said they gave me my job back was because their policy says you cannot be under the influence at work, which I was not, and since I officially had the day off, what I did on my time was my time. And they gave me my job back, and even gave me a day's worth of pay that I missed."

We also learned more about the circumstances surrounding his firing. The personification of all that is good and chill in this world actually lost two of three part-time jobs after turning up on the news, both after employers asked him to take a drug test (it appears he's only been reinstated to one). Boyer hopes he can parlay the publicity into a weed gig. He told KXLY:

Now, I'm thinking maybe I can even spin this and get a job in the marijuana industry. It's a new industry. They need qualified people.

http://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-m...-weed-washington-will-get-his-job-back-258260

Good for him, I knew that didn't make much sense when I posted it. Hopefully he gets that "qualified" weed position he wants haha

 

[KevanG]

Good for him. He got a lot out of it too.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

A man near Denver has contracted "the rarest and most fatal form of plague." Oh, brother!

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-11/deadliest-rarest-form-of-plague-contracted-near-denver.html

See what happens when you let everyone smoke the maryjuana!!!

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

There's a Pregnant Mexican Tarantula Running Loose in Brooklyn

Penelope, the pregnant Mexican Red Rump Tarantula shown above, might look scary, but her owner assures she's "mostly harmless." Yeah right, pal.

A redditor saw the sign above in South Slope, Brooklyn. The full text reads:

I know she looks crazy scary, but she's mostly harmless. She's pregnant, so I'm hoping to find her before she has her babies. She's mostly active at night and likes to hide in dark corners. She shouldn't bite, but sometimes jumps when frightened. If you find her, please try to catch her and put her in a tupperware bowl with a few holes in the top for air. Then please call me and I will come and get her.

"Shouldn't" bite. "Mostly" harmless. "Active at night," hiding "in dark corners." "Sometimes jumps when frightened." Great note. Very reassuring.

I'm sorry to say, Penelope's owner, that it seems unlikely that anyone will box this lady up and return her safely to your weird, spider-loving arms. But if anyone out there is less of a baby than me, can we please handle this before mama unleashes her monstrous brood on Prospect Park?

http://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/2ad5eu/pregnant_red_rump_tarantula_missing_in_south_slope/

I would bet she has already set up shop underground somewhere or she scared the crap out of someone who then promptly squished her

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Tracking the Bizarre Edits Congress Makes to Wikipedia

The elected representatives you chose to represent you in the legislative branch of the United States of America aren't just making modifications to national law. They're also editing the Wikipedia pages for "Horse head mask" and "Step Up 3D." Or at least their staffers are. And thanks to https://***********/congressedits, you can keep tabs on it.

The relatively new Twitterbot, inspired by the decidedly more British ParlimentEdits, is a pretty brilliantly simple little sucker that scrubs Wikipedia's list of most recent edits, and cruises through the IP list looking for numbers that belong to the US Congress. When it finds a match, it spits them out. Not just the title of the entry, mind you, but also a link to the page that shows what was changed. It's only been at it for a few days, but already the results are pretty great.

Some are pretty understandable, like adding yourself to the page for the town you were elected from.

Some are a little weirder, like adding a reference to President Obama in the article for Horse Head Mask.

But some are just sublime, like tweaking the grammar on the page for Step Up 3D.

All of Wikipedia's edit data is public, so unless folks at Congress start using proxies when they're going to edit Wikipedia, there's a lot more fun in store. And while there's no assurance these edits are being made by Congressmen and not just bored secretaries, it's still a fun little follow. Maybe one of these days you'll find Congress geeking out over your favorite movie.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8018284

I foresee some fun with this twitter handle

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

The Government Just Told Thousands of Dead Men to Register for the Draft

Thanks to a computer glitch, the Selective Service System recently reminded over 14,000 men born between the years of 1893 and 1897 to register for the draft. This was a silly thing to do since the youngest of these men is 117-years-old and surely not battlefield-ready. America!

Starting on June 30, a "computer error" caused the government to start sending out these reminder letters to men in Pennsylvania. They were meant for men born between the years of 1993 and 1997, men who are now of fighting age. "It's never happened before," Selective Service spokesman Pat Shuback told the Associated Press.

The good news is that if you received one of these letters and happen to still be alive, you don't have to do a thing. The government regrets the error. But hey, as far as governmental computer glitches goes, it could've been worse.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...the-draft/?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=twitter

THat is funny, I would like to have seen the look on some of these folks faces when they got these letters. I'm assuming they sent them to relatives or last known address

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

This guy spent $500,000 in his Star Trek collection

$500,000. That's how much a Star Trek fan Anthony Sforza is, a man who put three years of his life into turning his basement into a temple dedicated to Gene Roddenberry's sci-fi series—then filled it with unique memorabilia. He actually bought a piece of the set to analyze it and use the exact same materials.

[YT]tyFP_sUEGr4[/YT]

Live long and prosper dude! Pretty insane collection. I wish I had $500k to make a sick Marvel collection

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

These scorpions are probably hiding in your bookcase

If you have old vintage books, you may have some book scorpions in your bookcase. Actually, you really should want to have them, even if they look scary and gross. Book scorpions protect your old books—they love to munch on the book lice that eat the glue which holds old books together.

A book scorpion (or pseudoscorpion) is not a true scorpion, hence its name. They're often mistaken for bedbugs, in fact, causing many people to kill them, which is obviously a big mistake for your collection of vintage encyclopedias. A book scorpion is also very tiny—too tiny to hurt you, so don't worry about being pinched when you pull out your original signed copy of The Metamorphosis.

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You'll only find book scorpions (as well as book lice) in places where old books are stored. That's because newer books use synthetic glue, which book lice can't eat—they only like the starch-based glue of olden days, so there's nothing for book scorpions to feed on. But if you have old books, there's a chance you might have a colony of book lice, but no book scorpion to hunt them.

In fact, there are some tips that you can follow to ensure that your bookshelf ecosystem is welcoming to book scorpions. Buy old books which will likely come populated with book scorpions who can take up residence in your case. Don't clean your shelves too thoroughly or you might wipe away the scorpions completely. And if you come across a tiny creature tucked into the spine of a book, for goodness sake, don't kill it! He could be saving your library, page by page.

Just curious as to how many of you out there actually have an old book case with lots of old books?

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

This is why you should only drink water with impurities

It may sound like a good idea to drink the purest water you can find, but as this video explains, that is not actually the case. Ultra pure water has no impurities—so absolutely no taste and who wants that—but also in large quantities it will harm and even kill you because it will leach the minerals from your body.

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Good to know, the impurities are what give you the flavor and for the most part is good for you. Also weird that water all over the world can have different taste

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

World's first climate-controlled neighborhood to be built in Dubai

Dubai has unveiled plans for the world's first indoor, climate-controlled neighborhood—a 450-hectare city area with a retractable glass roof and the world's largest shopping center. This sounds to me like the hell on earth but I better get used to it: Every major city will probably be like this by the end of the century.

It will be called Mall of the World and will have over one hundred hotels and serviced apartment buildings. It will include a 750,000-square-metre shopping center, a theatre district modeled on London's West End and New York's Broadway, and a "celebration district" designed in the style of La Rambla in Barcelona.

The entire thing may seem preposterous for some, but this is where we are headed. It will happen in major cities too. The convenience of climate control is too strong to ignore. The population will love it, the tourists will love it, and, perhaps more important for its development, the corporations will love it. Imagine that: A place like SoHo in New York—which is already a giant playground and mall—completely isolated from weather, with the right temperature, no rain, no snow, no heat. A perfect place to live and consume.

Just in time for climate change

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Corpse Falls Out of Coroner's Van Onto Busy Philadelphia Area Road

Another day, another barrel of laughs around the city of brotherly love. A coroner's van being driven down a busy road in Feasterville, Pa. in Bucks County had an unfortunate door malfunction on Friday, allowing a dead body to slip out and roll down a road into traffic.

The corpse appeared in traffic around noon on Friday outside of a busy shopping center in the town. It was, as corpses usually are, wrapped in a white sheet and strapped to a gurney.

Jerry Bradley, a witness, captured the above photo of body in the road.

The Bucks County Coroner's Office says the driver realized immediately that the door had opened and retrieved the body within minutes. The office says it "deeply regrets" the incident.

Bradley, a passer-by who helped get the body into the van, said he thought it was a prank, calling it "the most bizarre thing" he'd ever seen.

And just like that, Jackass has come full circle.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20140713_ap_3e1c61bea119457fa815da10f4fc5b93.html?c=r

I hope when I die something crazy like this happens with my body

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Teen Dies After Hitting Overpass While Standing on Double-Decker Bus

A 16-year-old boy has died after striking a freeway overpass in California while standing up on a double-decker Starline Bus.

According to NBC Los Angeles, the incident happened on Thursday night while the bus was traveling at 45 miles per hour on the San Diego Freeway. A witness told NBC that the teenager, Mason Zisette, may have been standing on his seat:

A witness told NBC4 that the teen may have been dancing on a seat cushion with his back to the freeway signs when his head and hands slammed into the sign. He then collapsed on the floor, the witness said.

About two dozen teens—most under 18 years old—were dancing on the upper level when the incident occurred, while all of the adult chaperones were inside the bus. Zisette was rushed to the hospital and listed in critical condition. He died two days later.

The California Highway Patrol is investigating the incident.

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Teen-Dies-After-Double-Decker-Bus-Injury-266905051.html

Kid must have been pretty tall. Such a weird way to go

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Lightning Kills Two People in Two Days at Rocky Mountain National Park

Rocky Mountain National Park's public information officer Kyle Patterson reports that lightning strikes at the park have killed two people in two days, injuring several more.

Patterson told CNN that both strikes hit people on trails off Trail Ridge Road, at elevations of 10,829 and 11,400 feet. On Friday, eight were hit and one woman—Rebecca R. Teilhet, 42, of Yellow Springs, Ohio—died at the scene. Four were hit on Saturday afternoon, one of whom died later at the hospital.

Dr. Martin Koschnitzke, of the Estes Park Medical Center, spoke to KUSA, via CNN:

"We can't emphasize enough that when it starts getting dark and clouds are forming, it's time to get down," he said. "My understanding is this group was actually in the process of doing that and still got caught, which is really a sad thing."

These were the first lightning deaths in the park since 2000.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/12/us/colorado-lightning-strike/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

What are the odds of the happening?

 

[Hal_Jordan]

Corpse Falls Out of Coroner's Van Onto Busy Philadelphia Area Road

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20140713_ap_3e1c61bea119457fa815da10f4fc5b93.html?c=r

I hope when I die something crazy like this happens with my body

I want to be dressed up in a Superman suit and thrown out of an airplane after my death.

 

[charl_huntress]

These scorpions are probably hiding in your bookcase

Just curious as to how many of you out there actually have an old book case with lots of old books?

Interesting. I never know there was such a thing as book lice.