SNIPPETS

JANUARY 2,  2010

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- A record number of Swedish residents applied for legal name changes in 2009, officials say.  A total of 7,740 applications were made to the Patent and Registration Office, the Dagens Nyheter newspaper reported Thursday.

This will undoubtedly become a new human right in Sweden - the right to throw off an oppressive name.

JANUARY 1,  2010

First great headline of 2010, relating to the Mayo Clinic's decision to stop taking Medicare patients at some of its Arizona facilities.  From Investors Business Daily:

Mayo Says: Hold The Medicare

That's imagination.

DECEMBER 31,  2009

RENTON, Wash. (AP) - Truck theft diary: - Take silver 1985 Chevy truck from City Transfer yard in Sumner, Wash., early Monday morning. Helpfully fill it with unleaded gasoline. Fail to notice it requires diesel.

- Call 911 for assistance when truck stalls shortly after noon Monday on State Route 167 in Renton area. Grab green reflector vest found in truck so as to appear to be actual City Transfer employee when help arrives.

- Have the misfortune to have a REAL City Transfer employee drive by and report location of stalled, stolen truck to police.

- Watch Washington State Patrol troopers arrive. Watch a real City Transfer employee who witnessed the theft arrive and describe the man he saw take the truck.

This guy will probably be recruited by Janet Napolitano.

DECEMBER 30,  2009

AMMARNAS, Sweden, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- Residents of a Swedish town of about 160 people said they have been without Internet since before Christmas because their only technician is on vacation.

Under socialism, they're entitled to one technician.  Obama's people are rushing to Sweden to study this wonderful system.

DECEMBER 29,  2009

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Arsonists set fire early on Wednesday to a giant straw statue of the Swedish Yule goat, a forerunner to Santa Claus in Sweden, defying security measures for a third year in a row.  Police in Gavle, north of Stockholm, said an unknown number of attackers had torched the goat in the early morning hours, leaving a blackened skeleton standing in the town square.  "It's a tradition to burn it down," Lofberg said. "It's happened an untold number of times since the 1960s ... it's been burned down more years than it's survived."

Look, it's Sweden.  All you have to say is "cultural expression," and they let it go.

DECEMBER 28,  2009

LONDON, Dec. 27 (UPI) -- A serial shoplifter from North Wales who has served the equivalent of two life sentences was jailed after committing theft No. 321, British police say.David Archer, 54, spent Saturday in jail after admitting in court he shoplifted two bottles of whiskey.

He served the equivalent of two life sentences?  Wouldn't that mean..?  We have here a biological miracle.

DECEMBER 27,  2009

DURHAM, N.H., Dec. 25 (UPI) -- Students who engage heavily in social networking do just as well academically as students who are less interested in keeping in touch, U.S. researcher say.  Chuck Martin, whose marketing research class at the University of New Hampshire conducted the study, says the class surveyed 1,127 university students from a range of majors.

Just thought you parents out there would want to know.

DECEMBER 26,  2009

Actual AP headline today:  Terror suspected in plot to blow up Northwest jet

Yeah, yeah, I'd say that if there's a plot to blow up an airliner, terror might be suspected.  Sure, I'll go along with that.

DECEMBER 25,  2009

WALLINGFORD, Pa. (AP) - A suburban Philadelphia teenager was suspended for a day for wearing a Santa Claus suit to school.  Michael Hance says he told his principal that he planned to wear the suit to Strath Haven High School in Wallingford and hand out candy canes. The 18-year-old senior says the principal told him that wasn't a good idea because it would be a distraction. But he wore the suit anyway, with regular clothes underneath.

Now they should suspend the principal for a day so he can contemplate the concept of "dumbness."  What Christmas spirit!

DECEMBER 24,  2009

EL DORADO HILLS, Calif., Dec. 23 (UPI) -- A California woman is imploring thieves to return a 300-pound fiberglass hippopotamus taken from her yard.  Lynn McCarty said Henrietta the Giant Pink Hippo, which formerly graced her El Dorado Hills yard, was last seen two weeks ago in the bed of a white Ford truck speeding away from her home, Sacramento's KOVR-TV reported Wednesday.

She'll never get it back.  Everyone knows there's a huge underground market in 300-pound fake pink hippos.  (I suspect it was taken by the Good Taste Patrol.) 

DECEMBER 23,  2009

From columnist Bonnie Kogos in the Sudbury (Ontario) Star, reporting from a conference on digital publishing:  "I prepare to be devastated for two days, scratch my head when the first panelist states 'I’m trying to get meta-date normalized across the libraries.'   A publishing executive says:  'We’re not writers, we’re content owners.  We need to aggregate content around the author.'  'No, I want to unbundle content,' says another."

I can understand why my old friend, Bonnie, was prepared to be devastated.  These guys are trying to invent a new, hip language to make themselves sound like the new publishing intellectuals.  Well, this content owner won't buy it.  We're writers, and editors, and always will be, even if our content gets a little unbundled in the struggle.