June 10: A Loophole for the Saudis; Screw the Whales; and What Recession?

• “All The News That’s Fit To Crop.” Reuters gets caught with its agenda hanging out:  News agency busted for distributing cropped photographs of Israeli commando raid on ship that ran Gaza blockade.  “Touched-up” photos eliminate pooled blood of wounded Israeli, a “peace humanitarian” gripping a Rambo-style combat knife, another wounded Israeli being set upon while flat on his back.  Perhaps Helen Thomas can find a new gig, afterall.
• Recession?  Please.   Four Seasons Hotel, New York, offers the “Ty Warner Penthouse” named for the guy who dreamed up Beanie Babies and owns the hotel.  Nightly price?  $35,000.  No, those aren’t two extra zeros.  $35,000 a night.  Stay a week, you’re down a quarter of a million. But hey, you get a really good view and bathroom sinks made out of rock crystal and a waterfall and a butler and free room service and stuff.   Makes sense…given average median income in the U.S. (persons 15 and over) is $35,499.   Hey, you’re $500 bucks ahead!
• “Saudi Clerics Strike Again.”  Try to follow us on this one:  Two powerful Imams say Saudi Arabian women should give their breast milk to male acquaintances so that milk recipient would become a “relative of the family” under Islamic law…and could then come into “regular contact” with said woman without everybody involved being at risk of having their noggins chopped off.  Holy men fail to say, though, exactly how the males should obtain female’s milk.  Further specificity required…in this, our “Fatwa Of The Week.”
• “Sonny Dong, Headed to the Big House.” Dong, of Garden Grove, California, finally gets sentenced for smuggling songbirds into the U.S. from Vietnam…in his pants. Arrested at LAX last year after customs agents found a veritable aviary under his trousers, strapped to his lower legs – along with some birds that “didn’t make it” in his suitcase.  Guilty of “illegally importing wildlife.” Four months; along with monetary restitution to authorities who are caring for the birds…which included: “Six shama-thrushes, Four magpie-robins, Three red-whiskered bulbuls...and a partridge in my Dockers slaaacks.”
• Chicago’s famed Museum of Science and Industry offering free admission this week…to bring attention to special science exhibits explaining mysteries of physics and certain cultural anomalies through recreations of phenomena such as tornadoes, lightning, avalanches and governors trying to sell U.S. senate seats.
• “Obama:  Kill the Whales?”  Environmentalists’ hair on fire over Obama administration’s move to end a 24-year international ban on commercial whaling by Japan, Norway and Iceland – a moratorium that animal protection groups characterize as “the greatest conservation victory of the 20th century.”  Administration argues that it has loopholes.  Conceivably, some 38,000 whales that were killed each year before the ban reduced the number to about 1,200 – will now have “harpoon holes.”  Another “environment” suggestion:  Butt out.  And plug the hole.
• “Child Porn British Psychiatrist Cleared to Work with Children again!” Hereford, England doctor, Darryl Watts, spent 30 hours a week surfing for photos of five-to-seven year olds in sexual poses.  Got a fine, year suspension, computer destroyed…but then appealed and restrictions were lifted.  Blamed “workload stress” for sick behavior.  Told judge,  “I began to get negative thoughts about myself and dislike myself significantly.”   Join the crowd.