Random Thought Thursday, The Return

Let's kick off the new year with the return of Random Thought Thursday! I call this one Fox News Edition. Funny how you can peruse Google News, click on something, and get caught up in some odd news tidbits. I have not provided links because I am too lazy. I imagine you could check out Fox News if you're interested, or try the newly-admitted Obama-biased Mr. Google.

Let's go in order of how I read them, and my disappointments in the stories.

Officials: Ski Resort Shooter Killed Cat, Committed Suicide
OK, I'm an idiot, because I was actually thinking this was a story about the Aspen bomber who left Christmas presents at the banks, which turned out to be bombs. I thought maybe he killed his cat because he knew he was not going to be around to take care of it. But this was entirely different. Some nice, quiet dude with a dry sense of humor (as described by somebody who went to school with him) killed a ski resort worker. Then authorities put many shots into this 24-year-old, but the coroner says the shot that actually killed him was self-inflicted. Go figure. They found the cat when searching his apartment, but couldn't tell if it had been shot or stabbed, only that it was very bloody. Where's CSI when you need them?

Santa Gunman's Marriage Dissolved After Wife Discovered He Abandoned Brain-Damaged Son. I thought maybe this was their son, and the Santa guy left him in a freezing car or something. Turns out he had a son with another woman, apparently, and didn't tell the wife he later divorced and killed, and she got mad when she found out he was still counting the kid as a tax deduction. Which only goes to show you that taxation is a dangerous thing.

Conjoined Twin Dies on Christmas Day, Three Weeks After Sister. I call false advertising on this one. I pictured Chang and Eng, the Siamese twins from the old Guinness Book of Records, or perhaps Lori and Dory, the head-joined twins that used to be on the talk shows, or even the fictional conjoined twins from The Girls, by Lori Lansens, who made a pact that if one died, the other would take a pill and die, too. But no. This was about a 3-month-old who had been separated from her conjoined sister three months ago, and the first one died, and then this one died. Sad indeed, but not the gory tale I was looking for, as in the remaining one being hooked to the dead one for three weeks.

Miracle? Lifeless Mom Regains Pulse After Twins Born. Something is fishy here. I just skimmed it, and don't remember where it happened, but something doesn't add up. The twins were removed by cesarean section after the mother was assumed to have had a heart attack. That's what it said, that the mom complained of chest pain and not being able to breathe, and they had to get the babies out, and then, what do you know, she starts up heartbeating again, and says something. Which kind of makes me wonder if she was even under anesthesia, or if they tried CPR, or what kind of butchers were they, hacking her open because they thought she was dead? And apparently the dad of the twins is some pro wrestler.

Brutally Tortured Teen Tied to Tree Dies of Dehydration. Again, it's misleading. The kid has been dead for six months already. They just got the release of the autopsy, which is kind of slow, but maybe it was a fight to make the results public because of a juvenile. It's the 13-year-old who was tied to a tree and beaten as punishment. Something in the article made me think he was rescued once, but tied up again the next night, and then the mom found him in the afternoon, and he was unresponsive. At least the younger siblings were removed from the home. I'm all for tying up the parents for the same amount of time as the kid. There's no forgiveness in my heart for kid-killers. That's how I roll.

Teen Dies From Bird Flu. We're still safe...for now. It was a 16-year-old girl in a village in Egypt. Her family raised ducks for a living. One got sick, and the rest were slaughtered in their home. The ducks, not the family. This is some potent stuff if it can kill a 16-year-old. HH's chickens are not having any visitors from Egypt or Asia if I can help it.

Lesbian's 'Extreme' Gang Rape Investigated in California. Since all that death news was getting depressing, I decided to lighten up and check on this rape. Seems that a 28-year-old open lesbian got out of her car with a rainbow sticker on it, and was crossing the street when a dude ran up to her and told her he knew what she was doing and hit her with something and demanded that she take off her clothes right there, and he sexually assaulted her on the spot, and another guy joined him, but they heard someone coming, so forced her into her own car and took her to a burned-out building where someone else joined them and they assaulted her again. Sweet Gummi Mary! Whatever happened to dinner and a movie? The odd thing about this case is that officials were checking into whether this was a hate crime, because even though the first raper started saying things about lesbian activities, and the woman had a rainbow sticker on her car, they're not sure if this was a hate crime. Gimme a break! I think it is safe to say that it was a hate crime. And one of those officials said it might be related to that proposition thingy about gay marriage, because people think they are entitled to their actions after some controversy like that. Never mind that a woman has been raped in the middle of the street. Let's worry about all the other political ramifications of such and act. And call it an EXTREME gang rape. Because so many gang rapes are just run-of-the-mill, everyday gang rapes.

Teens Lost for Three Days After Trying to Sneak into Show: We Are Idiots. Not at all what I expected. I envisioned some 13-14 year olds trying to get in the back door of a Cineplex to see a movie entitled We Are Idiots, probably some R-rated movie like American Pie, and then they got lost in some alleys, and were afraid to call home, and stayed out for three days. But no. These were 19-year-old Australians trying to get into some Victorian music festival, which sounds like a big renaissance fair, and they got lost in the bush. They leaned foliage against a log for shelter. One of them said it was close and very cozy. The other said, "All night. I had my hands inside his little jumper to keep my hands warm." Sounds like maybe a little romantic interlude to me, not that there's anything wrong with that. The boys themselves proclaimed, "We are idiots," and thanked the police for their rescue. That's what's wrong with America. Our kids would have sued the police for not finding them sooner. Or kept it quiet, what with not wanting people to find out that they tried to sneak into a Victorian music festival.

Boy, 9, Recovers After Decapitation Separates Skull From Neck. Again, disappointing old news. It happened months ago, when the car his mom was driving was hit by a dump truck. No bloody decapitating went on. Sounds like his head was stretched right off his neck. His spinal cord was never severed. He had to wear a halo thingy cemented to a vest. He's fine now. Happy ending.

Second Person in World to Receive Face Transplant Dies. Not-so-happy ending. I thought this one was recent. Was there not just something in the news about the FIRST face transplant? This ain't it. This was some 32-year-old Chinese farmer who got his partial face transplant in 2006. He just got a new cheek, upper lip, nose, and eyebrow from a single male donor. Which reads kind of funny, single male donor, which makes you think that a married male donor could not get permission from his wife to donate his own facial features to a guy who needed a face transplant. Though I'm sure they meant 'single' as in ONE donor. And thank the Gummi Mary they did not give him features from a female donor, because that might have given this Chinese farmer gender identity issues. Oh, and they point out that the surgery was performed free of charge, so now everybody will be rushing to China for their face transplants, I suppose. It is unknown how he died, though some suspect it might have been because he quit taking his anti-facial-feature-rejection medicine. I am a bit skeptical, because the reason he needed the face transplant to begin with was this: Li lost almost the whole right side of his face in 2003 after a black bear mauled him when he tried to chase it away from his cows with a stick. Let that be a lesson for you as we start this new year. When it's your time, it's your time. Even though you might survive being mauled by a black bear after chasing it with a stick, you can still be taken down by your new face rejecting you.