All the News That's Fit to Blog

No Political Races but Plenty of News

Drive by stabbing in Akihabara: Tokyo and Japan have some of the world’s strictest handgun laws. It is illegal to own any type of firearm except a shotgun that can be used for skeet shooting. For that there is a lengthy application. Closely regulated, however does not mean absence of malice. Tokyo auto parts worker Timohiro Kato decided to wreak havoc for some twisted reason and smashed a rented truck into a crowd then stabbed and slashed until he’d taken seven innocent lives. Gun laws can curb some violence but where there’s a will there’s a way.

Did Francis Albert Sinatra predict this?: Crooner Frank Sinatra was famous for adding words to traditional songs in a scat-like fashion. One line he added to My Way was, “The higher the top the longer the drop.” So has it been for Mr. Hummer and his SUV cousins. In case you don’t remember Hummer, the neo-Jeep was born on the battlefield as was its grandpa. The Happy Hummer took the troops to battle then took the country by storm during the past “Damn the mileage, full speed ahead” decade. Take a troop carrier, slap on a little chrome, charge a fortune for it, and Viola! A General Motors success story. There are Hummer limos, Hollywood Hummers, and even diamond-encrusted Hummers. Then there was $ 130 per barrel oil. That’s when the long drop occurred. What’s next for the die-hards? Perhaps a Hummer Hybrid.

No Home on the Range – the unkind split: Picture this: you live in a boring suburb and hate your job. So you save up and buy a cabin on a lake and each summer you add to and spiff it up. It becomes your dream home and is worth a ton of money. One night as you watch the news you see your home – then only half of it as the other half is washed into the Wisconsin River. The blood and sweat you poured into the house reduced you to tears. Mother Nature can be cruel. Engineers who designed the earthen dam that gave way can be sued.

Read something by the Hollywood Madam instead: Ah, those crazy bimbos in “Sex and the City” are causing trouble again. You would think their hit movie would be trouble enough since politicians are touting family values these days, but no, they are inadvertently competing with Oprah’s book club. Seems that in a few boudoir scenes Carrie Bradshaw is reading the book, “Love Letters From Great Men.” There has been a rush to the bookstores by horny women old and young to purchase the book. Memo to all such horny women: Carrie Bradshaw is a fictional character. The book is a prop. It doesn’t exist. Stop pestering Mr. Barnes and Mrs. Noble. Get a life.

Back from vacation to get some sleep: ZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. More and more people are sleeping through their mornings at work, but they are all awake in time for lunch. A poll showed more than one-third of workers nod off during the work day. And it is no wonder. We average a little more than six hours per night sleep but 9 ½ hours at work. The answer, of course, is to change jobs. As the song sung by a hooker in the musical Les Miserables goes, “Join your sisters.... make money in your sleep.” It reminds me of one call girl who asked another, “Can you loan me 20 bucks until I get back on my back again?”

A little blogging music Maestro... “Sleepwalk,” by Santo and Johnny.

Dr. Forgot