Paramedic Daniel McIntosh died in the line of duty in Bensalem, PA. 

On Sunday night, the squad’s ambulance crew had rushed to the 2600 block of Knights Road for a report of a suicidal man. When they arrived, the man ran away and McIntosh chased after him, hoping to save the man from hurting himself. Instead McIntosh suffered a fatal heart attack. Members of the ambulance squad then turned their attention to saving the life of their own crew member with no luck.

I suppose the suicidal man is not to blame for McIntosh’s death. [Read more →]

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I’ve seen the future of news, and it’s as red as the blood of a freshly killed Siberian ibex.

Don’t doubt it. Think about it. While American news publications die a slow death and adapt clumsily to new media, Russian journalism evolves with stunning rapidity.  It is the new standard-bearer, the prized Rothschild Egg. Meanwhile, all that American journalism can do is lay an egg.

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Tags: trusted media & news
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We’re just a humble blog. We don’t have fact checkers or James Earl Jones to tell people we’re the most trusted name in news. We do have some attractive contributors to be sure, but no one quite as pretty as Anderson Cooper. So, as if you couldn’t tell, we’re not CNN. We don’t have their vast resources or elaborate journalism training. Maybe that’s why the following excerpt from cnn.com, appearing in a story about an apology letter sent by one of the D.C. snipers to a victim, John Gaeta, confuses us:

Gaeta went to the hospital, where doctors told him he had dodged damage to his spine and arteries. He was released in about an hour, making him one of the more fortunate of the D.C. snipers’ 13 confirmed victims, at least 10 of whom died.

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Flying is now officially more dangerous than playing with killer whales. A child directed traffic at JFK airport on February 17th, because the kid had a day off from school and dad thought it would be fun to have his kid give instructions to planes about when and where they could land and take off. Yeah, dad was right there, telling the kid what to say, so maybe everything was still as safe as usual. Probably the real reason everything was safe as usual is Sully was still in the air, somewhere, maybe thousands of miles away, maybe even on the ground that day, but still a commerical pilot. He kept us safe while that kid directed air traffic, somehow, because he’s Sully. It’s what he does. But today it was announced that hero pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger has retired. We might have survived the kids playing at air-traffic controller with Sully in the skies keeping us safe. But with Sully moving on to knitting classes, or fishing, or whatever he’s going to do in retirement, the flying public doesn’t stand a chance. Why have you forsaken us, oh great Sully? What have we done to displease you?

Tags: travel & foreign lands, trusted media & news
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It is a noble thing to dedicate your life to educating the young, even if our society doesn’t value teachers the way it should. And yet at the same time, teaching can also provide a shelter for all manner of time-servers, frauds, phoneys, creeps and even perverts. [Read more →]

Tags: travel & foreign lands, trusted media & news
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Shocking news from Russia: a man claiming to be a member of the Romanov dynasty recently tracked down and beat to death an 82 year old ex-KGB officer for his part in the murder of Tsar Nikolai II and his family. [Read more →]

Tags: travel & foreign lands, trusted media & news
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“Holy crap! I crashed my car into a power pole. Good thing I’m not seriously injured. Whoa, watch out for the downed power lines! Can’t believe I wasn’t hurt. Must be my lucky day. Man, I have to piss…  Argghh!!!”

Roy Messenger is dead. I’m sure if he knew there were live wires in the ditch where he was urinating, he wouldn’t have urinated on them. And that would have prevented him from being electrocuted when the electricity traveled up his urine stream and into his body, which is what authorities believe happened. [Read more →]

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When I originally saw the headline in Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper that President Asif Ali Zardari sacrificed a black goat a day in his presidential compound I was quite excited- could this be another entry for Lucifer Watch? After all the goat, especially a black one, is a beast often associated with the Lord of the Flies. But then again, Pakistan is a country which is 98% Muslim or thereabouts, and I just couldn’t see the people (or military) of that nation feeling all that comfortable with a leader paying tribute to the one they call Iblis; indeed I can’t see the people of any country feeling all that relaxed with a head of state openly in cahoots with Satan. [Read more →]

Tags: politics & government, trusted media & news
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As we all know, the world is in a terrible state and likely to end very soon. That being the case, we should be well advised to keep an eye out not only for manifestations of Satan but also for possible messiahs who might extricate us from this unholy mess. Alas, with so many claimants to the title, how are we to know who is the real deal? According to Benjamin Creme we should all be watching our TVs very closely right now, because the ‘Maitreya’ (the coming future Buddha in Buddhist eschatology) has already appeared on our screens. [Read more →]

Tags: religion & philosophy, trusted media & news
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Last week I mused in an entirely speculative fashion on who the culprits behind the recent spate of church burnings in East Texas might be, suggesting that the Feds might want to look for Lords of Chaos- reading, Burzum-listening, Satan-loving Black Metal fans. Others, less attuned to the dark arts than myself, have somewhat drearily suggested Muslims or ‘Sarah Palin hating liberals’. [Read more →]

Tags: religion & philosophy, trusted media & news
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Kids should be shot. Measles/mumps/rubella (MMR) vaccine does not cause a reaction in children’s bowels that causes autism. What? Bowels? Somebody believed that? Somewhere Jenny McCarthy stamps her little foot and tosses her blond hair, and yet is still not a doctor.

Bigger kids should be wrapped in duct tape. [Read more →]

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Following yesterday’s entirely speculative post related to the possibility of Black Metal fans burning down churches in Texas, news reaches us from deepest Russia of an actual, full-on Satanic cult engaged in foul deeds:

Investigators say that the Saransk-based Nobilis Ordo Diaboli group recruited young people from across the region between 2003 and 2009. The cult’s founding members, 24-year-old Belarus national Alexander Kazakov and 23-year-old local Denis Danishin, face a number of charges, ranging from the sexual abuse of minors to battery. [Read more →]

Tags: travel & foreign lands, trusted media & news
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There was an interesting report on the AP today about a bunch of churches which have mysteriously gone up in flames down here in Texas since the new year. Well I say down here but actually it’s quite a drive from Austin to East Texas where most of the incinerated churches used to stand. [Read more →]

Tags: religion & philosophy, trusted media & news
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Read it and WEEP, Righties! From the low on December 22nd this is a recovery of eighty-one percent! Give or take. Hey, what is a rounding error among friends? Or enemies? Of course there are some complications. [Read more →]

Tags: politics & government, trusted media & news
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Five quotes stood out for me this week. Five public statements to which the only reasonable response could be, “Yeah, right.”

5. “I wish I’d been a better friend,” Casey Anthony. I guess being a “better human” is just a little too much to ask.

4. ”You already give to Haitian relief — it’s called the income tax,” Rush Limbaugh. See number 5. [Read more →]

Tags: politics & government, trusted media & news
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Hey you. Want to watch a spec ad about killing yourself?

Sure you do.

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Tags: environment & nature, trusted media & news
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As you may already know, Chris Henry, a 26-year old wide receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals, passed away this morning at 6:36 AM. Yesterday, Henry was involved in what North Carolina police termed a “domestic situation.” Following his fiancée’s departure from a home in North Carolina, Chris Henry jumped into the bed of the pickup truck she was driving and then — somehow — fell from the bed of the truck.

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Who knew a crayon could be so perilous an instrument? Like the rest of us, WH Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is learning many lessons lately. The hazards of a sharp tongue married to a dull wit were foremost Friday. [Read more →]

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If a tree falls in the woods and there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? Well, that depends on whether it has a Facebook page. Sounds ridiculous, huh? I thought the same thing when I recently applied for a job to be an interactive editor for a news website. [Read more →]

Tags: all work, technology, trusted media & news
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Notoriously heedless of his own safety and well-being, President Obama plunged into the Global Struggle Against Man-Caused Disasters by appearing before an array of thousands of young, savage fighters from, as reported by respected frontline journalist Chris Matthews, the enemy camp. The rest of us know this institution as the US army service academy located at West Point, NY. [Read more →]

Tags: terror & war, trusted media & news
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I don’t know if the year 2010 marks the beginning of a new decade or the end of the current one. In the scheme of things, it probably makes little difference. What’s another 365 days to a decade, really? Time magazine has already called it quits on this decade, naming it the “decade from hell”. Harsh words for a poor old decade. Upon further reflection, though, I think Time magazine may be on to something. Whether it was as bad as the decades that housed the Great Depression or World Wars, I wouldn’t know. But overall, it has been a pretty crappy few years. [Read more →]

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I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised by this as humans are capable of doing/believing just about anything. But even so, I was a little caught off guard by this sad tale from Cornwall, one of the most beautiful parts of the British Isles, where the locals even have their own language. I will say no more; just click on the link and immerse yourself in the joys and sorrows of the poor soul who can only get his jollies via frolicking in a mound of rancid manure.

Mr. Truscott was a child once, innocent, dreaming of an exciting adulthood… I suspect that this was not what he had in mind.

H/t: Rod Liddle

Tags: animals, trusted media & news
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Which modern day martyr do you think Huffington Post contributor and ‘philosopher’ Bernard Henri-Levy is talking about here?

“Nothing will repair the days he has spent in prison. Nothing will erase the immense, unbelievable injustice he has been subjected to. Nothing will take away the hysteria of those ones who have never stopped pouring contempt upon him, hounding him through hatred and asking for his punishment as if we were living the darkest and most ferocious hours of the McCarthy era all over again. At least the nightmare is about to end. At least the end of the hell is looming. And this, for the time being, is what does matter.” [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, movies, trusted media & news
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This Thursday the European Union elected its first president — well, sort of. Naturally the peoples of the 27 state bloc were not permitted to vote. They didn’t even know who the candidates were. Leaders decided to spare their electorates the trouble by making the choice for them behind closed doors. After early reports that Tony Blair might win, it turned out that France and Germany were opposed to giving him yet another platform to strut about on, and he quickly faded from view. With 27 sets of national interests to balance, the final candidates were always going to be selected from the most bland and inoffensive countries in the bloc. [Read more →]

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I received the below e-mail today. I guess it was sent to some mass list of faculty members:

All faculty at [Name of university] are entitled to a complimentary subscription of the New York Times delivered to their home when the New York Times is listed in their syllabus as required reading. If 15 or more students subscribe, you will also receive a handsome portfolio as a free gift.

Help your students make discoveries every day in topics ranging from social trends and new technology to politics and the economy inside the nation’s most honored newspaper. [Read more →]

Tags: education, trusted media & news
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“Every thing is what it is, and not another thing.”

Bishop Joseph Butler (1692-1752)

Like everybody else, when I first heard about the shootings at Fort Hood I immediately rushed to judgment, assuming that anybody opening fire on soldiers on an army base in Texas expected to die. Thus the shooter was either 1) a soldier who had cracked or 2) a priapic jihadist aroused by the thought of all those virgins in paradise. Reasoning that an armed Islamist would struggle to penetrate Fort Hood’s security, I concluded that the shooter was probably an unfortunate soldier gone berserk. A few hours later however I discovered secret option 3) that the “alleged” shooter Nidal Hasan was both a soldier and a jihadi nutbag — an entirely new hybrid, in other words. [Read more →]

Tags: politics & government, trusted media & news
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Like any halfway sentient member of the human race I reacted to the news of Obama’s Nobel win last week with disbelief, a response which soon gave way to scorn and ridicule, before finally settling into a nasty sinking feeling. [Read more →]

Tags: politics & government, trusted media & news
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Over the weekend the Daily Telegraph published a very amusing story about Mahmoud ‘there are no gays in Iran’ Ahmadinejad. According to the paper: [Read more →]

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Justice in Roman Polanski’s case will never be served, because his case is not about justice. It’s about this week’s opportunity for everyone who weighs in on it to grandstand as a defender of justice and protector of the underdog, each side conspicuously yanking the blanket of public attention to keep its own listing stack of arguments warm while leaving the salient points of the other side hanging. There’s no blanket big enough.

“He’s a child rapist!” — “He’s an artist!” — “He’s a child rapist!” — “He’s an artist!” — “A child rapist!” — “An artist!” — “A child rapist!” — “An artist!”

A plague o’ both their houses. He’s a child rapist and an artist. [Read more →]

Tags: on the law, trusted media & news
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Katha Pollitt at the Nation clears up the confusion with Roman Polanski Has a Lot of Friends. At National Review, Jonah Goldberg sees the upside to the Polanski case. At Reason, David Harsanyi writes about Rosemary’s Crybabies.

Jim Treacher offers a top ten list about David Letterman’s creepy office affairs in Top Ten Reasons to Accept That Job Offer From David Letterman (via Instapundit).

[Read more →]

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