The mayor of Ocean City, Md., has ordered phase three of the city’s hurricane action plan be implemented.
What’s phase three?
Well, according to a news release, part of it is this:
“Utilizing the authority under a local State of Emergency, the Mayor is banning the sale of all alcohol in Ocean City.”
Oh. My. God. We’re all going to die.
The hurricane is coming!
Actually, it looks now that Irene may fizzle. WHTM-TV meteorologist Brett Thackara showed a model this morning that indicated that York County will get between a quarter- and a third-of-an-inch of rain for from late Saturday into Sunday afternoon.
That’s nothing. Let’s hope that’s how it works out.
And if it does, the headline Monday morning could be: Savage drizzle pummels York County.
That’s the question of the day here at What Have We Learned world headquarters, locating in the heart of…
Who am I kidding?
It’s just me this week. Tom has the week off, I guess. Or maybe he’s gone off to Libya to hunt for Moammar Gadhafi and collect that sweet bounty on the dictator’s head.
So here we go:
First, an earthquake shakes the East Coast. Then, Hurricane Irene was poised to wreak havoc all along the eastern seaboard.
What have we learned?
If you see a flock of locusts, prepare for the worst.
Or, Let’s see, according to the book, it looks like locusts are next. And then the lakes of fire. Hey, what’re these horses doing here?
In case you missed this story, it was great. A package at a UPS store was deemed suspicious. Isn’t that every package?
A man dropped off a package at a UPS store in Lancaster County. Since he was acting strangely, the bomb squad was called out to blow up the package and the man was taken into custody for, apparently, trying to ship a package.
What have we learned?
News of the police blowing up packages dropped by weird-acting people at UPS stores prompted eBay stock to plunge to a new low.
And, finally, a Gadhafi joke.
Libyan rebels offered a $2 million bounty on ousted dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
What have we learned?
And they offered a $3 million bounty on whoever picks out the dictator’s clothes.
Or, They offered a $3 million bounty to anyone who can figure out how to spell the dictator’s name.
We have a new entry in the domestic vengeance hall of fame.
The Daily Record reported that a Codorus Township man accused his ex-girlfriend of stealing three of his cows.
I know nothing about this relationship — or relationships in general — but it would seem to me that there would have to be a high degree of animosity to compel a person to steal, allegedly, three cows.
It’s clearly a hall-of-famer just for the degree of difficulty. I don’t know much about cows, but it seems it would be very hard to steal three of them. Just fitting them in the car would be nearly impossible.
And once you get away them, then what? Are there fences who handle hot cows?
You couldn’t just keep them in the basement. I mean, do you know what those things smell like?
If you don’t know the name lyricist Jerry Leiber, you don’t know rock’n'roll.
Leiber, with his partner, Mike Stoller, wrote some of the greatest songs in rock history. A good number of Elvis’ hits, “Hound Dog,” “Jailhouse Rock,” “King Creole,” among others, were Leiber-Stoller tunes.
The pair also wrote “Stand By Me,” “On Broadway,” “Yackety Yak,” and a ton of other great songs.
They wrote “Hound Dog,” originally, for Big Momma Thornton. Turned out to be a monster hit for The King.
Leiber was 78.
Read the New York Times obit here.
Fan mail:
“I’ve never been a fan of your column. Your incessant sarcasm is grating, and your lack of a unique viewpoint tells me that you’re either not real talented to begin with or you just have a tendency to mail it in. But, I wouldn’t write if that was all I had to say. Thank you for making everyone aware of Elijah Ministries and their circumstances. I imagine tomorrow morning they will experience the generosity of their neighbors because of you, and I’ll be there to drop off a check and a clothing donation.
“Congratulations, you’re a better human being than you are a writer.”
Usually, it’s the other way around. So I guess it all evens out.
This picture will make sense later in the post. Seriously.
Anyway, we’re back after a week off for undisclosed reasons. I’m not sure what happened, but it’s history now. We’re moving forward.
Here are the jokes.
Weis Markets has issued a recall for “Five Layer Dip With Guacamole,” due to possible bacteria contamination.
What have we learned?
Of course if you were routinely snacking down on Five Layer Dip With Guacamole, you probably weren’t in real good health to begin with.
Five-layer dip…Now, we’re hungry. What’s a little bacteria?
And the, we have this curious case involving door-to-door bleach salesmen. We never heard of them either.
Two men attempted to sell bleach to an Adams County resident to distract her while they stole a partial case of Miller Lite from her garage.
What have we learned?
Miller Lite? Geez. They might as well have drunk the bleach.
And now, to some news about the government losing track of money in Afghanistan.
The U.S. military estimates that millions of taxpayer dollars intended to rebuild Afghanistan have gone instead to criminals.
What have we learned?
This is terrible, especially when criminals here at home have been having such a hard time making ends meet.
This one, well, let’s hope our own U.S. Todd Platts doesn’t get any ideas.
U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican who authored a budget bill that would result in draconian cuts to Medicare and Social Security and has resulted in angry senior citizens yelling at him during town-hall meetings, is charging $15 admission to those meetings in his district this month.
What have we learned?
And calls to his office are billed at $2.95 a minute.
Or, For an extra $10, senior citizens can smack him upside the head.
And, finally, the joke that relates to the photo.
Air Force Staff Sgt. Daryn Moran has said he has desserted his post as an ophthalmology technician in Germany because he read on the Internet that President Barack Obama’s long form birth certificate is a fraud.
What have we learned?
Guy’s name is Moran. Sounds about right.
Listen to the podcast here.
Tom and I were really glad that that whole debt ceiling thing was solved early on during Shark Week. It would have been a shame had that political spectacle spoiled Shark Week.
We discuss Shark Week and a documentary titled “Great White Death,” produced by the makers of Toxic Avenger and narrated by Glenn Ford of all people. The movie is described on Salon magazine thusly: “If you wished Shark Week had less talking and more people-eating, this is your film.”
Check it out.
On to the jokes…
This joke sent chills down our spines:
A New Freedom man who pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct last week in a case that had involved the operation of a massage parlor has previously said he had been arrested for being a “smart ass.”
What have we learned?
You can be arrested for that? Crap.
And then, there was this moment that made us wax cinematic about naked guys in car trunks:
A police sergeant in West Reading, Pa., has been charged with illegally using a stun gun on three people and posting the results of one episode on the Internet.
What have we learned?
So it just wasn’t us, life does imitate “The Hangover.” Hey, what’s Mike Tyson’s tiger doing here?
Or, We saw that movie. It was hilarious when that guy got Tased in the crotch.
Of course, we have to have the obligatory debt ceiling joke:
Following the passage of a debt ceiling measure, Fitch Ratings cautioned that the government still has more work to do to maintain its AAA credit rating.
What have we learned?
Recommended improvements include the installation of a sneezeguard on the salad bar, and signs reminding Americans to wash their hands after using the restrooms.
And we finish with a joke that will never see the light of day:
Kingdom Holding Co., the investment firm headed by the billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, announced plans to build the world’s largest skyscraper in Saudi Arabia.
In a news conference, Alwaleed bin Talal insisted that the decision has nothing to do with the fact that his name means “flaccid” in Arabic. Then he drove off in his ’78 Camaro.
Great New Yorker story about the raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden.
An excerpt:
“As James talked about the raid, he mentioned Cairo’s role. ‘There was a dog?’ Obama interrupted. James nodded and said that Cairo was in an adjoining room, muzzled, at the request of the Secret Service.
“‘I want to meet that dog,’ Obama said.
“‘If you want to meet the dog, Mr. President, I advise you to bring treats,’ James joked. Obama went over to pet Cairo, but the dog’s muzzle was left on.
Great reporting and writing, as expected from the New Yorker.
Mike Argento, a York native and graduate of York Suburban Area High School and Penn State, first came to the York Daily Record in 1983. He even had gray hair back then. After stints covering everything from cops to city hall to state government to the environment, he began writing a column for the paper, three times a week, in 1989. His column can be about anything and so is his blog, which encompasses life in York County and beyond. And, for the record, as he told his wife the other night, he wishes people would stop asking him, 'What's wrong with you?' He really doesn't know.
