blog.shrub

Apparently some people just don’t read the news. Remember, kids: don’t mess with a marine:

A boy in his mid-teens learned Wednesday afternoon that it is not a good idea to try to rob a former U.S. Marine at knifepoint, even if the former Marine is 84 years old, police said today.
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The man then put his bags on the ground and told the boy that if he stepped closer he would be sorry. When the boy stepped closer, the man kicked him in the groin, knocking him to the sidewalk, Bair said. The ex-Marine picked up his grocery bags and walked home, leaving the boy doubled over, Bair said.

The Manchester Evening News, a British rag is reporting a lottery scratchcard has been withdrawn from sale “because players couldn’t understand it.”Apparently your average Brit is well-qualified for a job at Verizon:

Tina Farrell, from Levenshulme, called Camelot after failing to win with several cards.The 23-year-old, who said she had left school without a maths GCSE, said: “On one of my cards it said I had to find temperatures lower than -8. The numbers I uncovered were -6 and -7 so I thought I had won, and so did the woman in the shop. But when she scanned the card the machine said I hadn’t.”I phoned Camelot and they fobbed me off with some story that -6 is higher - not lower - than -8 but I’m not having it.”I think Camelot are giving people the wrong impression - the card doesn’t say to look for a colder or warmer temperature, it says to look for a higher or lower number. Six is a lower number than 8. Imagine how many people have been misled.”

From HDNet:

Dan Rather Reports presents conclusive evidence of the failure of touch screen voting machines across the country. The episode, “The Trouble with Touch Screens”, is an entire hour devoted to new information on this story. From scientists involved in testing the equipment, to manufacturers in third world countries who shipped these defective voting machines to the United States, Dan Rather Reports presents new information showing that these defective machines may have altered the outcome of multiple elections.

The Independent’s Johann Hari goes on a cruise with readers of the National Review:

A red-faced man who looks like an egg with a moustache glued on grumbles, ” If the Germans think they can take responsibility for the world, I don’t care about German courts. Bomb them.” I begin to witter on about the Pinochet precedent, and Kate snaps, “Treating Don Rumsfeld like Pinochet is disgusting.” Egg Man pounds his fist on the table: ” Treating Pinochet like that is disgusting. Pinochet is a hero. He saved Chile.”

Max Blumenthal checks out the College Republican National Convention:

Ex-Marine, 72, fights off pickpocket:

Bill Barnes says he was scratching off a losing $2 lottery ticket inside a gas station when he felt a hand slip into his front-left pants pocket, where he had $300 in cash.

He immediately grabbed the person’s wrist with his left hand and started throwing punches with his right, landing six or seven blows before a store manager intervened.
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He’s anything but an easy mark: Barnes served in the Marines, was an accomplished Golden Gloves boxer and retired after 20 years as an iron worker.
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“There was blood everywhere,” said another manager on duty, Abby Ostrom, 25.

Paris is about to get what could be the world’s largest Yellow Bike Program(ish):

On July 15, the day after Bastille Day, Parisians will wake up to discover thousands of low-cost rental bikes at hundreds of high-tech bicycle stations scattered throughout the city, an ambitious program to cut traffic, reduce pollution, improve parking and enhance the city’s image as a greener, quieter, more relaxed place.

By the end of the year, organizers and city officials say, there should be 20,600 bikes at 1,450 stations — or about one station every 250 yards across the entire city. Based on experience elsewhere — particularly in Lyon, France’s third-largest city, which launched a similar system two years ago — regular users of the bikes will ride them almost for free.

San Francisco, it’s your turn now.

After the cartoon fiasco, Karim Raslan of the The New York Times wrote Why Asian Muslims didn’t explode. He doesn’t really answer why, but he does cite several cultural differences.

Some of hsi strongest rhetoric:

Whether we are conservative or liberal, many of us are appalled and angered by the stupidity and insensitivity of the Danish newspaper cartoons. But that doesn’t mean we’ve taken leave of our senses.

I, for one, won’t be throwing out my Lego set or my Bang & Olufsen sound system, let alone plotting to unveil a Zionist conspiracy.

I may be a Muslim, but I can tell the difference between a newspaper and a people, a country and a principle.

Florida university discovers misplaced $275,000:

Three University of South Florida officials were fired after the school discovered $275,000 in misplaced checks and cash scattered throughout an office.

Nearly half the money at the school’s English Language Institute — $133,647 — was in checks up to 10 years old and could not be deposited, said university spokeswoman Michelle Carlyon.

don’t piss off monarch air:

The unidentified man swore at crew and passengers after being refused a bottle of wine on the four-hour flight from Manchester to Tenerife.

He became so abusive the fed-up pilot diverted the Monarch Airlines Airbus to Porto Santo island off West Africa.

After the plane touched down, the man was marched off by police and had his luggage dumped on the tarmac.