Martin World News

ITEM:  Bobby G tells me it's TGIM day.  TGIM??? The only one who says TGIM is a preacher- or the owner of a liquor store...

ITEM:  Lets kick things off with one of our brave firefighters who... well....

FRANKLIN COUNTY, Kan. — Instead of responding to an emergency call, this firefighter allegedly created one of her own.
Chelsea Matthew, 24, a volunteer firefighter in Kansas, is accused of taking a fire truck on a joy ride while intoxicated, according to KCTV.
While driving the truck with sirens blaring, Matthew used the radio to contact emergency dispatchers. When asked what the emergency was, Matthew allegedly said she was being followed by a fellow firefighter who was trying to kill her.
Dispatchers sent a deputy to investigate the situation. Law enforcement was able to get Matthew to pull the fire truck over safely. The fire truck was not damaged during the unauthorized trip.
Matthew was charged with DUI and may face additional charges related to theft of a fire truck.


Guessing this was the FD version of "having a hot time..."

"But she was so good with the hose..."

ITEM:  Remember a couple MWNs back when it was revealed that Beavers are the culprits in global warming?  Well, it seems they weren't alone...


First it was beavers. Now climate scientists are criticizing squirrels for their contribution to global warming.

Researchers presented findings to the American Geophysical Union at a fall meeting in San Francisco, Calif., that squirrels are causing vast greenhouse gas reserves in permafrost to be released, which is contributing to global warming.

“We know wildlife impacts vegetation, and we know vegetation impacts thaw and soil carbon,” said Dr. Sue Natali of Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts, according to BBC News. “It certainly has a bigger impact than we’ve considered and it’s something we will be considering more and more going into the future.”


...Natali and fellow researcher Nigel Golden of the University of Wisconsin found that Arctic squirrels were digging up permafrost to make their homes. But this creates a vicious cycle where greenhouse gases are released from the soil, warm the atmosphere and cause more permafrost to melt which then releases more greenhouse gas.


And there is only one thing one can say to that...

ITEM:  I'm sure most of you have by now heard the tragic story of the woman in Idaho who was shot dead by her two year old, whom she let play in her purse, which contained a handgun.  Let me be clear, nothing funny to that.  But a certain line from the news report struck me as odd...

Video surveillance in the store, along with eye witness testimony helped deputies determine that this was an accident.


Deputies needed video tape and eyewitnesses to determine that A 2 YEAR OLD shooting his mom was an accident.  A 2 year old.

You had to know a Barney Fife meme was coming here...

ITEM:  In case you missed this one (it was pretty popular on FaceBook), the first of the "not a good toy for Christmas 2015" reviews is out...

Play-Doh is pulling a toy used in a popular playset for children after parents barraged the company's Facebook page with complaints claiming the toy is shaped like a penis.

Images and complaints about the toy, included in the company's Sweet Shoppe Cake Mountain Playset, flooded social media after parents gifted the set to their children during the Christmas holidays.

Sweet Shoppe Cake Mountain??? Looks more like... well, being a family show and all, let's just say that a simple "Adult Playset" sticker could have prevented all this.

"We have heard some consumer feedback about the extruder tool in the Play-Doh Cake Mountain playset and are in the process of updating all future Play-Doh products with a different tool," Play-Doh said. 


And your first new slang name for the male body part for 2015?  "Extruder tool."

ITEM: Lake Superior State U.  has come out with their latest list of words that should be banned from the language:

BAE- a term for your significant other.  I thought users were just too lazy to throw in the second "b"  in "babe", but it would seem it stands for Before Anyone Else.

Polar Vortex- Greg Shoup should love THAT one!*

   * He's a local weather guy who went spastic last year for the media's misuse of this term.

Hacks- when used as "tips" a la "life Hacks".  About as annoying as ads that put in "keyboard tapping noise" and fake computer screens in order to look high-tech.

Skill Set- pointing out that by adding an "s" to "skill", you get the same thing without sounding pretentious.

Swag- I'd think that one's a given.

Foodie- or perhaps anything that makes one part of a group by adding an "ie".

Curate/Curated- I haven't really run across this one, so whatever.

Friend-raising-  Hadn't heard this one either, but it sounds despicable.

Cra-Cra (or "cray-cray")- Yep.  If I want to call you an idiot, I can use all five letters.

Enhanced Interrogation- well, I guess if you're bombing all the Occupy generations' word, you might as well throw in a token conservative euphemism.

Takeaway- as in, what is our takeaway from this post?  I kinda like this one...

(fill in the blank)-Nation- Yeah, kinda over that one, too.  Except when used for MWN-Nation.



ITEM: Next up, a rousing round of "Who's Dumber"!

Contestant #1-

Richard Smith, a former editor of the British Medical Journal, has argued that dying from cancer is preferable to a sudden death, organ failure or dementia because it gives someone the best chance to say goodbye and reflect on life. 

"You can say goodbye, reflect on your life, leave last messages, perhaps visit special places for a last time, listen to favourite pieces of music, read loved poems, and prepare, according to your beliefs, to meet your maker or enjoy eternal oblivion," he says.


"This is, I recognise, a romantic view of dying, but it is achievable with love, morphine, and whisky. But stay away from overambitious oncologists, and let's stop wasting billions trying to cure cancer, potentially leaving us to die a much more horrible death."


If I really have to add anything to this, please let me know.

Contestant #2-

(NEWSER) – Nobody seems to be able to figure this one out: Police in Daytona Beach, Fla., responded to a call of distress earlier this week from Daytona State College, tracked the phone's location to a janitor's closet, opened the door, and let out a man and a woman, reports the Orlando Sentinel. The pair claimed to have been chased into the closet two days earlier and said they couldn't get out. Except that when an officer went inside the closet to see for himself, he found that the door didn't lock. He easily reopened it.

Now the nasty part: Police found human feces inside the closet. They did not find drugs, but the Sentinel reports that they found "copper scouring pads sometimes used to smoke crack" (although it is a janitor's closet, notes Gawker). Officers also reported detecting the "odor of meth," reports WFTV. John Arwood, 31, and Amber Campbell, 25, were charged with trespassing, and Campbell got an additional charge of violating her parole.


The who's dumber inside this one is easy to figure out.  Who would you rather be locked in an unlocked closet smoking crack with?

Contestant #3-

The pastor of a Houston, Texas, church reportedly refused to host the funeral of a 93-year-old woman who had been a member of his congregation for 50 years because she was not current with her tithing to the church.

According to a My FOX Houston report, Pastor Walter F. Houston of Fourth Missionary Baptist Church refused to bury longtime member Olivia Blair after she died because her lack of financial contributions made her ineligible for the courtesy under the church's bylaws.
According to Blair's daughter, Barbara Day, however, the church's refusal to bury her mother was devastating.
"It was like the last insult in the world, there was nothing else that I could do for my mommy but funeralize her in the church that she loved and worshiped all of her life, even as a little girl," Day told My Fox Houston.
She said the pastor told her that her mother "had not paid her dues, and she had not attended the church in recent years."

Day explained the reason for the lapse was illness and the church knew that her mother was sick.

"For the last two years, my mother has been in either a nursing home or she's been in a hospital. ... And the last few months, she was in a coma!" said Day who was forced to get help from another church.

Tyrone Jacques of PimpPreacher.com said he reached out to pastor Houston to convince him to reconsider before going public with the story, but he would not relent from his position.

"After my discovery interview with Barbra Day and her daughter, I set out to see if I could convince pastor Walter F. Houston to reconsider. I also encountered the same bull headed pastor that lacked all compassion for this family. In his opening statement to me on Sunday, Nov. 16 Rev. Houston made it very clear that celebrating the life of Mrs. Olivia Blair was the farthest thing from his mind," wrote Jacques.

Jacques said Houston told him: "I am not changing my bylaws for someone who was not active. Olivia Blair had not been a member of this church in eight or nine years! If the family cared so much then why didn't one of them at least send a dollar over here to reserve her membership?"


Jacques said he even offered to pay the cost of the funeral but the church did not budge.


Walter F Houston, I hope you have your dollars paid in heaven, or St Peter might have a surprise for you....


Be sure to vote for your favorites!   Moving on...

ITEM: I saw an article on "9 things you didn't know about Wal-Mart foods".  Unfortunately for the humor side, it was more or less a WM propaganda piece, though there were a couple of interesting items, to wit:

-Bananas are the biggest sellers, going at a rate of 32 lbs. per second!

- one of every four grocery dollars in the US of A are spent at Wal-Mart.

- A study by teams at UNC-Greenville and Samford U. showed that “an additional Supercenter per 100,000 residents increases average BMI by 0.24 units and the obesity rate by 2.3 percentage points.”  So NOW, not only do we know the cause of global warming (squirrels and beavers), but the obesity epidemic too (Wal-Mart)!

I think that explains a lot...

ITEM:  Yahoo Travel listed the biggest airline travel fails in 2014.  Among them:

- You know how “Sorry if I offended you” is a lame apology? This is even lamer. United Airlines sent a laughably impersonal form letter to a Reddit user named “lyndy.” It was addressed to “Mrs. ——” and included such sentences as “Your comments regarding (SPECIFIC EVENT) will be used for coaching and training our employees” and ”(CUSTOMER NAME), I ask that you allow us another opportunity to serve you.” 


- Someone needs to tell Southwest Airlines that sticks and stones may break your bones but tweets will never hurt you — unless you overreact to them. The airline was savagely criticized this summer after its gate agents in Denver pulled a passenger and his kids off a flight. The reason for that draconian action: The passenger, Duff Watson, had posted a complaint about a gate agent on Twitter. Watson said he hadn’t been allowed to reboard until he deleted the tweet. 


-  ...an Israel-to-Philadelphia US Airways flight had to make an emergency landing after a puking epidemic broke out. Apparently a strange odor on the plane caused more than a dozen passengers and crew members to begin vomiting.


And my personal favorite....


- It was bad enough that VietJet did a photo shoot that revived that unfortunate sexy-flight-attendant trope, which we thought had gone out with Pan Am. What really got us was that once the airline started getting called out for its sexist campaign, it tried to claim that the photos were just a “trial shoot” for a proposed campaign — an undress rehearsal? — that, oh my gosh, one of their models accidentally posted on her popular Facebook page.

I'm sorry, Yahoo, I just don't see this as a fail...

ITEM:  Finally, we have a study on the most charitable nations in the world, based not only on contributions, but by the amount of "helping strangers" and volunteering.  And the winner...

....Myanmar/Burma!!!!  Go figure.