Once upon a time, the Beatles sang, “She said/I know what it’s like to be dead.” The deceased grandma (she died in December) whom the Recording Industry Association of America sued last month over peer-to-peer infringement activity probably bumped into John Lennon and George Harrison in the great beyond and sang back, "You ain't seen nothin' yet!" Then, presumably with John and George slinging their guitars on her behalf, she probably pointed to the RIAA from on high and hollered, "She says/you don't know jack squat of the dead!" The RIAA—whose range of age for suing over online file swapping has missed only the unborn—has said they'd try to get the case dismissed. Presumably, before a judge throws it down and sings, "They're coming to take you away, ha-haa!"
There are some who might believe West Homestead police chief David Ausburn might be better off dead—or at least cringing when the local oldies station plays "You're Sixteen"—than facing what he's facing: an investigation over his reputed Internet contact with a teenage girl. Postal inspectors and the FBI executed a search warrant of his office earlier than this month, hunting through lockers and desks, and finally taking his car and his computer. They also reportedly interviewed Mayor John Dindak about e-mails between Ausburn and the 16-year-old girl. Ausburn, meanwhile, has denied speculation that he had hired an attorney in the probe and agreed to step down as police chief.
A 19-year-old computer maven stirred it up bigtime earlier in February, too, when an online free game he created caught attention and controversy—a game in which you buy enough bombs, rent a truck, and if you can figure out a way to blow up the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City (you know, the one Timothy McVeigh—who was a main character in this new game—turned into waffle toast) you win. "This kind of makes a mockery of the whole thing," said Linda Herndon, who has friends that helped rescue efforts after the real McVeigh bombed the real Murrah Building. "He shouldn't be portrayed as a hero in a game like this. He wasn't a hero and I wouldn't want to have anything on the Internet anyway that would give this implication to that man and his twisted mind." Considering a lot of what gets posted in fringe online discussion forums, Ms. Herndon would have a lot more work to do than hollering about one twisted online game to get rid of everything online implying McVeigh's "heroism"…
Now, here are some short shorts…in more ways than one…
>>Leave It To Beaver A Beaver County, Pennsylvania man who got canned from his gig at the county's Office on Aging is suing his former bosses in federal court—because their firing him for surfing porn on the job violated his First Amendment rights, so he says.
>>So What Took Him So Long? Tom Jones has had it up to his kiester with the ladies winging their underwear toward him while he sings onstage—after forty years worth of it. Ever the gentleman, the Welsh singer never said whether the average age of his fans had anything to do with it.
>>Stupid Landlord Tricks A CBS video shooter whose work has included The Late Show with David Letterman has been busted for videopeeping his student houseguest while she took a bath in his apartment.
>>It Takes a Naked Thief …to steal a Philadelphia police cruiser. Which is exactly what happened February 21, after he stopped to take a bite out of one crimefighter and needed a ride to escape the teeth of the law, that is.
>>Photo Finish …and, 120 hours community service, for a Briton whose harassment of his ex-girlfriend, after she ended a twelve-year relationship, included sending nude photos to her family and friends.
>>The Taxpayers Got It Up New York state taxpayers ponied up to help people keep it up: they paid $20 million under the state's rather generous Medicaid program for Viagra and similar medications.
>>Que Sera Sera? We're betting that wasn't the reaction, when a British Baptist couple thought they bought Doris Day's The Pajama Game and got a porn film called Breasts of Passion instead. They couldn't believe what they saw, watched the whole film, and then complained about the lack of pajama game.
>>The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner That might well be experienced by Wang Yueting, who took a run across China (hint: this isn't exactly a jog around the block, folks) to support the 2008 Olympics…and whose wife rewarded his commitment with his head on a divorce plate.
