We just received a letter from the U.S. Department of Commerce telling us that our 2010 Census form will arrive in about a week. I’m glad the government is spending billions to tell us this. Last year we received a letter from the government telling us that our stimulus check would arrive in about a week. Anybody else think this is a waste of money?

© 2010, J. M. Erickson. All rights reserved.

In this morning’s Daily Sun, an ad for a shoe store claimed, “We have a huge stock of reduced shoes.”

I think I’ll wander on down there to see if they have some size thirteens that have been reduced to nine and a half EEEEs.

© 2010, J. M. Erickson. All rights reserved.

Found in The Villages Daily Sun:

Berlin — Reuters

A German man mooning at railway staff in a departing train got his trousers caught in a carriage door and ended up being dragged half naked along the platform, out of the station and onto the tracks.

Dangling by his trousers, the 22-year-old journalism student got pulled along for about 200 meters, all the while managing to keep his legs away from the wheels of the train.

The ordeal ended when a passenger pulled the emergency brake.

Rescue services were called in, causing rail services between Bremen and Hamburg to be suspended for over an hour, delaying 23 trains.

Moral of the story: When your mother told you, “Just keep your pants on,”  she wasn’t whistling Dixie.

© 2009, J. M. Erickson. All rights reserved.

I found this over at The Point blog. They’re quoting The Eugene, Oregon, Register-Guard:

After her oncologist prescribed a cancer drug that could slow the cancer growth and extend her life, [Barbara] Wagner was notified that the Oregon Health Plan wouldn’t cover the treatment, but that it would cover palliative, or comfort, care, including, if she chose, doctor-assisted suicide. . . .

Are these folks in Oregon crazy?

© 2008, J. M. Erickson. All rights reserved.

Quoted from The Villages Daily Sun:

Georgia: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Oops.

Animal-control officers in Cobb County have cited tow women for having their dogs off leashes–even though the women were in a park created specifically to let dogs off leashes. When Cobb opend an off-leash dog park last month, it seems, officials didn’t take the county’s leash law into account.

“It’s ludicrous to say it’s off-leash and to give people tickes for having them off the leash,”¹ said Clare Salkin, who was ticketed for violating the law. She has a court date in about three weeks for unleashing Bob, her Labrador-mix.

The county says it has stopped enforcing the leash law in the park². It plans to clarify its ordinances to make it legal for people to unleash dogs in the park, said a county spokesman.

© 2006 – 2008, J. M. Erickson. All rights reserved.

1. Duh [↩]
2. Even though those already ticketed are being prosecuted [↩]

For those of you who have been trying for the last two days to enter comments, I apologize. I had recovered a backup of my blog from a local server and neglected to change the server address to the public one. Dah.

© 2006 – 2008, J. M. Erickson. All rights reserved.

In Bad Business by Robert B. Parker, Spenser asks Rita Fiore how her love life is going. She responds:

“Busy,…but, same old question, ‘why are there so many more horses’ asses than there are horses?’”

© 2006 – 2008, J. M. Erickson. All rights reserved.

Regarding the conditions at the Royal Liverpool Golf Course in Hoylake, England, where the British Open is being played this year, Tiger Woods predicted, “Unless it rains again, this course will not see another drop of water.”

© 2006 – 2008, J. M. Erickson. All rights reserved.