Is it just me or is the news stranger than usual these days.

From Reuters:

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Armed bandits in Brazil robbed a vehicle carrying more than 400 breast implants, officials said Tuesday.

“It happened last week, but we only learned about it recently as our clients started complaining. It is the hottest period of the year in terms of implant sales,” said Margaret Figueiredo, director of silicone implant manufacturer Silimed.

Police were quoted as saying they expected the case to result in several large busts.

Researchers at Yale managed to teach monkeys the value of money. Monkeys learned to use silver coins to buy food, gamble, and as the New York Times Magazine explains:

Something else happened during that chaotic scene, something that convinced Chen of the monkeys’ true grasp of money. Perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of money, after all, is its fungibility, the fact that it can be used to buy not just food but anything. During the chaos in the monkey cage, Chen saw something out of the corner of his eye that he would later try to play down but in his heart of hearts he knew to be true. What he witnessed was probably the first observed exchange of money for sex in the history of monkeykind. (Further proof that the monkeys truly understood money: the monkey who was paid for sex immediately traded the token in for a grape.)

The Harely Davidson service center has me on hold right now. Their hold music is the Micky Mouse Theme Song.

I’ve been reading about the debate surrounding the Freedom Museum, which is to be localed in the International Freedom Center which is to be located in the plaza of the newly designed Freedom Tower.

Apparently many are unhappy with the Freedom Museum’s plans to “focus on global freedom movements, now will place the victims of Sept. 11 alongside the ‘freedom heroes of history’ in its main concourse.”

Excuse me, but has the entire country completely forgotten what the word “freedom” actually means? The context in which these people are using it is complete nonsense.

Terrorists have never threatened our freedoms. Nope, never! The terrorists threaten our safety. We choose to respond to that threat by limiting our freedoms. That response may or may not be appropriate, but as a nation it is entirely our choice.

It’s troubling that most Americans can no longer distinguish between safety and freedom. The two concepts have very little in common.