Once upon a time -- actually, last Tuesday -- in the usually peaceful Afghan town of Baghlan, eighteen strangers came to visit.

The strangers were members of Parliament, and they came to visit the sugar factory that brought the town wealth and happiness.

Townspeople jammed the street to see the lawmakers and schoolchildren lined up to greet them. The children shook the visitors' hands, and one teenager presented them with a bouquet of red and pink roses.

And then a suicide bomber blew them up.

Some survived.

The end.

Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers filed a lawsuit against his state's use of the electric chair. But the Lancaster County District Court ruled against him, saying he had no standing because he had never been injured by an electric chair.

Warning!

You know those Billy Bob teeth people buy and wear for a gag? Some of them contain dangerous levels of lead. Lead can cause permanent brain damage.

So those teeth can actually turn you into what you're trying to look like.

The watermelon is now Oklahoma's official state vegetable.

Observers aren't sure the watermelon is a vegetable.

Nevertheless, the Legislature voted on it, and that makes it so.

The Vienna Divorce Fair on Saturday was a one stop shopping place for those about to split the sheets. Services included:

• Detectives for hostile breakups.
• Paternity testing for really hostile breakups.
• Real estate agents for those who agree to split the property.
• Mediators for those who don't agree.
• Conflict management for those who really don't agree.
• Social workers for those who just can't decide.
• The Roman Catholic Church for those who prefer annulments.
• Makeovers for women back on the make.
• Dating services for women not making it.
• Lawyers. Lots of lawyers.

Dog shoots man.

There's at least one story like this every year at the beginning of hunting season, this time in Iowa. When James Harris went to retrieve a pheasant he'd just shot, he laid his shotgun on the ground. His dog stepped on the gun and shot the hunter.

This guy was lucky. He survived. Others haven't.

Remember, guns don't kill people. Dogs do.

The Hard Rock Park opening in Myrtle Beach will have a "Knights in White Satin - The Trip" ride.

I don't want to sound like just another whining baby boomer who misses the sixties, and I was never a big Moody blues fan, but -- to take an iconic song for a decade and a generation and turn it into a thrill ride at a theme park, that's just wrong. That would be like using Beatles songs for TV commercials or the Rolling Stones playing Vegas.

No. Don't tell me.

Just in time for Hanukkah, there's the kosher cell phone.

Rates are two cents per minute six days a week, but $2.44 per minute on the sabbath -- to discourage you from phoning on the day of rest.

The phone won't text message, take pictures or connect to the Internet -- to protect you from temptation.

And the phone blocks more than 10,000 numbers for phone sex and dating, to protect you from -- well, to protect you from phone sex and dating.

Seen on a bumper sticker in Tulsa --

"Jesus is coming. Look busy."

Turkey celebrated its republic's 84th anniversary with huge military demonstrations.

Tanks and other war machines rolled through the streets and torchlight parades lit the night.

Turkey's president rode with his military chief in an open Cadillac on the streets of Ankara, led by a cavalry troop and followed by fighter jets flying in formation, while troops rappelling from helicopters danced across the sky.

In Istanbul, armored vehicles drove on streets lined with saluting soldiers and flag waving citizens.

And then, to top it off, the Turkish military invaded Iraq.

According to Jewish law, every seventh year is a sabbatical -- or shmita -- year when Jewish farmers must let their fields lie fallow. And this is such a year.

But Israel's chief rabbi has ruled that Jewish farmers may sell their land to goyim -- non Jews -- temporarily for a year and still legally sell the produce.

Which reminds me of a story my rabbi used to tell.

In the story, a rabbi wakes up one winter sabbath morning to find that an overnight blizzard has blanketed the countryside. The rabbi must walk to shul -- the synagogue -- for morning prayers but he can't bring himself to mar with his footprints the perfect whiteness of the snowfall.

So he gets some goyim to carry him.

U Par Par Lay is a Burmese vaudevillian. Here is his favorite joke.

"U Par Par Lay goes to India to have his toothache treated. The Indian dentist wonders why the Burmese man has come all the way to India.

"'Don't you have dentists in Myanmar?' he asks?

"'Oh yes we do, doctor,' Mr. Par Par Lay says. "But in Myanmar, we are not allowed to open our mouths.'"

Government agents raided his theater last September 25 and took U Par Par Lay away. He hasn't been since.

Some things just aren't funny.

(New York Times)

The Red Ribbon Campaign is recalling some wristbands because the anti-drug message is printed like this: "I've got BETTER things to DO than DRUGS.

They feel it might convey the wrong message.

Missouri State Senator Chuck Graham says he gave up drinking after he rear ended a car last week.

At the kickoff fundraiser for his re-election, he's cancelled the cash bar.

He feels it might convey the wrong message.

The New Hampshire legislature may ban two handed text messaging while driving.

One handed would be OK, but on the other hand it would be illegal.

Last month, lawyers for death row inmate Michael Richard filed for a last minute stay of execution with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals at 5:20 PM. However, the court closes at 5:00 PM. The client died of lethal injection at 8:23 PM.

And thus we learn the importance of being on time.

Quotation of the day --

"Follow your dreams, except for that one where you're naked at work."

-- attributed to HennyYoungman.

In Oklahoma, the Governor’s Ethnic American Advisory Council presented copies of the Queran to all 149 Oklahoma lawmakers, in the interest of education and understanding. Twenty-four lawmakers refused the gift on the grounds that Islam endorses violence --

("The punishment of those who pit themselves against Allah and His Messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides... Queran 5:33-34)

-- and oppresses women.

("And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and be modest, and to display of their adornment only that which is apparent, and to draw their veils over their bosoms, and not to reveal their adornment save to their own husbands or fathers or husbands' fathers, or their sons or their husbands' sons, or their brothers or their brothers' sons or sisters' sons, or their women, or their slaves, or male attendants who lack vigour, or children who know naught of women's nakedness." Queran 24:31)

It should be pointed out that, earlier this year, all lawmakers accepted their free bibles.

("If you hear it said about one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you to live in that wicked men have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, 'Let us go and worship other gods,' then you must inquire, probe and investigate it thoroughly. And if it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done among you, you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town. Destroy it completely, both its people and its livestock." Deuteronomy 13:12)

( "The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open." Hosea 13:16)

("If a man takes a wife and, after lying with her, dislikes her and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, 'I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,' then the girl's father and mother shall bring proof that she was a virgin to the town elders at the gate... If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the girl's virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father's house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death." Deuteronomy 22:13)

Police arrested Craig McCullough in Cedar Rapids after he was found on the floor of a restroom -- pants down -- with an inflatable love doll.

The doll was not charged.

Craig was convicted earlier for stealing a mannequin wearing a wedding gown from a bridal boutique.

Statutory rape?

The problem: aphids and mites.

Manhattan's largest housing project -- the 80 acre Stuvyesant Town and Peter Cooper Village -- is infested with them. How to rid the complex of billions of aphids and mites?

The solution: ladybugs.

The complex has imported 750,000 ladybugs from Bozeman, Montana, to eat the aphids and mites.

Next: How to rid the complex of 750,000 ladybugs?