Annual Dilbert post

Scott Adams, the cartoonist who created Dilbert, likes to say that there are only nine news stories, constantly re-written.

Every once in awhile I like to check the newspaper with his list in mind, to see if he is right. I'll start with his wording unmodified by examples.

1. EXTREME WEATHER BATTERS SOMEPLACE

2. IDIOTS KILL INNOCENT PEOPLE

3. POLITICIAN DOES SOMETHING ILLEGAL

4. PRIMATE ATTEMPTS INAPPROPRIATE SEX

5. EXPERTS WARN OF FINANCIAL CALAMITY

6. BIG COMPANY BUYS ANOTHER BIG COMPANY

7. FAMOUS PERSON DOES SOMETHING INTERESTING

8. A SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY MIGHT BE USEFUL IN TEN YEARS

9. GOVERNMENT FAILS TO ACHIEVE A GOAL

Does that break-down hold up for the news of the past week or so?

1. The extreme weather story check.

2. Idiots kill innocent people? Always too easy.

But to give this category some variety, let us mention that such an idiot -- of the cult-member genre of idiocy -- has just been recommended for parole, after a long and well-deserved imprisonment.

3. Politician does something illegal.

Let's give a shout-out to the far East this time for this one.

4. Primate attempts inappropriate sex.

Scott Ritter is one of the primates in question, thereby he gets a recycling of those fifteen minutes of fame he must have thought had passed already.

5. Experts warn of financial calamity.

Weimare-Republic or Zimbabwe-style Hyperinflation is the subject of some of the more recent warnings with some spinning a theory that a bad case of same will breakout in Japan and spread to the US.

6. Big Company Buys Another Big Company

Even those who never visit the business section of the paper know that Kraft has reached agreement with an at-first coy Cadbury, and that not everyone is happy about this.

7. Famous Person Does Something Interesting.

J.D. Salinger has passed away, which is not "interesting" as a fresh disclosure of the fact of human mortality, but is of some interest as the possible signal for the release of writings that the famously reclusive Salinger may have been socking away in a safe over the last few decades.

8. A scientific discovery might be useful in ten years.

Here's the latest gee-whiz stuff about controlled fusion research.

9. Government fails to achieve a goal.

Like the goal of ... oh ... capturing Bin Laden? could that be an example of an unachieved goal?

Yes, Scott, I see your point.