Dumb

-- Detroit is bankrupt, its emergency call answers measured in hours and two-thirds of its ambulances immobile. But it's going to spend almost a half-billion dollars on a new hockey rink for the Red Wings, so...Motor City is back, baby!

-- MSNBC contributor Touré -- who, it will be seen, uses one name because there is doubt he could spell two  -- said that George Zimmerman, accused of murder in the shooting of Florida teen Trayvon Martin but found not guilty by a jury, is not Hispanic as has been claimed. He is, in fact, a "Peruvian-American," presumably because his mother was born in Peru. Just what language does he think they speak in Peru? And by this logic, should we say that President Obama, whose father was born in Kenya though he himself was born in Hawaii, is not African-American but a Kenyan-American?

-- Intelligence (ahem) officials in Turkey detained a kestrel last week when it was found with a band around its leg that had the words "Tel Avivuna Israel." Villagers caught the bird and turned it over to the local governor, who sent it on to a university where it was X-rayed for microchips and spy devices. None being found -- the tag was apparently from an ornithology research project at Tel Aviv University -- the bird was released. But it was told to avoid suspicious avians.

-- San Diego Mayor Bob Filner, who seems to have boundary issues that do not involve nearby suburbs, is being sued for sexual harassment. He has admitted poor treatment of people and is going to spend two weeks in an intense therapy environment to help him not do things like suggest female staffers come to work sans undergarments. And his lawyer has asked the San Diego City Council to make it so he does not have to pay to defend himself against the harassment suit by picking up his legal bills. I am no therapist, but I don't know how much good two solid weeks of being told, "You're in a hole. Put down the shovel!" will do.