OPINION — If someone walked up to you today and said, “Bob, (assuming your name is Bob) would you consider India one of the top countries in the world in the area of space travel?” you would probably avoid that person in the future. But if you answered, you’d likely say, “No.” And so would I, if my name was Bob.

Yet India recently launched a ship to the moon, Earth’s moon, ostensibly to explore its south pole and look for water. Which is kind of strange. Not that we don’t need more water, of course, but if someone walked up to you and handed you a bottle of moon water, you probably wouldn’t chug it right down. Neither would I, and my name’s not even Bob.

But the trip didn’t work out all that well, for India. Just as the ship was about to land, India’s space agency lost contact with it. They tried to fix the communication system, but no luck. I’m thinking they probably called customer service, and ended up talking to an American, and couldn’t understand a thing he said.

“Hello, this is Sivan, chairman of the Indian Space Agency. We’ve lost touch with our ship. Can you help?”

“You want fries with that?”

But everybody has problems. Things are tough all over. New York City, for example, is infested with rats. Experts estimated the city had about two million of them in 2014, and the rat population has exploded since then. And nothing they’ve tried to curb the problem has made much of a dent. Granted, mint-scented trash bags and rat birth control weren’t exactly stellar ideas, but at least they were trying.

So the city has recently started using rat traps that bait the vermin into a two-foot-tall thing, where they fall into a solution of water and alcohol, which kills them within a minute. And it’s working pretty well. So of course the animal rights wackos don’t like it. Some of them, including peta, have been whining that NY should go back to birth control, or catch the rats alive and relocate them. “Yeah, Iowa? This is New York. We got plenty of rats, here, and we hear you’re a little short out there. How many would you like us to send you?” That should work well.

Then there’s the guy who tried to fight a grizzly bear a few years ago in Banff National Park. Devin Mitsuing, who was 35 at the time and should have known better, stopped his pickup in the park and got out to harass the bear, which was minding its own bear business, according to witnesses. Devin and another fellow shouted at the bear, and then Devin took his shirt off and assumed a boxing pose. For some reason.

Above: Devin and the bear.

When the bear didn’t attack, Devin ran toward it, scaring it off. So Devin and his friend drove off, but they didn’t get far. They encountered some RCMPs at Radium Hot Springs, and when the Mounties noticed the two were inebriated, they impounded the pickup and dropped Devin and his friend off at their hotel. Public intoxication is evidently pretty normal in Canada.

The next day, when officials found out what Devin had done, Park Warden Paul Friesen went to the hotel and took a statement from him. Devin allowed that he had offered to fight the bear, but was just trying to get a picture with it. He also asked repeatedly where he was. When Paul told him he was in British Columbia, Devin swore. So Paul asked where he was going, and Devin said, “I don’t know. I was trying to go golfing.” He then stated that he thought it was a brown bear. Which explains why he wanted to fight it. Or something.

Devin recently had his day in court, and was fined $4,000 for disturbing the bear. I wonder how much of that the bear will end up with. But at least Devin wasn’t killed, or pooped on, which is more than I can say for one Maine bear hunter who shall remain nameless, since I don’t know his name.

A video has been making the rounds lately of some bear hunters in Maine who managed to tree a bear with dogs. One of the group was filming while another walked up to the tree and started banging on it with a stick. For some reason. Which evidently scared the poop out of the bear. A lot of poop. A good portion of which rained down on the tree whacker.

Above: Rabbits!

So messing with bears is probably a bad idea. It’s much safer to annoy rabbits. Or not. A vegan snowflake animal rights activist named Mia recently decided to gather some friends and raid a rabbit farm in Osono, Spain to ‘rescue’ the rabbits. They managed to turn a few loose, but also killed about a hundred rabbits in the process. Which, I’m thinking, was not exactly the primary goal.

When you consider the kinds of things people on Earth do for recreation, maybe looking for water on the moon isn’t such a crazy idea after all.