Some Seasonal News to Tickle

[Goddlefrood]

I thought Summer was the silly season for news, but the 
Christmas period must be running it a close second this 
year. As two examples that came up on Yahoo news today, 
I draw your attention to:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071203/od_afp/swedenchristmaskyrgyzstans
antaoffbeat

This is headlined, "Santa Claus is coming to town -- for 
34 microseconds". That someone actually was bored enough 
to work this out is something that is hardly surprising 
in these dull and trouble-free times we live ;-). Apparently 
Santa would have to travel at a speed of 3,604 miles per 
second and spend the aforementioned 34 microseconds at each 
household in order to complete his task. That's about a 
quarter of the speed of light I think, so just about feasible.

The part of this articaler I particularly enjoyed was this, 
worked out by another, presumably equally bored, person:

"Another report circulating on the Internet suggested however 
that Santa's sleigh, weighed down with presents and travelling 
at supersonic speed, would encounter such massive air resistance 
that the entire contraption would burst into flames and be 
vaporised within 4.26 thousandths of a second."

This disregards the fact that Santa is quite patently magical 
and would know all the tricks to avoid spontaneous combustion.

The second ticklish story is headlined, "Tweety, Donald Duck 
summoned to court". The Italians give us this gem, where a 
Court in Naples had summoned certain Disney and Warner Brois. 
characters to testify in a lawsuit relative to counterfeiting. 

What Donald could possibly have said that would be intelligible 
is beyond me. The full story can be found here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071204/ap_on_fe_st/looney_witnesses

Happy holiday season

Goddlefrood