Do not mess with the octopus. From Scotland's Daily Record
OCTOPUS TRIED TO EAT SUB
Giant octopus tries to devour a submarine
By Cara Page
A GIANT octopus almost ate a submarine when the £75,000 craft invaded its territory.
The 18-foot sea monster wrapped its tentacles around the remote-controlled sub's cable and hauled itself towards it.
Then it grabbed the vehicle and tried to bite through its metal skin.
The sub's amazed controllers used its thrusters to fire sand and grit from the seabed at the octopus, forcing it to let go.
And when they got the vehicle to the surface, they found two pieces of tentacle, each as thick as a man's arm, still attached to it.
The 80lb octopus pounced as the ROV (remotely operated vehicle) tried to move a cable on the seabed.
Chris Tarmy, whose company supplied the sub, said yesterday: "The octopus was obviously irritated by the ROV. It was a terrifying sight as it came galloping along the cable to attack.
"These creatures have terrific jaws and the sub's surface pilot was very worried that we could have lost it. But as the octopus engulfed the ROV with its tentacles, the pilot slammed its thrusters into reverse.
"Luckily, after a bit of a battle, the octopus let go.
"When we got the ROV back to the surface, it had these two big bits of tentacle stuck to it."
The 110lb, four-foot sub, supplied by Hampshire firm Seaeye, was working off Vancouver Island in Canada when it was attacked.
It suffered no major damage and experts say the octopus's lost tentacles will grow back.
The giant Pacific octopus can grow as big as 600lb. The creature is known for its intelligence and can unscrew jars to get at food.
Chris joked: "Perhaps the octopus" fancied the ROV. I suppose it can get lonely down there."
Noted in passing, without comment, because I believe these are the sort of things that should be noted.
The Washington Post's ombudsman stated that Jack Abramoff made contributions to Republicans and Democrats, a demonstrably untrue claim. When pressed by hundreds of public commentors (for whom she is at least a titular advocate), she refuses to correct herself unequivocally and contends that Abramoff "directed" clients to make donations to Democrats. Post media critic Howard Kurtz dismissed the media criticism levelled at the ombudsman by explaining that her statement was "inartfully worded." After a great hullabaloo of Post blog entries and live discussions, the Executive Editor killed blog comments on the ombudsman's entry. In his live discussion today, he explained that too many comments constituted hate speech. The request for a formal correction remains unsatisfied.
Chris Matthews says of Osama bin Laden, "I mean he sounds like an over the top Michael Moore here, if not a Michael Moore." (America, The Book, we should remember, advises people to maintain some distance from Matthews, as he tends to deplete oxygen within a sizable radius of his mouth).
The Bush administration again insists that it has the right to bypass FISA to spy on citizens.
The Bush administration subpoenas Google search records.
Karl Rove is back in public, claiming that Republicans should run on national security in 2006.
I guess I'm sort of losing control of my tone here, as those last points are swaying toward the cheaply ominous. I really just wanted to make a public list of worrisome things that came to my attention this week. There are vastly more thorough sources to fill in the context and meaningfulness of each of the above. I'll leave the hard work to them.