headlines never clear host of blog says

the more i read the news, the more confused i get by the way headlines are written. i understand that they're trying to sum up an entire news story in as few words as possible, but seriously: Bomb near town praised by Bush? i read that and thought, "holy shit, the president praised a bombing? that can't be good." oh, no, the TOWN was praised by bush. couldn't that have been written a little more clearly? it seriously had to read it a couple of times before it made sense.

and that wasn't the first time i've had to re-read a headline.

here's another one. Man Found Shot Near 30th, Martin
does that mean the man's name is martin? is martin the other cross street? and if that's the case, how hard is it to write "Man Found Shot Near 30th & Martin"?

and Tax benefit biggest for poor, rich
wtf? is that poor AND rich? poor OR rich? apparently anytime journalists want to eliminate a word they just replace it with a comma. and really, words like "and" and "or" should be replaced with a comma because they take up so much space. please.

Report: Sleep 'divorce' counts
i can't even figure out what this means.

and those headlines where they try to be cute.
Me-yowzah! That's one fat cat
or
Oink! Oink! Cloned pork could perk up heart health

unnecessary.