Some Hump Day news I missed yesterday:
A huge family dispute erupted in Saudi Arabia after a man's wife kissed a camel.
The man's mother accused her daughter-in-law of breaking religious and social traditions and pressured her son to divorce his wife.
The wife insisted that the kiss was innocent and spontaneous.
On the other hand, a London court has just acquitted Saudi millionaire property developer of raping a teenage girl. Mr Ehsan Abdulaziz testified that he accidentally penetrated the young lady after stumbling and falling on her. Enjoy the trip:
He said: 'I'm fragile, I fell down but nothing ever happened, between me and this girl nothing ever happened.' He said traces of his DNA could have been found in her vagina because of the fall.
You begin to see why Saudi women find the family camel more charming and sensitive. The menfolk, of course, prefer goats. (See picture.)
~Meanwhile, two more "Frenchmen" have been arrested in connection with the Paris bloodbath. You'll enjoy this first sentence:
Two people have been arrested at a refugee center in the Austrian city of Salzburg on suspicion of being connected to last month's Paris attacks, the Salzburg prosecutors' office said on Wednesday.
"Two people who arrived from the Middle East were arrested at the weekend in accommodation for refugees on suspicion of belonging to a terrorist organization," Robert Holzleitner, a spokesman for the Salzburg prosecutor's office, said.
The two are men who are thought to have provided help to members of the group that carried out the attacks on Nov. 13 in which 130 people were killed, two Austrian newspapers reported.
In Paris, happily, life is back to normal:
Fourteen people were mildly poisoned by a toxic substance that was applied to the keypad of an electronic lock of a synagogue south of Paris.
Members of the Jewish community of Bonneuil-sur-Marne on Monday called rescue services to report a sudden strong burning sensation in their eyes and itchy rashes on their skin, Le Parisien reported.
Some 25 firemen rushed to the synagogue, which is under police and military protection whenever it is open. They treated congregants who were poisoned and traced its source to the lock. Described as a nonlethal irritant, the substance found on the pad was sent for analysis at a police forensic lab.
The substance was applied to the pad when the synagogue was closed and the military personnel guarding it were not present.
Hey, relax, they were only "mildly poisoned". As Laura Rosen Cohen observes:
Just "mildly" of course because nothing ever done to Jews is serious.
As Obama's Department of Homeland Security would no doubt confirm, "violent extremists" shoot and bomb you - but "mild extremists" just "mildly poison" you, so no reason not to let more and more of them in.
Are you a Catholic? Lutheran? Would you like to live like that? Your church requires the presence of policemen and soldiers whenever it is open, and when it's closed the high-tech electronic keypad is smeared with poison? Don't worry, it'll be coming to you soon enough.
I'm taking bets on which will be the first ancient European country simply to implode. The favorite so far is Sweden, but Austria's one to watch.
~A mere two months ago, in the days before Paul Ryan ascended to the Speakership, he received a word of advice from Newt Gingrich:
"I think Paul should be very cautious. He is the most prestigious member of the House on the Republican side, he has the best future, he's still very young. It's easy to get to 218 on the first vote," said Gingrich on "Fox News Sunday," before listing off a series of bills the House must resolve before December.
"You get to keeping the government open, to a continuing resolution, then you get to the debt ceiling, if you're not careful, by Christmas you resemble John Boehner," Gingrich said.
Almost right. It's Christmas, and Ryan is Boehner on steroids. Trump exists because the base of one half of the two-party one-party state can't see what it gets from the arrangement. The new Speaker is now Exhibit A for that argument.
~Thank you for all your kind words about my new album, dedicated to my beloved cat Marvin, and featuring him on the cover. The Welsh Twitt tweets:
Feline groovy is terrific
I'm glad to see many discriminating music lovers agree with you.