Iraq: The Current Gold Rush

On this morning's TV news was a woman complaining about the war in Iraq. She has a brother in Iraq who is a teacher.
Let's take a look at this.
He's a teacher who was motivated to go to Iraq to teach, why? Because he wanted to make $200,000 + a year instead of $40,000 in Indiana? I met a guy who's a janitor, he has a contract to go to Iraq where he'll make $120,000 + over the next 12 months. Should we be there at all? I don't know. I must confess that I know less than our President and our military about the situation. Here's something that I do know, it is plain stupid for anyone to complain about the danger of any situation when they volunteered freely to be in and are compensated far beyond their normal market value for making that choice. When you do something for the wrong reason, there is always the risk of a penalty. Comments? Fire away!

Couric Diet Plan

In the song, "I Heard It Through The Grapevine," there's a line, "believe half of what you see, oh, and none of what your hear...." Well here it is! An article in CBS' new Watch! magazine features a story on the new CBS Evening News anchor, Katie Couric. As you can see the magazine photo on the right has been edited from its original on the left. A CBS spokesman says only that "the editorial staff of Watch magazine retouched the photo without the knowledge of Katie Couric or CBS news management" and would not elaborate further.
Does your favorite news anchor need to be edited to look good?
Mine doesn't!

Karr Recall

We know that there are crazy people out there, but.....
John Mark Karr now has his 12 days of celebrity behind him. He becomes a bizzare footnote. What a waste! I know that there's a difference between "crazy" and "stupid." When you combine the two and add a noted (unsolved) crime, the mainstream media gets involved, and you get a media created celebrity - Karr. I'm not a shrink, but I think he admitted and lied simply to be famous. It worked! Yes, it worked but now he has to pay the price. Karr returns to California to face justice on some child porn charges.
He is one sick puppy.

A Bruise For Cruise?

Paramount says goodbye to Tom Cruise because of his antics and his sliding popularity? Baloney. That's right baloney, no cheese, no mayo. The studio pays him 25% of the gross for Mission Impossible 3 and then they complain! Paramount is not complaining that Cruise walks off with a quarter of the proceeds. Their problem is money. There wasn't enough. It's business. Sequels usually don't gross as much as originals. Paramount thought that MI 3 should have brought in more money, that's why the gave Cruise such a great deal. It didn't work out. Solution? Make movies with lesser known actors and do the necessary things to increase the net profit. There are plenty of good looking boys, waiting tables or washing cars in Hollywood, who would jump at having the lead part in a big-time Paramount picture. Dustin Hoffman was paid $17,000 for his role in "The Graduate."
Tommy boy's future? He has nothing to worry about unless he's dumb enough to blow his MI 3, 75 million dollar paycheck + his other net worth in his lifetime.
Maybe he can team up with Mel Gibson for an independent project - just an idea.

Police Crackdown On Striptease Funerals

First, I'm damn sorry that I don't have a picture to go with this story. Second, I hope that Ed Pearce, friend and famed funeral director - "the last man to let you down" - gets to see this story.
It happened in China's Donghai County, Jiangsu province. The fuss is over a couple of strippers who got a little "carried away" to the point where authorities had to carry them away. The strippers apparently crossed that "fine line."
Local villagers believe that the more people who attend a funeral, the more the deceased is honored. Do you see the higher purpose, here? The strippers were hired to draw a crowd. Until now, this was a common practice in Donghai County.
A local ordinance now requires written funeral plans within 12 hours of the service. A funeral misdeed hotline has also been established.

NYC's Oldest Bartender

I like stories like this one. It's a shame that we don't see more of this sort of thing...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A man who mixed martinis for Marilyn Monroe and poured Scotch for John Lennon was feted as New York's oldest bartender when he turned 90 this week, and he vowed to keep working.
Hoy Wong, who was born in Hong Kong and served in the U.S. military in World War II, is known simply as Mr. Hoy at the historic Algonquin Hotel where he has served Manhattans and martinis for the past 27 years in the dimly lit Blue Bar.
The Algonquin, which touts Hoy as the city's oldest bartender, threw a birthday party for him on Tuesday night, inviting customers past and present as well as staff, friends and family. Asked about retirement, Hoy said: "I never think about that. ... Now I'm 90 but I don't feel I'm that old."
Hoy started tending bar in 1948 and worked at various hotels and restaurants, including Freeman Chum in New York where he served Monroe drinks, before moving to the Algonquin where former Beatle Lennon used to order Scotch.

Hoy was coy about his celebrity customers, but his granddaughter Jennifer Zhang-Mckenna said he would occasionally come home with anecdotes from work.
"He would tell me that the Duke of Windsor told him he made the best martini in the world," Zhang-Mckenna told Reuters.
-0-
I included this story not because I think that bartenders are fascinating people, but because it is truly special if you are considered to be the BEST at whatever you do. Or if you can do the same job for 58 years without going nuts, well, that's something too.

Field Trip?

I came across this picture and thought it was amusing. Why not? Sex education in the U.S. has been such a dismal failure, maybe a field trip like this would be an improvement.

Wal-Mart

Another Super Wal-Mart opened today, in town. It doesn't matter what town, today it was Terre Haute. The media celebrates. Shoppers receive a chance to win free goodies. Local charities receive Wal-Mart donations. What does this really mean? What are we really witnessing?
You can shop at one Wal-Mart Super Center and eliminate 5 or 10 different stops at other locally owned and operated stores. These locally owned and operated shops are owned by your neighbors. They and their businesses pay taxes (as does Wal-Mart). These local shops probably did not get a property tax break like so many Wal-Marts do. Yes, the new Walmart Super Center employs about 300 locals. Over the next 5 years, how many local retail jobs will it eliminate. How many shop owners will go under?
Here's my point: you are a consumer. The money that you spend can go to a local retailer and remain within your community. Or, it can go to Arkansas so that the Wal-Mart Corporation can keep growing and local business can keep on shriveling. Do you want to live in a community of minimum wage earners working 28 hours a week with no benefits? Oh, and media, would you rather have Wal-mart as a client/advertisers, or the dozens of local retailers that they are driving out? As I watched the local coverage of the opening of the new Super Wal-Mart on our local morning TV news, I noticed that the advertisers on the TV station were primarily local retailers from the local and surrounding area. Did anyone else see this?
Why do we shop at Wal-Mart? Is it all for the convenience? Are we lazy or stupid, or both? I don't feel like thinking about it, besides, the guys just came back with my Big Mac & fries...

A Parody Of Themselves

I like to read the entertainment news. I've also mentioned that Pamela Anderson fascinates me on several levels. Not today. A story comes out that Kid Rock says that he married Anderson because of the sex. He went on to talk about her scratching his back......Then she says that he's great in the sack. Something about the size of his...

Who are these people talking to? Did they invent or develop a sexual breakthrough? Good God! They tried it.....they liked it!

Boys and girls (Kid & Pammie) act your ages. And now, Pammie hints to Ryan Seacrest that she might be having a baby? Knowing how women get pregnant, can any of us be awed by this possibility? Can Saturday Night Live possibly make fun of these people? I think it's already been done...by themselves.

Too Good To Be True!

Check this out! If this report pans out, the world as we know it will be forever changed!
BERLIN (Reuters) - A German scientist has been testing an "anti-stupidity" pill with encouraging results on mice and fruit flies, Bild newspaper reported Saturday.
It said Hans-Hilger Ropers, director at Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin, has tested a pill thwarting hyperactivity in certain brain nerve cells, helping stabilize short-term memory and improve attentiveness.
"With mice and fruit flies we were able to eliminate the loss of short-term memory," Ropers, 62, is quoted saying in the German newspaper, which has dubbed it the "world's first anti-stupidity pill."

Smarter mice? That's good for starters. Will these pills disolve in by boss's coffee? Somebody should tell Walgreens about this!

You, Too, Can Smell Like A Shortstop!

New York Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter holds a bottle of his new fragrance called Driven, Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2006 in New York. The fragrance will be available from Avon this November, just in time for Christmas. (Not using it, guys, could cause an error?)

This opens up many other possibilities. Alan Greenspan could come out with a fragrance called "Recession" - guaranteed to heighten "interest."