…things in the news that make you want to scratch your head:

* News item: Earthquake Shakes Northern Ohio. A little “shake, rattle, and roll”-ing in the home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:

Preliminary reports say the magnitude was 3.6 and the location was 4 miles south of Mantua.

Viewers from Aurora, Brecksville, Brunswick, Chagrin Falls, Hudson, Macedonia, Northfield, North Royalton, Reminderville, Richfield, Silver Lake, Solon, Stow, Streetsboro, Twinsburg, Walton Hills, as well as a number of other cities felt the rumble.

There have been no reports of damage.

Well, with a 3.6 magnitude quake, I would think not. I remember the only earthquake I ever experienced: it was years ago, while I was attending night classes. We were all in a study hall when all of a sudden this itty-bitty wave came rolling beneath us. It was like a 2.3 – actually, pretty neat.

* News item: Expedition highlighting global warming called off due to extreme cold. (Hat tip: Drudge) Seems to me we’ve been hearing a lot of similar stories like this lately:

A North Pole expedition meant to bring attention to global warming was called off after one of the explorers got frostbite. The explorers, Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen, on Saturday called off what was intended to be a 530-mile trek across the Arctic Ocean after Arnesen suffered frostbite in three of her toes, and extreme cold temperatures drained the batteries in some of their electronic equipment.

Honestly, methinks people will look back on 2007 as the year radical environmentalism truly overstepped its bounds. That is, until 2008…

* News item: Vomiting disease afflicts dozens who went to golf clubs. Seems dozens of members associated with a private golf club inTucson came down with what officials here call “winter vomiting disease”. Sounds fabulous…

Because of the symptoms and how fast the disease has been transmitted, officials with the Arizona Department of Health Services believe the cause is a norovirus, agency spokeswoman Patti Woodcock said. That has not yet been confirmed.

Noroviruses can cause stomach-related distress such as sudden-onset vomiting, diarrhea and severe abdominal cramps.

Woodcock said norovirus outbreaks occur regularly and that the county department has investigated five other incidents during the past few months. However, she said this is the first time the disease appears to have spread from one place to another in Pima County.

“It is now progressing,” she said. “People are passing it and passing it and passing it.”

Hmmm… I’ll bet they are. Hey, don’t blame The Great White Shank – I was nowhere near my golf clubs that weekend. My game may not be pretty, but it won’t make people sick – well, at least not physically…

* News item: Hagel puts off decision on 2008 bid. So RINO (Republican In Name Only) senator Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) holds a news conference to announce he hasn’t made a decision on whether to enter the 2008 Presidential sweepstakes:

In an odd twist, the Nebraska senator called a news conference to say he would decide about his political future later this year, saying a late entry into the 2008 race is still possible.

An odd twist? Ya think? I’m sorry…did I miss something newsworthy here? That’s what I thought.

* News item: Meat-loving calf eats chickens. Lal the calf strikes a blow for chicken lovers everywhere:

When dozens of chickens went missing from a remote West Bengal village, everyone blamed the neighborhood dogs.

But Ajit Ghosh, the owner of the missing chickens, eventually solved the puzzle when he caught his cow — a sacred animal for the Hindu family — gobbling up several of them at night.

“We were shocked to see our calf eating chickens alive,” Ghosh told Reuters by phone from Chandpur village.

I love “when good animals go bad” stories. Maybe the calf just saw one of those Chick-fil-A advertisements and thought he was just following orders.