RIGHT SAID FRAUD
An audit conducted by the US Government Accountability Office yielded the discovery that about $1 billion in disaster relief funds have been used in potentially fraudulent claims in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina/Rita in the Gulf Coast.
Debit cards given to people displaced by the storms were improperly used to buy diamond jewelry, a vacation in the Dominican Republic, fireworks, a $200 bottle of champagne at a Hooters in San Antonio and $300 worth of "Girls Gone Wild" videos, the audit found.
According to the GAO, $1,000 from a FEMA debit card went to a Houston divorce lawyer, $600 was spent in a strip club and $400 was spent on "adult erotica products," all of which auditors concluded were "not necessary to satisfy legitimate disaster needs."
The GAO concluded that at least $1 billion in disaster relief payments by the Federal Emergency Management Agency were improper and potentially fraudulent because the recipients provided incomplete or incorrect information when they registered for assistance.
FEMA acknowledged its shortcomings late Tuesday.
MORAL LESSON: Give a man a fish, you will feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish, you will ... oh, f-k it, just give him the money!!!
JIHAD ON YOUR ASS
Speaking of disasters, looks like Indonesia is still on Bad Santa's list ...
Indonesian authorities have raised the alert status for Mount Merapi, the volatile volcano in central Java, to the highest level after downgrading it in recent days.
The Indonesian Center for Research Technology and Volcanology raised the alert to red from yellow on Tuesday after noticing an increase in activity.
"The status was upgraded at 2 p.m. (0700 GMT) because of the increasing hot clouds," said Triyani, an official at the state-run monitoring center in the city of Yogyakarta, a city of about 500,000 people, in the province of the same name.
Last week, about 11,000 residents living near Mount Merapi were evacuated after hot ash spewed from the volcano's dome.
As if they haven't had enough of tsunamis and earthquakes. Were the victims predominantly Muslim? Wow, looks like Mother Nature declared a fatwa on you guys.
BLOODY CUP FLOWETH OVER
And apparently, this World Cup stuff is still too much even for those watching at home. i mean, would you rather get buried in an earthquake, die from HIV/AIDS from that Patpong transvestite, or check out like this:
Thai police are searching for a gunman who shot and killed two soccer fans at a beach resort after complaining they were cheering too loudly during a broadcast of Italy's World Cup opener against Ghana, officials said Wednesday.MORAL LESSON: Always have safety in numbers, especially when cheering for your favorite team. Or bring a gun and shoot first.
The two men, both Thais, were watching Italy's 2-0 win over Ghana at a restaurant Monday at the Thai beach resort town of Pattaya, and erupted in roars when Italy scored its first goal, said Panipha Wattakul, a girlfriend of one of the victims.
A man seated at a nearby table asked them to quieten down, prompting a heated argument during which the man pulled out a handgun and shot the football fans at point blank range. Police know the identity of the gunman, who fled after the shooting.
Thailand has never competed in the World Cup. But despite the Southeast Asian nation's poor showing on the international football stage, millions of fans are glued to their televisions during the World Cup and millions of baht (dollars) are spent on illegal betting, polls show.
DAT IS SO GHETTOH
And just when you think it was safe in New York (decrease in Homeland Security funds notwithstanding ...)
Four young men suspected of beating a recording artist while yelling anti-gay slurs were arraigned on assault charges, but did not enter a plea.
They are accused of chasing and jumping Kevin Aviance, 38, at about 1:30 a.m. Saturday in the city's East Village.
According to a felony complaint filed by prosecutors, the men followed Aviance, called him derogatory names and threw two garbage bags and a paint can at the singer before surrounding and attacking him.
Len Evans, Aviance's publicist, said the singer could hear passers-by yelling at the attackers to stop.
Aviance suffered a broken jaw, bruised knee and other injuries, the complaint said.
Granted, Aviance is a black drag queen. Would this news get picked up if he wasn't? Oh, wait - his attackers were also black.
IT WAS THAT PSYCHO GUY FROM 'SCREAM'
And then, just yesterday, the NYC subway system seemingly became a time warp, as it materialized in the mid-'80s, pre-Guiliani purges.
Two people were stabbed, with one left critically injured, in separate incidents on the city's subway system in a roughly 12-hour period, police said.
The latest incident occurred about 4 a.m. Wednesday, when an unidentified man waiting with a friend on a platform at the Rockefeller Center station in midtown Manhattan was stabbed twice in the stomach, apparently during a robbery, police said. He was hospitalized in stable condition. The stabber fled.
On Tuesday afternoon, Christopher McCarthy, 21, of Houston, was hospitalized in critical condition after he was stabbed by a man sitting across from him in a subway car on Manhattan's Upper West Side, an attack police said was random and apparently unprovoked.
No words were exchanged between McCarthy and the man, who police said was in his 20s and wore all black.
The man left the train and police launched an extensive search, scouring subway tunnels and nearby Central Park. He remained at large Wednesday.
That's it, I'm not going out of my apartment until doomsday.
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