What I see on the news page

Today I really didn't have enough for a full fledged Lotsa Little Bits post, unless I throw in some "Damn weather, stinkin' snow" and some "guess what the engineer messed up at work today".  Yesterday I was not in my right intestines and only a bit better today, but I did see some things I found amusing or interesting on the news.

First, how about the lady in Salinas, Kansas, who was taking a pee break at the Shrine circus, opened the ladies room door and came face to face with an escaped tiger.  The cat was caught soon after, the lady's three year old asked if the tiger had washed its hands when done, and no word on whether she still needed to pee afterwards.  I don't think I would, though a change of underwear would sure be refreshing...

Next up, let's suppose you are a stalker, hiding in your intended's carport.  She comes out, you tackle her, grab her keys, try to get in her house.  She goes running down the street calling for help.  You catch up and tackle her.  Suddenly you look up to see a Mormon Bishop wielding a 29-inch Samurai sword and telling you to get down.  What do you do?  Well, Mill Creek, Utah's Grant Eggersten took off running, made it to his car before losing any important parts, and lit out.  Moments later, though, visions of sword-wielding LDS missionaries with the Book of Mormon in one hand and Katana blades in the other coming to his door proved too much, and he surrendered himself at the local police station.  Now mind you, several neighbors came out to assist the beleaguered woman-  it's just that Bishop Kent Hendrix came armed.

"No reason to get excited,"
The thief, he kindly spoke
"There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we've been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late"
Oops, wrong Hendrix.

Next up, I was perusing an article from the science pages wherein a researcher from the Univ. of Adelaide (that's Australia to you ugly Americans) postulates that the hunter-gatherer population of ancient Europe underwent a sudden, unexplained replacement by farmers with different DNA.  Here's the part that caught my eye:

The researchers found that the earliest farmers in Germany were closely related to Near Eastern and Anatolian people, suggesting that the agricultural revolution did indeed bring migrations of people into Europe who replaced early hunter-gatherers.
But that initial influx isn't a major part of Europe's genetic heritage today.
Instead, about 5,000 to 4,000 years ago, the genetic profile changes radically, suggesting that some mysterious event led to a huge turnover in the population that made up Europe.


Now I don't pretend to be some high-tech, free-thinking scientist, but I find it interesting that most Biblically minded scholars would say, "Hmmm... that would be about the time we calculate for Noah's Flood."  In fact if you bop around the Googlenet, you'll find estimates from 4990 to 4285 BC, which isn't all that far off, depending on the gap between the first population and the second.  Just sayin'.

Finally, we have our last three European Hockey champions.  Former NHL star Martin Straka scored 16 minutes into OT to give Plzen a 4-3 win and a 4-3 series triumph over Zlin and the Czech championship.  This was the very first championship for Plzen, best known for giving the world one of its greatest gifts- Pilsener beer, invented here in October 1842.  Cheers!  Or as they say in Plzen, Na Zdravi!

Also Sunday, I learned that the German final was also best of five, so that 4-1 Berlin lead, which became a 4-1 win, gave the Ice Bears their seventh DEL championship and third in a row.

And today, Assat  knocked off Tappara 3-2 to take the Finland championship.  Assat, which is Finnish for Aces ( and something else here with a little imagination) are from the town of Pori, best known for an annual jazz festival- and a bit less known for a "jazzcore" band from the city called Deep Turtle.  (I just listened to a little of these guys- imagine your kid is on one floor of your house with hardcore metal playing as loud as he dares, the cat is on the next floor screaming to be let out of the clothes dryer, and your on the stairs midway between- that would about cover it.)  This is Assat's third S-M Liiga title.