breaking news!

panama city panama - perhaps reacting to intense international criticism that his guide to panama is nothing more than a pirate site populated with thousands of stolen articles, don winner broke out the ball point pen and wrote his own story* today.

“this is exciting,” said an astonished reader, “who knew he had it in him?”

winner’s master stroke rocked the panama expat community. the article, about a sleezy content thief posing as a fairminded investigative journalist, does a hatchet job on one of winner’s former associates.

” I fully intend to do my level best to fly straight down the middle of this case” winner writes.

ha! this could represent winners first foray into satire. until recently he’s had trouble stringing together compelling sentences. critics believe winner’s been hampered by several factors: he’s not a writer, particularly bright, funny, or honest.

“he’s a cunt,” said one critic, also claiming to fly straight down the middle.

no word if winner will continue writing satire, or revert back to outright content theft.

*i’ve linked to noriegaville’s excellent coverage of this story - our policy is never to link to winner’s site directly.

every hear of a site called cute overload? they’ve just been crowned the “best american weblog,” over at the bloggies. no doubt the judges conducted a nationwide search and this was the best america had to offer.

how does one win a blogging award for posting nothing but random pics of fluffy animals? it appears the bloggie bar is set perilously low.

with that in mind, i followed a link via the hutton boondoggle; and found a site called “cats that look like hitler.” i must say i was disappointed. the site’s a cruel hoax on the american public. i have half a mind to leave some anonymous remarks in their comments section.

these people claim to have cats that look like hitler, but in reality, their cats look nothing like hitler. for example, any fool can see this cat resembles general tojo - not hitler.

when i was a boy i had a cat that looked nothing like hitler. but he did bear a striking resemblance to omar torrijos. omar we called him.

oh - he was a handful. he’d shred newspapers in the garage, and attack anyone who encroached on his turf. if omar didn’t take a shine to you - watch out. i think mom was afraid of him. i loved him. of course, i was only 8.

as omar aged, he went a little crazy. he became harder and harder to live with. we never knew who omar would scratch next. mom finally decided it was time to put him down after our neighbors claimed he killed a catholic priest. she told me omar was going for a little plane ride. but i knew i’d never see him again.

kids aren’t stupid.

the boston herald is reporting president bush will establish a professional health care training center in panama to serve all of central america, training students to be nurses, technicians, and health care workers.

the l.a. times has an excellent article on panama’s minister of tourism, ruben blades.

the sydney morning herald has an interesting story about taking the train from panama city to colon, entitled, “crossing the continent in 57 minutes.”

prensa latina says foreigners are looting panama’s past. one item for sale, an 800 year old gold crocodile from the veraguas province.

the bbc reports that kunas are getting health benefits from drinking up to 40 cups of cocoa a week. studies show their rates of stroke, heart disease, cancer and diabetes are less than 10%.

noriegaville gives my bank hsbc panama a good flogging this week. okke raises an important question; if you can get sued for complaining about service, are your assets really safe in panama?