• From the “Classy” Department – A Secret Service agent in the middle of the kerfluffle over the use of prostitutes by members of the President’s security detail reportedly ‘checked out‘ Sarah Palin while protecting her.   He has posted about giving Mrs. Palin the once-over during the 2008 presidential campaign.  Now, I’m a heterosexual male, so I can sympathize with him for taking in an eyeful of a mature, attractive woman, even if he did it on the job.  But you don’t go up on Facebook and brag about it.  Apparently discretion isn’t taught at the Secret Service.  
• From the “Dumbass” Department – A teacher in Virginia is in hot water after lining up his class and then firing blanks at them.  Someone needs to take Mr. Braincramp out and teach him that a gun is a tool for protection, not something to punish students or get their attention.  For those of you who say “It was just blanks!”, I have four words for you:  Brandon Lee and Jon-Erik Hexum.  Gun owners will not be judged on the merits of those who are responsible and safe, we will be judged on the merits of our dumbasses.
• From the “What’s in a Name?” Department – The state of Alabama has denied access to its alcohol markets to a brand of beer called “Dirty Bastard”.  The justification for the denial was the use of the term “Bastard” on the label, which has been known to cause the heads of six year olds to explode and make little old ladies spontaneously burst into flames.  I suggest that the company that makes the beer rebrand it for Alabama with a title of “Narrow-minded Fascist” and see how that flies.
• From the “Coffee Buzz” Department – Starbucks has responded to consumer outcry over the use of a red dye made from beetles and will be re-formulating its pink drinks and food this summer.  The original complaint was that the products would violate the vegan lifestyle, but it quickly spread because someone started yelling “Soylent Pink is bugs!” on Twitter or something.  I don’t have a problem with the use of insects.  It’s just protein.  Someday I’ll tell y’all how one of the best meals I ever had was based mainly on boiled ants, prickly pear, and Arby’s sauce.  I’m still waiting to hear back from Starbucks on my suggestion to sweeten their coffee drinks with the tears of free-range hippies.
• From the “Mare Nostrum” Department – The Coast Guard has reported that it has sunk its 30th drug smuggling sub.  This particular submersible was scuttled by its crew off the coast of Honduras.  For the moment, let’s drop the debate about the novelty of using submarines to smuggle drugs and the whole war on drugs.  My question:  When did the Coast Guard get authorization to operate what pretty much amount to combat interdiction patrols off the coast of another sovereign country that is located a couple thousand miles away from our most southern coast?  I know, better on the beaches of Honduras than on the beaches of Texas, but at some point I have to ask why we’re enforcing our drug laws so far from home.  And what happens when the drug runners start buying cheap torpedoes for the Uboats?

• From the “Oopsie!” Department – The University of Alabama is replacing a trophy for the 2011 BCS football championship after it was smashed.  A parent of a current player accidentally broke it when they got tangled up in the carpet that runs under the case for the trophy.  In related news, a freshman linebacker for the University of Alabama has gone into hiding and is seeking out surgeons to change his face, complexion, and possibly his gender.
• From the “Unpossible!” Department – Scientists are scratching their heads over new data that shows that some Asian glaciers are growing.  Their earlier projections predicted that the glaciers would have lost so much ice by now that they would only have been good for filling up a beer cooler or two.  According to the linked article, they are blaming Global Warming for the increased iceflows, which makes sense when you consider that I blamed global warming this morning when I burned the toast.
• From the “All Workout Equipment is Always Loaded” Department – A man in California is recovering after being shot in the shoulder by a .22 bullet.  While someone getting shot is only mildly newsworthy, the method by which he received his wound is interesting:  He claims he dropped a dumbbell on a .22 rimfire, causing it to go off and hit him.  See, I told you working out was bad for your health.
• From the “One Stop Shop” Department – A man in Maryland is under arrest after police discovered that he was selling marijuana out of his ice cream truck.  Personally, I think he ought to be given a medal for his business acumen.  The only way I could see this improved is if he also sold Doritos, snack cakes, and pizza along with vanilla fudge ripple and Grape Ape Ganja.
•  From the “I Hope She Was Worth It” Department – Secret Service agents and members of the U.S. armed forces are in hot water after a prostitution scandal broke out in Colombia just prior to President Obama flying in for a summit.  It appears that the agents may have frequented a house of ill repute and made business deals with the ladies working there.  A dispute broke out with the management of the mason du chat, which brought in the police and the international press.  It is reported that the agents may have bragged about their connection to the president while trying to impress their ‘dates’, which will show you how stupid men can be sometimes when they mix alcohol and testosterone.  Several of the people involved have lost their security clearance over the episode, which is secret squirrel code for “You really ought to start working on your resume”, and Congressional investigations are not far off.  Like my first sergeant used to say before we were sent off on one task or another:  “It’s better to have blue balls than to have them cut off because you got caught waving them around on mission.”  These guys are going to have their careers ruined because of a couple hours of hubris and stupidity.
• From the “Pathetic” Department – Bill Maher, former semi-funny comedian, current political hack, and future assistant janitor at the Cape Girardeau, Kentucky, Department of Outhouses and Septic Systems, has pulled out his ‘wit’ and gotten involved in the kerfluffle over whether or not Ann Romney worked while raising five children as a stay at home mother.  While the reporter who originally stepped on her schwanz by saying that Mrs. Romney has never worked has backed down and admitted that staying at home with five kids and not putting your head in the oven is a difficult job, Maher has decided to agitate the excrement with a Cuisinart  in order to drum up a little publicity.  Quoth the clown:  “…there is a big difference between being a mother, and that tough job, and getting your ass out the door at 7 a.m. when it’s cold, having to deal with the boss, being in a workplace, or even if you’re unhappy you can’t show it for eight hours.”  Hopefully the horde of men and women who choose to stay at home and keep their families going doesn’t find Mr. Maher before he has a chance to escape the country and find a position as the guy in charge of the ship dip at the nastiest New Zealand sheep ranch that can be found.  No response has been given to inquiries as to which part of the American population Mr. Maher will insult next, although ‘wheelchair bound survivors of domestic abuse’ is the most popular choice being bounced around by his writing staff at the moment.

A TSA screener in New York is looking for a new job after flinging a cup of hot coffee at an airline pilot who asked her to ease off on the cussing.

A TSA screener was arrested at JFK Airport for hurling a cup of hot coffee at an American Airlines pilot who told her and some colleagues to tone down a profanity-laced conversation in a terminal, sources said yesterday.

A judge on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals assigned a three page, single spaced paper on whether or not the Obama administration believes that courts have the authority to review laws and declare laws unconstitutional if necessary to a lawyer that is arguing a case before him.  The Justice Department has 48 hours to respond.

Recently, President Obama made a speech in which he ‘encouraged’ the Supreme Court to find his signature healthcare law constitutional.  He cautioned the Court that as ‘unelected’ judges, they shouldn’t undo what Congress had done.  Apparently during his time as a Constitutional Law scholar, Mr. Obama never read about Marbury v Madison.

Judicial review of law and how it is applied is exactly the reason we have higher courts.  Local courts are perfectly capable of finding out matters of guilt, innocence, and liability.  The higher courts are there to answer questions about whether or not something that the government is doing violates the limits placed on it by the Constitution.

Finding a law to be unconstitutional is not judicial activism, especially when that law is unprecedented in its granting of new powers to the government.  President Obama knows better, and is playing to the crowd and trying to cow the judiciary in the vein of President Roosevelt.  Something tells me that Justice Kennedy isn’t going to fold in 2012 like Justice Roberts did in 1937.

For his sake, I hope the Justice Department flunky assigned to write up this report does a good job. I’ve heard that judges are tough graders, and this one sounds pissed.

• From the “Beef in Rice” Department – A group of men in New Mexico have been arrested after they were stopped for a traffic violation.  Officers found that in addition to three men, their Honda contained a Holstein calf, which the men did not own.  No explanation for the presence of the young cow was given, although a good explanation could be that the men were tired of giving away dyed chicks for Easter.  Of course, this was Deming, New Mexico, and if you’ve ever been to Deming, you’d understand why this might just be a normal Saturday night.  Ladies, I expect full credit for not going down the “heifer in the back seat” joke road.
•  From the “How Convenient” Department – An Islamic cleric, who has been branded a terrorist by the United States, drove onto the grounds of the United States embassy in Yemen. The nice sheik was trying to evade Yemeni agents who were trying to arrest him, so I guess we’ll give Yemen an assist for this one.  In hunting, we call what they were doing “driving the quarry”.  One thought though:  Either we knew who was coming and opened the gate for him, or someone in the embassy has a lot of explaining to do when someone on the terrorist list can get onto embassy grounds alive.
• From the “Your Tax Dollars At Work” Department – Several people, including the director of the Government Services Agency, are out of a job, with probably more to follow. The cause of their unemployment appears to be a conference for GSA employees held in Las Vegas in 2010.  News reports suggest that $835,000 was spent to put on a conference attended by 300 government employees, which comes to about $2800 per employee.  Highlights of the conference included a mind reader and a rather expensive set of custom made coins commemorating PorkFest 2010.  You know, you give me almost $3000 to go to Vegas for four days, and I’ll do the mind reading part for you.  “I see from your mind that you are a wasteful dumbass and will be unemployed in a couple of years.”
• From the “Sausage Factory” Department – Four people in Indiana have been indicted for forging registration petitions used during the 2008 Democrat Party primaries.  They are alleged to have forged signatures on petitions to get candidates Obama, Clinton, and Edwards on the ballot.  Shocked! Yes, shocked I am that there is skullduggery in partisan politics!  I’m just surprised that they didn’t just turn in a photocopy of the list of people who’ve died in the last five years in the district.  Then again, it wasn’t Illinois.
• From the “Friends in High Places” Department – Onyango Obama, uncle of President Barack Obama, has been given back his license to drive in order to get to work.  He was arrested in Massachusetts after his car almost got into an accident with a police car and he blew a .014 on a Breathalyzer.  He has also been given one year to keep his nose clean before the judge can dismiss all charges against him.  Reports are that he has entered into an alcohol treatment program, and is trying to keep his job managing a liquor store.  Wait a minute…. A guy, who just happens to be a blood relative of the president, gets one year to try and stay out of trouble after driving with almost twice the legal blood alcohol limit, is allowed to drive back and forth to work, is in an addiction program for alcohol, and is managing a liquor store.  Oh, and he might be in the country illegally.  Folks, if you’d written that for Hollywood, they’d have thrown you out of the office before you got through the script summary.  I’ve really got to get me some relatives in Washington, because apparently it’s a get-out-of-jail-free card.  What does he have to do in order to actually be inconvenienced by the criminal justice system? 

• From the “Don’t #!$@ With Old Men” Department – An 81 year old man in Michigan defended his wife and himself when they were threatened by a man with a butcher knife who wanted their car.  Rather than meekly give in and hope they weren’t hurt, he grabbed the hand that held the knife and proceeded to make things difficult for the carjacker.  The miscreant eventually gave up and ran away.  Just goes to show, you may not always be armed, but you are never defenseless so long as you are conscious and refuse to stop fighting.  Also, be mindful of fighting with old people.  They’re close to seeing Jesus anyway, so they’ve got nothing to lose.
• From the “Adults Behaving Badly” Department – Two people are under arrest in two separate incidents of disrupting flights in two days.  In one case, a member of the flight crew had to be locked out of the flight deck and subdued by passengers after running through the aircraft yelling about bombs.  In the other, a woman was restrained after physically attacking members of the crew. Say it with me people – Don’t scare Americans at 35,000 feet. They don’t care what it takes to get back to the ground safely anymore.
• From the “Backing Down” Department – The mayor of Medora, North Dakota, has withdrawn plans to build a gallows in his town.  His plan was to hold mock hangings of himself in the scenic old-West town.  I think not building it might be a mistake. Nothing tells people from out of town to mind their manners like a set of well maintained gallows in the town square.
• From the “Bad Idea” Department – Scientists have shown that it is possible to use a metal detector to find hidden money.  Modern bills have magnetic ink on them, which sets off the detector.  They postulate that it might be possible to use more powerful detectors to find people who are carrying large amounts of cash.  For those who prefer to carry cash rather than use cards all the time, this means that about 15 minutes after a law enforcement agency gets the technology, Sumdood and his friends will have one to find people on the street who might be interested in making a donation to the local youth group’s doughnuts and fruit juice fund.

• From the “Headdesk” Department – Belvedere Vodka is in Damage Control Condition Whiskey Tango Foxtrot after it briefly put an ad on its social media accounts that showed a man trying to restrain a woman who appeared to be trying to flee him.  The tag line of “Unlike some people… Belvedere always goes down smoothly” isn’t exactly helping either.  Yeah, nothing like advertising that highlights the use of alcohol to get women to do things they don’t really want to do.  What’s next?  An advertisement for sleep aids that shows a woman in her jammies while a leering man stands over her bed?  “Rohypnol, for when ‘no’ means ‘wait a few minutes’!”.
  
• From the “Snakezilla” Department – Grand Central Station in New York City is displaying a life-size mock up of a 45 foot long snake. The animal lived in the area some 60 million years ago.  Due to my personal aversion to snakes, I’d have to say that if I were to see a 50 foot constrictor in the wild, I’d be breaking some or all of the laws of physics to get back to a radio to call in a nuclear air strike on my position just so I knew the snake got it too.  Of course, a snake that big would keep some of my favorite holster makers in business for quite some time.
• From the “Stupid Question” Department – A Pakistani man is facing arrest after he threw acid on his wife during an argument about household expenses.  I’ve seen a lot of instances in the news over the years of men in the Muslim world throwing acid on women who have displeased them in some way, and I have to ask: where are they getting all this acid?  It’s not like you can just go down to the souk and get a bottle of acid, is it?
• From the “Journey to the Deep” Department – Movie director and amateur submarine designer James Cameron just returned from a three hour long dive to the bottom of the Marianas Trench.  His journey was meant to explore…… Well he gathered information about…… His data will be used to help …… Well, he did it, and that’s what counts, isn’t it?
• From the “Why we can’t have nice things” Department – The city of Colorado Springs has called off its annual Easter egg hunt because of the way that some parents acted at the event last year.  Apparently the parents were pushing their children to maximize their haul of hen fruit, which left some kids out in the cold after the spring ritual.  Rather than enforce rules that keep adults out of the egg gathering area, the entire event was called off.  Just goes to show that it only takes a couple jerks to ruin it for everyone.  In related news, several parents who were out of line last year were found zip tied to street signs with “Dickhead” tattooed on their foreheads and old Easter eggs crammed up their nostrils.  Police promise to be expeditious about finding the culprits.

• From the “Quaffing for a Quid” Department – The government of Great Britain is proposing to set a minimum price for alcohol to discourage irresponsible drinking.  No longer will you be able to buy discounted drinks in the land of good beer and better whiskey.  When asked what they thought of the proposal, pub patrons in London said they couldn’t comment because they were too pissed.
• From the “Mother of the Year” Department – A woman in Washington state was arrested recently when police found a needle full of heroin in her purse during a traffic stop.  The kicker is that the police took her child to the hospital when they noticed that the youngster was lethargic.  Turns out the kid was high on second hand smoke from the heroin the female genetic donor was smoking in the car with her child in the back seat.  You know, just when I thought I couldn’t be shocked, I’m taught there is no depth to human stupidity.  That’s a smorgasbord of moronitude there.  First, riding around with a needle full of heroin in your purse. Second, riding around with a guy with warrants.  Third, smoking heroin in the car with your child in the back seat.  It’s a trifecta of stupid!  I hope for this kid’s sake his mother never sees him again.
• From the “Rule Four” Department – A homeowner in Ohio got a bit of a surprise when a bullet came through the side of his house and landed in a bathroom sink.  It is believed that the bullet is a stray round from a shooting range that police were using that day which is about 1/2 mile away. Not exactly what I’d be expecting when I went to brush my teeth.  On the bright side, he now has a .40 sized hole in his wall for feeding cable.
• From the “Dead Man Walking” Department – A Saudi man announced to the world that he would be divorcing his wife over the PA system at a shopping mall.  No report yet on whether his body has  been found.

I’m no fan of Bank of America.  I used to do my banking with them, but left for my current bank about a decade ago when they started introducing new fees and jacking up existing ones.  I’ve also heard some less than stellar things about how they deal with troubled mortgages lately.

 But after reading this, my opinion of BofA is a bit higher.

Basically, they’re trying to see if it’s effective to rent foreclosed homes to the people who used to own them.  The renter gets out from under a bad mortgage, avoids possible homelessness, and stays in their community.  The bank gets at least some money out of a property for which they would normally get nothing and have to pay to do normal maintenance on, such as lawn maintenance, and may be able to sell the property at a profit later.  The community gets to keep families in homes that are still kept up and not cleaned out by thieves.

I hope this works out.  It’s best if people can afford to own the home they live in, but renting it is better than the alternative.

• From the “Reptiles Over Nuptials” Department – A woman in England has put off her wedding so that she can afford chemotherapy for her lizard.  You know, if I’d suggested putting off our wedding so that I could pay for chemo for my cat, we’d have still needed the chapel, but the priest would have needed another section of the Book of Common Prayer.  Irish Woman would still have thrown a party, but the invitations would have had “reception” crossed out with “wake” written in in jagged red permanent marker.
• From the “Criminal J. Mastermind” Department – A copper thief in North Carolina broke into a jail and stole copper out of an air conditioning unit.  Police are investigating.  Three things occur to me here.  First, you’ve either got to be really desperate or really reckless to break into a jail to steal.  Second, the guards at this particular jail must be having a really bad week right about now.  And third, if they catch this guy, he better hope he’s not sent to this particular jail.  Would you want to be locked in a jail with guards you just embarrassed and criminals you just made sit in the heat with no air conditioning?
• From the “Steve McQueen is Weeping” Department – American car manufacturers have announced plans to rollout cars with three cylinder engines in the next couple of years.   They promise to give just as good a performance as the four cylinder hot rods we’re driving now, with much better gas mileage.  Because we all know that these overpowered four cylinder death machines are killing baby rabbits and drinking high test gasoline by the barrel.  The term that comes to mind is “blood from a turnip”.  One good thing about driving a minivan is that there is no way I will ever have one of these things under my hood.  Heck, I’d need two of them in order to get that behemoth of mine up to the speed where I can use cruise control.
• From the “Chutzpah” Department – The FBI is charging an official in Michigan with embezzlement.  It seems that the gentleman may have misappropriated almost a quarter of a million dollars and used government funds to acquire a Jaguar and a Mercedes.  My guess is no-one would have complained if he had bought a Ford or GM car.