Don't cry for me, Washington Mutual

Are you kidding me?

Alan Fishman, CEO of failed bank WaMu, gets a payout of almost $20 million dollars. He was on the job for less than three weeks. And his bank failed.

Where can I get a job like that? Oh wait. I'm not qualified. I have morals, scruples, and a soul.

Because actually trying to prevent crime is just crazy

Once again, England demonstrates why its culture and its country are in the midst of that spiral around the bowl before being flushed completely down the toilet.

The Telegraph has an interesting article in which the Bristol City Council has sent letters to renters of city-owned garden sheds, advising them to leave the sheds unlocked, so the sheds will not be damaged when burglars break in, attempting to steal the contents of the sheds.

Why stop there? Why not leave your car keys in the ignition, your house unlocked, and your cash and valuables left in the open? Also, it would probably be a good idea for everyone to post an itemized list on the shed door, so that the criminals would not have to waste time going through each one.

Better yet, maybe people could just send all their money to the council, and the council could then distribute it equitably among the city's thieves.

Stay out of the trees!

Since when is it appropriate to call the police when someone does something - a perfectly legal something - that you don't like?

Here we have an admittedly unverified report from another blogger about a neighbor that called the cops because children were climbing a tree. That's all. No mayhem. No violence. Just doing stuff kids do.

I wonder - what did the neighbor expect to happen when the police arrived?

Don't ask questions, it's art

Free speech and freedom of artistic expression are good things. Americans like them. Given that they're number one on the list of things we enumerate as our "rights," one might conclude that they're some of the most important things to Americans.

But is it still a good thing when the object of that expression is a video game in which the player takes the role of a jihadist and trying to kill President G.W. Bush?

The video game, titled "The Night of Bush Capturing: A Virtual Jihadi," and part of a free speech exhibit in Chicago, is something the artist is calling "confrontational art."

So . . . let me see if I've got this straight:

A magazine cover with a satirical image of a presidential candidate and his wife is "tasteless and offensive," but a video game whose objective is to hunt down and assassinate the sitting president of the United States is "confrontational art."

Yeah, right.

First portion control, now thought control?

In its ongoing campaign to stamp out racism against everyone except actual natural born Britons, the National Children's Bureau of the U.K. has issued guidelines that, among other things, instruct nursery school teachers to be on the lookout for children that might "react negatively to a culinary tradition other than their own by saying 'yuk'".

An article in the U.K. Telegraph states, "Staff are told: "No racist incident should be ignored. When there is a clear racist incident, it is necessary to be specific in condemning the action." "

The article continues, "Nurseries are encouraged to report as many incidents as possible to their local council. The guide added: "Some people think that if a large number of racist incidents are reported, this will reflect badly on the institution. In fact, the opposite is the case.""

Add this to the reasons that kids should eat their vegetables. We don't want them to be bigoted against broccoli, now do we?

Also - if I don't like haggis, does this mean I don't like Scots?

But what about the children?!?

Ah . . . summertime.

Yes it's hot, but we can always cool off in a kiddie pool from the local mega-mart retailer, can't we?

Not if you don't have a permit, a fence, and an audible alarm, you can't. At least not if you live in what has to be the most meddlesome village in New York.

Summertime used to be a time of carefree fun for children, and sometimes grownups too.

Apparently now it's the most dangerous time of the year, and by God we must do everything we can to protect our children from these summertime ravages!

Doesn't this town have anything better to do than to try and regulate what goes on in people's backyards?

It doesn't matter if they're your kids . . . you're still a pervert

From the Land of Lunacy (formerly known as England) comes this headline from the Daily Mail online:

Father of three branded a 'pervert' -for photographing his own children in a public park.

It seems that if you are a male and photographing children enjoying a day at the park - even if they are your own kids and you are willing to show that the photos are of just your kids, you must be some type of skulking pervert snapping photos to post to some nefarious website.

Certainly, protecting our children from predators is necessary and prudence is required.

But this is just stupid.