Don't blame Santa.

Oh Lawd! That gunman in Texas was dressed as Santa.

If stuff like this continues, "St. Nick" is going to have to hire a big- time PR firm.

I shouldn't be feeling like this after such a tragedy, but something about that Connecticut fire story doesn't sit right with me.

The kids and grandparents all died but mommy and her boyfriend made it out?
I sure hope my gut is wrong about what it is trying telling me.

"A fire that broke out in the early morning in an exclusive Stamford, Connecticut neighborhood has claimed the lives of three children and two adults. Stamford mayor Michael Pavia told reporters, "It’s a terrible, terrible day for the city of Stamford. There probably has not been a worse Christmas day in the city of Stamford." Update, 12/26: The victims were the three daughters and parents of homeowner Madonna Badger.

The fire department received calls at around 4:52 a.m. about a fire at 2267 Shippan Avenue, a home purchased last December (for $1.725 million) which was undergoing months of renovations. Two adults escaped, but the fire was so consuming that firefighters were unable to reach other occupants in time. A neighbor said, "We heard this screaming at 5 in the morning. The whole house was ablaze and I mean ablaze." He told the Times, "The flames were coming through the top floor, and I thought, ‘Nobody could possibly survive this.’"
Fire officials said it would be days until fire marshals would be able to get clues for what caused the fire and they didn't know the condition of the two survivors, "We had our hands full from the moment we arrived on the scene." The home's previous owners said they sold the property to Madonna Badger, a fashion branding consultant in NYC, "She was living there with her children. She has three children."

In other news, I guess poor John Hithon won't be seeing that 1.4 million he had planned to spend this past Christmas.

"Certain words mean different things to different people. Depending on where you are from calling someone “boy” can get you in a ton of trouble. That’s what happened to a supervisor at Tyson Chicken.
The New York Times reports:

Last year, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled that there were no racial overtones when a white manager at a Tyson chicken plant in Gadsden, Ala., called adult black men working there “boy.”
“The usages were conversational” and “nonracial in context,” the majority wrote in a 2-to-1 decision that overturned a jury verdict of about $1.4 million in an employment discrimination case brought by a black Tyson employee, John Hithon.

Civil Rights attorneys decided to file a brief on the matter:

The brief urged the court to reconsider, making the case that “boy” retains its venom. For evidence, the brief drew on personal experiences, history, literary classics like “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Native Son,” and the writings of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“Boy,” the brief said, is either a proxy for or “at the very least a close cousin” of the most charged racial epithet.

On Dec. 16, more than a year after the initial decision, the appeals court reversed course. The new ruling was opaque and grudging, but Mr. Clemon said he welcomed it, particularly since it is very unusual for a federal appeals court panel simply to change its mind. “I don’t recall it ever happening,” said Mr. Clemon, who graduated from law school in 1968." [Story]

Now why would Tyson Chicken, of all people, want to f&^% with black folks? Don't they know which side their bread chicken is buttered on?

Finally, what's all the fuss about a TSA agent taking cupcakes from a woman last week?

"A Massachusetts woman who flew home from Las Vegas this week says an airport security officer confiscated her frosted cupcake because he thought its vanilla-bourbon icing could be a "security risk."

Rebecca Hains told ABCNews.com today that a Transportation Security Administration agent at Las Vegas- McCarran International Airport seized her cupcake, saying the frosting sitting atop the red velvet cake was gel-like enough to violate regulations.

The incident took place Wednesday.

Hains, a teacher, said the cupcake was a gift from one of her students. She was traveling with her husband and toddler, and thought her young son might get hungry on the long trip home.

The cupcake was packaged in a glass container with a metal lid, which was why it attracted the attention of the scanner in the first place.

The TSA agent didn't know what to do with the cupcake, so she called over her supervisor, Hains said.

"The TSA supervisor, Robert Epps, was using really bad logic - he said it counted as a gel-like substance because it was conforming to the shape of its container."

"We also had a small pile of hummus sandwiches with creamy fillings, which made it through, but the cupcake with its frosting was apparently a terrorist threat…I just don't know what world he was living in," said Hains, speaking of the TSA officer." [story]

This story has been on every major news show. Why?
The TSA agent was doing his/her job, and I say good for them for taking the damn cupcakes. They probably weren't even any good. That "frosting" could have been a terrorist threat if enough people ate it.

Seriously, who cares? Are they really going to miss the damn cupcakes that much? Better safe than sorry is what I say.

Besides, if that was an Arab woman flying with a box of mammouls, the TSA agent who confiscated them would have been on the news network for dummies all week being praised for being vigilant.