Newman !!!

From today's paper:

Witness reports postie with prostitute

CanWest News Service
Published: Friday, April 28, 2006

VANCOUVER -- Canada Post is investigating allegations a Burnaby letter carrier was with a prostitute while on duty.
Canada Post Pacific Region spokesman Bob Taylor said the alleged incident happened last Friday.
"We are reviewing the incident to see if disciplinary action is required," said Taylor.
He said the man in question is a full-time employee of Canada Post who is a "mobile letter carrier."
"They drive a vehicle on their routes," said Taylor.
In the upcoming days, Taylor said they will have more information on the allegations.
"We are meeting with the union, the individual and his supervisor," said Taylor.
The incident is alleged to have happened near a City of Burnaby works yard.
Taylor said police are not involved. "It's not a criminal matter, it's internal," he said.
The status of the employee will be determined once the review of the incident is done.
"At this point, he's still working," said Taylor.
A person in the area is alleged to have reported the incident.
***

Betcha it was Jerry who reported him....

Anthem !!!

Someone has produced a Spanish language version of the US national anthem, so immigrants can sing it too. George Bush weighed in quickly, stating that it should be sung good in English only: http://www.cbc.ca/story/arts/national/2006/04/28/anthem-spanish-bush.html

There's that little history quirk, though, that I guess everyone hears or reads about at least once in their life, about how the new United States almost adopted German as its official language by a margin of one vote. It is only a legend, as the USA has never adopted an official language (27 states have done so, though). Some links:

http://german.about.com/library/weekly/aa010820a.htm
http://www.watzmann.net/scg/german-by-one-vote.html

So how would the "Star-Spangled Banner" sound in German?

O Sagen kann Sie
Durch das frühe Licht der Dämmerung sehen,
Was so stolz wir im letzten Glaenzen
Der Dämmerungen hagelten?

Nawwww....

Another old news story from 2000 I saw once - nothing seems to have come of this, though:

A French singer-songwriter hopes to replace the bellicose lyrics of France’s national anthem, the Marseillaise, with a more politically correct version that does not threaten to fertilize the fields of France with foreigner‘s blood. Antoine Capella [A. Capella? -ed] of Angers says he has won the support of Laurent Fabius, the Speaker of the French parliament, for his composition "Marseillaise de l’an 2000".

Mr. Capella’s new version of the anthem veers away from what he called the “outrageous and fascist” elements of the original, which was scribbled overnight by Claude-Joseph Rouget de l’Isle, an army captain, whose men were defending Strasbourg from Prussian forces in 1792.

Where part of the original proclaims: “March! March!/ That [their] impure blood/ May drench our furrows,” Mr. Capella’s rewrite offers: “March! March!/ That an azure sky/ May shine on the horizon."