The Lemurs of Madagascar

Lemurs are creatures found solely on the isolated island of Madagascar off the east coast of Africa, a place of astonishing biological wonders. They are little, furry primates resembling the ancient ancestors of monkeys, remarkably similar to long-extinct animals revealed in sixty million year old fossils.  The lemurs of today have large eyes, wet, long snouts similar to a dog's nose, and somewhat resemble cats, squirrels, and mice.

There are around sixty different types of lemurs in Madagascar, from the pygmy mouse lemur, the tiniest of the lemurs and the world's smallest primate, to the Indri, the largest of the lemurs who are famous for singing like whales.  Lemurs mainly live in the top tree canopy of rainforests and jungle.  Sadly, deforestation in Madagascar has decimated lemurs' habitats, and combined with some hunting, has landed all lemurs squarely on the endangered species list.  President Rajaonarimampianina, the new leader of Madagascar, has taken an interest in lemur conservation since gaining power.  The President has been working with foreign conservation groups to improve conditions and prospects for the lemurs.  In October 2014, Madagascar hosted the first "World Lemur Festival," which ended in "World Lemur Day" on October 31st. (When you dress up as a lemur for Halloween, you are celebrating two holidays at once.)

If you visit Madagascar, local guides and various companies from the burgeoning eco-tourism industry will be happy to take you out on a trek to see the captivating lemurs.  Or if you're in the United States, you can visit the Duke University Lemur Center in North Carolina.  For $95, you can watch lemurs fingerpaint on the "Painting with Lemurs" tour.  You choose three colors for the lemurs to work with, and they let you keep the painting. That's a conversation starter!

Austria's Missing Election Gnomes

Garden gnomes are mischievous creatures.  But when 400 of the pint-sized, elf-like men were enlisted to endorse the Austrian Social Democratic party in an upcoming election and then suddenly walked off the job, party leader Michael Ritsch cried sabotage.  Ritsch blamed the arch-rival of the Social Democrats, the Austrian People's Party. Despite their center-right platform emphasizing respect for tradition and social order, Ritsch accuses his political opponents of kidnapping the jolly gnomes.

But are gnomes the most trustworthy colleagues?  The group of gnomes in question were attached to lamp posts.  Perhaps that was more than they bargained for when they abandoned the relative comfort of the garden to enter the dirty world of politics.

The caper started because the Social Democrats were banking on Austrian voters' fervor for garden gnomes. The idea was for the gnomes to serve as mascots and perhaps use their magical powers to sway the electorate towards more socialist policies. Towards this end, the Social Democratic Party spent over $600,000 of taxpayer funds allotted for elections on the purchase of 20,000 little gnomes who go by the code name, "Coolmen."

This fact may be more disturbing than their mysterious disappearance.

Gnomes disappear in Austria and it's causing a political scandal

A Seagull Serial Killer Copycat?

About a year ago, Louisiana's Jackoby Bertot ran afoul of the Migratory Bird Act of 1918 for running over 49 defenseless seagulls with his truck in a shopping center parking lot outside New Orleans.  Now, 17 year old Wesley Franatovich has been arrested for the exact same crime in the exact same parking lot.  The teen killed two birds, which makes him our second seagull serial killer.  Whether he got the idea from reading about Bertot's crimes is unknown.  Most likely, he just couldn't resist the urge to scatter a flock of seagulls. However, his father says his darling son didn't mean to kill any birds while driving through the dense gathering of approximately 500 gulls and wants us to believe that young Wesley is just a bad driver.

This guy's not buying it.

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2014/08/teen_arrested_accused_of_runni.html

The Mayor of Buford, Wyoming: Population 1

For nearly two decades, Don Sammons was the Mayor and single citizen of the town of Buford, Wyoming: the world's least populous town. His private municipality had its own general store, zip code, and maybe not much else, but it was home.

In 2012, Sammons sold the town to Vietnamese coffee entrepreneur Pham Dinh Nguyen for $900,000 in an internet auction.  Now Nguyen, the new lone resident and Mayor, has enlisted the former Mayor to help him run his Buford-based coffee business and continue influencing the future of the town he cared for for so long.  But perhaps you are wondering if there is a demand in America for Vietnamese coffee?  Don't we have enough java already?  The Vietnamese, in fact, are known for their coffee.  Specifically, they are celebrated for mixing delicious filter coffee with creamy condensed milk.  So Mr. Nguyen might be on to something.  We'll find out.

But this isn't just a story about the coffee business.  It's also a tragic love story.  Don Sammons originally bought the town of Buford in 1980 for his wife.  They arrived in their new domain, 8,000 feet above sea level, in a red convertible.  It was a terrible choice for the climate and prompted snickers from residents of neighboring towns.  But the Los Angeles couple wanted a new life in the country surrounded by rugged nature.  They pursued that dream together in Buford until Don's wife died six years later.  All the years that followed, Sammons never left the town.

So the romantic has been replaced by the entrepreneur.  And sure, Buford may be a little less poignant as a hub for Southeast Asian coffee importing.  But after two decades, we must wish Mr. Sammons the best of luck moving on and out.

One Person Wyoming Town Reopens as Vietnamese Coffee Hub

Rob Ford is back!

We can all sleep a little sounder at night, because Rob Ford has returned!  The prodigal, crack-smoking Mayor of Toronto reemerged a few weeks ago after a stint in a mysterious drug rehab facility in the States, and he's ready to get back to governin' and running his reelection campaign.  Of course, the rehab facility in question may or may not exist.  If you remember the Mayor's departure, he described his destination as a clinic in the Chicago area that many pundits noted bore no resemblance to any drug rehabilitation center in existence in that area.  There was also suspicion that he never crossed the Canadian border.  Add to that the fact that Mayor Ford specifically made a point to not promise that he won't relapse, and there are a lot of questions regarding whether The Mayor has really given up his habits of copious boozing and then, in his words, "trying every drug in existence."  In unrelated news, he told a reporter yesterday,  "I have never quit anything in my life."

The Tasmanian Devil

While we're on the subject of animals terrorizing Australia, this is a good time to take a closer look at the Tasmanian Devil. While many of us outside of the island state of Tasmania might associate the Tasmanian Devil with the Looney Tunes cartoon character, real tasmanian devils are very interesting, albeit emotionally unstable animals. Like the cartoon version, tasmanian devils in the wild will eat just about anything, and they use their powerful jaws to devour all parts of their prey in an uncontrollable rage. They were named "devils" in part after humans witnessed their eating habits. But in fact, these marsupials fly into a frightening, psychotic rage pretty much anytime something doesn't go their way, such as when they encounter rival males or predators.  Combined with their pungent, foul odor and the belief that they were attacking livestock, tasmanian devils didn't traditionally win many human friends.

That has changed recently. Since the 1990s, tasmanian devil populations haven been fighting a contagious cancer called devil facial tumor disease. The facial cancer epidemic causes the normally ravenous devils to eventually die of starvation, and in a twist of fate, humans are now working to save them.

[Tasmanian Devil markingsCC BY-SA 2.0

Willis Lim - http://www.flickr.com/photos/willislim/3172976845/in/photostream/]

Cane Toads

In certain regions of Australia, cane toads are everywhere.  In fact, there are so many giant cane toads littering fields and roads that locals play a game to see how many they can hit with their car. The unattractive, bulbous creatures are not native to Australia and are considered an invading menace by the population.

Cane toads were originally brought into the country from Hawaii in the 1930s in the hope that they would eat and eradicate the cane beetle, a pest which at the time was devastating the sugar cane harvest.  That didn't work.  Instead, the original 3,000 cane toads proceeded to lay oodles of tadpoles, multiply like wildfire, and cover the region like a plague.  Today, cane toads blanket several states of Australia and continue to expand at an alarming rate.

To learn more about cane toads, their sworn enemies, and the strange few who love them, check out the highly entertaining film Cane Toads: An Unnatural History or the recent sequel Cane Toads: The Conquest.

The "Bread & Briefs" Thief

I feel a little guilty posting about the man in New York who went out for the day wearing only his underwear, stole a bread truck, and started making deliveries.  He sounds less wackadoodle than certifiably crazy, and I really don't want to make fun of a sick man. But I have overruled my conscience, because what this bandit did was sort of poignant.

The 30 year old, scantily clad Long Island man in question stole a bakery delivery truck filled with approximately $8,000 of fancy bread and started making the deliveries based on the route posted inside the truck.  After a few drop-offs, he went rogue and started throwing the bread out the window like a paper boy. Once he ran out of projectile baguettes, he began tailgating and harassing a limo driver, seemingly for no reason, which led to his eventual apprehension and arrest.

I love the accelerated rate of transformations this failed criminal experienced. He started out wanting to be a car thief, but somehow, was seduced by the prospect of a straight life as a bakery deliveryman. For a while, he tried to fulfill this fantasy of a stable, scheduled existence, trudging along, visiting his regular customers, offering a friendly wave - albeit in his underwear. But the monotony got to him, and in minutes he flashed forward to a midlife crisis-style nervous breakdown. Then he went into class warfare mode and started harassing a limousine. But this ultimately did nothing to irritate the fat cats.  The limo was empty, and he only ended up harassing the chauffeur and making life harder for a fellow working man.

A failure on all fronts.

http://gothamist.com/2014/05/21/man_steals_upper_east_side_bread_tr.php#.

Rob Ford Vanishes!

For those of you keeping up with your Rob Ford news, everyone's favorite crack-smoking alcoholic who is also in charge of a major Canadian metropolis has gone missing. Sound the Amber Ale alert!

Toronto's notorious but strangely lovable Mayor suffered further embarrassment recently when yet another video surfaced of the eccentric politician smoking crack cocaine. If this footage keeps popping up at this rate, there will be enough material for a "Rob Ford Smokes Crack" boxset to bring to the White Elephant party next Christmas. But in the meantime, the Mayor must be found!

Ford's recent disappearance from City Hall has all the villagers guessing where he could be hiding. His fiercely loyal brother claims the Mayor has entered an alcohol rehab program in Chicago; the only catch is that there is no alcohol treatment facility fitting his description in Chicago.  Border agents for the U.S. say there is suggestive evidence that the Mayor never even crossed the border.  So where is Mayor Ford?  Surely, all the crackhouses in Canada have already been checked. Is he holed up in a basement somewhere? Running around Toronto in a clever disguise? Let's get looking.

The Valais Blacknose Sheep

This type of sheep looks like a cross between a child's stuffed animal and a cartoon drawing of a sheep.  The audaciously cute (though fake-looking) creature dwells in the Valais region of Switzerland, hence the name.  Fun fact: Valais is famous as the home of the Matterhorn, one of the highest peaks in The Alps and the inspiration for a pretty fun ride at Disneyland. But back to the animals...

Let's take a look at some typical sheep:

Pretty basic.  Now, brace yourself for the Valais Blacknose Sheep:

Woah!  What an improvement!

I wish all sheep looked like this.