So I guess this happened:

A rare earthquake, measuring magnitude-5.5, struck at the Ontario-Quebec border region of Canada on Wednesday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The midday quake was felt in the city of Toronto in Canada and in a number of U.S. states, including Michigan, Vermont and New York.

This article notes that tremors were felt in Brooklyn (Twitter produced claims of rattled parrots), but I don’t buy it. (I’m not saying Brooklyn doesn’t DESERVE an earthquake, I’m just saying that this one wasn’t it.) I guess if we want a real natural disaster we will just have to wait until the oil makes its way up here.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: “Musical sounds created by longitudinal vibrations within the Sun’s atmosphere, have been recorded and accurately studied for the first time by experts at the University of Sheffield, shedding light on the Sun’s magnetic atmosphere.” There’s a whole lot of Science at that link that I don’t understand, but the “music” of the vibrations, which you can hear here, sounds like something that would come right before some stentorian voice-over guy intones, “…and a hero WILL RISE.” (Fair warning: It’s a little loud.)

Hiker Donald Gialanella sent the footage below to Unexplained-Mysteries’ excellent cryptozoology department recently with a note:

“I came across this sabre-toothed Duck-billed creature while hiking in the remote high desert in Northern New Mexico. It was about 4 ft. in length and had strange bumps protruding from it’s back as well as a very long snout and one large canine tooth. It was dry as a bone and stiff as a board.

Only 378 people have seen this so far, so no kill-joy scientist has yet been able to determine that’s it’s just a coyote. Until one does: let’s take it as the first hard-fast evidence of the existence of the legendary chupacabra that we’ve all been waiting for. Deal?

Did really tall basketball player Manute Bol, who passed away over the weekend, coin the phrase “My bad”? Quite possibly! UPDATE: But actually not.

Number of stories on the front page of the Washington Post about General McChrystal at 1:30 p.m.: FOURTEEN. (Still: Politico had FIFTEEN.)
Percentage of above-the-fold editorial web spaces used for those stories: approximately 65%.

“A three-day, 24-event international competition for humanoid robots ended earlier today in China… Tomorrow, in Singapore, the robots move on to Robocup 2010.”

The strange story of “’Til Death,” a sitcom starring Brad Garrett that somehow managed to last four seasons: “This was television made by consummate professionals who were pretty sure no one was ever going to see it, and it was somehow gloriously awful and compellingly watchable all at once.”

“I was lying there, trying to get the doors open but couldn’t. I remember the inside light not working and thinking, ‘It’s not like I’m going to read a book,’ so I opened another can.”
–Paul Nigel Sneddon of New Zealand explains why police found him drinking a beer when they pulled him out of his overturned car. Sneddon, who had gone on a four-day binge after losing his job and learning that his father had cancer, says that he can’t stop drinking because, “When you’re lonely like I am, you cling to the things that bring you comfort.”

General Stanley Allen McChrystal is done for after his profile in Rolling Stone, or so they say-or at least, so says Rachel Maddow’s Twitter. Ah: Jake Tapper’s Twitter agrees. He will be replaced with General David Petraeus. The president will make a statement at 1:30 p.m.

Nicely played. Oh and following, here’s the full video of the actual World Cup awesomeness and winning, if you care.