Headline: “New York City fears return to 1970s”

Police on the look out for Abe Beam, outbreaks of disco & punk, good Martin Scorcese movies and New York magazine’s return to relevance.

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You can now rent zombies online

Headline of the day:

Cloud-computing zombies for $299 per month

Cloud-computing crimeware means networks of zombie machines can be hired to steal online-banking details for as little as $299 (£185) per month. ‘Fraud as a service’ is opening up computer crime to people with no technical expertise, warned Uri Rivner, head of new technology at security company RSA.

They can put zombies and computers on a cloud? The interwebs are even cooler than I thought.

Ummm, given the condition of most banks and most people with accounts at banks not sure how much good this information will do them.

Headline: Egypt cleric says Mickey Mouse is not agent of Satan

While Mrs. Collateral Damage, who has all the details on the story, doubtless agrees with the learned cleric, I do believe it is an issue on which reasonable people may disagree. And still remain married.

Best quote from the story:

Sheikh Mohamed al-Munajid, a cleric who often appears on Saudi television and who is also a former Saudi diplomat in the United States, said last week that mice were “agents of Satan” and should be killed. “Sharia (Islamic law) calls for the extermination of all mice. That includes the rodents as well as ‘the famous cartoon mouse’,” he said. He blamed Mickey Mouse for causing people to become soft on mice.

Headline of the day: Woman fends off burglars with musical instrument

“Get out or I’ll play this accordion!” she said. Sadly police later arrested her for using a threatening note.

(Actually I really like the accordion…Flaco Jimenez RULES!)

Headline of the day: Teacher OK after crashing into bear on a bicycle

How the bear got onto the bicycle, I’ll never know.

cf: Marx, Groucho: “I once shot an elephant in my pajamas.”

I am chagrined to see that this is my first ever Groucho reference here at Collateral Damage. I apologize to my readers and promise to do better in the future.

PS:  Walt Kelly’s birthday was last month and I forgot to mention it. Again, my apologies. Why is it this book title never goes out of date?

Headline of the day: Elephant kicks heroin habit

BEIJING (AFP) – An elephant has kicked his heroin habit after a three-year stint on an island rehab in southern China, an official and state media said Thursday.

Yeah, but you wouldn’t believe the amount of methadone he’s on.

Headline of the day (year?): Giant inflatable dog mess breaks free of its moorings and brings down power line

Sure, it’s long but really you don’t want to miss out on any key details.

Inflatable or not, you wouldn’t want to meet the dog that laid this.

This giant inflatable faeces (actually a sculpture by the American artist Paul McCarthy) broke free from its moorings at a modern art museum in Switzerland before bringing down a power line.

The artwork, named ‘Complex Sh*t’, was lifted by a sudden gust of wind from its home at the Paul Klee centre in the city of Berne.

As big as a house, the gigantic inflatable eventually came to rest 200 yards away in the grounds of a children’s home.

Click on the link to see a picture of the far-too-realistic artwork.

via Information Nation

Headline of the day: Court rules lesbians are not just from Lesbos

Silly, Rabbit. Everyone knows lesbians are from Northampton.

Earlier coverage “Lesbos sue over lesbian brand name”.

Headline of the day: “God accused of selling cocaine near Tampa church”

Speaking as a former headline writer — WHERE WAS THIS STORY WHEN I NEEDED IT?

TAMPA, Fla. – Police say a man named God was arrested near a Tampa church for selling cocaine. Authorities began investigating God Lucky Howard in April, and he was arrested on Saturday. Police say he sold the cocaine to undercover detectives in his neighborhood. When officers searched his home, they reported finding another 22 grams of cocaine and a scale.

Well, I think he wasn’t God and I know he wasn’t Lucky. He probably wasn’t Howard, either.

Runner up for headline of the day: Sports bra saves US hiker in German Alp

Berchtesgaden police officer Lorenz Rasp said that he helped lift 24-year-old Jessica Bruinsma of Colorado state to safety by helicopter on Thursday after she attracted the attention of lumberjacks by attaching her sports bra to a cable used to move timber down the mountain.

QUICK, someone get the brand of that bra!

Headline of the Day: Oil companies get OK to annoy bears

What are they going to do, set up ursine telemarketing centers? Send pollsters around to their caves when they’re hibernating?

Maybe they’ll just charge them $4+ a gallon for gas.

I’m not much of an outdoorsman, to understate the case wildly, but I was under the impression that if you annoyed a bear it’s not the bear who will have the problem.

Headline of the Day: First offseason pomegranates arrive in NYC

This AP story reads like a press release.

NEW YORK – Until recently, America’s pomegranate lovers could indulge their passion for its ruby red seeds for less than half the year. Now, the trendy fresh fruit that’s packed with health benefits will be available in the United States year-round.

File under: Some PR Person just did their job and some reporter/editor didn’t do theirs.

Headline of the Day: Man Arrested for Spraying Teenage Girls with Soy Sauce

File Under: Kinks I never even suspected existed.

Headline of the Day: Drag Queen Robs Burger King

Hard to get better than that.

Security cameras showed the man, wearing a dress with a revealing bust line and hair barrettes, climbed through the takeout window at a Burger King on May 11. He held the employees at gunpoint, demanded money, exited through the same drive-through window and drove away.

Only way it could have been better is if it had been a drag king.

2nd best headline of the day: Big, hairy pig attracted gawkers in Wisconsin

That’s odd, I don’t remember going to Wisconsin recently. And personally, I prefer to call them fans, not gawkers.

Headline of the day: Great tits cope well with warming

It’s got something to do with chicks is all I know.

Headline of the Day: “British vote on wax prime minister”

Easy jokes:

1. Actually I’ve always thought of him as wooden.
2. Couldn’t be worse than the one they’ve got.

Sadly for Mr. Brown and happily for anyone with a sense of humor the truth is even funnier.

Embattled Prime Minister Gordon Brown faces more potential poll humiliation — as Madame Tussauds waxwork museum said Tuesday opened a vote on whether they should bother making a model of him.

Quick, name an English-speaking country that actually likes its leader. … Hmmm, I’m stumped too. Maybe Canadia? They speak English, don’t they?

Some leaders are actually seeing their wax popularity waxing and not waning. The St. Petersburg Wax Museum says the public is not content with its small model of Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s newly installed ventriloquist-dummy-in-chief. Apparently the people want a three-dimensional version. Should this come to pass, it will mean the museum’s version has more depth than the person it is based on.