From the “Er, WTF?” school of journalism, here is an actual New York Times report on the 1942 death of a Brazilian fisherman during the filming of Orson Welles’ aborted documentary It’s All True:

Leading Brazil Raftman Dies Starring for Movie

May 20, 1942 – The New York Times

Rio De Janeiro, Brazil May 19—Mandel Olimpio Meira, Brazil’s most noted fisherman, was drowned today off Rio de Janeiro while starring for Orson Welles film of Brazilian Life.

Mr. Meira, who sailed 2,000 miles on his raft last year to Rio de Janeiro to get President Getulio Vargas’s permission to form a fishermen’s union, was tipped from his raft today during the filming of a battle between a shark and an octopus.

The fisherman swam away from the fighting monsters into a whirlpool, where he was drowned. Two companions were rescued.

Needless to say, this is complete bollocks - Wellesnet has details.

Shit shit shit. It’s a bad day.

Writer Kurt Vonnegut dies at 84

One of the outstanding figures of modern US literature, Kurt Vonnegut, has died aged 84 in New York.

He became a cult figure among students in the 1960s and 1970s with his classics of US counterculture. He wrote plays, essays and short fiction.

The defining moment of his life was the firebombing of Dresden, in Germany, by allied forces in 1945 - an event he witnessed as a young prisoner of war.

His experience was the basis of his best-known work, Slaughterhouse Five.

It was published in 1969 against the backdrop of the war in Vietnam, racial unrest and cultural and social upheaval in the United States.

Long-time family friend Morgan Entrekin, who reported Vonnegut’s death, said the writer had suffered brain injuries as a result of a fall several weeks ago, he told The New York Times.

Last year, Vonnegut came out of semi-retirement to write his new book A Man Without A Country because of his “contempt” for current US President George W Bush.

I visited Poland last year, as was blogged, and it seemed like a nice place. They have twin-brothers as prime minister and president, a situation aching to be turned into an hilarious 8:30pm BBC1 sitcom. However, it turns out that this new law makes it a far darker sitcom, something Chris Morris would write.

It’s difficult to reconcile this kind of thing with the ethos of the EU and the general agreeableness of the Poles I have met.

So, I watched 300 last night. I must say it was a real eye-opener: I had no idea that King Xerxes of Persia was an eight-foot-tall black transvestite or that the Spartans spoke with rich Scottish accents. But there were important moral lessons too: cripples can’t be trusted, for example, and freedom can only be defended through total submission to fanatical militarism. Oh, and we should totally invade Iran, since they’re such a bunch of sexually depraved religious fundamentalists, or something.

Oh but it was fun. Village Voice:

Delicacies of dismemberment aside, 300 is notable for its outrageous sexual confusion. Here stands the Spartan king Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and his 299 buddies in nothing but leather man-panties and oiled torsos, clutching a variety of phalluses they seek to thrust in the bodies of their foes by trapping them in a small, rectum-like mountain passage called the “gates of hell(o!)” Yonder rises the Persian menace, led by the slinky, mascara’d Xerxes. When he’s not flaring his nostrils at Leonidas and demanding he kneel down before his, uh, majesty, this flamboyantly pierced crypto-transsexual lounges on chinchilla throw pillows amidst a rump-shaking orgy of disfigured lesbians.

On first glance, the terms couldn’t be clearer: macho white guys vs. effeminate Orientals. Yet aside from the fact that Spartans come across as pinched, pinheaded gym bunnies, it’s their flesh the movie worships. Not since Beau Travail has a phalanx of meatheads received such insistent ogling. As for the threat to peace, freedom, and democracy, that filthy Persian orgy looks way more fun than sitting around watching Spartans mope while their angry children slap each other around. At once homophobic and homoerotic, 300 is finally, and hilariously, just hysterical.

This seems like a good idea:

Hey all,

I’m a daily user of Dublin Bus but I usually only take the same three bus routes into and out of town. So while I know those routes backwards, when it comes to going to any location I’m not sure what bus to take.

The Dublin Bus website isn’t great at giving the exact route of the bus. It might say the bus goes to A then B and then C but doesn’t say how exactly it gets from A to B. So I’m not sure what stop to get off in order to bring me closest to my destination.

But now that Google Maps have launched their My Map service, this could change. I think it’s possible to use this service to map out every Dublin Bus route and stops.

Shouldn’t really be necessary, but they’re right, the DB website gives information about routes but for some reason not in the form of lines on maps. And Google’s My Map is apparently very easy to use.

Oh happy day:

Advance copies of Allen’s Mere Anarchy have begun to circulate. It’s his first collection of stories since Side Effects was released in 1982. The book, to be published by Random House in June, includes 18 humorous pieces. Eight have never been published, including Allen’s vision of film camp: “Calisthenics, Poison Ivy, Final Cut.” Also out in June, The Insanity Defense, collected pieces from three earlier best sellers.

It’ll probably include this from last year, which if I’m being honest isn’t all that great.

The Wall Street Journal:

‘The term ‘income inequality’ is a bit misleading because it suggests in a somewhat pejorative way that the rich are getting richer at the expense of the poor,” Edward Lazear, a Stanford University labor economist who is now chairman of Mr. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, said last May. While it’s a concern that some people are being left behind, he said, “There is some good news…most of the inequality reflects an increase in returns to ‘investing in skills.’”

Mr. Lazear has nurtured his relationship with Mr. Bush. His office is decorated with photos of the two mountain biking. When he gave Mr. Bush a copy of the Economic Report of the President this year, Mr. Bush gave him a bear hug and kissed the top of his bald head, according to people who were present.

Trust me, this is a great way to start your Monday: