The publisher of Reader’s Digest has emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and in condensed version, no less—they did it in less than six months and now have a lot less debt. All they need now is more bathrooms to put the magazine in.

A presidential shouting match erupted at a private luncheon for heads of state who were attending the “Latin American and Caribbean Unity Summit” being held in Cancun on Monday, with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Alvaro Uribe of Colombia calling each other names and using obscene language. Cuban President Raul Castro had to intervene, telling the peckerheads that it was a freakin’ unity conference and to stop being dicks.

Not everyone is down on Tiger Woods. Chris Brown, still on a downhill slide after assaulting then-girlfriend Rihanna, told a radio show host, “His personal life is his personal life. Nobody has the right to place judgment or make any judgment on somebody else’s personal life when they’re not directly involved with them.” Talk about the pot calling the kettle blackballed.

Not everyone is down on Tiger Woods. Chris Brown, still on a downhill slide after assaulting then-girlfriend Rihanna, told a radio show host, “His personal life is his personal life. Nobody has the right to place judgment or make any judgment on somebody else’s personal life when they’re not directly involved with them.” Talk about the pot calling the kettle blackballed.

A presidential shouting match erupted at a private luncheon for heads of state who were attending the “Latin American and Caribbean Unity Summit” being held in Cancun on Monday, with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Alvaro Uribe of Colombia calling each other names and using obscene language. Cuban President Raul Castro had to intervene, telling the peckerheads that it was a freakin’ unity conference and to stop being dicks.

The publisher of Reader’s Digest has emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and in condensed version, no less—they did it in less than six months and now have a lot less debt. All they need now is more bathrooms to put the magazine in.

Voters in Switzerland will go to the polls on March 7 to vote on whether every canton should be required to appoint a dedicated public prosecutor to represent the interests of pets and farm animals in court, much like the case two weeks ago when lawyer Antoine F. Goetschel of Zurich represented a dead fish in court, accusing a fisherman of having tortured the pike because it took 10 minutes to haul it into the tandem kayak. When asked to comment, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said, “Damn. Why didn’t I think of that?”

South Carolina, the state that thanks to Governor Mark Sanford, the most babbling Miss Teen USA ever, and allowing guns to be purchased tax-free last Thanksgiving weekend to kick off holiday sales, has wrested the title of Most Fun State You Don’t Want to Live In away from Florida. Now, just to make sure no other state can even think about toppling them, state Representative Mike Pitts introduced a bill in the state legislature to ban the use of Federal Reserve Notes and replace them with gold and silver coins. In response, the Treasury Department is recommending that South Carolina be banned and replaced by Puerto Rico.

Beppe Bigazzi, who’s been a star of the popular Italian cooking show La Prova del Cuoco for ten years, has been suspended indefinitely for telling viewers how tasty cooked cat can be. “I’ve eaten it myself and it’s a lot better than many other animals,” he said while discussing casserole of cat, a dish he said was famous in his home region of Tuscany. He did advise viewers that if they’re going to try making it, the meat should be “soaked in spring water for three days” before being stewed. That’s ridiculous! Everyone knows cat’s much better when braised, though it’s a lot of trouble since you have to cook it nine times.

It may only be for 40 days, but some British Bishops are convinced that instead of giving up things like chocolate, Cokes, and haggis on rye for Lent, people should go on a “carbon fast” that will help save the planet. At the top of the list is giving up your iPod or cellphone to save electricity, but considering most people couldn’t give up their iPod or cellphone for 40 minutes, much less days, they also suggest you eat by candlelight, cut meat and vegetables thinner so they cook faster, and flush the toilet less often. Additional ideas include giving up showering, whale hunting, and ozone-depleting flatulence.

A story from the Xpress weekly says a restaurant in Dubai has added a quarter pound camel burger to the menu, making it the first in the United Arab Emirates to offer the delicacy. The restaurant claims the patties are fat- and cholesterol-free, which makes it healthy until they add the cheese and burger sauce. It comes with a side of potato wedges and, according to the paper “it could be washed down with a soft drink or a camel milkshake.” Let’s hope they mean camel milk shake.

When a Swedish newspaper asked parliament member Fredrick Federley why he went on an all expenses paid trip to the Canary Islands in January that was sponsored by ten companies including Norwegian airline when he’d previously said he wouldn’t accept offers from the airline industry, he replied, “Well, this was pretty much tied to my drag personality, Ursula. It’s not me as a member of parliament doing this; it’s more a case of me travelling as my drag personality.” Swedish voters are waiting to find out what his other personalities do while he’s in office.

An article published in the International Journal of Epidemiology says you can, in fact, be bored to death. Two researchers from University College London found that the more bored you are, the more likely you are to die early, a fact borne out by the number of people who keeled over before finishing the article.

A poll by Reuters/Ipsos of 24,000 people in 23 countries found that 21% of adults would rather spend Valentine’s Day with their pet than their spouse. This in spite of the fact that not a single one of their pets had ever given them a dog-earred store bought card, box of fattening candy, or the last flowers left on the rack at Safeway.

Beginning May 1, American Airlines will start charging $8 for a pillow and blanket in coach on domestic flights as well as those to and from Canada, Mexico, Hawaii, the Caribbean, and Central America. The blue fleece blanket and inflatable neck pillow come in a clear zippered pouch that will be delivered by a flight attendant to your seat. Well, providing you paid extra so you can sit during the flight.

In an attempt to avert 87,000 pub brawl injuries involving broken glass and $4.2 billion in health care costs each year, Britain’s Home Secretary announced that Britons would stop their binge drinking. Just kidding. Actually he unveiled a shatter-proof pint beer glass which he hopes “will bring an end to these attacks.” Once the glasses are in common use and drunk Britons return to the good old days of punching and using knives, the government plans to issue padded boxing gloves and rubber knife-tips to patrons as they enter pubs.

If you’re one of those people who own all of ABBA’s records, listen to them daily, and have watched “Mamma Mia” so many times you no longer have any friends, you should jet to London and visit ABBAWORLD. That’s right, there are 25 rooms—over 30,000 glorious sq ft!—full of ABBA-bilia, including costumes, a recreation of their recording studio, even the helicopter from the cover of the “Arrival” album. You can take interactive quizzes, remix their records, and of course buy everything in the gift shop. If it’s successful, look for Phase II to include a full fledged theme park, with rides like the Dancing Queen, which is like Dance Dance Revolution in drag, the Fernando bullfighting ride, and the Waterloo, which will make you feel defeated and be the last ride you ever go on. Go ahead, take a chance on them!

According to the BBC, the U.S. government is looking to allow Scotland’s famous offal—or is that spelled awful?—hash, haggis, to be imported into the country for the first time in 21 years. Banned during the Great Mad Cow Disease Hysteria of 1989, it’s made from the heart, liver, and lungs of a sheep, all stuffed into a sheep’s stomach and cooked. Most of it’s kosher—well, in a non-religious context anyway—it’s the lung part that makes it illegal to import. While American versions exist that are made without lung, according to haggis producer Fraser MacGregor of Cockburn’s in Dingwall, it “isn’t haggis,” which in a nutshell answers the age-old question: What’s the difference between haggis and Alpo?

This was supposed to be the year Punxsutawney Phil went high-tech, with promises of a text message and tweet to announce his prediction. Well, he wandered out of his den at dawn today, saw his shadow, and the grand announcement was made that we’d have six more weeks of winter. Two hours later a text message went out to that effect, followed soon after by a Twitter update. According to an AP story, “Officials with the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club didn’t immediately return calls about Phil’s texting skills” though they promised to reply by email as soon as they remember where the “Send” button is.