xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
“Cow-tipping” (the legendary prank of sneaking up on a dozing cow and pushing her over) was exposed as a near-impossibility by researchers at the University of British Columbia, according to a November report in The Times of London. Calculating the newtons of force required to topple an average cow (estimating the angles between left hooves, right hooves and the point of push; and the resistance of the cow to downward pressure), Dr. Margo Lillie found that two people could exert the required force only if the cow made no reaction at all to the initial touch, but that more than likely, a successful tipping would require at least five people.
Prozac Nations: An official adviser to the Blair government warned in September that Britain urgently needed 250 special treatment centers, staffed by 10,000 therapists, to deal with what he called the country’s “biggest social problem”: a national epidemic of “unhappiness.”
In October, German companies donated the equivalent of about $35 million for a media campaign to make their countrymen feel better about themselves. (Sample script: “(O)utdo yourself. Beat your wings and uproot trees. You are the wings. You are the tree. You are Germany.”)
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or [email protected] or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.) NEWS OF THE WEIRD
