Saturday Strangeness from Around the World

I have decided to add a new feature to my blog. Theoretically, I think I'm strange (okay, not really, but it's the title of my blog, so I feel a certain need to prove that there is strangeness here), but the world around us is strange, indeed. So, I'm going to look through the week to find strange stories in the news and highlight them here. Here is what I found this week.

Man Reports His Missing Cocaine You can read the AP account from Wednesday, but the gist is that the stupid dude has been smuggling drugs across the Canadian border for a while, but they haven't had enough to arrest him. However, his latest exchange didn't go so well. He lost two blue backpacks containing 68 pounds of cocaine, and called the Feds and "asked if ICE could put out a news release saying that federal agents had seized the drugs. That way,...the organization he was working for would believe his statements that he hadn't stolen them." Instead, the authorities found the backpacks and arrested the guy. Try to plead "Not Guilty" now, crazy dude. I do love a good stupid criminal story.

Omnivores: The Next Protected Class? I found this one over at the International Herald Tribune, describing portions of Mumbai, India, where vegetarianism is almost its own cult. One vegetarian is quoted as saying "I'd have issues living next to a non-vegetarian person. The smell would be a problem, but it's more than that. A non-vegetarian person eats hot blood and it makes him hot blooded; he might not keep control of his emotions." The concern seems to be that as India partakes more and more in Western culture, that more people in India will eat meat, and the children of vegetarians could be corrupted. The story also talks about a lady that lives in one of these parts of the city, and the lengths she goes to to keep up the lie that she eats meat and egs. Some part of this feeling seems to be to try to keep Muslims out of Hindu residential areas. I understand religious zealotry, but this goes beyond that. This (and other stories I've seen from India) also seems to suggest that any shift toward Western ideals is going to be fought very hard there. So, to my Indian friends that eat meat -- keep using those canine teeth and don't let the vegetarians get you down!

Belgium Put on eBay This one cracks me up! A teacher posted the country on eBay, "offering free delivery, but pointing out that the country was coming secondhand and that potential buyers would have to take on over $300 billion in national debt." The funniest part, though, is that eBay "decided to pull the ad Tuesday after receiving a bid of $14 million." Ha! I suppose the teacher got what he was looking for -- some notice for his country and the crazy political turmoil they are currently in.

Legislating the 7-Year Itch From Berlin, we find this story of Gabriele Pauli, a politician from Bavaria, who suggests "that marriages [should] expire after seven years." If you really like your spouse, don't worry -- "After that time, couples should either agree to extend their marriage or it should be automatically dissolved." I have mixed feelings on this. It might reduce the divorce rate (though how many really make it to the 7-year point), but then I might have taken that way out. Seven was a bad year for us, but I'm glad now that I stuck it out. It's an odd suggestion, and I doubt it's the last time we'll hear of it.

I'll be looking for more stories for next week. I hope you enjoy hearing about zany stuff I find. I do enjoy looking for oddness in the news. It's more fun than reading only the regular depressing stuff.