Author: NewMexiKen

‘Avoid Death’

DETROIT — A warning on a small tractor that reads “Danger: Avoid Death” has been chosen as the nation’s wackiest warning label by an anti-lawsuit group.

The Wacky Warning Label Contest, now in its 11th year, is conducted by Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch as part of an effort to show the effects of lawsuits on warning labels.

Kevin Soave of Farmington Hills, a Detroit suburb, won the $500 grand prize for submitting the winning label.

The $250 second place was given to Carrianne, Jacob and Robby Turin of Greensburg, Pa., for a label they found on an iron-on T-shirt transfer that warns: “Do not iron while wearing shirt.”

Richard Goodnow of Lancaster, Mass., earned the $100 third-place prize for a label on a baby stroller featuring a small storage pouch that warns: “Do not put child in bag.”

USATODAY.com

There’s a few more.

Tiger Woods Putts Baby Into Diaper

ORLANDO, FL—Tiger Woods added yet another accomplishment to his already outstanding résumé Sunday when the 13-time major winner successfully putted his baby daughter, five-month-old Sam Alexis Woods, into a fresh Huggies diaper.

Dressed in his signature red shirt, black pants, and black Nike golf shoes, Woods—who has not played competitive golf in three months in order to stay at home and spend time with his newborn daughter—followed the clutch 12-foot putt with a celebratory fist pump before hugging caddie Steve Williams, who was handling the baby’s skin ointment.

The Onion – America’s Finest News Source

There’s more and the photo is priceless.

Today is also the birthday

Mack and Friends

… of a very special person, Mack the oldest of The Sweeties. Mack is 7.

Mack by the way isn’t his name. It’s his nickname (from birth) and comes from his middle name — Mackenzie, a family name on his dad’s side. Mackenzie is a Scottish name, from the Gaelic Maccoinneach, meaning son of the fair or comely. (And also meaning son of Kenneth.)

At his early age Mack has already played soccer, baseball and flag football and is a fine swimmer. He plans to attend the University of Michigan, so it’s very important whom they hire this year as football coach. With a little longevity the new Michigan coach could be Mack’s coach in just 11½ years.

That’s Mack last week at California Adventure. He’s the one in the middle.

December 13th

Today is the birthday

… of Dick Van Dyke. Rob Petrie is 82. Nine emmy nominations, four wins.

… of Christopher Plummer. Captain Georg von Trapp is 80. More recently Plummer has been in A Beautiful Mind, Syriana and The Lake House. Six films in 2005, a couple more in 2006, four in 2007 and a handful in production.

… of Ferguson Jenkins. The baseball hall-of-famer is 64.

Ferguson Jenkins PlaqueCanada’s first Hall of Fame member, Fergie Jenkins used pinpoint control and effectively changed speeds to win 284 games. Cast in the same mold as finesse artists like Catfish Hunter and Robin Roberts, Jenkins forged an impressive 3.34 ERA despite playing 12 of his 19 seasons in hitters’ ballparks – Wrigley Field and Fenway Park. A diligent workhorse, Jenkins used an easy, uncomplicated motion to reach the 20-win mark seven times and capture the National League Cy Young Award in 1971. (National Baseball Hall of Fame)

… of Wendie Malick. Just shoot her, she’s 57.

… of Ben Bernanke. The chairman of the Federal Reserve is 54. If he lasts as long as Greenspan he’ll still be chairman in 2025.

… of Steve Buscemi. The actor who portrayed the creepy Tony Blundetto (Tony Soprano’s cousin) and the even creepier Carl Showalter in Fargo is 50.

… of Johnny Whitaker. That would be Buffy’s brother Jody on Family Affair. He’s 48.

… of Jamie Foxx. The Oscar-winner is 40.

Today ought to be a national holiday

Frank Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, 92 years ago today (1915).

This from Sinatra’s New York Times obituary in 1998:

Widely held to be the greatest singer in American pop history and one of the most successful entertainers of the 20th century, Sinatra was also the first modern pop superstar. He defined that role in the early 1940’s when his first solo appearances provoked the kind of mass pandemonium that later greeted Elvis Presley and the Beatles.

During a show business career that spanned more than 50 years and comprised recordings, film and television as well as countless performances in nightclubs, concert halls and sports arenas, Sinatra stood as a singular mirror of the American psyche.

His evolution from the idealistic crooner of the early 1940’s to the sophisticated swinger of the 50’s and 60’s seemed to personify the country’s loss of innocence.

‘s’

The first radio transmission across the Atlantic was made by Guglielmo Marconi on this date in 1901 (Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland, Canada). The message consisted of Morse code for the letter “s”.

That would be dot-dot-dot.

Which is better than a lot of stuff on the airwaves 106 years later.

Where do you think he buys his bling?

We beg your pardon — not even Portland can promise you a rose garden.

Said Trail Blazers rookie Greg Oden, giving the Indianapolis Star a scouting report on his new Oregon digs: “The city is nice. The only thing is, they don’t have any Wal-Marts near my house. “I go to Best Buy or Target, but those places are pretty expensive.”

Footnote: Oden gets paid $3.9 million this season.

Sideline Chatter

Imagine that

Dan Neil loves a GM car.

So here’s a new thought, worthy of defending: Cadillac makes a better car than BMW or Mercedes or Lexus or Infiniti, and that car is the 2008 CTS. No other car in the mass market, with so much at stake for its makers, dares so much as this expressive and audacious bit of automotive avant-gardism. In a segment that lives and dies by European benchmarks, the CTS sets fire to the bench and throws it through the shopkeepers’ window.

The human spirit

NewMexiKen received a Christmas letter from a good friend who volunteers at the Occupational Therapy Clinic at Walter Reed Army Medical Center teaching amputees how to cook. (Bless you, Jeanne.)

Jeanne writes:

It’s amazing how upbeat they are and determined not to be defeated or defined by their injuries. While we were eating the Thanksgiving meal, one of the amputees, who’s really into cooking said, “The good thing about eating dinner with a bunch of amputees is there’s plenty of leg room under the table.”

She continues:

They joke and fool around and have a really good time–the current bunch especially. The downside, of course, is the missing limbs and sixty percent of the amputees have traumatic brain injuries. IEDs have a lot to answer for.

Destroying the CIA tapes

There’s a lot of hand wringing on the blogs about who gave the CIA authority to destroy the videotapes of an “interrogation.”

One important point: By law, the only person who can authorize a federal government agency to destroy a “record” is the Archivist of the United States. (36 CFR Part 1228)

Now, this may have been done for the CIA under some general or ongoing authority, but that seems unlikely.

Furthermore, based on my experience, I find it difficult to believe the CIA destroyed anything.