Day: June 7, 2013

I was pretty sad to hear this week that Russian President and all-around-good-guy Vladimir Putin divorced his wife, Lyudmila. If this doesn’t strike a fatal blow for the concept of Russian romanticism, I don’t know what will. We had Camelot in the Kremlin, and now it’s gone. Putin will probably end up cruising for chicks with Bill Clinton and Silvio Berlusconi. If you wondered what the “red wedding” was this week, odds are you missed it.

Somebody’s watching me
It was reported this week that the NSA has had access to and collected personal information and history from Verizon Wireless customers, as well as all the big internet data services. In fact, the NSA has been watching us all for the better part of a decade, and the courts are upholding it all. In other news, I’m very glad that there are entire offices at the NSA reading my work. Thanks, guys!

‘I signed an executive order to keep this bar open’
This week, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick admitted that the day Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured, he went home and got “quite drunk.” It’s incredibly insensitive to say he got bombed. So let’s just say he did the same thing as everyone else in Boston did, if they hadn’t been doing that during their lockdown in the first place. Patrick is a man of the people.

Another old rich person
Gloria Mackenzie of Tallahassee, Florida came forward this week as the winner of the $590-million Powerball jackpot. As you might guess from the fact that her name is “Gloria” and she lives in Florida, she’s 84. Mackenzie wisely went for the lump-sum option of $370 million, rather than the 30 annual payments of the full jackpot. Mackenzie’s caretakers say they are anxious to collect her winnings.

Okay, so, yesterday, we said that the Steven Seagal headline was the best headline of the week for us.

We were wrong. We were so very, very wrong. This is how you end a week on a high note.

A Saudi prince is suing Forbes magazine for under-reporting his wealth. Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the grandson of the founder of Saudi Arabia and nephew of King Abdullah, claims that Forbes was about $9.6 billion short in its recent ranking of the richest people in the world. He believes that they curbed him to a mere $20 billion to intentionally rank him lower because he is from the Middle East, leaving him only in 26th place. (Third world problems, right?)

However, between this and his other lawsuit, that extra $9.6 billion may be already spent on legal fees.

What other lawsuit? He’s suing one of his ex-girlfriends for under-reporting his penis size by 9.6 inches.

Did you know that alcohol can help fight crime?

When copper wiring was reported stolen from an empty rental home in Syracuse, New York, the police weren’t sure they would find much in the way of clues. That is until they discovered that their suspect had tossed back a few during the heist. The DNA from empty beer cans left at the scene of the crime eventually led authorities to arrest a 29-year-old man in connection with the theft. Maybe they’ll add littering to the charges.

And so ends the career of the Drunken Bandit.

Bonus unrelated headline from the same source: “Natural Disasters: Does God Want our Attention?”