Article 168620 of rec.humor: Newsgroups: rec.humor Path: nntp-server.caltech.edu!news.claremont.edu!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!netcomsv!netcom.com!cate3 From: cate3@netcom.com (Henry Cate) Subject: Life 9.7 Message-ID: [cate3D40p76.J7z@netcom.com] Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest) Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 01:23:29 GMT Lines: 375 Sender: cate3@netcom8.netcom.com Date: 11 Jan 93 12:15:26 PST (Monday) Subject: Life 9.7 ---------------------------------------------------- The following are selections that I've pulled from a collection Mike Sierra has been building over the years [sierra@ora.com] -------------------------- [[[[[[ Attached TEXT file follows ]]]]]] The following news items and quotations were taken from The American Spectator, The Boston Globe, Esquire, Harper's, Heterodoxy, Insight, The National Review, The New Republic, The New York Times, Penthouse, Reason, Spy, Time, TV Guide, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Monthly, and more "year in review" issues than I care to mention. -------------------------- New York City's Taxi and Limousine Commission instituted a formal regimen training for its cabbies that includes an eight-hour ride in a sight-seeing bus. -------------------------- An Indiana woman charged with writing a bad check claimed that her civil rights were violated when police forcibly prevented her from eating the evidence. -------------------------- A panhandler who solicits handouts in a posh area on Manhattan's East Side makes about $450 a day. -------------------------- The California town of Santa Cruz -- which has announced itself a "free port of Nicaragua," bars visits by U.S. Navy ships on the grounds that they are "part of the Pentagon war machine," and refuses to host the Miss California contest because it is "sexist" -- jailed a local woman because she fed homeless people. The town's official policy is to discourage the homeless from staying in the city. -------------------------- A Texas gubernatorial candidate, informed that his "ten-point educational program" contained only nine points, replied, "You just pointed your finger and emphasized the problem we're trying to solve." -------------------------- According to the memoirs of the late Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko, Cuban president Fidel Castro decided on the important post of head of the National Bank of Cuba in 1959 by asking his assembled aides, "Tell me, friends, which of you is an economist?" Che Guevara, assuming that Castro had said "Communist," replied, "I am." Whereupon Castro said, "Okay, you handle the economy." -------------------------- The C.I.A. spent $200,000 to commission a sculpture for its headquarters. The sculpture features an encrypted message that can be decoded only by the President, the C.I.A. director, or the sculptor himself. -------------------------- The family of Cynthia Barrientos has filed a product-liability suit against Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Barrientos died in 1986 from injuries received when a Panasonic television (manufactured by Matsushita) exploded. At the time of the accident, Barrientos was in the home of neighbors who were arguing. During the argument, one of the neighbors threw a bottle of cologne that hit the TV, breaking the picture tube and spilling ethyl alcohol into the tube. The alcohol was ignited by the electricity in the tube. The suit alleges that the TV was defectively designed and unreasonably dangerous. Matsushita claims that this set of circumstances was "bizarre" and couldn't reasonably be anticipated. -------------------------- After years of research, the DEA claims to have come up with a scientifically valid profile of the typical drug carrier. The DEA is loath to reveal the traits that will lead them to search someone, but Mother Jones scoured court documents and found that the following forms of behavior have triggered actual searches: carrying new suitcases, carrying old suitcases, appearing nervous, appearing calm, buying a round-trip ticket, buying a one-way ticket, traveling alone, traveling with a companion, deplaning from the front of the airplane, deplaning from the middle of the plane, and deplaning from the rear of the plane. Try not to be so obvious! -------------------------- Mike Webel owns a business in Chicago that employs 26 people. Twenty-one of his employees are Latino; five are black. So he didn't worry when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission asked to see his records. He should have. The EEOC told him that based on their formulas, he should be employing 8.45 blacks. The agency has ordered him to "spend $10,000 on newspaper ads to find black people who didn't work for me so I can pay them $123,000 for not working for me." -------------------------- The National Coalition on Television Violence asked George Bush to remove Arnold Schwartzenegger as chairman of the President's Council on Physical Fitness. The group charges that Schwartzenegger is an inappropriate role model because his films promote violence. Arnold responded, "They're just a bunch of girly men who are jealous of my pumpitude." -------------------------- In Massachusetts, the mother of a boy who died after crashing a car he stole is suing General Motors and Consolidated Rail Corp. The suit claims that the defendants or their agents negligently left the keys in a car in an auto freight yard. The suit claims the defendants "knew or should have known" that people might trespass at the yard because six weeks before stealing the car involved in the crash, the boy had stolen another car from the same yard. -------------------------- President Bush's 1991 crime bill imposes the death penalty for certain violent crimes. On the list: assassinating the president, hijacking an airliner, and murdering a federal poultry inspector. -------------------------- According to a memo from cafeteria managers in the Treasury Department building, home to the IRS, of 2,040 individual pieces of silverware available, some 1,430 (70 percent) were missing and presumed stolen. -------------------------- Texas state Rep. Larry Evans died recently. Evans's voting light blinked for roll call votes for several hours after his death. He continued to vote until cops announced they had discovered his corpse. -------------------------- Ken Bergstrom asked the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection for permission to build another pond on his property in Sunderland, Red-Wing Meadow Farm. The department refused him permission because the pond would be in a wetland area. Besides farming, Bergstrom raises trout in several ponds on the property. According to the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act, farming and fishing are allowed on wetlands. But the department says changing from one use to the other, which Bergstrom proposes, is not allowed. "There is no logic" to the policy, he complains. -------------------------- Two sisters were convicted in Rexburg, Idaho, on charges stemming from an attempt to bring popcorn from one movie theater into another. The case eventually involved the FBI. -------------------------- A California judge ruled that bouncers at a nightclub committed civil-rights violations when they decided who would be permitted to enter the club on the basis of whether prospective patrons were properly dressed. The judge said such practices are "blatant discriminatory behavior." -------------------------- A New York Times story reporting on a plagiarism case at Boston University -- a dean was caught lifting entire passages for a speech from an article -- turned out to be plagiarized, in part, from a story that had already appeared in The Boston Globe. The subject of the dean's speech, by the way, was journalistic incompetency. -------------------------- After an Atlanta scientist collected over ten pounds of bullet shell casings from the city's streets during lunch hours, a police department official said that finding casings of weapons ranging from .22-caliber rifles to AK-47 assault rifles does not necessarily indicate that the city is unsafe. Possibly, he suggested, people are firing their weapons elsewhere and leaving the shells in Atlanta. -------------------------- Aundray Burns of the Bronx jumped into a marked New York City transit-police car and tried to steal it while a uniformed policeman was sitting in the front seat. -------------------------- City officials in Santa Clarita, California, invited 50 local hairdressers, manicurists, and makeup artists to a conference dealing with what residents think of city government. The officials claimed that the funds spent on the conference were a wise investment, since citizens confide in beauty professionals. -------------------------- Freedom Hunter of Lincoln, Nebraska, was arrested for attempting to cash a check he had forged, with the teller whose name he was using. -------------------------- Scientists announced the discovery of a volcanic formation on Mars that resembles Senator Edward Kennedy. -------------------------- The British navy awarded bronze medals for bravery to six parakeets that served aboard a destroyer during the Persian Gulf war and whose job it was to alert the crew to any chemical-gas attack by dying. -------------------------- The Moscow motorcycle gang known as "The Cossacks" has eight members. Among them, they own a total of one motorcycle. -------------------------- At the Queens Criminal Court building in Kew Gardens, five workers from the city's Department of General Services recently changed six fluorescent bulbs over the course of three days. -------------------------- Micro-Ap, a manufacturing company based in Londonderry, N.H., paid $18,267.40 in taxes last year. In September, the firm received a bill from the Internal Revenue Service for 1 cent, plus a penalty of $194.72. -------------------------- After 25 years on the job, Terrence Hendrickson was fired in July 1990 from his position as a repairman at Kaiser Aluminum's Trentwood plant, when, according to Kaiser public affairs manager Susan Ashe, the Sheriff's Department notified the company that Hendrickson had a "building" full of tools, hoses, a 3-ton chain hoist and thousands of other items taken from Kaiser. The items filled two flatbed trucks and a pickup when they were removed from Hendrickson's property. Now Hendrickson wants his job back plus back pay. And he could get it, because on Jan. 8, Superior Court Judge Robert Austin found him not guilty of possessing stolen goods, because he's a kleptomaniac. -------------------------- Faced with the nation's highest murder rate and a budget deficit of several hundred million dollars, the Washington, D.C., city council recently spent three hours considering a ban on dogs that have wolf blood. -------------------------- letter to the editor, NEW YORK TIMES, 2/4/92: The widespread, persistent and increasing loss of wild birds (a high estimate of 976 million fatalities) from window collisions (not just winter feeders, but through the year, particularly during migration) contrasts sharply with the relatively meager losses from such catastrophes as oil spills, pesticides and collisions with vehicles. You did not go far enough in "Windows Near Bird Feeders Can Pose A Deadly Threat" (Science Times, December 31, 1991). The Fish and Wildlife Service's Office of Migratory Bird Management introduced me to the expert on this subject, Dan Klem, when I was preparing a booklet on backyard bird problems. Dr. Klem, an Associate Professor at Muhlenberg College, may be the only ornithologist to consider "plate glass predation" worthy of study. The results of his nearly two decades of research have been published in journals, including an article on prevention techniques for *Living Bird*, the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology's popular magazine, in 1985. Dr. Klem's studies show that the scare techniques you mention, falcon silhouettes and owl decals, do not significantly reduce window deaths. Homeowners can prevent a major cause of bird killing by requiring architects to use angled or nonreflective glass and by retrofitting windows with an external covering. Now that I know it's not just a few birds, I've chosen to cover my killer windows with bird netting. -- Heidi Hughes, Vice President, American Backyard Bird Society -------------------------- In October, Los Angeles physician Gershon Hepner pleaded guilty to 25 felony fraud and theft charges, admitting to stealing up to $8 million through false insurance claims. Now Hepner receives $266 a week in state disability payments for the stress he says he suffered as a result of getting caught. ---------------------------------------------------- In Greenfield, California, city planners now require builders to put two bicycles in every new home. The city wants to reduce smog by encouraging people to bike. Greenfield has one stoplight, 8,000 residents, and a city council with too much time on its hands. ---------------------------------------------------- New York Newsday reports that the Sanitation Department had been storing rock salt where the city's Department of Transportation turns ground glass from a recycling program into material for paving. Somehow the two substances got mixed up, and following a March 19 snowfall city trucks sowed Brooklyn streets with glass. "The most pathetic thing about this incident is that nobody found having glass on the street unusual," columnist Gail Collins wrote. Desensitized Brooklynites assumed the glass came from vandalism and accidents, she wrote. "This is what we get for recycling," one disgruntled resident told Newsday. -------------------------- Thomas Knox, a deputy mayor in Philadelphia, has an important job. He's responsible for reviewing all the city's boards, departments and commissions for efficiency. He has organized a group of more than 100 business executives -- on loan from major businesses in the area -- who will analyze the computer systems, the revenue department, telecommunications and other aspects of city government, and report back to him. He's doing all this on his salary of $1 a year. But even Knox can't get around the personnel officials. First he had to fill out a tax form so the appropriate taxes would be taken out of his biweekly check. Then he was instructed to fill out time sheets each day. Now he receives a check for 4 cents every two weeks. But he can't cash them: The checks are too small. "I've got them here in my desk drawer," says Knox. "To cash them, [the bank] said it cost something like 39 cents." When asked if that isn't the epitome of efficiency, Knox replies, "That's what I said." The deputy mayor says he's been trying to have the checks stopped. "The problem ... is in order for the computer not to put out the check for 4 cents, they'd have to reprogram it. And ... it would cost a lot more money to reprogram it than it would if they kept issuing the check. So I keep getting checks for 4 cents." -------------------------- In October 1991, Representative Leon Panetta of California proposed the "Fresh Cut Flower Import Regulation Act" to impose import quotas on daisies, roses, and other flowers. Panetta implied that Colombian flower growers, who have "a growing season that is ideal for production throughout the year," possess an "unfair competitive advantage" over American growers. His bill mandates that each imported flower have a label on its stem stating its country of origin. -- Henry Cate III [cate3@netcom.com] The Life collection maintainer, selections of humor from the internet "The Greatest Management Principle in the World" by Michael LeBoeuf: The things that get rewarded, get done.
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