Soosed News Patrol

Nokia phones may be equipped in the future with a feature that can warn users of lightning strikes:

"The invention involves the use of radio frequency receivers in mobile phones, such as FM radio and GSM (global system for mobile communications), to detect radio waves emitted by lightning."

I could swear I invented this same feature when I was five:

Is there thunder?
- If yes, are you outside?
- If yes: go inside. Remove metal hat.

"A special software program designed by Nokia analyzes the signals, calculates the distance to the lightning and informs users of imminent strikes."

I can see it now:

SMS FROM LTNG@NOKIA.COM

U shld tak 2 steps to da left! OMG!

Well, not really.

A couple in New York state have been arrested and charged with slavery!

What say you, Yahoo/AP?

"A millionaire couple accused of keeping two Indonesian women as slaves in their luxurious Long Island home and abusing them for years have been indicted on federal slavery charges."

That doesn't sound that bad...

"The women, prosecutors said, were subjected to beatings, had scalding water thrown on them and were forced to repeatedly climb stairs as punishment for perceived misdeeds. In one case, prosecutors said, one of the women was forced to eat 25 hot chili peppers at one time. "

Well...

If you ignore the brutal beatings, this just sounds like a bunch of friends daring each other to do crazy stuff!

"Oh Samirah I bet you can't eat a whole jar"
"Oh snap, Mahender, you're on"

In what has to be the most disappointing news all week, an Irish woman has been charged with murdering her daughter. The alleged murder took place in Co Kilkenny in Ireland (where else) in November 2006.

Disappointing not because of the arrest or pending trial, but because when I hear about murders in Kilkenny, I think of people getting killed in beer:

"A woman has been charged with the murder of her teenage daughter in Kilkenny last November."

Sounds like a beer-related murder to me.

Ireland, screwing us yet again.

In the latest "what the hell, they can do that!?" news, a shark from Nebraska's Henry Doorly Zoo gave birth. Without ever mating with another shark. What the hell:

"[T]he baby shark's DNA only matched up with it's mother's-there was no paternal DNA in the baby at all. The mother had become pregnant asexually, or without ever having sex."

This is just what the modern family needs.

Susie: Daddy, where do babies come from?
Daddy: Well, Susie, they appear in a mommie's tummy.
Mommy: They do not!
Daddy: GET OUT OF MY HOUSE, SHARK!

In other news, Hammerhead sharks disprove creation because if God designed these things then God must be a dumbass. Or a jerk.

These things are like the clowns of the sea. Except for clownfish, who literally are.

How many times can NASA discover the same thing? Apparently, a whole bunch.

So guess what? There is/was/could be/should be/might be/has/will be water on Mars!

Times Online is reporting that one of the mars rovers has found evidence of water:

"Analysis of a patch of soil that was churned up by the stuck wheel on the the Spirit rover has revealed it is composed of about 90 per cent pure silica — a mineral that would have required the presence of water to form."

AWESOME.

But wait, what's this from May 10th:

"NASA's Spirit rover has found evidence of past volcanic activity on the Martian Plateau known as 'Home Plate', which astronomers say, supports earlier findings indicating presence of water either at or beneath the planet's surface at some point of time."

WICKED.

Oh no, look, it's from May 2nd:

"Evidence from orbiting probes and US rovers says that millions of years ago Mars was covered with water -- and there could be substantial quantities of the stuff lurking as ice, just beneath the surface."

And that's just from the last three weeks.

It seems NASA really is the sleep-inducing boredom machine that we already knew it was. They truly, officially suck until they discover something other than water/ice/old rivers/lakes/oceans.

An Irish girl is now allowed to travel to the UK to get an abortion, Irish courts ruled.

This would not normally be allowed, but a poll sheds some light on the reasoning:

"Almost two-thirds of respondents to the Irish Independent poll said they supported abortion in cases where the foetus cannot survive outside the womb."

That's right, the baby was going to die anyway:

"She decided to get a termination after being told that her foetus had an abnormality and would not survive for more than three days after birth."

Let's review:

1. Girl, 17, pregnant


2. Abortion bad


3. Baby going to die


4. Abortion still bad


5. Poll conducted


6. Maybe 66% of people polled support abortion if baby will die anyway


7. Ireland still dumbest country on entire planet

I'm amazed people in Ireland learn how to cross roads. They probably had to get immigrants to build those roads, too.

A blog titled "the mindful mission" (shift key broken?) is reporting today that they are appalled at the differences between the two parties in the United States:

"As I have said for a long time, there is little difference between those that call themselves Democrats and those that call themselves Republicans, especially in terms of foreign policy and the current war in Iraq."

Wicked political commentary right there, folks.

It all started in relation to this article by CNN about how congressional Democrats are going to give President Bush more war funding, this time not tied to a withdrawal date for troops.

Who the hell reads CNN, anyway?

The problem here is that apparently the creative minds behind "the mindful mission" didn't read the whole article, especially the second paragraph:

"Earlier this month, Bush vetoed a war spending bill passed by the Democratically-controlled Congress that included a timetable for withdrawal. The president has insisted that he will not sign any bill that includes such a provision."

It's almost like the President has some sort of control on how different the Democrats get to be.

This "mindful mission" isn't so mindful after all. Really, I think it's mind-LESS. In fact, here is a large image to display my concern about their integrity:

Take that!

This is far too easy, but completely unavoidable. Who reads this article and doesn't think up that joke?

Senators in New Jersey are pushing for new laws that would provide research and care into an increasingly retarded ...er... autistic state.

Reports Yahoo/AP:

"The largest U.S. study of childhood autism found earlier this year that about 1 in 152 have the disorder, with the highest rate — 1 in 94 children — found in New Jersey."

This is good news, no doubt. Support for special needs individuals is clearly lacking.

"A recent study found less than 13 percent of people with autism in New Jersey attend day programs and 89 percent live at home."

In other news, I think I just figured out why you aren't legally allowed to pump your own gas in New Jersey. It all makes sense now.

A new study has found that muslims living in America are not all crazy terrorists. This, of course, counters the common misconception that they are.

Some fun facts from the study:

"While nearly 80 percent of U.S. Muslims say suicide bombings of civilians to defend Islam can not be justified, 13 percent say they can be, at least rarely."

Wait, 13 percent? That's a lot isn't it?

"Even so, U.S. Muslims are far less accepting of suicide attacks than Muslims in many other nations. In surveys Pew conducted last year, support in some Muslim countries exceeded 50 percent, while it was considered justifiable by about one in four Muslims in Britain and Spain, and one in three in France."

Really, these numbers just point out which country has the dumbest muslims. What kind of extremist admits this stuff over the phone. "Yeah, next week me and Ahmed are going to go rollerblading and murder some jews." I wouldn't say that.

Although, it's not like any of the surveyed had to give away their secret plans:

"The question did not specify where a suicide attack might occur, who might carry it out or what was meant by using a bombing to "defend Islam.""

In some "I can't believe this still exists" news, the lone gunman Kennedy assasination theory has been challenged by a new study.

So sayeth Yahoo/Reuters:

"Writing in the Annals of Applied Statistics, the researchers urged a reexamination of bullet fragments from the 1963 shooting in Dallas to confirm the number of bullets that struck Kennedy."

There better be a good reason for bringing this up again, geeks!

"If the assassination (bullet) fragments are derived from three or more separate bullets, then a second assassin is likely."

Ok, I guess?

"The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known unofficially as the Warren Commission, concluded in 1964 that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, fired three shots, one of which missed the president's car."

Right right, so commission in 1964 said two bullets hit him, now evidence suggests maybe it was more?

"But the latest report found that many bullets from the same batch used by Oswald had a similar composition."

That's not really surprising...

"Further, we found that one of the thirty bullets analyzed in our study also compositionally matched one of the fragments from the assassination,"

Neither is that...

"This finding means that the bullet fragments from the assassination that match could have come from three or more separate bullets."

I don't get it. So, because one of Lee Harvey Oswald's other bullets matches one of the bullets that hit Kennedy, it could be said that other bullets might have been fired? I'm missing the part where it says why that points to a second assassin, but to be honest, I stopped caring.