And this YouTube vid comes from the father of a friend (guess who?).  It’s called BUYRAL and it’s scary-funny-hysterical.

Hostess Brands Inc., the maker of the iconic Twinkies snack cake, will square off in a bankruptcy court on Monday against an agent of the U.S. Justice Department, who says the wind-down plan is too generous to management.

The U.S. Trustee, an agent of the U.S. Department of Justice who oversees bankruptcy cases, said in court documents it opposed the wind-down plan because Hostess planned improper bonuses to company insiders.

The 82-year-old Hostess wants permission to pay senior management a bonus of up to 75% of their annual pay so they will stay on and help wind-down the business.

The U.S. Trustee, Tracy Hope Davis, planned to ask New York Bankruptcy Court Judge Robert Drain at Monday’s afternoon hearing to appoint an independent trustee to oversee the sales of the company’s assets.

Several unions also objected to the company’s plans, saying they made “a mockery” of laws protecting collective bargaining agreements in bankruptcy. The Teamsters, which represents 7,900 Hostess workers, said the company’s plan would improperly cut the ability of remaining workers to use sick days and vacation.

Read the entire Reuters article here.  My take?  It doesn’t make a whole heck of a lot of business sense to pay bonuses to the Ho-Ho’s who brought Hostess to bankruptcy, but then that’s why I’m not in upper management…

Since the overseas commercial I posted from YouTube went over so well (I’m gonna be running a special on Depends), here’s another YouTube vid (this one a prank), courtesy of Christina.  This can be enjoyed by the whole family (even if they’re not twisted).

Here’s a commercial (from oversease) on YouTube that’ll make you laugh.

New York police officer charged with plan to cook, eat women

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A New York City police officer was charged on Thursday with conspiring to kidnap, torture, cook and eat women whose names he listed in his computer.

In a criminal complaint unsealed in Manhattan federal court, Gilberto Valle III, 28, of Forest Hills, Queens, was charged with conspiring to cross state lines to kidnap the women and with illegally accessing a federal database.

The charges carry a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Investigators uncovered a file on Valle’s computer containing the names and pictures of at least 100 women, and the addresses and physical descriptions of some of them, according to the complaint. It said he had undertaken surveillance of some of the women at their places of employment and their homes.

Magistrate Judge Henry Pitman, in denying Valle bail at a hearing on Thursday evening, said: “the allegations in the complaint are profoundly disturbing. I have never seen allegations similar to this in 16 years on the bench.”

Read the complete article here.

Remember that little post about the people poisoned by their newly-purchased foreclosed house?  Here’s an article from today’s AP:

In this June 20, 2011, photo released by Mexico’s Attorney General’s office, police from the Federal Public Ministry looks at drums of precursor chemicals for methamphetamine that were seized in Queretaro, Mexico. (AP Photo/SEMAR, File)

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Mexican drug cartels are quietly filling the void in the nation’s drug market created by the long effort to crack down on American-made methamphetamine, flooding U.S. cities with exceptionally cheap, extraordinarily potent meth from factorylike “superlabs.”

Although Mexican meth is not new to the U.S. drug trade, it now accounts for as much as 80 percent of the meth sold here, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. And it is as much as 90 percent pure, a level that offers users a faster, more intense and longer-lasting high.

“These are sophisticated, high-tech operations in Mexico that are operating with extreme precision,” said Jim Shroba, a DEA agent in St. Louis. “They’re moving it out the door as fast as they can manufacture it.”

The cartels are expanding into the U.S. meth market just as they did with heroin: developing an inexpensive, highly addictive form of the drug and sending it through the same pipeline already used to funnel marijuana and cocaine, authorities said.

Seizures of meth along the Southwest border have more than quadrupled over the last several years. DEA records reviewed by The Associated Press show that the amount of seized meth jumped from slightly more than 4,000 pounds in 2007 to more than 16,000 pounds in 2011.

During that same period, the purity of Mexican meth shot up too, from 39 percent in 2007 to 88 percent by 2011, according to DEA documents. The price fell 69 percent, tumbling from $290 per pure gram to less than $90.

Mexican meth has a clearer, glassier appearance than more crudely produced formulas and often resembles ice fragments, usually with a clear or bluish-white color. It often has a smell people compare to ammonia, cat urine or even burning plastic.

Read the entire article here.

This deeply disturbing article appeared in Yahoo!News (don’t worry, nobody dies!).

The foreclosed house for sale on the up-and-coming street pined for fresh paint and other fixes, but the Hankins family saw its potential.

Plus, at $36,000, the price was perfect for a young family trying to make ends meet in small-town Klamath Falls, Ore.

“We said, ‘It needs a little bit of love, but it’s got good bones,'” Jonathan Hankins recalled. “We just had no idea that those bones were poisonous.”

Within days of moving in this past summer, Beth Hankins, an ER nurse, started experiencing breathing problems. Then Jonathan got migraine-like headaches and nosebleeds. By the third week, their 2-year-old son, Ezra, developed mouth sores.

“He couldn’t even drink water without being in pain,” said Jonathan, 32.

They were about to schedule doctor visits when a neighbor shared the bad news: 2427 Radcliffe was a former meth house.

The family ordered a $50 testing kit and had the lab expedite the results, which revealed a contamination level nearly 80 times above Oregon Heath Authority limits.

“Our walls were poisoning us,” said Jonathan, who quickly moved his family to a rental home.

Continue reading…

Here’s a fun little collection of what the Huffington Post calls “Inappropriate Wedding Dresses.”  The only thing missing from some of these shots is the pole…

My original headline mentioned Kroger as this was where the incident occurred, but this is not limited to Kroger, nor to any one chain/store – I have a reader who drives about… well, quite a few miles, let’s say… to shop at the Lisle Jewel because of the way she was treated at the Jewel locations nearer her home.  Yes, there are food stamp cheats, and just as many people involved in welfare fraud, but you know what?  The vast majority of recipients hate being on public assistance and try very, very hard to get off.  There will always be a “hat in hand” stigma attached to begging at those government offices, since one person is asking and the other person is giving.

Read the entire Huffington Post article here.