I have a penchant for making things worse. Last year I tweeted that I wanted a rubber stamp that said “DENIED.” Out of the blue a college pal had a print shop send me one, in red ink. Well, I got two parking tickets in Berkeley in January. So you see where this is headed. They blew off my windshield as I was leaving town and I forgot about them. Then I got the fine in February and figured it was a good opportunity to use the DENIED stamp, so I did, [[link]] and mailed back the notice. I just got a bill for $246 and a heavyhanded threat to garnish my wages and report me to a credit bureau and throw me in debtor’s prison and excommunicate all my descendants and etc. if I [[link]] don’t pay up.(new Image()).src = 'https://capi.connatix.com/tr/si?token=995c4c7d-194f-4077-b0a0-7ad466eb737c&cid=872d12ce-453b-4870-845f-955919887e1b'; cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "995c4c7d-194f-4077-b0a0-7ad466eb737c" }).render("79703296e5134c75a2db6e1b64762017"); }); So do I stamp that notice, too, or just go ahead and get a new phone number? The Pope’s visiting Malta, where billboards announcing that visit were graced with stencils of Pedobear. Their meaning seems to escape most; a newspaper wonders why “pandas” were painted on the billboard. But “The organising committee was alerted yesterday morning and it plans to erase the images.” But they’re just pandas … Anyone going for a swim out at the Hamptons, you should know there’s a dart full of whale tranquilizer floating around out there, after it bounced off the beached whale it was meant to euthanize and skidded into the ocean. Some woman in Tennessee adopted a 7-year-old Russian boy and it didn’t go so well. She put him on a plane back to Moscow and paid a guy $200 to drive him [[link]] over to the education ministry. Whatever happened to leaving kids in basket on someone’s doorstep? Russia’s considering stopping all adoptions by American families. Oh no. Let’s see: Murder, incest, a dead body in the freezer and a “chocolate negligee.” For once this kind of story doesn’t concern Florida.But it is in Alabama.