Martin World News

Time for another fun round of Martin World News- not fake, not overtly political, and certainly not a program you'd go out of your way to be featured on!  And I'm going to put a one-story-per-newssite limit today, so here we go!


ITEM 1:  "Well, I'll admit it was a bit off topic, but...

Headline on FoxNews:  Drexel pays $189K to cover professor's strip-club spending: Feds


"Drexel University was ordered to pay $189,062 after learning a former professor had spent grant money on strippers and iTunes purchases over the course of a decade, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia said."  The professor in question, one Dr. Chikaodinaka D. Nwankpa, had been funding these "field trips" on Federal grants earmarked for Naval tech research (electrical and computer engineering teacher) for the LAST TEN YEARS before getting snagged by an internal audit.

A little digging on my part found this interesting tidbit on the frisky prof still up on Drexel's website:

OIP would like to congratulate Prof. Nwankpa on his 2013 IEEE Fellowship. He was selected for this prestigious honor for contributions to real-time computation in power system analysis The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is the world's largest professional association dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity. 

At least he could compute singles and $20s in real time.  After his, er, exposure, he promptly paid the U. about $54K back (just $135,000 to go) and resigned.  Where did he get his education, you ask?  Proud graduate of St Petersburg State in Russia (no kidding), and Illinois Institute of Technology, where he got a PhD in not touching during lap dances.


ITEM 2:  Now here's an idea from Europe we need to try...

Headline from BBC:  Italy reduces size of parliament 'to save €1bn in a decade'

Italy's parliament has voted to cut the number of representatives in both houses by more than a third.
The lower house approved a law to reduce the number of MPs from 630 to 400 and senators from 315 to 200. The reform was a manifesto promise of the populist Five Star Movement, the main party in Italy's governing coalition.  They say it will streamline parliament and save hundreds of millions of euros in salaries and expenses.


If we did that to the same proportion, we'd shrink the House from 435 members to 276 and the Senate from 50 to 32.  That would be an annual savings in salary alone of $30,798,000 per year...  With perks, I bet it would beat the billion Euro mark.  I didn't work out all the details, because they are that many and that staggering, but according to the Motley Fool site, my plan would also save $7 million plus just in free parking at Reagan International over ten years.


ITEM 3: It must be that new math

Headline from Xinhua: Swedish high school students high on cocaine during school hours: report



Police in Sweden's second largest city of Gothenburg say they are finding high school students high on cocaine and amphetamines during school hours, Swedish news SVT reported on Tuesday.
After a year of specially-directed police actions carried out at high schools across the city, police have found students under the influence of strong narcotics such as amphetamine, cocaine and the prescription opioid tramadol.  "That this cocktail of drugs is found in secondary schools is a huge failure for Sweden," Robin Nilsson, head of the Gothenburg police unit specializing in drug trafficking, told SVT.

So why do the kids take drugs at school?  The high? The adventure? The big FU to authority?  No...


According to SVT, students often name stress as a factor, saying that they feel pressured to get good grades in school.

Excuse me, but what part of doing lines at school helps good grades?  Which of the affects of tramadol help lift that GPA, the relief of moderate to severe pain, the dizziness, drowsiness, blurred vision, and sleep problems, or the addictive nature? 


Item 4: Talking from both sides of his textbook

Headline from Moscow Times:  Putin Says It’s ‘Cynical’ to Blame Stalin for World War II

Blaming Stalin for starting World War II is “the height of cynicism,” Russian President Vladimir Putin has said amid renewed discussion over the Soviet Union’s role in the conflict.
“To say that Stalin unleashed the war is the height of cynicism,” Putin said at an international conference in southern Russia on Thursday.  “It’s as if the Soviet Union attacked Germany at 4 a.m. on June 22 [1941] and not vice versa,” he told the Valdai Discussion Club.

No, it's as if Stalin gave Hitler the big okee-dokeee to do whatever he wanted in Poland, France, hell, all the rest of Europe, as long as he got his slice of Polska Kielbasa. 

Tensions came to a head last month when Russia’s Foreign Ministry defended the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, tweeting that “hundreds of thousands of lives were saved” because of it.

Saved for a year and 9 months, that is, as most of the lives that were "saved" by Molotov-Ribbentrop were extinguished in Operation Barbarossa and thereafter.  Even Putin used to feel this way.  What changed?  Glad you asked...

Putin defended the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, calling it Moscow’s response to being isolated and having its peace efforts snubbed by Western nations. While serving as prime minister in 2009, however, he denounced it as “collusion to solve one’s problems at others’ expense.”


ITEM 5: And now for something different

I usually save a big-bopper stupid story for the end, but this time we're going to get one that is just too cool for me to leave out.

Headline from the Times of Israel:  Arab plumbers refuse to charge client after learning she’s a Holocaust survivor

Simon and Salim Matari, who are brothers, were recently called to the home of Rosa Meir to fix a major leak, according to Channel 12.  “When we got there, we saw there was a large blast of water and we started fixing it,” said Simon. “At some stage, while working, my brother Salim started to talk to Rosa about her life. She told us she’s 95, a Holocaust survivor, and that she has a daughter.

After the work was completed, he removed his notepad to bill her, and wrote: “Holocaust survivor, may you have health until 120 [years old], from Matari Simon and Matari Salim,” adding that the cost of the service was “0 shekels.”

Rosa was brought to tears, the report said.

“The brothers really surprised me,” she said. “It was so moving and uplifting, and I thanked them a lot.”

Simon Matari said they did it “from their hearts.”


He also left her a parting gift: If she should need anything else, he said, they would happily come fix it for free.


Salute to you, Simon and Salim.  May you both have health till 120 years old.