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American Madness readers: meet William Johnson.
William, it is my pleasure to introduce you to American Madness.
I apologize up front for the awkward introduction, but this is the only way we could arrange for this meeting. William is currently incarcerated in Brazoria County, Texas on a burglary charge.
Turns out, he asked one of the local trailer park residents to help him move a big screen TV out of another trailer home that wasn’t William’s. Outside of stealing someone’s snuff, thievin’ a TV from a trailer park is about the highest crime you can commit in that part of Texas.
And he might have gotten away with the theft if he hadn’t been pulled over during a couple suspicious U-Turns in the middle of the Interstate. And even that might not have got him nabbed if the officers didn’t think it entirely too weird that his co-pilots were a six-foot long alligator and a water moccasin (a type of poisonous snake).
Ok, I’ll pause and let you read that last little bit over again.
Yep, William here is a man with a fondness for reptiles. The Houston Chronicle reports Johnson told the pokey that he found the snake and the alligator on the sides of roads and picked them up because he has an interest in cold-blooded, scaled creatures. Read more »
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Matt introduced the AmericanMadness world to Flocke back in January. Back in those early days, she was just a squirming ball of fluff, but like all baby polar bears she captured the world’s heart.
Today, she is growing up fast and taking the star from Germany’s other world famous polar bear cub Knut. Of course, how can we forget Knut? When he took those first shaky steps last March in Berlin, he ignited a baby polar bear frenzy, and in the process becoming the spokesbear for the environmental movement (he starred next to Leonardo DiCaprio on the cover of Vanity Fair). The Berlin Zoo actually saw its stock price increase as a result of higher gate revenues from all the folks wanting to get a glimpse of the little bear.
Not to be outdone, the Nueremberg Zoo has plans to roll out its star to the public this coming month. In anticipation of Flocke’s big day, the Nuremberg Metropolitan Region has unveiled posters utilizing the star power of Flocke’s black button eyes and large bears’ paws.
Translated, “Knut war gestern,” is roughly, “Knut is yesterday’s bear.” The poster expresses some of the self-confidence of the Nuremberg Metropolitan Region, which knows its infrastructure will soon be strained with Germany looking to get a glimpse of Flocke on her first days out. Read more »
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[ This opinion piece appeared in the Wall Street Journal on February 20. It is reprinted here with the permission of author Betsy McCaughey Ross, a former lieutenant governor of New York, currently serving as an adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute (the original "think tank"). ]
On March 4, voters in the Texas Democratic primary will choose between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The battle is shaping up to be a health-care Alamo. Twenty five percent of people living in the Lone Star state are uninsured, according to the U.S. Census. That’s the highest rate of any state.
Sen. Clinton has issued the challenge, telling Sen. Obama “I’ll see you in Texas.” She promises to provide health coverage for “every single one of the nation’s 47 million uninsured,” and she accuses Sen. Obama of offering a “band aid” solution that would leave about a third of those 47 million uncovered.
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When your previous job used to be running around all day in a pair of spandex, getting sweaty with other men and then jumping on top of them, maybe you aren’t the right person to be coming out with a strong stance against gay rights.
Former Dallas Cowboys linebacker turn reverend, Ken Hutcherson of the Antioch Bible Church in Redmond, WA is claiming to be a modern day David against Goliath mega-corporations. Hutcherson is preaching that companies like Microsoft, who he says is attempting to become a political player in Washington state and push its policies on the entire state, can have their policies of toleration changed by the power of the shareholder.
Hutcherson is telling members of his 3,500 congregation to buy up shares of the company and reaching out to other religions, like Orthodox Jews, to do the same. The theory being that once they have amassed a controlling share of the company the can ‘correct’ the diversity policies currently in place , one of which includes an internal “affinity employee group” called the Gay and Lesbian Employees At Microsoft (GLEAM).
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Vermont and Washington are all set to be the first states to issue RFID (Radio Frequency Identification Chip) enhanced driver’s licenses. The programs and technology are in place in both states and plans are set to start churning them out in 2008.
The idea behind the RFID license would be to make border crossing easier between our neighbors to the North and South. No longer would you need to carry your passport with you to enter Canada or Mexico, but rather all you would need is your license (like it used to be before 2001). Seems like a nice idea to make life just that much easier.
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