Editorial: Casual Fridays 10/22

Atomically absent-minded

Whatever you might have thought about the tightness… Atomically absent-minded

Whatever you might have thought about the tightness of American nuclear security, think again. According to Slate.com, former President Bill Clinton might have lost the top-secret nuclear codes — the only way the United States could respond after a nuclear attack — for months in 1998. In a memoir published recently, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Hugh Shelton claims the 42nd president lost the codes on the day after the salacious Monica Lewinsky sex scandal broke. We bet that when White House staff found out about the codes, Clinton must have responded, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘lost’ is.”

Crocs have wings

First you’re taught to look out for terrorists on planes, now big-toothed reptiles? MSNBC reports that a passenger on a regional flight from Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, packed a live crocodile into a duffle bag and brought it on board. When the animal escaped almost immediately after liftoff, pandemonium ensued in the fuselage and led eventually to the plane’s crashing, the crash’s lone human survivor claims. With our sympathy going out to the fallen passengers and their families, The Pitt News wonders whether Pitt’s Associate Vice Chancellor for University Development David Dalessandro — screenplay writer for 2006’s “Snakes on a Plane” — is planning a smashing sequel.

Burly stats

Wilkinson Sword, the manufacturer behind Schick razors and shaving creams, is judging university men by their relative amounts of scruff. According to a recently released survey the company conducted with men on 60 campuses, the top three most cleanly shaven schools are Texas Tech, James Madison University and the University of Virginia. Rutgers University is the hairiest school with Harvard and the University of South Florida sitting just above it. The University of Pittsburgh is in the middle of the pack as the 26th most clean-shaven. But, that figure is misleading — as a whole, Pitt is the hairiest. To give other schools a chance, researchers were forced to regard Dave Wannstedt’s mustache as an outlier.

Burning desire

Heated passion has always had a place in sports, but perhaps you didn’t realize to what extent. According to the St. Cloud Times, a fifth-grade teacher from Statford, N.J., would rather put herself in a burning house than risk missing a Phillies game. During a house fire in April, the woman defied firefighters and dashed into her blazing home to retrieve her season tickets, only to be told later they could be reprinted. When it comes to public safety in Pittsburgh, at least we don’t have to worry about people launching themselves into such danger for embattled Pirates tickets.