News With a Difference

VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican on Tuesday issued a set of ''Ten Commandments'' for drivers, telling motorists not to kill, not to drink and drive, and to help fellow travelers in case of accidents. The document warned that cars can be ''an occasion of sin'' -- particularly when they are used for dangerous passing or for prostitution. It warned about the effects of road rage, saying driving can bring out ''primitive'' behavior in motorists, including ''impoliteness, rude gestures, cursing, blasphemy, loss of sense of responsibility or deliberate infringement of the highway code.'' It urged motorists to obey traffic regulations, drive with a moral sense, and to pray when behind the wheel. The Doom Brothers have their own addendum - The other Five Commandments, if you will for driving: No good driver would ever break ours.
1. If you are driving in an urban area that is subject to traffic backups, be aware that the Big Gulp or the Grande’ Coffee you are drinking might also have to be used as an emergency urine receptacle.
2. If you really have no other venue for sex, we suggest that you invest in a van or a station wagon. Sex in a subcompact is not for the geriatric set. You may displace more than your Viagra.
3. If another driver is rude to you and has hurt your feelings, we feel strongly that retribution is simply not the way to go. We would suggest that you point out, graciously, their mistakes using the middle finger on either hand.
4. The horn is for warning another driver that they are breaking the rules. Not for signaling the onset of an orgasm (see rule #2) or for retribution (see rule #3) However, if the person is the other car is hot and they catch your eye and you have no other means of communication, tapping out Morse Code on the horn(y) button is acceptable.
5. Whenever the road conditions deteriorate to the point where readers of this website understand that is it simply not safe anymore, it is always best to simply pull off and laugh like hell at the other drivers – preferably from a safe overpass.

WASHINGTON -- E-mail records are missing for 51 of the 88 White House officials who had electronic message accounts with the Republican National Committee, the House Oversight Committee said Monday. The Bush administration may have committed ''extensive'' violations of a law requiring that certain records be preserved, said the committee's Democratic chairman, adding that the panel will deepen its probe into the use of political e-mail accounts. The RNC has preserved e-mails from some of the heaviest users, including 140,216 messages sent or received by Bush's top political adviser in the White House, Karl Rove. However, ''the RNC has preserved no e-mails for 51 officials,'' said the interim report, issued by committee chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif. The 51 include Ken Mehlman, a former White House political director who reportedly used his RNC account frequently, the report said. The Doom Brothers would like to point out to Chairman Waxman that this sort of smells like three week old fish or a Republican’s soul. When an email is sent it is not only saved on the computer it is sent from, it is saved on every server it happens to have been passed through along the way. The chances of every copy of an email being “lost” are about the same as George Bush actually having read a book – without pictures.

SHANGHAI, China -- A company in eastern China was ordered to stop production after food safety officials found it was repackaging the filling from two-year-old rice dumplings, an official said Tuesday. Officials in east China's Anhui province ordered a recall of all ''zongzi'' -- a traditional snack made of glutinous rice and other fillings usually wrapped in bamboo leaves -- made by the manufacturer, Wan Maomao Frozen Food Co. “MMMM, Can’t wait till the Hostess Corporation abandons Chicago for Shanghai, can you?” said Doom Brother Bob as he did the morning news. “Hell, Twinkies last damned near forever now. When the Chinese get a hold of them: they will. And the Ho Hos! The mind boggles.”

ROME -- A former Nazi captain serving a life sentence for war crimes took a motorbike to his lawyer's office Monday on a work-release permit, outraging Jewish residents and prompting Italy's defense minister to summon a military prosecutor for an explanation. Erich Priebke, 93, who was convicted for his role in the massacre of 335 Italian civilians in 1944, won permission last month to leave the Rome apartment where he is serving his sentence to work as a translator at his lawyer's office. His lawyer, Enriche Hisselfe, told the Doom Brothers, “Look, if the Pope can be forgiven for working with the Nazis, why not Mr. Priebke?”

SYDNEY, Australia -- Australian officials have discovered more than a dozen snakes and lizards stuffed inside garden gnomes and similar pottery figures during a recent international mail check, customs officials said Tuesday. A customs official found two snakes and three lizards wriggling inside the ceramic garden statues during a routine postal inspection in Sydney on June 10. The Doom Brothers interviewing custom’s official, Jock Ytch, were told, “Damn! ‘Bout scared the shite out of me. I opened the package and there they were as big as life! That’ t’ain’t natural, that’s all I gots to say.” The Doom Brothers would like to point out that investigating this should not be too difficult as the package has both a place of origin and a destination on the shipping manifest. Even the Australians should be able to do it. Hell, even the Bush Administration might have a chance.

GENEVA (AP) -- U.S. officials said Monday they are willing to negotiate a treaty on the use of cluster bombs, reversing their position that no new agreement on the weapon was necessary. But the United States still rejects a proposed global ban on the weapon, which 46 countries began negotiating in Oslo in February, officials said. Instead, Washington wants to negotiate a treaty that doesn't go as far within the framework of the 1980 U.N. Convention on Conventional Weapons. Ronald Bettauer, head of the U.S. delegation, said the U.S. position has changed ''due to the importance of this issue, concerns raised by other countries, and our own concerns about the humanitarian implications of these weapons. But to ban these weapons? Hell no! We are fighting a global war on terror.” At this point an aide tugged his sleeve and whispered in his ear, “No, that is no longer operable”
“Well, we are engaged in a crusade against the evil doers.” Tug on sleeve, “Nope, can’t say that either”
“We are fighting the terrorists there so we will not have to fight them here?” He said looking at his aide who nodded affirmatively. . . .