Good – Going to a movie for your evening entertainment

Bad – Going dressed as the Joker

Worse – You have an outstanding warrant and decide to stick around when someone calls the police.

Good – Having a school system that provides an education to an autistic boy and he can ride the bus on the first day of school.

Bad – He’s left alone on the bus for over  an hour after the bus run is over

Worse – Stonewalling the family when they ask to see the videotape from the bus so they can figure out what went wrong.

Good – The land crabs are mating again in Florida, continuing a healthy life cycle.

Bad – They’re doing it in the roads

Worse – Apparently that’s not good for the tires on cars.

Good – I checked the weather report before walking into work this morning

Bad – The weatherman as wrong, and it rained like cats and dogs this afternoon.

Worse – I left my car windows halfway down this morning

• From the “Your Tax Dollars at Work” Department – A Massachusetts judge has ruled that a prison violates the civil rights of a prisoner when it refuses to pay for sex reassignment surgery for said miscreant.  The prisoner in question is in prison for murdering his wife in 1990, and has sued before to get hormone therapy.  Call me insensitive, but I find it hard to find sympathy for a murderer who has decided that he needs to be a murderess.  What’s next?  Will the prisoner demand cosmetic surgery and breast implants because not being pretty causes cruel and inhuman suffering?
• From the “Oops” Department – A building in the Netherlands recently failed to fall when over 200 pounds of explosives were used in an attempt to collapse it.  Meanwhile, neighbors are being kept from their homes as a safety precaution.  In related news, a Dutch demolition company is advertising for interns who are unmarried, have no children, and don’t know much about what the inside of a partially demolished building looks like.
• From the “Fragrant Hipsters” Department – An ‘artist’ in Sweden is planning to use the sweat of glass blowers as a perfume.  This is yet another gambit in the “Try to plumb the depths of what they’ll buy” game.  The man hopes to use the product to separate tourists who come to buy blown glass from a little more of their filthy lucre.  I’d say he’s doomed to failure, but I said the same thing about bottled water.
• From the “Simpler Solution” Department – An 11 foot python was captured recently in Florida.  Animal control officials are quoted as saying that this particular serpent was ‘nasty’, meaning it fought hard against them when they tried to wrangle it.  Scientists plan to kill the snake and cut it open to see what it has been eating, which leads me to ask why they went to the trouble of capturing it alive in the first place.  I’m sure the nice folks at Browning, Remington, and Mossberg have perfectly good instruments that could be used to make the capture phase a lot simpler.
• From the “Sushi and Slots” Department – A casino in Florida has closed its gambling floors after a 13,000 gallon aquarium broke and flooded them.  The good news is that staff was able to save the fish, so at least the guy who caused the situation will have someone to sleep with once they find him.
• From the “Get It In Writing” Department – Senator John McCain had a rather contentious evening at a town-hall meeting in Arizona recently, where attendees lobbed HEAT rounds at him over border security and benefits for retired veterans.  McCain blamed gridlock and money woes for the lack of security along the southern border.  He probably didn’t gain too many fans when his reason for the cost of veteran’s health benefits going up pretty much boiled down to “Hey, it wasn’t written in your enlistment contract, was it?”.  Things like that temper my occasional regret at not staying in the military until retirement.  Of course, the good senator is well taken care of for as long as he shares our biosphere, due to his long service in Congress.  See my earlier remarks about how government employees in the capital should have to go to clinics identical to the ones at the infantry school that service basic trainees.
• From the “Bring It, Mahmoud” Department – An Iranian naval official claims that Iran plans to station some of its navy off the coast of the United States in the next few years.  Personally, I welcome the opportunity this will bring to our land. First, they give our shore defenses and Navy something to practice against.  Second, in the event that things get ugly in the Straits of Hormuz, they will give our search and rescue folks something to do while stationed in the United States.  And third, they will provide valuable artificial reef space for our marine wildlife.