Happy Pappy Day

My Computer Can Beat Me At Chess, But Not Kickboxing;
Misc. News

Happy Father’s Day, from your issue: Father’s Day is celebrated in 52 countries and in the U.S. on the third Sunday in June. The first observance of Father's Day is believed to have been held on July 5, 1908 in a church located in Fairmont, West Virginia. However it was not proclaimed a national holiday in the U.S. until 1966. Mother’s Day predates Father’s Day and was also started in West Virginia. In fact, by most accounts, a woman by the name of Sonora Smart Dodd thought of celebrating Father’s Day while listening to a sermon on Mother’s Day. There are plenty of quotes about fathers but one of my favorites is, "My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it." -- Clarence Budington Kelland

Not another Tehranian Square: We Americans are so ego-centric. One reason is probably because our country is so vast but few differences exist amongst us. Compared to differences that exist among residents of say, Russia or China we're almost homogenous. We consider ourselves to be a melting pot but many others around the world see us a homogenous. Our President gave a speech in Cairo recently. Soon after that speech Lebanon elected a western-leaning government. The media immediately began to call the election a result of the “Cairo effect.” Shortly after that Iran had elections and young people protested the announced results. More Cairo effect. President Obama has taken the position that the internal strife in Iran must be handled internally. Many Republicans reacted that we needed to take action and help tilt the election back in the “right direction.” Of course, Iran president Ahmadinejad already accuses the U.S. and other western countries of meddling. An active American reaction would be just the reason needed to send tanks into the street and mimic the tragedy of Tiananmen Square. Our history in that area is not stellar. Memo to those loudmouths calling for U. S. intervention: SHUT UP!

On the other hand, what if: CNN reports: “A 19-year-old woman who was wounded by Iranian paramilitary forces with clubs escaped with her camera and shared her photos with CNN -- after tricking a paramilitary soldier into thinking she had given him the images on a disk.” Fox News reports: “Gunfire Erupts at Iranian Pro-Reform Protests, At Least 1 Killed” Other international news sources have similar reports. But wait! Iran has expelled nearly all journalists and muzzled others. So where do these reports originate? The newest buzzwords on the lips of every news junkie are Facebook, Youtube, Flickr, and Twitter. The media sources all express caution that “these events cannot be verified, but all continue a steady stream of such reporting. Most of it is probably accurate, but what if it isn’t? What if the news from Iran is a well orchestrated hoax perpetrated by young computer geeks? It could happen.

Dumb and dumber – maybe dumbest: A Lincoln Park, Illinois man by the name of Victor Delfi found himself a little short in the cash department. His hastily-laid out plan took him to a local store where he shoplifted a pair of panty hose and pulled them over his head. He then proceeded into the local bank, simulated a gun, demanded and received cash. But the accompanying dye package exploded as he sprinted along his merry way, coating the cash with indelible red ink, making it unspendable. Thus, Victor did not spend it but deposited it into his bank accounts. BUSTED! Another dumb criminal is Floridian James Robert Chapman who deals with child pornography. He works at a hospital where he used the company copy machine to duplicate some child porn then left the originals in the machine. BUSTED. The third police bust is enough to make you say “Son of a Mitsubishi!” Buddies Anthony Gossett and Nicholas Houston dozed off in their car in Athens TN. The officers who happened upon them noticed a good sized bag of some sort of weed on the seat between them. After awakening the two sleeping beauties, the officers searched their car and discovered 26 bags of wacky tobbaccy worth about a grand. BUSTED!

All Nevada news is NOT about gambling: Ok, let’s see if we can get this one done without punning the reader to death. Senator John Ensign (R-NV) is a veterinarian by trade so I guess he could be foxy. His campaign ads always show him hugging puppies, not his own. He has been considered to be a, uh, rising star in GOP national politics. But let’s be affair about this, any human can stumble once – although his quickie romance lasted nine months. As the famous Vegas philosopher Francis Albert Sinatra once said, “The higher the top, the longer the drop.” It seems that the senator and a woman (thank goodness, as he is as anti gay as Idaho Senator Larry Craig) had been carrying on. They were married. Good. Not to each other. Not so good. The well tanned Senator, a Promise Keeper, had once vowed not to be alone with a woman in a car, and who said of the Senator Craig affair that if he were ever in a similar situation, he’d resign. He was. He didn’t. The object of his affection, who had been on his staff saw her hemline and salary rise as the affair continued. Two things that have fallen in this instance are his ego and his approval ratings.

Green with envy: Finally, from the “everybody must do their part” department comes the story of Vermont dairy farmers Tim Maikshilo and Kristen Dellert. In an effort to reduce their cow’s greenhouse gas emissions they added a diet that includes flaxseed, alfalfa, and grasses high in Omega 3 fatty acids. The diet reduces the amount of methane gas that is emitted from the cows when they, uh, expel gas. We will NOT conclude this segment by saying the cow’s carbon footprint is a kick in the...

A little blogging music Maestro... “Price of Gas” by Bloc Party

Dr. Forgot
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