The mayor of Mount Isa, Australia is appealing to “beauty disadvantaged” women to move to his town in order to address a 5:1 male-to-female ratio. Quoth his honour:

“May I suggest if there are five blokes to every girl, we should find out where there are beauty-disadvantaged women and ask them to proceed to Mount Isa. Quite often you will see walking down the street a lass who is not so attractive with a wide smile on her face. Whether it is recollection of something previous or anticipation for the next evening, there is a degree of happiness.”

Unsurprisingly, the public response has not been positive. There’s a lesson here: using words that sound vaguely politically correct (“beauty disadvantaged”) will not cover up the offensiveness of a given statement.

While you have to wonder at the political acumen of Mayor Molony, the sentiment is nothing new. Take this particularly evocative example, a 1963 hit by Jimmy Soul:

Indeed. Interestingly, this song appeared on a compilation cassette I owned in 1989 called “Fun Rock”. I’m not sure how ‘fun’ this song is, but the desirability of allegedly homely women seems to be a recurring cultural theme. I’m not sure what’s better about this song: it’s cro-magnon attitude towards women, or the amazing conversational bits. “Yeah, she’s ugly, but she sure can cook.” Gold. Sexist, sexist gold.

Well, there are some nice things about a summer of rain.

So, today’s big press conference, where two Bigfoot enthusiasts and a highly suspect Tom Biscardi were supposed to present evidence of their big sasquatch find, came and went. And nothing happened. According to Fox News:

The much-anticipated Bigfoot press conference Friday afternoon in Palo Alto, Calif., revealed little more than two men — introduced by a self-styled Sasquatch seeker — claiming to possess the 7-foot “body” of a “bipedal creature” on ice in a secret location, awaiting an autopsy.

The men, Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, were joined in the press conference by Tom Biscardi, host of an Bigfoot Internet radio show, who said the men approached him with their “find,” saying, “We want to talk to Tom Biscardi… They didn’t want to meet anyone else.”

Biscardi showed reporters two blurry photos, claiming one was the mouth of the “creature” while the other was another creature running through the Georgia woods. The men claimed they “stumbled on the creature,” but would not reveal more because they were concerned about it being an “endangered species.”

Underwhelming, to say the least. Despite being initially optimistic, Cryptomundo‘s Loren Coleman is now convinced it is a hoax:

“This ‘body’ has little to do with Bigfoot and everything to do with a Sasquatch costume that someone developed after watching too many gorilla movies. The teeth that seem to have been placed in the mouth could be my late mother’s false teeth.”

So, welcome to Hoax town. While reporters are supposed to get access to the carcass next week, it looks like this one is pretty much busted. Darn it. I’ve got to stop getting excited about these things…it’s just a road to disappointment.

On July 31, 2008, something exploded over Lake Huron. The explosions triggered several audio monitoring devices as far away as London, Ontario. From the London Free Press:

Highly sensitive devices installed near Lucan by Western to monitor low frequency sound waves detected a series of four impulses that lasted about a minute, starting at 11:12 p.m. on July 31.

Five minutes later a low frequency rumbling was detected coming from the Kincardine area.

Trouble is, nobody knows what caused the explosions. While numerous explanations have been proposed – sonic booms, meteors, the local nuclear plant- all have been discounted. So what the heck was it?

One alert MetaFilter contrib, short of providing a solution, points out a strange parallel. In late July of this year, an Inuit Ranger camped out on Baffin Island reported hearing a large explosion, and witnessing a residual plume of black smoke. The blast also reportedly killed several whales.  The Canadian Military was sufficiently concerned to dispatch a helicopter to the scene. Unfortunately, they were a week late and could not find any traces of the blast.

So what’s the explanation? Secret weapons tests? Alien invaders? I’m going to propose something a little less exotic. Both events may be examples of a resurgence in blast fishing. This highly illegal technique involves dropping dynamite or some other explosion into water near schools of fish. The pressure waves kills the hapless creatures, and they float to the surface for easy collection. So is someone blast fishing on Lake Huron? And more troubling, is somebody illegally poaching whales in Canada’s Arctic using explosives? Clearly, somebody needs to look into these events a little more closely.

Until then, I guess we’ll have to keep our ears and eyes open for more mystery blasts.

If you’re one of those people who, when referring to octopuses, exuberantly exclaim “They have eight arms!”, science has made you look foolish. And will now proceed to mock you mercilessly.

Scientists in Germany have revealed that two of an octopus’ appendages are used as legs, while the remaining six are used as arms. The study also indicates that octopuses are neither right or left handed, forever stymying Major League pitching coaches with a thing for tentacled closers.

It’s also interesting that octopuses are among the world’s most intelligent invertebrates, even able to use small tools. Why, there’s even an octopus in Cornwall that loves its Mr. Potato Head. Truly, one of nature’s more confounding and appendaged creatures.

First, the Montauk Monster. Then, the Georgia Gorilla. And now, the Chupacabra of Puero, Texas. A police officer in the small town caught this odd creature on his dashboard cam:

Could this be the legendary “goatsucker”, scourge of livestock? I don’t know. Probably. At this point, anything is possible.

So why the rash of monster-related news? Either some unforseen consequence of global warming is driving these creatures out of hiding, or we’re all in the midst of some mass hallucination. I suspect it is some combination of a slow news cycle and a collective weariness with cynicism, The world seems so bleak these days, perhaps we all just need something a bit unusual to focus on.

What’s next? The Dover Demon gives its first network news interview? The Mothman gets a spot in the Big Brother house? Nessie for president? Only time will tell.

New research released yesterday suggests frogs and other amphibians are dying off at an unprecedented rate. The deaths can be blamed on four factors: habitat destruction, a naturally occurring fungus, invasive species, and the great shiva of our times, global warming.

As you’ll recall, amphibians are very sensitive to ecosystem change, and tend to act as bellweathers for the health of a given environment. So when the start croaking (see what I did there?) en masse, it be troubles ahead.

So, yeah. In case you had any lingering doubts, we’re screwed.

Photo by Looking Glass.