Martin World News

ITEM:  Before the fun begins, a hockey update:  6th-place Hull beat my Sheffield team in the UK championship... my SonderjyskE topped KC's Esbjerg four games to one in the Danish championship;  My Stavanger team beat Storhamer 4-2 yesterday to take the Norwegian crown; and Trinec and Jyvaskyla remain alive for me in the Czech Republic and Finland, respectively, with Trinec winning in a shootout today to stay alive, down 3 games to 2 in their final.   And SKA St. Petersburg won the Russian title today, beating Kazan 4 games to one with a 6-1 win this morning.  (Timing is relative, I typed this Sunday night.)

ITEM:  A Houston man got his vanity plate rejected by the Texican BMV.  Why?


The Texas Department of Motor Vehicles is revoking the personalized license plate issued to a Houston man, because it has now been deemed offensive.

“I had it for more than three years without any problem,” Safer Hassan said.

Hassan recently received an official letter from the state that said his Texas plate, “370H55V,” would be canceled within 30 days.


Texas House lawmakers give preliminary approval to open...
“People have no idea what that plate means. My closest friends don’t even know,” Hassan said.

It is when the license plate is turned upside down that a curse word becomes more evident.

So really Texas, you shouldn't have a problem unless he mounts it upside down, correct?


ITEM:  You REALLY need to know what a Hillary Clinton Presidency will be like???

Kinda like this:

Due to an error in her years-in-the-making presidential announcement, Hillary Clinton’s campaign said Sunday that she has “fought children and families all her career.”

What the campaign meant to say of course is that she’s fought for children and families.


My response?  WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?  This is, after all,  the woman who seems to call education a "non-family enterprise"?

ITEM:  Who's most religious?  Check it out:

New research this Easter shows that worldwide six out of ten (63%) citizens say they are religious, while one in five (22%) say they are not and one in ten (11%) consider themselves convinced atheists. In Africa and the Middle East more than 8 out of 10 people (86% and 82% respectively) portray themselves as religious while 7 out of 10 say so in Eastern Europe and America  (71% and 66% respectively) and 6 out of 10 (62%) in Asia, say they are.

WIN/Gallup International, the world’s leading association in market research and polling, has today published its latest data exploring the religious beliefs of 63,898 people from 65 countries across the globe.

Out of the top ten most religious, 6 are mostly Christian (Armenia and Georgia 93%, Fiji 92, South Africa 91, Kenya 89 and Macedonia 88), one is Buddhist (#1 Thailand, 94), and three are Muslim (Bangladesh and Morocco 93 and Algeria 90).  56% for the US of A, and a shocking 70% of Russians (shocking if you're the type to believe that an atheist government can completely replace faith with secular humanism).

The least religious include five supposedly Christian nations (Sweden 19%, Czech Rep. 23, Netherlands 26, the UK 30, and Germany 34), 4 are oriental (#1 China at 7, Japan 13, Hong Kong and Vietnam 26 ) and then there is Israel, of all places, at 30% (God's blinding of His people is pretty effective, given all the proofs they've had then and now).


Western Europe (51%) and Oceania (49%) are the only regions where approximately half of the population are either not religious or convinced atheist.  The least religious country was found to be China where 61% of people claim to be convinced atheists, approximately twice as many as any other country and 29% say that they are not religious compared to just 7% who are religious. The number of people claiming to be atheists was next highest in Hong Kong and Japan following China with 34% and 31% respectively claiming to be so. The Swedish prove to be the least religious in the Western World with 78% saying they are either not religious or convinced atheists.
In Israel, 65% of those asked said that they are either not religious or convinced atheists compared to just 30% who say that they are religious.  Meanwhile in the Palestinian Territories (West Bank and Gaza) the population is considerably more religious with 75% saying that they are religious compared to 18% who say that they are not religious. (Well, what a surprise, the place where politics and supposed religion go most hand in hand.)


ITEM:  Next, the animal chronicles:

First, how to deal with drones:

ARNHEM, Netherlands (AP) — Beware! Chimp Tushi at the Dutch Burgers' Zoo is a real drone-buster.

When the zoo sent a drone over the chimpanzee enclosure for a better look at how their 14 apes live, the response was swift.

With the unfamiliar intruder coming close to them, 23-year-old female Tushi waited in a tree, gritted her teeth and with two whacks from a long branch, downed the drone. No sweat.

Zoo spokesman Bas Lukkenaar said on Tuesday that "we can write the drone off. It cost about 2,000 euros ($2,100). Then again, it doesn't surprise that Tushi did this. She is very handy with sticks."


Second, beware of armored creatures:

Authorities say a south Georgia man shot an armadillo, but ended up accidentally wounding his mother-in-law when the bullet ricocheted off the mammal known for its hard shell.


Lee County Sheriff's deputies tell WALB-TV that 54-year-old Larry McElroy fired his 9 mm pistol at the armadillo Sunday night.


Deputies say the bullet killed the armadillo, but bounced off the animal, hit a fence, traveled through the back door of the mother-in-law's mobile home and the recliner in which she was sitting, striking her in the back.

McElroy's 74-year-old mother-in-law, Carol Johnson, suffered injuries described as non-life-threatening. Lee County sheriff's investigator Bill Smith said she was walking around and talking afterward.

Lee County Sherriff's deputies say McElroy was about 100 yards away from the home when he shot the armadillo.


I'm not sure which part is more of a head-scratcher:  that he "accidentally" got M-I-L, or that we has 100 yards away from the armadillo when he shot.


Finally, the Arizona llamas have started a trend:  Three zebras escaped from an owner in, of all places, Brussels, Belgium.

Bernard Luyckx, a friend of the zebras' owner, said the animals were apparently upset by the sale of some of their stable-mates.
"Some of the horses got sold and the other zebras got mad and trampled the gates and fled into the streets. Luckily there were no injuries, nobody got hurt, the zebras too."


Oh, wait, one more- everybody needs that morning coffee:

UNIONTOWN, Pa., April 17 (UPI) -- Pennsylvania State Police said a woman who crashed her car told investigators she was distracted by her coffee-craving parrot's attempts to get into her cup.
Angel Holyfield, 35, who crashed her car into a guard rail about 4:52 p.m. Tuesday in South Union Township, told police she was distracted when her pet parrot pecked at the lid of her cup in an attempt to reach the coveted coffee inside.

Police said there was bird feed in the cup holder next to the coffee cup and bird feathers were scattered through the vehicle.


The parrot, the article said, was safely rescued from the vehicle.



ITEM:  My favorite story of the day:


MELBOURNE, Fla., April 16 (UPI) -- Authorities in Florida said a man on synthetic drug flakka ran nude, claimed to be the Norse god Thor, attempted a sex act on a tree and fought with police.
Melbourne police said Kenneth Crowder, 41, is believed to have been high on flakka, a synthetic drug rising in popularity in Florida, when was spotted running nude through a neighborhood Friday.

Witnesses told police Crowder shouted that he was a god while running nude through a neighborhood and committed a sex act on a tree.

Police said Crowder was wearing jeans and a T-shirt when he was confronted in the area by a Melbourne officer and the suspect allegedly acted aggressive toward the officer and identified himself as "God."

Crowder was shocked twice with the officer's Taser, but he pulled the probes out of his body and attempted to fight with the officer, police said.

Police said Crowder shouted that he was the Norse god Thor -- also known as a Marvel Comics character portrayed in the company's films by Chris Hemsworth -- and attempted to stab the officer with his own badge.

More officers arrived and were able to subdue Crowder, police said.

Crowder was arrested on charges of battery on a law enforcement officer, resisting with violence and assault with a deadly weapon on a law enforcement officer.


(If you only knew how hard I looked for a pic of Thor with Yggdrasil to put a come-on caption with...)


ITEM: Category- stupidest traditions/Runner up to Spanish Christmas pooping ornaments:


ZURICH, Switzerland, April 14 (UPI) -- The city of Zurich, Switzerland, celebrated winter's end with a traditional burning snowman -- but the slow explosion of the head forecasts a cold summer.
The traditional Sechselauten ceremony in Zurich featured the Boeoegg, a "snowman" actually made of fabric stuffed with explosives, being set aflame atop a large pyre Monday, and residents timed the blaze to see how long it took the effigy's head to explode.

Local tradition holds it will be a warm and sunny summer if the snowman's head explodes within 12 minutes, but Monday's Boeoegg took 20 minutes and 39 seconds to blow its top, leading some to forecast a cold and gray season.

The Boeoegg's weather forecasting abilities appear to be about on par with the U.S. groundhog tradition, as last year's snowman lost its head after only 7 minutes and 23 seconds, but the summer turned out to be cold and rainy.

Apparently, Boeoegg (or Boogg) works out to mean Boogy (as in boogey man... although if you ask Google Translate, it will tell you it is Afrikaans and not German).

ITEM:  Category- things that hopefully not become traditions:


Jon Newport, an employee at Baby's All Right taco bar, decided to promote his restaurant with pal Ben Wilkes by donning the comical suit (as a human taco) and placard and riding around Brooklyn, New York.

But as he careered down a ramp with his placard in hand, Jon appeared to lose complete control of the skateboard and went skidding into a busy main road.
Unable to stop, Jon is seen on video as he smashes into the side of a moving car and falls off his skateboard.

Amazingly, Jon walked away with just a scratch on his hand, although his skateboard was broken.

Jon admitted that he'd been under the influence of alcohol at the time of the incident, telling Animal New York: "I would not have put that suit on if I had not been drinking.

"I pre-gamed [drank] for three hours."

Seconds later, he "attaches" to the car and disappears behind the fence.

ITEM:  Mom told you not to play with your food.  But...

ASKIM, Norway, April 15 (UPI) -- A pair of Swedish brothers strapped a pastry and a video camera to a weather balloon in Norway to chronicle the journey of the "first donut in space."
Alexander and Benjamin Jonsson, who hail from Lysekil, near the Norwegian border, said the doughnut made it nearly 20 miles above the surface of the earth to become the first of its kind "in space" -- although "near space" might be more accurate, as NASA and FAI, the World Air Sports Federation, say space doesn't actually start until 62 miles above the surface.

"We like to do odd things and this felt very different," Alexander Jonsson told Swedish public radio P4 Vast. "It was really fun to watch the video for the first time. We could see the doughnut hovering above the earth"

The brothers said they launched from Askim, Norway, rather than Sweden to avoid the cost of flying permits.

"In Sweden it would have cost 11,000 Swedish kroner [$1,245], but it was free in Norway," Benjamin Jonsson told the Bohuslanningen newspaper. 

My screen grab of the donut sailing above the earth.

ITEM:  Finally, a bit I keep forgetting.  I get this daily e-mail from 100 Years Ago Today ever since I did the WWI posts, and the other day I got a note that tells us all that "military intelligence" means the same today as it did then....


Western Front: British General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien has now been presented with so much evidence of German plans to use asphyxiating gas as soon as the wind direction is right that he confides to his diary: "The details given are so voluminous and exact that I am sure they are untrue" . [Burg & Purcell].


And the sky is, in fact, a lovely green.  See you next time!