Weekly Dozen News Items for Jan 23, 2010

I can never vouch for the accuracy or truthfulness of the items I mention, but the last amazing item (#13) today seems to be completely true, except for the comment attached.

01. Hammacher-Schlemmer has marketed a bug vacuum stick. A cordless device for sucking up little creatures. I wonder why this hadn't been thought of before?

02. A guy with the kind-of familiar Maryland name of Glen Bell just died. It was interesting to note that he founded the restaurant with the name of Taco Bell. (Old joke: Karnak's Answer-Question: What is the name of the Mexican telephone company?)

By the way: why doesn't some enterprising person start up an 11:30 pm nightly show with videos of old Johnny Carson shows? I'll bet it would get fantastic ratings.. at least with the "over 60" crowd.

03. Attendees at a Weight Watchers meeting in Sweden were surprised when the floor collapsed. Luckily, no one was hurt and they continued with their "weigh-in".

04. Fred Friendly hinted that Senators at first called Harry Truman "the Pendergast Senator" (after the influence of Kansas City Missouri boss, Tom Pendergast). (Now, after the Supreme Court ruling the other day.. we may live to see "The Exxon Senator" or the "WalMart President.)

05. Pat Robertson recently mentioned that Haitian leaders once called upon Satan to help them get rid of the French, and hinted that this is why they had the earthquake. I read that he is right about the leaders invoking Satan.. however, his "it's your own fault" attitude bothers me, as well as his assurance that he can do anything through prayer.

I seem to remember that when a hurricane was about to hit an east-coast town, he prayed long and hard that it would not hit that town.. it swerved at the last minute and the town was saved.. he took credit for saving the town through prayer and saving lives...however, the next town over was hit by the hurricane instead... What about them?

06. Kind of related: Rifles with coded Christian Bible verses on their sights have recently been provided to U.S. Soldiers serving in Arab countries. The Pentagon has now asked the company to stop the practise and provide a means to remove the words on the rifles that have already been received. Supposedly, Moslems learned about the verses and it gave more fuel to the thinking that Christianity is out to destroy them.

07. Watch out! A subway rider in the Queens is taking pictures of people picking their noses and is posting them to the web.

08. Susan Boyle was heard shouting obscenities while singing into a mop... or so it was said by a probably unreliable source.

09. During a Google study of 7-year olds using the Internet, they were asked: "What day of the week will the Vice President's next birthday fall on?" Some kids didn't get further than looking at the "squarepants" site.. but some that did use a search engine, quit after seeing the first page of results. It was noted that boys quit their searches earlier than girls.

10. A British math expert has come up with a formula for making parallel parking easy: Items in the formula that must be considered:

a. The radius of the car's turning circle.
b. The car's wheel base.
c. The distance from the front wheel to the back bumper.
d. The width of the car that is on the right.

11. In a Great Britain department store, you can have access to a gift registry for couples that are getting divorced.

12. Remember the burglar who stole a king-size bed? Well, another burglar last week broke into a house, piled up what he wanted, and then, before he left, fried up a mass of chicken, poured some beer and watched TV for a while.

Bonus

13. The item I mentioned at the start:

At a Holiday Inn in England, a notorious place for cold clammy sheets, a staff person will be assigned to come up to your room before you turn in and "warm up your bed" by laying between the sheets and rolling around for a while!

(Someone on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me suggested that being a "giant British bed warmer" might be a good job for an unemployed Conan O'Brien.)

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News from January 20, 2010.

I want to mention some news items that intrigue me and then I want to say something about the big event in my old home state, Massachusetts.

01. During a burglary in White Marsh, Maryland, a king-size bed was stolen! (Just think about that.)

02. Because of protests by Animal Rights groups, Austrians stopped an avalanche experiment, in which pigs were buried in snow and watched to see if they were able to survive.

03. The Baltimore Department of Recreation was burgled. The stolen items were: 30 football helmets and 80 pairs of football pants. (How can you get mad at a football fan?)

04. The wonderful USNS Comfort hospital ship (out of Baltimore) is amazing, but a diagram of the ship shows that the morgue is situated right next to the lounge and just over the cafeteria. (Doesn't that sound a bit strange to you?)

05. If you get the chance, check out the wisdom contained in Garrison Keillor's column for today in the Baltimore Sun. It's title is: Despite all the screaming, common sense will prevail. Garrison says: "Should health care be a basic right, or is it a privilege for those who can afford it?"

06. Calvin Trillin wrote a poem in the latest Nation magazine about the world's tallest building. Check it out. The last two lines go:

Dubai, though I so hate to pry,
Why build a building quite that high?

07. Finally, for those who feel that Massachusetts Independents were crazy for voting for a Republican who could torpedo Health Reform.. didn't you know that Massachusetts already has mandatory health care..so why would that be an issue to them? Besides, the democratic candidate didn't know her Boston sports trivia.. bad news for anyone in Beantown.

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