GETTING HIGH FOR THE END TIMES

Surely this must be a sign of the end times.

Pat Robertson has come out for the legalization of marijuana.

"I'm not exactly for the use of drugs, don't get me wrong, but I just believe that criminalizing marijuana, criminalizing the possession of a few ounces of pot, that kinda thing it's just, it's costing us a fortune and it's ruining young people. Young people go into prisons, they go in as youths and come out as hardened criminals. That's not a good thing."

-- Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson on a recent segment of his 700 Club television show.

SIGNS

I was in Dallas the other day when there was an Amber alert.  The electronic highway signs read:

Kidnapped Girl

Slvr Ford Focus

Call Police

And I thought how I'd hate to be driving a silver Ford Focus that day. 

At a Tulsa beauty salon the sign reads:

Waxing $5 and Up

So I wonder how they price?  Does it depend on your level of hairyness or how good a job you want done?

I'm just askin'.

NIXON, ON TAPE

From some newly released Richard Nixon tapes, Nixon on the Irish:
"The Irish can’t drink. What you always have to remember with the Irish is they get mean. Virtually every Irish I’ve known gets mean when he drinks. Particularly the real Irish.”

Nixon on Italians:
“The Italians, of course, those people course don’t have their heads screwed on tight. They are wonderful people, but...” (Voice trails off."
 
Nixon on Jews:
“The Jews are just a very aggressive and abrasive and obnoxious personality.”


 

CHAPPY CHANUKKAH

Tonight is the first night of the Jewish celebration of Hanukah, or Festival of Lights.

The story of Hanukkah is told in the Book of Maccabees.  That book is not part of the Jewish bible.  However, it is part of the Catholic bible.  But Catholics don't celebrate Chanukkah.  Go figure.

(How do you spell Chanukah?  Any way you want.)

KRISTALLNACHT.

I put my electric menorah in the window tonight and lit the first bulb.  So now the neighbors know I'm Jewish. 

There's an old Jewish tradition from the old country that when the goyim find out you're Jewish, they come around at night and break your windows.

QUOTATION OF THE DAY

"I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land."

-- Jon Stewart

BEWARE THE BIRD

The media are all over the latest round of scare stories.  This time it's about Thanksgiving.  The primary dangers are these:

• Stuffing cooked in the bird can carry salmonella, which can can cause food poisoning, which can lead to death.
• Overeating can lead to fatness, which can lead to heart disease, which is a leading cause of death.
• Drinking too much can cause drunkenness, which can lead to death.
• Putting up Christmas lights can lead to electrocution.

So have a safe... Oh, forget it.  Stuff yourself with stuffing.  Eat too much.  Drink too much.  Then climb out onto the roof with a string of Christmas lights.  Live life on the edge.

Have a fun Thanksgiving.

LAW AND ORDER

The Roselle Park, New Jersey city council has banned people from sleeping in cars, parks, and public places. 

The law applies to rich and poor alike.

***

Boise, Idaho police arrested a woman who was feeling up other woman in bars by impersonating a plastic surgeon and giving breast exams.

On my best night I could not have pulled off that line.

***

University of New Mexico campus cops ticketed a vehicle three times before they noticed the dead driver in the front seat,

The upside:  She won't have to pay the parking fines.

***

Los Angeles will help homeless people who live in their cars to find overnight parking.

###

RUN FOR YOUR LIFE

So this jogger dropped dead a few blocks from my house the other day.

Marcus Takach was 27-years-old.  He was ten miles into the Route 66 half marathon when he died of sudden cardiac arrest.  His last words were, "Help me!"

His father called Marcus a "fitness nut."

In the five-year history of the event, Marcus is the second to die.

This is why I avoid exercise.  It'll kill ya'.

COCKTAIL SAUCE WITH THAT?

Scientists have found the world's oldest shrimp... right here in Oklahoma.

The shrimp is 375-million years old.  Back then, Oklahoma was an ocean.

The shrimp is three inches long, which would qualify as a jumbo shrimp.

The shrimp is fossilised and inedible.

The shrimp's name is Aciculopoda Mapes.

That's one giant name for shrimp.

The shrimp will be housed in the Smithsonian, along with 3000 sea slugs, Harry Truman's bowling pins and Kermit T. Frog.

LOOK FOR THE UNION LABEL

Washington Democrats and Republicans have finally come together on something.

The House of Representatives has passed the All American Flag Act.  It requires the federal government to only buy American flags that are actually made in America.  The Senate is expected to go along.

Most American flags are made in China.

And aren't Chinese/American flags one of the major problems facing our country today?

QUOTATIONS

"In America, any boy may become president.  And I suppose it's just one of the risks he takes."
-- Adlai Stevenson

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."
-- Winston Churchill

THE WAR TO END ALL WARS

Today used to be called Armistice Day.  It was on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month that an armistice declared World War I officially over.

World War I was known as the war to end all wars.  Now, several wars later, we call the day Veterans Day.

Of course, they didn't call it World War I.  It was called The Great War.  They didn't start numbering these things until the next big one broke out. 

My father fought in World War II.  He was a medical corpsman with a rifle, a draftee who earned a Bronze Star.

And his birthday was November eleventh.

SUCH A DEAL!

An undercover cop arrested a Florida woman for trying to sell her grandchild for $30,000.

Actually, she wanted $75,000 but the cop talked her down to $30,000.

So not only did the cop make a good bust, he also got a great price on a 12-week-old boy.

HOW TALL IS YOUR LORD?

Poland is building the world's tallest Jesus statue.  It will stand 167 feet tall.

Currently, the world's tallest Jesus statue is in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  It stands 125 feet tall.

It should be noted that the actual Jesus stood 5 feet 10 inches tall*.

(*as measured by the shroud of Turin.  However, the Jewish historian Josephus had Jesus at 135 cubits, or 4' 6".  But by another measure of the cubit, the same estimate would make Jesus 5' 1" tall.)

IN POLITICS...

Oklahomans will choose a new governor on Tuesday.

A headline in last Sunday's Tulsa World read, "OKLAHOMA'S NEXT GOVERNOR FACES MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS."

So no matter who is elected, they're gonna' go nuts.

***

Also on the ballot, State Question 755 would ban Sharia law in Oklahoma.

That should put an end to all the local stonings and beheadings we've been hearing about lately.

###

ANOTHER DELAWARE WINGNUT

"The exact phrase 'separation of Church and State' came out of Adolph Hitler's mouth, that's where it comes from. So the next time your liberal friends talk about the separation of Church and State ask them why they're Nazis."
-- Delaware Congressional candidate Glen Urquhart

WHEN RABBIS FLY

Dr. Eli Landau has written "The White Book." It is a pork cookbook. Landau is an Israeli Jew.

Pork is not kosher. It's not even legal in some parts of Israel. You can't raise pigs in Israel, except for scientific purposes. But you can then eat them after you study them. Sort of like the Japanese and whaling.

Israeli butchers have had their shops burned down for selling pork. That's what's known as Israeli barbecue.

To order pork in a restaurant, you have to ask for "the white steak."

Reviews for "The White Book" are rolling in. Here are a couple.

• Rabbi Shimon Felix: "There's something childish to being so naughty. It's more mature and adult to look at this as an ancient tradition."
• Rabbi Yuval Cherlow: I'm very disappointed by this book. I'm very sorry and it hurts me."

Yes, but it tastes so good.

The book, published in Tel Aviv, has sold about 2,000 copies, not bad in a country of 7.6 million. Why so much acceptance? Rabbi Felix says, "It's perceived as being from Tel Aviv, and what goes on in Tel Aviv, nobody cares."

Sort of like Americans and Las Vegas.

(NYT)

Art Gilmore's was a voice you've probably heard. He voiced coming attractions from ths 1940s into at least the 70s. Here's an Art Gilmore quiz. For what classic pictures did he record these promotional lines?

• "The screen jumps for joy with Glendon Swarthout's inside story of those uproatious Easter vacations."
• "Never before has any film contained such a full measure of the joy of living."
• "This could be the beginning of the end of the human race."
• "The story of a love so powerful it broke through all the barriers past and present, between life and death; between the golden girl in the bank tower and the tawdry redhead that he tried to remake in her image."

And the answers:

• Where the Boys Are
• It's a Wondergul Life
• The War of rhe Worlds
• Vertigo

Art Gilmore died last month. He was 98.

In the field in Afghanistan, women Marines seem to be better at winning the hearts and minds and collecting information from men than than the male Marines. As G Company captain Brandon Turner puts it, "You put a lady in front of them, they'll start blabbing at the mouth."

Men.

They're the same everywhere.

There's also an intimidation factor. Lance Corporal Emily Naslund says, "I'd be nervous, too, if I had five chicks in my living room with weapons.

(NYT)

OH, BABY, BABY IT'S A WILD WORLD!

Last month we got hits from:

• Japan
• Taiwan
• Canada
• Luxembourg
• Germany
• Brazil
• Russia
• Latvia
• China
• and the U.S. of A.

Hello world!

TURN IT UP! TURN IT UP!

The U.S. House and Senate have passed bills making broadcasters turn down the TV, so the commercials are no louder than the programs.

Because, after all, isn't this one of the major problems facing the country these days?

LOTSA LAST WORDS

A man who blew his brains out at Harvard University left behind a 1,904 page suicide note.

Ya' gotta' wonder how he ever found time to kill himself.

QUOTATION FROM THE LUNATIC FRINGE

"Some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy and its grips on the Middle East in order also to save the Zionist regime. The majority of the American people as well as other nations and politicians agree with this view."

-- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on 9/11.

OOPS

Pittsburgh police beat up 25 people who were protesting police brutality.

That'll teach 'em.

Police surrounded the group and then told them to disperse.

Oops.

***

Tornado sirens went off accidentally in Hutchinson, Kansas.

The sirens sound when a city official dials a secret phone number.

The sirens were activated when someone dialed a wrong number.

Oops.

###

THE WIT AND WISDOM OF DELAWARE SENATORIAL CANDIDATE CHRISTINE O'DONNELL

"It is not enough to be abstinent with other people, you also have to be be abstinent alone. The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery, so you can't masturbate without lust."

"People are created in God's image. Homosexuality is an identity adopted through societal factors. It's an identity disorder."

“Well, I know that the [gay pride parade] here in Los Angeles, there was S&M going on. There was mocking sodomy, mocking, you know, all kinds of crude sexual acts. … Because—because authorities were too afraid to be called, quote, unquote, ‘homophobic’ because these homosexual special rights groups do get away with [anything].”

"Condoms will not protect you from AIDS."

"We took the Bible and prayer out of public schools. Now we're having weekly shootings."

"Creationism, in essence, is believing that the world began as the Bible in Genesis says, that God created the world in six days, six 24-hour periods. And there is just as much, if not more, evidence supporting that."

"American scientific companies are cross-breeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains."

On nude sunbathing: "I mean, it is very difficult, I'm sure, for a man to sit there and look at his girlfriend naked and not want to go a bit further."

On co-ed college dorms: "What's next? Orgy rooms? Menage trois rooms?"

"I dabbled into witchcraft -- I never joined a coven. But I did, I did. I dabbled into witchcraft. I hung around people who were doing these things. I'm not making this stuff up."

"One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar, and I didn't know it. I mean, there's little blood there and stuff like that, We went to a movie and then had a midnight picnic on a satanic altar."

"During the primary, I heard the audible voice of God. … He said, 'Credibility.' It wasn't a thought in my head. I thought it meant I was going to win. But after the primary, I got credibility."

“[My opponents are] following me. They follow me home at night. I make sure that I come back to the townhouse and then we have our team come out and check all the bushes and check all the cars to make sure that—they follow me. … That’s what’s disgusting, as you can see from the YouTube videos. They knock on the door at all hours of the night. They’re hiding in the bushes when I’m at candidate forums.”

POLL TOLL

Today is election day in Afghanistan.

The death toll is 17.

NON-COMBAT DEATHS

Since President Obama announced the end of U.S. combat in Iraq, the death toll is two.

But at least these two American soldiers were shot to death by an Iraqi soldier on an Iraqi army base.

Not that the difference matters to those two American solders.

THEY'RE JUST ADVISORS, YOU KNOW

U.S. non-combat troops armed with mortars and machine guns attacked Iraqi insurgents in Diyala Province the other day.  Non-combat pilots flying Apache and Kiowa helicopters and F-16 jets provided air support with cannon fire and 500-pound bombs.

The U.S. combat mission in Iraq officially ended on September first.

WHAT, NO REINDEER?

Malaysian TV pulled a spot celebrating Eid al-Fitr, the end of Ramadan, after some Muslim complaints.

The ad featured  a flying trishaw (a tricycle rickshaw) driven across the night sky by an old man with white hair.

Think sleigh.  Think Santa.  Think Christmas.

TO EVERYTHING THERE IS A DAY

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day, as declared by the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP).

So don't kill yourself today.

Maybe I should have posted this earlier in the day.

WORKS FOR ME

"I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it."

-- British philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806-1873).

BELIEVE WHAT YOU READ

Fidel Castro says Osama bin Laden is a CIA agent, bought and paid for by the USA.

He says he knows this because he read it on the Internet.

So it must be true.

PISSED OFF

A man walked into a mosque in Queens, New York during evening prayers, shouted "terrorists," added some racial slurs, and then peed on the prayer rugs.

Police say the the incident may have been alcohol-related.

QUOTATION FROM THE LUNATIC FRINGE

“The scourge of illegal immigrants… are running rampant across America, killing our police for sport, raping, murdering like a scythe across America. The Statue of Liberty is crying, she’s been raped and disheveled. Raped and disheveled by illegal aliens!”

-- Talk-radio host Michael Savage.

DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT...

One in five Americans believe President Barack Obama is a Muslim.  According to recent polling, one in five Americans also believe --

• The Sun revolves around the Earth.
• Witches are real.
• Alien abductions are real.
• Don't know who the U.S. declared independence from.
• Can't find the U.S. on a map.

(Huffington Post)

TO GET TO THE OTHER SIDE

Islip, New York has banned free-range poultry after wayward chickens in the College Woods neighborhood were seen crossing the roads.

JANE, YOU IGNORANT SLUT

Conservative columnist James J. Kilpatrick was born here in Oklahoma.  He died last Sunday.  He was 89.

Here are some of his writings.

"The Negro race, as a race, is in fact an inferior race.."  -- From an unpublished column, titled "The Hell He Is Equal," written for the Saturday Evening Post magazine, 1963.

"Conservatives believe that a civilized society demands orders and classes, that men are not inherently equal." -- In Nation's Business magazine, 1978.

"This constitutional time bomb is the contrivance of a gang of professional harpies. Gadzooks!  Zounds!  Horsefeathers!" -- On the proposed equal rights amendment, 1970.

FREEDOM TO WORSHIP, NEW YORK

“Publique worship is Tolerated… but to those that professe faith in Christ.”

-- New York City’s Common Council, 1685.

I QUIT

I had my own Steven Slater moment.

I'm in total sympathy with Slater, the JetBlue flight attendant who quit via escape chute.  Sympathy, hell.  The guy is a hero and inspiration to all the overworked who are not paid half enough for the shit they have to take.

My moment came decades ago in far northern Maine when I was a DJ for a small radio station.  During my show, the chief engineer -- who was also the assistant general manager -- entered the studio and, as was his habit, began to chew me out for something he imagined I had done or not done.

But this was one time too many and I just wasn't in the mood.  I stood up, told him "That's it, I quit," and walked out the door with a record still playing on the turntable.

I never looked back.  I had a job at a station in the next town within a week or two.  And when I think back to the event, it still makes me feel happy.

AND NEVER SMILE AT A CROCODILE

The Summer Olympics are coming to London. But what to do with those pesky tourists? VisitBritain, the national tourism agency has issued guidelines for dealing with foreigners. And since the Olympics are still two years away, there's plenty of time to practice.

From the guidelines:

• Don't stare at a Japanese person.
• Don't mistake a Canadian for an American.
• Don't ask Brazilians personal questions.
• Don't snap your fingers or point at a Belgian.
• Don't wink or point at a Chinaman.
• Don't discuss poverty, immigration, earthquakes or the Mexican-American war with Mexicans.
• Don't be offended by Argentine jokes.
• Don't be offended by Australians' crude language.
• Expect the French to be rude.
• "Indians are in general, an impatient lot, and like to be quickly attended to. The more affluent they are, the more demanding and brusque they tend to be."
• Middle Easterners "are not used to being told what they can't do."
• Americans are "informal to the point of being very direct or even rude" and complain a lot.
• Foreigners believe Britons to be honest, efficient and unpleasant.

...AND DAMNED IF YOU DON'T

US Customs border agents are arresting illegal immigrants trying to return to Mexico through regular border crossings.

File this under "Damned if you do..."

ANOTHER YEAR ABOVE GROUND

Today is my birthday!  Da da da da da da!

That's one more year above ground, and a year closer to social security.

I used to have long hair.  Now I don't have any.

I used to not trust anyone over 30.  Now I don't trust anyone under  30.

I used to have dreams.  Now I have naps.

But I've done almost everything on my bucket list.  I got my pilot's license, did a lot of sky diving,  some scuba diving, became a radio celebrity, was in a major motion picture, have traveled through most of this country and some of the world, lived a lot of places and had a lot of sex, and married a beautiful woman who is smarter than me.

On the other hand I've never been a principle player in a Hollywood film, as I'd hoped to be.  Never had sex with (Insert your favorite celebrity crush object here).  I never made it as a New York DJ.  Unless you count Long Island.  I was thinking more Manhattan.

Yes, I know, I'm not the only baby boomer with diminished expectations.  Where are our flying cars?  Our jet packs?  Our TWA flights to the moon.  (Or TWA flights to anywhere, for that matter.)

And what happened to that nuclear holocaust we were expecting?

My father died at the age of 91 watching football on TV, no hospitalization, no lingering illness, and his team was winning.

So maybe I've got 30 years.  Or, given an annoying but persistent cancer tumor, maybe less.

So what to do?

I'd like to live long enough to collect social security.  I'd like to buy a small travel trailer and live a lot more places, if I can convince my wife.  Or maybe, if this fad for far right wingnuts fades away, I can return to the radio airwaves.

I should live so long.

THE WRETCHED REFUSE

Immigrants make up nearly one third of Americans with doctorate degrees, according to the census bureau,

I'm just sayin'...

IN A WORD

“Fucknutsville.”

-- President Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel describing Washington, D.C.

HATS OFF TO DEMOCRACY

The Mohave County, Arizona Board of Supervisors has ruled that hats are incompatible with democracy.

Two hat-wearers were ejected from a recent meeting.  Hats are against the rules.  The board chairman says hats "will not be tolerated."

Evidently, the people's business cannot be conducted while wearing hats.

PARTY PARTY PARTY

With nearly 100 bars serving the campus, The University of Georgia has been ranked the nation's top party school by the Princeton Review.

Once again, Oral Roberts University here in Tulsa did not make the list.

SING ALONG WITH MITCH

Mitch Miller has died at the age of 99. Here are some things you probably didn't know about his career.

• When Orson Welles panicked the populace with his 1938 radio drama "War of the Worlds," Miller was part of the show. He was in the CBS Symphony Orchestra, playing the oboe.
• He produced Rosemary Cloony's breakout hit "Come On-A My House." Novelist William Saroyan wrote the song with his cousin Ross Bagdasarian (aka David Seville) who went on to record the chipmunk songs.
• In 1993 the FBI tried to drive David Koresh and his Branch Davidian cult members out or their Waco, Texas compound by blaring "Sing Along with Mitch" Christmas albums over loudspeakers. It didn't work.

(NYT)

THE JERSEY SHORE

"What it does is take a bunch of New Yorkers -- most of the people on 'Jersey Shore' are New Yorkers -- drops them at the Jersey shore and tries to make America feel like this is New Jersey."

-- New Jersey Governor Chris Christie discussing the TV show "Jersey Shore."


"Well, maybe they are better when they're in New York than in New Jersey."

-- New York Governor David A. Patterson rebutting Governor Christie.


"Do you know who I am? I'm Snooki.  You can't do this to me."

-- "Jersey Shore" star Nicole Polizzi, AKA Snooki, while being arrested for disorderly conduct on the beach at Seaside Heights, New Jersey.


"I've got to admit, I don't know who Snooki is."

-- President Barack Obama on the TV show "The View."

OOPS

A Taliban suicide bomber targeting a provincial Pakistan information minister blew himself up outside the minister's home, killing seven and wounding 25.

The minister was away from home at the time and was unhurt.

Oops.

***

A suicide bomber trying to kill the governor of the Dand district in the Kandahar province of Afghanistan set off his explosives prematurely and killed five children.

The governor was unhurt.

Oops.

***

Anti-semites launched five rockets from Egypt into the Israeli city of Eilat. No one was hurt. A sixth rocket missed the country of Israel entirely and killed one person in Jordan.

Oops.

###

IT'LL BE A COLD DAY IN...

There's a new CEO for BP.  His name is Robert Dudley.  The old one, Tony Hayward, is being sent to Siberia.

Really.

MY CLIENT IS AN IDIOT TWO

At closing arguments for two men tried for plotting to blow up JFK airport, defense attorney Mildred Whalen said the plotters had "seen too many Bruce Willis movies.

She said her client, Russell Defreitas, was a "weak-minded, foolish man with a big mouth."

This is known as the "My client is an idiot" defense.

MY CLIENT IS AN IDIOT

As the Rod Blagojevich trial winds down, defense attorney Sam Adam gave his closing arguments.

He said his client is naive and a poor judge of character.  Adam claimed that when Blagojevich was looking to fill Barack Obama's empty senate seat, "He even talked about Oprah Winfrey.  These are ideas that that nobody's going to say he's the sharpest knife in the drawer."

This is known as the "My client is an idiot" defense.

ALL THE QUEEN'S SWANS

British boatmen wearing royal livery are conducting a count of swans in the Thames.  By law, all the swans in England belong to the queen.

It's good to be queen.

QUOTATION OF THE DAY

"Well, it uh, the impact is more of a ... you know ... anything, anything along the ... the uh ... the ... shore and those issues are very serious issues and there ... the impact is on the ... the uh (long pause) you know, what is, the natural resource of our country, uh, but ah ... I don't know that it's, I don't know exactly, uh, to what extent it's being handled well and managed or mismanaged I have no idea. The only thing I know is it's very sincere and it's, it's uh, it affects more than Louisiana and it affects (muffled pause) ... the ocean."

-- Louisiana State University football coach Les Miles answering a reporter about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

CRIME NEWS

A Bartlesville, Oklahoma man is in jail facing charges of kidnapping his ex-girlfriend two days after he was arrested and released on bail facing charges of kidnapping the same ex-girlfriend.

And so it goes.

***

Eight current or former Tulsa police officers are either under indictment or under investigation for crimes variously ranging from stealing money, stealing drugs, selling drugs, and framing people for drugs.

Wow, Tulsa really is becoming just like a big city.

###

LIONS AND TIGERS AND POPS, OH MY!

As the heat wave continues, Tulsa zookeepers are looking for ways to cool off the animals. Among other things, they're feeding the big cats -- lions and tigers -- popsicles.

Blood popsicles.

Yum.

UP THE FOOD CHAIN

Idaho has a problem with pelicans that are eating up the Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout.

So the Idaho Department of Fish and Game has come up with a solution. They're bringing in skunks and badgers to eat the pelicans.

Next: How to get rid of skunks and badgers.

QUOTATIONS OF THE DAY

"I don't want non-whites in my country in any form or fashion or any status."

-- Billy Roper, a write-in candidate for governor of Arkansas, a self avowed tea party member who says he attends tea party rallies to gather support.


“If I was a black man, I’d get down on my knees and thank God for slavery. Otherwise, I could be dying of AIDS now in Africa.”

-- Ron Wight, tea party activist, at an April rally in Kansas City


“What’s the difference between the Cleveland Zoo and the White House? The zoo has an African lion and the White House has a lyin’ African!”

-- Poster at an Ohio tea party rally.


“Obamacare: Coming soon to a clinic near you.”

-- Sign at a tea party rally, with a photo depicting President Obama as a tribal witch doctor, wearing a headdress and a bone through his nose.


“Congress = Slave Owner, Taxpayer = Niggar.”

-- Sign held by Dale Robertson, founder and president of Houston-based TeaParty.org at a 2009 tea party rally.

QUOTATIONS OF THE DAY

"Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn't it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, please refudiate."

(Refudiate?)

-- Sarah Palin's recent twitter.


"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it."

-- Comedian Sam Levinson.

FRIENDS DON'T LET FRIENDS...

A British trader has been fined 72,000 pounds for trading oil futures while drunk.

Remember, don't drink and trade.

ALWAYS SIGNAL YOUR TURNS

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol pulled over driver Ricky Hunter for failing to signal a turn.

First, Hunter presented a fake driver's licence with a picture that didn't even look like him.

Next, he failed a field sobriety test.

Then, it turned out he was a Colorado prison escapee doing time for larceny.

So now, in addition to the escape charges, hunter faces local charges of driving under the influence, presenting a false I.D. and driving without a valid license.

And failure to signal.

GOD'S CHOSEN PEOPLE ARE OFF THE HOOK

Germany is presenting a Jewish-friendly passion play.

This year's script is even approved by Rabbi Gary Greenbaum of the American Jewish Committee.

The Bavarian village of Oberammergau opened the show in 1633 in return for God ending the Black Plague. It's performed every ten years and stars about half the village population of 2,500.

In the new version Christ is still crucified, but at least this time around my people didn't do it.

THE KING IS GONE

Police are searching for a seven foot tall statue of Elvis Presley stolen from the roof of the Happy Day Diner in Rosedale, Maryland.

Elvis has left the building.

HAPPY TRAILS

Wanna' buy a dead horse?

Not just any horse.

Trigger.

Trigger was Roy Rogers' famous horse. After he died -- the horse, not the cowboy -- he was lovingly stuffed and mounted, and is up for auction at Christie's Gallery in New York.

Also for sale, Roy Rogers' jeep -- Nellybelle -- his boots, 60 pairs, and his dog named bullet.

The dog is dead, but well preserved.

IN SPORTS...

American Rick "Pellet Gun" Krause won the International Chery Spitting Competition in Eau Claire, Michigan, with a 51 foot 3 inch spit.

His wife Marlene won the women's division with a pit spit of 34 feet 6 inches.

That's one small spit for a woman, one giant spit for mankind.

I'M JUST SAYIN'...

Coal mining deaths this year --

• 29 in an April 5th explosion in West Virginia.
• 90 in May in an explosion in Kaspadskaya, Russia.
• 152 in March through May in explosions, fires and floods in China.
• 47 in June in China's Henan province.
• 71 in an explosion in Columbia.

Nuclear power deaths this year --

• None.

Nuclear power deaths at Western power reactors, ever --

• None, ever.

I'm just sayin'...

QUOTATIONS OF THE DAY

"The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose."

-- J. B. S. Haldane, British biologist.


"If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?"

-- Albert Einstein.

QUOTATION FROM THE LUNATIC FRINGE

"I actually support microchipping them. I can micro-chip my dog so I can find it. Why can't I microchip an illegal?"

-- Pat Bertroche, candidate for the Republican 3rd District primary in Iowa, on illegal immigrants.

ARROWS AND HAMMERS AND GAS, OH MY!

Canadian police stopped a car headed toward the Toronto G-20 summit and arrested the driver.

The car was transporting gasoline canisters, a chain saw, sledge hammers and a cross bow.

Police are not sure what the driver was up to, but believe it may have involved gasoline canisters, a chain saw, sledge hammers and a cross bow.

JEWS, GO HOME!

"Tell them [Jews] to get the hell out of Palestine. Remember, these people [Palestinians] are occupied, and it's their land, not Germany's, not Poland's. They should go home, to Poland, Germany, to America and everywhere else."

-- Newspaper columnist Helen Thomas



From the New York Times --

To the Editor:

"My mother, growing up in Poland in the 1930s, heard demonstrators shouting, 'Jews, go to Palestine.' Now Helen Thomas tells me that Jews should not be in 'Palestine.' They should go back to Germany and Poland.

"So, in other words, 65 years after my mother was liberated from a concentration camp in Germany, Jews are still being told that they don't belong.

"No, Ms. Thomas, I think my 85-year-old mother will stay right where she is, in Netanya, Israel, with her great-grandchildren, who were born in the Jewish state."

Sheba Mittelman
West Orange, New Jersey

FROM THE TULSA POLICE BLOTTER

Besides being a person of interest in the killing of rival gangster Kenneth Daniels, Isiah Hasan Gilbert is charged with resisting arrest and mistreating a police dog.

What kind of maniac would mistreat a police dog?

***

A Tulsa man with a machete walked into a local Whataburger hamburger joint and demanded money.

The clerk told him he couldn't have any money but he could have some french fries instead.

The man took the fries and left.

***

When Bill Petree smelled smoke coming from a neighbor's apartment, he called 911. Then he saw five or six people running from the apartment, including one woman who asked for help "controlling my lab."

When firefighters arrived, they found a meth lab and a pizza burning in the oven.

No one really knows who lived in the apartment. Several women and their children used to hang out there. No one has returned. The last legal occupant is nowhere to be found.

As Petree explains it, "I never knew who they all were, but it's Jerry Springer's world and we're just living in it."

###

(Tulsa World)

NO REST FOR THE WEARY

These are from actual "Help Wanted ads --

From a job posting on The People Place, a job recruiting website, by an anonymous electronics company in Angleton, Texas: "CLIENT WILL NOT CONSIDER/REVIEW ANYONE NOT CURRENTLY EMPLOYED REGARDLESS OF THE REASON."

Another job posting on The People Place, by Sony Ericsson: "NO UNEMPLOYED CANDIDATES WILL BE CONSIDERED AT ALL."

A Craigslist ad for assistant restaurant managers in Edgewater, N.J.: "MUST BE CURRENTLY EMPLOYED."

Job posting for a tax manager at an unnamed "top 25 CPA firm" in New York City: "MUST BE CURRENTLY EMPLOYED."

Welcome to the new economy.

A HOT TIME IN TULSA

There's going to be a public American flag burning in Tulsa today.

The Daughters of the American Revolution will do the burning.

They can do that.

No arrests are expected.

QUOTATION OF THE DAY

Where does South Carolina find these people? Here's the latest politician from that state to eat his foot:

"We already have one raghead in the White House, we don't need another in the governor's mansion."

-- South Carolina Republican State Senator Jake Knotts, referring to gubernatorial primary candidate Nikki Haley, also a Republican, who is of Indian descent.

WAIT! THIS JUST IN!

*****WARNING! GRAPHIC LANGUAGE AHEAD!*****

After making his remarks, Knotts repeated them to Free Times reporter Corey Hutchins. Only this time he said, "She's a fucking raghead."

According to Hutchins' Free Times article, "Knotts says he believed Haley has been set up by a network of Sikhs and was programmed to run for governor of South Carolina by outside influences in foreign countries."

Knotts went on to say, “We’re at war over there.”

He later clarified that remark, saying he did not mean the United States was at war with India, just with “foreign countries.”

LATEST OIL SPILL CONSPIRACY THEORIES

Rush Limbaugh: "Lest we forget ... the cap and trade bill was strongly criticized by hardcore environmentalist whackos because it supposedly allowed more offshore drilling and nuclear plants. What better way to head off more oil drilling and nuclear plants then by blowing up a rig?"

Dana Perino on Fox & Friends,: "I'm not trying to introduce a conspiracy theory, but was this deliberate? You have to wonder...if there was sabotage involved."

Eric Bolling on Fox & Friends: "Did they let this thing leak? ... if they're going to try and pull drilling, that may be the way they do it."

Greg Evensen is a former Kansas state trooper who's been making the interview circuit saying the government plans to evacuate 40 million people -- everyone from the coast of Texas to Cape Cod -- and place them in FEMA concentration camps. He says combat troops will begin the roundup around June 15th. Some of these troops may be foreign. Others will be "alien hybrids" disguised as US troops.

I wish I were making this up.

(Huffington Post)
(Mother Jones)
(Shattering the Darkness podcast)

PARTY TROOPERS

Those kids in Arizona are just having too much fun.

So the Bernalillo County Sheriff Department has formed a Party Patrol to break up underage parties.

The patrol includes 16 deputies and a helicopter.

Last weekend it busted 15 parties.

Deputies say the big problem seems to be graduation parties.

Yeah, that's a problem all right: all those seniors who insist on graduating.

I SCREAM FOR ICE CREAM

The agency sent me to a nursing home tonight. The place was having an ice cream social and they needed extra security.

Those old folks go wild when they get a little ice cream.

RANDOM QUOTES

"I can understand Obama being touchy on the subject of producing your papers. Maybe he's afraid somebody's going to ask him for his."

-- Rush Limbaugh on Arizona's new immigration law.


"He's a celebrity idiot, but he IS a celebrity,”

-- Sam Adam Jr., one of the lawyers defending Rod Blagojevich on corruption charges, speaking of his client.


"If Kagan is confirmed, Jews, who represent less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, will have 33 percent of the Supreme Court seats. Is this the Democrats' idea of diversity?"

-- Pat Buchanan


"And the day will come when the mystical generation , by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."

-- Thomas Jefferson, in an 1823 letter to John Adams.

A PARKING PROBLEM

What did the truck bombs that destroyed the Murrah building in Oklahoma City, blew up in the basement of New York's World Trade Center, and the one that didn't go off in Times Square all have in common?

They were all parked illegally!

So now the Department of Homeland Security is training parking attendants to recognise suspicious vehicles.

Genius!

But wait. Only one was parked in attended parking. The other two were parked in the street.

Meter maids to the rescue!

BARACK OBAMA PRESIDED OVER THIS YEAR'S NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST

"I believe that Barack Obama is God's punishment on us today"

-- Texas state Rep. Leo Berman


"Dear Lord, this year you took my favorite actor, Patrick Swayzie (sic). You took my favorite actress, Farah (sic) Fawcett. You took my favorite singer, Michael Jackson. I just wanted to let you know, my favorite president is Barack Obama. Amen."

-- Anonymous Facebook page, with one million "thumbs up" so far.


"Pray for Obama Psalm 109:8."

-- On bumper stickers and t-shirts everywhere.


"Let his days be few; and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow."

-- Psalm 109.:8


"`As a snail which melteth', Barack Obama, since you want to use your salt solution to kill babies in this country, Barack Obama, you're going to REAP what you SOW because one day, Barack Obama, you're going to be burning in HELL and you're going to feel a burning sensation all over your SKIN - which was the same sensation felt by every baby that was aborted in his mother's womb."

-- Pastor Steven Anderson of the Tempe, Arizona Independent Baptist Church

TODAY IS HOLOCAUST REMEMBERANCE DAY

"There was not one Jew killed in the gas chambers. It was all lies, lies, lies. The Jews created the Holocaust so we would prostrate ourselves on our knees before them and approve of their new State of Israel.... Jews made up the Holocaust."

-- Catholic Bishop Richardson Williamson


“JEWS KILLED JESUS! Yes, the Jews killed the Lord Jesus…Now they're carrying water for the fags; that's what they do best: sin in God's face every day, with unprecedented and disproportionate amounts of sodomy, fornication, adultery, abortion and idolatry! God hates these dark-hearted rebellious disobedient Jews.”

-- Pastor Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church

QUOTATIONS FROM WHEN MEN WERE "MEN" AND GAYS WERE NERVOUS

"I can tell you if there were any homosexuals in that group, they were taken care of in ways I can't describe to you."

-- Tennessee Republican congressional candidate and Vietnam veteran Ron Kirkland speaking to a Tea Party forum about the military "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy.


"I definitely wouldn't want to share a shower with a homosexual. We took care of that kind of stuff, just like (Kirkland) said."

-- House candidate and Iraqi war veteran Randy Smith speaking to the same forum.

SHALOM, PARDNER

Jewish Tulsa Magazine reports that David Epstein, publisher and managing editor of Western States Jewish History Quarterly Journal will deliver a talk Friday night at Temple Israel on "Jews of the Wild West" followed by a Saturday morning lecture "Rabbis of the Wild West."

(Insert punchline here.)

WEAR BLACK, BRING FLOWERS

Etiquette expert Elizabeth Post died on Saturday. She was 89.

She was the granddaughter-in-law of the legendary Emily Post, but Elizabeth was an expert in her own right. Besides revising Emily's book five times, she wrote several books of her own and had a Good Housekeeping column for 35 years.

Condolences can be sent to the Emily Post Institute in Burlington, Vermont. Notes should be hand-written; pre-printed condolence cards are never acceptable.

IS GOD ON YOUR BUMPER?

A recent poll reveals most Oklahomans believe in God.

But only 61 of them want to say so on their license plate.

State law says at least 100 have to order the new "In God We Trust" specialty plates for them to go into production.

So Tulsan Gus Oliver bought 40 of the plates. He has only two vehicles. But he has ensured that God will be trusted on back bumpers across Oklahoma.

QUOTATIONS FROM THE CELEBRITY FRINGE

"My motivation is gone, because [Obama] will punish me if I'm successful. That's how you start communism, is just take -- Cuba. Obama wants to be Castro."

-- Victoria Jackson, formerly of Saturday Night Live.


"The American People are witnessing the greatest lie that is cleverly orchestrated by President Obama and his whole administration. President Obama feeds people poison, giving them the idea that they are entitled to take from the wealthier who have lived and worked in a democracy that understands that capitalism is the only truth that keeps a nation healthy ... [Obama uses] a socialistic, Marxist teaching, and with it, he rapes this nation..."

-- John Voight, actor.


"Homey made this bed, now he has got to lay in it. Barack Obama is the greatest gangster to ever come out of Chicago. He's a cultural terrorist."

-- Stephen Baldwin, actor.


"Seventy-five-thousand people at an outdoor sports palace, well, that's something the Fuehrer would have done."

-- Ben Stein on Barack Obama.


"Obama--he's a piece of shit and I told him to suck on my machine gun."

-- Ted Nugent, singer.


"Mr. President, as more and more people realize that you are refusing to release your original birth certificate, further questions will fuel the fires of debate or at least hinder the embers from ever being snuffed out. Questions such as, 'Does it really contain the Hawaiian physician's name?' 'Does it disclose something other than his birthplace that he wishes others not to see?'"

-- Chuck Norris, actor.


(The Huffington Post)

I FEEL THE EARTH MOVE, PART TWO

Now that a Muslim cleric has settled the issue of what causes earthquakes (promiscuous women), it's time to look at what caused the Icelandic volcano.

It's the gays and the pagans.

The Association of Orthodox Experts, a Russian Christian group, says the eruption is a manifestation of God's anger.

The group issued a statement saying, “Is not Europe increasingly departing from its Christian heritage? Does it not see that the eruption of the Icelandic volcano, and the appearance of its paralysing ash clouds, is a stern warning from God against their ‘advanced’ society?”

Iceland "has recently become a center of European neo-paganism of Aryan occult kind, which has Nazi character"

(The Association of European Traditional Religions, which is uniting with the World Pagan Association and the International Pagan Alliance, has its headquarters in Iceland.)

“A sizable number of members of the European Parliament proposed that all states represented on the Council of Europe should have mandatory classes in schools to teach about the sexual behaviour of homosexuals. Has formerly-Christian Europe forgotten the Scriptures, and, accordingly, the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah?”

At least they're not blaming it on the Jews.

WHAT WOULD MUHAMMAD EAT?

"Darwinist faggots who are as despicable as the rest, walking around eating your Trisciuts."

-- Younus Abdullah Mohammed, of the group Revolution Muslim, describing Americans.


"I don't think we have any comment on that. Triscuits are a very popular cracker. We have a broad variety of people who love them these days. Everyone loves Triscuits, and we hope that everyone enjoys them."

-- Basil Maglaris, a spokesperson for Kraft Foods, the company that makes Triscuits

QUOTATIONS FROM THE LUNATIC FRINGE

"What gives the Commerce Department the right to ask me how often I flush my toilet? Or about going to work? I'm not filling out this form. I dare them to try and come throw me in jail. I dare them to. Pull out my wife's shotgun and see how that little ACS twerp likes being scared at the door."

-- CNN's Erick Erickson. (Note: There are no questions concerning toilets, or flushing, on the 2010 census form.)


"Those crazies in Montana who say, 'We're going to kill ATF agents because the U.N.'s going to take over' -- well, they're beginning to have a case."

-- Dick Morris on Fox.

"I guess that would mean if you really had affection for your horse, I guess you could marry your horse."

.

-- Former Congressman and current Senate candidate J. D. Hayworth on gay marriage.

.

.

"The drivers of cars with illegals in it are intentionally causing accidents on the freeway."

.

-- U.S. Senator John McCain.

QUOTATIONS OF THE DAY

"A 'movement' that encompasses gun nuts, tax protesters, devotees of the gold standard, Sarah Palin, insurance company lobbyists, 'constitutionalists' who have not read the Constitution, Medicare recipients who oppose government-run health-care, crazy 'birthers' who claim President Obama was born in another country, a contingent of outright racists (come on, people, let's be real) and a bunch of fat-cat professional politicians pretending to be 'outsiders' is not a coherent intellectual or political force."

-- Eugene Robinson, syndicated columnist, on the tea party movement.


"I've been trying to understand the Tea Party Movement. Sounds like a lot of angry people who want to get the government out of their lives and cut both taxes and the deficit. There's nothing wrong with that -- although one does wonder where they were during the Bush years."

-- Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times columnist.

I FEEL THE EARTH MOVE

Iran is one of the most earthquake prone countries in the world. So what's causing all these quakes?

Bad women.

Senior Muslim cleric Hojatoles Kazem Sedighi, Tehran's prayer leader, says "Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes."

At last, a solid scientific explanation.

Hey, would you check out the tectonic plates on that babe!

ARMED WHILE DRIVING

South Carolina is working on a law to allow drivers to keep a handgun under the car seat. The state already allows a gun in the glove box, console and trunk. But hey, you can never be too well armed while driving.

A HORSE OF COURSE

The carriage horses in New York's Central Park get more vacation time than I do.

By law, each horse must now get four weeks off a year. But I don't begrudge the horses their time off. Hell, we could all use more vacation. At least I don't have to work in the rain and shit in the street.

NO BAGGGAGE HERE

More and more airlines are charging extra to check baggage. Now at least one airline -- Spirit Airlines -- plans to charge extra for a carry-on bag. The fee:$45.

The best solution I can see it to fly naked. That way when you get where you're going you won't have to change clothes.

REVENGE OF THE SQUIRREL

An Oklahoma teen swerved his car to try to run over a squirrel that was trying to cross the highway in front of him.

He lost control, rolled the car, and was ejected and thrown 18 feet down the road. His injuries are serious.

The squirrel survived. Justice prevails.

QUOTATIONS FROM THE LUNATIC FRINGE

Voices from the tea party --

"I am the number one target for more than one more extremest group to defeat this November. We need to have your help for candidates like me. We need to you to take out some of these bad guys."

-- Republican Representative Michelle Bachman of Minnesota speaking to the tax day tea party at Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C.

To what "extremest group" is she referring? Who are "these bad guys?" And what does she mean by "take out?"

"I'm a little apprehensive because of the left-wing nut jobs out there."

-- Ohio Valley Freedom Fighters Militia Colonel Kevin Terrell, leading a patrol of camo-suited thugs around Freedom Plaza in search of "liberal infiltrators."

QUOTATION OF THE DAY

"Is this what their 'change' is all about? I want to tell them, nah, we'll keep clinging to our Constitution and our guns and religion – and you can keep the change."

-- Former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin at today's Tea Party rally in Boston.

OK, the Constitution I get. Religion I get. But what's with the guns? And why is she clinging to them? Is someone trying to steal them? And what's she want to do with them? Shoot herself? Someone else? What's the deal?

BE AFRAID

This story reminds me of Iraq, where no self-respecting government ministry is without its own private army.

Now, the Oklahoma Legislature is thinking of setting up its own armed militia.

Republican State Senator Randy Brogdon of Owasso says a state militia is authorized under the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

He says the founding fathers "were not referring to a turkey shoot or a quail hunt. They really weren't even talking about us having the ability to protect ourselves against each other. The Second Amendment deals directly with the right of an individual to keep and bear arms to protect themselves from an overreaching federal government."

Brogdon, who later claimed he never used the word "militia," told the Associated Press (on tape), "Is a state militia a good idea? It probably is. Because it, again, it would just reinforce the attitude and the belief that you and I have the right to keep and bear arms and to provide and protect our families from an overreaching federal government. I think it's a great idea."

Brogdon is also running for governor. He says, "The primary job of the governor is to protect the state ... from the encroachment of the federal government."

Republican State Representative Charles Key of Oklahoma City is all for the idea. He says the legislation could be introduced next year.

Key has claimed in the past that the federal government had prior knowledge of the blowing-up of the Murrah building in Oklahoma City in 1991 as well as the World Trade Center in New York City in 1993, and in fact may have actually participated in the bombings.

Tea party leader Al Gerhart, who heads up the Oklahoma Constitutional Alliance, is a big force behind the Oklahoma Militia. He says, "Is it scary? You bet it is. But when do the states stop rolling over for the federal government?"

The last time an Oklahoman took armed military action against the federal government, it brought down a federal building and killed 168 Oklahomans.

Is it scary? You bet it is.

NO APRIL FOOL

Congressman Johnson ruined April Fool's Day for me.

It used to be my favorite day. Really, it's the ideal celebration for a secular humorist.

But what to do this year? Exploding dinner plates? Done that. Plastic cockroaches? Done that. Soliciting community volunteers to participate in a federal study by storing toxic waste in their basements? Done that. (On the air. Got in trouble for it, too.)

So I looked at this year's batch of April Fool's gags for inspiration. Google changing its name to Topeka? Boring. National Public Radio is promoting the sale of a 20 CD collection of their best corporate sponsorship announcements. I thought that was pretty funny.

Then there was Georgia Democratic Representative Hank Johnson, at a House Armed Services Committee meeting. He was questioning Admiral Robert Willard, head of the U.S. Pacific fleet. The Navy is planning to station thousands of additional U.S. Marines and their families on the Pacific island of Guam, an American territory.

After ponderously verifying that the island is some 20 miles long and only seven miles wide, the Congressman asked -- with a completely straight and as serious a tone as you can imagine --the killer question:

(Really, you've got to see this on You Tube. It's just not as funny in print.)

Representative Hank Johnson: "My, my fear is that ah, the whole island will become so overly populated that it would tip over, and ah, capsize."

And the admiral, to his credit, answered with a completely straight face: "We don’t anticipate that."

But the kicker is, THIS WAS NO APRIL FOOL'S JOKE! Although I just stumbled on this story today, the hearing was held last Friday.

So that's it. No April Fools pranks this year for me. I am completely demoralised. I give up, and defer to reality.

IS THE STATE RIGHT?

Oklahoma State Representative Charles Key has introduced House Resolution 1063, the Oklahoma Sovereignty Protection Act, which says that "the state of Oklahoma is not bound in unlimited submission to the federal government."

OK, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't this issue settled a long time ago in The War of Northern Aggression?

QUOTATION OF THE DAY

"Anime is a prime example of why two nukes just wasn't enough."

-- New Hampshire State Rep. Nick Levasseur, on Facebook.

HOMELAND INSECURITY

In Louisiana, the Bossier Parish sheriff is training citizens in hand-to-hand combat to protect the Shreveport area from terrorists.

The volunteer squad is now 200 strong and equipped with a .50 caliber machine gun.

The chief deputy says, "We will be ahead of the curve when it comes to Islamic extremists."

No Islamists have invaded yet, so the plan sees to be working.

AND IN THREE DAYS THE CHICKEN RETURNS

The First Baptist Church of Moore, Oklahoma, is presenting an Easter dinner theater.

The play is called "A Resurrection Dream."

Following the resurrection, roast chicken will be served.

CRIME STORIES

A Florida woman was asleep in bed when a stranger broke into the house, threw a $20 bill at her and demanded sex.

She managed to chase the man out of the house. Police arrested him and the woman kept the $20.

I love happy endings.

***

Minnesota police arrested a naked man who running through traffic on I-35. The man told them that he was the devil, he had killed God and he had the code to heaven.

The man is in jail. The whereabouts of God are not known.

***

A man who falsely claimed to be a cop backed into another car on a Chicago street on Friday. But the car he backed into was driven by a real cop, who arrested him.

###

QUOTATIONS OF THE DAY

“Baby-killer”
-- Texas Republican Congressman Randy Neugebauer, yelled from the House floor during Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak’s speech before Sunday evening’s health care vote.

“Mr. President, this is a big fucking deal,”
-- Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on live TV at the health care bill signing celebration.

"And yes Mr. Vice President, you're right."
-- White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, on Twitter.

QUOTATIONS OF THE DAY

"The health care bill, ObamaCare, is dead with not the slightest prospect of resurrection."
-- Fred Barnes in "The Weekly Standard," January 22, 2010.

"Health Care Is Dead--Just Don't Tell the Left"
-- "Reason" magazine, January 22, 2010.

"You know, I've been telling my staff nine months, 'They can't pass this bill.' And finally my staff wrestled me to the ground last fall and said, 'Mr. Boehner, we have to quit saying this because they're gonna pass this bill.' And I looked at my staff and I said, 'Alright, I'll try to throttle it back a little bit. But it'll be over my dead body.'"
-- Representative John Boehner (R-Ohio), March 17, 2010.

UPDATE -- At last report, Representative Boehner was still alive.

VERY SSRI

Thieves broke into an Eli Lilly & Co. warehouse in Connecticut and stole $75 million worth of antidepressants.

Well, I hope they're happy now.

INVOKING GOD

"Faith has been perverted. They are going to vote for this damn thing on a Sunday, which is the Sabbath, during Lent."

"Here is a group of people that have so perverted our faith and our hope and our charity, that is a -- this is an affront to God."

-- Glen Beck on the health care vote.

HEAVENLY BODIES

Here in Oklahoma, prosecutors have charged Nathanael Christian with breaking into churches and using their computers to look at online pornography.

Police say he ran up a $300 phone bill at one church by calling sex-talk lines.

When asked why, of all the places that have computers, he chose churches to break into, Mr. Christian said he "has always been very religious."

IT'S THE ANIMAL IN ME

There will be no "monkey men" in Oklahoma.

The Oklahoma House has passed a bill banning human-animal hybrids.

Evidently this is not just a problem in Oklahoma. The Arizona legislature is working on a similar bill.

This is not a new issue. President Bush called for a human-animal hybrid ban in his state of the union speech in 2006, but Congress at the time did not take up the challenge.

Canada banned the hybrids years ago.

Animal-human combos are called chimeras, and until recently were considered mythical creatures. Centaurs would be one example.

These days, bad human heart valves are routinely replaced with ones from cows and pigs, creating, in effect, a chimera.

I don't know if any centaurs or monkey-men or goat-boys actually exist. But if they do, they better not come to Oklahoma. Or Canada.

Are you listening, Doctor Moreau?

QUOTATIONS FROM THE LUNATIC FRINGE

"We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term."

-- Former White House press secretary Dana Perino, on Fox News.


"We had no domestic attacks under Bush."

-- Rudy Giuliani on ABC's "Good Morning America."


"When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."

-- Humpty Dumpty, from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll.

QUOTATION OF THE DAY

"Earlier today, the president of Haiti was at the the White House with President Obama. He said the people of his country need jobs, they need places to live, and they need health care. And then the president of Haiti spoke."

-- Jay Leno

IT'S SCIENCE

"Those who do not believe that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God will find many points in this book puzzling. This book was not written for them."

"(A) Christian worldview ... is the only correct view of reality; anyone who rejects it will not only fail to reach heaven but also fail to see the world as it truly is."

-- from "Biology: Third Edition" published by Bob Jones University Press, a science textbook widely used for home schooling.

HATE IS A FAMILY VALUE

What's with Oklahomans and their hate crimes?

The Oklahoma Senate passed a bill that would allow state law enforcement agencies to refuse to assist federal agencies in prosecuting hate crimes. It would also withhold reports, records and files.

The bill passed 39 to 6.

Oklahomans love to hate, and no fed is going to tell them otherwise.

(Tulsa World)

I HAVE HERE IN MY HAND A LIST

The pope's chief exorcist (really!) says "the Devil is at work inside the Vatican."

Father Gabriele Amorth says there are "cardinals who do not believe in Jesus, and bishops who are linked to the Demon."

So far, he's not naming names.

QUOTATION OF THE DAY

"(My grandmother) told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed! You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or person ample food supply. They will reproduce."

-- South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer on food stamps, speaking at a town hall meeting.

A POT OF WHAT?

The Oklahoma House has passed a bill to legalise home-brewed beer.

But one lawmaker objected, saying it could lead to the legalisation of marijuana.

I'll drink to that.

THE POLL TOLL

Today was election day in Iraq. The death toll is 38.

FREE-RANGE FOOD

Problem: The zebras were suffering from overrpopulation at Kenya's Soysambu Conservancy.

Meanwhile, the lions at Amboseli National Park were starving.

Solution: Move the zebras in with the lions.

Problem solved.

Isn't nature wonderful?

CRASHING THROUGH TO THE OTHER SIDE

Two Tulsa pilots died when their small plane crashed in nearby Bristow.

The brother of one of the pilots said, "We all get a certain amount of solace knowing that he died doing something he loved to do."

That would be screaming in terror as the plane plunged toward the ground.

NO EGGS FOR YOU

The Oklahoma House just passed a bill to make it illegal for women to sell their eggs to fertility clinics.

However, an amendment banning men from selling sperm failed to pass.

So sell 'em if you've got 'em, boys.

IT SHOULD BE NOTED

It should be noted that Tilkum the killer whale now has three confirmed kills.

OOPS

Chinese celebrated the lunar new year in Guandong Province on Friday with a massive fireworks display. The death toll was 19.

ON A PERSONAL NOTE

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed, that any lyrics you can sing to the tune of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" (Glory, Glory Hallelujah) can also be sung to the tune of "Colonel Bogie's March" (The Bridge Over the River Kwai)?

CHEMOBENEFIT

On a personal note --

One great benefit of chemotherapy is that I don't have to shave anymore.

SNOW JOB

"Washington was immobilised by snow on Friday. This is highly unusual. Normally, Washington is immobilised by Senators."

-- Gail Collins, New York Times

THE NEW YORK TIMES GETS IT RIGHT

Today's corrections from The New York Times --

"... at the National Prayer Breakfast ... noting that 'we become absorbed with our abstract arguments, our ideological disputes, our contests for power,' (President Barack Obama ) went on to say, 'And in this Tower of Babel, we lose the sound of God's voice.' He did not say, 'this tower of babble.'

"An article on Friday ... referred incorrectly to the screen star Douglas Fairbanks. He was (Mary ) Pickford's second husband, not the first."

"An article on Thursday about the author Don DeLillo misidentified the maker of the manual typewriter he uses. It is an Olympia, not an Underwood."

OFF THE RECORD

"A story on Page 1 of Tuesday's Telegraph quoted a White House official explaining that a Q-and-A session with dozens of teenagers in Nashua High School North on Monday was 'off the record.' However, the explanation about the talk being 'off the record' was, it turns out, also 'off the record' and should not have been quoted."

-- The Nashua Telegraph

CELEBRITY QUOTE OF THE DAY

"I am the virgin Mary, and my child will be born Jesus Christ. I am the second coming.......God told me so. I shall save all the good people."

-- Singer/Model (and mostly famous for being famous) Tia Tequila, via Twitter

AN INCONVENIENT POLL

(For your enjoyment -- Marc)

This poll was commissioned by "The Daily Kos," a liberal web site, and conducted by "Research 2000," a non partisan research organization, from January 20 through January 31, 2010. A total of 2003 self identified Republicans selected by random variation were interviewed nationally by telephone. The margin for error is no more than plus or minus 2% percentage points.

• Do you believe ACORN stole the 2008 election? 21% said '"YES."
• Should contraceptive use be outlawed? 21% said "YES."
• Do you believe your state should secede from the United States? 23% said "YES."
• Do you believe Barack Obama wants the terrorists to win? 24% said "YES."
• Do you believe Barack Obama is a racist who hates White people? 31% said "YES."
• Do you believe Barack Obama was born in the United States, or not? 36% said "NO."
• Should Barack Obama be impeached, or not? 39% said "YES."
• Do you believe Sarah Palin is more qualified to be President than Barack Obama? 53% said "YES."
• Do you think Barack Obama is a socialist? 63% said "YES."
• Do you believe that the only way for an individual to go to heaven is though Jesus Christ, or can one make it to heaven through another faith? 67% said "CHRIST."
• Should public school students be taught that the book of Genesis in the Bible explains how God created the world? 77% said "YES."

(Here are a set of answers I find personally and particularly troubling.)

• Do you believe the birth control pill is abortion? 34% said "YES."
• Do you consider abortion to be murder? 76% said "YES."
• Do you support the death penalty? 91% said "YES."

(Does this justify the execution of doctors? Or pharmacists? Or women?)

© Kos Media, LLC. Site content may be used for any purpose without explicit permission.

CHOCOLATE!

A worker at Lyons & Sons Cocoa Services in Camden, New Jersey, died when he fell into a vat of chocolate.

This reminds me of the Smothers Brothers routine where Tommy explains how he fell into a vat of chocolate and hollered "Fire!"

Because, he said, who would save him if he yelled "Chocolate!"?

TRUE CONFESSIONS

No last rites for you!

The Roman Catholic Church has a priest shortage. And most hospitals no longer have Catholic chaplains. So there frequently is no one to give the last rites, or Extreme Unction, on the deathbed.

The church now recommends that you get anointed before going to the hospital. And try not to sin after that.

WE'RE GONNA' HAVE A PARTY, PARTY

Big rally today at the Oklahoma State Capitol.

Participating groups include the Oklahoma Tea Party, Tulsa County G.O.P., Oklahoma Chapter of the John Birch Society, Oklahoma Second Amendment Association and Reclaiming Oklahoma for Christ.

Let the fun begin!

LOOKING FOR ISLAM

The Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations scheduled a meeting at Melody Hal in Moore to discuss how to reach out to the community and explain that they are not terrorists.

Another group, lead by congressional candidate Kevin Calvey, came to protest the meeting. Calvey claims the council is a terrorist front.

But the Muslims, hearing of the protest, moved their meeting to an Oklahoma City Mosque.

So with nothing left to protest, the protesters adjourned to a nearby Brahms for ice cream and coffee.

This reminds me of one of those road runner cartoons where the bird outwits the wily coyote.

Perhaps Calvey needs an Acme brand Muslin detector. And some torches and pitchforks for his mob.

SHORT STORIES

LEOPARDS IN THE TEMPLE
A short story in its entirety,
by Franz Kafka

Leopards break into the temple and drink to the dregs what is in the sacrificial pitchers; this is repeated over and over again; finally it can be calculated in advance, and it becomes a part of the ceremony.

***

BABY SHOES
A short story in its entirety,
by Ernest Hemingway

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

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QUOTATIONS OF THE DAY

"... an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, teabagging supporter of violence against women and politicians with whom he disagrees."

-- Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, describing Massachusetts Senator-elect Scott Brown.

***

"The justices have affirmed a core principle of Republican government: one dollar, one vote."

-- Stephen Bowles, letter to the editor, The New York Times, on the Supreme Court's easing of restrictions on corporate political contributions.

***

"It's tough, but when you have sex at an early age, it can become addictive."

-- 16-year-old Jeiel Ballard, with his girlfriend at a Seventh-day Adventist "purity ball" in Nashville.

###

HANDS ACROSS THE WATER

It's a big scandal in Iran. A government official allegedly touched a Jew.

The story goes that Iranian Tourism Minister Hamid Baghaei shook hands with Israeli tourism minister Stas Misezhnikov at a reception in Spain hosted by the king and queen.

Iran's Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization says this story is just an “ugly and false rumor” and Iranian officials “never encountered Israeli officials in any form.” The ministry is threatening to sue anyone who says different .

Jew-touching is a big no-no in Iran

***

In other news, Iran has indicted five protesters for "waging war against Allah." The penalty is death by hanging.

You'd think that Allah is big enough to defend himself without the help of the Iranian government.

###

TODAY'S BIBLE VERSE

He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD.

-- Deuteronomy chapter 23 verse 1 King James Version

LIKE A FOX

Mehmet Ali Agca, the guy who shot Pope John Paul II, is out of prison in Turkey. And he says now that he's met the old pope, he'd like to meet the new one.

Not gonna happen.

The Turks say they're keeping an eye on this guy because they think he's crazy.

Ali Agca told reporters, "In the name of God, almighty, I proclaim the end of the world in this century. All the world will be destroyed, every human being will die. I am not God, I am not son of God, I am Christ eternal." He also said the Gospel was full of mistakes and he would rewrite it.

Yup, he's crazy.

Agca says he is considering book, film and television documentary offers.

Maybe not so crazy.

SECURITY

Here are some of the latest gadgets the security wizards have invented to catch those rascally airport terrorists and bedevil millions of innocent travelers.

MADE YA LOOK

WeCU technologies (as in "we see you") wants to set up giant screens at airports to display arcane symbols and images that only a terrorist would recognize, and then use cameras to catch passengers who are staring at the screens.

LIE DETECTOR

Homeland security is actually studying the FAST system -- it stands for Future Attribute Screening Technology -- that works like a polygraph. It uses cameras and sensors to detect things like facial tics, pupil dilation and fidgeting for signs of nervousness. So try not to act guilty.

DOWN TO DA FEET

IDO security has a gadget that scans your shoes without removing them from your feet. It sounds like those X-ray machines that were in shoe stores when I was a child, only without the side effect of foot cancer.

INSECURITY

A taxiing Northwest Airlines plane returned to the gate at Miami International Airport after a passenger named Mohammad shouted, "I want to kill all the Jews."

As the prophet (not that prophet, I mean the one who wrote Ecclesiastes.) said, there's a time for everything. But that time is probably not while taxiing in a Northwest Airlines plane.

***

Due to new security rules, the airline pilot is not allowed to tell passengers where they are. All you need to know is that you're on an airplane ... somewhere.

This rule comes directly from the TSA.

Passengers will still, however, be allowed to look out the windows.

***

The hypocrisy of the week award goes to the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Services which has banned -- for security reasons -- clothing that obscures the face, including face veils, burqas and niqabs. But a college spokesman assures us the policy ''is not directed to any group or individual. It applies to all students and faculty.''

###

CRIME NEWS

Terri Rehm is charged, along with three others, with killing an Oklahoma City man in a home invasion.

Terri turned herself in to police, but not before posting her story on My Space.

First things first.

***

Gunmen kidnapped a journalist in the Mexican state of Sinaloa.

Then they killed the policeman investigating the kidnapping.

So far, the journalist reporting on the killing of the policeman investigating the kidnapping is OK.

This could call for further investigation.

###

HEALTH NEWS

Got acne? There's an app for that.

It's Doctor Pearson's AcneApp. It lights your iPhone screen alternately blue and red. The Doctor says the blue is anti-bacterial and the red is anti-inflammatory. He says it even works on wrinkles by stimulating collagen growth. The idea is to fix your face while talking on the phone.

There's no clinical study that says any of this works. Still, there's a sucker born every minute, so if you're one you can get it at the Apple app store for $1.99

***

Do you really know what you're eating?

Students doing DNA studies at Trinity School in Manhattan found that one out of six food items for sale were mislabeled.

• White tuna sushi was really cheaper tilapia.
• Sheep's milk cheese was really made from cow's milk.
• Venison dog treats were make of beef.
• Sturgeon caviar was Mississippi paddle fish.
• An all-beef kosher hot dog sold from a New York pushcart showed only ... cow DNA.

***

In a stroke of irony, Al Bernardin, the inventor of McDonald's Quarter Pounder, has died. He died of a stroke.

***

And Dr. Hulda Clark has died. She wrote the books "The Cure for All Cancers" and "The Cure for All Advanced Cancers." She died of cancer.

***

The federal estate tax expired at the end of last year. Congress is almost certain to renew it in the future. So if you're going to die, now would be a good time.

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HAPPY NEW DECADE

The Pope on New Year's Day asked all the armed groups in the world to "stop, reflect and abandon the way of violence."

And I'm still wishing for a pony for Christmas.

***

This year, there's a new name for our forces in Iraq.

It used to be called the Multinational Force-Iraq, or as President George W. Bush called it, "The coalition of the willing."

But now it's called the United States Force-Iraq, because since Britain, Australia, Romania, Estonia, Tonga and 26 other nations pulled out, no one else has been willing.

***

Here's something to think about.

• People killed in coal mines in the U.S. in 2009: 18
• People killed by nuclear power plants in 2009: 0

.

• People killed in coal mines in the U.S. in 2008: 29
• People killed by nuclear power plants in 2008: 0

I'm just sayin'...

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ATHLETES BEHAVING BADLY

The Associated Press has named Tiger Woods the "athlete of the decade."

With 17 mistresses and counting, I should think so.

***

The OSU football coach Gundy suspended player Perrish Cox from the Cotton Bowl for breaking curfew.

Cox responded on his Facebook page: "I wz jus 30 mins late pass curfew, traffic wz bad 4 new years, 4get gundy, i put 2 much in 4 this school 4 him 2 do me like that, i mean its a bowl game that the players hard 4, we should b able 2 hav some kinda freedom, its all good, i had fun while it lasted, once a cowboy always a cowboy, regardless of gundy."

So now we know he's not only irresponsible, he's damn near illiterate. How did he get into college, anyway? Oh, yeah, he plays football.

***

What's with athletes and firearms?

• The New York Post reports that Washington Wizards players Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton pulled guns on each other during an argument in the team locker room. Arenas denies this, but admits he kept handguns in his locker.
• Arenas also pleaded no contest in 2003 in California to driving with a handgun in his car.
• Cleveland Cavaliers player Delonte West was indicted for riding his motorcycle armed with two handguns, a shotgun and a knife.
• Giants player Plaxico Burress is serving a two year prison sentence for shooting himself in the leg in a Manhattan nightclub.
• Four Tennessee basketball players -- Tyler Smith, Melvin Goins, Brian Williams and Cameron Tatum -- were arrested when police found a handgun with an altered serial number in their car.

Is this why they call it a "run and gun" offense?

###

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The world welcomed 2010, each village and hamlet in its own quaint way.

• Sydney set off fireworks.
• Tokyo sent up balloons.
• In France, the Eiffel Tower did a disco light show.
• Rising waters flooded Venice at midnight. But in Venice, who can tell?
• New York lowered a crystal ball.
• Nashville lowered a 10 foot red guitar.
• Atlanta lowered an 800 pound fiberglass peach.
• Eastport, Maine, lowered an 8 foot wooden sardine.
• Mount Olive, North Carolina, lowered a 3 foot glowing pickle.
• Raleigh lowered a giant acorn.
• Basstown dropped a opossum.

***

The Iranian Football (soccer) Federation sent a New Year greeting message to the Israeli Soccer Federation.

The Israeli Football Federation responded with a message saying "Happy new year to all the good people of Iran."

The Iranian Football Federation responded by announcing that their original message was sent by mistake,

***

Lake Superior State University's Word Banishment Committee added these to its banned phrase and word list for 2009.

• bromance
• chillaxin
• czar
• sexting
• shovel ready
• teachable moment
• unfriended

In past years the committee banned "behind closed doors," "flat-out" and "meaningful dialogue." These bans generally do not work.

***

The Library of Congress added some "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant movies of the last century to its National Film Registry. Among these were Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video (1983), "The Muppet Movie" (1979) and "The Incredible Shrinking Man" (1957).

I shudder to imagine what future centuries will think of us.

***

On New Year's Day, the Walt Disney Company bought Marvel Entertainment. So now Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck will be hanging out with Spider Man and the Hulk.

If Goofy and the Flash can't save, who can?

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