Category Archives: General Foolishness

CNN reports:

Violence marred Black Friday shopping in at least seven states, including California, where police say a woman doused fellow shoppers with pepper spray in a bid to snag a discounted video game console…

Incidents also occurred in South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida, New York, Alabama and Connecticut, with most of the reported incidents happening at or near Walmart stores.

See also an older post on the economics of Black Friday.

In Mason, Ohio, being a jerk can be a crime. Police arrested a man for barking at a police dog that was sitting in a patrol car. At the subsequent trial, he defended himself on First Amendment grounds, and cited a similar case where the charges were dropped.

The judge didn’t buy it.

His next line of defense?

Stephens claimed “the dog started it,” police reports said.

In journalism lingo, the lede (pronounced “leed”) is your lead sentence or paragraph. It’s spelled funny to avoid confusion with the word “lead.” A good lede grabs the reader’s attention and makes him want to keep reading.

Today, for example, I came across an article that contains what may well be the most effective lede of all time:

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A West Virginia man found wearing women’s underwear and standing over a goat’s carcass told police he was high on bath salts.