WTF news Wednesday

So, I'm starting a column called WTF news Wednesday. In it, I will capture some snippets around the news that made me burst out laughing. Today's gems:

That'll fix it!
Nepal Airlines, which was having technical trouble with one of its two Boeing 757s, announced that it had fixed the problem by sacrificing two goats to appease the Hindu sky god Akash Bhairab.
NOTE TO SELF: never fly this airline.

When it pays to be an alcoholic:
Doctors at Mackay Base Hospital in Australia saved the life of a 24-year-old Italian tourist after he had ingested a large amount of poisonous ethylene glycol (found in antifreeze), perhaps in an attempted suicide. The antidote, pharmaceutical-grade alcohol, was in short supply at the hospital, but doctors improvised by setting up a gastric drip and feeding him vodka at the rate of three standard drinks an hour for three days. He made a full recovery, according to a report in Melbourne's The Age.
NOTE TO SELF: really?

Green Endings:
As an alternative to burial, cremation is no longer green enough, say environmentalists, because it releases smoke and mercury, and thus the industry is considering "promession," in which the body is frozen in liquid nitrogen to minus-320 degrees (F) and then shaken until it disintegrates into powder.
NOTE TO SELF: Uh... I'm speechless.

Do you want to BE a vending machine or just look like one?
Crime-fearing female pedestrians in Tokyo can soon protect themselves with fashion designer Aya Tsukioka's skirt that opens into a realistic-looking (except made of fabric), full-size vending machine that she hopes thugs will pass right by. It's one of several fanciful crime-avoiding creations of the genre that Japanese inventors are noted for, according to a New York Times dispatch. Another, the "manhole bag," resembles a sewer covering when laid on the ground but can hold a person's valuables, again provided that the thug passes it up.
NOTE TO SELF: The vision of a woman blossoming into a vending machine without notice had me in TEARS.

--From News of the Weird column in the Funny Times, January 2008

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