Stuff You Should Know: I might die edition

It's been ages since I've put out a good edition of Stuff You Should Know. My records indicate that the last installment was way back in March, when I informed you about some treasures on the Internet. And you know, March is too long ago because I have it on good authority that at least half of my readership (1.5 persons!!!) relies solely on Catherine the Greatest for 100 percent of their news content. You can see why I start to feel really bad when I waste your time writing about hippy festivals, majestic Nabisco products, and borderline sexual assault.

So, here I am, lighting up a cigarette, furrowing my brow, and taking up my role as a modern-day Edward R. Murrow. Seriously, where would you guys be without me?

1) Um, have y'all been keeping up with this Mexican drug cartel business? Shit's whack. NPR is obsessed with it, and it's also all over newsprint (what's that!) and TV news. 60 Minutes just ran a chilling report on the situation tonight. It's a complicated issue with a lot of gritty details, but I did want to draw your attention to one point. Crackdown efforts must be having some impact because reports surfaced this week that the Mexican navy seized more than a ton of cocaine that was hidden in.... wait for it... wait... 20 SHARK CARCASSES.

WHAT?!?!? Slabs of cocaine hidden in sharks. Man, if only this resource had been available to me during childhood games of "Hide the Thimble."

In many ways, I guess, this shark news is a good thing. Traffickers can no longer just ship boxes of cocaine in and around North America willy nilly, and surveillance efforts are keen enough to smell something fishy during checks in a cargo ship. But holy smokes. Can the Discovery channel include this bit of news in their next Shark Week? I need more details.

2) Onto lighter fare... It's summer time and that means TV networks are busy rolling out a bunch of new shows we probably don't want to watch. Um, hello, I have Netflix? But one show I have become obsessed with is Expedition Africa on the History Channel. It's kind of like Survivor, but if Survivor was actually about surviving, and no one gets voted off. (The shows share a creator, Mark Burnett.) The show follows four modern-day explorers who retrace the steps of Dr. David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley, the American journalist who went to look for him after his disappearance. Expedition's team members make the trek across Tanzania with virtually no modern comforts, and face many of the same perilous danger, exquisite beauty, and unpredictable adventure Livingstone and Stanley did more than 140 years ago. The true treat is seeing how the cast (who, with the exception of a journalist, are all expedition experts) clash and communicate with each other in the face of real survival situations. They actually know what they're talking about, and along with learning some history, the audience also gets to learn some wilderness first aid, navigation know-how, and tips about how not to get eaten by giant hippos. Don't miss this show, it stands along side Intervention and The Amazing Race as one of the three "reality" shows I can stomach.

3) So have you guys been paying attention to this moon landing business that's under way? I know, I know, it doesn't hold that same do-or-die appeal when Prez. J.Ken isn't yammering on about space races and the Russians breathing down our necks. It also lacks glamour because NASA is sending robots to do our dirty work, although I guess that's a good idea since these space crafts will be crashing into the lunar surface at 6,000 mph. That's pretty fast. Definitely more speed than my colander space helmet could withstand.

Anyway. As you probably know I'm so un-scientifically minded that I barely can wrap my pea brain around the very idea of space, but I do take special interest in NASA's efforts partly because they're pretty cool sometimes but mostly because I think they're a huge waste of money. But what strikes me about this mission is the sheer simplicity of it. I mean, heck, I could have thought this one up. They're sending up two crafts, one which will orbit the moon and generally check things out. Look for hot babes, good real estate, you know, the usual. The other one, called the LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Spacecraft, duh) is going to intentionally CRASH INTO THE SURFACE OF THE MOON with the intent of kicking up a lot of shit to see if any of it is water. Still hoping for water on the moon, guys? Hope springs eternal, I guess. Ugh. I feel like there should be more progress in this department by now. And I mean, I'm probably right because I slept through a whole course in astronomy and NASA calls me sometimes to ask me what I think about things. Yeah, they do.

Have you come across any new stories you feel the need to share? Unleash the burden of your knowledge in the comments section.