I think black holes are fascinating.  Here you have a force so strong, so intense, that nothing compares.  Even if you set off a nuclear bomb in it, you might not even notice.  I happened across an article called Black Holes: The Deadliest Force in the Universe and so of course I read it. A couple of interesting quotes from it :

“Imagine a black hole swallowing Earth, ending life in an instant.”

I’d rather not, really…  I mean, the concept of a black hole “eating” planets and solar systems would be interesting, might even make a good movie, but the whole “ending life in an instant” part is what I’d rather not dwell on too much.

Actually, there is a movie along those lines.  In Transformers: The Movie, Unicron was a giant planet (who could also transform into one bad robot) who travelled around the universe devouring planets.  It was a great movie.

Another quote from that article :

“It would be a bad day for the solar system if we got visited by a black hole,” says Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of New York’s Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History.

That may be about the biggest understatement that can be made.  Like was said earlier, this would mean the total destruction of life as we know it.  A bad day indeed…

But overall, the article does make a few interesting points, such as the fact that if a black hole got within a billion miles of Earth we’d see the effects of it.  Also, people used to think black holes were stationary, but in the year 2000, scientists discovered there are wandering black holes, which are like “nomads, renegades”.  Let’s hope one doesn’t come after us, because our weapons would be of no use on it.  (Although, as I’ve mentioned before, we have yet to test the combined forces of Chuck Norris and Mr. T on a black hole, so there may yet be hope in such a situation.)

Six Flags is having a Halloween promotion where customers can get free entry or other benefits if they eat a live Madagascar hissing cockroach.  This type of roach can grow to between 1.5 to 3 inches.  If they break the world record for eating these roaches, they win a season pass for four people in 2007 with VIP queue-jumping status.  Do you want to know what the world record is?  Eating 36 Madagascar hissing cockroaches in one minute.  36!  Can you imagine?  It almost makes me gag.  I wouldn’t try it.  Supposedly the roaches are as safe to eat as shrimp or lobster, because they were raised in a sterile environment.  And supposedly they have high nutritional value.  (I think I’d rather just take a vitamin…)

Guess who’s complaining about this…  (This one isn’t hard.)  It’s PETA.  Yes, they care about roaches, and they think people shouldn’t eat them.  I wonder if there’s a group that thinks we shouldn’t eat plants…  I mean, they’re living creatures, too.  It would be a stupid stance, but it wouldn’t surprise me if some special interest group makes such a claim…  (Though I wonder what they’d eat…  Only animals?  Or just processed food?)

I saw something strange in the news today…

Man apologizes for courtroom feces

DULUTH, Minn. – A Chicago man apologized for spreading his feces around a courtroom during his trial on drug charges. …

“Im going to take full responsibility for everything I did in Duluth,” Willis told the court. “I want to apologize for everything I did in court. Im sorry, your honor.”

He asked Judge David Sullivan to put him on probation. Sullivan told Willis his actions wouldn’t be held against him, but there was no reason to depart from sentencing guidelines.

The article leaves out way too much information here.  Why was he doing this?  And why weren’t his actions held against him?  I would expect him to get into some kind of trouble for that.

In the news, a teddy bear has been implicated for 2500 deaths — of trout, that is.  He was found in a fish hatchery, clogging the drain, which prevented adequate oxygen from flowing.  The hatchery supervisor has released a written statement in response : “RELEASE OF ANY TEDDY BEARS into the fish hatchery water IS NOT PERMITTED.”  Seems like it would be better to tell people to not put anything into the water.  He also said, “It’s kind of a cute little teddy bear and people wouldn’t think that a cute little teddy bear would be able to kill fish.”  Perhaps we have underestimated the power of teddy bears…