We Have Seen the Present, and It Does Not Work:
New Zealand schools are starting to ban hugs because hugs are not inclusive of those who are not being hugged.

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News Item: ”… Romney told his well-heeled supporters that Israel’s economic success is thanks to the ‘hand of Providence’… ."
Note to the people of Israel:
You didn’t build that.

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News Headline: “Opera and law: Versed in both, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg searches for legal lessons in arias.”
And just let anyone try to rigoletto the orders she hands down.

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News Headline: “Did Romney fail to pay taxes for 10 years?”
News Headline: “Why won’t Romney release tax returns?”
News Headline: “Clint Eastwood endorses Romney, saying he  will ‘restore a decent tax system.’ “
Restore it?
We can’t be sure he participates in it.

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News Headline: “Mass murder show it’s time to get serious about gun control.”
No. Wait. Sorry.
That headline wasn’t from the Wisconsin mass murder.
It was from the Colorado mass murder a couple of weeks ago.
And we can keep it around for the next mass murder.

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News Item: “Across the bay of Naples from Pompeii… hidden 'super volcano’ that could kill millions… similar to the Yellowstone caldera in the U.S. . . scientists plan to drill 2.2 miles below the surface to monitor… “
What could possibly go wrong?

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News Headline: “Pole dancing could be an official Olympic sport in 2016.”
QT is still holding out for downhill karaoke.

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P.H., a Schaumburg reader, regarding efforts by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) to legalize dog fighting because if people are allowed to watch people fight,  people should be allowed to watch dogs fight, writes:
“I would pay money to see Rep. King fight a pack of dogs. But I have to remember that he is from the state of I-diots O-ut W-andering A-bout.”
Hold on.
QT’s grad school was the University of Iowa.
Which means QT is at least part Hawkeye, and “Go Hawks!”
Then again, as for Iowa’s 4th Congressional District:
We can estimate, judging by King’s 2010  re-election, that 66 percent its voters are I-diots O-ut W-andering A-bout.

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News Headline: “Tennessee Dems nominate anti-gay conspiracy theorist for U.S. Senate.”
When will the Democrats learn?
Republican Lite never works.

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Modern Education + the Criminal Mind =
A man who stole a bicycle while employees watched at a bicycle shop in Belmont, Mass., ran away, stowed the bicycle and returned to the shop two hours later, disguised in a different shirt, to buy a bicycle lock, police said.

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News Headline: “Ex-Idaho senator Larry Craig says he was conducting ‘official business’ in airport men’s room.”
So the less we know about his days off, the better.

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Kansas Republic state senate candidate Jim Denning talking to a reporter:
“I’m not crazy. I’m not vicious.”
QT is growing nostalgic.
It can remember simpler times, when an American politician’s standard disclaimer was “I am not a crook.”

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QT What Passes for Miracles These Days Update:
An image of Jesus has been discovered in the termite leavings on a pile of plywood in a back yard in San Antonio, Texas.

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News Headline: “University of Kansas study finds that smiling — even if the smile is forced — can make a person feel better during stressful situations.”
So smile.
Don’t stop smiling, no matter what happens, even for a moment, as the day goes on.
And ignore it when others start backing away from you, looking over their shoulders for the door.
They’re probably just stressed about something.

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QT Worldwide Man-Bites-Dog Pinpoint Locator:
This just in:
Early morning, July 26, 2100 block of Tower Avenue, Superior, Wis.
The dog is OK.
There are six dog days of summer to go.

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QT Grammar R Us Seminar on the English Language:
News Headline: “Man attacked by shark released from Mass. hospital.”
K.P., a Morrison, Ill., reader, wants to know what the shark was doing in the hospital in the first place.
If you want to home in on a right word, by the way, don’t hone in on it.

Write to QT at qt@wbez.org
QT appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.