Hilarious Baby Photo Expectations Vs. Reality

When you have a baby, you want nothing more than to show him or her off to the world, right? You see all these wonderful baby photo ideas on Pinterest, and you just have to try some out for yourself. These parents all had good intentions, and though the results probably aren't what they had hoped for, they are infinitely more hilarious.

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Bill Murray reportedly dating former child star Jenny Lewis

Bill Murray celebrated his movie “Rock the Kasbah” like a rock star by partying till after midnight Tuesday and jumping onstage with a band at the subterranean Hudson Hotel club Good Units.

Meanwhile, we hear one guest who showed up at the bitter end of the night is Murray’s rumored younger love interest, indie rocker Jenny Lewis.

Murray booked the same band that played his son Luke’s September wedding, Chevy Chevis Entertainment, and he joined the group to sing the Rascals’ “Good Lovin’ ” for a crowd including Lady Gaga and Taylor Kinney, Kate Hudson, Naomi Campbell, and Zooey Deschanel.

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Feds Have Spent More on Origami Condoms, Fat Lesbian Studies Than on Benghazi Committee

The amount of taxpayer funding that has gone toward the investigation into the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, is less than the amount the federal government has invested in “Origami condoms” and studies on why lesbians are obese.

Democrats are very concerned that the Select Committee on Benghazi is wasting taxpayer dollars. Leading Senate Democrats, including Minority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.), are demanding that the RNC reimburse the government for the cost of the investigation.

Rep. Linda Sanchez (D., Calif.) said it was a “gross misuse” of millions in taxpayer dollars. Ranking Member of the Benghazi committee Elijah Cummings (D., Md.) began his opening statement during the hearing with Hillary Clinton on Thursday saying, “Republicans are squandering millions of taxpayer dollars on this abusive effort to derail Secretary Clinton’s presidential campaign.”

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Is A Kilt A Costume? Busch Gardens Says So, Denies Entry To Man Wearing Scottish Garb

UPDATE: Busch Gardens says kilts are now welcome at the park, whenever guests want to wear them.

After the story of the kilt-wearing man who wasn’t allowed into the park hit the Internet, Busch Gardens posted a statement on its Facebook page (h/t to Consumerist reader Shea), announcing that though it has to “adhere to a strict no-costume policy” during Halloween events, it’d changed its mind on the topic of kilts.

“We regret any confusion this has caused, and have clarified that kilts are permitted in our parks during these special events, just as they are on a typical day. We welcome our kilt-wearing friends out to enjoy Howl-O-Scream,” the park’s statement reads.

——————ORIGINAL STORY BELOW——————

What passes for a costume for one person might just be considered a normal outfit for others, but at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, VA, there’s no gray area when it comes to men wearing traditional Scottish garb: a park guest said he was denied entry because he had a kilt on.

That goes against Busch Garden’s anti-costume policy, the park said, especially during its Howl-O-Scream Halloween event.

But the Norfolk, VA man says he wasn’t trying to dress up as anything other than who he is. He’s of Irish, Scottish and English descent, and six years ago, he started wearing a kilt about every other day to do things like go grocery shopping and other mundane, everyday tasks, to show his pride.

“I’ve been a customer for decades and a regular pass holder, and this has left a terrible stain on the honor of my culture as well as my ethnic pride,” he wrote on his Facebook post along with a video of his outfit.

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Carroll County official supports Ben Carson's anti-Muslim rhetoric

BALTIMORE —A Carroll County commissioner's support of a presidential candidate's anti-Muslim rhetoric is drawing renewed criticism.

Recent anti-Muslim comments by Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson sparked calls for the retired neurosurgeon to drop out of the race.

"I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that," Carson said.

The controversy continued to brew Thursday after an opinion piece published this week in the Carroll County Times.

Carroll County Commissioner Richard Rothschild had a byline in the paper on Monday. His piece backed up Carson's comments.

Opponents called his words "reckless," "hate-filled" and "inaccurate."

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Amazon Planning To Hire 100,000 Temporary Workers This Holiday Season

While Amazon continues to deflect criticism of its workplace culture, the retailer announced plans to nearly double its workforce this holiday season: adding 100,000 temporary workers to its roster.

The new short-term employees will join about 90,000 current workers (human and robot) at the company’s 70 warehouses and shipping hubs around the country, CNBC reports.

The seasonal hirings represent a 25% increase from last year when the company hired about 80,000 short-term workers.

Amazon executives say the temporary positions are in addition to the recently added 25,000 jobs the company filled in recent months.

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Ex-Baltimore principal sentenced to probation for stealing

BALTIMORE —A former principal of Western High School in Baltimore was given a suspended prison sentence and put on supervised probation Thursday.

Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn sentenced Alisha Trusty, 39, to five years in prison, which was suspended, and five years of supervised probation, the Maryland State Prosecutor's Office said.

Trusty pleaded guilty in June to stealing $53,912.94 from the school's student activity fund.

She has paid $15,000 in restitution and was ordered to pay $38,912.94 in additional restitution during her probation.

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8 Things We Learned About Racial And Gender Wage Inequality In The Restaurant Industry

With nearly 11 million people working in the restaurant industry in the United States, the field has become one of the most populated in the workforce. But a new report finds that while there’s a plethora of positions in the restaurant business, there’s a stark difference between livable-wage and poverty-wage positions and it tends to further segregate employees by gender and race.

The Restaurant Opportunities Centers United released a report [PDF] Tuesday exploring the wide-ranging economic positions of service industry workers and calling for an end for what it calls racial and gender occupational segregation.

“While Jim Crow regulated the enforced separation between white and African American patrons in restaurants,” the report states, “today we largely find that restaurant workers are effectively segregated by race and gender by a partition between livable-wage server and bartender positions and poverty wage busser, runner, and kitchen positions.”

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BREAKING NEWS: Hurricane Patricia makes landfall in Mexico

Hurricane Patricia, the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere, makes landfall in Mexico as a Category 5 storm, Reuters reports.

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Lawmakers Introduce Legislation To Curtail Surprise Medical Bills

There are good surprise and there are bad surprise. Falling into the latter category are unexpected medical bills, which affect nearly 30% of privately insured Americans. This week, lawmakers took steps to shield consumers from these often burdensome tabs.

Texas Representative Lloyd Doggett, along with 20 co-sponsors, introduced the Ending Surprise Billing Act with the aim to put a stop to unfair and unexpected out-of-network charges.

Under the proposed legislation, patients can no longer be charged balance bills if they go to an in-network facility in an emergency.

In the case of non-emergencies, they cannot be balanced billed unless they are given 24-hours-notice that an out-of-network specialist is providing care, an estimate of the charges, and then provide written consent to those charges.

If the conditions of the legislation aren’t met, patients would only be responsible for what they would have paid for services if they received them from in-network providers.

“Patients under anesthesia shouldn’t have to pay out-of-pocket unexpectedly for a health care provider outside their insurance coverage network,” Doggett said in statement. “Surprise billing is a complex problem. But we should all agree that requiring patients to pay unfair and unexpected bills is not the solution.”

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Police/Courts 10/23/15

Burglary

Christopher Bowden, 21, of Fruitland, Md. was arrested on Oct. 13 for breaking into a friend’s apartment, stealing an Xbox 360 and pawning it at a local shop on April 23.

Ocean City police officers reported Bowden entered through a window on the front porch by cutting the screen and a shoe scuff mark was found on the window frame.

An investigation revealed Bowden pawned the Xbox 360 on the same day it was stolen, the report stated.

He was arrested and charged with first degree burglary, fourth degree burglary theft, malicious destruction of property and theft.

Assault
Ocean City police officers arrested Garry Bell, 52, of Sinking Spring, Pa. for assaulting his girlfriend inside a hotel on Oct. 15.

Upon arrival, Ocean City police communications advised officers Bell had a warrant from Pennsylvania and was immediately handcuffed, according to the report.
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Domino’s Launches Custom-Built Chevy Pizzamobile With Built-In Ovens

Pizza delivery is a tricky business. You have to get a pizza from the restaurant to the car, let it sit in the car for a while, then get it from the car to the customer, all without tilting the box so the cheese slides off. Delivery drivers normally use their own cars for this… but what if there were a purpose-built car designed to keep food warm and advertise Domino’s in traffic?

The process began three years ago, when Domino’s ran a design contest looking for the “ultimate delivery vehicle.” 100 of the vehicles will roll out in test cities over the next few months.

The current version is called the DXP, or “delivery expert,” and is based on the gasoline-powered version of the Chevrolet Spark. It has warming ovens where the backseat and trunk normally would be. Yep: exterior, lockable warming ovens.

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American Legion hosts second gala for wounded warriors in OC

Ocean City and the American Legion welcomed 15 wounded warriors from the Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. last weekend.

They participated in a number of activities including breakfast from the American Legion and VFW, a boat ride and lunch with United States Coast Guards in Ocean City and a trip to the Veterans Support Center of America near Salisbury.

“This is the third time [the American Legion has hosted Wounded Warriors in Ocean City,]” said American Legion Post #166 Commander Sarge Garlitz.

Last Saturday night, dozens of people attended the second annual Wounded Warriors Gala on 24th Street and heard from keynote speaker Dr. Debra Malone, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and the trauma research director at Walter Reed National Naval Medical Center.

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Toledo, Ohio Mayoral Candidate Promises God's 'Destruction' If She Doesn't Win

Cardin Statement on Hogan Administration’s Transportation Plans in Baltimore City

WASHINGTON – U. S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), a senior member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, issued the following statement in response to Governor Larry Hogan’s (R-Md.) announcement of his updated transportation priorities for Baltimore City.

“Governor Hogan’s decision to help Baltimore’s bus system run more efficiently is welcome news for the people who live, work and play in the city. While I welcome his suggestions to streamline bus service, his announcement is in no way a comprehensive, long-term solution to improving public transportation, reducing traffic or creating new jobs in Baltimore City. Spending $150 million to make buses run on time is a good start but no substitute for the 10 years of planning, $900 million in hard-fought federal funding and the economic growth that Governor Hogan threw away when he killed the Red Line in Baltimore.

“In an op-ed from September, the Governor wrote: ‘Over the next several months, my administration will announce a series of innovative ideas that have the potential to deliver real change.’ I have to ask, is color-coding bus lines and removing lanes from already congested city streets ‘real change’ to the people commuting to and through Baltimore? Making the buses run on time is not innovative, it is what is expected of our transit agencies. I agree with Governor Hogan that public transit should be multimodal and comprehensive, but this new plan falls short on both counts.”

Woman Flipped Off the Mayor, So He Had a SWAT Team Raid Her House

Piedmont, MO – Tina Warren has been fighting her local government over rising water bills, leaving her at odds with the town’s mayor, Bill Kirkpatrick. Warren has been running a number of campaigns against his policies, and she has even been flipping the mayor the middle finger every time she sees him.

Tina’s local activism made her a target for the local police, who pulled her over several times, reportedly demanding that she stop a petition drive that she was organizing about water bills.

According to Warren, her house was also raided and searched for drugs on Kirkpatrick’s orders. Now she is filing a harassment lawsuit against the city, stating that the mayor and the local police colluded to intimidate her and prevent her activism.

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DOJ: Lois Lerner Will Not Face Criminal Charges in Targeting Scandal

Lois Lerner will not face criminal charges for targeting conservative and Tea Party groups during her time at the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Justice said Friday.

CNN reported that the Justice Department will not bring charges against Lerner, who served as the director of exempt organizations at the IRS, and will close its two-year investigation into the alleged improper targeting.

The government agency said in a letter to Congress that investigators found “substantial evidence of mismanagement, poor judgment, and institutional inertia leading to the belief by many tax-exempt applicants that the IRS targeted them based on their political viewpoints.”

However, the letter said that “poor management is not a crime.” No one at the agency will face charges.

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Old Commercial Boat’s Materials Dropped On Reef Site

OCEAN CITY — Just a week after the dilapidated “New Hope,” a fixture on the West Ocean City commercial harbor landscape for years, was dismantled, much of its steel and salvageable material found its new home on the ocean floor at the Bob Gower Artificial Reef site this week.

Last week, Captain Jeremiah Kogon and the crew on the MV Iron Lady meticulously dismantled the old New Hope, a 70-foot commercial vessel scuttled for years along the bulkhead at the commercial harbor in West Ocean City. Most of the sinking vessel, which had been half-submerged at the harbor for several years, was not salvageable and was ultimately hauled to the landfill, but much of its steel superstructure was stacked neatly on the deck of the MV Iron Lady for future deployment on the Bob Gower Artificial Reef site just miles off the coast of the resort.

With clear weather and calm seas this week, the MV Iron Lady, with the assistance of the Ocean City Artificial Reef Foundation and the Morning Star with Captain Monty Hawkins, began methodically dropping the tons of steel and other material on the Bob Gower reef site, named for the late, beloved captain who trolled the waters around the resort area for decades before his passage in 2011.

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UPDATE, Read The Comments: In Case You Missed It, Listen To This Recent Salisbury Crime Interview

GO HERE

Uncle Sam admits monitoring you for these 377 words:

One of breakout standup routines from the late, great George Carlin was his 1972 monologue “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.” In the presence of polite company, I shall not repeat them… but rest assured, the routine is still hilarious to this day.

I wish I could say the same about the Department of Homeland Security… I wish I could say this is all a big joke… that the government’s “377 words you can never use online” is just some stupid comedy routine.

But it’s not. And you just can’t make this stuff.

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