[URL="http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/allergic-meat-lone-star-tick-spreading-vegetarianism/story?id=16610228"]Lone Star Tick Eyed in Meat Allergies[/URL][QUOTE]A bite from the lone star tick, so-called for the white spot on its back, looks innocent enough. But University of Virginia researchers say saliva that sneaks into the tiny wound may trigger an allergic reaction to meat -- agonizing enough to convert lifelong carnivores into wary vegetarians.

"People will eat beef and then anywhere from three to six hours later start having a reaction; anything from hives to full-blown anaphylactic shock," said Dr. Scott Commins, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. "And most people want to avoid having the reaction, so they try to stay away from the food that triggers it."

Commins said cases of the bizarre allergy are popping up along the East Coast and into the Bible Belt, areas ripe with lone star ticks. He's already seen 400 or so. And 90 percent of them have a history of tick bites, he said.[/QUOTE]

[URL="http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/tennessee-man-charged-85-000-tank-gas-183952664.html"]Tennessee man charged $85,000 for a tank of gas[/URL]

[QUOTE]"I stopped here because they had the cheapest gas at the time," Crockett told the station. But that's not what his bank statement showed. "$84,522.54 to be exact," Crockett said.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE]Crockett says he made the discovery when he attempted to use the card to buy lunch, and the card was denied. When he checked his balance, his statement claimed he was more than $84,000 overdrawn.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE]And it appears that Crockett may not be alone. Nikki Johnson, another customer at the same gas station, put $22.47 on her credit card for coffee and gas. Simple enough, right? Johnson checked her bank statement to find she had been charged $58,278.35 for the transaction.[/QUOTE]

C'mon people, let's step up our weird news game, or maybe give me a better place to go for this stuff.

And don't say The Onion News Network, I want ACTUAL weird news, plus I'm already subscribed to their Youtube stuff.

[QUOTE=jasong;304968]C'mon people, let's step up our weird news game, or maybe give me a better place to go for this stuff.

And don't say The Onion News Network, I want ACTUAL weird news, plus I'm already subscribed to their Youtube stuff.[/QUOTE]Well I think I am up to the task of helping you out.

I was planning to post this anyway: [URL="http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/07/necomimi-brainwave-cat-ears/"]Become Your Own LOLcat With Brainwave-Controlled Kitty Ears[/URL]

These aren't new news but still are ok: [URL="http://www.livescience.com/7903-dead-salmon-responds-pictures-people.html"]Dead Salmon 'Responds' to Pictures of People[/URL], [URL="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/microsoft/9346371/Nigerian-scam-emails-deliberately-implausible.html"]Nigerian scam emails 'deliberately implausible'[/URL], [URL="http://www.scotsman.com/news/odd/loch-ness-monster-cited-by-us-schools-as-evidence-that-evolution-is-myth-1-2373903"]Loch Ness monster cited by US schools as evidence that evolution is myth[/URL], [URL="http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/328328"]World's heaviest woman sheds 98 lbs with seven-times-a-day sex[/URL].

And to get an entertaining or nerdy fix when this thread is slow, I offer these: [URL="http://slashdot.org/stories"]slashdot.org/stories[/URL], [URL="http://news.google.com/news/section?pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&csid=7330f708dceab226&ict=ln"]WTF news.google.com[/URL], [URL="http://leasthelpful.com/"]Daily Dispatches from the Internet's Worst Reviewers[/URL]

For more serious nerdy news (much like slashdot used to be) there is this: [URL="http://news.ycombinator.com/"] Hacker News[/URL]

[URL="http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2012/07/18/how-this-guy-lied-his-way-into-msnbc-abc-news-the-new-york-times-and-more/"]How This Guy Lied His Way Into MSNBC, ABC News, The New York Times and More[/URL][QUOTE]He is not an expert in barefoot running, investing, vinyl records, or insomnia. But he is a liar. With a little creative use of the internet, he’s been quoted in news sources from small blogs to the most reputable outlets in the country talking about all of those things.[/QUOTE][QUOTE]he shot out story after story to dozens of news sources. Throughout the experiment, he says he received a single fact checking email — the site sent an email to the same address he had used for the pitch, asking if he was indeed Ryan Holiday. He said yes.[/QUOTE]

[URL]http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20120728/NEWS/120729878/[/URL]

[quote]Checkpoints are the [U]cost of flying safely[/U] and are here to stay, says chief of TSA[/quote](Emphasis added)
[quote]The inconveniences and hassles associated with air travel these days — removing shoes and liquids at airport security checkpoints, for example — are here to stay, John Pistole, chief of the Transportation Security Administration, said Friday.

Pistole, appearing at the Aspen Security Forum in a one-on-one interview with ABC “Nightline” co-anchor Terry Moran, spent more than an hour explaining the TSA's missions and vulnerabilities before a packed audience at the Aspen Meadows' Doerr-Hosier Center.

“Clearly we've had success in not having a repeat of 9/11,” Pistole said, noting that, “We can't go back to the pre-9/11 days.”[/quote]

Way to take credit for the CIA and armed forces intelligence work, while at the same time endorsing a police-state government. This is absolute bullshit.

[URL]http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin[/URL]
A direct quote: "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

I spit at your feet, John Pistole. You are a disgrace against all that America stands for. You treat American citizens no better than the convicted felons in our maximum security prisons. What happened to "innocent until proven guilty"? Who are we to act [I]terrorized[/I] by terrorists? You have granted them victory Mr. Pistole, by rolling over and barking at shadows. The TSA has done exactly one thing right, and that's [URL="http://overheadbin.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/07/31/13050994-authorities-tsa-agents-rescued-kidnapped-woman-at-miami-airport?lite"]stopping a kidnapping[/URL] (hats off to those alert agents; it seems that most TSA agents are zombies to follow [URL="http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2012/07/28/tsa-amtrak-police-hassle-journalist-recording-their-activities/"]imaginary rules[/URL]). And exactly how many terrorists have you caught? I'm sorry, did you say [I]zero[/I]? Is there anything you have done that a well trained police officer could not have done? NO!! Even the kidnapping interruption required no special scanners or government-sanction RAPE.

So I say it again: I spit at your feet, John Pistole. You are a disgrace against all that America stands for. You are not an American citizen in my book.

Edit: To be clear, I do not advocate removing all security measures. I hate most the so-called "enhanced pat downs", which I already equated to government sanctioned rape. I also dislike the so-called "nude body scanners". They are as much a violation of privacy as the pat downs (though obviously the prison sentence is slightly less than actual sexual contact). Those two are the primary targets of my anger, though as the article mentioned, it would be nice if our security were brought down to international standards.

[SIZE=1]I'm curious, am I alone in my thoughts?[/SIZE]

[SUP][SUP][SUP][SUP][SUP][SUP][SUP][SUP][COLOR=white]Edit the expletives if you must... but I don't think I'll regret this one.[/COLOR][/SUP][/SUP][/SUP][/SUP][/SUP][/SUP][/SUP][/SUP]

EDIT: This is in the wrong thread. "WTF" is the thread you wanted.

[quote]Are you slowly...[/quote]
I should hope not.

The strength of my feelings on this issue wax and wane. I guess I was caught off guard by the... arrogance? of what Pistole said, and that kinda spiked my emotions...

(And, FWIW, I wouldn't call it wacky news, though I definitely did go "WTF?")

You are not alone. (Even though, surprizingly late to the party! I remember huge protests two years and a year ago.)

I disagree with that John Pistole is against all that America stands for. More likely the opposite! Why did you single him out? There are tens (hundreds?) of thousands of officials whom you can swap with him and they will say (and probably do) the same. The beaurocrats are all alike. None of them will make a step back (when it could cost them their position) instead of comfortably leaving all as is or even inching the draconian security up (where they will get only rewarded, and because "see! it's obviously working!"). The ratchet effect in action.

...yeah. Like I said, I was on a... roll.

The most prominent memory that comes to my mind is [URL="http://articles.cnn.com/2012-04-18/travel/travel_oregon-airport-naked-protest_1_airport-screeners-tsa-oregon-airport"]this guy[/URL].

"At one point, he said, air traffic controllers in Minsk tried to communicate with the two pilots in Russian, but neither could understand what they were saying."

That reminds me a small inside joke from the Sopranos:
[QUOTE="Sopranos, Season 1"] Uncle Junior: (Did you hear this one) about the Chinese godfather? He made them an offer they couldn't understand.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=ewmayer;306761]Getting back to the WTF? of the more-benignly wacky variety (though it involves a genuine wacko and a truly Stalinist police state):

[url=www.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/world/europe/in-belarus-a-teddy-bear-airdrop-vexes-lukashenko.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=world]Teddy Bears Fall From Sky, and Heads Roll in Minsk[/url][/QUOTE]I had a moment of deja vu when I heard that news report on the radio. Anyone else here remember a certain Mathias Rust?