Ever get a delivery when you weren't expecting anything? You open the package not quite knowing what to expect but wondering who sent whatever it is to you.
And part of a human head is in the box.
CASCADE TOWNSHIP, Mich. - Two packages containing human body parts — including a liver and part of a head — meant for a medical research lab instead were delivered to a home.
The body parts, sent from China, were mistakenly dropped off Thursday at Franck and Ludivine Larmande's home by a DHL express driver who believed the bubble-wrapped items were pieces to a table.
"My husband started to unwrap one and said, 'This is strange, it looks like a liver,'" Ludivine Larmande said. "He started the second one, but stopped as soon as we saw the ear.
"Something wasn't right. It was scary, and I'm glad I didn't open them."
It gets better. There were other packages in other states and at least two packages broke open, scattering bits of human tissue here and there. Ever try to get across the US border with a plant? They'll - quite rightfully - get very cross with you. But Chinese body parts are legal to ship?
Anyone else get the feeling there is something wrong here?
The US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, pens an op-ed in today's Washington Post describing the oil revenue sharing law that the Iraqi government reached. He says it is a big step toward national reconciliation in Iraq.
Resolving concerns about control of oil is central to overcoming internal divisions in Iraq. The country has the third-largest oil reserves in the world, and more than 90 percent of federal income comes from oil revenue. The effective and equitable management of these resources is critical to economic growth as well as to developing a greater sense of shared purpose among Iraqi communities.
The goal of Iraq's leaders was to draft a law that ensured that all Iraqis could be confident they would receive their fair share of the benefits of developing the country's resources, that the revenue from oil and gas would enable a decentralization of power while maintaining national unity, and that Iraq would adopt the best international practices for the development and management of its mineral wealth. By these standards, the hydrocarbon law is a great success.
Political and economic progress is important to helping stabilize Iraq. Things like this are why we can't simply give up and walk away.
Austrian officials are trying to cover up the real dangers of the Animal Uprising™ and have managed to coerce a phony confession from a man to avoid telling the population the ugly truth. The carcass of a three foot long shark was found on the banks of the river Voeckla earlier this week and they are in full coverup mode.
A mystery triggered this week by the bizarre discovery of the carcass of a 3-foot-long shark in a freshwater river in northern Austria ended Saturday when a man confessed he had put it there as a joke.
The prankster, an apprentice chef working at a hotel in the province of Upper Austria, told the newspaper Oesterreich that he put the dead shark in the river Voeckla after it began to smell while he was thawing it out for a buffet.
Sure, get some fall guy to "confess" and pretend it was a joke. When the swimming season begins and people begin disappearing, eaten by freshwater sharks, how will they hide the facts? Austrians! Rise up and demand a full investigation into the coverup!
The New York Post is bashing the New York City Health Department for spending their time (and money) going after imaginary threats like trans fats while allowing the city to go to the rats. We suspect someone at the Post reads the Crabitat, since we've been mentioning that little problem ever since the rat races in Greenwich Village made the news.
March 2, 2007 — Rats! New York City has become a national laughingstock.
Indeed, while Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden has kept busy as a beaver designing new paradigms for public health - databanks for diabetics and trans-fatless fast food - the rats have been running amok.
That's rats as in Rattus norvegicus - a legendary dispenser of disgusting diseases and the bane of traditional practitioners of public health for centuries.
Video footage of Rattus - a whole herd of them - flitting about a Village fast-food joint made national news last week.
To wit:
"How many of you folks were affected by the big stock market plunge yesterday?" David Letterman asked Wednesday night. "Four hundred points. The stock market dropped 400 points. And big corporations were really, really affected by it. As a matter of fact, Taco Bell had to lay off 300 rats."
Funny.
If the joke were on, say, Boston.
Alas, it was on Gotham - and on Frieden, as well.
While he's been hard at work redefining what constitutes "public health" - think Nanny State on steroids - the city's rat detectives have been asleep at the switch.
We believe that it is time for Commissioner Frieden to take aggressive action on this issue. To start with, we strongly suggest they hire someone with more credibility than the commissioner has at the moment to address the rat problem.
"There are no rats in New York City."
The invasion of Liechtenstein by Switzerland is over. For now at least. The sub-miniature European Country is safe for now, but there is no evidence that the Swiss curbed the aggressive territorial ambitions of the Liechtensteinians, either.
As well as the obligatory Swiss army knives, the troops were armed with assault rifles - however, they had no ammunition, Mr Reist said.
Officials in Liechtenstein, which is on Switzerland's eastern borders, also sought to play down the incident.
Markus Amman, an interior ministry spokesman, said nobody in Liechtenstein had even noticed the soldiers. "It's not like they stormed over here with attack helicopters or something," he said.
If the Swiss had decided to invade and annex Liechtenstein, which has a population of around 34,000, it probably would have been a walkover. Liechtenstein is a quarter the size of the Isle of Man, and does not have an army.
Personally, we here at Blue Crab Boulevard think the crack team of fierce Liechtensteinian attack goats scared the swiss off. Especially since the Swiss troops weren't even as well armed as Barney Fife - they didn't even have a single bullet in their shirt pockets.
News, Weird Stuff | Gaius Saturday, 3 March , 2007 | 
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