Tuesday, March 10, 2009

EXPLODING WHALES

Today is a much better day. I figured out why I was so crabby yesterday and got over it. So to celebrate... here is one of my favorite Oregon stories. It is kind of gross, but many fun things are. Hope you enjoy it. I only wish I knew how to insert the video for you to watch. It's really great.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_t44siFyb4 You may have seen it already!

Exploding whale
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Dynamite was used to blow up a rotting beached whale, with unintended consequences.
Exploding whales have been documented on two notable occasions, as well as several lesser-known ones. The most famous explosion occurred in the United States at Florence, Oregon, in 1970, when a dead sperm whale (originally reported to be a gray whale) was blown up by the Oregon Highway Division in an attempt to dispose of its rotting carcass. This incident became famous in the U.S. when American humorist Dave Barry wrote about it in his newspaper column after viewing a videotape of television footage of the explosion. It later became well-known internationally when the same footage circulated on the Internet.
There have also been spontaneous explosions. The most widely reported example was in Taiwan in 2004, when a buildup of gas inside a decomposing sperm whale caused it to explode while it was being transported for a post-mortem examination. Exploding whales have been written about and documented by several well-known authors.
Documented cases of exploding animals are fairly rare. Whale explosions in the United States and Taiwan were widely covered by the world press. However, there have been less famous incidents in other parts of the world.

7 comments:

  1. WOW! that was something! I sure am glad I wasnt anywhere close to that whale.

    So, uploading a video from youtube is very easy:
    Visit www.youtube.com

    Sign up, and then go to the video you want
    There are options below such as Share, Facebook etc.
    Pick Share on Blogger and enter your details.
    After you do this once, your blog information is saved.

    Now in the future you just need to find the video and post your text on it, give it a title and post it to the blog. It takes a little time for it to be uploaded. But itll come through. try it, its not difficult at all and youll be so proud that you did!

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  2. SSQuo--Thank you so much! I will try it today.

    I'm glad you enjoyed the squishy fun... and yep, I'm mighty glad that I was not near it either. I can only imagine how bad it smelled and how gross that felt. Gives me shivers.

    Thanks for stopping by and for the info!

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  3. You can also just copy the code to the side of the youtube video in the white box that says "embed" and put it directly into a post that way.

    But ewww! I hate the idea of being covered in bits of rotting whale blubber. You'd think that would have occurred to them.

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  4. When I lived in Wisconsin there was a dead cow on one side of a county road for a good two weeks at the height of summer. It got bigger and bigger -- and then one day I drove by and there was nothing there but a big blotchy spot on the shoulder of the road.
    Ewwwwwwww.
    Pearl

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  5. Citizen-- thanks! I agree, so gross!

    Pearl-- Welcome! That would have freaked me out but made me laugh too. I know, sick, sick, sick.

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  6. Honestly, don't these people know anything about science? Explosions don't evaporate matter, they break it up in very energetic fashion.

    They must not watch many horror movies either or they'd know that when you blow up the monster, you end up with thousands of little monsters wreaking havoc upon the land.

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  7. lol!!! So true. We are not real deep thinkers in this neck of the woods! I think it was more of an excuse to blow something up than anything. Too bad they didn't choose someone who knew how much to use.

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