News of the Weird / Pro Edition Addendum (December 20, 2011)

News of the Weird/Pro Edition
You're Still Not Cynical Enough

Prime Choice Cuts of Underreported News from Last Week, Hand-Picked and Lightly Seasoned by Chuck Shepherd
December 20, 2011
(datelines December 10-December 17) (links correct as of December 19)

Weird 2.0
"To see what is in front of one's nose requires a constant struggle"—George Orwell
"That's good enough for government work"—unknown
"Nero Fiddles While Rome Burns"—Rome Daily Inquirer, 7-18-64A.D.

Predator drones, in Afghanistan, in Iran, in . . . Nelson County, N.D., to help the local authorities solve a cattle-rustling case. Department of Homeland Security bought a fleet of them to spot border-jumpers and says it helps out local law enforcement from time to time. Fargo Forum

First there were government-employee pensions. Then, politicians rightly concluded that "government employees" who dodge bullets and run into burning buildings ought to be treated better than paper-pushers and granted them early retirement (age 50 or 55). Since that happened, though, all manner of other employees have pleaded for police-firefighter-type privileges, including forestry workers, lifeguards, coroners, museum guards, and highway laborers (slow down! men at work!). Now that so many can retire early, and then pump up pension payouts by loading up overtime in their last years on the job . . well, they've got theirs, and you had your chance to be a forestry worker, too (in California, a pension of $64,000 a year)! USA Today

What happens if 24 Marines in Haditha, Iraq, are plausibly accused of murdering civilians, and the USMC investigates at length, and then buries any findings it made, and, finally, hey, it's time to pull out of Iraq, and the orders from Washington are to get rid of all the extraneous files, and voilà! In this case, however, a New York Times reporter stumbled upon 400 pages of discarded hardcopy at a dump in Baghdad, where the paper was being used for cooking smoked carp for dinner. Awkward. New York Times

Because 3 percent of Planned Parenthood's work consists of providing abortion services, the Southern Baptist Convention abruptly pulled its co-branded Pink Bibles, which were to be handed out in support of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast-cancer organization. Associated Press via Fox News

When no one was looking, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum's Finance Director paid for the facility's new, state-of-the-art sound system with his own Visa cards, to claim the reward points, and then billed the Coliseum back. Win-win! Los Angeles Times

The Americanization of Iran: Parviz Sorouri, a member of the national-security committee of the Iranian Parliament, announced that the government (after peeling all the intel it can from that downed drone) should file a lawsuit against the U.S. for trespassing. BBC News

Also . . . Atheists in Santa Monica, Calif., and Leesburg, Va., commandeered fair and square the towns' Nativity-scene properties (and in the latter appeared the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster's creche "Touched By An Angelhair"!) [Los Angeles Times] [Washington Post] . . . . . The European Food Safety Authority ruled definitively that prunes are not laxatives and can't be so advertised [Daily Telegraph] [ed.: One way to prove it--lock down the restrooms and make the EFSA commissioners gobble a bunch of 'em] . . . . . TSA revealed that, so far this year, its agents have caught travelers with 1,100 firearms [CNN].