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| 20th Century Fox / Film Roman / Fuzzy Door |
THE MOST-POPULAR STORY among the TV news affiliates I worked with today was this strange-but-true item out of Pakistan, where we've learned a developer wants to build a theme park in the town where Osama bin Laden met his fateful end.
It's easy to think this is some sort of Onion satire or ripped straight out of a Daily Show episode, but it is very real. It will not, as TIME playfully suggested, be called "Bin Laden–land, Jihadi World or Al-Qaeda Adventure City. I don't think too many hard-line Islamic fascist fundamentalists go to theme parks.
The developer is working with Pakistan's tourism ministry to turn Abbottabad into a legitimate vacation destination. The town has a bad enough reputation as it is; and don't the folks out there deserve someplace nice and safe to go and have fun with their families?
By the way, don't expect to find tours of the bin Laden compound as part of the attractions. The buildings were torn down shortly after that whole SEAL Team 6 thing.
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A Syrian woman lost all her children to the civil war raging for more than a year in her homeland, so she's getting revenge in a very Quentin Tarentino-inspired way. (H/T to Amy L.)
This will probably be somewhat disconcerting to fans of "Finding Nemo", but many fish are able to spontaneously change sex in response to population stresses.
Did you know pigeons come in more shapes, sizes and colors than your standard greyish-blue city-dwelling, car befouling variety?
Guess what? Washington, D.C. has the worst traffic in America. My friends there are like, "YA THINK??!?"
TODAY'S OBSCURE MOMENT IN HISTORY
On February 5, 1917, the United States Congress overrode a presidential veto and passed the Immigration Act, a law that sharply blocked immigration from Asia. Ninety-seven years later: same political battle, different continent.
