Mutations

A few of the tidbits of international news on the web today:

--A bottle of 81-year-old Scotch sold for $54,000 at Christie’s, in New York's first liquor auction since Prohibition.

--The Netherlands is considering creating an island in the shape of a tulip to deal with overcrowding and to shield the coastline from the rising sea.

--At the U.N. climate conference in Bali, the world's top two polluters, the U.S. and China, say they aren’t ready to commit to mandatory caps on greenhouse gases. (Hmmm, how did The Netherlands vote on this issue?)

--In Annapolis, a man was arrested after an officer found him in a store's bathroom with a $700 fishing reel stuffed into his pants.

--A new species of giant spitting cobra, measuring nearly nine feet and carrying enough venom to kill at least 15 people, has been discovered in Kenya.

And locally:

--A teenager caught a giant rainbow trout from the Boise River below Lucky Peak Dam. The fish measured 30 inches long with a 25-inch girth. (According to reliable sources, his fishing rod was not shoplifted).

--The head of the Idaho Realtors Association says the housing market is still strong. (Perhaps he’s been nipping at some five-year-old Scotch…)

--And our "toe-tapping" Senator Craig filed 45 amendments to national global warming legislation. (Perhaps after he "retires," the Senate Ethics Committee could assign him to serve as the "levee czar" in New Orleans or ambassador to The Netherlands)

You have to wonder about the discoveries of a massive cobra and trout. Why did they grow so large? Do greenhouse gases or global warming have anything to do with it? Holes in the ozone layer? Too much carbon monoxide? Reminds me of old sci-fi movies from the 1950s, like "Godzilla" or "Them." The general plotline: "After being exposed to high levels of atomic radiation, common creatures mutate into giant man-eating, city-destroying monsters that threaten civilization."

Perhaps a new film to promote the local economy could be "The Trout that Ate Boise." After all, fish don’t swallow houses…do they?