I have an idea. Let’s go do some graffiti in broad daylight. Even better, let’s do it to a building where a group of police officers are taking a class on how to conduct foot pursuits.

Over 100 sheriff’s deputies and police officers were attending a law enforcement training class when they saw a 22-year old man quickly etch the glass door that leads directly into a City of Commerce meeting room.  As Vasquez began to open the door to etch the inside, he looked shocked to see dozens of deputies and officers running directly towards him.  He turned and ran down the sidewalk as at least 40 deputies and officers crammed through the doorway at the City of Commerce Aquatic Center to go after him.

A bit dim, says I.

Sorry, but this is just one of the best headlines we’ve seen in a long time.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s churches criticized a businessman on Tuesday for selling thousands of Jesus chocolates.

Frank Oynhausen set up his “Sweet Lord” chocolate Jesus-making business saying he wanted to restore some traditional religious values to Christmas in Germany.

But the German Protestant Church criticized the idea as “tasteless” and the Roman Catholic Church was not amused.

The Toy Hall of Fame, in a sudden and no-doubt highly controversial move, will induct “The Stick” into the Hall.

Previously, such amazing inventions as “the cardboard box” have been inducted.

I’m still pulling for the “finger gun”, that was one of my favorites growing up.

And what will you do when he does it?

Poor guy finally realized his lifelong dream of bowling a perfect game. And promptly kicked the bucket.

RAVENNA, Mich. (WZZM) – Teammates in his bowling league think after rolling a perfect 300 game Don Doane’s heart just gave out.

“You get nervous shooting a 300,” says teammate Todd Place. “The pressure keeps building,” says bowling alley owner Jim Nutt.

Minutes after achieving the life long goal of a perfect game the 62 year old bowler collapsed and died at Ravenna Bowl in Ravenna. “Don just collapsed,” says alley owner Nutt. ” At first we thought he just fainted.” “Then when I rolled him over I realized it wasn’t good,” says teammate Place.

“I think he died by the time he hit the floor.” Don Doane was a member of the “Nutt Farm” bowling team at Ravenna Bowl for 45 years. His teammates says its strange not to see him on league nights.

“It was like a book, a final chapter,” says Place. “He threw his 300 game with all of his friends, gave each other high-fives and it’s like the story ended. He died with a smile on his face.”

He reached his goal; he went out with a smile. But for me, I guess I will have to just put off shooting par out at El Cariso indefinitely. It could be fatal.

Woooo wouldn’t that be juicy? JammieWearingFool found this one:

Barack Obama is the target of a shadowy smear campaign designed to derail his bid for the US Presidency by falsely claiming he had a close friendship with an attractive African-American female employee.

The whispers focus on a young woman who in 2004 was hired to work on his team for his bid to become a senator.

The woman was purportedly sidelined from her duties after Senator Obama’s wife, Michelle, became convinced that he had developed a personal friendship with her.

Of course, we know that any such accusation would be racist, a lie, deliberately designed to instantly elect McCain, or divert attention from Sarah Palin’s SAT scores.

But it’s still pretty damned funny. Thanks, Granddaddy Longlegs.

A friend of ours is involved in a project called “Operation Gratitude”, a California 501(c)(3) that sends care packages and letters to our GIs in Iraq and around the world. We heard they were having a “garage sale” at the National Guard armory in Van Nuys yesterday, so we went down to check it out as it’s just a couple blocks from where we like to do what we sometimes can almost call “play golf”.

Anyhow, the sale was great; it consisted of items they just couldn’t send to the troops that had been donated since the beginning of the program, be it because of size or weight restrictions, or inappropriateness, etc. The proceeds go towards the cost of mailing the packages overseas.

We then went into the Armory to see what they were doing — there was a MOUNTAIN of boxes being put together for next weekend’s shipping marathon. We’ll be going next weekend to see if we can lend a hand.

This project is amazing. Operation Gratitude describes it’s mission as:

Hundreds of thousands of American troops are deployed in hostile and remote regions of the world, including the Middle East, Afghanistan, Africa, Guantanamo Bay and on ships throughout international waters. The physical conditions they must endure are difficult and they may be separated from loved ones for long periods of time. OPERATION GRATITUDE seeks to lift troops’ morale, and bring a smile to their faces by sending care packages addressed to individual service members deployed overseas. Operation Gratitude care packages contain food, toiletries, entertainment items and personal letters of appreciation, all wrapped with good wishes of love and support.

Through Collection Drives, Letter Writing Campaigns and Donations of requested items or funds for shipping expenses, OPERATION GRATITUDE provides civilians anywhere in America a way to express their respect and appreciation to the men and women of the U.S. military in an active, hands-on manner.

OPERATION GRATITUDE is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, all-volunteer corporation, funded entirely by private donations. For safety and security, the assembling of all packages occurs at the Army National Guard Armory in Van Nuys, California.

If you have any inkling of donating or volunteering, click the link above and check out their great program and excellent work. And please, help spread the word.

You have GOT to be kidding me. Jimmy Carter is criticizing Bush on the economy?

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Former President Jimmy Carter said on Friday the “atrocious economic policies” of the Bush administration had caused the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The SAME Jimmy Carter that gave us:

The SAME Jimmy Carter who gave us:

The same Jimmy Carter who gave us:

Oh. THAT Jimmy Carter.

That’s rich.

According to the AP’s Douglass Daniel,

WASHINGTON (AP) – By claiming that Democrat Barack Obama is “palling around with terrorists” and doesn’t see the U.S. like other Americans, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin targeted key goals for a faltering campaign.

And though she may have score a political hit each time, her attack was unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret.

Since when is calling Obama’s links (which are extensive and proven) to an unrepentant domestic terrorist carry a racial tinge? Because Obama is black?

We all know that the standard for racism has become: Criticism of a black man is by default racism.

We might as well just call the election now. Anything short of an Obama landslide will prove that the United States is a totally racist company. Let’s save a lot of money, effort, and actual voting, and just crown him now — so he can get started on parting the seas, healing the earth, and bringing peace and prosperity to the solar system.

I give up.

This headline is not as funny now. I will admit that it does make more sense though.

British cyclist rides penny farthing into China on global trek

With 13,600 kilometres (8,400 miles) already covered on his 19th century “penny farthing” bicycle, a 39-year-old Briton has embarked on one of the toughest legs of his world trek — China.Fresh from the roads of New Zealand where he was nearly run over by a lorry, Joff Summerfield is hoping that drivers in the nation known as the “Kingdom of Bicycles” will be more friendly.

“The lorries in New Zealand have been the worst in any country so far, and one finally managed to get me, breaking my wrist,” Summerfield told AFP near China’s Great Wall this week on his second day out of Beijing.

The penny farthing is one of the world’s earliest bicycles, boasting a giant front wheel that has a 47-inch diameter and a tiny back wheel.

Cue the Randy Newman song…

Gnome, gnome on derange.

SYDNEY, Jan 25 (Reuters Life!) – It’s being called the “Gnomesville Massacre” and emergency workers in Western Australia are offering a reward for the capture of vandals who smashed their way through a local tourist attraction.

At least we know that poor fellow from Germany was not the culprit. By the way, I think that headline writer earned some really bad karma for that Gnome, gnome headline.

The headline on this one is “Tossed Salad Leads To Littering Fine”. Perhaps I’ve been back in California too long.

EASTON, Pa. — A tossed salad is costing Dawn Higgins more than $173.

She tossed the leftovers from a McDonald’s salad out of her car window. She was ticketed for littering and ordered to pay the fine when she didn’t show up for her court date.Higgins appealed, arguing lettuce is biodegradable and not trash. But the Northampton County, Pa., Common Pleas Court wasn’t convinced. She was ordered to pay up.Higgins’ lawyer said it’s probably the most expensive McDonald’s salad ever.

Let this be a lesson to us all: You may want to put on some pants, if you’re going to fight evil (or arachnids).

SYDNEY (Reuters) – A red-faced Australian nudist who tried to set fire to what he thought was a deadly funnel web spider’s nest ended up with badly burned buttocks, emergency officials said Monday.

The 56-year-old man was at a nudist colony near Bowral, about 60 miles southwest of Sydney, Sunday when he spotted what he believed to be a funnel web spider hole.

Ambulance workers, including a helicopter crew, were called to the scene after the man poured petrol down the hole and then lit a match in an attempt to kill the offending arachnid.

“The exploding gasoline fumes left the man with burns to 18 percent of his body, on the upper leg and buttocks,” the NRMA Careflight helicopter rescue service said in a statement.

It said the man’s lack of clothing probably contributed to the extent of his burns. (You think?)

“The fate of the bunkered spider was unknown, although other guests at the resort thought it was probably a harmless trapdoor spider and not a deadly funnel web,” the statement said.

NRMA Careflight said it was called to a property in the same area in January when another man kicked a spider that was crawling up the wall of a friend’s cabin. The man broke his leg in two places, it said.

By the way, I am counting this as a “Headline of the Week” entry as well; this one was “Spider-hunting nudist ends with ring of fire”

Couple Who Caged Adopted Children Lose Custody

And no, I did NOT make up this fabulous headine.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sgt. David Austin said investigators dusted the slightly damaged limbs for fingerprints and had interviewed a “laundry list” of people but were baffled by the thefts.

“We’re treating this as a crime,” Austin said. “We have a residential burglary to deal with. This is grand theft and burglary and if we find out who’s responsible we’ll take appropriate action.”

The two legs, which were taken from Melissa Huff’s bedroom in February, were found on Wednesday in the back of her mother’s van, Austin said.

“Mrs. Huff had the van at Arcadia High School (for about two hours) and when she drove away she heard some rattling and ultimately found the two legs that had just recently been stolen had been placed in the back of the van,” Austin said.

Melissa, who lost her right leg in 2003 when a car struck her outside the school, uses a $16,000 prosthetic limb to play softball and also has a $12,000 artificial leg for everyday use.

Thieves also broke into the Huff residence in November and took Melissa’s prosthetic leg. The teen’s prosthetist and a local real estate company donated about $16,000 for a new limb.

In January, the old one was discovered in her back yard, apparently thrown there by the thieves.

Most will have already heard of this story, but apparently these asses have made a movie of the real life events. I love the headline, though. The article is … truncated to avoid the really nasty bits.

BERLIN (Reuters) – A real-life German cannibal who ate a willing victim is being immortalized on the big screen, like the fictional Hannibal Lecter, despite his legal bid to block the movie version of his gruesome crime.

“Rohtenburg” (“Butterfly — A Grimm Love Story”) is set to open in Germany on March 9 and will hope to profit from the shock and fascination the case of Armin Meiwes evoked in a transfixed public in Germany and beyond.

… another entry in the category of Headline of the Week:

“Injuries Spike Amid Dutch Dart Craze”.

US filmmaker Michael Moore weighs in on Canada’s election

I’ve always been a huge fan of headline writers — and there’s a lovely one on the ‘net today. So I thought what the heck, let’s have a headline of the week category, and celebrate brilliant and or really dumb newspaper/internet headlines.

Here’s our first entry, from today’s NY Post:

Steamed about Rice, Russian pol unleashes rant