News of the Weird (February 9, 2014)
News of the Weird
Weirdnuz.M357, February 9, 2013
Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd
Lead Story
PREVIOUSLY ON WEIRD UNIVERSE: The International New York Times edition published in Kuala Lumpur on January 22nd carried a page-one story noting increased worldwide demand by meat processors for pigs raised in the fresh air rather than enclosed in pens--and illustrated by a photograph of a cluster of pigs feeding in an outdoor stall. However, the Malaysian printer (who had downloaded the digital pages and set them to paper) had added black boxes to cover just the faces of each pig in the photo. “If there is picture of nudes or [the] like, this we will cover [up],” a publisher’s spokesman told the Malay Mail. “This is a Muslim country.” (The story, headline, and photo were otherwise identical to the versions that appeared elsewhere in New York Times editions.) [Malay Mail (Kuala Lumpur, 1-22-2014]
The Entrepreneurial Spirit!
The convenience beverage market got jumbled recently when, first, Oregon-based Union Wine Company announced in November that it would soon sell its Underwood pinot gris and pinot noir in 8-oz. cans, and, second, the London department store Selfridges unveiled a champagne vending machine for New Year’s celebrations. (The French bottler Moet & Chandon offered bottles of bubbly behind glass doors for the equivalent of $29.) [The Oregonian, 11-25-2013] [Daily Telegraph, 11-15-2013]
Marketing Challenges: (1) “Does Germany really need a gourmet restaurant for dogs?” asked Berlin’s Bild newspaper. Regardless, the Pets Deli in the Grunewald neighborhood of Berlin offers servings for the equivalent of about $4-$6, either take-out or arranged in metal bowls on Pets Deli’s floor. Said owner David Spanier, lauding his upscale, healthful treats, reminded that, “Junk food is bad for animals.” (2) Around Tokyo, “idle boredom is an impossible option,” wrote Vice.com in December, as a reporter described a resort just out of town where one could swim in a pool of green tea, coffee, sake, or (the most popular treat) wine. “A giant bottle of merlot” spilled into a pond the size of a minivan, he wrote (while braving the Yunessun resort’s warnings not to drink from the pool). Though both-sex nudity is tolerated in Japan’s hot springs spas, Yunessun discourages it. [Agence France-Presse via Yahoo News, 1-3-2014] [Vice.com, 12-10-2013]
Weird Science
PREVIOUSLY: The Joy of Researching: A team of Czech Republic researchers led by Vlastimil Hart, writing in Frontiers in Zoology in December, reported that dogs (among a few mammals), dealing with a nature’s call, spontaneously align their body axis with the Earth’s magnetic field. To reach that conclusion, the researchers said they observed 70 dogs of 37 breeds during defecation (1,893 observations) and urination (5,582) over a two-year period. [Frontiers in Zoology, 12-27-2013]
If We Can Do It, We Should Do It: (1) ThinkGeek.com has introduced the Tactical Laser-Guided Pizza Cutter, at a suggested $29.95, for helping to achieve straight-line precision in those difficult four-cut (eight-slice) pizza formulations. (2) From the Japanese lingerie manufacturer Ravijour comes a bra whose front clasp can be locked unless its built-in heart-rate monitor signifies that the heartbeat is characteristic of “true love” (the “adrenal medulla” secreting “catecholamine”). (Ravijour said it is still testing the bra.) [Huffington Post, 12-3-2013] [New York Daily News, 1-27-2014]
The Kingdom
Man’s BFFs: (1) The Battersea Dog and Cats Home in Fulham, England, admitted in December that a rescued Staffordshire bull terrier, Barney, had a ladies’ underwear-eating habit and that potential adopters should keep him away from laundry baskets. (In his first three days at Battersea, officials say, he “passed” knickers three times.) (2) The Cairns (Australia) Veterinary Clinic warned in December of several reports of dogs becoming addicted to licking cane toads (which notoriously protect themselves by a venomous secretion that can be hallucinogenic). One vet told Brisbane’s Courier-Mail of individual “serial lickers” treated for cane toad poisoning several times a year. [Get West London (Uxbridge), 12-19-2013] [Courier-Mail, 12-16-2013]
PREVIOUSLY: Who Knew That Racoons Were Easily-Offended? The UK’s Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals condemned a Pet Expo in Greenhithe, England, in October after reports emerged that a trainer had showcased “Melanie,” a racoon who rides a bicycle-like device, apparently to great acclaim. An RSPCA statement denounced the Expo for “degrading” a “wild animal” in such a “demeaning light.” [KentOnline (Medway City Estate, England), 10-29-2013]
Leading Economic Indicators
Management Comes to the Terrorism Industry: (1) In November, the Army of Islam (Syrian rebels) announced, via a dazzling, full-function website, that it had job “vacancies” in the fields of graphic design, photography, printing, journalism, reporting, and media promotion and programming. The anti-Assad force already has a Facebook page featuring videos of alleged military victories. (2) Somalia’s coastal pirates, having peaked by 2012 in boat captures, may now be laying low only because of the familiar business problem of “inventory management.” A November analysis by Quartz (qz.com) showed the pirates with such a surplus of hijacked vessels (still with earnings potential) that they would likely wind those down before taking to the seas again. [BBC News, 11-6-2013] [Quartz, 11-11-2013]
Mumbai, India, has its share of Western-style financial advisors using computer programs familiar to Wall Street--but with the additional layering of “financial astrologers” who forecast successes and failures based on the alignment of the planets, among other indicators. According to a Business Week report in September, the Ganesha Speaks service (with inspiration by the elephant-headed Lord Ganesh, god of wisdom) claims 1,200 subscribers at the equivalent of about $80 a year. Said its founder, “Fund managers used to laugh at me.” During crises, he said, “I’m constantly crunching market and planetary data.” [Business Week, 10-3-2013]
A group of (legal) prostitutes in the Netherlands began a campaign in December to have their occupation officially termed so dangerous and physically challenging that they should be allowed (as soccer players are) to save in tax-free pension funds. They carry out “difficult physical work,” their lawyer said, and their careers are likewise short-lived--much better suited for the young. Furthermore, he pointed out, prostitutes are not able, post-career, to earn money coaching or by endorsements. [BBC News, 12-17-2013]
American health-care reformers routinely decry the inability of consumer-patients to compare prices of services to help drive down the costs. Two doctors, writing for the Journal of the American Medical Association in December, illuminated the problem by surveying 20 hospitals in the Philadelphia area. All fully disclosed the prices for parking in the hospital garage (and potential discounts were shown), but only three of the 20 would disclose their prices for routine electrocardiagrams ($137, $600, $1,200). [JAMA Internal Medicine, 12-2-2013]
Perspective
In ubiquitous public relations announcements around Pittsburgh, Pa., the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) proudly points to its 52,000-person workforce delivering high-quality care. However, when the government sought to collect payroll taxes on UPMC, the company claimed it owed nothing because not a single employee actually works for UPMC. All 52,000 are, technically, on the books of UPMC’s 40-plus subsidiaries, and a UPMC spokesman told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in October that he not only did not know which subsidiary the UPMC CEO worked for but which one he himself worked for. (He also said he did not know how many of the subsidiaries paid payroll taxes, but a UPMC attorney said its arrangement is “widely practiced throughout the business community”). [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10-22-2013, 11-11-2013]
Least Competent Criminals
Two 16-year-olds tried to pull off a street robbery at a housing complex in the Bernal Heights neighborhood of San Francisco in December, but one was arrested and the other is no longer with us. According to police, the victim cooperated fully with the two, but for some reason, one of the muggers fired his gun anyway. The bullet struck the victim (who was hospitalized but will survive), ricocheted off his face, and hit the shooter’s partner, who died at the scene. [SFGate.com, 12-27-2013]
Thanks This Week to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
Weirdnuz.M357, February 9, 2013
Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd
Lead Story
PREVIOUSLY ON WEIRD UNIVERSE: The International New York Times edition published in Kuala Lumpur on January 22nd carried a page-one story noting increased worldwide demand by meat processors for pigs raised in the fresh air rather than enclosed in pens--and illustrated by a photograph of a cluster of pigs feeding in an outdoor stall. However, the Malaysian printer (who had downloaded the digital pages and set them to paper) had added black boxes to cover just the faces of each pig in the photo. “If there is picture of nudes or [the] like, this we will cover [up],” a publisher’s spokesman told the Malay Mail. “This is a Muslim country.” (The story, headline, and photo were otherwise identical to the versions that appeared elsewhere in New York Times editions.) [Malay Mail (Kuala Lumpur, 1-22-2014]
The Entrepreneurial Spirit!
The convenience beverage market got jumbled recently when, first, Oregon-based Union Wine Company announced in November that it would soon sell its Underwood pinot gris and pinot noir in 8-oz. cans, and, second, the London department store Selfridges unveiled a champagne vending machine for New Year’s celebrations. (The French bottler Moet & Chandon offered bottles of bubbly behind glass doors for the equivalent of $29.) [The Oregonian, 11-25-2013] [Daily Telegraph, 11-15-2013]
Marketing Challenges: (1) “Does Germany really need a gourmet restaurant for dogs?” asked Berlin’s Bild newspaper. Regardless, the Pets Deli in the Grunewald neighborhood of Berlin offers servings for the equivalent of about $4-$6, either take-out or arranged in metal bowls on Pets Deli’s floor. Said owner David Spanier, lauding his upscale, healthful treats, reminded that, “Junk food is bad for animals.” (2) Around Tokyo, “idle boredom is an impossible option,” wrote Vice.com in December, as a reporter described a resort just out of town where one could swim in a pool of green tea, coffee, sake, or (the most popular treat) wine. “A giant bottle of merlot” spilled into a pond the size of a minivan, he wrote (while braving the Yunessun resort’s warnings not to drink from the pool). Though both-sex nudity is tolerated in Japan’s hot springs spas, Yunessun discourages it. [Agence France-Presse via Yahoo News, 1-3-2014] [Vice.com, 12-10-2013]
Weird Science
PREVIOUSLY: The Joy of Researching: A team of Czech Republic researchers led by Vlastimil Hart, writing in Frontiers in Zoology in December, reported that dogs (among a few mammals), dealing with a nature’s call, spontaneously align their body axis with the Earth’s magnetic field. To reach that conclusion, the researchers said they observed 70 dogs of 37 breeds during defecation (1,893 observations) and urination (5,582) over a two-year period. [Frontiers in Zoology, 12-27-2013]
If We Can Do It, We Should Do It: (1) ThinkGeek.com has introduced the Tactical Laser-Guided Pizza Cutter, at a suggested $29.95, for helping to achieve straight-line precision in those difficult four-cut (eight-slice) pizza formulations. (2) From the Japanese lingerie manufacturer Ravijour comes a bra whose front clasp can be locked unless its built-in heart-rate monitor signifies that the heartbeat is characteristic of “true love” (the “adrenal medulla” secreting “catecholamine”). (Ravijour said it is still testing the bra.) [Huffington Post, 12-3-2013] [New York Daily News, 1-27-2014]
The Kingdom
Man’s BFFs: (1) The Battersea Dog and Cats Home in Fulham, England, admitted in December that a rescued Staffordshire bull terrier, Barney, had a ladies’ underwear-eating habit and that potential adopters should keep him away from laundry baskets. (In his first three days at Battersea, officials say, he “passed” knickers three times.) (2) The Cairns (Australia) Veterinary Clinic warned in December of several reports of dogs becoming addicted to licking cane toads (which notoriously protect themselves by a venomous secretion that can be hallucinogenic). One vet told Brisbane’s Courier-Mail of individual “serial lickers” treated for cane toad poisoning several times a year. [Get West London (Uxbridge), 12-19-2013] [Courier-Mail, 12-16-2013]
PREVIOUSLY: Who Knew That Racoons Were Easily-Offended? The UK’s Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals condemned a Pet Expo in Greenhithe, England, in October after reports emerged that a trainer had showcased “Melanie,” a racoon who rides a bicycle-like device, apparently to great acclaim. An RSPCA statement denounced the Expo for “degrading” a “wild animal” in such a “demeaning light.” [KentOnline (Medway City Estate, England), 10-29-2013]
Leading Economic Indicators
Management Comes to the Terrorism Industry: (1) In November, the Army of Islam (Syrian rebels) announced, via a dazzling, full-function website, that it had job “vacancies” in the fields of graphic design, photography, printing, journalism, reporting, and media promotion and programming. The anti-Assad force already has a Facebook page featuring videos of alleged military victories. (2) Somalia’s coastal pirates, having peaked by 2012 in boat captures, may now be laying low only because of the familiar business problem of “inventory management.” A November analysis by Quartz (qz.com) showed the pirates with such a surplus of hijacked vessels (still with earnings potential) that they would likely wind those down before taking to the seas again. [BBC News, 11-6-2013] [Quartz, 11-11-2013]
Mumbai, India, has its share of Western-style financial advisors using computer programs familiar to Wall Street--but with the additional layering of “financial astrologers” who forecast successes and failures based on the alignment of the planets, among other indicators. According to a Business Week report in September, the Ganesha Speaks service (with inspiration by the elephant-headed Lord Ganesh, god of wisdom) claims 1,200 subscribers at the equivalent of about $80 a year. Said its founder, “Fund managers used to laugh at me.” During crises, he said, “I’m constantly crunching market and planetary data.” [Business Week, 10-3-2013]
A group of (legal) prostitutes in the Netherlands began a campaign in December to have their occupation officially termed so dangerous and physically challenging that they should be allowed (as soccer players are) to save in tax-free pension funds. They carry out “difficult physical work,” their lawyer said, and their careers are likewise short-lived--much better suited for the young. Furthermore, he pointed out, prostitutes are not able, post-career, to earn money coaching or by endorsements. [BBC News, 12-17-2013]
American health-care reformers routinely decry the inability of consumer-patients to compare prices of services to help drive down the costs. Two doctors, writing for the Journal of the American Medical Association in December, illuminated the problem by surveying 20 hospitals in the Philadelphia area. All fully disclosed the prices for parking in the hospital garage (and potential discounts were shown), but only three of the 20 would disclose their prices for routine electrocardiagrams ($137, $600, $1,200). [JAMA Internal Medicine, 12-2-2013]
Perspective
In ubiquitous public relations announcements around Pittsburgh, Pa., the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) proudly points to its 52,000-person workforce delivering high-quality care. However, when the government sought to collect payroll taxes on UPMC, the company claimed it owed nothing because not a single employee actually works for UPMC. All 52,000 are, technically, on the books of UPMC’s 40-plus subsidiaries, and a UPMC spokesman told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in October that he not only did not know which subsidiary the UPMC CEO worked for but which one he himself worked for. (He also said he did not know how many of the subsidiaries paid payroll taxes, but a UPMC attorney said its arrangement is “widely practiced throughout the business community”). [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10-22-2013, 11-11-2013]
Least Competent Criminals
Two 16-year-olds tried to pull off a street robbery at a housing complex in the Bernal Heights neighborhood of San Francisco in December, but one was arrested and the other is no longer with us. According to police, the victim cooperated fully with the two, but for some reason, one of the muggers fired his gun anyway. The bullet struck the victim (who was hospitalized but will survive), ricocheted off his face, and hit the shooter’s partner, who died at the scene. [SFGate.com, 12-27-2013]
Thanks This Week to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
Comments
Vend-o-Booze What's the vintage of the canned wine, Tuesday?
Marketing #1: Hairy got some meat Whatsername burnt this AM. Gourmet for sure! #2: Booze and nudity don't mix? Who'd'a thunkit?
Northward Go I watched Hairy do a complete 360º just ½ and hour ago and have observed that North, at least here in Greece, keeps moving around.
Dogs #1 Is Barney a reincarnated pervert? #2: Fun is where you find it! Critters can get just as hooked as people.
Somalia’s Pirates Aren't there still some spare yardarms around we could put to good use?
Mumbai Advisers Why not? The market makes little sense anyhow.
Dutch Treats I vote YES! These ladies should be venerated and given their just comings.
US Healthcare Reform If you don't start with tort law then there's no sense wasting time on anything else.
SF Crime Oh, that poor, misguided child! He'll be scarred for life and I think it only fair that the state take him under their wing to ensure that he is given the best possible psychiatric care so he'll have, at least, a chance, however slim, of a normal life.
Yea Chuck!
Marketing #1: Hairy got some meat Whatsername burnt this AM. Gourmet for sure! #2: Booze and nudity don't mix? Who'd'a thunkit?
Northward Go I watched Hairy do a complete 360º just ½ and hour ago and have observed that North, at least here in Greece, keeps moving around.
Dogs #1 Is Barney a reincarnated pervert? #2: Fun is where you find it! Critters can get just as hooked as people.
Somalia’s Pirates Aren't there still some spare yardarms around we could put to good use?
Mumbai Advisers Why not? The market makes little sense anyhow.
Dutch Treats I vote YES! These ladies should be venerated and given their just comings.
US Healthcare Reform If you don't start with tort law then there's no sense wasting time on anything else.
SF Crime Oh, that poor, misguided child! He'll be scarred for life and I think it only fair that the state take him under their wing to ensure that he is given the best possible psychiatric care so he'll have, at least, a chance, however slim, of a normal life.
Yea Chuck!
Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 02/09/14 at 10:34 AM
Canned wine- Some people won't even drink canned beer.
doggie deli- I have had dog owners come in and pay over a hundred dollars for pet meds, if they can afford it and want to do it that's their prerogative.
swimming in it- Blondes could go there and swim in the coffee to bump up their IQs.
north facing- I would not count on this if I was lost in the wilderness.
pizza cutter with lazer scope- That's a guy toy right there!
raccoon bicycle- Hey, some people won't even buy bikes for their children.
terror careers- Suicide bomber is a dead end job.
pirates- If they had a website would it be piratesoverstock.com?
financial astrologers- And they still are buying high priced dowsing rods as mine sweepers in Iraq. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/03/james-mccormicks-fake-bomb-detectors-still-used-in-iraq
retirement- If they legalize it they should expect to provide equal retirement opportunities as well.
hospital pricing- Price controls should have been the FIRST issue dealt with, but instead, once again we are just throwing money at the problem. Only now we are going to bankrupt the middle class if they get sick.
hidden employees- This is the type of crap hospitals pull on patients too. Its how they artificially inflate the bill, referrals.
ricochet- Instant justice, at least by half.
doggie deli- I have had dog owners come in and pay over a hundred dollars for pet meds, if they can afford it and want to do it that's their prerogative.
swimming in it- Blondes could go there and swim in the coffee to bump up their IQs.
north facing- I would not count on this if I was lost in the wilderness.
pizza cutter with lazer scope- That's a guy toy right there!
raccoon bicycle- Hey, some people won't even buy bikes for their children.
terror careers- Suicide bomber is a dead end job.
pirates- If they had a website would it be piratesoverstock.com?
financial astrologers- And they still are buying high priced dowsing rods as mine sweepers in Iraq. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/03/james-mccormicks-fake-bomb-detectors-still-used-in-iraq
retirement- If they legalize it they should expect to provide equal retirement opportunities as well.
hospital pricing- Price controls should have been the FIRST issue dealt with, but instead, once again we are just throwing money at the problem. Only now we are going to bankrupt the middle class if they get sick.
hidden employees- This is the type of crap hospitals pull on patients too. Its how they artificially inflate the bill, referrals.
ricochet- Instant justice, at least by half.
Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 02/09/14 at 11:19 AM
Ricochet: that's felony murder for both robbers. Too bad only one got the proper penalty.
Hospital pricing: I'm surprised that as many as three places disclosed their pricing. A surprising number of medical offices will quote a lower price for cash on the barrel head than for insurance; the justification is the cost of filing your claim for you. Of course, the price they bill to the insurance has no particular relation to the price the insurance will cover, so they still make more money with cash customers than with insured ones.
Hospital pricing: I'm surprised that as many as three places disclosed their pricing. A surprising number of medical offices will quote a lower price for cash on the barrel head than for insurance; the justification is the cost of filing your claim for you. Of course, the price they bill to the insurance has no particular relation to the price the insurance will cover, so they still make more money with cash customers than with insured ones.
Posted by TheCannyScot in Atlanta, GA on 02/09/14 at 05:02 PM
Hospital pricing - no one has developed a web site that allows people to enter what they paid for different procedures and what their insurance's negotiated rates are? Let the free market work. Get the Government out of our business.
Posted by RobK on 02/10/14 at 11:45 AM
Pizza cutter: that should be on ThinkNerd, not on ThinkGeek. A proper geek can work out the angles without needing a pseudo-cool toy.
Astrologers: no more unscientific than normal economists.
Prostitutes: I agree with them. And rather them than the over-paid bladder-kickers, who don't even need a pension fund.
Health-care: that's what you get when you let the Free (as in "feel free to die on the doorstep") Market take over something like that.
UPMC: ditto.
Astrologers: no more unscientific than normal economists.
Prostitutes: I agree with them. And rather them than the over-paid bladder-kickers, who don't even need a pension fund.
Health-care: that's what you get when you let the Free (as in "feel free to die on the doorstep") Market take over something like that.
UPMC: ditto.
Posted by Richard Bos on 02/11/14 at 09:00 AM
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