A SELF-DESCRIBED “DIAMOND DRILLER” in Britain gets a new wardrobe mandated by the court.

TOP FLITE IS MAKING A BIG CHANGE.  “The Rock Flite ball is dead in 2007″ the makers say.  Callaway, who bought the troubled ball maker 4 years ago, is starting a new campaign for their re-designed budget golf balls.  Think dimples within dimples.  (?….ok)

A CONTINUING AND GROWING PROBLEM in the U.K. is the long delays in ambulance response times.  The EMS systems there are overworked and seemingly short of ambulances.

IN LONG BEACH, CALIF., A RESIDENT of a high-rise apartment leapt from the 18th floor to escape a fire last night.

A HUGE MULCH FIRE IN TEXAS that had been burning for 3 months has finally been put out.  That must have been an awful lot of mulch.  Where did it all come from?

update:  The mulch pile was eight stories high.

…….when the pear trees are in bloom!

BREVARD COUNTY, FLA., POLICE AND FIRE & RESCUE DEPARTMENTS have been pulled off the streets and are assisting the beach patrols.  A persistent on-shore wind over the past two days has created so many rip currents that the beach lifeguards have been overwhelmed with rescues.  Compounding the troubles is the surf bringing in numerous man-o-wars and sharks to further endanger the swimmers.  Orlando Channel 6 has video here.

POISONOUS WHILE THEY’RE ALIVE, but they make ”sensational fertilizer”  after they’re ground up.  I’ll just take their word for it.

……” went up on two wheels and left the road.”  It would be nice to know what the make of the vehicle is.

IN NIGERIA MORE THAN 70 PEOPLE  were killed when a gasoline tanker caught fire while they were stealing product from it.

THE HEAD OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, Secretary Lawrence Small, resigned Monday after much unfavorable publicity about his lavish expense account.

update:  The USA Today editorial page jumps in and tosses a spitball at “America’s Attic” for its propensity to allow this.  You may recall the flap back in 1995 when the Air and Space Museum tried to foist an exhibit on the public that blamed the United States for the war with Japan and claimed we dropped the atomic bomb because we were “imperialists” and the Japanese were “innocent victims.”   The head of the Air and Space Museum was fired over that one, and the Secretery (Head) of the SI was hounded out of office.

I think a major part of the Smithsonian’s problem is that they are necessarily stocked with academics and the current generation of them is largely out of touch with reality.  Revisionism is a major part of their culture now.    Says Firegeezer