June 7: Queen Elizabeth Needs More Cash; Volcanic Ash; and a Gaga Bash

• McDonald’s recalls 12-million “Shrek” character tumblers.  Artwork on glasses contains cadmium that can erode bones, damage kidneys, lungs and, just for good measure, cause cancer.   Headline:  Glasses are NOT made in China!
• needs a raise“Economic travail reaches royalty!”   Britain’s monarch, Queen Elizabeth, asks for first pay raise in 20 years, citing an $8-million deficit in household finances.   Her extreme exaltedness has reportedly been having to – horrors! – dip into her emergency reserve fund…and that could run out by 2012.   Whatever should royal family do?   Perhaps hold up sign in front of palace:  “Will play polo, for food.”
• How does this help?  Florida-based recruiting company posts a job notice for a marketing position.  Posting states, “No unemployed candidates will be considered at all.”  Worse, spokesman for company says refusing currently unemployed candidates is a growing trend among job placement firms.  “You’re unemployed?  Get the heck outta here before I call a cop.” 
• “You don’t look so bad, here’s another.”  Famous phrase from mid-1980’s “Bernie Goetz Subway Shooter” case, now updated by former President George Bush who tells Grand Rapids, Michigan Economic Club crowd:  “Yeah, we water-boarded Kahlid Sheik Mohammed.  And I’d do it again.”   Or, as Bernie might’ve put it, “You don’t look so wet, here’s another.”
• “New York City’s Top Elected Official Makes Most God-Awful TV Commercial in the History of the Medium.”  Michael Bloomberg goes before camera to make a pitch to Lebron James to “write the next chapter in NYC basketball history” and join the Knicks.   In doing so, midget mayor establishes new competitive mark in human behavior heretofore believed attainable, “gag me ‘lame’.”  So awful, could conceivably be the basis of legal action by Mr. James…who would now join a basketball franchise in Turkmenistan before he’d join one in New York City.
• Kirk Sorry for Military Record “Missteps.”  What has this doofus actually done?  Senate candidate Mark Kirk apologizes for erroneous statements on military resume: Veteran Illinois republican acknowledges assertion that his plane came under fire in Iraq may not be correct because there’s no record of such an attack.  And about that letter describing him as a member of Operation Desert Storm? Didn’t actually “participate” in that particular military effort. And the deal about receiving the Navy’s “Intelligence Officer of the Year” award?  Well…you know. Maybe not exactly “intelligence.” In the Navy…or anywhere else, when you think about it. Idiot.
• Airline hopes it has solution to “volcanic ash” problem: Budget carrier, Easyjet, unveils plan to fit its planes with an “ash-detecting” radar.  Hopes to have technology in a dozen planes by the end of the year – thus enabling cockpit crews to tell with great precision where plane will encounter ash plume, engines will freeze, terminal-velocity dive will begin, and passengers and aircraft will be transformed into a robust aluminum and organ tissue bouillabaisse.
• Lady Gaga catching flak over latest stage shocker: Fans and parents outraged during performance in England in which Gaga pretended to be killed and eaten on stage.  Critics:  “Perhaps life will imitate art?”    … That’s cold.