Thursday, July 28, 2005

And The Cow Jumped Over The Moon




This is a very odd story.




Stray Rocket Kills Bull, Cuts Power Supply in Russia’s Far East

A village of Birofeld in Russia’s Jewish autonomous area was partially hit by a power outage, after a missile accidentally launched from the backyard of a local resident’s house destroyed a power line and flew into a barn where it killed a bull, the Interfax news agency reported Friday.
Local police said in a report the rocket was launched from the yard of a man who earned his living by collecting scrap metal. The man claimed the missile went off as he was sawing a piece of metal and a spark fell on the rocket.
The rocket first ploughed through the man’s vegetable garden and hit the barn killing a bull before flying over the village, destroying a TV antenna on the roof of a one-story building and hitting a power line. It fell in woods near pasture where goats were grazing. As a result, electricity supplies to the village were disrupted for 24 hours.
Shortly afterwards, the metal wires from the destroyed power lines were stolen by scrap metal hunters, the agency said in a report.


**********************************
Just a few questions before we move along.
  • Russia has a "Jewish autonomous area?" Given the history of Russia towards it's Jews, the sound of that gives me the creeps.
  • What the hell is a junk collector doing with a missle in his backyard? Is this common in Russia?
  • How big was this thing to take out a vegetable garden, a barn, and a bull and still keep going?
  • This was no bottle rocket. So how did a "spark" launch this freakin' thing?
  • Why are there goats in the story? Was the power outage the result of the goats grazing in the pasture near the woods where the missile landed?
  • A TV antenna? Don't they have cable in Birofeld?
  • Scrap metal hunters stole the downed power lines???? How the heck did they do that without frying themselves?
  • What is it about scrap metal in this village anyway? Did anybody check out the home of the rocket man for the stray wire? First place I'd look.
  • Did the villagers all eat steak that night...for free?

If you can supply any answers or theories as to the above, please feel free to comment.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled reality.


4 comments:

KJ said...

The rocket was powered by gun powder. The rocket had been scrapped b/c it had a hole in it. So it was given to a junk collector.

When the government moved the big rocket to the junk man's scrap metal pile, the gun powder leaked out making a solid path to the power source area. When the spark hit it, the gun powder "path" lit like a fuse and moved to the power source. The junk collector, BTW, was named Wile E. Coyote Sanford.

The goats ate the other end of the wire, thus disconnecting it to the power source and allowing it to be stolen. Thus, they got mentioned in the story. Several died of electrocution while eating the wire.

Because the cow being hit by the rocket caused the cow's milk to mix with the meat, none of the Orthodox Jews could eat the cow, so no steak that night.

They needed an antenna b/c Direct TV recently cut off all service to this town when it learned that OJ Simpson had moved there.

Hope that helps.

spd rdr said...

Very good, KJ, except you are forgetting one small thing. The "cow" was a "bull" therefore no milk was spilled in the making of this catastrophe. Thus begging the question: Worchestershire or A1?

KJ said...

Knock it off Cass. The names are not remotely similar. My name doesn't have a vowel.

spd rdr said...

We lawyers hate vowels.