News of the Bizarre: June 28, 2017

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1. Pregnant women can no longer just kill people in New Hampshire. Most states have fetal homicide laws. Fetuses that have reached 20 weeks after conception can be considered victims of murder, manslaughter, negligent homicide or assisted suicide. New Hampshire wanted to exempt women having an abortion from that, but their wording allowed pregnant women to legally be able to kill pretty much anyone. Republicans fixed it using a provision that allows the legislature to correct spelling errors.

For defensive purposes only.  Credit: Stephen Thorne/Canadian Press2. Best award for a Canadian sniper in a non-combat role goes to... When is a sniper who made the greatest shot in history - two miles (!) - not a sniper? When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has to scramble to assure his liberal base that the Canadian military is not doing anything the military does. Like kill bad guys.

Apparently shooting terrorists from so far away - it took 10 seconds just for the bullet to reach the now-dead terrorist - exceeds some sort of special boundary for Canada, and the sniper was considered a non-combatant.  He was instead whacking fanatics in a defensive role. Since Trudeau did not want to demoralize the Canadian military by saying they were not an actual military, he stated the shot was "excellent" even if it was not done in combat.

3. Fitness blogger Rebecca Burger killed by a can of whipped cream.

No, she didn't die from the calories, it exploded and hit her in the thorax, which then caused cardiac arrest.

Her family says Ard’Time brand plastic lids may not be able to withstand pressure from the compressed carbon dioxide inside.

We'll have to see if that claim holds up. The lesson here: don't do too much fitness. You don't see people who eat a lot of Doritos being killed this way.

4. In India, women are wearing cow masks.

In India, a rape is reported every 15 minutes. And those are just the ones reported. Such crimes often take years to be prosecuted.

But if a cow is killed, Hindu extremist groups get all frontier justice about it and immediately go and kill or beat up whoever they suspect of slaughter.  A dozen people have been killed in the past two years in the name of the cow, even based on unsubstantiated rumors.

In protest, Indian women are wearing cow masks, hoping to make an obvious point. 

5. Duck quacks are more polite than car horns.

A survey of 100 volunteers found that quacking was more pleasant than cars' normal angry honks, which have been around since 1908. Researchers in South Korea have been searching for something more pleasant. They found that found that quacks were less startling and could contribute to road safety by being less distracting to drivers.

Obviously a lot of these things are cultural. Many New Yorkers would prefer a car horn that yelled something like, "Get back ta Jersey ya moron!" but we'll probably all have to settle for quacks.