I can't bring myself to look

Saying that such-and-such is the greediest bank on Wall Street is like someone claiming to have the biggest hairdo in Dallas...

[From Jim Hightower | LLOYD BLANKFEIN'S BIG HAIR]

Derby Hat Series, #5

Photo: Phil Compton

Water 2.0

The EPA has identified small quantities of more than 100 pharmaceuticals and personal-care products in samples of the nation's drinking water. Among the drugs detected are antibiotics, steroids, hormones and antidepressants. Last year, the Associated Press reported that trace amounts of drugs had been found in the water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas; water piped to more than a milllion people in the Washington area had tested positive for six pharmaceuticals.

[From Governments Offer Advice but No Assistance in Disposing of Unused Drugs - washingtonpost.com]

Just a test

Awed by the odd

Today, 5/7/9, is "Odd Day."

Three consecutive odd numbers make up the date only six times in a century. This day marks the half-way point in this parade of Odd Days which began with 1/3/5. The previous stretch of six dates like this started with 1/3/1905---13 months after the Wright Brothers' flight.

[-More-]

–Noted by Midwest Bureau Chief Phil Compton

Derby Hat Series, #4

Photo: Phil Compton

Exploring religions

Here's an interesting web site that lets you check out and compare religions. Not bad.

–Noted by Paul Knue

Plus, he probably won't shoot you

Mr. Vice President, should Americans be worried about the swine flu?

[From This Modern World | Salon Comics]

OK, he's a bit weird. But he's not scary like that last guy.

–Paul Knue

Are those birds in your pants or...?

Sony Dong, 46, was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport in March after an inspector spotted bird feathers and droppings on his socks and tail feathers peeking out from under his pants, prosecutors said.

[From Calif. men accused of smuggling songbirds]

Derby Hat Series, #3

Photo: Phil Compton

Puff one for the team

In an effort to kick-start the Chinese economy, Communist Party officials are being asked to do their bit – by smoking. In Hubei province's Gongan County, the order has come down from above that local government staff must consume 23,000 cartons of locally made cigarettes every year...

[From Have a smoke and help save the economy, China tells party officials - Asia, World - The Independent]

Persistence

MCMINNVILLE, Ore. – Police said a man was stopped and cited with driving under the influence of intoxicants charges twice in one day. In both instances, police say, the 52-year-old man was driving the same pickup and stopped near the same state liquor store.

[From Ore. police: Man stopped for DUI twice in one day]

Banks must "refill coffers"

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. is expected to direct about 10 of the 19 banks undergoing government stress tests to boost their capital...

...officials believed as many as 14 banks would need to raise more funds....

[From More Banks Will Need Capital - WSJ.com]

So does this mean they're planning a big bake sale or something? Or maybe going door to door with cookies? What do banks do when they need to raise funds?

To refill their coffers. Is that some kind of Republican thing, coffers? Who has coffers? I don't have no coffers, bunky, you can bet on that. George W. whatzisname, the jerk, has coffers - he said he was going to refill his. Maybe I should get a few. Do they sell them at Walmart?

Ford Truck

The Devil is in the details

Physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent to intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.

[From Bybee Torture Memo- The Full Text]

Mine That Bird

Photo: Phil Compton

So not all bad

“SWINE flu” last week was the most searched term on Yahoo, displacing “American Idol.”

[From Link by Link - The Hunt for Insights in Online Chatter of Swine Flu - NYTimes.com]

When they talk about catching a few z's...

People of Chicago, while you sleep, the Zombie Readiness Task Force worries, with admirably straight faces. In the event of an outbreak of the dead, should bodies of the deceased rise from their graves and stalk the streets of Chicago muttering for a bite of brain, the Zombie Readiness Task Force has a plan of action.

[From It's the dawn of the zombie zeitgeist -- chicagotribune.com]

Derby Hat Series, #2

Photo: Phil Compton

Teach your children well

RALEIGH, N.C. -- His once-prominent political career is buried and the turmoil of his marriage is playing out in public. Now, John Edwards is facing a federal inquiry.

The two-time Democratic presidential candidate acknowledged Sunday that investigators are assessing how he spent his campaign funds _ a subject that could carry his extramarital affair from the tabloids to the courtroom. Edwards' political action committee paid more than $100,000 for video production to the firm of the woman with whom Edwards had an affair.

The former North Carolina senator said in a carefully worded statement that he is cooperating.

[From John Edwards faces federal investigation - washingtonpost.com]

Sadly, one of the most promising politicians in recent times is being investigated by the feds for pissing away campaign money to pay off the woman he was having an affair with -- while his wife was battling cancer and his presidential campaign was going down in flames.

I say "sadly" because I really believed in John Edwards. If you studied the candidates a year or so before the election, he was the one who was right on the issues. He was the one who would undo the evils of the Bush years, end the war and put our nation on the right track.

His candidacy came at a time when I was almost physically ill about Dubya's policies and the direction of our country. I was ready to drop everything and go on the road full-time to elect Edwards. Luckily for me, I had a heart-to-heart with an old friend -- a Republican who had believed in, and fought for, many candidates over the years, and who had often been disappointed by them.

My only hesitation, I told my friend, was that I was reluctant to be away from my grandchildren for weeks and months at a time. My friend wisely told me that my time and energy would be better invested in the grandkids.

He was right.

--Paul Knue

Derby Hat Series, #1

Photo: Phil Compton

Hard times all around

NEW YORK -- CEOs are taking a hit from the recession...

An Associated Press analysis shows the median pay package for CEOs of companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 7 percent to $7.6 million in 2008.

[From Recession takes toll on CEO pay in 2008 :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Business]

See, it's really true that all that cold weather freezes up your brain

Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann, following Rush Limbaugh's cue, suggested on Tuesday that President Obama was to blame for the swine flu crisis. She went even farther than the talk show host, implying that swine flu epidemics are a Democratic phenomenon that dates back to President Carter.

[From Michele Bachmann Links Swine Flu To Democrats, Gets History Wrong (VIDEO)]

Bachmann referred to a little episode of swine flu that occurred at Ft. Dix in 1976. Ford was president in 1976. But hey, Carter was the next one and you can always blame the next one, can't you? In fact, if you're a Republican you almost have to.

An era ends

What is ending is not only a time when the American auto industry was a colossus in the domestic and world economies. What is ending is any genuine chance that the majority of American workers—most of whom do not acquire the pedigrees we’ve come to consider as the gate passes to personal prosperity—can attain anything resembling the middle-class life the generation entering adulthood during World War II achieved.

[From Truthdig - Reports - The End of the Middle Class as We Know It]

Toward a secret government

In Illinois, getting a public record is a frustrating labyrinth of excuses, delays and denials.

Public servants have all the tools they need to keep a grip on information that rightly belongs to the people, whether it's a police report, a principal's disciplinary file or a spending plan, a Tribune examination has found.

[From Your government in secret -- chicagotribune.com]

Just so there's no confusion here...

ARVADA, Colo. – A man in a cowboy hat who rode a horse through a Denver suburb has been cited for riding an animal under the influence.

[From Cowboy ticketed for 'riding under the influence']

...it was the guy who was under the influence, not the horse.

And a free toy in every box

Robert J. Brulle of Drexel University, an expert on environmental communications, said ecoAmerica’s campaign was a mirror image of what industry and political conservatives were doing. “The form is the same; the message is just flipped,” he said. “You want to sell toothpaste, we’ll sell it. You want to sell global warming, we’ll sell that. It’s the use of advertising techniques to manipulate public opinion.”

[From Seeking to Save the Planet, With a Thesaurus - NYTimes.com]

They live!

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – New laboratory data showed fewer people have died in Mexico than first thought from a deadly new influenza strain...

[From Lower Mexico flu death toll calms global nerves]

Or maybe it means they're dead, but they didn't really die in Mexico. Or maybe...oh what the hell, you figure it out.

To feature a sky full of soaring pigs

Republicans to launch national charm offensive

[From The Raw Story | Republicans to launch national charm offensive]

A horror flick

Before John Boehner became the Assistant Supreme Leader of the Loyal Society of Wingnuts, his political experience was mostly as a township trustee in a red-meat Republican suburb where the monsters in children's bedtime storybooks are taxes and (horrors!) liberals. So this should come as no surprise.