And the award for Best John Cleese Impression of the Day goes to…

Larry Whitten marched into this northern New Mexico town in late July on a mission: resurrect a failing hotel.

The tough-talking former Marine immediately laid down some new rules. Among them, he forbade the Hispanic workers at the run-down, Southwestern adobe-style hotel from speaking Spanish in his presence (he thought they’d be talking about him), and ordered some to Anglicize their names.

No more Martin (Mahr-TEEN). It was plain-old Martin. No more Marcos. Now it would be Mark.

And if you didn’t follow the new rules, you were fired.

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Items planned for auction on eBay and elsewhere to raise money for the defense of Scott Roeder, who will be tried in January for the murder of George Tiller:

• “Army of God” manual, including instructions for bombing abortion clinics; the instructions will be covered up, and interested parties referred to relevant sections of the U.S. Army manual.
• Cookbook of “prison recipes” by Shelley Shannon, who shot Tiller in 1993 and was later convicted for abortion-clinic bombings; the “prison cheesecake” is recommended.
• Handwritten book of commentary and cartoons by Shannon.

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The fun starts about 3:50 in ….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDES0VXlmFI

Please note: “Account must be opened in the name of the individual recipient planning to be inseminated.”

Donor 11437: 5ʹ10ʺ, 164 pounds, wavy brown hair, hazel eyes, English/Irish/Scottish.

Resembles: Brett Favre, Ben Affleck, Brody Jenner.

Up Close and Personal: “You may be looking at the next Richard Branson-esque billionaire, activist, adventurer.”

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Title: “Jim Cramer’s Getting Back to Even”

Authors: Jim Cramer and Cliff Mason

Rank: 64

Blurb: “Cramer begins with six rules for protecting the money you have and making sure that you have the money you need.”

Review: “If you were helped by Watch TV, Get Rich or Get Rich, Stay Rich then why do you need Getting Back to Even?”

Customers Also Bought: “Picking Winners: A Horseplayer’s Guide,” by Andrew Beyer

Footnote: Rule #1: Don’t listen to Jim Cramer.

Jim Cramer’s Getting Back to Even [Amazon]

Buy or Die [Stinque@Amazon kickback link]

Vince Lombardi was a famously butch football coach, although our vague memory of him denying players sideline heaters during the Ice Bowl seems to be faulty. Still, Lombardi was a pussy compared to the assistant coach at Lakeland, Florida’s Kathleen High:

[Christopher Michael] Campbell of Lakeland pointed the knife in a threatening manner several times at one of the players, 16-year-old Otis Buford, “poking him and tapping him on the chest and on the helmet with it while also verbally threatening him,” deputies said in a news release…

Deputies said Campbell admitted to [athletic director Gary] Lineberger that he brought the knife to practice and that he told players, “Don’t try me today.”

Coming from a university whose mascot is a cartoon waterfowl, we can appreciate the challenges faced by coaches at Kathleen High. But if the team is “very close” to the coach, as the A.D. says, one question comes to mind: Who finked?

Lakeland assistant coach arrested for having knife at practice [Tampa Tribune]

“Mick Jagger said in a song once, ‘you can’t always get what what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need,” Pawlenty said. “For those of us who are Republicans and conservatives, we didn’t get what we wanted in the 2008 election for president but we did get something that we needed. And that is a chance to ask ‘what are the lessons from 2008 and 2006?'”

You’re the kind of person
You meet at certain dismal dull affairs.

Give me champagne when I’m thirsty
Give me a reefer when I wanna get high

When I’m drivin’ in my car
And a man comes on the radio
He’s telling me more and more
About some useless information

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