Strange News of the Week: January 28, 2008

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And now, the interesting side of the news of the week.

First up, there is a buzz about the land concerning the new tax rebates. Now, this is all still pending, but here's where it stands at the moment.

Each household will receive up to $600, depending on income, with an additional $300 per child, up to a maximum of $1200 per family. The package is still going through congressional approval, but the treasury department hopes to have checks in the mail within a couple of months.

If the plan pans out, many Americans will be getting a tax break at right about the same time as their income taxes are due.

A strange arrest took place this past week in Clearwater, Florida. A 75 year old grandmother was taken into police custody at a McDonald's for refusing to pull forward at the drive-thru. She was charged with disorderly conduct, in refusing a police order to move her car.

Guess that's what happens when you come between a cop and his coffee.

Well, there's another scam floating around the internet. This one claims to be from Yahoo, and, like so many others, they want to give you money. The email says that YOU have been selected to receive a huge ton of cash from the world bank... yadda, yadda, yadda.

Just so everyone's aware, despite the letter's assurances and "security measures" to prove that it isn't a scam - it is.

Here's a tip: if the email doesn't come from or go back to the company it claims to represent, it might be a scam. If the email is filled with more spelling errors than President Bush's attempts at speech writing, it might be a scam. If it gives you a telephone number to call that doesn't go to the country where the company is based, it might be a scam. And - especially important - if an email tells you not to reveal this 'top secret' information to the public, it might be a scam.

Just a word of warning.

Our psychopath of the week is one Ms. Ann Marie Linscott. This innovative adulteress sought to hire an assassin - on Craigslist. She offered to pay $5,000 for a hit on the wife of a man she'd been having an affair with.

The ad was for a "silent assassin" to do a "freelance job" to "eradicate a female living in Oroville, California." Linscott then went on to provide a physical description and work address of the target.

At a close runner-up is Ms. China Arnold of Ohio. The 27 year old former mother stands accused of cooking her one month old baby to death in a microwave.

According to a statement China made, she was awakened by the baby's crying in the middle of the night, following a drinking binge. China admits that she was still drunk at the time when she changed the baby's diaper, and - she thought - microwaved a bottle for the baby.

Autopsy reports show that the child died from high-heat internal burns, yet the skin was undamaged in any way. The medical examiner concurs that a microwave is the most likely method such extensive damage can be achieved without any sign of external injury.

Jury selection for her trial is underway this week.

A spokesman for the National Security Council announced that a disabled spy satellite's orbit has fallen into decay, and it is now a threat to Earth.

We are assured, by the government that brought us the infamous Hurricane Katrina relief debacle, and the war in Iraq, that all the appropriate agencies are "looking into it".

The 10-ton spacecraft is estimated to be the size of a bus. An uncontrolled reentry could scatter metal debris, which does not combust well during reentry, across vast stretches of land area, along with hazardous chemicals.

By contrast, Skylab, an abandoned 78 ton space station, also was allowed to fall out of orbit in an uncontrolled reentry. The debris showered across the Indian Ocean and much of Australia's Outback. By pure luck alone, the damage from Skylab's reentry was minimal. Though this satellite is 1/8^th the mass, there is no telling, at this point, where it might land when if finally does return to Earth.

A direct hit in an urban area could be disastrous, to say the least. Yet, with numerous budget cuts and more restrictions than ever on space shuttle missions, NASA's hands are tied. There is no chance for a mission to repair the satellite, or even engineer some kind of controlled reentry.

Foreign governments have been notified of the potential threat.

Also in space news, astronomers have announced the discovery of a 'death star'. 1.4 Billion years ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a dormant Black Hole suddenly awakened. Its parent galaxy was beginning to merge with a neighbor, and the disruption stirred the sleeping giant to life.

Like all active Black Holes, this monster is once again feeding on helpless bits of matter, like stars and planets, and has begun emitting powerful polar beams.

The Death Star is so named because one of its beams of potent X-rays has struck the partner galaxy, and is punching a hole right through.

Another pop-culture reference cropped up in the world of science this week. A four-year-old photo taken by the Mars probes has suddenly re-emerged. In our continued search for new life, new civilizations, one man found the proverbial 'little green man'.

In a photograph making the rounds on the internet and other media, the image from Mars appears to show a small greenish humanoid walking down hill.

NASA assures us that the supposed alien is really just a rock, eroded by wind, that stands a mere 2" high. Predictably, the conspiracy nuts reply: "Of course NASA would say that."

Amazing technological breakthroughs have allowed us to send probes to Mars, and take so many of these wonderful pictures, showing us faces on the ground, walking stone-men, and bunny rabbits in the odd cloud.

Yet, a recent discovery in England may take us in the opposite direction, giving us new insight deeper within ourselves than every before. At least, in the greatest grey area of all, the least understood of all the body's organs - the brain.

Researchers from some of England's top universities are preparing to begin testing on a device that they believe will provide never before dreamed-of relief to sufferers of Alzheimer's Disease. Based on studies of mice brains exposed to a certain wavelength of light, their own creation, the 'cognitive helmet', may be able to stimulate human brain cells to regrow. This breakthrough - if functional - could go beyond the scope of merely slowing the decay of a person's mind, but actually reverse the damage, to some extent.

We'll be sure to keep an eye on this.

Also in England, it seems London has borrowed a page from the Americans, and freed the slaves. London police are cracking down on gangs that are confiscating children for use in Dickens-style urchin organizations.

Early reports indicate that more than 5,000 children may be enslaved in just such a fashion in London alone.

Spokesmen said that ever since England joined the European Union, organized criminal groups have been smuggling children across the channel.

And, finally, our strangest story of the week. On Sunday, an 81 year old man from Chili woke up at his own wake. He'd been discovered cold and not breathing by his family, who assumed he had passed on. Instead of calling a doctor, they called the funeral home. They were in for surprise, though, as, when they gathered to pay their last respects, the old man sat up in his coffin and asked for a drink of water.

Coincidentally enough, this is the very reason we have a tradition of holding wakes to begin with. A few hundred years ago, it was not all that uncommon for a person to be believed dead, yet not be quite gone yet. To keep from burying people alive, somebody way back when came up with the idea of laying bodies out for viewing, just in case they might wake up. Hence the name: 'wake'.

A related tradition, which has fallen into disuse, involved tying a string to the big toe of a corpse about to be interred, and the other end to a bell left on the surface. The idea was that if somebody woke up six feet under, they could ring the bell and summon aid. This is actually where we get the term 'dead ringer'.

The practice fell into disuse following the widespread institution of embalming. There really isn't any waking up once your blood has been replaced with formaldehyde.