Will Bunch To Release Reagan Book In ‘09

Oh, man, this is pretty excellent: Next year, Daily News writer/Attytood writer Will Bunch will will release a book on Ronald Reagan. Naturally, it will attack the idea that Reagan was a king among men and should have things in every county named after him. Congrats, Will!

As you might know from this, I’m no fan of Ronald (and Nancy) Reagan and how they harmed America with horrible drug policy. Ronald Reagan could have torn down the Berlin Wall with his own two hands and I’d still believe he did more harm than good. (Not that it was just Reagan; I’m ready to jump through my TV every time I see Bill Bennett with his commentator spot on CNN.)

Sorry, too serious there for a second. Bunch’s blog post contains a lot of links and facts and opinions and really I decided to skip to the hilarious comments.

will has finally realized that his true talent, is in tearing republicans down, even dead ones, it is so much easier than contributing anything positive to the world.

Ha ha ha. I love Internet commenters.

The myth of Ronald Reagan: Coming to your bookstore in 2009 [Attytood]

Dead Employees Do Hard Work

Hey, so KPMG audited a bunch of New Jersey school districts. And here are some of the more fun expenses!

• Camden: $380,000: Checks issued for 10 dead employees. District said they were data entry errors and no money was paid; $3 million: The amount of federal grant money the district lost in 2005 after mismanaging the funds, jeopardizing future grants.
• Gloucester City: $1,140: Desk used by a summer employee; bids were sought from other companies, but this was lowest bid; $6,116: Rain jackets for football team; jackets were just one on a list of many items on this appropriation; $14,901: For professional geese removal from athletic fields; this is a year-round health problem on fields and parking lots requiring professional help.
• Pemberton Township: $999: Flowers for Secretaries Week, School Nurses Week, Special Education Week and Teachers Appreciation Day; $1,163: Mahogany desk, chair, bookcase, umbrella stand for elementary school curriculum supervisor; desk was actually steel but colored mahogany, and was a reasonable expense from state-contracted business for furniture set.

Man, I want a mahogany-colored steel desk! I could sit at it in my rain jacket and shoo geese away all day while paying dead employees to blog for me.

Flowers, catering, goose chase among flagged expenses [Camden Courier-Post]

Evil Poodle Tortures Soon-To-Die Seniors

A few months ago, a story about a cat who seemed to know when nursing home patients were going to die made the rounds on TV and the news. The general consensus was that the cat helped comfort patients in their final hours and alerted the nursing home that family members should be summoned, etc.

Well, it took a while for them to localize this story, but NBC 10 has joined the party! Medical reporter Cherie Bank has found a local poodle who won’t enter the rooms of hospital nursing home patients who are about to die. Ha ha! What a nice thing to do!

“The first few times, I really didn’t put it together,” said Marge Stiller, the poodle’s owner and trainer. Stiller said when Libby won’t pass the threshold, it’s because “she has the ability to know — I don’t want to say predict — know when a person is going to be passing away within 24 hours.”

And Marge said Libby’s track record is pretty “dog-gone” good, Bank reported. “It’s 100 percent. It’s been 100 percent, yeah,” Stiller said.

Stiller has been taking Libby to nursing homes, rehab hospitals and retirement communities for about 12 years.

So this dog has been torturing nursing home patients for 12 years. Oh, but apparently they don’t tell the patients whose room the dog won’t enter — until now, of course. And since she didn’t tell anyone until now, perhaps the dog has never predicted anyone’s death at all!

Local Pooch Knows When You’re About To Die [NBC 10]
Feline intuition [Boston Globe]