About that poverty report by the AP...

I snorted fluids through my nose when I read this over at Instapundit:

THE HORROR: When half of all households are below the median income. I blame Barack Obama, and I want a president who won’t rest until everyone is above the median income! But how likely is that when most people are perfectly satisfied to live in a society where twenty percent are in the bottom quintile?

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 2:57 pm

The I read the linked article and didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

The other day AP published an article titled, "Census shows 1 in 2 people are poor or low-income," which pointed to a US Census Bureau report showing that half of all households earn less than the median national income. Yes, you read that correctly.

The AP's Hope Yen reported:

Squeezed by rising living costs, a record number of Americans -- nearly 1 in 2 -- have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income.

The Census Bureau's definition of a 'low-income household' is less than $45,000, as the AP's Yen wrote:

Many middle-class Americans are dropping below the low-income threshold -- roughly $45,000 for a family of four...

As we noted in a post on the AP 'story,' the US Census Bureau estimates that the median 2009 US household income was about $50,000.

Sounds like a report on Lake Woebegone:

Lake Wobegon is characterized as the town where "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average."

My goodness! Half the US households are below the middle (median) income level! Who would have thunk it!

Lies. Damn lies. And statistics. (Although that usually only works if you can confuse people with the statistics--not your stupidity.)

Oops!

Somali pirate error ends with 5 in French brig

Somali pirates in two skiffs fired on a French navy vessel early Wednesday after apparently mistaking it for a commercial boat, the French military said. The French ship gave chase and captured five suspected pirates.

Doesn't qualify them for the Darwin Awards, however. They were merely captured and not killed.

UPDATE: And then there's this story from the Daily Mail Online:

Thugs attack two transvestites... who turn out to be cage fighters wearing fancy dress

Two thugs who attacked what they thought were a pair of transvestites picked on the wrong men - when their intended victims turned out to be cage fighters on a night out in fancy dress.

Dean Gardener, 19, and Jason Fender, 22, singled out the two men walking along a street in wigs, short skirts and high heels.

Bare-chested Gardener was caught on CCTV confronting one of the men in a pink wig, black skirt and boob tube - then seen swinging a punch, a court heard.

But the other cage fighter, wearing a sparkling black dress and matching long wig, sprang to his friend's help, delivering two lightning-quick punches to the two stunned yobs.

The cage fighters were then seen teetering away in their high heels, stopping only to pick up a clutch bag they dropped during the melee.

Gardener and Fender were left dazed and seen staggering to their feet after their failed attack.

Two questions:

1) What made the fools think transvestites might be easy targets? (Especially since they themselves were rip roaring drunk.)

2) Just why were these two cage fighters dressed up as women? The article gives no clue.
[UPDATE: Read somewhere...Ace of Spades?...that they were going to a stag party at which all participants were to dress in drag.]

Then there's this part of their sentence:

The pair were sentenced to a four-month community order, were electronically tagged and placed under a curfew between 7pm to 7am.

Friggin tag -and-release!

Flip-Flop

Fox News is reporting that NBC has changed its mind about airing the Freedom’s Watch ads. I don’t suppose it had anything to do with the many, many blogs that pointed the finger at their decision or the tons of emails and phone calls they probably received. Perhaps, next time, they might think before they jump the shark.
NBC REVERSES COURSE, AGREES TO AIR TROOP 'THANK YOU' AD

Can we question their (MSM) partisanship now?

This might go a long way to explaining the idiocy at NBC. Red State reports , you decide.

NBC Lawyer who nixed troop ad gives generously to Congressional Democrats...at least $45,000 to a host of Congressional Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, New York Senator Hillary Clinton and the campaign committees of House and Senate Democrats.

According to a Fox News report, Richard Cotton, the general counsel for NBC/Universal, was one of two network officials who decided not to sell ad time to Freedom’s Watch, which describes itself as “a nonpartisan movement dedicated to preserving, protecting, and defending conservative principles and promoting a conservative agenda.”

At least Freedom's Watch is willing to announce its conservative agenda (although the ads don’t display it or flaunt it in any way and are strictly thank you notes to the troops and their families). Richard Cotton and NBC...perfect together. Jerks!

Shame on NBC

NBC has refused to play this simple ad from FreedomsWatch.org extending thanks to the troops who are in harms way this holiday season.



We've come a long way from the days of Bob Hope's USO tours, nearly all of which NBC aired. The 1970 and '71 Vietnam shows are reported to have been viewed by 60% of American households. But now NBC won't air a 30 second commercial saying, "thanks."

Faulty Fax Causes panic …

Where else but in Massachusetts. The same place where a cartoon promotion went south and the city of Boston shut down for the better part of a day.

A faulty bank fax printed a message that was misinterpreted as a bomb threat Wednesday, leading authorities to evacuate more than a dozen neighboring businesses and a day care center.

The pictures—a clock and a match lighting a bomb came through but not the text saying, “The countdown begins…Small Business Commitment Week June 4-8 Mark your Calendar.”

The branch manager of the Bank of America called police about 10 a.m. after receiving a fax containing images of a lit match and a bomb with a fuse

There may have been some extenuating circumstances which caused the branch manager to call the police:

Fears also arose because the branch received a suspicious package delivered by a customer around the same time, police said. A State Police bomb squad searched the bank branch and checked out the package, which was a delivery of documents.

But it still seems to me that the folks in Massachusetts are wound up so tight that they make they’d probably bounce like a super ball if you threw them against a wall.

About 15 small businesses in a shopping plaza were evacuated for about three hours, including a day care center with about 30 children, Police Chief Scott Rohmer said.

So the bank gets a “suspicious” fax and a package that turns out to be documents and everybody in the strip mall as to shut down. Now who will compensate those 15 businesses for lost income?

The fax was sent to the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank's branches in parts of New England, New York and New Jersey. It did not result in any other bomb scares at other branches, Anguilla said.

Sorry, this is sick.

But heaven forbid they should every see their child playing with a toy gun! Or—GASP—think about becoming a soldier!

The Family-Friendly Easter Bomb Hunt

It used to be that an Easter egg hunt was just an Easter egg hunt. It had no message beyond cute kids playing with colored eggs. Now the venerable White House Easter Egg Roll, which dates to the 1870s, has become an occasion for at least two groups to make a statement that is as much about politics as it is about the spring holiday.

Those were the good old days! Just when did they change?

"Obviously, we're trying to spoof a little bit what will be happening on the South Lawn," said Brian Hennessey of the Vineeta Foundation, a local human rights group founded in 1995 that is the lead sponsor of the cluster-bomb hunt. "We're not trying to hit kids over the head with this; we want them to have fun. We also want to bring attention to the fact that our munitions cause a lot of death and destruction to civilians, especially children."

But you don’t want to “hit kids over the head with this”? Really?

Last year, gay and lesbian parents were in the media spotlight, when a group of about 100 families donned rainbow-colored leis and waited in the overnight line for egg roll tickets. Their goal was visibility. "Our families just want to participate in a great American tradition," said Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of the Family Pride Coalition, the group that led the effort.

At least this group only wanted “visibility.” I’ve no problem with their participation. It’s the preachin’ I’ve got a problem with.

She said she understands why the White House event attracts groups with agendas to promote. "I think the fact of the matter is, politics has gotten infused into a lot of parts of American lives," she said.

Yeah and it’s a damn shame.

"This is a White House that has been fairly unresponsive to the sentiments of its people, and I'm not surprised that folks are going to great lengths to get the president's attention."

Tell you what, let’s see what happens if your sentiments are put up to a general referendum instead of court shopping. Then we’ll see if the White House is “unresponsive to the sentiments of its people.” Okay?

Back to the cluster bomb hunt:

He said he has read a few comments from people wondering if it is right to expose children to thoughts of bombings and death when all they are after is a pleasant holiday experience. "I think a more important question is whether we should be exposing other people's children to these bombs," he said.

What about all those Palestinian kids paraded about with toy guns and suicide bomb jackets? Got anything to say about that practice? No? (And if you want a positive experience in exposing the kids to death, try the Easter Sunday sermon. Much more positive that the stuff you're peddling.)

The event […] will include a search for weapons of mass destruction for the adults. "They'll all come back looking confused five minutes later, saying they couldn't find anything," Hennessey said.

Isn’t that clever! Do they get to search in Syria, too? Or dig up the entire park?

Another search, for Osama bin Laden, will turn up only photographs of Saddam Hussein, he said. A hulk of a large bomb will be filled with toy bombs, and a prize will be given to whoever guesses the number inside.

Are they going to get copies of the dozen or so UN resolutions Saddam thumbed his nose at? Why not have a large photo of the Kurds Hussein gassed and have people guess the number of bodies?

At a "teach-in" yesterday at a Northwest Washington community center, Hennessey and others helped the children fashion the fake bombs, using balloons, tennis balls and brightly colored clay. The adults told the children they could write their names on the "bombs" and take them home after Monday's event. And they tried to explain what the concerns were all about.

Goodness, won’t that make a conversation piece!

h/t: Michelle Malkin

Wild creatures often are...

...even if caged, fed and treated with "kindness."

Gail at Scribal Terror had this post up earlier today about the folly of treating a wild critter as anything but: IN CASE YOU WERE PLANNING TO HAND FEED A MORAY EEL

I left a lengthy comment there about human stupidity.

Then this evening I came across this story:

Tiger Bites Off Woman's Arm at Zoo in Montenegro

A Siberian tiger at a private zoo in Montenegro bit off an arm of a woman who tried to feed the animal.

Lovely.