Herb Brooks dies in car accident. The coach of the 1980 US hockey team was killed in a car wreck. What a shame. Probably the most memorable sporting event of all time. I could watch that game over and over again if they had a tape.]]>
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The San Francisco papers are reporting that a SF Police officer who used a bb gun to rescue a balloon aided flying chicken is under a disciplinary review. Apparently, you can only use SFPD weapons while on duty, but the cop is arguing the bb gun was not a weapons (eventhough you could put someones eye out). For those who forgot, the chicken was tied to 100 balloons and sailed over San Francisco before ending up in some power lines.]]>
The New York Times is reporting on the death of (yet another) African strongman. Foday Sankoh, the warlord from Sierra Leone who made mutilations his signature weapon of war and came to symbolize the face of deranged cruelty, died Tuesday night in the custody of a United Nations-backed war crimes tribunal, officials of the court announced today. Sanokah was trained in Libya alongside of another whack job named Charles Taylor (Liberia). Sanokah had an offensive in 1998 called “”No Living Thing.”” Remember the kid soldiers who hacked off people’s arms? You guess it. Reminds of me of something P.J. O’Rourke once wrote: “”Man developed in Africa. He has not continued to do so there.”” ]]>
This poor polar bear was being treated for a skin condition by vets when the medicine they gave him turned his hair from white to purple. Doctors say it will take about a month but eventually his hair will change back to the normal color.]]>
Moscow Times. Platon Lebedev, arrested three weeks ago on charges arising from a 1994 privatization deal, was arrested as a warning shot to the oligarchs who now own Russia. The head of Yukos oil, Mikhail Khodorkovsky is really the target, as he is a multibillionaire with suspected political ambitions, but by arresting another they can send a message without having to really address an issue. Russia has been doing much better of late, thanks in large part to higher oil prices. In some ways, the whole country has its fortune tied up with oil as there is little else in the Russian economy (besides weapons) that are generating any foreign currency. And speaking of foreign currency, the Moscow Times also talks about a possible currency flight underway in Russia. “”The first week of Lebedev’s imprisonment cost the country $200 million in foreign exchange reserves, and the second week cost it $900 million — the biggest one-week drop in more than a year. The Central Bank posts its reserves for the previous week every Thursday, so the big question economists are asking now is, how much did week three of Lebedev’s arrest cost?”” And people wondered why the Russians wanted a client like Saddam in power in Iraq.]]>