May 17: Japan's Brilliant Idea, Manure Money, and Delectable Doggies

• “Earthquake cleric” strikes again:  Tehran’s Imam Kazem Sedighi – the guy who said immodest women cause earthquakes – has a “seismological update.”  Says the reason not so many natural disasters hit the West is because Allah’s holding off on the heavy-handed stuff so that more infidels can sin and consign themselves to Hell.  Imam does not say whether he has a speed-dial relationship with deity – but evidence suggests he may.
• Katipo spiderShould you experience an erection lasting longer than four hours…. PANIC!! Hate when this happens:  Young man puts on his shorts after skinny-dipping while on a backpacking trip in New Zealand.  Surprise “visitor” in shorts, a deadly Katipo spider.  You know where it bit him.  Organ swelled up like a kielbasa on steroids and victim damn near died…but “improved rapidly” after treatment with anti-venom.   …Hate bugs.
• Japan Plans World’s Tallest Terrorism Target: Japanese scientists, engineers and financiers unveil project guaranteed to make every crazed terrorist on the planet salivate – a 3,300 foot tower balanced on what essentially would be a floating “concrete lily pad.”   “Floating City” to provide a carbon neutral habitat for 50,000 people – and an enduring spot in history for the Waziristan-based nutlog who inevitably will try to bring it down.
• Two Colorado firms cashing in on plan to turn manure into money:  JBS Five Rivers Cattle and Harsh International Inc. plan system to turn feedlot manure into energy.  79-year old Andy Brown of Harsh International says, “This is the most exciting thing I’ve been involved with in my career.”  Hoping to turn cow flaps into cash.  It’s been a long life for Andy – and a lonely one.
• Milwaukee Police Answer Sex Assault Call – Find Five Anacondas and a Chicken: Officers rescue 20 foot anaconda snakes, rodents and a chicken from bizarre storage facility doubling as a rice braresidence…arrest a 50-year-old woman.  “Sex assault” angle not explained – other than an investigation note that chicken appeared to be smiling.
• World’s Greenest Bra – Now or Ever. Japanese lingerie maker creates brassiere that grows rice.  Novel undergarment features pots instead of cups, plastic water hose straps, seedlings, and a pair of detachable farming gloves.  Company has a reputation for creations that convey political messages.   Like, “Whoa!  Nice paddies!”
• Robert Mugabe Finds a Friend; Kim Jong-Il.  Brutal Zimbabwe despot is giving exotic African menagerie to ruthless North Korea tyrant.  Conservationists say Mugabe’s sending the equivalent of a modern day ark to Kim – including pairs of giraffes, zebras, rare rhinos and baby elephants…some of which will never survive the trip.  But, small matter.  Kim and Mugabe have been BFF ever since North Korea trained a Zimbabwean Army brigade that massacred 20,000 people in western Zimbabwe in the 1980’s.  So what’s a lousy zebra or two?
• chinese astronaut dinnerPlease pass the Shih Tzu.  Chinese astronaut, 44-year-old Yank Liwei, reveals on-board menu crew consumed during mission he commanded: braised chicken, steamed fish, lotus root porridge, Huajiang dog.  Revelation draws angry rebuke from animal rights campaigners.  China has plans to land a man on the moon by 2020. Has no plan to land a dog on the moon…except over rice. 

May 14: Cars, Clinton, and China

• Time to Settle Some Old Scores?  Former Russian air force chief, Anatoly Kornukov, says his nation’s Soviet-built air defenses are at the end of their useful lives and in fact are so rickety at this point that Russia has only a “limited” capability to fend off or respond to an attack.  “Hey Ivan – HEADACHE!”
• Auto news:  Nissan will apparently have little trouble selling its new all-electric “Leaf.”  Company reports more orders than current production can satisfy.  Subcompact, no-emission, “smug do-gooder vehicle” appears to be vulnerable to being clobbered by larger “manly” vehicles…and certain to inspire remark:  “Turn over a new Leaf.”
• Jupiter changes its stripes. Giant planet has mysteriously shed one of its principal features, the globe-encircling band that had forever been positioned just above Jupiter’s famous red spot.  But last month – gone.  Glory-enshrined Nobel prize-winning environmentalist Al Gore blaming climate change…George Bush.
• Walgreen’s backs off plan to sell over-the-counter genetic testing kit:  FDA warns kit could be interpreted as a “medical device”…and therefore sale could be a violation of law.  Kit had been considered a significant advance, using a quick saliva swab to enable purchasers to privately determine through DNA what horrendous inherited condition was going to kill them.
• Bill Clinton offers himself as lottery prize to pay off Hillary’s debts: Former president launches e-mail raffle campaign trying to generate $771,000 to satisfy debt wife still owes a presidential campaign strategist. In message Mr. Clinton asks: “How would you like the chance to come up to New York and spend the day with me?” Haven’t we sort of been here before, Mr. President? Please elaborate.
• Family Research Council pulls a Peter. As the Biblical Peter denied knowing Jesus, Family Research Council issues press release denying any association with council’s founder, pastor George Alan Rekers, for more than a decade.  FRC’s hasty denial follows the Reverend Rekers, a vociferous anti-homosexuality crusader, reportedly getting caught with a lad acquired through website “RENTBOY.COM”…which turns out to be not exactly a site for hiring a kid to paint your house.
• China’s Communist Party modernizing its lingo.  Beijing is trying to strip away party jargon that has spawned such phrases as “new socialist countryside.”  Some terms are said to be so obtuse that they require lengthy meetings just to explain them, sort of like an amortized Goldman Sachs embedded derivatives aggregators structured products securitization session moderated by the “spawn” of Alan Greenspan. No wonder we’re broke.
  
  

May 13: Rush, Vitamins, and Muslim Clerics

• Breaking news!  Greek workers call for 24-hour general strike.  Sociologists studying Greek work ethic ask, “How will they know?”   Developing…
• BP pinning its hope of stemming the massive Gulf oil spill on a “top hat” device …a much smaller containment dome being dropped over the largest leak.  If tactic fails again, plan B calls for Gulf state tourism agencies to sell public on the idea of “no birds, turtles, fish and the like competing for space on ‘newly redecorated’ black beaches.”
• North Korea:  “We Have Achieved Nuclear Fusion!”  Communist nation says it has successfully produced long elusive fusion reaction that could one day provide a virtually limitless supply of clean energy.  Isolated regime says landmark achievement means it can now go on to tackle toilet tissue, soap, gruel and those flip-flops made out of old tire treads.
• Radical Muslim cleric wanted by U.S. will not be handed over by Yemen’s government if he is captured there.  Foreign minister says American-born Anwar al-Awlaki would instead be placed on trial in Yemen because “he must be tried in his homeland and never by other governments.”  Let’s figure this out:  Al-Awlaki was born in New Mexico.  What part of  “his homeland” is so difficult to understand here?
• Not sufficiently confused yet about popping nutritional supplements?  Here’s no help:  New study from scientists at L.A.’s Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute finds “mega-doses” of vitamins and other supplements – that some studies have suggested might be good for you – could in fact predispose you to developing cancer.   But then, it’s a heart institute.  What do they know?  Butt out. 
• “Hello.  I’m a PC, and I’m a MAC.”   Microsoft officially releases “Office 2010,” the first update to the company’s principal productivity programs since “Office 2007.”  Gun and Ammo shops complain they can’t keep up with sales surge from crash-addled PC users planning to kill themselves.
• Intelsat Corporation believes a solar storm damaged the steering controls of its Galaxy 15 satellite.  The wandering orbit could knock out TV service for millions by interfering with the path of another communications satellite used by U.S. cable companies.  Horrors!  Might have to miss NBC programming and everything else that sucks that has humankind devolving back to a no-opposable-thumbs level.
• According to Zev Chafets new book, “Rush Limbaugh:  An Army of One,” President Obama, when asked if he would play a round of golf with Rush, reportedly replied:  “Limbaugh can play with himself.”   Well, yeah, but what about golf? 

May 12: European Economies, Oil Executives, and Virgins for Sale

• Sobering note: International Monetary Fund says Greece still may not make it; fear that trillion dollar Greece and Euro bailout still not enough.  Also, Moody’s credit ratings agency is warning it might downgrade Portugal’s debt rating and further cut Greece’s rating to junk status.  Investors:  Given Moody’s performance in U.S. economic implosion – why don’t they just shut the hell up?
• NASA Devising New Way to Dump Tax Revenue into Black Hole. Space agency will partner with European counterpart to launch three spacecraft into solar orbit…firing laser beams at each other to determine whether Einstein’s prediction of  “gravity waves” was correct.  Haven’t yet calculated a bottom-line cost for ungodly expensive thumb-sucker…but expected to be the rough equivalent of bailing out every flopped economy in Europe.
• Appearing before senate committees, the heads of the three companies involved in Gulf oil disaster – Chief Executive Officers Larry, Curly and Moe – blame each other for causing calamity. Tell senators, “Oh no you don’t,” “Wise guy, eh?” and, “I’m a victim of soicumstance!”  Oil leak continues.
• Further proof that a ‘Higher Power’ absolutely exists.  Playboy magazine’s June edition features first-ever 3-D centerfold.  Bonus: Glasses included in purchase price.  And the Promise Keepers congregation said… “Amen.”
• Weapons of Mass Destruction, Found! They’re on a North Korean boat headed for Syria.  So says Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman whose receding hair is on fire over Commie’s illicit arms shipment.  Worse, Lieberman says Syria is merely a convenient waypoint for the material that’s actually intended for delivery to Hezbollah and Hamas.  And then, of course, a final “delivery” to Jewish homeland.  Not good. 
• Love for Sale. New TV “reality auction show” to be shot in Nevada:  Auction items?  Virgins.  Participants will be paid twenty grand to give it up for winning bidders, and will also receive 90 per cent of their “sale price.”  One 21-year-old woman’s thinking:  “Technically, I’m selling my virginity for money but since it’s not going to be a ‘regular thing,’ in my head I’m not going to be a prostitute.”  Fine line, fine line.  And it’s not really about your head.
• All right, drop the Jolly Rancher and slowly back away! Texas third-grader sent home – in tears – after she got a week’s detention for possessing contraband – a by god unopened Jolly Rancher candy!  Vigilant teacher confiscated it under Brazos Elementary School’s zero-tolerance junk food policy.  10-year-old penalized because, you know how it goes…first it’s a Jolly Rancher then a Blow Pop, then a Tootsie Roll and then god knows what.  Gotta nip this stuff in the bud.  
  
  
  

May 11: Jesus Christ in Car Wreck, Muslim Nudie Hotel to Close, and No Prayers for Dinner

• More Containment Structures to be Deployed. Law enforcement authorities reveal plans to drop large containment domes over Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Attorney General Eric Holder, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg among others…in an effort to keep them from gushing any more specious nonsense trying to minimize terrorist activity affecting the U.S. homeland. 
• Jesus appears, is run over by Massachusetts motorist. Police responding to car-pedestrian accident in Northampton, Mass. found Jesus Christ sprawled in a crosswalk – where he’d been struck by a 20-year-old driver.   Officers checked victim’s ID.  Correct. Actual legal name: “Lord Jesus Christ.”  Paramedics said he suffered only minor injuries.  Healed very, very quickly.
• Wait…what??  “Muslim World’s First Nudist Hotel Forced to Close.”  Hotel Adaburnu Golmar located on Turkey’s Riviera, has been shut down just six days after opening.  But not by religious police.  Rather, because a balcony didn’t match an architectural specification.  Other than that – hey, no problem.   Oh, no “Turks,” however.  Foreigners only.  And staff must remain clothed.   But still…      No “fatwas” reported, so far.
• Breaking News, Port Fourchon, La: After humiliating containment dome flop, and an as yet unknown result from a “hail marry” attempt to plug Gulf leak with old tires and golf balls…B.P. technicians are working with a design team from Trojan Prophylactics to prepare a two-thousand-five-hundred foot long condom – “reservoir end” – to stretch over sunken rig’s damaged riser pipe.   Coast Guard:  Can’t be any worse than trying to shove Titleists and Michelins into the damn thing.  Developing…
• Mealtime prayers banned at Georgia Senior Center. You pray, you pay at Ed Young Senior Citizens Center near Savannah.  Returning Thanks prior to a meal that is subsidized by federal government violates separation of church and state, say food contractors who complain their funding could be at risk.  Shove it, reply seniors who complain their eternal souls could be at risk. Problem dumped in lap of mayor and town counsel. God silent on controversy so far.  Could be subpoenaed.
• How was that again, congressman?  Barney Frank, then ranking Democrat of the House Financial Services Committee, in 2003: “These two entities – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – are not facing any kind of financial crisis.”  Okay.  And today?  Fannie Mae has its hand out for another $8.4 billion on top of taxpayer bill for rescuing Fannie and its sibling Freddie that has already hit $145 billion … with no end in sight.  Might be time to check both your abacus and Ouija board, Mr. Frank. 
• Love is blind.  72-year-old Indiana grandmother is having an incestuous affair with her own grandson.  Grey-haired Pearl Carter is 72.  Grandson and lover, Phil, is 26.  And now it gets weird:  She’s reportedly paying for a sex partner for him so that he and the surrogate can have a baby, that age and biology deny grandma…that the couple could then adopt!  Whatever – grandma says of relationship:   “For the first time in years I feel sexually alive.”   More information than we required.   Sic-sacs available on request.