Hole found under U.S. Embassy
� Linked to possible terror attack
Jimmy Hoffa found in hole found under U.S. Embassy
� Linked to possible terror attack
Osama bin Laden found buggering the corpse of Jimmy Hoffa found in hole found under U.S. Embassy
� Linked to possible terror attack
Bush puts Saddam in his sights
� Newsweek: Asserting U.S. authority
"Cheny! Cheny! I said to the left. Move him to the left!"
"George it's just a paper mache Sadam, can't you just turn your head?"
"NO! WE WILL PUT HIM IN MY SIGHTS! I will not turn my head for the head of the axis of evil's head."
"Evil Head?"
"Yes, eeeeeeeeeeeeevil. Really really eeeeeeeeeeeeevil."
� WashPost: How safe is foreign meat?
It depends to what that meat is attached...
Porn is not OK for teen-agers
� from madscientist from the Northwest Florida Daily News.
Yeah, but neither is meth, cigarettes and vagrants who'll buy beer for them if you hand 'em five bucks.
THE TRUE STORIES - Now just the headlines are mine.
The Fleecing of America
The federal farm subsidy program, renewed consistently since 1933 as help for the struggling family farmer, was revealed in January to allocate 73 percent of its subsidies to just 10 percent of farmers, almost all of whom are well-off (according to government data published by the Environmental Working Group). For example, a man who owns a tractor dealership among other businesses and who lives in a 13,000-square-foot mansion in Elaine, Ark., has collected $38 million in subsidies since 1996. Among other problems with the subsidy program (some of which are being addressed this month by Congress): It guarantees high prices to crops that are already plentiful worldwide; it subsidizes only farms of certain favored commodities and not those producing fruits, vegetables or cattle; and it allows farmers to exceed the subsidy ceiling merely by establishing a second corporation. [WashingtonPost, 1-24-02]
When the dumb go bad and then get dumber and then go worse...
Donald S. Guthrie, Lock Haven, Pa., accused of robbing the M&T Bank in January, said he did it to pay the bail bondsman's bill from his previous arrest.
Maurice Gladney, 21, accused of a street robbery in St. Louis this month, said he did it to deal with his distress at the Rams' loss in the Super Bowl.
Robert Fremer, 48, Inverness, Fla., accused of robbing a Circle K convenience store in January, and Douglas Lloyd Harrison, 48, Salem, Ore., accused of robbing a U.S. Bank branch in January, said they did it because they needed to get back into jail because jail felt like "home" to them. [Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star-AP, 1-29-02] [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 2-5-02] [St. Petersburg Times, 1-16-02] [The Oregonian,1-19-02]
Viagra in the Digital Age or I never thought I'd say this, but, "Thank you Mr Castro"
In December, Cuban political refugee Jorge Casanova, 61, was convicted in Albuquerque, N.M., on six counts of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl, despite his claims of impossibility. The girl said Casanova had intercourse with her numerous times and that his sex organ was of normal size, but Casanova's ex-wife corroborated his testimony that, because he was tortured by the Castro regime in his genital and anal areas, he is not able to sustain an erection. (In fact, the ex-wife pointed out, their two eldest children, conceived after the torture, had to be fathered by artificial insemination.) The jury found Casanova not guilty of the 10 counts against him involving actual intercourse. [Albuquerque Journal, 12-11-01, 11-30-01]
Montana changes state slogan to: Montana Big Sky, Motherly Governor.
In August, Shane Hedges, a member of the staff of Montana Gov. Judy Martz, was involved in a fatal auto accident while presumptively drunk, and ultimately resigned and pled guilty to vehicular homicide. However, just after the crash, with the police still seeking evidence from the accident, Hedges went to see Gov. Martz while still wearing the clothes that were bloodied from the dead body in the front seat with him, and Gov. Martz promptly washed them. In January 2002, when the laundering became public knowledge, the local prosecutor let the governor off the hook by declaring that Hedges' clothing was not important evidence in the case. Said Martz, of her impulse to launder, "(T)he mother in me did it. A mother does that kind of stuff." [Spokane Spokesman-Review-AP, 1-8-02]
"People should need licenses to drive, oh, wait a minute..." - OR - "It's a damn good thing I'm not a cop."
Police in St. Peter, Minn., arrested Olga Esquivel Ramirez, 32, in August after an automobile chase that started when an officer observed Ramirez's suburban utility vehicle veer over the center line several times. Despite sirens and emergency lights, Ramirez did not stop for about four miles, until pinned in by several cruisers. However, she said she was not trying to outrun the police; rather, she said she thought that if they wanted her to stop, all they had to do was call her on her cell phone. [St. Peter Herald, 8-30-01]
Human Breeding To Be Licensed.
In January, a 42-year-old Vancouver, Wash., chiropractor, upset at the deteriorating relationship with his girlfriend, apparently disemboweled himself in his home. The man, a health-conscious former bodybuilder, was found by police (responding to the girlfriend's call that the man was continuing to harass her) lying on his bed, bloody, with his shirt off and a quantity of his intestines resting on his stomach. He was hospitalized, but his condition was not life-threatening. [The Columbian, 1-5-02]
Bryan Allison, 24, was hospitalized briefly in Buffalo, N.Y., in November after falling 20 feet to the ground while tossing a television set off a second-floor balcony at his home. According to police, Allison was watching the videotape of a 1989 National Hockey League playoff game with his brother and got angry once again that his team had lost. He picked up the TV set and attempted to toss it off the balcony but apparently failed to let go of it in time. [Buffalo News, 11-19-01]
Why alien life has never stayed long enough to say hello.
Returning to the TV screen on Christmas morning was the WPIX-TV (New York City) "Yule Log," a two-hour "program" consisting of a shot of a log burning in a fireplace; it garnered a 3.1 rating (10 percent of all TVs on at the time) and helped the station to its day-long ratings victory.
Andy Park, 42, of Melksham, England, is still going strong, though concerned about his health recently; 10 years ago, he decided that Christmas dinner was so tasty that he should eat it (turkey and all the trimmings) every day of the year, and he figures he has since consumed more than 5,000 helpings of turkey, 7,300 helpings of mince pie and 8,000 glasses of sherry.
The South Korean human-rights organization Sarangbang charged that the country's highly detailed public-school dress codes violate the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child (December).
A Ukrainian company, New Men Travel, announced a $460 hands-on tour of Chernobyl (site of the 1986 nuclear plant accident), claiming that radiation has dissipated enough that an hour or two in protective clothing would be safe (January).
Among those nominated by world leaders or previous winners for Nobel Peace Prizes this year are California death-row inmate (four murders) Tookie Williams (January).
Per Olympic rules, one member of Canada's gold-medal-winning team in Duplicate Bridge (held the week before the opening of the Salt Lake City games as a "demonstration event") was selected for a random drug test.
A judge ruled that an employee who was injured in an amateur boxing match, off-site, during his lunch hour, was covered under worker compensation laws because lunch hours are for "refreshing" oneself for work (Wellington, New Zealand).
A few days after closing a plant and laying off 4,500 auto workers, Ford Canada proceeded with a previously scheduled campaign to ask all its workers to wear "Ford Pride" buttons on the job.
Police run over drug suspect's mailbox
Police attempting to inform a homeowner that his mailbox had been knocked over stumbled on a $2 million (U.S.) marijuana farm in the man's basement (Vercheres, Quebec).
