- Only in Warren County, Iowa. Hard to imagine many other places where one mighty kick from a goat can start a fire that destroys an entire home. Jim and Kristi Giles were asleep when smoke began filling their home in Warren County, between Norwalk and Indianola. "My cat woke me up and I saw smoke coming out of my fan," said John Hadley. "My first concern was getting my mom out of the house. Because, like I said, my mom is real ill. And so that's what I did. I made sure I got her out and then I know she loves her animals, so I rounded all her animals up." That’s the good news, that everyone got out safe. The bad news is that the fire raged on and ate up nearly the entire roof by the time firefighters made it to the scene. They were left to try and battle the blaze in temperatures below zero, not a pleasant task even when you have three fire departments fighting the fire. Also, firefighters had to use tanker trucks to haul in water from several miles away and as you might imagine, keeping the water from freezing was also a challenge. The firefighters say they knew trying to save the house was a lost cause almost immediately, deeming it too dangerous to send any men inside the house. So how did a goat start the fire? Well, in lieu of opposable thumbs to flick a lighter or spark a match, one of the two goats the family kept inside a shed that was attached to the rear of the house is believed to have knocked over a space heater the family placed in the shed to help the goats to stay warm. So there it is, the tale of how one clumsy goat was able to burn down an entire home and leave a family without a place to live……..
- Can’t win ‘em all, eh Fox? The network started off this week in a big way with back-to-back two-hour blocks of 24 on the first two nights of the week. They were all stellar episodes, the normal Jack Bauer thrill rides like he never left and took a year and a half off due to production delays, writers’ strikes and drunk driving arrests by the show’s biggest star. It all set up what should be a spectacular season for the show and provided a great start to the week for Fox…..then came the bad news. Yes, I’m referring to the biggest abortion of a reality show in history, the tragic return of American Karaoke. I’m smart enough and value my ears enough not to ever watch that steaming, stinking pile of monkey crap, but I can guess how it played out. Thousands of no-life-having losers lined up outside large venues around the country and made acted like idiots in front of cameras in the parking lot before going inside to sing bad karaoke versions of songs of varying degrees of suck-itude. Judges said inane things about said performances, some unnecessarily negative and some psychotically positive. People who think they can sing were crushed to learn that they suck, while most were there just to try to get on TV. All in all, the big loser on the day was music, and anyone who likes good music for that matter. Oh, and the promos that we’re unfortunately subjected to during Fox’s other programming seem to indicate that there is now a fourth judge on the show, which is amazing because you really only need one judge to point out what a train wreck this show and the tools who perform on it are. This judge is someone I don’t recognize or care to take time to find out about, so let’s just say she’s a middle-aged brunette who has now lost all musical credibility for the rest of her life by appearing on this show and leave it at that. The question is whether the sheer excellence of 24 is enough to outweigh the awfulness of American Karaoke and make it an overall good week for Fox. I’m going to go with no…..
- On the surface, David Engle, of Overland Park, Kan. might seem like a whiny religious nut who just can’t stomach the sight of some giant Buddha statues in an Asian-themed area at his local zoo. After all, Engle has lodged a complaint with the Kansas City Zoo after visiting the zoo and seeing two smiling statues of Buddha. Engle’s objection to the statues is that if someone wanted to put up a similar display representing his faith, i.e. a cross or a nativity scene, it wouldn’t be allowed. Engle says that it’s "phenomenal to me" that the zoo would put up the Buddhas when "we can't have a cross or a nativity scene on public property." Your own religious preferences aside, you can't tell me that if a zoo put up a large cross or nativity scene, the ACLU wouldn’t be there in under five seconds to sue, turn it into a full-blown controversy and look to have that display taken down immediately. So in that regard, Engle is absolutely correct. Why tolerate the overtly religious symbols of one faith and not tolerate those of another? Just because most Americans don’t know much at all about Buddhism and look at it as some sort of mystical novelty practiced mostly by people several continents away doesn’t mean it deserves different treatment than any other faith. If you don’t want one religion to be able to display it’s symbols in public places, don’t make exceptions for others. Whether Engle was Christian, Jewish, Muslim or Catholic, he would have a point. Having a statue of Buddha, the name ascribed to Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, is no more acceptable than any other religious symbol being displayed. There are other things to represent Asian culture, you know, other than Buddha. But according to Randy Wisthoff, zoo director since 2003, the zoo has never complaints about the statues before. They were put up a few years ago, along with concrete pagodas and a terra cotta warrior, to provide an Asian theme for the zoo's Tiger Trail, which was reopened in 2004.
- Now here’s a crime wave I can get with. Like anyone else out there who has ever used a portable toilet at any time, I can vouch for how utterly disgusting and repulsive those things are. The best tactic is to pick out a spot on the wall and stare while you do your business, holding your breath all the while, never looking down at all because of what you might see there and get out as soon as possible. I must not be the only non-fan of portable toilets out there, otherwise someone would not be going around San Francisco and burning 18 freaking portable toilets to the ground. The latest mobile latrine blaze was set in San Francisco's Russian Hill neighborhood early Wednesday, the 18th such incident in the area since November. By this point, the fire dispatchers taking these calls have to be acting like it’s old hat, maybe even starting up a pool to guess where the next fire will be set or who will take the call. “Yeah, a flaming portable toilet, no biggie, sir. We’ve had for of those reported just this week, you’ll have to get in line.” The latest combusting commode was reported at about 4 a.m. on Washington Street between Taylor and Jones streets, with firefighters responding to the area and putting out the fire within minutes. So far, no witnesses have come forward to say that they’ve seen someone starting any of the fires. Things have gotten to the point that the fire department had to warn construction site managers last month about the fires and ask them to move their toilets away from buildings and trees. And why are dirty, foul-smelling portable toilets such a target for arson? Well, allow me to channel my inner lavatory arsonist and see…..well, the portable toilets are petroleum-based, highly flammable and can turn into a big puddle of blue-ish ooze within minutes, so that coule be a factor. Some people just like watching things burn. Is it weird? Yup. But is it true? Yes again. "Catch on fire? No problem. Light up the toilet paper and that'll start it. Boom. They'll be down in five minutes," declares Cameron Vigil of Far West Sanitation & Storage. Vigil also says that the burned porta-potties cost $1,000 to replace, so this arsonist is costing a lot of people a lot of money. He or she typically strikes between 1 a.m. and 6:30 a.m., but some of the fires have also happened at other times, like the arson on December 13, which took place at 8:55 p.m. Oh, and this person or persons also has a festive side to their arson, ringing in the New Year shortly after 5 a.m. with a port-potty burning. A nice touch and a unique way to usher in the new year, I think……
- Wanna know the worst thing about championship games in sports, be it at the college or pro level? It’s the idiotic bets that political leaders from the represented states or cities make on the game, things like betting ginormous quantities of products their locale is known for, like clam chowder in New England, fish in Seattle, etc. Mayors, governors, congressmen, etc. all make these incredibly lame bets and act like it’s a really fresh, interesting idea. Not really, guys and gals, but thanks for trying. Now this terrible and tired tradition has made its way to the halls of the United States Congress, where the senior senator from the state Oklahoma channeled his inner feather-boa-wearing, sequined-jumpsuit-donning diva and performed Elton John’s "Rocket Man" to pay off a college football bet. Republican Sen. Tom Coburn was forced to sing the song for Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, his very own (off-key) rendition of Elton John's 1970s classic Wednesday afternoon. The humiliating display (more humiliating for us as a nation and for the people of Oklahoma than for Coburn himself) took place because the Florida Gators defeated the Oklahoma Sooners 24-14 in last week's BCS title game. Nelson chose "Rocket Man" because he’s a former astronaut who flew on the space shuttle Columbia in the 1980s or because he wanted to see Coburn in a purple feather boa, one or the other. Had it swung the other way and Oklahoma had actually won a big game for once, Nelson would have had to sing the title song from the musical "Oklahoma!", which is also the official state song. Nelson spokesman Dan McLaughlin said the senator "is looking forward to settling the wager in good spirit and with a sense of humor." Yeah, nice try. These bets are moronic, imbecilic and any other adjective roughly equivalent to stupid you want to attach to them. As it turns out, Nelson is an especially egregious violator of the ban that should exist on them, as wo years ago, he was seen kneeling knee over Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and counted as Brown tried to do 55 push-up to equal equaled the total score of that season's BCS title game in which Florida beat Ohio State 41-14. Memo to you, Sen. Nelson, and every other elected official thinking of making these ass-hatted bets: don’t. Just don’t. Forget about them; they’re not cute, clever, interesting or amusing. You end up looking like a tool, no one cares about them anyhow and we’ll all be better off once you stop doing this crap……
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