Category: News

Do not fear, citizen: it was not a rational response to the unsustainable government spending and underfunded pensions in Greece and throughout the world, including the United States and its component state and municipal governments, that triggered the Dow Jones’ plunge yesterday.

Instead, it was a computer glitch or typographical error that, for a time being, looked as though it was going to bring economic collapse upon us. That is, it was something completely accidental, random, and out of your control which wreaked havoc with investor confidence and, potentially, your life’s savings.

Carry on as you were.

Suspect in slays fan of ‘Dungeons’:

Accused campus killer Amy Bishop was a devotee of Dungeons & Dragons – just like Michael “Mucko” McDermott, the lone gunman behind the devastating workplace killings at Edgewater Technology in Wakefield in 2000.

Bishop, now a University of Alabama professor, and her husband James Anderson met and fell in love in a Dungeons & Dragons club while biology students at Northeastern University in the early 1980s, and were heavily into the fantasy role-playing board game, a source told the Herald.

“They even acted this crap out,” the source said.

Guns don’t kill people. Graph paper and strange dice kill people.

How big of a fan was the other guy?

Police seized two Dungeons & Dragons books from McDermott’s Haverhill apartment after he shot seven co-workers to death on Dec. 26, 2000.

That’s not a whole lot of fan.

(Link seen on Ace of Spades HQ.)

The family of a slain family sues the murderer’s employer for not preventing the murders:

The Joyce Meyer Ministries did too little to prevent its security manager, Christopher Coleman, from alledgedly murdering his wife and two sons, according to an addition filed Monday to a wrongful-death lawsuit.

The suit, filed here on behalf of Sheri Coleman’s family, now seeks damages “in excess of $50,000” from the international television ministry as well as Coleman.

It suggests the killings might not have occurred if the ministry had followed its own guidelines and better investigated anonymous threats against Coleman and his family.

How does that make you feel, employers? You’re now responsible for preventing murders.

Also, how do you think this will impact hiring of ex-convicts?

1 suspect in custody following Dem HQ vandalism in Denver:

A 24-year-old arrested this morning on suspicion of smashing 11 windows at Colorado Democratic Party headquarters tried to conceal his identity while allegedly committing the crime, according to police descriptions.
. . . .

he other storefronts surrounding the building on West Eighth Avenue and Santa Fe Drive in downtown Denver’s art district were untouched. But the Democratic posters are scuffed from hammer blows, Waak said.

No doubt if he had gone into the building, he would have damaged the upholstery with a sickle.

Family losing home because of seven-cent mistake:

A Michigan family is losing its home because it underpaid the mortgage by 7 cents in January, a legal aid group says.

The statement is presented as straight fact in the lead. However:

Rooks said [redacted] of Deckerville, in the Thumb, inadvertently underpaid their mortgage because a postal clerk issued a money order for $440 rather than $440.07. The couple didn’t catch the mistake and they were four weeks late making February’s payment of $690.07. She said they had been late before.

Though the Bergers caught up by mid-April, Rooks said, Countrywide Financial and its new owner, Bank of America, rejected the couple’s payments. Bank of America countered that it and earlier loan servicers bent over backward to accommodate [redacted], who has been repeatedly delinquent since purchasing the modest four-bedroom frame bungalow for $38,650 in 1997. It said [redacted] rejected a reasonable offer last week to get reinstated.

Those allegations by the people who know and who own the paper mean nothing; the paper and its wire service have their hook and story. It was the seven cents, and that illustrates how capricious and darewesay evil companies are. Only the benevolent government and its press corps can save the people.

Man wins a gunfight with a knife:

Normally you lose when you bring a knife to a gunfight, but not Ramiro Silva.

. . . .
The gunman stuffed the shotgun into a bag and ran into the woods and Mr. Silva grabbed his machete, a fearsome looking blade, and went in after him.

. . . .
Silva wacked the suspect with the sword, using the face not the blade.

Knife, machete, sword…. All the same to the kids writing news these days.

I suppose we should just be glad that it wasn’t called an assault blade.

Two disparate headlines indicating that state-run health care does death better than health:

• Health plan covers assisted suicide but not new cancer treatment
• Gov’t insurance would allow coverage for abortion

Dying is cost-effective when you’re just a number in parentheses on the government ledger.

So, if you’re a reporter, is every single discharge of a firearm “gunning down” now?

A 51-year-old man who gunned down at least three squirrels from inside his home near N. Teutonia and W. Custer avenues Sunday surrendered to officers after the Milwaukee Police Department’s tactical squad was called to the scene.

When I was a young man, this was called feeding your poor family.

I wonder why the reporters didn’t bother calling the .22 an assault weapon.

Driver tells Conn. police snakes led to SUV crash:

Police say a driver blamed a car crash in Hartford, Conn., on two pet baby snakes that he said escaped from his pants pockets as he was driving.

Fortunately, no one aside from the driver was injured, so I don’t feel as ghoulish when I laugh.

Conservative merchandise not available for sale at Concord Mills mall in North Carolina:

“Impeach Obama.”

“Al Qaeda’s favorite days: 9/11/01 and 11/04/08.”

“Work Harder. Obama needs the money.”

The bumper stickers and posters sold at “Free Market Warrior” at Concord Mills are meant to be “biting,” the kiosk’s owner Loren Spivack said.

At least one passer-by found them racist and bigoted, and took time to tell the mall in a letter and a letter to the editor of the Charlotte Observer.

Whatever your opinion, the fact is this: At the end of July, “Free Market Warrior” will not be allowed at Concord Mills Mall. The kiosk chain’s owner shared e-mail correspondence with Newschannel 36 that explains that the mall management has decided that the items sold are not “neutral” enough. The lease will be allowed to expire July 31, 2009 without an option to renew.

Meanwhile, Che shirts are probably still on sale at several of the trendy shops along with campaign merchandise from the current administration.

No word on whether the B. Dalton’s will have to remove Atlas Shrugged and The Road to Serfdom because they’re not neutral enough.

HR 3200, Health Care Reform.

Claire McCaskill’s office responds to protestors reprehensibly:

McCaskill’s office manager locked the doors, pull down the blinds, called the cops and forced the protesters across the street.

Senator McCaskill explains:

There was only one male staffer at the office on Friday, and I knew he wouldn’t do that. He is an Iraq veteran, who handles almost all of our case work for our veterans. He is soft spoken and hard working and just not the type to lose his cool.

Mystery solved. Our office only occupies the first floor, and a marketing and advertising firm has the office space above us on the second floor. They acknowledged that one of the men that works in their offices made the gesture and they closed their blinds.(On the first floor our blinds are always closed). It’s confusing because the signage makes it look like we occupy both floors.

However, previously, she said:

On Friday, our office was short staffed(four were attending community events and meeting with people in the St Louis area), and the protestors were frustrated with our inability to meet with them when they arrived. They began banging on windows and doors and ringing the buzzer, so that the two staffers in the office could not focus on the phones, that were ringing constantly. They asked the police to help calm the situation, and when one of our staff got back to the office at around noon she met with representatives of the group, and we have scheduled another meeting with the group.

Claire McCaskill and her staffers seems to have a bit of trouble accounting for the number of workers in the office at the time. And that’s a small office. Now, project that to the entirety of the Federal government. I think it’s a good instance of how management skills scale.

(Link courtesy of Instapundit.)

The White House is holding an economic report behind its back so you don’t see it.

How’s that stabilization working?

Last night, a photograph apparently depicted President Obama looking at a woman’s back side.

This morning, Good Morning America is on the case, giving an alternative explanation and mocking the French President to much laughter in the newsroom.

A question, good friends, is how often did the media throw its newsgathering apparatachiks into gear to provide context for an unflattering George W. Bush or John McCain photo? I believe that answer is and ever shall be Never.

The media continues to beclown itself with its haste to correct and contextualize anything unflattering about Obama I.

I have July 4 in the Chavez invades Honduras pool.

Because our current leadership seems incapable of handling nothing, so what say the North Koreans fire a missile and Communist tanks roll on the same day?

neoneocon and Donald Sensing have more details about the “coup” in Honduras where the military removed a president whose term limits were about to expire and who was going to have a referendum not supported under the Honduran constitution to remove those term limits.

One wonders what would happen in the United States if that sort of power grab occurred. At the local level, it worked for Mayor Bloomberg of New York City. Meanwhile, here’s the start of the Constitutional amendment to repeal the 22nd amendment to our constitution limiting Presidents to two terms.

I think there should be more term limits at the Federal government level, not fewer; however, I do not support the consolidation and acquisition of power to a central, self-selected few as a new aristocracy in Washington.

When the Republic falls, an emperor is not far behind.