AP - DENNIS TOWNSHIP, N.J. - A second-grader’s drawing of a stick figure shooting a gun earned him a one-day school suspension.

Kyle Walker, 7, was suspended last week for violating Dennis Township Primary School’s zero-tolerance policy on guns, the boy’s mother, Shirley McDevitt, told The Press of Atlantic City.

Kyle gave the picture to another child on the school bus, and that child’s parents complained about it to school officials, McDevitt said. Her son told her the drawing was of a water gun, she said.

A photocopy of the picture provided by McDevitt showed two stick figures with one pointing a crude-looking gun at the other, the newspaper said. What appeared to be the word “me” was written above the shooter, with another name scribbled above the other figure.

School officials declined to comment Friday. A message left at the superintendent’s office Saturday was not returned.

jay: things like this help my if-we-have-kids-they-will-be-home-schooled argument. thanks, new jersey!

By ALEXA OLESEN

AP - BEIJING - China on Tuesday executed the former head of its food and drug watchdog who had become a symbol of the country’s wide-ranging problems on product safety.

Zheng Xiaoyu’s execution was confirmed by state television and the official Xinhua News Agency.

“The few corrupt officials of the (State Food and Drug Administration) are the shame of the whole system and their scandals have revealed some very serious problems,” SFDA spokeswoman Yan Jiangyang said at a news conference held to highlight efforts to improve China’s track record on food and drug safety.

Zheng was sentenced to death in May for taking bribes to approve an antibiotic blamed for at least 10 deaths and other substandard medicines.

Zheng’s death sentence was unusually heavy even for China, believed to carry out more court-ordered executions than all other nations combined, and likely indicates the leadership’s determination to confront the country’s dire product safety record.

jay: holy shit, dude. if i ran the FDA, i’d be psyched not to live in china. way to put on a show of force, china. now what are you gonna do about those people who look the other way when mines collapse and kill hundreds of workers at a time?

In lieu of posting one of the 3,000 news items regarding Bush letting Scooter off the hook, here’s a relevant snippet from the movie “The Sting”:

Doyle Lonnegan: Your boss is quite a card player, Mr. Kelly; how does he do it?

Johnny Hooker: He cheats.

jay: whoa. thanks for posting that rob. it’s how i found out that libby walked. when your approval rating is already in the toilet…

By WILLIAM McCALLAP - PORTLAND, Ore. - A transit agency chief apologized Wednesday to two teenage girls who were kicked off a city bus for kissing each other.

The girls, both 14, said the driver called them “sickos” after a female passenger complained about their kiss. The driver then stopped the bus along the street and forced them off.

“Removing the girls from the bus was not consistent with our policy,” said TriMet General Manager Fred Hansen. “I want to reiterate that we welcome all riders on our system.”

jay: fred hansen is nervous. fred hansen has been around the block in portland. fred hansen knows what portlanders are capable of.

The driver, an 11-veteran who was not identified, will be disciplined, TriMet officials said, though no details were released.

jay: you better hurry, fred hansen or the good citizens of portland are going to 1) lynch the driver and 2) only ride their fixed-gear bikes for the rest of the summer in protest. expect empty buses until the rain picks up again in late october.

cates: in london, bus companies treat amorous, lesbianic displays as a value-added service. want to see the show? that’s an extra £1.50.

By LINDA DEUTSCH, AP Special Correspondent

LOS ANGELES - Screaming and crying, Paris Hilton was escorted from a courtroom and sent back to jail Friday after a judge ruled that she must serve out her entire 45-day sentence behind bars rather than in her Hollywood Hills home.

“It’s not right!” shouted Hilton, who violated her parole in a reckless driving case. “Mom!” she called out to her mother in the audience.

She cried throughout the hearing, dabbing her eyes, and her body shook constantly. Several times she turned to her parents, seated behind her in the courtroom, and mouthed, “I love you.”

jay: screaming and crying! hahahaha. whee!

dan: maybe she should have thought about this before she shot that poor lana clarkson.

jay: word up. if you can’t do the time, don’t kidnap the lindbergh baby.

By Thomas J. Lueck — NY Times

It was just six inches.

That was what made the difference at 4:40 a.m. yesterday as Gilberto Cantu, a truck driver from Texas, approached the New Jersey entrance of the Lincoln Tunnel in his big rig, loaded with bathtubs, toilets and plumbing fixtures. The truck was 13 feet 6 inches high. The tunnel has a height limit of 13 feet. Six inches can make a big difference.

Mr. Cantu drove the entire 1.5 miles of the tunnel from Weehawken, N.J., to Manhattan, tearing his way under the Hudson River in the tunnel’s center tube and peeling back the roof of his tractor-trailer as if it were a tin can. No one was injured, but an undetermined number of decorative tunnel ceiling tiles were ripped off.

It was unclear why Mr. Cantu did not heed warnings from flashing signs and a loudspeaker in New Jersey, said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the tunnel. “There were enough bells and whistles going off that this should not have happened,” Mr. Coleman said. “He told the officers he didn’t know where he was going.”

jay: two possible reasons why mr. cantu didn’t heed warnings: 1. meth 2. if you’re going to make gilberto pay to ride, gilberto is going to ride all 13′ 6″ of big-rig straight up yer poop-chute. take that, port authority of new york and new jersey! YEEE-HAW!

dan: the irony, of course, is that he fits just fine now!

The Guardian — Stasi scent-tracking methods are being used to keep a check on selected protesters planning to demonstrate at next month’s G8 summit.

Scent traces collected directly from everything from people’s palm sweat to their vests and cigarette lighters have been made available to investigators so that sniffer dogs can detect potentially violent protesters, federal prosecutors confirmed yesterday following reports in the German media.

“This has happened to several suspects,” said Andreas Christeleit, a spokesman for the prosecutors. It is believed that most samples were collected during recent early-morning raids across Germany.

cates: but don’t the dogs get confused when everybody smells of cider, patchouli oil and marijuana?

A 68-year-old atomic energy protester from Hamburg, identified by police as a possible danger to the G8 summit, reported how investigators knocked on his door at 8am and demanded scent samples from him.

The man said he was made to hold metal pipes in his hands - as palms give off an immediate scent - which were then sealed and marked with his name before being taken away.

cates: as the saying goes: “the old ones are the violent ones”.

jay: it’s true. years of patchouli abuse takes its toll on the body’s “restraint” mechanism. ultra-violence ensues.