FORT HOOD, Texas — A U.S. Army major allegedly opened fire Thursday on fellow troops in the heart of the giant army base here, killing 13 people and wounding at least 30 in one of the worst incidents of soldier-on-soldier violence in U.S. military history.

The shooting rampage, allegedly carried out by Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan, was halted by a female civilian police officer who shot him, said Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, the top military commander on the base. The woman is expected to recover from wounds sustained in the gun battle, he said.

Maj. Hasan, 39 years old, also was hospitalized after the shooting, Lt. Gen. Cone said, and “his death is not imminent.” He was on a ventilator and unconscious in a hospital after being shot four times during the shootings at the Army’s sprawling Fort Hood, post officials said.

In the early chaos after the shootings, authorities believed they had killed him, only to discover later that he had survived.

The alleged shooter is a psychiatrist, originally from Virginia, who had been recently promoted to major and transferred to Fort Hood from the Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington. His professional specialties include post-traumatic stress disorder, combat stress and other emotional issues common to the troops implicated in earlier incidents of military fratricide.

Maj. Hasan was slated to serve for the first time in Iraq in coming weeks, military officials said. An official at the Pentagon added there were indications that Maj. Hasan was deeply upset about the pending assignment.

The cousin said Maj. Hasan had joined the military out of high school against the wishes of his parents. He added that Maj. Hasan, a Muslim, hired a military lawyer and had been trying since September to avoid deployment to Iraq and leave the Army.

The shooting began about 1:30 p.m. local time in two small buildings, adjacent to a processing center where soldiers receive medical checkups as they prepare to deploy overseas, officials said.

Lt. Gen. Cone said the victims, mostly soldiers, were waiting for treatment. Soldiers at the base do not routinely carry weapons and, therefore, would have been unarmed at the time of the attack. Maj. Hasan used two handguns, he said, including a semiautomatic weapon.

The injuries of the wounded varied significantly, he said.

Quick action by base personnel protected about 600 people who were in a nearby theater to attend college graduation ceremonies for 138 soldiers, Lt. Gen. Cone said.

Thursday’s attack was one of the Army’s worst single-day losses of life since the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

President Barack Obama said in a nationally televised address that the attack on soldiers in the U.S. was particularly unsettling.

“It’s difficult enough when we lose these brave Americans in battles overseas,” he said. “It is horrifying that they should come under fire at an Army base on American soil.”

Fort Hood, is the largest U.S. military facility in the world. It houses the 1st Cavalry Division and the First Army Division West, as well as an array of smaller aviation, logistics, and military police units.

More than 45,000 soldiers are assigned to the base, with many deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq at any one time. About 9,000 civilians also work at Fort Hood, and thousands of families live on the base and in nearby Killeen — about 160 miles southwest of Dallas.

The shooting rattled service members at Fort Hood. “It’s heavy on the hearts of soldiers,” said Dionte Turner, a 29-year-old military police officer stationed who has been deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan. Killings “can happen anywhere,” he said, “but you don’t expect it to happen in your backyard.”

The beer bike will ride on in Amsterdam.

The outsized bikes, seating groups of people around a central bar, are something of a fixture in the city’s center. But two accidents within two months prompted the city councillor responsible for transport to launch an investigation in June.

Following that review the city has decided to allow the bikes to carry on riding, a city spokesman said Saturday.

They will, however, need permits from the various city boroughs, and those permits are likely to come with restrictions on hours of operation and requirements for a sober driver.

While non-drinkers already typically steer the bikes, their size has also been an issue in some cases on the city centre’s narrow streets. One of the better-known operators, PartyFiets.nl, offers two-hour tours on bikes that seat up to 22 people and carry 30 litres (7.9 gallons) of beer.

Not so lenient and understanding is the U.S. state of Utah which plans to send those caught driving and texting to prison for up to 15 years.

It views the act is inherently reckless and punishes it as harshly as drunk driving.

Passed after a texting driver killed two scientists, the law would put texting while driving in the same legal category as drunk driving if any crash happens. It’s a far stronger law than most of those already existing in other states; California’s, for example, punishes offenders with a tiny fine, usually around $20.

In Utah, if you were to crash while texting, the punishment could be extremely severe—up to 15 years in prison.

Finally, WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!

Doctors are reporting a severe form of swine flu that goes straight to the lungs, causing severe illness in otherwise healthy young people and requiring expensive hospital treatment, the World Health Organization said Friday.

1. Teenage girls should all have bicycles.

2. Teenage girls should not have knives

A murderess aged just 17 was being held last night for knifing THIRTY men to death.

The schoolgirl stunned cops by owning up to a serial killing spree that started when she was a 15-year-old.

She told detectives she wanted to confess before she turned 18 and could be tried as an adult.

The girl – too young even to be named – said she began targeting men in her home city of Sao Paulo, Brazil “for money, revenge and to bring justice”.

We are sure that the men she knifed to death deserved it, but still, it’s best to keep knives away from teenage girls.

Tomorrow: We will tell you how to make a Million!!!!

1. Sustainable is sexy.

Geir Moulson, Associated Press Writer

BERLIN — Germany launched a campaign Wednesday to put 1 million electric cars on the road by 2020, making battery research a priority as it tries to position the country as a market leader.

The program, which draws on euro500 million ($705 million) set aside in an economic stimulus package earlier this year but leaves many financing details up to the next government, drew criticism for being too vague.

“It is our aim to make Germany into the market leader for electric mobility,” Economy Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg said after the Cabinet approved the plan.

He said the 1 million target by 2020 “is an ambitious aim, but one that we believe can be realized.” Germany had more than 41 million cars on the road at the beginning of this year — only 1,452 of them electric cars.

The government plans to spend euro115 million ($162 million) examining in eight test regions how the cars could best be introduced.

It also plans to put euro170 million (about $240 million) into research on the batteries that power electric cars, making domestic production a priority and ensuring that German experts are trained in the technology.

2. Fine German Engineering

A German-American venture says it is now days from the maiden flight of its 111-foot long, tadpole-esque “segmented” drone airship.

The STS-111 “Stratellite”, produced by Sanswire of Florida and TAO Technologies GmbH of Stuttgart, has now been assembled at the firm’s German test centre. According to a Sanswire-TAO announcement issued yesterday, “the first flight of the full scale STS-111 is expected to take place at the end of August”. The test vid above shows a smaller prototype.

The robotic ship uses a cunning technique from the lost golden age of dirigible airships to deal with the knotty issue of buoyancy control. Only the “head” compartment of the bendy airship actually contains helium for buoyancy. The remaining “tail” cells contain the fuel for the craft’s engine, in the form of “Fuelgas” mixed to have the same density as air. Thus, as fuel is burned the buoyancy of the ship is unaffected and there’s no need to vent off expensive helium.
from The Register

and finally 3. It’s not too hard to escape from them.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Two Polish prisoners broke out of a German jail after tying their bed sheets together to abseil down a 15 meter (50 foot) wall, authorities said on Tuesday.

“The wall is pretty high,” a spokesperson for the prison in the southern city of Nuremberg said. “If you fall, you’re dead.”

The two men aged 30 and 37, who were being held on remand, broke through the ceiling of their shared cell to reach the prison roof, then lowered themselves to freedom on the bedding.

Police caught the older man shortly afterwards, but his younger accomplice remains at large, authorities said.

Not perhaps as exhausted as the big three leaders of North America though.

Leaders of the United States, Mexico and Canada gather on Monday to present a united front to try to limit the spread of the H1N1 swine flu, but there is less unity on simmering trade issues.

U.S. President Barack Obama, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper enjoyed folk dancing and a mariachi band late Sunday and now are getting down to business at a North American summit.

Frankly, we are certain that the real reason for the meeting was to finalize terms for the union of the United States and Canada. We think Mexico will still take a while. Obama’s popularity combined with Harper’s lack of popularity make this a very real possibility. Even if they don’t tell us that it’s happening.

The leaders, sometimes referred to as “the three amigos,” are expected to issue a joint communique stressing their shared commitment to keep a predicted resurgence in the H1N1 virus this autumn as limited as possible.

Meanwhile in Taiwan, there were 600 villagers killed in a mudslide, 40+ people were killed and hundreds injured in Iraq by bombs, more than 50 people died from typhoons in the Pacific, and Israel continues to posture about nuking Iran while Iran oppresses it’s people and Israel commits genocide on Palestine.

But that’s enough of that, what about this guy?

Calling it a once-in-a-lifetime trip, and more exciting and enlightening than he could have ever imagined, Marcus Hayes, 22, returned home Monday after spending nearly two months getting his wallet stolen across Europe.

“It was incredible—I got to see and learn so much,” said Hayes, who had more than $700 forcibly removed from his person in some of the Old World’s most captivating cities. “The Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Parthenon in Greece, the downtown police station in Venice. This whole trip just really broadened my horizons.”

“For instance, did you know that Madrid has some of the finest art museums in the world?” Hayes continued. “And that it’s a really bad idea to walk around with all your cash there at night?”

The recent college graduate, who had never before traveled outside of the United States, much less marveled at the famed Sistine Chapel ceiling as two strange men accosted him from behind, said the trip exposed him to a variety of new and interesting cultures.

“Back home in Illinois, I was always hanging out with the same old people and going to the same old places,” Hayes said. “But suddenly, there I was in Berlin, chatting it up with two cute German girls outside a hip dance club. Yes, they ran off with my bag and all my credit cards, but I never would have known to visit Charlottenburg Palace if it weren’t for them.”

Daniel Boyd told an informant that he would hurt or kill on U.S. soil if he was unable to leave the country to attack non-Muslims overseas, according to an FBI agent who testified Tuesday about a four-year investigation into Boyd’s actions.

Federal agents seized 27,000 rounds of ammunition and more than two dozen guns from the Willow Spring man’s home and truck. Boyd, 39, and seven younger men, including two of his sons, are accused of plotting violence in support of terrorist causes.

“If I don’t leave this country soon, I’m going to make jihad right here in America,” FBI Special Agent Michael Sutton quoted Boyd as saying.

We’d like to point out that Boyd, a self described Muslim, isn’t going to make jihad anywhere except in a prison cell where he can practice what is called ‘greater jihad’, that is the ability to control one’s desires and impulses in an effort to create and live in a society of greater peace. We think this is right where this nut belongs.

Meanwhile, the state of Alaska is engaged in some lesser jihad (sometimes inaccurately described as holy war) as they start to round up street drunks and put them into detox and treatment. Lesser jihad is the struggle to create a more just and peaceful society externally.

Anchorage will try to reduce the number of chronic street drunks by forcing them into detoxification and treatment.

Finally in the U.S. we have the sad case of a lonely loser who couldn’t get a date. This pathetic excuse for a man decided to kill women since he wouldn’t date them. In his case, some jihad of self esteem, confidence, and self control probably would have helped. Not to mention masturbation. We bet that this sad sack thought masturbation was bad…for those like him we have news…it’s not. It’s just lonely. We find it interesting that his final entry in his online diary talked about Jesus paying for all sins, including the ones he was about to commit! Sorry George, Jesus didn’t pay for that one. That’s why Christianity is dangerous. Now rot in hell you loser.

A man who sprayed bullets into a fitness class filled with women, killing three and then himself, apparently kept a Web page in which he wrote about years of rejection by women and an earlier plan for violence at the gym in which he said he “chickened out.”

Neighbors described 48-year-old George Sodini as anti-social, and the Web page in his name showcased a resume setting forth his credentials as an unhappy loner. It listed his date of death — Aug. 4, 2009 — and his status of “Never married.” The page ended with the words “Death Lives!” Apparently Sodini was reading Integrity of God and the Bible before killing the women.

But it’s not just America where the nutjobs roam. In Saudi Arabia, George W. Bush’s good buddy Bandar, a prince, is in jail after plotting a coup to overthrow the government

Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the kingdom’s former ambassador to the United States, is reportedly under house arrest over a conspiracy against the monarch.

Saad al-Faqih, head of the opposition group Islamic Reform Movement, told Arab-language TV al-Alam that Prince Bandar has been disappeared and the media has published no word from the ex-diplomat’s whereabouts since nearly three months ago.

According to al-Faqih, the prince first disappeared in Britain but he returned to the kingdom shortly afterwards.

He added that after Saudi officials discovered that he had provoked 200 agents working for the Saudi security service to stage a coup against King Abdullah, he was put under house arrest.

Al-Faqih said people close to the king had disclosed Bandar’s plots and foiled them.

He said Saudi sources believe that intelligence provided by some Arab countries help the Saudi monarch foil Prince Bandar’s conspiracy.

Power struggle between members of the Saudi royal family has been common as power is shared among some 200 princes out of the estimated 7000 family members.

Known as Bandar Bush because of his close relations with former US President George W Bush, the prince is son of Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz.

Finally, we would like to congratulate Bill Clinton for having what must have been a very successful ‘party’ with Kim Jong il.

The jet carrying Euna Lee and Laura Ling, reporters for Al Gore’s San Francisco-based Current TV, and former President Bill Clinton arrived at Burbank’s Bob Hope Airport at dawn. Clinton met with communist leader Kim Jong Il on Tuesday to secure the women’s release.

Personally, we think the girls were partying with them.

Public urination. Why can’t we piss where we want to? What is the problem? We are tired of having to pretend we are going to buy food or get a drink. We are tired of asking for the key in Starbucks. We are tired of finding junkies and queers in the public toilets. We want to go against walls, on trees, and in bushes.

The Axixa is a design by Mexican Miguel Melgarejo, and could be deployed cheaply and easily on any city wall. Inside there is a traditional U-bend water trap leading to a drainage pipe. The outside could actually be any shape, but a yellow streak of piss seems appropriate enough. But would people use them? If you are desperate enough to pee in the street anyway, we doubt you’d be too embarrassed to use the Axixa instead. I just hope that the local government sees this and turns the design from concept into reality.

We also are pissed off that Bobby McFerrin isn’t more famous than Michael Jackson was:

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

We are pissed off that the United States Ben Franklin would have created never appeared:

Link to more Franklin stuff

We are pissed off that Oprah got arrested for drug possession when officers lifted her skirt and found 40 pounds of crack…uh, well, we are pissed off she never gave us a car and that the “bomb” outside of her studio had our wii fit in it…

Bomb and arson detectives say a suspicious package discovered outside Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Studios in Chicago is harmless.

Chicago Police News Affairs Officer Laura Kubiak says security personnel found a dark backpack with wires hanging out of it early Friday in a flower bed near the studios.

By the way, we recommend putting this link on your laptop next time you get up to use the bathroom on the plane or in the coffeeshop…it’s hilarious
http://www.myit-media.de/the_end.html

We are pissed that we didn’t even know the hanging gardens of Babylon had been located and now they have been damaged by the U.S. military:

The U.S. military did major damage to the site of one of the wonders of the ancient world while converting it into a base, the United Nations said in a new report.

The site of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon was converted into Camp Alpha shortly after the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.

The troops and their contractors caused “major damage” by digging, cutting, scraping and leveling while they were revamping the site to meet military standards, the U.N. cultural agency, UNESCO, said in a report.

We are also pissed off that a jerk like Michael Savage (actually his name is Michael Weiner) has a radio show and we don’t even have a pot to piss in, which is why we piss in the street in the first place.

Piss on that guy!

A former fire-eating circus performer promised to leave his matches at home when he blasts off for the International Space Station this fall as the next space tourist.

Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte, a Canadian billionaire who began his career as a street entertainer, said he does hope to try a few tricks in space, but fire-eating will not be one of them. He is paying a reported $35 million for the space tourist trek, which is slated to launch Sept. 30.

But Laliberte is promising more than a mere orbital joyride. He is dedicating his mission to increasing awareness about global water issues through the non-profit One Drop Foundation, which he founded in 2007.

“Water is a vital resource for a human being and unfortunately it is put in danger,” Laliberte said. “In the near future there is a real problem in front of us in regards of access to clean water.”

That lack of access to clean water is one of the leading causes of death on the planet, Laliberte said, making it a pressing issue that he hoped to publicize during the spaceflight. He plans to announce his full mission plan in August.

We hope that he plays eerie music and does an interpretive dance on the Space Station and then creeps everyone out by bending the wrong direction.

And it seems that New Zealand just got bigger – although only by 30 centimetres. Scientists reckon that last weeks massive earthquake triggered a huge wave that pulled New Zealand’s South Island a tiny bit closer to Australia which is one of its closest neighbours.

Now, on to America, where scientists are worried that some of the world’s oldest trees are dying too early. Yosemite’s famed Redwoods are dying because of the air quality. Good job America. Over and over again, you seem intent to prove to the world that you can kill it.

We, among others, have noted the popularity surge around the world since Barack Obama became President of the United States. Unfortunately, we are fairly certain, that you will kill him America. Now that the issue has come up to show he is actually black, we think his days are numbered.

President Barack Obama plunged his presidency into a charged racial debate and set off a firestorm with police officers nationwide by siding with a prominent black scholar who accuses police of racism.

Saying he was unaware of “all the facts” but that police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, “acted stupidly” in their arrest of Harvard’s Henry Louis Gates, Obama whipped up emotions on both sides of an issue that threatens to open old wounds.

“The President has alienated public safety officers across the country by his comments,” said David Holway, president of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, which represents 15,000 public security officials.

In a letter to Obama, he sought an apology. “You not only used poor judgment in your choice of words, you indicted all members of the Cambridge police department and public safety officers across the country.”

Obama’s comments, made at a news conference on Wednesday evening, marked his biggest foray into the hot-button issue of race since taking office in January and underline how racial issues remain very much alive despite advances embodied by his election as the first black U.S. president.

Not only that, but he no longer has the love of racist white cops…wait, did he ever?

Also in America, we find that Texas is intent on teaching children about the role of God in the creation of the United States. Oh yes, we remember reading about that in the Bible, the Torah, and the Quran. Something like “And the lord said “Let there be an American Revolution!”". Then he stopped taking part in the United States until he told George W. Bush to invade Iraq. That was sure a good idea. Are they really sure it was God speaking and not just the wind?

There’s no doubt that history education needs a boost in Texas.

According to test results, one-third of students think the Magna Carta was signed by the Pilgrims on the Mayflower and 40% believe Lincoln’s 1863 emancipation proclamation was made nearly 90 years earlier at the constitutional convention.

Meanwhile Rabbis and Mayors in New Jersey have been busted for money laundering and selling body parts. Oh yes, Jews, Politicians, Israel, and Kidneys. God Bless America.

Officials say separate from the corruption probe, some of the suspects charged today were also connected to an illegal human organ-selling ring. Investigators say some charged would take cash payments to help find organs for sick patients in need of transplants. It’s unclear where the body parts might have come from or how many surgeries may have been done.

The body parts scheme involved kidney transplants, authorities said. Patients in need would pay middle-men to find willing donors in Israel. Investigators said the suspects would then have the donor and patient lie to hospitals that they were related. Hospitals would then do the operation unaware that cash payments were part of the deal.

And we like the strategy of making Afghanistan the front for the war on terror in an effort to stabilize Iraq. Move the U.S. troops out and the fighters will follow. We actually think the troops would do good to follow themselves right back to the U.S. homeland.

Washington is pouring thousands of extra troops into Afghanistan this year, in part to beef up security for the election. There are about 58,000 U.S. troops and 39,000 from other NATO members in Afghanistan, with U.S. numbers to rise a further 10,000 by year’s end.

Moving to Europe:

Thousands of firefighters are battling to bring under control summer wildfires that are spreading across parts of southern Europe.

At least eight people have died in fires that have struck Spain, France, Greece and the Italian island of Sardinia in the past few days.

Spain has been hardest hit, with at least seven big fires in the south and east. Several are now rated as stable.

Strong winds have fanned the flames during the hot dry weather.

Finally, we thought you might like to know that the world is still obsessed with turds.

courtesy of twittrpoop

Consider Paris Hilton, in strong economic times she is made a spectacle with her million dollar handbags and shaved beaver but when times are tough, she is made all but invisible.

Then there are the protests and violence in Iran. We hate to tell you we told you so, but we told you what would happen. The spectacle of the twitter revolution was held up just long enough to make twitter a google junior and then the Iranians were left to die for their attempt at catching the world’s short attention span. Who is the President now? Oh yeah, the short psychotic guy.

Michael Jackson. Do we really need to say anything at all about this? At the moment of his death, the media began to act as if nothing else were happening…there were no more twitter updates on Iran, no more economic woe stories, and they barely covered a serial killer on the loose in a southern state. Personally, we think Michael Jackson was murdered by the Iranian mullahs. Of course there are more than a few single bullet theories…maybe they poisoned him with darvoset while the Obama admin poisoned him with percodan while Sarah Palin paid for him to be drugged with neosporin so that she could resign and take a $5 million book deal without too much notice…the neosporin was her idea. Single bullet theory anyone?

Meanwhile, North Korea has launched missiles and cyber attacks with just about no one noticing.

North Korea is suspected of launching a cyber attack that paralysed the websites of South Korean and United States government agencies, banks and businesses, the first such large-scale attack attempted by the isolated communist state.

The attack came as Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader, made a rare appearance at a ceremony to mark the 15th anniversary of the death of his father, the founding president, Kim Il Sung.

The younger Mr Kim is believed to have suffered a stroke last August and dropped from view completely for several months.

The country’s notional head of state, Kim Yong Nam, told the gathering: “We will sternly smash the US imperialist forces and South Korea’s puppet regime … We will achieve the historical mission of national unification by realising Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il’s policies.”

And then there is the massive buildup and assault going on in Afghanistan. Are you so bored with this war that has outlasted World War II that you don’t want to know what is happening? Keystone cops varieties of fun…

K?ABUL | U.S. Marines trapped Taliban fighters in a residential compound and persuaded the insurgents to allow women and children to leave. The troops then moved in — but discovered that the militants had slipped out, dressed in women’s burqa robes.

We watched Obama’s meeting with the Russians yesterday with amusement. We are convinced that Mr. Putin is a racist and we wonder what he has to say about Obama…we also think most Russians are racist. Of course so are most Americans…

We can’t imagine that meeting went very well. We heard Putin did most of the talking.

Speaking of talking, we are alarmed by this news: British Scientists Create Sperm.

LONDON (AP) — British scientists claim they have created human sperm from stem cells. But other experts have questioned their data.

Researchers at Newcastle University and the NorthEast England Stem Cell Institute say they used a new technique to derive what they described as sperm cells from embryonic stem cells.

Newcastle research leader Karim Nayernia says in a statement Wednesday that the technique would allow researchers to study how sperm develops and possibly help develop treatments for infertile men.

But many other British experts say they are unconvinced by the research. They also say the sperm cells created in the laboratory were clearly abnormal.

We, the Scary Arab Clowns have also created sperm in our labs. Oh wait, we mean in our testes.

Fred Travolina

Impressionist Fred Travalena, a headliner in Vegas showrooms and a regular on late-night talk shows with his takes on presidents, crooners and screen stars, has died in Los Angeles. He was 66.

We would have preferred it to be Pat Buchanon, though in the article we’ve linked to, we think he made a couple of good points. Bye bye lily white USA. Maybe it’s time to head up to the local porn shop and lock yourself in a room with a vibrator…according to a recent survey, half of American’s use them!

About half of American adults indicate using a vibrator, according to a new survey that sheds light on acts that take place beneath the covers and behind closed doors.

The survey was funded, however, by Church and Dwight Co. Inc., maker of Trojan brand sexual health products. It finds it’s not just women taking advantage of the battery-operated tickle toy. Forty-five percent of men said they’d employed a vibrator, with most heterosexual men doing so during foreplay or intercourse with a female partner. About 17 percent of men said they used a vibrator for solo masturbation.

One might think that Iraqis too are using them by the looks of ecstasy on Iraqis faces today:

U.S. troops pulled out of Baghdad on Monday, triggering jubilation among Iraqis hopeful that foreign military occupation is ending six years after the invasion to depose Saddam Hussein.

We hope it’s not a premature evacuation.

Israelis on the other hand prefer to cum inside and stay there, no withdrawl from them and no joy on their faces either:

Israel’s Defense Ministry said on Monday it had approved construction of 50 new homes at a West Bank settlement as part of a plan for 1,450 housing units, an expansion that defies a U.S. call for a settlement freeze.

Former vice president Dick Cheney looks like an Israeli but we think he secretly uses a George Bush Buttplug.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday said he is concerned about U.S. forces withdrawing from Iraqi cities within 24 hours.

But hey, it’s not the end of the world….or maybe it is…grasshopper plagues are hitting Utah:

Grasshoppers are regular summer visitors and a perennial crop-eating pest for farmers, but this year’s invasion in Tooele County west of Salt Lake City is worse than anyone can remember. Tooele County commissioners have been swamped with calls about grasshoppers, particularly by people living next to undeveloped land where grasshoppers hatch — sometimes up to 2,000 per square foot.

At least one man is maintaining his optimism though:

Friends and even family members of Kimberly Jacobs still ask her husband, Stan, if she’s returned yet, after disappearing 10 months ago from their Waikiki apartment.

We are with you Stan. She will be back.

And the economy will get better too:

A senior White House adviser said Sunday the economic stimulus package has not yet “broken the back of the recession” but set aside calls for a second massive spending bill. Republicans, meanwhile, called spending underway a failure. “We have confidence that the things we’re doing are going to help, but we’ve said repeatedly, it’s going to take time, and it will take time,” David Axelrod said. “It took years to get into the mess we’re in. It’s not going to take months to get out of it.”

We don’t know about it getting better in months though…maybe decades.

We’d love to tell you more about the state of the world but we have to go to a MJ memorial with Bubbles.