The lava explanation

With recent seismological events in Hawaii, I saw this headline posted by erstwhile news broadcasting outlet, CNN:

What follows is a breakdown of several (or more) historical attempts (e.g. bombs, walls, pumped seawater) people and organisations have made to try to prevent lava from destroying infrastructure – be that housing, roads or whatever – and a description of some of the properties of lava (e.g. density, heat) which have prevented these attempts from succeeding.

Incidentally, tubby Jedi Masters wearing wife-beaters and trying to use The Force was not on the list.

Essentially though, it all comes down to one reason, and so I’ve written to CNN asking them to amend their headline to save people from having to read the article and make (what I feel) is a fairly obvious deduction for themselves:

Did I really have to add the emphasis? I don’t know.
I mean, seriously, it’s not exactly rocket surgery, is it?

Choose your battles, folks. Stopping lava should really not be one of them.

Antibiotic resistance apocalypse predicted

Yes, according to the front page of today’s (poorly-named) Independent:

Fullscreen capture 2016-05-19 083721 AM.bmp

“OMG!” I hear you saying. “You’re a microbiologist, 6000. Why didn’t you warn us about this?”

Yeah, you’re absolutely right.

I
Should
Have
Said
Something

Sorry.

 

(please enjoy the full 84 page report here)

Good advice

Spotted this morning on several poles on the way to work, this headline deserved a blog post and submission to this flickr group.

I had a copy of the newspaper in my car with me, but reading a newspaper while driving comes a very close second to using a mobile phone while behind the wheel. And, with the traffic approaching Koeberg Interchange as bad as ever, my mind began to wander.
Who had advised this sausage thief on his prophylactic usage?
And why?

Was this a better way to smuggle sausages out of wherever he had stolen the sausages from? After all, no-one’s going to suspect that a sausage-shaped something in a condom is actually a sausage, now are they?
Even if they did, they’re unlikely to want to check.

(This wouldn’t work for boerewors though. Unless it was a very big condom.)
(And rather oddly shaped.)

Additionally, it wouldn’t work for cheese, which is what he also stole – and “Cheese Thief” is what the online version of the Cape Times has got him labeled as. R299 worth of cheese and Vienna sausages. All he needs now is the pineapple and the cocktail sticks and he’s ready for a buffet of note.

At 23 years old, Mzawanele Japhta already has 4 kids. And that’s why magistrate Grant Engel urged Japhta to go to a clinic for free condoms, “before you end up with 30 children”.

Who would presumably require him stealing a whole lot more sausages and cheese.