News Too Important to Miss-- In Case You Missed It

From "Thursdays With Jim"
A private blog list
Posted With Permission

"News Too Important To Miss-- In Case You Missed It

In your much too busy world, you almost surely have missed some of the more important news stories of the week. Fortunately, I've got your back and in 7-8 minutes you can be literate, urbane, suave, knowledgeable, and current.
You're welcome.

> No further analyses, polls, or debates will be necessary going forward in the race for the Presidency. 'AP-Yahoo! News' has focused a poll on the only meaningful measure of the public's interest and clearly determined that pet owners prefer John McCain by a wide margin over Barack Obama. The margin-- 42% to 37%-- exceeds the "margin-of-error" fluff factor built into every poll, so this is legit and compelling news.
The only thing left to do is to ensure that every American registers to vote... and has a dog, cat, or bird.
I feel so much better.

> It appears that our African-American friends have found yet another thing to be pissed about, and undoubtedly, legislate. A black (or is it person-of-color) congresswoman from Florida has complained that the names of hurricanes are all Caucasian-sounding names. She would prefer names that reflect African-American (or is it person-of-color) culture such as Chamiqua, Tanisha. Woeisha, Shaqueal, and Jamal.

I am not making this up.

She would also like the weather reports to be broadcast in language (we call that Ebonics) that "street people" can understand, because one of the problems happening during Katrina was that black people (or is it people-of-color) couldn't understand the seriousness of the situation, due to racially-biased language of the weather report. (Huh?)

Anyway, we can speculate on the weather reports of the future out of Miami or New Orleans...

"Wazzup, mutha-fukkas! Hehr-i-cane Chamiqua be headin' fo' yo ass like Leroy on a crotch rocket! Bitch be a category fo! Tha's one less than fi an one mo than tree. So grab yo' chirren, yo' ho, be leavin yo crib, and head fo' da nearest guv'ment office fo yo FREE shit!

(Okay, so I totally plagiarized the above, and it is vulgar, insensitive, and profane.
But it was just too, too good not to pass along.)

> Some of my favorite people?-- those in the airline business-- have found another way to drive us crazy. On Tuesday this week, a United flight from Denver to Des Moines was "delayed" when a passenger, upon debarking the plane on its in-bound leg from Washington, D.C. to Denver, discovered and reported a tick near her seat. So, ever-vigilant United delayed the flight FOR 6 HOURS while they flew another plane from Colorado Springs to take the passengers to Des Moines.

A few observations, in no particular order:

(1) It took 6 hours to get the replacement plane from Colorado Springs??? I could walk from Colorado Springs to Denver in less than 6 hours;

(2) c'mon, people-- these are ticks, not rattle snakes or mountain lions; ticks you get walking in your garden out back for 10 minutes. Yes, they can occasionally/remotely carry diseases-- but so can flies, mosquitos, or your snively, snotty little kid with a bad cold. You wanna give up 6 hours on the remote possibility one of the ticks might bite and infect you? Not me! Get me where I wanna go and I'll keep my eyes open for TICKS;

(3) after a diligent search, United found "between one and three ticks" on the aborted plane. Well, was it one, two, or three ticks? Can't they count-- or aren't they used to higher math?
Does anyone want to bet this delay doesn't get counted in United's "on-time departure" statistics? Hey, just like flight controller-delays or weather-related delays, it ain't the airlines' fault them critter ticks delayed the flight!!

> This is a true story that is so bizarre that it sounds totally contrived. Nobody could replicate this complete "happening" ever again:

A man in Santa Ana, CA, kidnapped his 9-year-old son 8 days ago from his estranged wife who had legal custody. The guy-- a recent convert to Mormonism-- felt the son wasn't being raised properly (read: not in the Mormon faith). He took the son to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico-- then had second thoughts about his illegal act. He called his father in Washington, D.C. to tell him what he'd done, and that "they" could find the boy in a Mormon church in Ciudad Juarez where he'd left him for safekeeping. The guy then starts to make his escape-- runs across a city street, gets hit-- and killed-- by a bus. The bus driver panics-- thinks he'll get arrested for hitting and killing the guy, and runs away to "escape"; they capture him and charge him with hit-and-run. The boy is eventually found and returned home.

Did you get all that?

> And unlike the last story, this one is simple and straightforward...

A Pakistani Muslim, living in Atlanta, GA, killed his daughter this week because she refused to honor an arranged marriage into which the father had forced her.

That's a fundamental tenet of the Muslim faith... Mom and Dad-- or, at least Dad-- gets to tell you who to marry. If you don't, or if you object, you may die at the hands of those parents. Estimates are (by the United Nations Population Fund that spends its time making this kind of estimate) that 5000 Muslims are killed by parents each year for not honoring Mom and Dad's arranged marriages.

And we're suppose to think that the Muslim faith is based on tolerance, compassion, and love--and can take its place comfortably in our world?
Pffftt.

> Perhaps the best for last???
Nah.
Seems all the while we have this saber-rattling going back and forth with Iran (we'll "nuke" them... they'll "set our ships on fire"), the business people of both nations have found substantial capitalist motives to "get along".

We (the U.S.A.) have a flourishing export business affair going on with the Iranis. We sell $BILLIONS to these archenemies, in cigarettes, brassieres, cosmetics, fur clothing, sculptures, musical instruments, agricultural commodities, medicines and weapons... yes, weapons!
But the stand-out item we sell them is bull semen. That's BULL SEMEN.

Now, I have no idea what makes our bull semen superior to the Irani bull semen-- or the bull semen of any other country. But soon enough the Irani herds will be speaking English with a Texas accent.

And now don't you feel literate, urbane, suave, knowledgeable and current... all over your body.
You're welcome."

Jim