The people who are happy about the recession are makers of foreclosure signs and pink slips.  

A California man was sentenced to 2 years of jailtime for aiming a laser pointer at an airplane. He was also found in contempt for giving the judge a reindeer nose. 

An upstate New York high school senior suspended for 20 days because of a two-inch knife is fighting back. Matthew Whalen's family has retained a lawyer to appeal the suspension and clear his record. Lansingburgh Central School District Superintendent George Goodwin punished Whalen for having the small utility knife in a tool kit that was locked in the teen's car. Goodwin ruled it was a weapon that is forbidden on school property under Lansingburgh's "zero-tolerance" policy on weapons. Whalen -- an honor student, Eagle Scout and National Guardsman -- is scheduled to return to school Wednesday. He wants the suspension expunged because he's worried it might hurt his chances of gaining admission to the U.S. Military Academy.  ***MARLAR: These zero-intelligence policies leave no room for logic.  Why would you have to go out to your car to go get your knife when you could just as easily use a sharpened pencil to get the job done?  And pencils aren’t banned!  And if you really want to inflict pain on someone in the classroom, go for a paper cut with lemon juice – those aren’t banned yet either. 

I've heard that not even rich people consider themselves to be rich. But I think I've finally found a test to prove that you're rich. If you can afford to EAT GOLD, then you are pretty well off, wouldn't you agree?

A restaurant in Duesseldorf has put gold-covered sausages on its menu. The restaurant owner claims eating gold is healthy. In addition to traditional tomato sauce and curry powder, the sausage comes with a piece of 18 carat leaf gold on its skin and diners at Curry restaurant pay handsomely to get it. How can it be healthy? Well, according to the restaurant manager, "It has been done in Greece for hundreds of years. One of our customers always brought in his own gold and asked us to cover his food with it, that's how we got the idea." The restaurant's manager also suggests ordering the gold-covered sausage for somebody instead of flowers if you're in love. ***MARLAR: Yeah, that'll work. "Baby, I love you so much I'm giving you a long cylindrical meat object wrapped in intestine and covered in metal." 

The number of Americans who believe there is solid evidence the Earth is warming because of pollution is at its lowest point in three years, according to a survey released Thursday. The poll of 1,500 adults by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that only 57 percent believe there is strong scientific evidence the Earth has gotten hotter over the past few decades, and as a result, people are viewing the situation as less serious. That's down from 77 percent in 2006, and 71 percent in April 2008.  ***MARLAR: Upon hearing the news, Al Gore said it really burns him up, makes him hot under the collar, and gets his blood boiling.

William Rudd, a 64-year-old retiree from Salem, has collected more than 1,500 prizes including food, gift certificates and other goodies under the state lottery's "Replay" program, which gives losing lottery tickets a second chance to win. Here's just a sampling of his haul: four bottles of maple syrup, 20 pizzas, 33 ice cream cones, 86 cinnamon buns, 92 steakhouse gift certificates, 161 chicken sandwiches, and 484 cups of coffee to wash it all down. Oh, yeah. And a one-month fitness club membership.  ***MARLAR: Well, the bible does say “the last will be first.”

Alice Wang's has a collection of designs that allow you to share a special night at home with your dog. There's a set of two plates -- one normal plate and one doggy-bowl/plate hybrid -- accompanied by a set of wine glasses, one of which is bent at the stem so your dog can drink from it. There's the little doggie dickey shirt collar so your pooch will be properly attired. And finally, a long pillow lets your dog fall asleep in style.  ***MARLAR: If you can afford to spend that much on a date with your dog, how about you just spring for an eHarmony account?

A new study has found the fear of looking stupid stops people from using self-service checkout machines -- but hiding in a crowd helps. And that could give stores some tips on how to handle self-checkout, which is becoming a very popular cost-cutting tool among retailers. The study found that shoppers felt more comfortable ringing up their own purchases if they were alone or in a crowd. But if there was just one other person waiting in line behind them, they felt more pressured and less confident and were less likely to use the machine again or recommend it to others.  ***MARLAR: It might also have made them nervous to have some doofus with a clipboard hovering over them ready to ask about their checkout experience. 

Thousands of ethnic Albanians braved low temperatures and a cold wind in Kosovo's capital Pristina to welcome former President Bill Clinton on Sunday as he attended the unveiling of an 11-foot (3.5-meter) statue of himself on a key boulevard that also bears his name. Clinton is celebrated as a hero by Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority for launching NATO's bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999 that stopped the brutal Serb forces' crackdown on independence-seeking ethnic Albanians.  ***MARLAR: He had the Albanians take photos of him next to the statue so he could prove to Hillary that he was truly there.

Surveillance video at an apartment building captured a deer swimming in an indoor pool for about 15 minutes on Friday. "We were just in shock. We just could not get over it," Meredith Gaddis, the manager at the Ashley Arms apartment building said. The four-point buck apparently had made its way onto the roof above the pool and fell through. The animal, lucky to have survived the fall, proceeded to take a dip. Workers eventually chased the deer out of the building and it ran off into the wilderness.  ***MARLAR: With a nasty case of chlorine-eye.  (The deer have to get as much relaxation time in as possible before Christmas Eve.)

In November Nicolas Rapp says he will be quitting my job and heading out on one of the last true adventures left on earth: Driving around the world. He'll  spend about a year on the road, starting and finishing in New York. When he can't drive, he'll ship the car by boat, then fly to the next stop to pick it up. The route will be a tough one. He'll cross Central America, then head down South America to Buenos Aires. From there, he'll ship the car to South Africa, then drive north through Africa to Europe. He'll stop in Paris to get some paperwork done, then go east through Eastern Europe, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and India. He'll ship the car to Thailand, drive to Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia and Indonesia, and put the car on a final sailing home to the U.S.  ***MARLAR: Some husbands will do anything to get some quiet time away from their wives.