Islamofascist terrorist groups must be getting desperate if they’re using attackers of this pathetic caliber:
In the other attack — the first in living memory by women in Egypt — the two veiled women opened fire on the bus in southern Cairo but missed, Cairo’s Security Director Nabil el-Azabi said.
They missed a bus. Further reports suggest the terrorists cancelled plans to attack the broad side of a barn.
Why can’t misfortune like this ever happen to Big Ten football referees?
Robert Hoyzer had already lost his reputation, his job, his friends and his girlfriend. On Friday he lost any hope of a career as a referee in Germany.Banned for life by the German Football Association (DFB), Hoyzer is the disgraced referee at the centre of the country’s worst match-rigging scandal in three decades, a saga that has embarrassed the hosts before next year’s World Cup finals.
Even though the DFB dropped a 50,000-euro ($64,620) fine imposed on Hoyzer because of his co-operation with state prosecutors and DFB investigators, the 25-year-old may still face much higher civil claims for damages from clubs and fans.
The godless repressive Beijing government has declared Rockets star Yao Ming a “model worker,” just in time for May Day:
“Before, I thought model workers only recognized ordinary people who worked tirelessly and without asking for anything in return,” the 24-year-old Yao said through his agent. “Now the award also includes someone like me, a special kind of migrant worker. That’s a sign of progress.”
Yao went on to say, “There, I said it. Now please don’t execute my family.”
Now let’s hear from average folks in that enlightened workers’ paradise:
“What’s the point of understanding it? They will never pick one of us,” said Wei Yanzhou, 42, a welder from Hubei province who is helping to build what is expected to be the tallest building in Beijing.Wei works about 12 hours a day, seven days a week for about $100 a month. If he takes a sick day, the boss deducts the day’s wage from his pay.
Wei considers himself lucky. Many migrant workers receive no wages at all from employers who claim to be bankrupt or disappear with laborers’ hard-earned money.
At the end of the day, workers like Wei are shuttled back to factory dorms where they sleep more than a dozen to a small room. There is no hot running water, no heat or ventilation and little food.
“We eat cabbage three times a day. Sometimes the rice has sand in it,” said bricklayer Zhu Zhou, who looks a decade older than his 40 years. “We see meat maybe twice a week. We don’t even get enough drinking water, never mind a shower.”
Happy May Day.
[Hat-tip: Kevin Whited]
Just when you thought airport security couldn’t get any more absurd:
Penguins walk through a metal detector. Friggin’ penguins.
A pair of penguins from Sea World in San Antonio were traveling with their handler through the Denver airport. Security personnel made the handler remove the potential Antarctic al-Qaeda operatives from their carrying case and walk them through the metal detectors, holding up the line of human passengers.
A few questions immediately spring to mind:
Meanwhile, your friendly neighborhood TSA troglodytes let Homo sapiens passengers slide through security with guns.
COURREGES ADDS: Matt, I wouldn’t be so trusting with penguins. They could be the minions of a certain Batman villain:
Just sayin’.
Click pic for story.
This is one seriously screwed-up kid:
A third-grader stuck 19 schoolmates with her mother’s diabetes blood-testing needle this week, and one pricked student tested positive for HIV on a preliminary test, officials said.
Wow. But it might not be as bad as it looks:
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the risk of HIV infection after a needle stick is low, with an average of one in 300 cases leading to infection.
Just one in 300? So I guess a needle-exchange program won’t really stop the scourge of AIDS, will it? Hmmm?
This is the opening sentence of today’s Chronicle editorial:
If a camel is an animal designed by a committee, the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct resembles a panel designed by camels.
What?!
How about this one, written by yours truly:
If a house editorial is a column written by a committee, the Chronicle’s ability to write a decent metaphor is crap.
I know you’ve all been itching for your pic of the day fix. Here it is.
Click pic for story.
Click pic for story.
Click pic for story.
This is illegal discrimination, according to the ACLU.
Always in touch with the mainstream, the American Civil Liberties Union is suing the state of Ohio, demanding that authorities stop issuing license plates with a “Choose life” message:
Abortion advocates in Ohio filed a lawsuit seeking to stop sales of the state’s Choose Life license plate one month before they will be available to motorists. The American Civil Liberties Union claims the plates discriminate against abortion advocates because no pro-abortion version is offered.
The suit, filed in federal court in Cleveland, asserts the plates amount to “viewpoint discrimination” because they are one-sided.Attorney John Farnan of Cleveland Right to Life, told the Associated Press the legal challenge was “a hostility both to freedom of speech and religion.” He said the license plates simply promote the state’s view that life is valued.
I guess the ACLU and NARAL want a license plate that reads “Choose Death.” At least that would be honest.
Every once in a while, it’s nice to take a break from political machinations for a heartwarming story:
A television, stereo and VCR were taken over the weekend from a house in the small town of Kremlin, Okla.Niles, the Garfield County undersheriff, said the woman who lives in the house called again this week to report another break-in. But this time all her electronic gear had been returned.
The apparent crook-with-a-conscience even reconnected the wires and repaired the door jamb damaged in the original break-in. Deputies are investigating.
Back to your regularly scheduled programming.
Online postal company Stamps.com is relaunching its “PhotoStamps” program, where customers can create their own personalized postage. The stamps are printed with a machine-readable code on the right side, allowing the U.S. Postal Service to process them like traditional stamps. You can make your own at Stamps.com, or just take a look at the one I made:
I really think this thing is going to take off.
Residents of Dallas City Council District 13, you should be aware that your elected representative is a complete jackass:
A City Council member apologized to the father of a Boy Scout after calling the teenager “Count Dracula” for erecting bat houses in a park.Ira Richardson said he has received an outpouring of support for his 14-year-old son, who built the houses as part of a project to earn an Eagle Scout badge.
After hearing about the project, Council Member Mitchell Rasansky voiced concerns during a neighborhood meeting. Rasansky also appeared at City Hall last week with plastic fangs and with a plastic bat attached to his suit.
In a letter of apology, Rasansky said he had “great respect and admiration for all Boy Scouts.” Rasansky said he was only joking when he said the boy was from Transylvania and mentioned taking a “wooden stake and a cross” to the park.
Before you accuse me of being too hard on the jackass, it wasn’t just an off-hand joke. He either went home and raided his kids’ Halloween stuff or he went to a novelty store, and then appeared in an official capacity making fun of a Boy Scout’s service project. Class act.
The complete jackass was even given the chance to back down from his comments:
When told about the teenager’s trauma, Mr. Rasansky, a former Boy Scout, had little sympathy.“I have enough people to take care of in my district. I don’t need a colony of bats,” he said. “We want people in our parks, not flying mice.”
I don’t know if I’ve made this clear, Rasansky, but you are a complete jackass.
Congratulations to this future Eagle Scout. Achieving such an honor, especially at such a young age and in the face of mindless opposition, is something to be very proud of.
It looks like the disgraced departure of Gunga Dan hasn’t helped the ratings situation at the CBS Evening News. The Black Eye Network is getting massacred in the few households where people still watch network news:
CBS’ 6.1 million average nightly viewers last week was its lowest total since record-keeping started in 1987.Low ratings for “Evening News” are a setback for CBS, which had received plenty of critical acclaim for the Schieffer-led broadcast. Schieffer scored a notable scoop on the Minnesota school shooting story in his first week on the air, and the newscast showcased his conversational style via live Q&As with correspondents.
CBS has averaged a little more than 6.8 million viewers in Schieffer’s first six weeks at the helm, down 7% from the same period last year.
And now the spin from CBS:
“Our focus right now is on the content of the broadcast. We realize it will take time for the audience to respond to the changes we’re making,” said CBS News spokeswoman Donna Dees. “The journalism is strong, the spirit is fresh, and the initial reaction has been very positive.
I’ve got two questions for this spokeschick:
1. Are you admitting that strong journalism is a change from CBS traditions?
2. In what parallel universe is a record-low ratings number seen as “very positive?”
Oh, those wacky Russians:
The tenth permanent crew of the International Space Station (ISS) today suggested space chiefs reconsider the ban on alcohol on the orbiter.“Fifty grams of wine a day like submariners get on a long mission would make working and living on the ISS more comfortable,” Russian cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov said at the Korolyov space control center by Moscow.
The amount he proposed is roughly half a wine glass.
The ban on taking alcohol to the station is enforced by NASA but the Russian agency has been known to turn a blind eye to bottles of cognac secreted by cosmonauts for celebratory nips on holidays and birthdays.
They’ve also been known to turn a blind eye to 55-gallon drums of vodka secreted by cosmonauts for celebratory nips upon waking up, brushing their teeth, performing experiments, eating lunch, floating around, checking the time…
For another perspective on what happens when you mix rockets, Russians and rye, we turn the clock back to 1999, when the director of Russia’s mission control center was arrested in Florida:
“The man confronted the male paramedic and then kicked a female paramedic in the abdomen, knocking her through the ambulance door and to the pavement, the arrest report said.Neither medical worker was seriously hurt, said Orlando Domingez, spokesman for Fire Rescue agency.
The arrest report indicated that alcohol may have been a factor in the incident. Sources said Lobachev’s blood-alcohol was 0.268 percent, more than three times the legal limit for alcohol impairment.”
Get a load of this knucklehead:
A Brooklyn man turned a traffic ticket into four felony charges last night by trying to use $100 to bribe a cop who had pulled him over for running a red light in lower Manhattan, police sources said.The quick-thinking officer, realizing the he would need witnesses to prove a bribe attempt, responded to Holiam Clement Ho’s offer by saying that two fellow officers wanted in on the action, cop sources said.
Ho hand the trio of officers $100 each, cops said.
But instead of a free ride, Ho got a ride to jail. At the station house, Ho admitted he offered the money, police sources said.
Does the story end there? Nope:
He offered yet another $100 bribe to the police inspector who was questioning him, cop sources said.
Nice one, Ho.
No word yet on when this guy will go to court. Expect to see him flashing C-notes to the jailers, judge, jurors, bailiff, court reporter and prosecutor.
The Chronicle’s Austin bureau chief, Clay Robison, apparently doesn’t think too much of the Legislature’s attempts to protect the institution of marriage. Take a look at the first sentence of his story:
Voting for the second time in two weeks to restrict the rights of homosexuals, the Texas House on Monday approved a measure to lock into the state constitution a ban on same-sex marriages and civil unions.
This implies that homosexual marriage is already a “right” that is somehow being taken away by the eeeevil House Republicans. Sorry, Clay. The state of Texas has never recognized gay marriage, and it’s already banned by law.
The Chronicle’s got a puff piece on the storied tradition of the Aggie ring. It’s a nice primer on Aggie lore. But this is what caught my eye:
“I don’t drink, but this is a tradition,”the senior says, grabbing a schooner of beer. Barker drops the ring into her glass. It floats to the bottom.
Floats. To the bottom.
Did you ever hear the one about the Aggie who became a newspaper reporter?
No astronauts were killed in the making of this photo.
Fifteen years ago today, the Hubble Space Telescope was deployed:
Since that day in 1990, the bus-sized telescope has taken more than 700,000 photos of planets, stars and other celestial bodies. The images have helped astronomers see deeper into space than ever before — a feat that has allowed them to prove the existence of super-massive black holes and even calculate the age of the universe, among other things.
Sorry, folks. I again neglected to post a Pic of the Day on Friday.
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