Today In The USA

Leona Helmsley apparently cared more for her dog than she did her grandkids, leaving $12 to the dog, $5 million each to two grandkids and nothing to two others.

Helmsley, aka “The Queen of Mean” or as some might call her “The Bitch of the Rich”, left the vast majority of her estate, reportedly worth billions of dollars, to the charitable trust which bears her and her late husband’s names.

Oh, she did leave $100,000 to her chauffeur, a mere “drop in the bucket” for putting up with the old crank but none the less better than two grand kids made out, so maybe there’s some consolation in that.

Leona Helmsley who was indicted and convicted of tax evasion back in the late 1980’s supposedly she told an employee “Only the little people pay taxes”.

Turns out Ol’ Leona finally learned a couple of valuable lessons.

You can not escape taxes and you can not escape death…

Read it at Helmsley leaves her dog $12 million in trust

Paul Addis, 35, a “performance artist” from San Francisco (where else?) has been declared a suspected arsonist by authorities after he allegedly experienced a premature conflagration by burning the “Burning Man”.

This apparent dip shit was busted on suspicion of arson, illegal possession of fireworks, destruction of property and resisting a public officer. After being booked, Addis somehow managed to make a $25,632 bond and was released from jail.

Allegedly Addis torched the 40-foot-tall wood and neon structure about 3:00 am Tuesday, as festival goers were being moonstruck by a lunar eclipse.

The “Burning Man” was supposed to be torched on Saturday night. Since there’s no much left of him, festival engineers have decided to demolish the remains and build a smaller and less complex version for Saturday night’s fire.

Who knows, maybe they will let Addis torch that one too?

Read it at Burning Man Torched Early; Artist Held and also at Burning Man Becomes Burnt Man 4 Days Early and be glad you are not kin to this idiot…

NASA has not had a lot of “good news” lately, so the news that a report to NASA by NASA indicates that there is no evidence of ’shit faced’ astronauts flying in space was probably a welcome relief.

It’s always refreshing when one gets to investigate themselves versus having an independent agency do the investigation.

The downside being that “Lust In Space Astronaut” Lisa Nowak is going the “I was nuts then but I’m not nuts now defense” for her upcoming trial on charges that she assaulted and tried to kidnap a romantic rival for another “Lust In Space Astronaut”, Bill Oefelein.

Both Nowak and Oefelein have been fired by NASA owing to, well, owing to the fact that NASA managers don’t like being embarrassed by anything less than the loss of a shuttle and crew and Nowak’s “temporary nutty defense” is sure to cause some one to say “Houston, we have a problem”…

Read it at NASA: Astronauts Sober for Space and at Love Triangle Astronaut Lisa Nowak to Pursue Insanity Defense and remember fondly the good old days of “The Right Stuff”…