All the news, etc, etc, vol.2

So, looking for neat stuff around the world to make sport of ere you get more walk pictures, here's what I've found.

ITEM:  Just learned some idiot taped the words "ANIMAL CARE" on their van and spent the afternoon stealing pets out of yards on the NW side of town.  I can only assume even the FWPD won't have a hard time cracking this one.  Hopefully he picks up a dog with rabies.

ITEM:  Mynx sent me the story of a dude who tried to smuggle a turtle in a KFC sandwich, so I had to look this up.

Photo: Image from flickr created by 'flaunted'

Apparently our AH-CRAP candidate, identified as "Mr. Lee" (which explains why the Bobbettes wanted to shoot him) was stopped at the Guanzhao airport in lovely Mainland China when his bag, upon being x-rayed, showed a sandwich with "strange protrusions".  When asked about the meal:

"There's no turtle in there – just a hamburger," he stammered. "There's nothing special to see inside."

Unfortunately for every funny story like this, there is one not so funny.  Two men were stopped at a layover on a China to India junket in Singapore with over TEN THOUSAND baby turtles in three bags.  Red lined turtles from Mexico, protected by governments but in demand in India and other Asian countries.  Some one thousand of them were already dead of dehydration when seized.


ITEM: Another "not so funny" was found on this site- a story titled "Is There Porn In North Korea?"  Answer was yes, but there is more to the story.  Long discouraged by the government (and you know what that means there), things have loosened up a hair as Kim-Il -Junk apparently is an aficionado.  The cost is such that "you have to give up food and drink to get it", with a consequence that even at-home moms are in the red-light business, getting the equivalent of less than $6 for a night (including sleep time).  With things so repressed for so long, rape and assault are said to be rampant, and the article finished by musing that an eventual combining the starving (in many ways)North with the well-to-do South "might not be so desirable."  Just thought that douche canoe Dennis Rodman might like to understand a little better the company he keeps.

ITEM: Before I leave the orient, I found a little thing in Vietnam.  They have a version (if you can believe this) of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.  And one night, a male contestant asked for advice from the audience, and apparently had his choice of people to listen to.  However...

"At decisive points, I have little confidence in women (and their suggestions)", (said the contestant) after receiving advice from two female members of the audience.
They had clearly based their choice on what they thought was evidence, while the male member of the audience made his choice based on his intuition.
The male contestant took the advice offered by the male member of the audience and won VND22 million (US$1,050) after choosing the correct answer.


And now, this is the new debate on VN social media- do you trust men or women?

I betcha Meredith Viera doesn't host the show THERE, huh?

ITEM:  Next up, the BBC had to apologize for the playing of a music video by the group Barbershopera, a half BSQ/half rap song about "I could have married Kate".  The song was fairly catchy, if a bit risqué, but the thing they couldn't abide was a one-second shot of this:

Yep, a shot of a magazine where a penis had been drawn on Prince William's head.  I'm guessing someone took a bit of bob and said, well, we can apologize later.  The band gets notoriety, and everyone's happy.  Well done!
ITEM: So let's look into the term, "offensive", now that we've opened THAT door.  A story out of Seattle tells us the city fathers are making a list of terms not to use in city documents, because they might be offensive.  Among those words:

CITIZEN.

 

 

(Elliot, at the city Office for Civil Rights) Bronstein told KIRO Radio the word "citizen" should be avoided because many people who live in Seattle are residents, not citizens.

"They are legal residents of the United States and they are residents of Seattle. They pay taxes and if we use a term like citizens in common use, then it doesn't include a lot of folks," Bronstein said. 

If that isn't an idiotic over-extension, how about this term:  BROWN BAG.

 

In an interview with Seattle's KIRO Radio, Bronstein said the term "brown bag" has been used historically as a way to judge skin color. 

"For a lot of particularly African-American community members, the phrase brown bag does bring up associations with the past when a brown bag was actually used, I understand, to determine if people's skin color was light enough to allow admission to an event or to come into a party that was being held in a private home," Bronstein said.

If you are offended by the term "brown bag", this blog has two things to say to you:

 

1.  We're talking about "Bringing a lunch from home, commonly done in a brown bag".

2. Brown bag, brown bag, brown bag, BROWN BAG!

 

In fairness to Bronstein, he did offer some alternatives:

 

According to the memo, city employees should use the terms "lunch-and-learn" or "sack lunch" instead of "brown bag."

Yeah, boss, I just "lunch-and-learned" it today. What moronicy (is that a word? if not, it should be!).

 

 

ITEM:  I guess, though, offensive is in the eye of the beholder.

 

A Tennessee newspaper editor who was fired for a headline critical of President Obama says his bosses bowed to pressure from the president's supporters, claiming he wouldn't have been canned if he had said the same of former President George W. Bush. 

Drew Johnson's editorial, titled "Take your jobs plan and shove it, Mr. President: Your policies have harmed Chattanooga enough," went viral and drew national attention earlier this week when Obama visited the city. 

The Chattanooga Times Free Press editorial page editor was later ousted. The newspaper released a statement Thursday saying Johnson had been fired for "placing a headline on an editorial outside of normal editing procedures."

However, turns out this was a policy that the line-straddling paper didn't have until AFTER the article was printed/went up on the webpage.  And furthermore, the paper claims that the headline wasn't the reason he was fired- though they don't explain what was.  (Let's try, "The President's people saw it- and they weren't happy."  Again, Chicago politics at it's finest.

 

He argues that while the execs at the paper slammed his headline, they also left it up online as the story drew considerable Internet traffic. 

"I just became the first person in the history of newspapers to be fired for writing a paper's most-read article," he tweeted. 

He later added: "To answer a question I've gotten a lot: I feel confident that if the headline had referenced Bush instead of Obama, I would still have a job." 

Oh, and BTW, the paper has BOTH right and left op-ed pages.  Funny time to get thin-skinned, just as our thin-skinned President comes through.

 

(I guess I shouldn't use the term "thin-skinned".  Even though it actually means "can't take an insult", someone in Seattle might think it an archaic term for "light skinned African American".)

 

 

ITEM:  Sometimes, the proponents of evolution truly twist themselves in knots to make a semblance of sense.  Witness this page-cap I saw today:

 

YA THINK?

 

 

ITEM: Oh, I forgot I have one more thing from the Far East:  Don't do your own weather forecasting.  Already struck with heat so bad there are videos on youtube showing people frying bacon on the sidewalk, the Chines weather service in Shanghai is coping with amateur "netizens" predicting highs even worse than the 105 °F they are ACTUALLY supposed to get.  They have announced fines of as high as $8200 for issuing unofficial weather forecasts.

 

 

I don't care if your knee hurts, grandfather... if you write it down on your blog, you will be fined!

 

ITEM:  The only time it was even sunny today was when we woke up from a nap around 2:30 ish and I took Scrappy to the bark park.  Now, at 5 PM, I hear thunder.  So these shots are from last night.

 

The ditch down the street is being expanded, to prevent further flooding like that we had a couple months back.

If I never showed you, the remains of a bridge just south of the new bridge.

 

 

Rolling... rolling on the river...

We had been hearing this hawk screeching the whole walk- when I tried to shoot him, the camera went off on its own.  Did a damn good job...

 

 

I spotted her lying asleep under a tree.  I had to "snort" a few times to get her up.

 

More robin soccer

Referee Booogle

 

And of course, as Laurie leaves for work... as I type...