Gävle Goat!

Megan found this funny story on line about a giant straw goat in Stockholm that gets destroyed almost every year. So this year they put on flame retardent from the airline industry to keep people from torching it. But will it last?

The wikipedia page tells the whole story. Its called the Gäavle goat and its the same design that we have on our Christmas tree but huge. It was started in 1966 and sice then over 1/2 of all the goats were distroyed.

From wikipedia, here are the best distructions:

1966 Stig Gavlén comes up with the idea of a giant goat made out of straw. The goat stood until 12.00 PM that New Year's Eve, when it went up in flames. The perpetrator, who was from Hofors, Gästrikland, was found and convicted of vandalism.

1972 The goat collapsed because of sabotage.

1976 Local hillbillies ran the goat over with a car.

1978 Again, the goat was kicked to pieces.

1979 The goat was burnt even before it was erected. A new one was built and fireproofed. It was destroyed and broken into pieces.

1983 The legs were destroyed.

1985 Even though the goat was enclosed by a 2 meters (6,5 ft) high metalfence, guarded by Securitas and even soldiers from the Gävle I 14 Infantry Regiment, it was burned down in January.

1987 A heavily fireproofed goat was built. It got burned down a week before Christmas.

1998 Burned down on December 11th, even though there was a major blizzard. Was rebuilt.

2000 Burned down a couple of days before New Year's Eve. The Natural Science Club's goat got tossed in the Gävle river.

2001 Goat set on fire on December 23 by Lawrence Jones, a 51-year-old visitor from Cleveland, Ohio... Jones stated in court that he is no "goat burner", and believed that he was taking part in a completely legal goat-burning tradition.

2005 Burned by unknown vandals reportedly dressed as Santa and a gingerbread man reportedly by shooting a flaming arrow or molotov cocktail towards the goat at 21:00 on December 3.

Tossed into the river?! That poor Goat! Anyway the image that you see above is a live web cam of the goat and nothing has happend yet. Part of me is rooting for the goat and part of me wants the list to keep going and not be defeated by some little thing like fire retardent. It didn't work in 1987 or 1979 so why should it now?