Eating frog legs = cannibalism?

July 1, 2004 5:32 AM

Iranian woman 'gives birth to frog' (BBC) "While it is unclear how this could have happened, the [Iranian] paper carries quotes from medical experts who say there are human characteristics to the animal....Medical history recounts stories of people who believed they had frogs - or even lizards or snakes - living and growing in their bodies....One of the most famous was the 17th Century case of Catharina Geisslerin, known as "the toad-vomiting woman" of Germany. " Could this be connected to that 20 pound carp's apocalyptic warnings spouted in Hebrew, last year, as a fish cutter tried to club it to death with a rubber hammer to make it into gefilte fish? Or, maybe it was those new tomatoes? Or an Old Testament thing, maybe a prophecy?
posted by troutfishing (16 comments total)

Jewish movement thrives decade after 'Messiah' dies
posted by matteo at 5:43 AM on July 1, 2004

Doctrinal dichotomy: Chabad bucks beliefs of mainstream Judaism
posted by matteo at 5:43 AM on July 1, 2004

That frog is going to kick batman's ass in like 20 years if my comic book knowledge serves me right.
posted by LouieLoco at 5:50 AM on July 1, 2004

Okay, first super-baby, now frog-baby. It really is the forming of the X-MEN. Jesus.
posted by Shane at 8:17 AM on July 1, 2004

Finally x-rays were taken and the girl was vindicated. She had a large tumor in her stomach and surgery was performed immediately. To everyone's amazement the surgeons removed not a tumor but a small, live octopus that had fastened itself to the lining of the girl's stomach.
posted by Shane at 8:21 AM on July 1, 2004

And, finally, in other news:

Dog gives birth to man...(PDF)

Woman gives birth to Apple...
posted by Shane at 8:27 AM on July 1, 2004

ZanyFilter? KookyFilter?
posted by matteo at 8:35 AM on July 1, 2004

ForteanFilter, naturally.
posted by octobersurprise at 9:06 AM on July 1, 2004

The Apple thing reminds me of a Lewis Nordan character who, when asked what he wants to be when he grows up, answers, "Apple". His mother cites this as progress as he used to answer, "A rock."
posted by dobbs at 9:10 AM on July 1, 2004

"My mother is a fish"
posted by matteo at 10:28 AM on July 1, 2004

Who's your daddy?

Sorry, I couldn't resist.


Overall, I'd day that the prophetic carp story is still my favorite here. I'd vote for that one first and Shane's octopus urban legend second. I hadn't run across that one.

The frog-birth story is a little underdeveloped, although the Beeb did try to jazz it up a little.

Also, Fox ran a story on this :

I thought it a fiendishly clever move - they impugned the rep of the BBC and milked the sensationalism of the frog story all at once.

"Slippery Story
The BBC — which is struggling with complaints about the fairness and accuracy of its work — is now reporting that a woman in Iran has given birth to a frog. The BBC, quoting an Iranian newspaper, says it is believed the woman picked up frog larva while swimming in a dirty pool.

And the larva, then, grew into an adult frog inside the woman's body. The woman has two other children, both apparently human.

— FOX News' Michael Levine contributed to this report
"

Actually though, FOX misrepresented the Beeb (surprise, surprise) :

"Iranian woman 'gives birth to frog'

An Iranian newspaper has reported the controversial story of a woman who claims to have given birth to a frog.

The Iranian daily Etemaad says the creature is believed to have grown from larva to an adult frog inside her body.
(BBC)...... "

This sets up a weird sort of further layer of news regression : "Fox - which is struggling with complaints about the fairness and accuracy of its work — is now reporting, inaccurately, that the BBC has reported that a woman in Iran has given birth to a frog. Editors at Fox could not be reached for comment, but a BBC editor responsible for clearing the "frog birth" story remarked "We assigned the story no truth value whatsoever, but I suppose that just sailed right over the heads of those geniuses at Fox....But perhaps not. The Yanks, after all, were the ones to elevate advertising and propaganda to the level of a science."
posted by troutfishing at 11:41 AM on July 1, 2004

In related news, the Weekly World seems to be offline, or switching to paper-only. (Taking the survey doesn't direct you into the website; the survey IS the website.)
*sigh*
posted by Shane at 12:09 PM on July 1, 2004

octobersurprise - FortreanFilter?

All about hailstones

Check this out : Google search, "Hailstones the size of baseballs".

A common phenomenon these days, it seems.

Hailstones come in a number of sizes, it seems : the size of peas, golf balls, baseballs, teacups, grapefruits (which actually vary an awful lot in size), and softballs . Hailstones are sometimes also sized by comparison to grapes and lemons.

Here is one scale of possible hailstone sizes :

"0.25 inches pea
0.50 marble
0.75 penny/large marble/dime
0.88 mothball/nickel
1.00 quarter
1.25 half dollar
1.50 walnut
1.75 golf ball
2.00 hen egg
2.50 tennis ball
2.75 baseball
3.00 tea cup
4.00 grapefruit
4.50 softball"


What about basketball sized hailstones?

A contested Chinese report claims basketball sized hailstones :

"An unidentified official in China's Guangdong province told Reuter's a severe thunderstorm on April 21, 1995, killed several people with hail stones as big as basketballs. The thunderstorm also spawned a tornado and damage was estimated at $36 million.

Though impressive if true, Larry Oolman, a research scientist at the University of Wyoming, doubts the hailstones were that large.

"The largest documented hail stone that I know of fell in Coffeyville, Kan. I didn't see it but I saw other hailstones from that storm and they were big. It was larger than a grapefruit."

Mexico also claims basketball sized hail - which are common in that new Ice-Age disaster movie, The Day After too.

Here's a soberly judicious take : "Weather lore is full of accounts of suspiciously large hailstones-some have been reported to be the size of an elephant, while others are "merely" 20 feet (6.1 m) in diameter. In the years since scientific reporting of weather events began, however, the size of hailstones seems to have decreased
considerably. For many years the largest hailstone reported and accepted by Weather Bureau officials was one that
fell at Potter, Nebraska, on July 6, 1928: its circumference was 17.2 inches (43.7 cm) and its weight was 1.51
pounds (685 grams). This record was not surpassed until the "new champ" fell at Coffeyville, Kansas, on
September 3,1970. Weighing in at 1.67 pounds (758 grams), it measured 17.5 inches (44 cm) in circumference.
Accounts from other areas of the world describe larger and heavier hailstones, and from the damage, injuries, and
even deaths reported, the claims seem substantiated."

The Book of Revelations prophesizes hailstones that weight a "talent" - about 75 pounds. I encountered that fact at a gem of a weird page called "The Biblical Hailstone"


Another strange (but true) fact : can hailstones speak German? Answer - not typically, but it is known to be possible
posted by troutfishing at 12:16 PM on July 1, 2004

maybe a prophecy?

Sure, just as predicted in this noted work.
posted by Stoatfarm at 12:58 PM on July 1, 2004

Just step through this door. There's a pony on the other side...
posted by snarfodox at 3:57 PM on July 1, 2004

Any relation to Bat Boy?
posted by SisterHavana at 1:37 PM on July 2, 2004