Health bill signed, sealed, delivered

Well, the massive health care overhaul is now law. Liberals react with, mostly, cautious optimism, while conservatives react with, mostly, panic and hysteria. My favorite story so far is the existence of a new web site called http://www.aticketforrush.com. Rumor has it that weeks before the passage of the health care bill, Rush declared that if it became law he would move to Costa Rica. A couple of helpful guys in Brooklyn, NY have decided to facilitate his trip by buying him a first class, one-way ticket to that beautiful Central American country. It was worth a dollar to me to assist this cause.

Prosecutor: Accused killer tried in vain to cover his tracks

Oh, momma.

Even vice-principals that don’t kill their wives are scary. It’s something inherent in the position that makes them all seem like pit bulls barely restrained by the chain lightly held in the principal’s hand. So vice-principals that murder their wives and make it look like suicide are just about as frightening as Ghengis Khan in a Freddy Kruger mask. I’m not suggesting that former vice-principal Wesley Earnest actually killed his wife. That’s for the jury to say. I’m just saying, he better stay out of my nightmares.

Future journalists balance print, web

Apparently there are high schools in Hampton Roads that are still teaching journalism the old fashioned way: asking students to learn “to write an accurate and balanced story,” and then editing and fact-checking it before publication. Don’t they know that Fox News and the Internet have put that tradition in its grave? Research is for nerds, kids! Only a loser tries to write stories that are objective, thoughtful and informative. Of course, you are still supposed to claim that this is what you are doing, loudly and frequently, but then you should proceed to write a biased, poorly-researched screed and blast it out onto your blog or TV network as quickly as possible. Rather like I am doing here. Ahem.

She’s not pulling your leg. She’s pulling for college funds.

In another example of students failing to use the Internet, Western Branch High School Sophomore Erin Burke spent $20 to run a classified ad in the Virginian-Pilot asking people to send her money to help pay for college tuition. Well, duh, Erin. What were you thinking? If you want people to send you piles of money for crazy ideas, you need the INTERNET. I’m thinking here, of course, about http://www.aticketforrush.com, which since its launch yesterday, has already raised $2,201 to send a pestilent windbag to a foreign country. If you had simply created senderinburketocollege.com and posted photos of yourself in nerdy glasses and written about your plan to use alien technology to cure cancer, you would certainly have earned more than the measly $0.45 you got from the Pilot ad. And you could have saved $20. The Internet is all about getting your crazy ideas to the most people for the least amount of money. I call that progress, and I’m cautiously optimistic about it.