Martin World news

ITEM:  Can there be a better MWN story than the one given me first thing this morning?  I f you haven't heard, it goes something like this:

Yep, Steve Harvey gave the Miss Universe crown to the WRONG contestant last night.  Apparently, reading a cue card is one of the job skills that he hasn't quite mastered.  And because of that...

...poor ol' Steve has just entered the "Name a host who can't get work" category.  On the bright side, Colombia has just declared war on the Philippines, so we'll have something to distract us from politics on the national news for a week or so.


ITEM:  Next up, somebody when through the troublesome research needed to find out which city in each state has the worst drinking problem.  As I give you the best of the best, let me remind that the list ONLY includes the drunkest city from each state, and not ALL the cities in a state, so the following top ten doesn't necessarily include the drunkest cities in the US of A (though it's prolly darn close) but only the top ten drunkest cities from each state.  Or something like that.  So here's the top ten:

10- Pittsfield MA, with a 21.3% population of what the research called "binge drinkers";

8 (tie)- Monroe, MI, and St. Louis, MO (gee, right near the Bud plant),22.0 ;

7- Missoula, MT, 22.1;

6- Napa, CA, 23.7;

5- East Stroudsburg, PA, 24.2;

4- Kingston, NJ, 25.1;

3- Corpus Christie, TX, 27.5;

2- Appleton, WI, 29.8;

And at #1...

Dubuque, IA, which- with 30.8% of the MSA having a binge drinking problems means that, according to current population estimates, there are 30,000 people to watch out for on the MSA's highways and roads.


ITEM:  Of course, this doesn't touch the double whammy of alcohol and legal marijuana that is Colorado, and thus...

ADAMS COUNTY - Adams County Sheriff's Office got a call about a man with a gun in Lulu's Inn in Watkins Friday morning.  Deputies evacuated the building and set up a perimeter in the 33300 block of East Highway 36.  One person was detained until it was determined that the person only had a mic stand, which was mistaken for a gun.

According to police, the person was in a band who was scheduled to play Friday night at Lulu's. A waitress saw the mic stand and thought it was a gun and reported it.


Because mic stands look SO much like guns... and how was she to know that her workplace might feature musical acts?


ITEM:  If you were not so inclined to drink, you might well have watched the Democratic Debate on ABC on Saturday night.  (After which you certainly would have been.)  Clipped from that, I saw what may be the stupidest thing a politician not named Trump has said so far this cycle.  I give you Hillary Clinton:

“I worry greatly that the rhetoric coming from Republicans, particularly Donald Trump, is sending a message to Muslims here in the United States, and literally around the world, that there is a clash of civilizations,” Ms. Clinton said. “That there is some kind of Western plot or even war against Islam, which then, I believe, fans the flames of radicalization.”


Excuse me, but it IS the Muslims who point to the "clash of civilizations" Hillary points to, and it IS the Muslims who call us the Great Satan and blame all the world's ills on us.  Can she really be so clueless ("Clueless Clinton," I like that) as to think they are going to be suspicious of US for reacting to what they say IN THE OPEN?

ITEM:  On the subject of politics, I decided that I would peruse the news (and semi-news) sites last night to see what amusing things might have slipped into that omnibus spending bill that everyone hates but passed overwhelmingly at the end of last week.  Among my findings...

During the recently completed restoration of the Supreme Court building, workers toiled behind a giant sheet printed with a life-size photo of the building, making the whole operation easier on the eyes. Congress apparently was not amused. The spending bill includes this passage: "None of the funds made available by this Act may be used for scrims containing photographs of building facades during restoration or construction projects performed by the Architect of the Capitol."  Thus eliminating the need to post all those, "pay no attention to the men behind the curtain" signs.


Don't watch porn at work. The spending bill contains some variation of this language in several places: "None of the funds made available in this Act may be used to maintain or establish a computer network unless such network blocks the viewing, downloading, and exchanging of pornography." This is not new language — it has been in the spending bills for years. Nevertheless, the EPA inspector-general found earlier this year that workers there were watching porn on government computers, raising some question about just how effective these spending bans are.  Because blocks are so hard to work around.


The Department of Agriculture already has rules in place for salt in school lunches, but Congress wants to make sure the agency does not push that limit lower just yet. The spending bill prohibits implementation of any rule cutting sodium levels further, eating less meat and, most controversially, eating a plant-based diet that protects the environment. "until the latest scientific research establishes the reduction is beneficial for children."  No word yet whether Ban Ki-Moon's bug diet is mentioned.

The bill is full of digs at the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as Obamacare. It delays the so-called Cadillac tax on the most generous health insurance plans, costing the government an estimated $87 billion in revenue from 2018, when it was supposed to kick in, through 2025.


It also holds up a tax against medical devices, which device makers have been fighting against for years. And it slashes money for risk corridors, which compensate insurance companies that get stuck with sicker-than-expected patients. Insurance companies had insisted on this provision in return for the health care law's requirement that they take all comers, no matter how sick they are.  Going along nicely with Hilary's Saturday proclamation that the ACA is still full of glitches.  I wonder if Nancy Pelosi has figured out what's in it yet...

"None of the funds made available in this title may be used, in whole or in part, to advocate or promote gun control," the bill reads. Health agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have taken this over the years as a warning not to undertake any research on gun deaths.  Because that's not an illogical stretch of what's in the law, now is it.


Of course, as the media nitpicks it, what you will here from one side is how terrible it is that we didn't exactly defund Planned Parenthood, and from the other how terrible it is that American oil companies can now export oil pumped out here.


ITEM: Simpler, funnier humor: A CCTV video caught a man in Agadir, Morocco, with a taste for, um, large women, learning that his fetish might not be the safest for a dedicated perv to have.

First we see him pinch the butt of his victim:

...the victim is the lady in green, and you can see his arm as he inserts hand where-it-should-not-go...

Second, the revenge of the victim...

... a massive blow to the departing perv's back, which knocks him into frame #3...

...as well as into the street vendor's wares.  He was soon to find himself intimate with the ground, as the satisfied victim proceeded about her business.


ITEM:  If violence is your fare, here's a link to a daily Mirror story about two McDonalds workers from Georgia who took an argument outside for the world to see- and got it recorded by a prospective customer and thence to You Tube.  If not, well, here's the denouement:

ITEM:  Latest contestant, world's dumbest criminal:

CCTV captures the moment two masked robbers walk into the Security National Bank in Omaha, Nebraska , on Wednesday morning.

While the first robber - a woman in a pink hoodie - successfully enters by pulling the door open, her accomplice tries to push.

He spends several seconds baffled by the door's mechanism, before the woman returns and pushes the door open for him form the other side.

Despite the bad start, they managed to pull off the job and so far get away.  It is believed the male criminal may be at home under self-imposed house arrest...


ITEM:  Finally, in a story actually fit for Christmas week...

A reindeer escaped from a Christmas event at a Tesco store today - causing traffic chaos.

The errant mammal was supposed bring some festive fun to shoppers in Carlton, Nottingham, along with a Santa and sleigh. But it fled after becoming startled by a car horn - leaving onlookers amazed. The reindeer was almost hit by a bus as it made its escape at around 12pm.  It was recaptured a short time later in a nearby garden.

Screw Santa, I'm outta here!!!!!!!!!!!