Lance wrote Sun 23 Aug 2009 @08:41:52 EDT:

Whoa,  check the update to the toddler shot in stroller in
Greene County, Indiana. The shooter was the father, not
a stranger.  The father walked with gun in pants,  drew it
when he heard a noise,  then walked with the gun against
stroller handle  and  accidentally  pulled  the  trigger.  The
mother is now  an  accomplice  for false statements about
her (I think ex) husband's innocence when  she  knew  the
story.  Strange days.

Dave Foster wrote Mon 17 Aug 2009:

I'm with Len re his position on light beer.   And at risk of
causing controversy, I'll say also that if he sends any beer
to  the White House,  would he please ensure it's Ameri-
can beer,  as  both Anheuser-Busch and Miller saw fit to
sell out to the people from abroad. The White House PC
department seems to have  overlooked  this  detail.  Why
has the Editor not pounced on this?

And, new update from Maine:  The site of the topless cof-
fee shop is up for sale.

"TARC"  (the "Transportation Authority of River City")   launched a new ex-
press bus service between Jeffersonsville, Indiana, and Louisville, Kentucky,
and no riders showed up.
                                                        [courtesy Louisville Courier-Journal]

The superintendent of schools of Newport,  Kentucky,  has appealed to the
Kentucky Supreme Court for the right to continue to live in his home in Cin-
cinnati, Ohio,  only 12 minutes away from his office.  The former superinten-
dent of Cincinnati schools, he said he will move to Kentucky if he has to (he
has been superintendent at Newport since 2004,  and was ordered by a cir-
cuit court last year to vacate the post).
                                                                       [courtesy Associated Press]

A customer took a dealer car for a 100-m.p.h. test drive in a 45-m.p.h. zone in
Louisville and struck another car, killing two persons.  The customer,  his broth-
er, and a salesman riding with them (who said he asked the driver to slow down)
were not hurt. . . .

A city police car and a deputy sheriff's car collided  responding to a call in Louis-
ville.
                                                                               [courtesy Courier-Journal]

Smoking  privileges,  banned  at a central Kentucky prison  since inmates burned
down several buildings in a riot a week ago, were restored; but matches and light-
ers have been withheld.  Prisoners now have to ask guards to light their cigarettes.

                                                                                                     [courtesy AP]

"Let's say 'fuck' as often and conversationally as we can,
  and we'll be on to 'cunt' before you know it."
                                                                                         – David Mitchell
                                                                                            [thanks to Bruce Mitchell for the link]

What if the Hokey Pokey is not what it's all about?
                                                                                  [with backhand acknowledgment
                                                                                   to the Funny Times Gift Shop]

Macaulay Culkin, 29
Kobe Bryant, 31
Pee-wee Herman, 57
Harry Reems, 62
Tuesday Weld, 66

"bungling"

"outreach"

"align"

"strategic"

"communications

"strategic communications"

"cottage industry"

"eclipses"

"execution"

"machinery"

"misdirected"

"Muslim world"

"Arab world"

"continuing levels"

"nonpartisan"

"priority"

"anti-American"

"out-communicated"

"communicators"

"credibility"

A 7-year-old girl among 10,000 gawkers at Hurricane Bill on
the coast of Maine  was  swept  into the ocean  and drowned.
. . . A female pastor praying alone was slain in the Christ Holy
Sanctified Church in Anadarko, Oklahoma. . . . The State De-
partment was weighing Moammar Gadhafi's request to pitch a
tent in New York City's Central Park.  .  .  . Turks took to the
streets of Ankara to protest a ban on smoking in bars and res-
taurants. . . . New Zealanders voted overwhelmingly in a refer-
endum to be allowed to smack their children.  . . .  A protester
brought an assault rifle to a speech by President Obama in Ari-
zon, and it was legal.  .  .  .  Jacqueline Kennedy's half-brother,
Jamie Auchincloss, was indicted for dissemination of child por-
nography  in  Ashland,  Oregon.  .  .  .  The  Sawyers  and  the
Moores,  150 strong  in toto,  feuded on the streets of Marion,
Alabama,  hurling rocks and tools at one another (five men and
several juveniles were arrested). . . .  A man in Boynton Beach,
Florida, called 911 when he could not find the key to his house.
. . . In Niceville, Florida, a woman sprayed Glade Potpourri air
freshener on a woman smoking in front of her apartment.

                      [courtesy Harper's Weekly, Daily Snopes, AP]

FGDean@aol.com (a retired insurance claims adjuster) wrote Sun 16 Aug
2009 @10:24:18 PDT re the blessing of deceased police dogs in Florida:

Since the priest is an agent of the "man upstairs," by blessing an animal
he commits our Lord God to making a place for them,  just as an insu-
rance agent obligates his company to honor a claim by promising a cli-
ent that the service will be covered.

Bruce Mitchell wrote Sun 16 Aug 2009 @15:06:55 PDT  (re last week's
birthdays, we guess):

Who's Eddie Fisher?

A 16-month-old boy in a stroller was killed by a bullet that went through
his head (and was not found, nor was the shooter) as his father took him
and his 4-year-old brother for a walk last Sunday evening in Midland,  a
town in Greene County. . . .

A grain worker fell into a three-story elevator of soy beans in Lapel and
suffocated.
                                                                 [courtesy Associated Press]

A hundred fifty recently filed marriage certificates were stolen from the of-
fice of the Bourbon County Clerk, about 200 were stolen in Scott County
and another 200 were lifted in Woodford County.  All  three  counties are
neighbors in the Bluegrass region,  near Lexington.
                                                                                         [courtesy AP]

     
                                                            More photos from same event.

"Certain fringe groups and individual citizens  who keep complaining and grumbling and moaning
 and finding fault and picking at everything, yet offer no real solutions to the problems we face as
 a nation . . . are starting to wear my nerves thin. Nothing but nothing is right for them. . . . Grum-
 bling and ranting about everything have become a way of life.  They're worse than a young child
 who is sleepy and needs a nap. Not a toy, not a hug, not even a bowl of ice cream can satisfy a
 sleepy child.  It must have a nap.  Eventually it conks out,  and I wish you complainers would do
 the same."
                                      – Emma Talbott, retired teacher, in the Louisville Courier-Journal

Birthdays:       Frank Gifford, 79       Kathie Lee Gifford, 56       Julie Newmar, 74       Eydie Gorme, 77 (or 78)       Ann Blyth, 80       Rumer Willis, 21 (all Aug. 16)       Scooter Libby, 59       Ginger Baker, 70       Ron Paul, 74       Ray Bradbury, 89

Ms. Willis

Rescuers were dispatched twice in a week to break open mail
boxes that two children had locked themselves in in Austria, in
separate incidents. .  .  .  A retired professor and his wife were
attacked and killed by a pack of dogs  while taking a stroll  on
a rural road in Oglethorpe County, Georgia. .  .  . Tom DeLay
will be a contestant on TV's Dancing with the Stars. . . . Steph-
en Schwarzman, Blackstone Group CEO,  was named highest
paid executive in America.at $702 million for the last year. . . .
President Chavez  declared  golfing  "bourgeois"  as Venezuela
planned to turn two courses into public parks and housing. . . .
A Muslim woman was banned from a French  swimming  pool
for wearing a full-body "burkini." .  .  . A woman and her furni-
ture were put on the street  in  Homestead,  Florida,  after  her
house was sold by a bank by mistake. . . .  Moammar Gadhafi
welcomed home to Libya  and  hugged  the Lockerbie bomber
paroled last week.  . . .  Jesus appeared in a 30-foot-tall kudzu
formation visible from a bridge in Raleigh, North Carolina.

                      [courtesy Harper's Weekly, Daily Snopes, AP]

Connie Harbeson, who contributed the Harass II item to our weekly
Bonus, wrote from Florida Sun 9 Aug 2009 @10:19:51 EDT:

In these parts,  dogs are not only taken deeply seriously;  they
are flat out revered  –  I  mean, full regalia funerals for deceas-
ed police dogs, precious land consumed for their graves – Ca-
tholic priests even "bless" them in public ceremony.   Does the
Church recognize their souls?

Len wrote Sun 9 Aug 2009 @18:10:40 EDT:

"Bud Light?  What kind of impression is Mr. Obama making
 on our youth?"

"It is not, we believe, the youth he is trying to impress,  but,
 rather, the shlubs, like you and me. . . ."

A feeble attempt.   Or,  a "light" attempt,  in this case.   I do not
drink "light" beer,  and do not believe it should be called beer at
all. .  .  .  I cite the German purity law of 1516 (Reinheitsgebot).
. . . Bud and Miller should be ashamed of themselves.  I have a
mind to send a six-pack of real beer to the White House. . . .

What ever became of the term "near beer"?   Even the Buckler that Vice
President Biden drank was called a "nonalcoholic" or "low alcohol" beer,
depending on the report.  – Ed.

Two murderers and a rapist escaped from the Indiana State Prison at
Michigan City through utility tunnels and a manhole to the street. . . .

It was revealed  that  the  City  of  Gary  paid the air fare for Michael
Jackson's father and the band the Chi-Lites to attend Jackson's mem-
orial service in Los Angeles.
                                                             [courtesy Associated Press]

"Christ paid for EVERY sin; so how can I or you be judged BY GOD for a sin
 when the penalty was ALREADY paid?"

                                                                    – George  Sodini,  who shot 12 women at a gym
                                                                        near Pittsburgh, killing three of them and then
                                                                        himself,  on his blog,  shortly before the crime

"Absolutely!"
                        – Buzzword Smith

DNA tests freed a second Floridian,  after 26 years in prison
for  murder,  positively identified at trial by police dog Harass
II,  who treed 60 other convicts. .  .  . A 75-year-old woman
drove two miles the wrong way on the Tappan Zee Bridge in
New York before being stopped,  and a man backing up  on
I-89 in Vermont was arrested for DUI. .  .  . The city of Mo-
bile, Alabama, dropped a public lewdness charge against Lu-
la Mae Battle, 81, who peed in a park after her bank refused
to let her use its restroom.  .  .  .  Four Uighurs released from
Guantanamo were hired by a Bermuda golf course  to help it
prepare for a PGA tournament. . . .  Anwar Sadat's daughter
demanded an apology from the U.S. embassy  for the film  I
Love You, Man,  in which a character names his dog Anwar
Sadat. . . . An Austrian woman on vacation was attacked by
otters in Lake Owen,  Wisconsin.  .  .  . An eagle dropped a
Lake Erie sheepshead on a woman's moving car in northwest
Ohio, breaking the windshield. . . . A bank customer in Anch-
orage, Alaska,  gave his name, account number and photo ID
to a teller to check his balance, and then robbed the bank (he
was arrested). . . . A 6-foot, 7-inch, 250-pound man was ar-
rested in Redwood City,  California,  on seven counts of arri-
ving nude at strangers' homes and ringing their doorbells.  . . .
A man tried to sell an oven door for a flat screen TV in aWal-
Mart parking lot in San Leandro, California.  . . . The Library
of Congress withdrew a lecture invitation to Lynndie England.
. . .  Bob Dylan was reported to be recording a Christmas al-
bum, including "Here Comes Santa Claus," "I'll Be Home for
Christmas," and "O, Little Town of Bethlehem!"

Tony Dean wrote Sun 2 Aug 2009 @11:20 CDT:

Bud Light?  What kind of impression is Mr. Obama making on our youth?

It is not, we believe, the youth he is trying to impress, but, rather, the shlubs, like
you and me.  He is saying, in effect, "I am one of you."  – Editor

Yuridia Sosa, 2, was shot in the head at her uncle's wedding
reception in Indianapolis, by a guest who showed up looking
for a fight (she is recovering).
                                                [courtesy Associated Press]

A state champion girls high school basketball coach  in  Louis-
ville was fired not only for having an affair with a pupil but also
for  accepting  money from girls in his physical education class
to excuse them from running laps. . . .

State Attorney General Jack Conway, a candidate for the U.S.
Senate, caught hell for calling himself "one tough son of a bitch"
at a political picnic on church grounds in western Kentucky.

                                   [courtesy Louisville Courier-Journal]

"Some people are alive simply because it is illegal to shoot them."
                                                                                                    – popular T-shirt

"We can use risk-needs assessments in the development of strategies
  to deal with our issues in order to stay focused and in the zone."
                                                                                                           – Buzzword Smith

A foot-long baby crocodile  took a stroll down the aisle of an
EgyptAir jet bound from Abu Dhabi to Cairo. . . . A motorist
smashed his SUV into parked cars in Hartford,  Connecticut,
when baby snakes escaped from his pockets.  .  .  .  A truck
driver texting on one cell phone and talking on another drove
into a car,  a fence,  a house  and a swimming pool  in Lock-
port,  New  York.  .  .  .  Dutch pranksters discovered that it
takes only two or three of them to lift a  two-seat  Smart  car
by hand,  and they are doing it and dumping them in Amster-
dam's canals  (see photo). . . . Swedish sperm banks report-
ed a shortage caused by high lesbian demand. . . .The home-
less were getting free one-way tickets to ride from the city of
New York. .  .  . An eastern Wisconsin man's wife and three
of his paramours conspired to lure him to a motel blindfolded
and glue his penis to his stomach. .  .  . The  Marines blocked
access to Facebook,  MySpace and Twitter  on their compu-
ters. . . .  A pelican at the Idaho Falls zoo swallowed, then re-
gurgitated, a cell phone. . . . A Chinese bride wore a wedding
dress nearly a mile-and-a-half long (2,163 metres). . . . A Jen-
sen Beach,  Florida,  man arrested for downloading more than
1,000 items of child pornography said his cat did it. . . .A man
was arrested for barking at a police dog  in  Three Rivers, Mi-
chigan  (it is not yet known whether they will be invited  to  the
White House for a beer).



                     [courtesy Harper's Weekly, Daily Snopes, AP]

Connie Harbeson wrote Thurs 30 July 2009 @10:30:06 EDT:

"Michael Jackson's dermatologist refused to deny that he is the father
 of Jackson's children":   "He,"  who?   Jocko,  or the doc?

For your information and further edification, the doctor was addressing allega-
tions that he the doctor might be the father.  Thank you for the comeuppance.
Your editor is appreciatively humbled.
                                                                        – Editor, Tabloid Headlines

Indiana ranked 31st among the 50 states in the well-being of children
in an annual survey  conducted  by  the  Annie E. Casey  Foundation.
Kentucky ranked 41st. . . .

A pit pull survived being thrown from a bridge 80 feet above the Ohio
River between Indiana and Kentucky, at Louisville. . . .

A Louisville police chief fired nine years ago for awarding  medals  to
two white patrolmen who had fatally shot a black teen-ager is a final-
ist for the position of  police  chief  at Indiana University Southeast  in
New Albany.
                                              [courtesy Louisville Courier-Journal]

A 14-year-old Covington girl was indicted for luring a 17-year-old boy
to her home to kill him – and killing him.

                                                                [courtesy Associated Press]

"Having said that, at the end of the day the bottom line is that nothing was said."

                                                                                                                            – Buzzword Smith

Dorothy Hamill, 53
Peggy Fleming, 61
Mick Jagger, 66
J. K. Rowling, 44

An automobile thief was found sleeping in the car he had sto-
len about six miles back in Casper,  Wyoming.  .  .  . Brenda
Wells, a high school principal who jumped onto a pile of stu-
dents to stop a food fight in Buckhannon, West Virginia, was
fired. . . .An Illinois man who admitted he had a thing for eye
glasses was arrested for robbing suburban Milwaukee stores
of $45,000 worth of them. . . . A man impersonating a traffic
cop in Oakland,  California,  pulled over an unmarked police
car (guess who got arrested).  . . . The ombudsman of Boise,
Idaho,  concluded  that police who Tasered a man's ass after
he had been handcuffed used excessive force. . . .An Albany
New Yorker was awarded $125,000 for an incident in which
doctors, at police' request,  sedated him, searched his rectum
for drugs,  and sent him a bill  for  $6,792  and a diagnosis of
hemorrhoids. .  .  . An e-bay merchant in Williamstown, New
Jersey,  pleaded guilty to using $200,000 worth of counterfeit
postage. .  .  . Thirty-four employees at a bank's call center in
Fort Worth, Texas, were taken to a hospital and an additional
110 had to be treated for inhalation of a co-worker's perfume.
.  .  . Llamas  were  serving  as  caddies  at two golf courses in
North Carolina, at $40 for nine holes (they approve choices of
clubs by stomping). . . . President Obama had a Bud Light; Dr.
Gates had a Sam Adams Light (not a Red Stripe);  Sgt.Crow-
ley drank a Blue Moon,  and Vice President Biden had a low-
alcohol (0.5%) Buckler  (there is no such thing as nonalcoholic
beer). .  .  .  An earthquake moved New Zealand a foot closer
to Australia. . . .Gillian Welch sang "White Rabbit" at the New-
port Folk Festival.