Daily Drivel

Today in History: Jan 27 1945 Soviet troops liberate the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps in Nazi occupied Poland.

Perhaps more importantly though, Jan 27, 1997: Pat Boone goes heavy metal.

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Link of the day: Cool. Muppets Overtime. Might take a little extra time to load, but it's neat. http://www.joeytomatoes.com/muppetsovertimeoriginal05.htm

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Not So Sucky Band at Bankshots Saturday

Those frustrated bankers are at it again, this time rockin' the house at Bank Shots in Wilmington. From what I understand they may even have a CHICK singing with them this time. The dudes are dragging in their original drummer (some guy named Matt Frost) and even an extra guy on guitars. Like a REAL BAND or something!

So if you are looking for something to do Saturday night and you are blessed enough to be living close to Wilmington, DE, swing to BankShots around 9:30 or so. Sauerwine, the not so sucky band, will play till 11ish and then some other not so sucky band, The Relay, will magically appear to play their version of "music".

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Students Arrested Over 'Violent' Stick Figure Drawings

Two evil children from Ocala FL, aged 9 and 10, have been stopped by police (whew). These two scary children drew "violent drawings of stick figures", and therefore were charged with the 2nd degree felony of making a written threat to kill or harm another person. They were taken out of school in handcuffs.

They had drawn big mean scary pictures of stick figures hurting another stick figure, and were using these pictures to scare the wits out of another child. The kid being bullied by the pictures went to his teacher, who went to the dean, who called the cops to arrest the big mean bully boys.

The well-phrased comment from the police spokesman is as follows: "When an adult or even myself look at the picture looked at it at first I was thinking there is really not much to the picture or I would not be that scared by the picture those children drew. However, we have to put ourselves in his mind and that's the bottom line here. It is his well-being and the way he perceived that picture to be. It actually put him in extreme fear and he was in fear for his life."

Wow. My entire grade school class would have been arrested, I think.

I wonder if kids can still play hangman, or if it offends sensibilities and scares illiterate people.

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At Least One Sane Person in Milwaukee

The Wisconsin attorney general has tossed out the ridiculous suit filed by the kid who didn't want to do summer homework. If you recall, kiddo and daddio thought it violated his rights that the teacher would expect him to continue using his brain during the summer months, so they filed suit demanding that the students be allowed to decide whether or not to do summer homework. (See, some kids have 'demanding' summer jobs as ice cream servers, Rita's employees, camp counselors...no time to think there!)

The atty general said pish posh on this unmeritorious suit and says that Dad and Kid should cough up the money to pay for the court's wasted time.

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Expense Report

If you're going to do a crime, try to make it be in the Netherlands. There, criminals are allowed to claim the cost of their weapons used when robbing places, or claim wear and tear on their vehicles if they're drug dealers who have to drive a lot.

Recently a 46 year old bank robber was able to claim the $3400 he spent on his weapon against the gross proceeds from the heist. Based on that, his fine was reduced and so was his jail time. As the Netherlands' legal folk say: "You can compare criminal acts to normal business activities, where you must invest to make profits, and thus you have costs."

Only hitch: per Gerard Sta, national director of the Office of Criminal Assets: a criminal's costs must be directly related to the crime, and not just day-to-day expenses. "A second condition is that the criminal offence must be carried out,"

Good to know.

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