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Post by Aedh on Mar 27, 2008 9:50:47 GMT -5
From yesterday's Daily Telegraph:Woot Woot! Take it off, Sergeant Bay-bee!!RAF bikini ready for take-off: The Royal Air Force is celebrating its 90th anniversary with the launch of a "show-stopping" diamante-encrusted bikini. We are informed that it's available, top for 20 quid, bottom for 15, at ... www.rafcollection.com/And from the same paper to-day ...It said it would still respect me in the morning ... *sniff*A New Zealand man who claimed he was raped by a wombat and that the experience left him speaking with an Australian accent has been found guilty of wasting police time.
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Post by BlackDragon on Mar 27, 2008 10:25:38 GMT -5
heheh wierd in did!! ;D Well maybe wierd isn't the right word....
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Post by Aedh on Mar 27, 2008 10:49:29 GMT -5
Personally, as far as the RAF story goes ... I think if I ran an Armed Service, it'd be my policy to approve the sale of only such apparel items as I myself, or my spouse, would be willing to wear in public, or that we'd let the kids wear to school.
*shrugs on Cleric Coat ... buttons it up carefully*
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Post by BlackDragon on Mar 27, 2008 11:17:31 GMT -5
Personally, as far as the RAF story goes ... I think if I ran an Armed Service, it'd be my policy to approve the sale of only such apparel items as I myself, or my spouse, would be willing to wear in public, or that we'd let the kids wear to school. *shrugs on Cleric Coat ... buttons it up carefully* Are you implying that a diamante-encrusted bikini isn't an adequate piece of apparel to wear in school!? *looks arround in a furtive way and buttons the cleric coat, calmly... entirely without incident*
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Post by BlackDragon on Mar 27, 2008 12:20:32 GMT -5
Only in Sociology and Biology lessons! ;D Ah!!! Good thing that I work in a biochemistry lab...
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Post by Aedh on Mar 31, 2008 8:43:32 GMT -5
'Damn Somebody' Department ...
In the worst slums of Port-au-Prince, Haiti (where 80 percent of the people live on less than $2 a day), rice now sells for 30 cents a cup (double the price of a year ago), according to a January Associated Press dispatch, leaving the poorest of the poor to subsist mainly on "cookies" made with dirt. Choice clay from the central plateau is at least a source of calcium and can be baked with salt and vegetable shortening. However, recently in the La Saline slum, the reporter noted, the price of dirt, too, has risen about 40 percent. [MSNBC-AP, 1-29-08]
[And here they told us that globalisation was supposed to drive prices down!!] *checks Berettas in sheaths*
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Post by Aedh on Mar 31, 2008 8:57:13 GMT -5
Your Honour ... they forced me to write potboilers!!
A prominent British novelist (former winner of the prestigious Whitbread Prize) announced in January that she had won a settlement of the equivalent of more than $200,000 from a shoe manufacturer in the town of Totnes because fumes from its factory so sapped her creativity that she was forced to write down-market thrillers instead of literary works. Joan Brady said numbness in her hands and legs, caused by pollutants, made her settle on simpler plotlines involving violence as she worked out her aggression toward the factory owners. [The Times (London), 1-24-08]
[PS ... I'm willing to bet this same lady also complains about the price of everything going up ... as liability insurance costs for businesses skyrocket.]
Your Honour, I'm a freak of nature ...
William Harvey, defending a DUI charge in court in Perth, Scotland, in February, told the judge that his high blood-alcohol reading was because he has a "balloon-like" pouch in his neck--sort of like a pelican's--that collects most of the alcohol he swallows and therefore makes it seem that he is much more inebriated than he really is ... In an unfair blow to human pelicans everywhere, Harvey was convicted. [BBC News, 2-18-08]
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Post by Aedh on Apr 1, 2008 21:38:46 GMT -5
I keep up on this stuff with interest. The embryos so generated of course would not be implanted--it would be useless anyway. The hosts would spontaneously abort them. Nature is--for all of the half-baked science fiction out there--actually quite good at ridding itself of freaks and of many hybrids. (Hybrids tend to be sterile and nature abhors sterility.) That's why such freaks as survive are so rare and fascinating.
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Post by Aedh on Apr 8, 2008 1:59:31 GMT -5
Irish Airline Hires Temps To Fill Seats!
DUBLIN - Flybe has given the term low-fare airline an entirely new meaning: It is paying 172 people to fly back and forth across England and the Irish Sea to help it meet a target for passenger numbers at Norwich airport.
Flybe was narrowly falling short of a target to deliver at least 15,000 passengers on the Dublin-Norwich route in the 12 months ending on Monday, which meant it would have to forego a 280,000 pound ($550,000) rebate from the airport.
After the airport rejected a request for a partial rebate for almost hitting the target, Flybe hired 172 temps for 30-40 pounds each, plus a free bar and in-flight entertainment, though it admitted "it probably sounds like an early April fool."
But Richard Jenner, managing director of the airport in eastern England, called the British carrier's move "ludicrous" and said the target had to be met by regular fare-paying passengers.
"The ludicrousness is on the Norwich side who in essence have tried to hold us to ransom, putting at risk routes into Norwich," Flybe Chief Commercial Officer Mike Rutter replied in a joint interview with Jenner on Irish public broadcaster RTE.
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Post by Aedh on Apr 8, 2008 16:20:46 GMT -5
Ah, the old "serpent-in-the-knickers" ploy ... LANSING, Mich. - A woman stole a boa constrictor from a pet store by slipping the snake down her pants, the owner said. The animal was stolen Thursday afternoon from Preuss Animal House in Lansing. "I am far less concerned for the person than for the snake," owner Rick Preuss said. The 20-inch snake was worth $174. Jayzun Boget, assistant manager of Preuss' reptile department, called the heist "audacious." ["20-inch--down her pants--??" I'd say "audacious" is a rather modest word!]excuse me ... I feel a little faint ...
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Post by Aedh on Apr 9, 2008 17:38:00 GMT -5
Gives new meaning to the phrase: "Think globally, act locally!"
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Post by Aedh on Apr 12, 2008 16:26:20 GMT -5
The Co-Dependents' Loo!Now available, to the relief of all those couples who were in agony because there was still one thing they couldn't do together ... relief is in sight! Available for around $3000 from any good plumbing place--featuring a "co-flush" which will do both bowls from a shared reservoir for a net savings of 6 litres of water.
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Post by Aedh on Apr 14, 2008 22:04:43 GMT -5
I know "two's company" but that's taking it too far! How about THESE "two's company ...?" Asked about Britney Spears--quote: "The fatter she gets, the weirder she gets, and the more I love her. I'd marry her in a heartbeat." --Moby, quoted in NME.com Yo! Mobe & Brit?? I'd send flowers!! ;D
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Post by Aedh on Apr 17, 2008 23:46:56 GMT -5
"Bullpen could use some beefing up ..."
TOKYO, April 17 (Reuters) - A Japanese high school pleaded for a regional baseball game to be abandoned after surrendering 66 runs in less than two innings, local media reported on Thursday.
The coach of Kawamoto technical high school threw in the towel to spare his pitcher’s arm with his team losing 66-0 with just one batter out in the bottom of the second.
The hapless hurler had already sent down over 250 pitches, allowing 26 runs in the first inning and 40 in the second before Kawamoto asked for mercy.
“At that pace the pitcher would have thrown around 500 pitches in four innings,” Kawamoto’s coach was quoted as saying. “There was a danger he could get injured.”
Opponents Shunshukan were officially credited with a 9-0 victory, giving the scoreline a tinge of respectability for the luckless Kawamoto school.
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Post by Aedh on Apr 24, 2008 22:58:55 GMT -5
Hahahahaha! Three cheers for the Bum Bot! I wonder if he's posted the diagrams for it online anywhere ...?
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Post by Aedh on Apr 28, 2008 8:37:41 GMT -5
Here's to hard times!! Yeah bay-bee!
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Post by Aedh on Apr 28, 2008 8:40:49 GMT -5
Police Blotto Blotter, Part 2!
In Ocala, Fla., in March, Bret Wass, 28, scrambling from police investigating a sexual battery, commandeered a tow truck and drove away, even though the truck had a car hooked onto it; during the chase, he hit the patrol car and was captured on foot nearby. [WKMG-TV (Orlando), 4-1-08]
Police in Osaka, Japan, mobilized in January to apprehend fugitive Hirofumi Fukuda, 27, who was wanted for assaulting an officer (which tends to get the attention of fellow officers). By the end of the two-hour episode, a helicopter and 460 patrol cars, involving 2,240 law-enforcement officers, were on the case. [Japan Today, 1-26-08]
In three Canadian incidents in March and April, robbers were arrested in the act after police were tipped off in advance. The source of the tip each time was a store employee who had been brazenly notified by the perp to expect a robbery soon. Daniel Glen, 40, was arrested in Windsor, Ontario, having called ahead to make sure there was enough money in the convenience store's cash register. [Camwest News Service, 3-24-08]
An 18-year-old man was arrested in Chicago, having given his phone number to a Mufflers For Less employee and instructing him to call when the manager, with access to the safe, arrived at work. [Chicago Sun-Times, 3-25-08]
And two men were arrested near Traverse City, Mich., having described to a gas station employee two hours earlier exactly how they would soon rob him. [WPBN-TV (Traverse City), 4-3-08]
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Post by Aedh on Apr 28, 2008 23:34:59 GMT -5
1. I have said it elsewhere, and I'll say it again. We don't need to deploy Marines and troops to conquer Iran. All we need to deploy is Pink, Beyonce Knowles, and Christina Aguilera. When ten million Iranian women realise they don't have to take any shit from anyone if they all stand up, the revolution will be over.
2. I love it.
PLA Colonel:"Comrade Manager, how stand matters in Texile Manufactory 'Ten Thousand Red Flowers?' Has business gone well?"
Comrade Manager: "Calmly ... coolly ... entirely without incident."
*ominous c-click*
Commissar: "Not without incident."
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Post by clericjay on Apr 29, 2008 8:41:22 GMT -5
To the Tibet-story: I love it too!!! ;D The humor of life is very ironic, isn't it?
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Post by Aedh on Apr 29, 2008 12:25:18 GMT -5
News Of The Chopper ...
Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.
...
Lawmakers in Florida have voted to ban the fake bull testicles that dangle from the trailer hitches of many trucks and cars throughout the state.
...
And, finally, Barbara Blair says this new gel she's been using makes her face look a lot younger than the Retin-A and vitamin C creams she's been using.
"It's really tightened my skin. Firmed it. The little lines are much better. The texture is very appreciably different."
What Blair probably doesn't know is that a key ingredient in the cream is the foreskin of a circumcised baby.
The skin that would otherwise be tossed away. It was first made into a product that helped burn victims heal. Now it's in this antiwrinkle gel, called TNS Recovery Complex.
Betsy Rubenstone is the aesthetician in the plastic surgery department at the University of Pennsylvania and she swears by this stuff.
She knows why the foreskin is used.
"It's filled with everything we begin to lose as we age," Rubenstone says. "And that includes growth factors, amino acids, proteins, collage, elastin and holyuronic acid."
Thomas Jefferson University Hospital dermatologist Paul Bujanauskas says while TNS might have merit, he would not prescribe it for his patients because no scientific research proving its value has been published in medical journals.
The cost of one bottle of TNS is about $130. And that will last you about a month and a half. How does it smell? Well that's another downside. Just ask anybody who uses it.
"It's disgusting. It's got a sour smell to it that makes you want to gag," says Blair. "But you get used to it."
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Post by Aedh on Apr 30, 2008 12:34:09 GMT -5
Broccoli Bandit of King's Somborne strikes again!!
Hants police on the look-out for a very healthy marauder!![/i]
It is said a criminal should never return to the scene of the crime - but no one seems to have told the brazen broccoli burglar of King's Somborne.
A thief has struck four times in the last two weeks at Frank Fahy's vegetable patch. On each occasion he has cut through protective netting and pinched a single head of broccoli.
The thieving is driving Mr Fahy, a 71-year-old retired professor, to distraction - not least because his efforts to deter the culprit have been fruitless.
He has raised the issue with the Hampshire village's parish council and local policeman Martin Benton is on the case. Mr Fahy, who serves on the parish council, said yesterday: 'The only way to get it stopped was to report it to the police.
'The net had been carefully cut over the broccoli and the heads taken.
'Each time one head was taken. They are each worth about 50p. It is a bit distressing.'
After the first theft Mr Fahy put up a notice saying 'smile you are on camera' - but within three days the thief struck for the second time.
Then he put up a notice saying he had sprayed some of his 30-strong crop with insecticide - but still the thefts continued. Now he has put up a notice by his allotment warning the burglar that police are investigating.
Mr Fahy, a former professor of acoustics at Southampton University, said: 'My wife and I like to eat our broccoli. I have now put up a notice saying I have reported the thefts to the police.'
He added that the same thing happened at a similar time last year.
'I was not prepared to let it happen again,' he said. 'I want it stopped.'
Parish council chairman David Bidwell said: 'Frank is a very keen allotment holder. He happened to mention what had happened to his broccoli at a parish council meeting and the village policeman said this would be taken very seriously.
'It sounds trivial, but Frank has been the victim of theft. It is very disappointing to grow something on an allotment and have it taken away. At first he thought it might be a natural occurrence - maybe a rabbit. But on closer inspection, it was clear a knife had been used. And rabbits don't carry knives.'
He added: 'It is hard to know exactly when they may strike again.
'But one would hope somebody carrying several large heads of broccoli would be noticeable in a place like King's Somborne, where there is not much crime.'
Hampshire Police said: 'We have recorded this as theft although we have no firm lines of inquiry.'
Perhaps it's the Broccoli Liberation Front?? This calls for strong action from the local ... Green Party!!
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Post by Aedh on May 1, 2008 13:02:27 GMT -5
Interesting ... perhaps if Ms Wehbe agreed to sing from behind a screen? You can't get any more proper than that.
In the meantime, this is an interesting study. Bahrein is a sort of mixed place. You can't drink in public, but private drinking is tolerated. Short skirts are allowed. Sleeveless tops and/or short pants (on males AND females) are prohibited, and female sleeves must end at the elbow at least. Women are allowed to hold employment and to drive. Buggery is right out.
To make up for the relatively liberal (for a Gulf state) rules on women, there are strict laws on "immodest behaviour." The Government there is run by a coalition of Islamists who hold a rather shaky majority, and have been forced to make some concessions to hold on to power.
I think they are worried because Ms Wehbe is very popular and they are worried that her show would spark a movement that could lead to demands for new elections and a new Government.
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Post by Aedh on May 1, 2008 14:39:39 GMT -5
Not so much "weird" as tragic and a bit odd ...Second suicide in DC prostutution ring!Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the convicted but not-yet-sentenced proprietor of a high-class Washington DC prostutition ring, whose clients included many prominent politicians including Louisiana Senator David Vitter, was found dead by suicide near her mother's Florida home. There was a note, but police have not yet released other details. A recent pic of Ms Palfrey ... This follows last year's suicide of Dr Brandy Britton, a former professor of sociology at the University of Maryland (Baltimore County). Britton, then 43, also had an outstanding academic background in biology as well. Britton had left her UMBC post in 1999 to teach in public school, and left that as well. Arrested in a 2006 sting operation, she denied being a professional sex worker in an interview, but then, when asked how she had supported herself and paid for her $400,000 home in a comfortable, family-oriented suburban neighbourhood, gave the name of a book: "Sex Work: Writings By Women In The Sex Industry." Britton's suicide took place after her arrest, but before her trial occurred. Britton, it turned out, had been employed by Palfrey in the business, which Palfrey ran for thirteen years. At her legal proceedings, discussion of Britton's suicide took place, but Palfrey said: "I guess I'm made of something Brandy Britton wasn't made of."
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Post by Aedh on May 1, 2008 14:49:09 GMT -5
I think it's the shoulders visible in some shots. A bared pair of good shoulders is considered seriously seductive in some quarters.
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Post by Aedh on May 3, 2008 10:02:35 GMT -5
U.S. Civil War Claims Another Life!
Sam White, an avid collector of Civil War relics, was killed on February 18 when a cannonball he was restoring exploded. The Chester, Va., man was an expert on Civil War munitions. "Sam knew his stuff, no doubt about it," said local historian Jimmy Blankenship. White, 53, was one of thousands of hobbyists who comb former battlegrounds for artifacts using metal detectors, pickaxes, shovels and trowels.
As an adult, he crisscrossed the Virginia countryside in search of wartime relics -- weapons, battle flags, even artillery shells buried in the red clay. He sometimes put on diving gear to feel for treasures hidden in the black muck of river bottoms. But in February, White's hobby cost him his life: A cannonball he was restoring exploded, killing him in his driveway.
More than 140 years after Lee surrendered to Grant, the cannonball was still powerful enough to send a chunk of shrapnel through the front porch of a house a quarter-mile from White's home in this leafy Richmond suburb.
White's death shook the close-knit fraternity of relic collectors and raised concerns about the dangers of other Civil War munitions that lay buried beneath old battlefields. Explosives experts said the fatal blast defied extraordinary odds.
"You can't drop these things on the ground and make them go off," said retired Col. John F. Biemeck, formerly of the Army Ordnance Corps.
"There just aren't many areas in the South in which battlefields aren't located. They're literally under your feet," said Harry Ridgeway, a former relic hunter who has amassed a vast collection. "It's just a huge thrill to pull even a mundane relic out of the ground."
After growing up in Petersburg, White went to college, served on his local police force, then worked for 25 years as a deliveryman for UPS. He retired in 1998 and devoted most of his time to relic hunting. He was an avid reader, a Civil War raconteur and an amateur historian who watched History Channel programs over and over, to the mild annoyance of his wife.
"I used to laugh at him and say, 'Why do you watch this? You know how it turned out. It's not going to be any different,"' Brenda White said. She didn't share her husband's devotion, but she had an understanding of his interest.
"True relic hunters who have this passion, they don't live that way vicariously, like if you were a sports fanatic," she said. "Finding a treasure is their touchdown, even if it's two, three bullets."
Union and Confederate troops lobbed an estimated 1.5 million artillery shells and cannonballs at each other from 1861 to 1865. As many as one in five were duds. Some of the weapons remain buried in the ground or river bottoms. In late March, a 44-pound, 8-inch mortar shell was uncovered at Petersburg National Battlefield, the site of an epic 292-day battle. The shell was taken to the city landfill and detonated.
Black powder provided the destructive force for cannonballs and artillery shells. The combination of sulfur, potassium nitrate and finely ground charcoal requires a high temperature -- 572 degrees Fahrenheit -- and friction to ignite.
White estimated he had worked on about 1,600 shells for collectors and museums. On the day he died, he had 18 cannonballs lined up in his driveway to restore. White's efforts seldom raised safety concerns. His wife and son Travis sometimes stood in the driveway as he worked.
"Sam knew his stuff, no doubt about it," said Jimmy Blankenship, historian-curator at the Petersburg battleground. "He did know Civil War ordnance."
An investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms will not be complete until the end of May, but police who responded to the blast and examined shrapnel concluded that it came from a Civil War explosive.
Experts suspect White was killed while trying to disarm a 9-inch, 75-pound naval cannonball, a particularly potent explosive with a more complex fuse and many times the destructive power of those used by infantry artillery.
Biemeck and Peter George, co-author of a book on Civil War ordnance, believe White was using either a drill or a grinder attached to a drill to remove grit from the cannonball, causing a shower of sparks.
Because of the fuse design, it may have appeared as though the weapon's powder had already been removed, leading even a veteran like White to conclude mistakenly that the ball was inert.
The weapon also had to be waterproof because it was designed to skip over the water at 600 mph to strike at the waterline of an enemy ship. The protection against moisture meant the ball could have remained potent longer than an infantry shell.
Brenda White is convinced her husband was working on a flawed cannonball, and no amount of caution could have prevented his death.
"He had already disarmed the shell," she said. "From what I was told, there was absolutely nothing he had done wrong, that there was a manufacturing defect that no one would have known was there."
After White's death, about two dozen homes were evacuated for two days while explosives experts collected pieces from his collection and detonated them.
Today, there is little evidence of the Feb. 18 blast. The garage where White did most of his work is still crammed with his discoveries, many painstakingly restored and mounted. Rusted horseshoes are piled high in the crook of a small tree.
White's digging partner, Fred Lange, hasn't had the heart to return to his relic hunting.
"I truly miss him," Lange said. "Not a day that goes by that I don't think of him."
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Post by Aedh on May 6, 2008 21:38:27 GMT -5
A bared pair of good shoulders is considered seriously seductive in some quarters. I stand by what I said ... good shoulders.
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Post by Aedh on May 7, 2008 16:43:23 GMT -5
(You will have to remember, from a certain event back in the '90s, how "borking" became an actual verb in American English to appreciate this one. But I'm putting it on anyway.)
*cut camera to Muppet TV Studio with Muppet News Reporter reading a bulletin*
News Flash!!
In a surprise move today the President nominated The Swedish Chef to replace retiring Supreme Court Associate Justice John Paul Stevens. Asked why he would name a Muppet to the high court, the President replied, "He's the only candidate who can bork the Senate Judiciary Committee better than the Committee can bork." The nominee was heard to comment, "Hergee berger snooger burg guilty hassa charggeda bork." The press conference was called to an abrupt end when the nominee began hitting reporters on the head with his frying pan.
*Chef walks onto scene and begins pounding the Muppet News Reporter with aforementioned frying pan*
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Post by Aedh on May 28, 2008 10:03:31 GMT -5
I love this concept actually. I think jail time for offenders could be considerably reduced if they spent it without shoes. It'd make the prospect of time behind bars rather more humbling and unpleasant ... and for someone who'd spent a lot of time in chokey, you could tell them right away by looking at their feet ... no need for fancy ID technology.
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Post by Aedh on May 31, 2008 12:37:51 GMT -5
On 5 May, the US Senate Rules committee finally snuffed out the last embers of places where smoking was permitted on the Senate grounds; the Dirksen Senate Office Building cafeteria, and a lounge in the basement of the Hart Senate Office Building next to a coffee shop. For the record, we have Frank Lautenberg, New Jersey Democrat, to thank for that. Now that that's done, no word yet on when they intend to start banning coffee and red meat.
Lautenberg, it will be remembered, was a Senator from New Jersey who served from 1982 to 2000 alongside Democrat Bob Torricelli. Lautenberg retired at the age of 78 to make way for the election of current Democrat Jon Corzine, who then took his place beside Torricelli--with whom Lautenberg had had famously ill-tempered relations.
However, when a campaign-finance/lobbying scandal involving Torricelli exploded in the 2002 election season, Torricelli was forced to resign, even though State election laws said that it was too late to place another name on the ballot to replace him. It was thought that this would guarantee the election of Torricelli's Republican opponent, Doug Forrester. However, the New Jersey party went ahead and secured Lautenberg's consent to have his name placed on the ballot anyway in defiance of the rules; perhaps he was delighted to be able to rub his old enemy's face in the dirt. He was elected again, and is the only sitting Senator to serve two non-consecutive terms in office.
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Post by Aedh on Jun 6, 2008 12:20:33 GMT -5
Heh heh! "Carry On, PC!"
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