Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine...
What's In a Name?
The terror group responsible for countless murders and the videotaped executions of two American journalists and a British aid worker is known as the Islamic State, ISIS, or ISIL -- depending on whom you ask.
The group calls itself the Islamic State, the New York Times and USA Today are now using that as well.
The administration calls it ISIL -- the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant -- which covers a larger area.
Fox and other media outlets call it ISIS -- the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham.
Now a Florida woman wants to end the debate once and for all -- she has started a petition for the group to only be known as ISIL.
Granted, she has a personal stake in the issue.
Isis Martinez says she and other women who share her name are being unfairly associated with a terrorist group.
My name was either preceded by a terrible adjective or followed by a terrible adjective like 'ISIS attacks,' 'ISIS beheads,' 'ISIS massacres,'
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ISIS MARTINEZ: My name was either preceded by a terrible adjective or followed by a terrible adjective -– like "ISIS attacks,” "ISIS beheads," "ISIS wanted," "ISIS massacres."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Miss Martinez has managed to get more than 3,000 signatures on that petition so far.
Packing Heat
An Australian federal police officer has a lot of explaining to do after a traveler was sent home from Sydney Airport with a suitcase packed with explosives.
The woman's suitcase was damaged in flight, so she was offered replacement luggage from the airport's lost and found.
But when she got home, she found about eight ounces of plastic explosives inside the bag.
Turns out, the explosives were put there as part of a training exercise for bomb sniffing dogs.
No one even noticed the suitcase was missing until the woman came forward.
The federal police have apologized and insist the public was never in danger.
Distracted Walking
And finally, an attempt at solving that frustrating problem of people so engrossed in their smartphones that they hold up traffic on the sidewalks and bump into fellow pedestrians.
Well, a Chinese town has installed cell phone lanes on the sidewalk with the sign walk in this lane at your own risk.
But in order to keep the phone-free lane clear of distracted walkers, they have to be paying attention to the signage.
National Geographic conducted a similar experiment here in Washington and reportedly found that most smartphone addicts never noticed the signs.
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