Coffee and Provocation

• A Movie I Have Never Seen Turns 30:
  Caddyshack, a movie about a war between a greens keeper and a gopher, was released on July 25th, 1980. A gopher is not a groundhog.
  
  
• American Bubonic Plague Depends on Flesh-Eating Mice:
  As regular readers of the blog know, the Black Plague originated with fleas on
  Tarvags, and swept through Europe as those fleas (and the microbe Yersinia pestis in their gut) rode the back of Black Rats. The Black Rat was nearly wiped out by the Norwegian Rat, ending the Plague in Europe and most of the world, but an illegal alien from China (a stow-away) brought the Plague to America around 1900, and from San Francisco it rode the train east into Prairie Dog towns where it resides to this day. When Prairie Dog towns are wiped out by Plague, however, the disease should disappear as well. But often it does not. Scientists have just figured out why; the black rat flea is moving over to the Grasshopper Mouse, a desert inhabitant that is notable for eating flesh. It seems when a Prairie Dog dies of Plague, the Grasshopper Mouse will eat the carcass, and the infected fleas will hop aboard the mouse. The mouse then travels to another territory and spreads the plague which otherwise would have been isolated and died out.
  
  
• Eva Mendes Sex Tape:
  The best sex tape ever.
  
  
• The State of American Magazines and Newspapers:
  Newsweek was recently sold for $1 to a 91-year old man who also assumed its debts.
  
  
• Goodbye Hector, the 100 Year-Old Algerian Condor:
  Hector, the world's oldest Andean condor, has passed away in Algeria. He was 100 years old, and was brought to the Algerian Zoo from South America by Joseph D'Angelo, a Frenchman.
  
  
• Mass Produced Giant Pandas?
  China is mass-producing one of the world's most endangered species at the Giant Panda Breeding And Research Centre in Chengdu, Western China. Or so says the title to this news article. Read the story, however, and you find out how many Giant Panda babies have really been born so far this year.... one.
  
  
• North Korea Does What I Predicted:
  The coach for the North Korean soccer team has been banished to a life of hard labor as a construction worker, because the team failed in their "ideological struggle" to succeed at the World Cup in South Africa.
  
  
• American Idol Star to Host Hunting Show:
  American Idol contestant Kristy Lee Cook, age 26, has decided to seek fame and glory by hosting her own hunting show. The show, to be called "Goin' Country," will show her heading across the nation looking for a recording contract while, in between, she hunts up a storm. Her first video (2008) had her singing in bed, in a wet T-shirt, in lingerie, and in front of the Confederate flag. Pretty obvious pandering and unnecessary as she can clearly sing. A more recent song is called "15 Minutes of Shame" and is a little better, but she clearly needs a sensible someone to do her videos. Call me Kristy -- I know people!
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