more news…

DEATH PARAGRAPH

According to Amnesty International, China has gone on an “execution frenzy.” In the last three months, China has executed about 1,780 people (with a bullet to the back of the head). That number is greater than the total number of executions in the rest of the world over the last three years.

— YOUR MONEY’S NO GOOD HERE

It took nearly a month for the folks at H & R Block to convince a New Jersey man the million bucks he won was not a joke or a scam.

and…

Robert Hanssen officially pleads guilty to spying.
He avoids the death penalty and the FBI avoids a courtroom airing of national security secrets.

The American airman accused of rape in Japan is turned over to Japanese authorities.

U.S. unemployment levels rise to 4.5%.

The Peace Corps is recruiting former dot commers.
{I wonder what kind of equity packages they offer?}

A dog successfully crosses six lanes of Arizona highway. Story includes the incredible video.

evil news

Go Get Your 12 Yr Old Bride In NC Quick!
=================================
It sounds like fodder for “Ripley’s Believe It or Not”: Did you know that in
North Carolina, a 12-year-old girl can get married with permission from one of
her parents? The antiquated law – a vestige of the state’s agrarian past – will
finally go the way of the horse-drawn plow Oct. 1, when the state raises its
minimum marriage age from 12 to 14 and tightens other restrictions on under-16
weddings.

Pop Rocks Rumor Finally True?
=================================
It’s a flavor combination only a kid could love — grape and sour-apple
sherbet, with popping candies sprinkled throughout. But a kiddie-size scoop of the
stuff landed an Alamo girl in the hospital in May after that candy popped in her
tummy, not on her tongue. Now, Chris Janze is suing Baskin-Robbins on behalf of
her 5-year-old daughter, who had to be hospitalized to relieve the internal
pressure her lawyer says was caused by Pop Rocks candy.

3 Parked Cars and Your Out!
=================================
A 27-year-old Australian woman was sentenced to 90 days in jail Monday for
failing to stop her car and call for help after a drunken passenger stuck her head
out a window, hit at least three parked cars and died.
Shaw, who was in the United States to study tourism, pleaded guilty to a
misdemeanor count of driving under the influence and no contest to a felony count of
leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death.
Stoltz blamed Shaw’s drinking for “a lack of urgency” after the Feb. 28
accident that killed Karla Barton, 20, of Australia, Shaw’s roommate.
Instead of stopping, Shaw drove home after the accident. After going into her
apartment to call authorities, Shaw did not return to her dead friend’s side.
Instead, she introduced another passenger in the car to a neighbor so he could
borrow clean clothes to replace his shirt and pants, which had become soaked with
Barton’s blood.

You Will Not Write 100 Times, I Love Little Boys
=================================
An Ohio man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after writing fictitious
stories about torturing and sexually abusing young children.Brian Dalton, 22, of
Columbus, was charged with pandering obscenity involving a minor after his
probation officer found a journal with the stories during a routine search of his
home.

Tough Love And Mud Pies
=================================
An investigation has been launched into a boot camp for unruly teenagers after
the death of a boy who was allegedly deprived of water and forced to eat mud.

Barney Fights Back
=================================
Barney may be a dinosaur who chants about hugs and love, but his lawyers aren’t
afraid to get nasty when protecting their plump, purple trademark.
In the last few weeks, a law firm representing Lyons Partnership — which owns
the rights to Barney — has stepped up its efforts to yank hundreds of humor
sites poking fun at the children’s cartoon character that so many Internet users
love to hate.
A typical nastygram from Gibney, Anthony and Flaherty goes something like this:
“We have reviewed your website and have concluded that it incorporates the use
and threat of violence towards the children’s character Barney without
permission from Lyons Partnership.”

tirade TY-raid; tih-RAID, noun:
A long angry speech; a violent denunciation; a prolonged
outburst full of censure or abuse.

Tirade comes from French, from Italian tirada, properly, “a
pulling”; hence, “a lengthening out, a long speech, a tirade,”
from tirare, “to pull, to draw.”

suberic soo-BEHR-ik adjective

Of or pertaining to cork.

[From French suberique, from Latin suber, cork.]

As in: The vinyard overseer went on a suberic tirade when the last batch of bottles turned to vinegar, due to improper sealing.

Cool beans… got a phone call at 1pm today, looks like tomorrow night I’ll be getting the key to the new place. Hopefully, Saturday I’ll move in, and be settled in time for my sweetheart’s return on Sunday.

Whatever will Newt do with all that space? 🙂

word of the day – cudgel

cudgel KUH-juhl, noun:
A short heavy stick used as a weapon; a club.

transitive verb:
To beat with or as if with a cudgel.

Cudgel derives from Old English cycgel.

The Grand Vizier Kuprili of Constantinople, for example,… closed the city’s coffeehouses. Anyone caught drinking coffee was soundly cudgeled.
-Mark Pendergrast, Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World

You know, I’d trade a good whomp for some 7-11 coffee right about now.

Evil News

Creep Creates Super Hero
=================================
A man was sentenced to 120 years in prison Monday -the maximum -for a sex
attack that left a 9 -year-old child known as Girl X blind, mute and crippled.
“I do not believe that even this sentence is enough for the acts of this
defendant, but the law limits the sentence that I can impose,” Judge Joseph Urso told
Patrick Sykes, a 29 -year-old convicted sex offender.
Prosecutors said that in 1997, Sykes lured a girl into an apartment at the
crime-ridden Cabrini-Green housing project, sexually assaulted her, poured roach
spray down her throat, beat her and left her for dead in a dirty stairwell. The
girl became known in the Chicago media as Girl X.

Firework Explodes in Boy’s Mouth.
=================================
A 12-year-old boy was injured Saturday night when a firework exploded in his
mouth.

Zeus Hates Man Playing Football
=================================
A bolt of lightning came out of a blue sky Saturday, striking two beachgoers
who were tossing around a football. One of the young men was killed in what
meteorologists said was a rare but not unprecedented weather event.

Genuis Thief
=================================
A Doylestown man claims a thief — wearing medical scrubs with a stethoscope in
his pocket — made off with his motorcycle valued at $13,000 yesterday morning
after posing as a doctor at Akron General Medical Center.
Seeling told the Beacon Journal he had gone to the hospital after a man
answered his newspaper advertisement, claimed he was a doctor and asked Seeling to
meet him yesterday morning in the hospital parking lot to look at the motorcycle.
“We made agreements, and he started the bike, and said he would take it around
the block and test drive it. Well, he didn’t come back,” Seeling said
yesterday afternoon.

reason #3667 to have the Internet….

Soundboard copies of concerts you went to are available online. 🙂

Paul Simon / Bob Dylan Concert… 9/8/1999

Songs (By Disc)
Disc One:
(Paul Simon)
1. Bridge Over Troubled Water (levels continue to be adjusted throughout this song – it starts off real quiet, but picks up by the end)
2. Can’t Run But
3. The Boy In The Bubble (glitch at 4:02 from master copy)
4. The Coast
5. Trailway Bus
6. Mrs. Robinson
7. Me And Julio
8. Further To Fly
9. Graceland
10. The Cool, Cool River
11. Slip Sliding Away
12. Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes >
13. Drum Solo
14. You Can Call Me Al
(encores)
15. Late In The Evening
Disc Two:
(Paul Simon’s encores)
1. Late In The Evening
2. Still Crazy After All These Years
(duets)
3. The Boxer
4. I Walk The Line
5. The Wanderer
6. …Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door (beginning of song cut)
(Bob Dylan’s encores)
7. Like A Rolling Stone
8. Blowin’ In The Wind
9. Not Fade Away
(filler: Doc Watson & David Grisman Nashville, TN 4-15-99 DSBD)
emd
intros
where are you tonight *
big sandy *
salt creek *
*w/Del, Ronnie McCoury, Mike Bubb, Jesse McReynolds, Randy Howard

Disc Three:
(Bob Dylan)
1. I Am The Man, Thomas
2. Mr. Tambourine Man
3. It’s Alright, Ma
4. Baby Blue
5. Tangled Up In Blue
6. All Along The Watchtower
7. Just Like A Woman
8. Silvio
9. Not Dark Yet
10. Highway 61 Revisited

random factoid of the day –

Most towns beginning with “Santa” are named after saints. So who was Fe?

Santa Barbara I understand. Santa Clara, Santa Rosa, sure. But who was Fe?

I wondered about this when I was a sprout. Saint Fe? Patron saint of truck-stop waitresses? But eventually I got a clue. “Santa” can also mean holy, and “fe” means faith, so Santa Fe = holy faith. The full name of the New Mexico state capital is “Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asis,” or “Royal Village of the Holy Faith of St. Francis of Assisi” (see http://www.ci.santa-fe.nm.us/sfweb ). One sees why they shortened it to Santa Fe.

Incidentally, there is a Saint Fe, more commonly known as Saint Faith. Read all about her at http://saints.catholic.org/saints/faith.html .

By the way, today, July 4 is The feast day of St. Elizabeth of Portugal.
more info about her – http://saints.catholic.org/saints/elizabethportugal.html