Don't Panic! Lighten Up!S


Smiley

Drunk badger disrupts traffic

Dave Graham - Myra MacDonald
Reuters
Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:53 UTC
Badger running
A badger in Germany got so drunk on over-ripe cherries it staggered into the middle of a road and refused to budge, police said on Wednesday.

A motorist called police near the central town of Goslar to report a dead badger on a road -- only for officers to turn up and discover the animal alive and well, but drunk.
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Sheeple

Man takes knife through airport security but stopped for bottle of water

Desta Bishu
Telegraph
Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:07 UTC
A plane passenger took a six inch serrated knife through airport security and was only stopped for carrying a bottle of water.

Adrian Elvy, 39, was travelling from Bristol Airport to Barcelona, in Spain, for a company trip.
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Pumpkin

"But We Want to Pay Taxes" -- Some California TV stations refuse to air marijuana-tax advertisement

Eric Bailey and Catherine Saillant
The Los Angeles Times
Thu, 09 Jul 2009 05:55 UTC

Advocates for legalizing marijuana have released a new television advertisement calling for the drug to be decriminalized and taxed to help solve California's budget crunch.

But the controversial topic of pot and taxes has proven too hot for several broadcast affiliates to handle, according to the Marijuana Policy Project, the national pro-pot group that is sponsoring the ad campaign.

KTLA-TV Channel 5 and KABC-TV Channel 7 in Los Angeles were among stations citing concerns about the ad's content and refusing to put it on the air, said Bruce Mirken, a spokesman for the marijuana advocacy group.
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MIB

Humor: Obama Has His Favored Criminals

Sherwood Ross
OpEdNews.com
Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:37 UTC
"We can only give you a couple of minutes with the President, so make your points quickly," his aide said opening the door to the Oval Office, where I instantly felt the full force of the smile that has charmed the world.

"As you know, Mister President, my client Alphonse Capone is in the Federal prison in Joliet, Illinois-"

"For shipping cigarettes into Illinois without paying Federal and State taxes," the president interjected. "See, I've read his case. A six million dollar swindle."
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Book

Frenemy, locavore among new words in Webster's Dictionary

Russel Contreras
Associated Press
Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:16 UTC
Webster dictionary headquarters
© Associated Press/Charles KrupaPublisher John Morse thumbs through some of the 16 million index cards of historic words at the headquarters of the Merriam-Webster dictionary publisher in Springfield, Mass., Wednesday July 1, 2009
Do you use a sock puppet to secretly keep track of your frenemies?

Plan to spend your staycation watching vlogs and webisodes? Or perhaps you plan to signal a flash mob for a quick bite of shawarma.

If you're not entirely certain what all that means, turn to the latest edition of the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, which has added about 100 new words that largely reflect changing trends in American society.

John Morse, president and publisher of the Springfield-based dictionary publisher, said many of this year's new words are tied to changes in technology, increasing environmental awareness and aging baby boomers' concerns about their health and have become part of the general lexicon.
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Mr. Potato

Canadian band uses YouTube to fight United Airlines


The Globe and Mail
Thu, 09 Jul 2009 05:40 UTC
Sons of Maxwell battling airline over incident in 2008, when he alleges his guitar was broken during a trip

When Halifax's Dave Carroll got off his United Airlines flight last spring and discovered his $3,500 custom-made guitar was severely damaged - allegedly by overzealous luggage handlers - at first he was mad.

When the airline's customer service team gave him the runaround and refused to address his complaints to his satisfaction, he was incensed.

But in typically Canadian fashion, the songwriter decided to be the nice guy, shrug off his anger, and instead wrote a song about his experience.

As of Wednesday evening, that song, United Breaks Guitars, was the most popular music video on YouTube with about 150,000 views, and to his shock, his phone rang and rang and rang all day, with calls from across the continent.
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Mr. Potato

Drunken tractor driver leads police on slow chase

Caroline Copley
Reuters
Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:05 UTC
A drunk German sparked a slow-speed police chase after stealing a tractor to get home from a nightclub after his girlfriend left without him, said police, who used pepper spray to try to stop the vehicle.

"After his girlfriend abandoned him in a night club, the 23-year-old driver, who doesn't own a license, commandeered the vehicle to make his way home," a police spokesman said on Monday.
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Sun

Confirmed: God is Slightly Gay

Confirmed: God is Slightly Gay
San Francisco Chronicle
Thu, 02 Jul 2009 02:07 UTC
Just ask the animals. As soon as they stop having all that homosexual sex

I am sitting here right now smiling just a little, fondly recalling that famously controversial children's book, the one about the gay penguins.

Remember? That positively adorable pair of them, at the Central Park Zoo, who had adopted an abandoned egg and then hatched it themselves and were raising the chick together as a couple, even though the chick was clearly not theirs -- though of course how penguins can actually tell whose kid is whose is still a question. Never mind that now.

The best part: the story was absolutely true. The book, "And Tango Makes Three," was beautiful and sweet and touching in all the right ways -- except, of course, for the fact that it was also totally evil.
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Roses

Masterpiece Mystery! Miss Marple

Mary McNamara
Los Angeles Times
Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:44 UTC
Agatha Christie's beloved spinster is back on PBS. Her first case: 'A Pocket Full of Rye.'

Miss Jane Marple
© PBS
Dame Agatha Christie remains the gold standard of mystery writers not only for her productivity -- the woman wrote 80 detective novels -- but also for her permanence. One could argue that Sherlock Holmes is the most universally famous detective, but Arthur Conan Doyle had but one iconic offspring while Christie had two -- Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. (Four if you count the wonderful Tommy and Tuppence; five if you add, and I do, Mr. Satterthwaite of the Harley Quin stories.)

Of these, Poirot is probably the best known -- there are more than twice as many Poirot novels -- but Miss Marple is the best loved. Also the most influential. Poirot, like Holmes, was an actual detective, whereas Miss Marple was an aged spinster living in the seemingly tranquil village of St. Mary Mead. It is Miss Marple who introduced the notion that detecting is more about understanding human behavior than about analyzing evidence with the gray cells or knowing far too much about tobacco ash and the various soils of London. It is Miss Marple who introduced the revolutionary notion that people are essentially the same wherever one goes and that while it is sad to believe the worst of people it is also often the truth.
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Sherlock

Wallet stolen in 1982 found in NYC tree; $20 gone


Associated Press
Tue, 07 Jul 2009 08:51 UTC
Money doesn't grow on trees, but a tree-care supervisor in New York City's Central Park found an old wallet inside a dead one.

The blue leather wallet had been stolen by a pickpocket 27 years ago. It was found in the hollow of a dying cherry tree. It was near where Ruth Bendik had hers swiped while she watched the New York City Marathon in 1982.
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