This “I Identify As” Crap Must Be Stopped Now!

     It’s already gone too far:

     Coast Guard officials arrested a Florida man after they intercepted his unusual hamster wheel contraption that he was allegedly attempting to ‘run’ to London.
     According to a criminal complaint, 44-year-old Reza Baluchi is facing federal charges after he was rescued 70 miles off Tybee Island, Georgia by coast guard officials. The marathoner was found on August 26 in his bizarre hamster wheel contraption and asked “standard questions.”
     “Based on the condition of the vessel – which was afloat as a result of wiring and buoys – USCG officers determined Baluchi was conducting a manifestly unsafe voyage,” the criminal complaint says.
     The “manifesting unsafe” vessel is a giant metal drum, with inflatable buoys on each side and paddles that are powered by a runner inside.

     The misspellings and grammatical glitches in the above are from the original article. I imagine the issuing correspondent was laughing too hard to pay the closest sort of attention.

     Karen Ashley at Chicks on the Right comments thus:

     Despite this behavior being a bit mental, I’m actually kind of impressed.
     Did he just roll it to the beach from his home?
     But wait, Baluchi went full mental when officials told him they were halting his travel plans, to which Baluchi threatened to take his own life with a 12-inch knife he was wielding. Baluchi even threatened that he had a bomb aboard his hamster ship.

     Look, I’m a fan of originality. I admit it; I look for it in all forms of entertainment. But this one doesn’t qualify; it’s has been “done” by billions of hamsters. Granted, they weren’t attempting an ocean crossing that I know of, but still! Anyway, there’s no percentage in it if you wind up being apprehended off shore and fined for wasting Coast Guard time.

     Now if you were to get yourself a slot to speak in front of the UN General Assembly, and rolled in there in a human-size hamster ball, I’d be impressed. Try calling yourself a “peace activist.” Write a monograph on how no war has ever started between nations whose citizens were all incarcerated in hamster balls. There you go: instant publicity and the solution to world peace in one stroke. Don’t wait for someone else to do it. The second guy rarely makes it into Guinness, n’est-ce pas?