News for Week Ending Friday, Jan 25, 2019

1.   According to a study at the University of Iowa, a daily serving of fried chicken will increase your risk of any early death by 13%.  ***  Of course, that percentage is a lot higher if you’re the chicken.

2.   In a new biography of Eva Braun, the author claims Ms. Braun never had sex with Hitler because of pain due to a rare gynecological condition.  ***   Apparently when dealing with a Fuehrer you have to come up with something better than just a headache.

3.   After having an accident with his SUV, 97 year old Prince Philip is scheduled to take a “driver awareness” class.  ***  Senior Awareness Lesson #1: “If there’s a steering wheel is in front of you, you’re probably the driver.”

4.   In Texas, a woman has been banned from the Wichita Falls Walmart after she spent several hours driving an electric cart around the parking lot while drinking wine from a Pringles can.   ***  Or, as several Walmart shoppers described it, “fashionable travel mug.”  

5.   In the obituary for an 87 year old Louisville woman, her family added the comment, “Her passing was hastened by her continued frustration with the Trump administration.”  ***  After intense criticism, the family later admitted that the Trump administration did not actually hasten her death—it just made her look forward to it.

News for Week Ending Friday, Jan 18, 2019

1.   Members of an Australian airline flight crew have been charged with smuggling millions of dollars in heroin and methamphetamines.   ***   Authorities became suspicious after passengers complained there was never any room left in the overhead bins.

2.   A Paris restaurant that opened in 2017 to serve people in the nude is now closing due to a lack of customers.   ***   With apologies to 1992 presidential candidate Ross Perot, that giant sucking sound you hear is actually naked people getting up from vinyl seats.

3.   According to a recent study at Princeton, Facebook posts of fake news are shared seven times more often by people over 65.   ***   The university researchers said they were shocked by the results; they had no idea that seniors actually knew how to share a post.

4.   Kroger announced it is recalling most of its shrimp products.  ***  They sell special food for short people?

5.   The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church says smart phones are paving the way for the Antichrist.   ***   Wow—These days there’s an app for everything.

News for Week Ending Friday, Jan 11, 2019

1.     The National Center for Health Statistics announced the bad news that U.S. birth rates are now too low to sustain current population levels, and they said the country’s lowest birth rate is in Washington D.C.   ***  The good news is that that’s the one place where we don’t want people to reproduce.

2.     Because men in Saudi Arabia can divorce their wives without telling them, the courts there have begun informing women of their divorces by texting them.  ***  And, to provide support to the newly divorced women, the texts also include the relevant legal documents, words of sympathy and a link to a good dating app.

3.     Several departing passengers at the Baltimore airport were injured when using the boarding jetway.   ***   Gate officials apologized, but said no one would have been hurt if there had actually been a plane waiting at the other end.

4.     Yesterday, in response to charges of sexual assault, Kevin Spacey made his first appearance in a courtroom in Nantucket.   ***   Legal experts say it was the first time formal charges had ever been read in the form of a limerick.

5.     Online dating observers say yesterday was the busiest day of the year for cyber-dating because people are lonely from holiday break-ups, they’ve made a New Year’s resolution to find someone new, and they really want to connect before Valentine’s Day.  ***  The singles who struck out yesterday were the ones who made the mistake of putting all that in their profile.

News for Week Ending Friday, Jan 4, 2019

1.   After Texas’s longhorn steer mascot charged Georgia’s bulldog mascot at the Sugar Bowl, PETA urged colleges to stop using live mascots at football games.  ***  To further promote public safety, PETA is also recommending that offensive linemen be kept on a leash.

2.   In 2018, Comcast dropped its bid for 21^st Century Fox, which would have included Fox News.  ***  We have now learned that Comcast executives felt it would be too much of a burden to run a media empire and a country.

3.   The Census Bureau has just released figures showing that Michigan’s population has jumped to almost 10 million people.   ***   Of course, it would have been closer to 2 million if they took the survey in winter.