The Wallyworld Gator

A six-foot alligator in Apopka, Florida, planted himself in front of the local Wal-Mart this weekend. He wasn't doing much; he just sat there causing the automatic doors to open and close over and over until the alarmed workers finally figured out how to lock him out. This precaution turned out to be unnecessary, however, as the swamp-dwelling reptile was not ultimately interested in entering the store - possibly due to the negligible savings margins in many departments after you pass the lead promotional items. 

As for Wal-Mart's customers, the brave shoppers were not afraid of the alligator. Quite the opposite: the store's patrons took photos and seemed to really enjoy the incident! For The People of Wal-Mart, a large predator is just the thing to spice up the day. 

Alligator forces Walmart to lock doors

Today's Wackadoodle - Fishzilla

Alert all the Loch Ness Monster hunters: an eighteen foot long, three hundred pound oarfish has washed up on the California coast. The giant sea creature is slimy, requires fifteen people to lift it, and is clearly a nightmare-inducing serpent of the deep. This isn't the first monster oarfish to wash up, though. In 1996, a twenty-three foot oarfish was found on a beach near San Diego. All in all, I'd say it looks like Hogzilla has some maritime competition!

For rather obvious reasons, oarfish are thought to have inspired most legends of sea serpents. They descend to ocean depths of up to 3,000 feet and are rarely seen by humans, which makes them extra scary. Who knows what they're doing down there! But on the plus side, since it's so close to Halloween you and a dozen friends could do Fishzilla as a group costume!

Remains of the 1996 Oarfish


18-Foot-Long Serpent-Like Sea Creature Caught off Calif. Coast

George Valentine, Failed Ghostbuster

Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania touts medium George Valentine as "the man who challenged Harry Houdini!" but it might be more accurate to describe this hometown hero as "the man Houdini humiliated in The New York Times." In the early 1920s, Valentine was a famous local ghostbuster; Wilkesbarre was a thriving, industrial coal town and the sister city of prosperous Scranton, Pennsylvania.

The Scientific American Magazine was offering a $5,000 prize for the first spiritualist who could prove he or she had supernatural powers. Harry Houdini was on the prize committee, and George Valentine volunteered to be the first contestant. Unfortunately for Valentine, Houdini was also on a personal quest to expose spiritualists. He suspected George was a fraud and hatched a plan to discredit him.

The Scranton/Wilkesbarre area was more of a big deal back then. Equidistant from New York and Philadelphia, Scranton was famous for being "The Electric City."  In 1880, before the ink was dry on Thomas Edison's patent, they installed their first electric lights. Then in 1886, they became the first city to feature electric street cars. The bright and shiny metropolis seemed destined for great things. Wilkesbarre, while not quite as cool as Scranton, went along for the ride. That's why it is such a tragic irony that their own George Valentine was discredited by electric lights!

Here's how it happened. The medium's presentation for the Scientific American committee consisted of George conjuring various Native American ghosts - who then irritated audience members by whacking them on the back of the head or tapping them on the knee. This all took place in the dark.

Houdini pretty much thought Valentine was a joke. The famous magician and escape artist exposed him with a bit of trickery. At George's séance, Houdini boobytrapped Valentine's chair in such a way that Houdini's assistant in the next room would see an electric light indicator every time George got up from the chair. The assistant recorded the times George was out of his chair, and lo and behold, they matched up with the activities of the "ghosts."

In his New York Times write-up of the affair, Houdini was merciless. He gave Valentine no respect as a medium or a performer and said his friends had been teasing him for being stupid enough to even show up for Valentine's act. He reported, "we had agreed to act like a lot of boobs to see what his game was," called Valentine a complete fraud, and said he and his his ilk should be put in jail for messing with people's emotions. Presumably, George Valentine couldn't really set foot outside of Wilkesbarre after the debacle. But that doesn't stop you from being able to learn about him at Psychic Theater night in Wilkesbarre's Houdini Museum. And while you're there, you can pop over to Scranton to see the restored "Electric City" sign!




Click here for the text of Houdini's New York Times article

Antechinus, the Suicidal Sex Mouse

The Antechinus is a mouse-like creature who waits till the last two weeks of his life to mate, and then gets at it so vigorously that it kills him.  In his horny swan song, the little marsupial transforms from life-long monk to rabid nymphomaniac,  copulating as much as possible with as many partners as possible, for sessions lasting up to fourteen hours at a time. This level of performance takes its toll. The overtaxed male Antechinus's body releases stress hormones which lead to the disintegration of his immune system, internal bleeding, gangrene, and finally, certain death.

Wow. I'm so glad humans don't have this system. Could you imagine if men were celibate until the age of seventy and then suddenly started fornicating themselves to death in continuous orgies? On second thought, do not try to imagine this.

http://www.scienceworldreport.com/articles/10167/20131012/male-antechinus-die-excessive-mating.htm

The Cattle Prod-Wielding Rabbis

Two Orthodox Jewish rabbis in New Jersey have been arrested for running a criminal ring that specialized in kidnapping and torturing Jewish husbands who refused to give their wives a divorce. (What?!)  It's true. For a minimum of $60,000, disgruntled married women could hire the gang to obtain a "get," a document in the Orthodox Jewish community that permits a wife to obtain a divorce. They gang would get the "get" by abducting the reluctant husband and terrorizing him physically and psychologically.

The Feds had been investigating the two rabbis and their accomplices for several years. The religious leaders' downfall was precipitated by telling an undercover FBI agent that their organization would kidnap her husband and torture him with an electric cattle prod! Kudos to the FBI for shutting this "business" down.

2 rabbis, 2 others charged in Jewish divorce shakedown

Paradise Newland & her Dolphin Doulas

Have you ever wondered why you have to give birth surrounded by boring humans? Instead of a midwife, why not a bobcat? Instead of a doctor, why not a duck? If you are so far out that this makes sense to you, you may be the perfect client for the Sirius Institute for dolphin-assisted birth.

Paradise Newland, also known as Star Newland, is the founder of the Sirius Institute and will be  happy to set you up with an underwater birth surrounded by dolphins in Hawaii. Maybe that's just what you've been looking for to spice up the otherwise humdrum miracle of life, but let's take a closer look. Is this a good idea - newborn + wild animals?

Paradise/Star certainly thinks so. On her website, she claims that babies born among dolphins develop faster, have heavier brains, and are ambidextrous(!) Ms. Newland also says "research sufficient for us," i.e. research that personally convinced Paradise Newland, proves dolphins can help heal depression, autism, Down's syndrome, and cerebral palsy.

But what if you still aren't convinced? Paradise warns that if you have a dolphin-free birth and get an epidural, your child is 3 times more likely to be a drug addict. Ouch!

Of course, there are also reasons why you might not want to pass your placenta into dolphin-infested waters. The New York Times reported research that concluded "dolphins seem to have murderous urges unrelated to the need for food," and also cited scientists who have seen evidence of dolphin infanticide, i.e. dolphins murdering newborn dolphins. There is also evidence dolphins kill baby porpoises. Hmmm, how many different species of babies do dolphins need to kill before we can agree they may not make the best doulas?

A pod of dolphins ready to catch your baby

Boogie, the Marathon-Running Dog

A chocolate lab named Boogie recently gained fame for running away from his owner - and then running a half marathon. Boogie completed the 13.1 mile race in 2 hours 15 minutes, putting him squarely in the top half of participants. The dog received a medal for the accomplishment.

According to Popular Mechanics, the best animals for marathon running- aside from humans - include horses, camels, sled dogs, pronghorn antelope and ostriches. These animals would all be likely to beat Boogie in his next race.



Indiana Dog That Crashed Half-Marathon Gets Medal

Today's Wackadoodle - Special Ed Moses

A man dressed as the Biblical character Moses and his donut-wielding associate recently staged a 2-man flash mob at a Tenafly, New Jersey middle school to raise awareness about special needs education. After pulling up in a red Lamborghini wielding signs and rewritten Ten Commandment tablets regarding proposed improvements in the special ed department, they handed out free donuts and perplexed the school's burgeoning adolescents until the police asked them to leave.

Whew. First of all, Charlton Heston is rolling over in his grave. Secondly, don't feel bad if you're confused. There are a lot of moving parts in this story - let's break it down.

* A man dressed as Moses arrives with his friend in a sports car at a northern New Jersey middle school. So far, so good.

* Moses waves around homemade, revised Ten Commandments relating to recommended practices for special needs education. What in the world did the rewritten Ten Commandments say -Thou shalt not discriminate against the dyslexic?

* They hand out donuts to the kids. For me, this is the most confusing aspect of this incident. Moses and his sidekick's professed goal was to raise awareness about improvements that could be made in the scholastic arena of special needs education. Shouldn't they be handing out donuts to the principal and administrative staff who make these decisions? The middle-school students cannot help their cause; they're just hungry.

* The police banish Moses from the school. This was probably a good idea. However, My9 New Jersey reports that the donut guy has an autistic daughter and is an advocate for the rights of special needs children. So what's our takeaway?

Let my people go!...to a classroom with a small teacher-to-pupil ratio where the learning environment is tailored to the specific needs of children with cognitive disabilities...

Raccoon Gangs of New York

First giant hogs were terrorizing Dallas. Then Atlanta suburbanites couldn't let their children walk to the bus stop for fear of swine attack. Now, New York City residents are complaining that raccoons are menacing groggy commuters at the subway station. Alright, humans. It's a given that a 1,000 pound boar at the entrance to the N train would definitely be intimidating, but are raccoons really that scary? Or is this just another case of media sensationalism?

To get to the bottom of this, let's review a few reasons why humans might be afraid of raccoons:

1) They wear masks like burglars - Okay, raccoons may be known as the "masked bandits," but aren't there also masked heroes?  Zorro wore a mask.  Batman wears a mask.  In fact, a lot of superheroes wear masks. Plus, the overall appearance of raccoons can be generally classified as "cute."  They look like some sort of a mixture between a dog and a cat, humans' two favorite pets.

VERDICT: Stupid reason to be afraid of raccoons.

2) They dig in the trash.  This one has some promise.  Bears dig in the trash, and they also occasionally eat people.  But a lovable, domesticated dog or a cat is also happy to dig in the trash if they get a chance, albeit not as skillfully as a raccoon, and that doesn't terrify us.

VERDICT: Annoying, but not a good reason to fear raccoons.

3) Raccoons sometimes become freakishly obese from gorging on trash. As cute as some raccoons can be, the sight of an obese raccoon is alarming.  I once saw one squatting on my neighbor's porch swing who looked to weigh about 40 pounds, and I admit my first instinct was to run. Presumably, an obese raccoon is a raccoon who has no fear of humans and is aggressive about getting more than his fair share of the garbage food pie.

VERDICT: A decent reason to be afraid of fat raccoons.

4) Raccoons carry rabies, don't they?  Well yes, just not for very long.  According to the Humane Society, raccoons are the #1 rabies carriers of the eastern U.S.  However, rabid raccoons usually don't last more than one to three days before they kick the bucket, meaning the odds are in your favor that you won't come across a rabies-crazed maniac raccoon. In fact, there is only one documented case of a human death caused by a raccoon infected with rabies.

VERDICT: A highly unlikely but still justifiable reason to shun raccoons.

5) Some raccoons are aggressive during the mating season and may bite.  I don't see an upside to this.

VERDICT: A good reason to feel alarmed by a raccoon waiting next to you on the train platform.

6) The Aztecs were big fans of both human sacrifice and raccoons.  The Aztecs practiced ridiculous, gratuitous levels of human sacrifice.  They also associated supernatural powers with raccoons. Could there be a connection?

VERDICT: Completely irrational reasoning, but probably still best to avoid raccoons.

Allan Jonas, Failed Arsonist

The news out of sunny Florida today informs me that Allan Linn Jonas, a suspected arsonist, was arrested after investigators found evidence he had set fire to his own home sixty different times. Wow. Jonas must be just as good at putting out fires as he is at lighting them, or his home would no longer exist. Unfortunately, it appears Allan used his fire-starting skills for evil; he is a "person of interest" in two cases in Pasco County, Florida where the victims' homes were burnt to the ground.

I would say he's a person of interest! The guy set his home on fire sixty times.

New Port Richey man accused of lighting his home on fire 60 times