Here’s another one from BBC News: “Rats taught to drive tiny cars to lower their stress levels.” The story behind this was a study in which “researchers” had some rats, so they decided to make little plastic cars for them and teach the rats to drive the tiny cars. Who remembers that game where you add “in my pants” to everything and see how it turns out? “The Universe Is Made of Tiny Bubbles Containing Mini-Universes, in my pants.” Not bad. Last month, I bookmarked “The Universe Is Made of Tiny Bubbles Containing Mini-Universes, Scientists Say.” What an uplifting title. I wanted to carry that further, to ask things like, “What would be something better to believe in than hell?” or “I believe in quinoa and kale tacos, so I guess I don’t need to believe in hell.” But I couldn’t read the whole article because I don’t subscribe to the Journal, so I dropped it. Last year, The Wall Street Journal asked the headline question, “Do We Still Need to Believe in Hell?” prompted by some discussion in theological circles of remarks from Pope Francis. ![]() I used it in a column, along with “You’ll Never Believe All The Things Made Out Of Chicken Feathers.” I’m pretty sure I did, in fact, use “Semi filled with 40,000 pounds of chicken feathers overturns on I-5,” pretty much for the same sort of reason: There but for the grace of 20 tons of chicken feathers and keys to a semitruck go I, but I didn’t. Who doesn’t want to know someone in the world adopted a black bear thinking it was a Tibetan mastiff puppy? Doesn’t it make you feel good to know that? I feel better about myself and my own life decisions knowing I’m not those people and I’m not currently attempting to keep a full-grown black bear entertained with a game of fetch. I can’t forever deep-six a story with the headline, “After 2 years, family realizes the pet dog they raised is a bear.” I mean, there’s a major reason I bookmarked that in the first place. It would be a crying shame to throw them all out. At least a couple thousand of those link to unused news stories in just the past year. I have something like 10,000 bookmarks in my bookmarks folder. ![]() The process of preparing these columns consists of spending way too much time on the internet looking at news stories and bookmarking them, in the off chance I might use them when I actually sit down to write.
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