A Little Monday Madness

Well folks, due to an insanely busy workday, and a rather harrowing Friday night (3/14/2008), complete with an F-2 twister ripping right through the center of Atlanta, I just couldn't get to writing a Friday Follies, maybe this week. So instead, I'll regale you with some Monday Madness, hopefully you'll find this an acceptable substitute.

1) The King Gets Crowned (or is that OWNED!): I LOVE these kinds of stories, where some shyster lawyer gets theirs with interest! Richard Scruggs,, otherwise known as The King Of Torts could be looking at 5 years in the slammer, and in this Owl's opinion, that is an obscenely light sentence given the magnitude of his crime, . Scruggs and another lawyer in his firm, Sidney Backstrom, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud for offering a $50,000 cash bribe to a Mississippi judge for a favorable ruling in a dispute over legal fees from a Hurricane Katrina insurance lawsuit. Scruggs son Zach has also been implicated and will go to trial himself. And of course, he's facing the possibility of disbarment to boot. Serves 'em right! Story HERE

2) The King Gets Crowned Part 2: Robert Soloway at the tender age of 28 has become the King of Spam and in doing so, inviting a number of well-deserved civil suits against him. This unscrupulous bastard boasted of being sued for hundreds of millions of dollars and not paying a dime and of course having been in his particular racket 10 years running. Well, after being arrested in May 2007, he finally realized there was no way in Hell he could win or beat the rap and very recently pleaded guilty to the charges, and now staring down the barrel of 26 years as a guest of the Federal government. Now THAT"s my kind of justice! All Hail The King of Dumba$$es! Story HERE

3a) Principles Are Good Things #4561: General William Fallon, now former commander of our military's Central Command in the Middle East resigned this past week over principle, and this Owl salutes you as a rare patriot for having the guts and intestinal fortitude to oppose our Smiling Buffoon In Chief's insatiable and senseless desire to attack Iran (an innately stupid idea to start with given that our forces are over-extended already) and his senseless failed policies in general. With our armed forces already in bad shape because of the combined stupidity of the Clinton AND Bush administrations, one can see how stupid and near suicidal such an idea is. General Fallon certainly saw it, in much the same way Colin Powell, after pleading with Bush to NOT invade Iraq, saw the writing on the wall and resigned. The GOP might brand you many things, but this Owl says you did the right thing in opposing one who genuinely has turned out to be The Worst President of All Time.

3b EDITED TO ADD) Heard Straight From The Horse's A$$ #6701: Our Batman Villain of a VP Dick "The Penguin" Cheney, while making a trip through Iraq has the utter audacity to STILL insist that Iraq and the 9/11 terrorist attacks were connected when it's VERY common knowledge the two had ZERO to do with each other I mean,. how TERMINALLY clueless. moronic, stupid and out of touch with reality can one get? Further proof that haging around with George W Bush (or ANY member of this odious Bush family) WILL lower your IQ exponentially. Story HERE

4) Incredible Penetrating Insight and Eloquent Erudition #8245: Who've thought it was possible, Mariah Carey publicly admits that "I understand that people think I am a ditzy moron." WOW!!!!! Stop the presses!!! This is truly HISTORIC!

5) Weird Coincidences #5151: Ever notice that a rather disproportionately high number of serial killers and other psychotic felons have the middle name of Wayne?

John Wayne Gacy - Serial murderer
Eric Wayne Kelley — sex charges
Nathan Wayne Green — kidnapping and beating, homicide
Ronald Wayne Spencer, Jr. — triple homicide
David Wayne Rhodes — 10 years for practicing nursing without a license
Larry Wayne King — homicide
Paul Wayne Mitchell — Theft
Michael Wayne Hills — theft
Jeremy Wayne Hopkins — homicide
Garry Wayne Carriker — knowingly having unprotected sex when HIV positive
Bruce Wayne Potts — homicide
Joshua Wayne Jones — assault of officer
Billy Wayne Sinclair — homicide
Billy Wayne Boyer — assault
Billy Wayne Miller — attempted murder and robbery
Kenneth Wayne Downs — sex assault
Jerry Wayne Lucas — attempted homicide
Tony Wayne Swinnie — aggravated assault of grandmother in front of her grandchildren, robbery
Larry Wayne Dacy — home invasion
Richard Wayne Miles — police standoff
Charles Wayne Thomas — homicide

Many of these come from The Dallas News from February 2006 to the present, as given to NY Times writer Stephen Levitt , who wrote THIS post on said subject., and a News Of The Weird article on this phenomenon too.

6) Just How Efficient Can A Car Be? Well good 'ol Shell Oil of all people every year has this competition for car builders to see just how much mileage they can squeeze out ofa gallon of gas by any means necessary. And the winner?A team from St. Joseph La Joliverie in France went 7,148 miles on a single gallon of fuel, NO JOKE!! Story HERE

7) Top Gear: Ya gotta hand it to those Brits, who else could pull off a car-centric TV programme with such humor wit and style as our 3 hosts Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond? These three put you in the drivers seat of thrilling test drives of the latest high-performance cars, laugh their arses off at top Brit celebrities in interviews and as they attempt to get their 4-wheeled mojo going in the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car segment. And there's a mysterious test driver who never speaks and who listens to anything from prog-rock to self-help and language instruction CD's while he test drives, the inimitable The Stig!

And it just gets wackier and better. Our three free-wheeling hosts attempt insane stunts (for instance, one segment about how to properly drive a Rolls Royce into a pool), and even more insane challenges (like driving across the North Pole, motoring across the salt flat in Namibia in nothing ore than skeletal Mercedes, Lancias and a 1963 Opel!. And there's my favorite, converting a Toyota pickup, a VW van and a Lotus 2-seat sports car into amphibious vehicles and cross The English Channel)

The Top Gear magazine is well loved among car enthusiasts but there's just something about taking the magazine into the TV world that just gives it something extra cool, go to the website and see for yourself, or watch it on BBC2. Fun stuff for sure!