Don't Panic! Lighten Up!S


Mr. Potato

Break In 911 Call

A man calls 911 when he gets stuck in a window while trying to break into a house.

Star

Comic: 'Our dream to deprive millions of healthcare is within reach'

Popular online comic Andy Borowitz often has his own farcical take on current events -- and today is no exception.

Turning his sights on the special election to fill the Massachusetts Senate seat vacated by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), Borowitz suggests that a Republican victory will be a victory for healthcare reform defeat. In so doing, he creates invented remarks for Republican candidate Scott Brown, who has said he'll join a Republican-led filibuster of the Democrats healthcare overhaul in the Senate.

Writes Borowitz:
Boston (The Borowitz Report) - Firing up voters on the eve of the special election to fill the late Edward M. Kennedy's Senate seat, Republican candidate Scott Brown spoke at a campaign rally today, proclaiming, "With your help, our dream of depriving millions of health care is within reach."

"Let's send a message, Massachusetts!" Mr. Brown exhorted the crowd. "Let's tell people across the country that if they want health coverage, they are shit out of luck!"

An aide to Mr. Brown said that internal polling reveals that the Republican's anti-healthcare message may be catching on: "Right now, Scott is showing a double-digit lead among people who describe themselves as douchebags."

Take 2

Stewart: Kennedy legacy losing to 'naked guy that owns a truck'

Democrats are concerned that they could lose the Senate race in Massachusetts to Republican Scott Brown because it might derail President Barack Obama's domestic agenda. The Daily Show's Jon Stewart wants to know why Democrats wouldn't be able to pass legislation with an 18-vote majority in the Senate -- which he notes is bigger than any congressional advantage former President George W. Bush ever enjoyed.

Stewart also poked fun at Brown, noting a statement in which he followed a statement announcing his candidacy with, "this is my truck," and that he posed nude for a magazine in 1982.

"So the Democrats are losing to Captain Freeball," Stewart remarks. "The Kennedy legacy goes down to a naked guy who owns a truck.

Mr. Potato

French Anti-piracy agency's logo broke copyright

Hadopi
© The TelegraphThe design agency Plan Creatif that created the Hadopi logo has now admitted it used the typeface by mistake
France's new internet agency set up to protect the rights of artists is facing legal action for using a copyrighted design for its logo.

The French government's web police force - called Hadopi - was set up to stop piracy and clamp down on illegal downloaders.

The agency's logo was unveiled this by French culture minister Frederic Mitterrand, who said that Hadopi "finally had a face".

But within hours of its launch, it was forced to apologise for using a typeface without permission that belonged to France Telecom.

Mr. Potato

North Carolina: Man Celebrates 77th Birthday by Biking 77 Miles

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© H. Scott Hoffmann / News & RecordCalvin Weimer points to his wife Susan as he rides Friday in Country Park.
When he reached the hill at Country Park, Cal Weimer pedaled faster as onlookers yelled encouragement Friday.

"Whoosh" went the sleek Specialized Sequoia road bicycle as it whizzed by. The staunchest supporter was Weimer's wife, Susan . She waved blue posterboard signs (she's a teacher, don't you know) with encouraging messages in neat, white block letters:

"Go Calvin."

"Happy Birthday."

"77 Years Young."

Not your typical birthday party. But Cal Weimer's not your typical guy.

Smiley

Take my cat instead!

cat in car
© Unknown
A man who failed to pay a police ticket offered bailiffs, as payment, his cat in Russia's Tomsk region.

However the offer was not accepted. The cat, named Barsik, wasn't highbred and was of no value, as the Federal Bailiff Service in the Zyryanskoye village later found out.

The man was inspired by the precedent that occurred in the Siberian Kemerovo region where Bailiffs issued an arrest warrant for a five-month-old sphynx kitten. The little feline, with an estimated market value of up to $500, was to go under the hammer at an auction, but its owners paid the debt and it was released.

The Tomsk Region bailiffs say they are happy that citizens are well informed and are following the news. In their turn, bailiffs promised to closely follow the fate of Barsik and will make sure its owner will pay the debt.

Smiley

A Message From Transport Canada


Smiley

World's tallest, shortest men meet face-to-knee in Istanbul

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© Associated Press
The world's tallest and shortest men met for the first time in Istanbul for a Guinness World Records event in the city.

Sultan Kösen, who measures 8 feet 1 inch (2.47 meters), and the 2 foot 5 inch (75 centimeter) He Pingping stood side-by-side at a photo-shoot at Forum Istanbul shopping mall on Thursday, Guinness World Records said on its Web site.

Pingping, from China, reached the height of Kosen's knee. He was shown clutching Kösen's fore-finger in a make-shift hand-shake in photos published by Guinness.

Source: Bloomberg

Mr. Potato

Why Stop at Banks? 13 Other Great Taxes

Okay, so there are lots of problems with the "Goldman Tax" that President Obama wants to enact. Goldman Sachs and the other big banks that would pay this new levy--officially called the Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee--will probably just pass the $90 billion cost onto consumers. It might be hard to police loopholes and exemptions. It could put rapacious American banks a step behind the rapacious foreign banks they compete with. And it might disrupt all that bank capital that's been gushing into the real economy, helping it heal so rapidly.

But those aren't reasons to kill the tax. They're reasons to have MORE revenue-raisers like the Goldman Tax. The government is desperate for money, after all, and taxpayers are going to cough it up one way or the other, no matter where the tax starts. So here are some other "responsibility fees" that would bring in needed funds while encouraging Americans to behave better:

The double-secret-derivative tax. A surcharge on whatever securities Wall Street dreams up to replace CDOs, CLOs, CSOs, SFCDOs, CDO-squareds, CDO-cubeds, and commercial-real-estate CDOs. Since it will take the government 10 years to figure out what these are, this tax would be retroactive with no statute of limitations.

Smiley

Satire: Dubai Debt Crisis Halts Building Of World's Largest Indoor Mountain Range

Dubai
© The OnionPlanners continue to take future reservations for the mountains' 9 and 10-star hotels.
Dubai - Representatives from the emirate of Dubai announced with disappointment this week that its recent debt crisis has forced developers to halt construction on the city's long-planned 22-mile-long indoor mountain range.

The culmination of a decade's worth of ambitious and expensive building projects, Dubai's estimated $100 billion debt officially brought work on the artificial mountain range to a stop on Tuesday.

"This is a very sad day for the emirate of Dubai," Crown Prince Hamdan bin Mohammed al-Maktoum told reporters at a press conference held inside the gold-plated anti-gravity chamber in his palace. "Although I believe it is the basic right of all who visit us to be able to scale to the top of a 15,000-foot-tall manmade snowcap, these tough economic times have made it an impossibility. Never before has our proud municipality faced such a grave crisis."