
 |
|
June 17, 2013
June 12, 2013
Stephanie Hanes: Little girls or little women? The Disney princess effect
Fred Weir: In tweak to US, Russia would 'consider' asylum for Snowden
June 10, 2013
The Kosher Gourmet by Anjali Prasertong: A tart filling so good it might not make it to the crust
June 5, 2013
John Rosemond: Mom, Dad: Talk More and listen less
Kristen Chick: Egypt court sentences 43 pro-democracy workers to prison
June 3, 2013
Molly Hennessy-Fiske: Military judge to consider letting Fort Hood shooting defendant represent himself
May 29, 2013
Andrew Connelly and Helene Bienvenu: The Little Synagogue that Refused to Die
May 24, 2013
Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb: When I didn't so 'humbly disagree'
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
May 20, 2013
Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Dec. 22, 2011
/ 26 Kislev, 5772
Great moments in history? Not so much
By
Glenn Garvin
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
I knew 2011 was going to be one of those years when I wrote a column saying that $80 billion of proposed federal bailout money to the U.S. Postal Service was a useless subsidy to "a dying ink-on-paper technology in an electronic world." I got more than 100 bitter complaints from postal workers … every single one of them delivered by email.
At least the postal workers were mostly civil. The hundreds of complaints I got from lawyers after I wrote about frivolous lawsuits in pursuit of jackpot justice were so scatological that I'm now pretty certain law schools must offer elective courses in biology, because I have never heard so many richly descriptive references to such obscure corners of the digestive tract, nor such detailed instructions for how to insert my head into them.
And even as the lawyers were proclaiming that in the majesty of the law, there is no such thing as a frivolous lawsuit, news broke out of a Chicago suburb of two children in their 20s suing their mother for serving them bad birthday cake and setting curfews for them in high school. The kids' attorney is their divorced dad.
So it went in 2011, a year that was definitely in need of colonic irrigation. Consider:
-
Your tax money at work: The National Institutes of Health - that's our NIH, the one in Washington - put up $1.44 million in federal funds for a study of the "social milieu" of male prostitutes in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Meanwhile, the Department of Housing and Urban Development gave a grant for job training for HIV/AIDS victims to a Washington company called Miracle Hands, which used it to open a strip club.
Not to be outdone in getting a bang for the taxpayer buck, NIH's cousins at the National Science Foundation funded a study on Jell-o wrestling at the South Pole, an experimental "robot hoedown and rodeo" and a test of the performance of sick shrimp on treadmills. Pushing the frontiers of human knowledge, the researchers found that sick shrimp "did not perform as well and did not recover as well from exercise as healthy shrimp."
-
The dawn of Obamacare: In Marin County, Calif., a woman called for an ambulance after her husband fell in their home. But he said he was OK and declined a ride to the hospital. Sheriff's deputies ordered him to go anyway, and when he refused, they Tasered him.
-
Great moments in national security I: The CIA set up a task force to measure the damage caused by the dump of 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks. It's called the WikiLeaks Task Force, or WTF.
-
Great moments in national security II: The U.S. Senate, after learning that the Navy SEALs used "Geronimo" as a code name for their operation to kill Osama bin Laden, announced hearings on "inappropriate uses of Native American icons."
-
Great moments in national security III: As part of President Obama's policy of openness and transparency, the National Security Agency declassified a book on cryptology written by a German law professor in 1809. That was no doubt a relief to Google Books, which several years earlier had gotten a copy out of a public library, digitized it and published it on the Internet.
-
Occupy Michael Moore: When documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, during an appearance on CNN, praised the Occupy movement and its denunciations of the plutocratic swine who make up the richest 1 percent of Americans, host Piers Morgan noted that Moore himself is part of that 1 percent. "Of course I'm not," Moore said. "How can I be in the 1 percent?" Replied the puzzled Morgan: "Because you're worth millions!"
-
CSI, Canada: When a Minnesota woman drove her minivan across the border to Manitoba, alert Canadian border agents spotted a jar of sinister black liquid and arrested her immediately as a heroin trafficker. Twelve days later she was released after lab tests revealed the liquid to be an exotic substance often mistaken for heroin, motor oil.
-
Joe Biden take note: A Zimbabwe man went to jail for 10 days for using a toilet reserved for President Robert Mugabe.
-
The continuing perfidy of George Bush: Noting sternly that Iraq's central bank has been painted in bright red candy-cane stripes, The New York Times reported that that Baghdad "faces a new scourge: tastelessness." But, The Times added, the Iraqis are not to blame: "Government officials say they do not have strong enough laws to police the look of Baghdad, as Mr. Hussein once did."
-
Sounds like a case for the NSF: Headline in the London Daily Mail: Why Zombie Ants Infected by Mind-Controlling Fungus Always Kill Themselves at High Noon
-
Write your own punchline: New York Post headline: Bill Clinton says wife Hillary "just wants a good night's sleep."
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment by clicking here.
Glenn Garvin is a columnist for the Miami Herald
Previously:
11/30/11: Giving bullies a veto on the First Amendment
09/15/11: Bloodsucking Progressives Must Die video game is acceptable?
06/28/11: Send this one back where it came from
06/23/11: Doesn't this president remind you of someone?
05/26/11: A new standard of racial correctness
05/12/11: Vast wasteland speech 50 years later
04/13/11: Bay of Pigs fiasco offers lessons for Obama's Libya adventure
03/03/11: Inconvenient truth for teachers' unions
07/10/10: Still looking to score
06/22/10: Ripe for fraud and abuse
05/25/10: Big Brother picks your pocket
11/04/09: Have conservatives scored a stealth prime time drama?
08/27/09: Left's been out for blood, too
08/13/09: What's not being celebrated
07/31/09: Pay-or-play means more lost jobs
07/16/09: OAS turns a blind eye to violations by left
07/02/09: Nothing so shocking about this coup
06/22/09: Libs' darling strikes out
06/03/09: Yes, America should read Sotomayor's speech in context
05/20/09: Bloody mission goes awry
05/07/09: The problem is they aren't just goofin'
04/30/09: Why can't students say guns in school?
04/08/09: When non-U.S. citizens vote
03/2e/09: Of course the AIG bonus boys the best and the brightest deserve their loot
03/12/09: No choice in Free Choice Act
© 2009, The Miami Herald Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Peter Funt
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
John Kass
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Michael Reagan
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
Cathy Young
Mort Zuckerman

Eric Allie
Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Nate Beeler
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
Daryl Cagle
Patrick Chappatte
John Cole
Paul Combs
J. D. Crowe
John Darkow
Bill Day
John Deering
Sean Delonas
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Randall Enos
Mallard Fillmore
David Fitzsimmons
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Mike Keefe
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Gary McCoy
Rick McKee
Jack Ohman
Jeff Parker
Milt Priggee
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Steve Sack
Bill Schorr
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
David Ray Skinner
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Christopher Weyant
Larry Wright
Dan Wasserman
Adam Zyglis

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|