Some Seasonal News to Tickle

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Goddlefrood" <gav_fiji at ...>
wrote:
>
> 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 believe Yahoo! got those news items from Reuters news agency Odd
News section. Reuters Odd News is never empty, regardless of the time
of year.

My clock radio alarm plays NPR Morning Edition, and they always have
30 seconds of silly on the half-hour, which they usually get from
Reuters Odd News, and I heard two of your examples there.

> 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 ;-). 

This was distributed in a press release from a Swedish engineering
firm, so presumably some employee(s) worked it out on company time --
and they may have been ordered to do so, rather than being bored and
goofing off. Ordered as make-work, or ordered for the intention of
distributing the press release. The press release served the normal
business purpose of getting their name in the news -- free publicity
-- so they may have the slight advantage of sounding slightly familiar
when they bid on contracts in Sweden or Europe. 

> "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."

I hadn't read that one before.

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

Morning Edition hadn't mentioned Italian names of the characters, so I
was thinking that I have heard of a real person with the unfortunate
given name of Donald Duck ... I think that was a long-ago Odd News
presumably contributed by a stringer who read a list of entering
recruits at Camp Pendleton ...