Fish story

An angler who shall be nameless was plagued by a prolonged dry spell, when no fish would come to his lure, fly, or bait. Not even to Barney Steele's "Wooly Bugger"!

He had a friend named Bill, a dedicated and successful fisherman, and so he went to Bill, and asked him for help. The successful one replied that he had contacted a Neo-Witch, Deodorah of the Aridh Clan, who had worked out spells on her computer, cast them for him, and now he caught fish whenever he wished.

Our anonymous angler sent an email to Deodorah, and she asked the name of his dog, which always accompanied him in the boat. She wrote and cast a spell for trolling; if he trolled in the direction the dog looked, he would catch fish.

For two days he trolled, without even a twitch on the line. Angrily, he wrote to the witch, "Your spell is useless!!'

Deodorah programmed and cast a new spell to empower his boat, so that fish would be irresistibly attracted to any form of bait used from the boat.

Three days later, "Not a nibble!!!"

So Deodorah wrote an all-powerful spell, in WitchBasic, with exotic ingredients from quantum science, limnology, and astrology, and cast it on all the waters which the angler had fished, did fish, and might fish!

And, "NO FISH!!!"

And Deodorah consulted her black cat, for she was wise in the traditional ways, as well as modern. And the cat gave strong indications that she should consult a Programming Wizard.

And Deodorah called up a consultation with the Wizard on World Wide Web for Witches. And the Wizard accessed Deo's computer, and read the spells she had written, and studied her style, and cast the runes and boiled an antique newt, for he was also an old-fashioned Wizard.

And then he sent her an urgent email,

"Have you switched on your Spell-checker?"

Arrgghhh!

Story on the local news...

Seems a 15 year old stole a pickup (possibly a family vehicle, it wasn't clear). Cops spot the stolen vehicle and since auto theft is a felony, the officer approaches with a drawn weapon. The news mentioned that this is standard procedure for a "felony stop".

They did *not* mention that its standard procedure because of the high risk of the *officer* getting shot.

Officer gets up to truck, kid has window up. Officer thinks kid has a weapon or is going for a weapon. Shoots. Kid dies.

News is all about the family wanting the officer jailed and how the kid died for stealing the truck.

I wanted to scream at the set "No, he died because cops are *understandably* nervous when making a stop involving a felony. And the cops saw something that made him think he was about to be shot."

Whether the cop overreacted or not we can't know.

We can know that the kid did several stupid things. Alas, rather than explain to the public that these things are stupid, the media goes for "oh, how terrible this shooting is."

What they *should* have done is stated the facts. Noted that whether or not the officer acted appropriately was under investigation, and then explained *why* cops are under high stress when doing this sort of stop and explained what people should do when stopped so that they *don't* risk getting shot.

Things like:

• roll down your window *before* the cop gets there.
  
• place *both* hands on the upper part of the steering wheel and leave them there.
  
• If the cop asks you to do something, do it.
  
• If the request will require one or both hands to a spot where the cop can't see them, move slowly and tell him what you are doing. "I'm getting my wallet out of my pants pocket
  

Remember, all the cop knows is that he had a *serious* reason for stopping you and for all *he* knows you may be a desperate nutcase who is going for a gun.

Spam, you gotta love it..

It's bad enough the way the 411 scammers butcher English. But I just got one that had the audacity/stupidity to try claiming to be someone who couldn't *possibly* be that bad at English...

My names are George Tony. i'm a 65 years old man. i am Irish living in dakar(senegal).