respublica

Julius Caesar to Barack Obama

Rocco Landesman, the head of the National Endowment for the Arts:

"Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar."

Things I don't get

A Michigan man set a new Guinness record by stuffing 16 cockroaches in his mouth.  There was an old record?  I know times are hard in Michigan, but there isn't a monetary award with Guinness is there?

Why can't anyone seem to learn why the Delta pilots who kept flying well beyond Minneapolis did not respond to 13 calls from air traffic control?  Why won't the pilots explain?  

Are the Cincinnati Bengals really good this year or are the Bears just pathetic?

Why does it keep raining?

When did Halloween turn into a contest in which everyone tries to be as ghoulish and death oriented as possible?  Every cable station over the weekend, including HGTV, featured shows, movies, reports on the paranormal, ghosts, graves, vampires.  Seems everyone is drinking fake blood, walking through cemeteries in which graves open, and seeing ghosts walking down stairways.

What's with the new potato cannon fad?  I can sort of see the fun in firing a frozen potato, but who'd want to get hit by one?  The two things go together, you fire you get fired upon.

The audacity prize

Everyone is waking up to the news that President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace prize. 

The first question asked is "For what?"

Flipping through the morning news shows, the common reaction has been one of disbelief, even from his own supporters and his media friends.

My advice would be for him to thank the Nobel committee and then turn it down.  That would give him much more elbow room in which to negotiate his legislative and foreign affairs plans.  Not to mention some measure of respect which would negate what will be fodder for all kinds of commentary.

Some reactions to this news:

Obama wins the Nobel peace prize on the very morning he bombs the moon.

"This is the first time the award is given for wishful thinking."  Israeli Kismet member.

"The prize seems to be more for Obama's promise than for his performance. Work on the president's ambitious agenda, both at home and abroad, is barely underway, much less finished. He has no standout moment of victory that would seem to warrant a verdict as sweeping as that issued by the Nobel committee."  AP

"Absurd decision on Obama makes a mockery of the Nobel Peace Prize."  "Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent."   Times Online

"It's not April 1st, is it?"  A White House aid.

"What's next, the Heisman?"  Politico

"Riddle.  Why didn't Barack Obama win the Nobel Prize for Literature?  He wrote two books."  Ann Althouse

This could, and will, go on all day.

Vintage cellophane

Here's an ad we'd never see today.

I wonder where those two boys are now.

Oddly, it's the Sunday news

A former track athlete at Central Connecticut State University is suing the school over his coach demanding that he drink a cup of blood as part of a team "tribal ritual".

Another drink provoked a man to go after his roommates with a sword.  The man was infuriated when he found a coke can in his room, believing that the drink meant someone had been trespassing.

Major news media types are in a snit and sniping at each other.  Fox News is the only major news outlet left out of the Obama Sunday guest marathon.  Fox News Sunday moderator Chris Wallace said the White House is inhabited by the "biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with in my 30 years in Washington."  "There's kind of childishness or pettiness about it."

Meanwhile, President Obama chided the media for "feeding the heated tone of the criticism of his health care plan".  "Sometimes I think that, frankly, the media encourages some of the outliers in behavior, because, let's face it, the easiest way to get on television right now is to be really rude."

Further, tv news rivals to Fox News are laying into that channel after Fox placed a full page ad in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and the New York Post claiming that Fox was the only tv news outlet to cover last week's Tea Party march on Washington. 

Last spring, Egypt killed all the pigs which used to roam its streets over fears of the Swine Flu.  Now, Egypt is confronted with a severe garbage problem.  Rotting garbage is piling up in every street.  Seems the former pigs used to serve as the country's garbage collectors, eating tons of organic waste.  Now there seems to be no idea what to do with it.  Re-use, Re-cycle, compost.

Did you know Huntington West Virginia is either the unhealthiest or the fattest town on earth?  English chef, Jamie Oliver thinks so and is spending several weeks there trying to change everything from supermarkets to school lunches. 

What could happen when Washington State mental hospital officials take an insane killer on an outing to the local county fair?  If you guessed, um, he escaped then you're correct. 

Numerology for today's date

Today is 9-9-09.

Turn the date upside down and you get 666.

Not that I want to go there.

What a good neighbor would not do

A Pennsylvania history buff who creates weapons from old wars accidentally shot a cannon ball through his neighbor's house which was 400 yards away.  That's a long flight for an old cannon.

The ball went through a window and then a wall and landed in a closet.

The man is sorry and said he'll stop firing off cannons in his yard.

Too late.

At long last a burial

After two months, Michael Jackson was finally buried last night.  Last night in the dark Forest Lawn cemetery, preceded a line up of umpteen black suv's filled with one or two people, Jackson's secret death journey ended.

After the memorial service on July 7, helicopter news crews lost track of the hearse. 

So where has the casket been all this time?

Weirdly creepy stuff.

A beery unusual story

It happened in Louisiana, but with the new higher liquor sales taxes now in effect in Illinois, it could happen here.

A woman tucked a 24 pack of beer under her housedress and "waddled" out of a convenience store.  She was caught on a security camera tape.

Picturing this is funny enough, but the write up by someone from the AP has its moments: 

Grocery store cameras caught the woman taking a 24-can case of beer from a cooler, exposing the 20-pound case between her thighs by pulling up her housedress, pulling her dress back down, and waddling out of the store. But it took a while to identify and find her.

Exposing the 20 pound case between her thighs.  In reality, the beer was not what was exposed.

She stole the beer on August 22 and was finally captured August 31.  Beer gone.

This week's odd news

When you get past the constant health care issue reporting you might find that there has been some rather odd stuff happening this week.

A Southwest flight from Oakland to St. Louis was turned back yesterday when a 21 year old male passenger took off all his clothes except for a baseball cap and socks and began punching the woman in the seat next to him.  And, he weighs 350 pounds. 

President Obama explained August to a group of supporters at Organizing for American yesterday.  "There is something about August going into September where everybody in Washington gets all wee weed up!"   "Wee weed up" a phrase bound to be in next year's edition of Merriam Webster's new terms for 2010.

U.S. paper money contains the highest levels of traces of cocaine than any other country's money.  And, Washington DC leads the way as the city with the greatest amount of cocaine.

Strange sea creature named the Muck Monster is thought to be lurking just under the surface of the Lake Worth Florida lagoon.  Divers jumping in the water to try and catch found that it would mysteriously disappear.  Uh huh. 

Asian hornets have begun terrorizing the French.