Bored as dead rats

In another display of arrogance, the Bush admin decided that Tom Ridge didn’t have to show up for a confirmation hearing chaired by Joe Lieberman. In another display of Democratic cravenness, Lieberman has caved in, and even given up his chairmanship a few days early, showing the leadership style that makes him totally unsuited for the office he announced he was running for the same day.

http://www.theonion.com/onion3901/bush_on_north_korea.html

You know that new car smell, the real one, not the one in the spray cans? It’s poisonous, can give you sick building syndrome. It takes 3 years for the level to drop into the safe range.

The biggest split over what to replace the World Trade Center with is between the sexes. Naturally, men want really tall, thrusting, throbbing towers at least the height of the original. Women are more concerned about safety. Actually, whose stupid idea was it to exempt the towers from fire department regulations anyway? Just don’t do that again, and we’ll keep the replacements below 50 stories.

The French minister of education (I’ll give the URL for the educationalists on the list), says what no other minister of education has ever said--school is boring, and by god it’s supposed to be boring. Why when he was in school, “80 per cent of us were as bored as dead rats”.

Turkmenistan’s loony leader, Sapamurad Niyazov, who renamed the months, has announced that later this week (in the month of Turkmenbashi) 32 people allegedly involved in a plot to assassinate him will go on trial. He also announced what their sentences will be.

In different parts of today’s NY Times, it is reported that Cal. Governor Gray Davis plans to cut 500,000 people from Medicaid, and that he will spend $220,000,000 on a spanking new death row for San Quentin, capacity of 1,000.

The world’s stupidest kidnappers released their victim, a former Goldman Sachs exec, after he promised to pay them $5 million. They actually got caught, just after that, because they ordered a pizza using his credit card.