I love these touching heartwarming human interest stories. I think the MSM owes us at least one per day.

Thank you Fox News:

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. —

Bill Barnes says he was scratching off a losing $2 lottery ticket inside a gas station when he felt a hand slip into his front-left pants pocket, where he had $300 in cash.He immediately grabbed the person’s wrist with his left hand and started throwing punches with his right, landing six or seven blows before a store manager intervened.

“I guess he thought I was an easy mark,” Barnes, 72, told The Grand Rapids Press for a story Tuesday.

He’s anything but an easy mark: Barnes served in the Marines, was an accomplished Golden Gloves boxer and retired after 20 years as an iron worker.

Jesse Daniel Rae, the 27-year-old Newaygo County man accused of trying to pick Barnes’ pocket, was arraigned Monday in Rockford District Court on one count of unarmed robbery, a 15-year felony.

Barnes said he had just withdrawn the money from a bank machine and put it in the pocket of his shorts before driving to the Marathon service station and Next Door Food Store in Comstock park, a Grand Rapids suburb.

He remembers noticing a patron acting suspiciously, asking the price of different brands of cigarettes and other items. While turned away, Barnes felt the hand in his pocket, so he took action.

“I guess I acted on instinct,” he said.

Kent County sheriff’s deputies said the store manager quickly came around the counter. The three of them struggled through the front door, where two witnesses said the manager slammed Rae to the ground and held him there.

“There was blood everywhere,” said another manager on duty, Abby Ostrom, 25.

Barnes was a regional runner-up in Golden Gloves competition in the novice and open divisions before enlisting in the Marines in 1956.

He lived most of his adult life in Comstock Park with his wife, Patricia, before recently moving to Ottawa County. The couple have three children.

After retiring as an iron worker, he now works part-time as a starter at a golf course.

Barnes said he’d probably do the same thing again under the same circumstances, if for no other reason than what he would face back home.

“I wouldn’t want my wife to give me hell for lettin’ that guy get my money,” he said with a smile.

Wouldn’t you just love to have witnessed the event? I’m serious. Hats off to Bill Barnes. He qualifies as a hero in my book.

Okay — comment of the week is supposed to come out on Fridays — and I flat out forgot. We’ve actually been preparing for company to come and were up till midnight last night cleaning our “guest room”. Company can be such a great motivator to get some things done around here!

On to the comment of week. I’m sure we all knew it would happen, therefore, this week’s comment goes out to the Grit. Unfortunately, the post was regarding child abuse by a white trash family in KS. Please note, many times I use the term white trash with affection, though not in this instance.

All of this brings me around to what I wanted to say, even though it is embarrassing, which is that the parents in question were probably telling the truth. This would not seem all that unusual, if you had ever seen a naked woman and a man clad only in his briefs and a cowboy hat on their front lawn, settling a dispute about their son’s desire to join the Boy Scouts, each with a kitchen knife in one hand and a can of beer in the other, at three in the morning.

See, with the proper background information to give it perspective, it all makes sense

the Grit

Keep in mind, due to such funness (I guess I’m making that word up — but it’s a good one) many comments might get caught up in the moderation queue. I do not mind going in there and releasing them, because I like it when you link back to your blog and even the blog of the commenter. So, there you have it boys and girls; I’ve been reading your posts and comments and I know that each and every one of you have that one exceptional comment that stands out. So, go grab it and get back here when you can.

In the mean time — have a splendid weekend; I know we intend to!

You can’t just make this stuff up. At least I can’t because I’m not very creative.

From Kansas.com:

Ron and Diane Taliaferro say they locked their kids in a moldy, ant-infested room to protect them from a fugitive.

What happened in the following moments, they told The Eagle on Tuesday, was a gross misunderstanding with law enforcement officers who chased the man to their Oaklawn home June 11.

This story is either really confusing or my reading comprehension skills have shot craps. Please help me decipher what the article is trying to say. I understand that it is the father of the children who was chased to his Oaklawn home by police on June 11th?

It was also the last time they saw their kids.

Officers took all three — 5-year-old Savannah, who goes by Nicki; 4-year-old Anna, who likes to be called “Anna-conda”; and 2-year-old Bubba Jo — into protective custody.

The officers said the room smelled like urine and feces and was infested with ants. The youngest child’s diaper was soiled, and the oldest girl told a detective they hadn’t yet been fed that day.

The Taliaferros spent four nights in jail and were released Friday without being charged.

Does this mean no charges will be filed?

The family moved to Kansas from Alabama about a year ago as they looked for “a fresh start,” which included a new job.

About three months after they got here, they gave up their newborn son, Joshua, for adoption.

What a blessing for this child to be placed in a better home. I hope these worthless parents decide to give all their children up for adoption and then get sterilized.

“We didn’t have the money,” Ron Taliaferro said. “We already had three, and we had a hard enough time keeping clothes on their backs…. We thought it was best for him and us.”

They moved to Oaklawn after a disagreement with a landlord led to their eviction from a home near Hydraulic and Pawnee about a month ago.

Here’s what the Taliaferros said happened June 11:

Ron and Diane Taliaferro and the kids were outside playing in the spray of a garden hose with two abandoned pit bulls they rescued from a home down the street.

This just keeps getting better and better. No offense toward pit-bull owners, but letting your children play with pit-bulls that have been abandoned and you don’t know their history? Crazy.

They went inside so Ron Taliaferro could change Bubba’s diaper, which had absorbed water from the hose.

Moments later, Justin W. Kraai, who had just escaped from Derby police, kicked in the front door.

Could this be the guy the police were chasing? Or, is it really the father of the children?

He had a handcuff dangling on one of his wrists and was acting strange, Ron Taliaferro said.

He recognized Kraai as a man who had tried to sell him a car when the Taliaferro family lived in a duplex near Hydraulic and Pawnee.

So, the father knows this guy — if the story is even true, but I don’t know.

Kraai asked to use a phone, but the family doesn’t have one, so Ron Taliaferro asked his wife to run to a store and buy a prepaid cell phone.

As Diane Taliaferro left, Ron Taliaferro shuffled the kids into a room and locked the door from the outside, using a lock that had been there when they moved in.

Since when does a lock on the outside of the door keep intruders out?

He locked them in so they wouldn’t get hurt, he said.

“I wasn’t afraid afraid of him, but I didn’t know what he was going to do,” Ron Taliaferro said at his home Tuesday as his wife cleaned.

Let the weirdness begin. What convinced the wife to go buy a pre-paid cell phone? A dangling handcuff? Taliaferro apparently was not afraid of the intruder — but he locks his children in a room?

He suspects Kraai swallowed drugs when he was caught earlier that day. Kraai escaped as police were taking him to the hospital.

Normally, Ron Taliaferro said, the kids aren’t allowed to stay in the room because it has mold problems.

“We were thinking of their safety when we put them in there,” he said.

Soon after that, he said, police entered, pistols drawn, and arrested Ron Taliaferro and Kraai. Diane Taliaferro was arrested when she came back from the store.

Ron Taliaferro said police never gave him a chance to explain that he locked his kids in the room to keep them safe or that his kids had been fed that day, and even had ice cream as a treat.

The parents were booked on suspicion of child endangerment with a bond of $75,000 each.

During their jail stay, their van was stolen, their home was broken into and tools Ron Taliaferro used to work as a handyman were stolen.

And they still haven’t been able to see their kids.

“It’s unbelievable,” he said. “Father’s Day was really bad. It’s like you can’t believe it was happening.”

Um, yeah … I’m sure this freak didn’t get anything for Father’s Day.

The Taliaferros said they planned to fill out paperwork today that would determine whether the couple can see their children.

“I can’t imagine what’s going through their minds,” he said of the kids.

Let me try. Maybe something like, “It sure is nice to be out of that moldy stinking room and get some food in our stomachs.”

Sheriff Lt. Jay McLaurian declined to comment on the case but said the SRS is still doing its own investigation of the family.

Ron and Diane Taliaferro said they plan to move after they regain custody of their children.

Ya think? Why bother with the kids — just move your sorry butts and start fresh without children. Am I the only one that finds this entire story strange and somewhat hard to understand?

She’s getting tired. It’s been a long day. Nevertheless, the top 5 are here.

Maybe — Sansonetti, Micheli, and Lummis for the final 3? Just guessing. It looks like Barrasso may hang tough to the final 3 too??? Oh well, she said this part will go fast. We’ll know soon which three the governor will be choosing from ….

Tieki Rae has the latest. She had it posted on her blog before the Casper Star Tribune blogger did .

The final 10 are making their speeches now. Stay tuned:)

The venom of the Latrodectus mactans, a variety of black widow found only in the south of Chile, has spermicidal properties not found in black widows in other regions of the world, Chilean Dr. Fernando Romero said.

Britons come second to their Gallic cousins in the moaning stakes, followed by Sweden, the United States and Australia. Japanese workers have the lowest morale, but don’t complain so much.

“It is interesting to note that after France, Britain and Sweden, the world’s biggest workplace whingers are Americans, despite their having by far the highest levels of income,” said FDS chief Charlotte Cornish.