Archive of Uncategorized News Items
If I owned a newspaper, this is what you'd see in it.  These are news item of which you probably haven't heard, if you get all your information from television.  Some of these stories have appeared in the "mainstream media" briefly but they deserve additional publicity.  Special attention is given to stories which show the alarming growth rate of the federal government's size and power, and abuses of that power, as well as especially bad ideas which are being given undue consideration.  The links will be removed when they get stale or when they are no longer valid.  As a general rule, the most recent and the most important items are at the top of the page.

The stories that interest me the most are the ones that show blind over-reliance on technology — especially GPS-related systems and computers in general.  There is no shortage of minimum-wage clerks who believe anything that pops up on a computer screen.  (That's why electronic voting is a very bad idea.)  But there are apparently a lot of politicians and cops who assume that GPS tracking devices are infallible, too.

This page is for stories that the mainstream press seems to have overlooked.  On the other hand, the stories that appear to have been intentionally squelched are on this page.

More odd/weird news that imply little or no political controversy can be found on this page.

Additional weird, unusual and humorous news can be found here.

You may notice an unusual level of interest in the upcoming "lame duck" session of Congress, which will occur after the November elections.  This might turn into a new subsection (or separate page) before long.


Family of murdered Border Patrol agent files $25M suit against ATF.  The family of murdered Border Patrol agent Brian Terry has filed a $25 million wrongful death suit against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives claiming Terry was killed with AK-47s that were knowingly sold under the Fast and Furious gunrunning probe to a straw purchaser for drug cartels.  In a 65-page complaint, filed in Arizona state court on Wednesday [2/1/2012], attorneys for the family claim ATF "wrongdoing" in Operation Fast and Furious.

More about the Fast and Furious scandal.

Gallup state numbers predict huge Obama loss.  Gallup released their annual state-by-state presidential approval numbers yesterday [1/31/2012], and the results should have 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue very worried.

Northwest Indiana power plant to shut on March 31.  After electrifying Northwest Indiana for more than 80 years, one of Indiana's oldest coal-burning power plants will be switched off by March 31, and 109 workers will lose their jobs.  The State Line Energy Station in Hammond, a hulking red landmark between Chicago and Indiana, is closing due to economics, lawsuits and new federal clean-air regulations.

The Editor says...
 Free advice for the owners of that plant:  Put it in moth balls.  Surround the building with fences and guards, and keep the place ready to restart when common sense prevails in this country once again.

The $1.2 Tril Gap: Obama's Subpar Recovery Continues.  Real GDP climbed a less-than-expected 2.8% in final quarter of 2011, and just 1.7% for the entire year, down from 3% in 2010.  The trend of subpar growth under Obama continues.  To get a better sense of how bad Obama's recovery is, consider this:  Under Obama, real GDP has climbed a total of just 6% in the two-and-a-half years since the recession ended in June 2009.  By comparison, real GDP had grown 16% by this point in the Reagan recovery, after the very deep and painful 1981-82 recession.

Why is the answer always a new law?  Prescription drug abuse is the No. 1 drug problem in West Virginia.  Unscrupulous doctors have seen workers comp fraud dry up now that the state no longer runs workers comp.  The crooked doctors switched to writing prescriptions for oxycodones such as OxyContin.  The result is that West Virginia now is second only to New Mexico in the number of drug-related deaths per 100,000 people.

Romney Family Had Ann Romney's Atheist Father Posthumously Baptized Into The Mormon Church.  After wondering aloud yesterday [1/26/2012] whether the Romneys converted Mitt's dead father-in-law to Mormonism, Gawker's John Cook has confirmed it:  Yes.  They did.  Edward Davies, Ann Romney's father, was an atheist who was also strongly anti-religion.  By the time he died, he was the only member of Ann Romney's immediate family to not convert to Mormonism.  Fourteen months later, in 1993, he was baptized in a special ceremony at a Salt Lake City church.  This practice requires a living person who has already been baptized to undergo the immersion in water again on behalf of the dead.  No word on who this person might have been in Davies' case.

Buffett's Burlington Northern Among Winners From Keystone Denial.  Warren Buffett's Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC is among U.S. and Canadian railroads that stand to benefit from the Obama administration's decision to reject TransCanada Corp.'s Keystone XL oil pipeline permit.  With modest expansion, railroads can handle all new oil produced in western Canada through 2030, according to an analysis of the Keystone proposal by the U.S. State Department.

The Editor has two questions:
 Do railroads present less danger to the environment than pipes?  And why is the State Department involved in this anyway?

Why is it necessary to conduct military exercises in a big city?
 LA Military Exercises.  The training, which a department official said would involve helicopters, has been coordinated with local authorities and owners of the training sites, police said.  Police said safety precautions have been taken to prevent risk to the general public and military personnel involved.  The exercises are closed to the public, police said.

11 stunning revelations from Larry Summers's secret economics memo to Barack Obama.  A lengthy piece in The New Yorker looks at policymaking in the Obama White House.  A key source for writer Ryan Lizza is a 57-page, "Sensitive & Confidential" memo written by economist Larry Summers — eventually to be head of Obama's National Economic Council — to Obama in December 2008.

This 30,000 Pound Bomb Works So Well Its Design Team Just Won A Rare Honor.  At over 20 feet in length and weighing 30,000 pounds, the MOP is a precision guided bomb whose first successful test in 2007 led to an Air Force order for eight more worth $28 million in April 2011.  One of the requirements of Boeing and Lockheed Martin's next generation bomber is to accommodate the MOP as the B-52 does now.

School Fears "Cougars" Mascot Will Offend Women.  A Utah school district decided not to select a cougar as the mascot of a new high school partly because school officials and some parents believed the word is disrespectful to women.

The Editor says...
 One by one, legitimate and harmless words are being hijacked by the amoral dregs of society.

Top 10 Obama revelations.  New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor's new book, The Obamas, is chock-full of revelations about the First Couple.  To save you the time of reading (and the cost of buying) Kantor's account, we have compiled the Top 10 Obama Revelations that are contained in the book.

Harsh Punishments for Poor Mourning.  The North Korean authorities have completed the criticism sessions which began after the mourning period for Kim Jong Il and begun to punish those who transgressed during the highly orchestrated mourning events.  Daily NK learned from a source from North Hamkyung Province on January 10th, "The authorities are handing down at least six months in a labor-training camp to anybody who didn't participate in the organized gatherings during the mourning period, or who did participate but didn't cry and didn't seem genuine."

Oh, wait!  It was all just a misunderstanding.
 North Korea denies punishing citizens for not mourning enough.  North Korea has angrily denied allegations that it punished some of its citizens for inadequately mourning the death of its late leader Kim Jong Il.  Kim died last month after 17 years of repressive rule over the secretive state, setting off deep uncertainty about North Korea's future.  The North Korean regime commemorated his death with elaborately choreographed ceremonies broadcast on state-run media that showed crowds of mourners beating their chests and wailing with grief in the snow-covered streets of Pyongyang.

Mars meteorite chunks fall to Earth.  Meteorite chunks from Mars fell over Morocco last summer — the first time in 50 years such an event has occurred, scientists confirmed Tuesday [1/17/2012].  It is only the fifth time newly fallen Martian rocks have been confirmed chemically by experts.  Known Martian meteorite falls have happened only once every 50 years or so — 1815 in France, 1865 in India, 1911 in Egypt and the last in 1962 in Nigeria.  Scientists and collectors were celebrating the find.

The Editor says...
 My skepticism of this story knows no bounds.  Why should we send probes to Mars if Martian rocks spontaneously "fall to Earth?"  How much energy would it take to launch a rock from the Martian surface?  Why would rocks leap from the Martian surface in excess of the planet's escape velocity and head for the Earth?  What are the odds that a rock leaving Mars in a random direction would find its way to Earth?  What chemicals are found in Martian rocks that are not found on Earth?  Why don't parts of other planets "fall to Earth" as well?  Why just Mars?  What about the moon?  Mars is, on average, about 581 times as far away as the moon.

U.S. Drops to 10th Place in Economic Freedom.  Well-defined, well-enforced property rights; a stable rule of law that prevents corruption and encourages equal justice; free trade; responsible government spending; ease of doing business; well-reasoned, certainty-inducing regulation:  these are the types of factors that energize a society toward productivity and prosperity, and have made the United States the world's leader in liberty and living standards for going on two centuries.  Unfortunately, the sort of big-government, top-down-virtue policies that adulterate such righteous merits have been infiltrating our beautiful country at an exponential rate, and subsequently, we've already lost our foothold among the freest of nations.

Pepsi Beverages pays $3.1M in racial bias case.  The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says the company's policy of not hiring workers with arrest records disproportionately excluded more than 300 black applicants.

Pepsi suffers $3.1 million shakedown for 'discriminatory' hiring policies.  Pepsi Beverages Co. has agreed to a $3.1 million settlement to end federal charges of racial discrimination over its hiring practices — but this wasn't the sort of discrimination that once existed in the Jim Crow South.  Pepsi was guilty of racial discrimination as defined by government bullies at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.  Increasingly, the EEOC has used the battering ram of discrimination, as it loosely defines it, to promote "diversity" at all cost.

Iran building missile base in Venezuela.  Iran and Venezuela are feverishly building ICBM bases on the Paraguana Peninsula, a thumbnail shaped spit of arid land around a thousand square miles in size, 250 miles northwest of Caracas.  These bases are designed to house missiles with nuclear tipped warheads capable of reaching large portions of the United States.

The Editor says...
 Stand by for the Venezuelan Missile Crisis.  Many of the people who don't care if Iran nukes Israel will sing a different tune if Iran nukes Houston.

This sounds like a story out of a 5,000-year-old newspaper.
 Indian police arrest 2 men for sacrificing child.  Two men have been arrested in central India for allegedly killing a 7-year-old girl and cutting out her liver in a ritual sacrifice to ensure a better harvest, police said Monday [1/2/2012].

Hotel Room Key Failure Causes Chaos.  At midnight on New Year's Eve, key software at the Denver Marriott Tech Center failed, locking guests out of their rooms and causing chaos on hotel grounds.  According to a letter given to guests by hotel management, the building's "room key software crashed" at midnight on Dec. 31 [2011].

The Editor says...
 Let this be a lesson to us all:  Y2K can happen at the end of any year!

Grandparents kicked out of mall after taking picture of grandson.  Two grandparents were kicked out of the University Park Mall Tuesday [12/20/2011] after they took a picture of their visiting grandson in the Food Court.  "We were going to take our grandson, he's five and visiting from California, to see Santa and we were just sitting around the table having something to drink, talking about what we were planning and that's when my husband took the picture," said Grandmother Debbie Cassella.  Cassella said immediately a mall employee instructed them to stop taking pictures or they would be thrown out of the mall.

The Curious Lack of Indonesians at Gitmo.  [Scroll down]  Sure enough, zero Muslims from the world's largest Muslim society were lured by the siren call of 72 virgins to the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq to wage glorious jihad against invading infidels.  That is, unless they were either extraordinarily cunning or extraordinarily easy targets.  Coincidentally, that's the same number of Indonesians caught trying to hijack our planes or blow them up with bombs in their Reeboks or underwear.

A $2.5 Million Libel Judgment Brings the Question: Are Bloggers Journalists?  'Bloggers Beware'  That was the headline on a conservative blog following a $2.5 million judgment this month against blogger Crystal Cox in a defamation case tried in federal court in Oregon.

Gary Johnson to leave GOP race, run as Libertarian.  Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson will drop out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination and instead seek to run as a Libertarian, according to the Independent Political Report.  The switch, which has been rumored for weeks, is set to be announced Tuesday [12/20/2011].

Occupying Churches.  The Episcopal cathedral in Boston seems to resemble what comedian Flip Wilson once spoofed in the early 1970s as the "Church of What's Happening Now."  Rev. Strait boasts on his cathedral website that this church named for the Apostle Paul resembles a "United Nations gathering" and holds weekly Muslim prayer meetings.  One canon priest, he notes, is quite "disciplined" in yoga practice.  And "ancient church traditions" mix with "urban grooves" at the cathedral's "emerging church worship community."

Treasury to stop producing unneeded dollar coins.  Vice President Joe Biden and several cabinet secretaries announced today the administration's efforts to identify and eliminate misspent tax dollars.  My favorite — the savings of $50 million annually by no longer minting unneeded and unwanted dollar coins.  Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Neal Wolin says they currently have a decade worth of excess coins on the shelves!

Romney in 2002: 'My Views Are Progressive'.  Another old Mitt Romney video is making the blog rounds.  In this one, from 2002, Romney says that he is "not a partisan Republican," but "someone that is moderate, and my views are progressive".

Mitt: 'progressive' to 'conservative' in 27 months.  A devastating video has emerged this morning showing Mitt Romney declaring himself as a non-partisan "moderate" and "progressive" candidate as he was courting the liberal Massachusetts electorate in 2002.  Yet just over two years after the statement was made, as he geared up toward a presidential run, he started describing himself as a "conservative Republican."  In the video segment that aired on New England Cable News, Romney can be seen making a late campaign push before his November 2002 election as governor of Massachusetts.

Americans' Fear Of Big Government Has Risen Under Obama.  The percentage of Americans who fear big government is close to an all-time high.  It's no coincidence that in recent history this alarm has tended to peak toward the end of Democratic terms in the White House.

Texas Approves Controversial License Plate Featuring Crosses.  Texas license plates are again drawing national scrutiny.  Last week, the board of the state's Department of Motor Vehicles voted to approve the "Calvary Hill" specialty license plate that reads "One State Under God" and features three crosses.  Motorists who choose to buy the plate pay a surcharge, which is divided between the state and the sponsoring group — in the case of Calvary Hill, a Christian-based youth anti-gang ministry in the east Texas city of Nacogdoches.

Hurricane predictors admit they can't predict hurricanes.  Two top U.S. hurricane forecasters, revered like rock stars in Deep South hurricane country, are quitting the practice because it doesn't work.  William Gray and Phil Klotzbach say a look back shows their past 20 years of forecasts had no value.

Federal judge: Montana blogger is not journalist.  A federal judge in Oregon has ruled that a Montana woman sued for defamation was not a journalist when she posted online that an Oregon lawyer acted criminally during a bankruptcy case, a decision with implications for bloggers around the country.

Crystal Cox, Oregon Blogger, Isn't a Journalist, Concludes U.S. Court.  Representing herself in court, Cox had argued that her writing was a mixture of facts, commentary and opinion (like a million other blogs on the web) and moved to have the case dismissed.  Dismissed it wasn't, however...

Dodge Dart is coming back.  Chrysler Group is tapping its history, resurrecting the Dodge Dart name for a new small car being unveiled at next month's Detroit Auto Show.  The Dodge Dart name was last used on a small car sold in the mid-1970s.

Connecticut Residents Left Without Electricity Spark Power Line Debate.  As electricity crews in Connecticut work around the clock to restore power to frustrated and fed up residents left in the cold after a rare October snowstorm took out trees and utility lines, many are wondering if burying all the power lines underground might solve the problem of power outages.  As of Wednesday afternoon [11/30/2011], more than 4,800 Connecticut Light & Power customers were still without power, which forced many into hotels and the homes of family members and friends to wait it out.

New Regs Make it Easier to be 'Hired Into the Federal Family'.  John Berry, director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), praised new government programs where students and recent graduates can be "hired into the federal family," during a speech on Tuesday [11/29/2011] entitled, "Why It's Cool to Work for the Federal Government," at a NASA educational summit in Chantilly, Va.  Berry also said that working for the government is "cool" because "the scale of your impact is greater than anywhere else you can be engaged and involved."

Obama, Congress restore U.S. horse-slaughter industry.  President Obama last month quietly signed into law a spending bill that restores the American horse-slaughter industry, just a few months after a government investigation said the ban on slaughtering was backfiring.  The domestic ban didn't end horse slaughter but instead shifted the site of butchery to Mexico and Canada — which meant increased abuse or neglect as the horses were shipped out of the country and beyond the reach of U.S. law.

Comedy of Errors Led to False 'Water-Pump Hack' Report.  It was the broken water pump heard 'round the world. ... Within a week of the report's release, DHS bluntly contradicted the memo, saying that it could find no evidence that a hack occurred.  In truth, the water pump simply burned out, as pumps are wont to do, and a government-funded intelligence center incorrectly linked the failure to an internet connection from a Russian IP address months earlier.

Germany and Increasing Worldwide Coal Consumption.  Germany, one of the countries that constantly preaches the global warming doctrine and insists the rest of the world do as it says, is increasing its reliance on coal and gas plants.  This is because it has put the closure of all its nuclear reactors on the fast track since the Fukushima accident.  The German government will use climate fund cash to build coal and natural gas plants.

If Laws Change, 'Penny Hoarders' Could Cash in on Thousands of Dollars.  Joe Henry is on a first name basis with bank tellers across his hometown of Medford, Ore., scouring 15 banks a week with one thing on his mind:  pennies.  Henry is often seen toting around bags of pennies, some he buys, others he changes back in for cash, which seems a little strange at first.  He's not a collector, he is what's known as a "penny hoarder" and he is not alone.

15 Facts About McDonald's That Will Blow Your Mind.  In 1992 when Rutgers professor Benjamin Barber coined the term "McWorld," there were 12,700 McDonald's worldwide.  Today there are over 33,000.  The relentless spread of McDonald's over the past 61 years is an incredible business success story.  In some markets the burger chain is just getting started, with plans to open 200 stores in China this year.

"Living documents" are nothing but trouble.
 Revision of psychiatric manual under fire.  The "bible" of American psychiatry — a manual of mental health used around the world by doctors, consumers and insurance providers — has come under fire from a growing group of psychologists who worry that proposed revisions will feed into a culture of overdiagnosing, and overtreating, otherwise healthy people.

Seniors scammed into buying 70 years' worth of toilet paper.  Florida scam artists told elderly victims the government had changed the laws regulating toilet paper and that their septic tanks would be ruined unless they bought specially formulated rolls, court documents said.  "Through this scheme, some elderly customers were defrauded into purchasing more than 70 years' worth of toilet paper," federal prosecutors in Miami said in a news release.

The Editor says...
 Who is the real culprit in this case?  The U.S. government!  This sort of scheme only works because it is easy to believe that the government is about to outlaw something that everybody uses.  People who live in tyranny are never surprised by ridiculous and draconian changes imposed by their governments.

Couple forced to exchange Facebook passwords during divorce.  Breaking up just got harder to do — thanks to a Connecticut judge who ordered a soon-to-be divorced couple to exchange their Facebook passwords.

EU bans claim that water can prevent dehydration.  Brussels bureaucrats were ridiculed yesterday [11/17/2011] after banning drink manufacturers from claiming that water can prevent dehydration.  EU officials concluded that, following a three-year investigation, there was no evidence to prove the previously undisputed fact.  Producers of bottled water are now forbidden by law from making the claim and will face a two-year jail sentence if they defy the edict, which comes into force in the UK next month.

Water Water Everywhere, But Not a Drop to Think.  On November 17th, the European Union revealed what ought to be considered a "watershed" moment of philosophical bankruptcy:  Brussels bureaucrats banned all advertising which claims water can prevent... dehydration.  But wait, it gets better.  Producers of bottled water are now forbidden by law from making that claim.  If they do?  They'll be facing a two-year jail sentence for violating the law, which will be enforced in the UK beginning next month.

"In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later:  the logic of their position demanded it.  Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy.  The heresy of heresies was common sense."
— George Orwell    

Cain Supports Collective Bargaining for Public Unions?  In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Herman Cain said he supports the "right" for public employees to bargain collectively.  In other words, he is in favor of unions on the taxpayer dime.  Cain also said federal workers have unions, meaning the right to collectively bargain, but they do not.

Investigator: Herman Cain innocent of sexual advances.  Private investigator TJ Ward said presidential hopeful Herman Cain was not lying at a news conference on Tuesday [11/8/2011] in Phoenix.  Cain denied making any sexual actions towards Sharon Bialek and vowed to take a polygraph test if necessary to prove his innocence.  Cain has not taken a polygraph but Ward said he does have software that does something better.  Ward said the $15,000 software can detect lies in people's voices.

One woman who accused Cain of sexual harassment now works for Obama.  GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain argues that he's no sexual harasser — but friends and family members of one accuser were only trying to right a wrong no woman should suffer in the workplace.  Karen Kraushaar, a 55-year-old former journalist who currently works for the Obama administration, was outed today [11/8/2011] as one of the three women who had filed sexual harassment complaints against Cain.

Murky past of Herman Cain accuser starts to emerge.  A 'gold digger' embroiled in legal and financial difficulties who has always lived above her station and will do anything to never have to work again.  This is the portrait that has started to emerge of the fourth woman to accuse Herman Cain of sexual harassment — the first to come out publicly.

Official: Total Unemployed at 16.2 Percent.  Yahoo!Finance reports:  Most of the unemployed no longer receive benefits. ... Interestingly, if the students (or anyone else) work as little as 1 paid hour per week, they are considered employed.  I believe a significant number of those who do use up all their unemployment benefits drop out of the labor force to collect retirement benefits.  Such persons want a job but stop looking and go on early retirement just to have some money coming in.

Why not five terms?  Why not ten?
 Bill Clinton thinks presidents should get 3 terms.  Former President Bill Clinton criticized the two-term limit on the presidency during an appearance on Morning Joe, noting that leaders of states with parliamentary governments have benefited from a lack of term limits.

Congress Uses Chimps To Monkey Around With Budget.  While Congress has talked a good game about reducing the deficit, it still uses a variety of gimmicks to hide how much it is spending.  One such trick is known as "changes in mandatory spending programs."  These "Chimps" are inserted into appropriations bills to produce phony budget savings.

2.6-tonne church bell stolen.  Brazen thieves have stolen a 2.6-tonne church bell from an iconic church in San Francisco.  The 122-year-old relic, which sat in front of St Mary's Cathedral after being replaced by an electronic chime in the 1970s, had survived the devastating 1906 San Francisco earthquake and a 1962 arson attack that gutted the building, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.  But it was unable to withstand the determination of metal thieves who would have used heavy lifting equipment in the brazen heist.

The Editor says...
 The big news here is that there is a church in San Francisco.  Who would have believed it?

Replacing $1 bill with coin could save $5.6 billion.  A proposal to phase out the $1 bill and replace it with a $1 coin could be gaining currency as the "supercommittee" looks to find ways to save the government money. ... Moving to a coin could save $5.6 billion over 30 years, according to the Government Accountability Office.

The Editor says...
 Saving 5.6 billion dollars over the next 30 years is only a drop in the bucket.  The supercommittee is supposed to come up with a trillion dollars in immediate spending cuts.  They need to chop about 5.6 billion per week, starting immediately.

Hill Super Committee To Return To Public Session.  Some Republican members of the panel, such as Sen. Jon Kyl, has said the panel should focus on achieving the $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion deficit cutting goal.  Some lawmakers and outside groups have urged the panel to come up with a $4 trillion deficit reduction plan over 10 years.

Super Committee Health Goals Need Sound Policy.  If the goal is producing $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion in 10-year savings, the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction must think big and produce recommendations with real substance.

Air Force Wants Tiny Drones That Squirt Trackable Sensor Goo.  The Air Force wants a new kind of tracking tech in which a tiny drone surreptitiously "paints" an individual with some kind of signal-emitting powder or liquid that allows the military to keep tabs on him or her.  Or perhaps upload his coordinates to a hellfire missile.  On Tuesday, the Air Force put out a call for proposals for such technology, though it didn't specify exactly what kind of drone might deliver the magic powder, or what the magic powder might be.

A New Spending Record.  Maybe it's a sign of the tumultuous times, but the federal government recently wrapped up its biggest spending year, and its second biggest annual budget deficit, and almost nobody noticed. ... What happened to all of those horrifying spending cuts?  Good question.  CBO says that overall outlays rose 4.2% from 2010 (1.8% adjusted for timing shifts), when spending fell slightly from 2009.  Defense spending rose only 1.2% on a calendar-adjusted basis, and Medicaid only 0.9%, but Medicare spending rose 3.9% and interest payments by 16.7%.  The bigger point:  Government austerity is a myth.

Not a Single Christian Church Left in Afghanistan, Says State Department.  There is not a single, public Christian church left in Afghanistan, according to the U.S. State Department.  This reflects the state of religious freedom in that country ten years after the United States first invaded it and overthrew its Islamist Taliban regime.

Algore Akbar!  The cultist EU is about to impose cap-and-trade on U.S. airlines. ... This is, to state the obvious, an invasion of U.S. sovereignty and a limitation of our freedom of navigation in the air and at sea.

America's Most Dangerous Cities, 2011.  A city where murder is nearly a daily occurance stands a good shot of being named the most violent, crime-prone area in the country.  And last year there were 345 murders reported in the Detroit metropolitan area — altogether 1,111 violent crimes per 100,000 residents.

An EMP Attack on America?  For most of this week, the Department of Energy and the states of Maryland and Florida will be holding emergency response exercises to determine their readiness in the event of a major failure of the national electric power grid.  The scenarios to be tested vary from a low-level event that would take out a handful of the transformers that control the grid that conceivably could be repaired within a matter of days, to a "worst case" scenario to simulate a total take-down of the grid, an event many experts believe could take four to six years to recover from.

Freedom of speech is dead in Australia.  For my money probably the best political blogger in the world is Australia's Andrew Bolt. ... His war, like mine, is against those who would constrain our liberty by imposing on us more tax, more regulation, more control.  He's firm but fair:  one of the good guys.  This is why we should all worry greatly about the latest bizarre ruling from the Australian federal court, which has found Bolt in breach of the Racial Discrimination Act.

Chinese Ballet at Kennedy Center Extols Violent Revolution.  Audiences at the prestigious Kennedy Center are being asked to applaud a ballet that celebrates a movement that went on to murder hundreds of thousands.  The Chinese National Ballet is performing on Sept. 22-24 "The Red Detachment of Women," which glorifies the history of the communist land reform campaign in China, while concealing the reality of the violence that suffused it.

Delaware's very own Solyndra?  Delaware's political establishment thinks First State electricity consumers should subsidize the manufacture of supersized fuel cells under the auspices of California-based Bloom Energy to replace natural gas and coal-fired power plants in generating electricity.  The politicos want to build a factory in Newark, where rail service is available to ship Bloom's 10-ton, 100-kilowatt "eco-friendly" Energy Servers to presumed eager buyers across America.

Conservatives Stop New Boehner CR.  The Republican leadership tried to pass a continuing resolution through the House of Representatives on Wednesday afternoon [9/21/2011] that would have permitted funding for Obamacare implementation, Planned Parenthood, the United Nations Population Fund, and the Palestinian Authority to continue in the new federal fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1.

Over 500 at Defiant Freedom Rally Near Ground Zero.  In a tone of defiance AFDI Executive Director Pamela Geller declared, "While White House guidelines forbid official 9/11 ceremonies from mentioning who attacked the U.S. on that day or why, our 9/11 Freedom Rally features more honest speakers.  We are here today to honor our war dead and stand for freedom and against the deception and lies being used to subdue us.  We must show the jihadists we are unbowed in the defense of freedom."

Oops!  How did THAT get in there?
 Long-Lost Moon Rock Turns Up In Clinton Papers.  A long-lost, highly valuable Moon rock brought back from the Apollo 17 mission has turned up in the files of Bill Clinton.  The rock was one of 50 presented to each state, and was given to Arkansas while the ex-president was governor.  The rock, worth millions of dollars, had been missing since at least 1980 until an archivist found it in old gubernatorial papers.  Bobby Roberts, director of the Central Arkansas Library System, told Reuters the archivist opened a box previously archived as "Arkansas flag plaque."

September 11 SIOA Freedom Rally at Ground Zero.  While clergy, 9/11 first responders, and 9/11 family members are barred and/or not invited to the official ceremonies, both are welcome at the 9/11 Freedom Rally.  And while White House guidelines forbid official 9/11 ceremonies from mentioning who attacked the U.S. on that day or why, the 9/11 Freedom Rally features more honest speakers.

Feinstein: 'Wiped out' by scandal.  Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said she was "wiped out" by Kinde Durkee, a well-connected California Democratic political operative who served as treasurer for hundreds of state, local and federal campaign committees.

Rick Perry's governing style: Secrecy over straight talk?.  Gov. Rick Perry's straight talk may have made him an instant star of the Republican presidential field, but even some of his supporters say his frank one-liners don't reflect his governing style in Texas, where Perry has been criticized as one of the most secretive governors in the country.  At home, Perry has fought for years to keep even mundane details of his schedule, spending and decision-making away from reporters and the public.

Prominent scientist pleads guilty to attempted espionage.  Stewart Nozette, once a prominent scientist for NASA who served on the Space Council under President George H.W. Bush, pleaded guilty Wednesday [9/7/2011] to attempted espionage, a case that attracted widespread notice but began as a seemingly routine fraud investigation.

Does Obama have something against Texas?  Is President Obama's failure to sign a disaster declaration for the Texas wildfires due to an anti-Texas bias?  On Mark Levin's radio program Wednesday night [8/31/2011], Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry speculated that one of the reasons federal assistance for the rampant wildfires has not been forthcoming might just be because the state in question is Texas.

MLK's Daughter: 'Lincoln Remembered for Signing the Declaration of Independence'.  At a ceremony to honor the opening of the new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in our nation's capital Friday [8/26/2011], the late civil rights leader's daughter Bernice made an historical error that would evoke tremendous ridicule and derision if she were a conservative.

Martha's Vineyard is the president's fantasy island.  In Obama's halcyon days, right after the campaign but before that governing part, three-fourths of Vineyard voters cast ballots for the Hope-Change ticket.  They overwhelmingly passed a nonbinding resolution on that same Election Day declaring health care a right.  The bluest town in the bluest state just happens to be on the island where the president passes the dog days of summer.  In Aquinnah, a stunning nine out of ten voters cast ballots for Barack Obama in 2008.

After guns are outlawed, what happens?
 Baseball Bat Sales Up 6,000% as London Riots Continue.  With riots spreading from London to other cities in the UK, sales of aluminum baseball bats on Amazon.com's UK website have risen an astonishing 6,000%.  And no, the British haven't suddenly developed a love for America's national pastime.

Debt deal: $32.4 billion per page.  The debt framework President Obama and congressional leaders reached Sunday night [8/7/2011] runs 74 pages long, and could authorize as much as $2.4 trillion in new debt — or $32.4 billion per page.  That debt increase will get the country through the 2012 election, both sides said, but it does not bring to an end the sea of red ink that will continue to wash over the federal government for the foreseeable future.

Fertilizer Control:  Another liberty lost.
 DHS Creates 'Ammonium Nitrate Security Program'.  The Homeland Security Department on Tuesday [8/2/2011] announced the creation of an Ammonium Nitrate Security Program, which is intended to prevent terror attacks like the ones perpetrated by Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City in 1995; and more recently, by a Norwegian man in Oslo.

The Editor says...
 First of all, the actions of a single psycho in Norway should not affect U.S. laws or diminish our freedom.  Secondly, there is considerable doubt that a fertilizer bomb in a truck could have done the damage inflicted in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Uniformed Mexican Soldiers Cross Into South Texas.  Almost three dozen uniformed Mexican soldiers in four military vehicles crossed the Rio Grande [7/26/2011] into South Texas near McAllen without authorization.

U.S. returns 33 Mexican troops who strayed into Texas.  U.S. Customs and Border Protection inspectors returned 33 Mexican soldiers on Tuesday [7/26/2011] who inadvertently crossed over the Rio Grande river into Texas, authorities said.  The soldiers, packed into four Humvees, crossed over the Donna-Rio Bravo International Bridge into south Texas at around 2 p.m., said Felix Garza, a spokesman for CBP in Pharr, Texas.

The Editor says...
 I find it impossible to believe that the soldiers did not know exactly where they were.  International bridges are clearly marked.

Crews Need Police Escort To Shut Off Fire Hydrants.  City crews scrambling to turn off nearly 2,000 fire hydrants opened by residents seeking relief from the heat required a police escort to protect them from gang members and others upset with the shutdowns.

Norway suspect Anders Behring Breivik was a member of Nazi web forum.  The suspect in the twin attacks that killed at least 92 people in Norway was a member of a Swedish neo-Nazi Internet forum, a group monitoring far-right activity says.

The Editor says...
 The Nazis are not on the "far right."  Nazi is a contraction of the German name of National Socialism.  Regardless of what you read in the press or hear from the Democrats, the Nazis are (and always have been) on the far left.

5 American Economic Statistics That Will Blow Your Mind.  Remember the Judgment Day style theatrics that surrounded the threat of a government shutdown back in April?  That sliced $350 million from this year's budget.  That's about as much as we borrow in two hours.

Cracking the Scratch Lottery Code.  [Scroll down]  That night, however, he realized that the voice was right:  The tic-tac-toe lottery was seriously flawed.  It took a few hours of studying his tickets and some statistical sleuthing, but he discovered a defect in the game:  The visible numbers turned out to reveal essential information about the digits hidden under the latex coating.  Nothing needed to be scratched off — the ticket could be cracked if you knew the secret code.

What do the states know about budgeting that Obama doesn't?  According to [an] article in the Washington Times, at least a dozen states ended the fiscal year with a budgetary surprlus.  Some of the states accomplished that feat even while cutting taxes, while others bit the bullet and cut popular programs.

Ron Paul worries Fort Knox gold is gone.  With the price of gold at record highs, presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul wants to make sure the U.S. gold bars at Fort Knox are really there.  Paul called a congressional hearing Thursday [6/23/2011] to grill federal officials about his bill to audit and inventory all of the gold reserves at Fort Knox, Ky., West Point, N.Y., and Denver, even though Treasury officials insist that the gold is audited annually and is all there.

The Editor says...
 Well, of course, whether the gold is really there or not, the Treasury officials are gonna claim that everything is fine, and this whole question has no merit.  That's the way our government works.  And who among us could ever go to Fort Knox and verify what's there?

American Cancer Society Declares Poverty A Carcinogen.  A report released Friday [6/17/2011] by the American Cancer Society echoes a 1989 statement by Dr. Samuel A. Broder, then director of the National Cancer Institute, who said that poverty is a carcinogen.  The society's report said that the lower a person's socioeconomic status, the greater the risk of cancer.  That's especially true for lung cancer, the report said, "for which death rates are 4 to 5 times higher in the least educated than in the most educated individuals."

The Editor says...
 Nonsense.  Poverty and lung cancer are both symptoms of a lifetime of bad decisions and foolish choices.  With only a few exceptions, people who have lung cancer have brought it upon themselves.

Landry slams OSHA for excessive regulations.  Rep. Jeff Landry took on regulations implemented by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OHSA) during hearings Wednesday [6/15/2011].  It's regulations administered by bureaucratic agencies that are making job growth weak and the work environment unsafe, Landry said during the hearings.  Landry said a constituent business owner was forced to pack-up and transport his upstart drilling barge because of costly regulations.

Dalai Lama: 'I am a Marxist'.  There is no better way to proclaim your lack of spiritual and philosophical depth than by, two decades after the fall of communism, disclosing that you're a Marxist.  Yet this is precisely what Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama did during a speech before 150 Chinese students at the University of Minnesota this month.  Journalist Tsering Namgyal reports on the story at Religion Dispatches, writing, "'as far as socio-political beliefs are concerned, I consider myself a Marxist.'

China Has Divested 97 Percent of Its Holdings in U.S. Treasury Bills.  China has dropped 97 percent of its holdings in U.S. Treasury bills, decreasing its ownership of the short-term U.S. government securities from a peak of $210.4 billion in May 2009 to $5.69 billion in March 2011, the most recent month reported by the U.S. Treasury.  Treasury bills are securities that mature in one year or less that are sold by the U.S. Treasury Department to fund the nation's debt.

Leader of Blue Angels Quits After Jets Flew Too Low at Recent Air Show.  The commander of the famed flight squadron the Blue Angels stepped down Friday [5/27/2011] after part of the team of six jets flew below a minimum altitude at a recent air show.

The $1 Trillion Fighter-Jet Fleet.  A new Pentagon forecast showing the total cost of owning and operating a fleet of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters topping $1 trillion over more than 50 years has caused a case of sticker shock in Washington.  And that price tag doesn't even include the $385 billion the Defense Department will spend to purchase 2,500 of the stealthy planes through 2035.

Court throws out Dearborn leaflet ban.  A federal appeals court Thursday [5/26/2011] invalidated a leafleting ban in Dearborn, ruling the city violated a man's free-speech rights when he was blocked from trying to convert Muslims to Christianity.

Congressman Prefers Fallen Marine as Name on Navy Cargo Vessel.  The Navy's decision to name a cargo ship now under construction after labor activist Cesar Chavez has drawn sharp criticism from one veteran lawmaker who says that a military war hero should receive the honor instead.

Sounds like a headline from 2011 B.C.
 Afrigan [sic] refugees trying to escape to Europe are facing threats of human sacrifice.  Human sacrifice has been added to the dangers facing desperate African boat people trying to escape to Europe, with Italian authorities investigating the testimony of a Ghanaian teenager who said that he narrowly avoided being tossed overboard by a group of Nigerians in a ritual to appease the angry seas.

Air Force witchcraft:  The Air Force Academy ... reportedly held a ceremony on Tuesday [5/3/2011] to dedicate a pile of rocks in the academy's "worship area for followers of Earth-centered religions."  This is a space cadets can use to perform rituals if they happen to be witches, warlocks and tree-worshipers.  Overlooking the visitor center, the stone circle is designed for the benefit of a handful of those claiming to be Wiccans or Druids.

The Editor asks...
 Where are the "separation of church and state" people now?

Should Homeland Security Control the GPS Network?  Americans have become accustomed to the presence of Global Positioning System (or GPS) technology embedded in everything from the GPS on their dash to their cell phones and iPads.  In fact, GPS is nearly taken for granted for everything from locating a restaurant to navigating a fishing boat through the fog.  But now it appears that GPS, which was developed primarily for its military applications, is rather overtly returning to its "national security" roots, as NASA plans to turn the security of the GPS system over to the Department of Homeland Security.

University of Texas Takes Possession of $1 Billion in Gold.  The University of Texas decided this week to take physical possession of some 664,000 ounces of gold it has bought over the past year, a quantity valued at nearly $1 billion as gold passed $1,500 per ounce Wednesday.  The increased demand for gold and other metals in the investment sector with a limited quantity has not only driven the bull market for metals such as silver, gold, palladium, and platinum, it has also led to concern that ETF dealers on the commodity exchange (Comex) may not be able to fulfill all orders for gold.

NOAA Fisheries Management — Masters of Mendacity.  The 2011 Annual Catch Limits (ACLs) for the New England fisheries go into effect on 1 May 2011.  They are essentially unchanged from the extremely low ACLs that virtually crippled the fleet in 2010. ... The catch limits for haddock, a major contributor to fishing revenues, are decreasing 25%.

Even in Delaware, 'Obama 2012' bumper stickers don't mention Biden.  For those who are seeking signs and portents for the 2012 presidential matchup, may I suggest a trip to Delaware?  Here's what you won't be seeing:  Joe Biden's name on the "Obama 2012" bumper stickers.

Debt Beyond Belief.  Have you noticed the many television advertisements urging you to buy gold, to refinance your home, to get a reverse mortgage, or to fix your personal credit score?  There's a reason for this, not just individuals are financially stressed, but the entire nation is broke.

Playing with Fire?  The debt limit is the federal government's legal authority to borrow.  It currently stands at $14.3 trillion dollars.  If we raise it by another trillion dollars, we will be in the exact same situation we are today in less than a year.  If, as many political consultants argue, we raise it by more than $2 trillion, we would get past the 2012 elections.  None of this matters.  If we raised the debt limit by $10 trillion, we would still eventually find ourselves in the same situation we are today.

U.S. Census Bureau request alarms Tulsa County Assessor.  Buried deep in the bowels of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a provision to impose a 3.8% tax on real estate transactions.  Proceeding without regard to Federal Judge Roger Vinson's ruling that the health care law is unconstitutional the Obama administration appears to be pushing ahead with implementation of the real estate tax scheme.  The Tulsa World reports that County Assessor Ken Yazel has come under fire for comments made last month during the Tulsa County Republican Convention.  Mr. Yazel told the convention that the U.S. Census Bureau had asked his office for information that he believed could be used to help create a data base for collection of a 3.8% real estate sales tax.  The steadfast assessor isn't backing down from his statement.

Government Has $1 Trillion In Untapped 'Piggy Bank'.  At the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2011, the federal government had over $1 trillion in unspent funds that could be used to reduce future deficits.  Yet Congress seldom uses these "unobligated funds" for deficit reduction, preferring instead to spend the money.  That may be changing with the government running trillion-dollar shortfalls and a GOP House brimming with fiscal hawks.

Yes, Violence Can be the Answer.  It was the body slam heard around the world.  When some Australian schoolboys decided to videotape themselves bullying 15-year old Casey Heynes, one of them got more than he bargained for.  Casey, who had been pushed around and humiliated for years, responded to a punch in his face and other attempted blows by hoisting his tormentor WWE style and introducing him to the pavement.

Crossroads GPS launches collaborative FOIA site.  Crossroads GPS, the cash-flush Republican advocacy group, is launching a new initiative and website Thursday [3/24/2011], Wikicountability.org, which is designed to crowdsource FOIA files from organizations, individuals and journalists who have sought, and who have received, public information from the Obama administration.

U.S. Debt Jumped $72 Billion Same Day U.S. House Voted to Cut Spending $6 Billion.  The national debt jumped by $72 billion on Tuesday [3/15/2011] even as the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives passed a continuing resolution to fund the government for just three weeks that will cut $6 billion from government spending.

$61 Billion in Cuts — Vs. $223 Billion in One Month of Spending.  In Washington, D.C., America is witnessing one of the grossest spectacles of fiscal incompetency, coupled with denial, ever perpetrated by a political party.  And that's the Republicans.  Democrats have made it clear that they will accept nothing less than the destruction of the republic, if that's what it take to prove progressivism is "successful."  Over the top?  Consider this:  the highest cut in the federal budget proposed by the Irresponsible Republicans is $61 billion.  The Democrat Destroyers say such a cut is way over the top.  Last month, in 28 days, our government spent $223 billion of money we don't have.  That's nearly four times more than the cuts proposed by the Irresponsibles, every one of which will be fought tooth and nail by the Destroyers.

Texas Nationalists rally for secession at Capitol in Austin.  The Texas Nationalist Movement marked Texas Independence Day with a rally Saturday [3/5/2011] at the Capitol urging Texans to save the state by seceding from the United States.

Uncle Sam Finds 14,000 Facilities to Sell.  The White House said Wednesday [3/2/2011] it wants to raise as much as $15 billion for selling off unused buildings, from warehouses and supply sheds to outdated Federal Aviation Administration towers.  The federal government has already identified 14,000 buildings and structures to sell.

Utah Considers Return to Gold, Silver Coins.  It's been nearly 80 years since the U.S. stopped using gold coins as legal currency, and nearly 40 since the world abandoned the gold standard, but the precious metal could be making a comeback in the United States — beginning in Utah.

Gov't That Governs The Least Is One Americans Want Most.  Overall, nearly six in 10 (59%) Americans surveyed in February think the federal government has too much power, 31% believe it has the right amount of power and 7% say it has too little power.  Not surprisingly, 83% of Republicans and 72% of conservatives believe the government is too powerful.  But 64% of independents and 62% of moderates feel the same way.  Majorities of Democrats (52%) and liberals (54%) think the government has the right amount of power.

Sen. Rand Paul Prevails in Economic Debate With David Letterman.  This is two days in a row where a glib, lefty comedian has taken off his clown nose, engaged in a serious debate with someone from our side they disagree with politically and found themselves caught off guard by a prepared presentation of facts and logic.  Wednesday [2/23/2011] it was Jon Stewart being schooled by Donald Rumsfeld on the Iraq War and last night a calm, cool, and educated Senator Rand Paul gave David Letterman a terrific lesson on the basics of economics...

All Providence, R.I., teachers to get termination letters.  The school board of Rhode Island's financially troubled capital city has voted to send termination letters to all of its nearly 2,000 teachers after city officials said the move would give them "maximum flexibility" to make budget cuts.  State law requires school departments to notify teachers by March 1 if they'll be laid off the following school year.

The Teddy Files: Even Worse Than You Thought!  After repeated attempts, Judicial Watch has managed to pry loose certain documents relating to Teddy Kennedy from the FBI.  The FBI's original redactions plainly had nothing to do with national security, so the agency apparently was trying to protect Kennedy's reputation.  The most entertaining documents relate to a trip Kennedy took to Latin America in 1961.  He visited a number of countries, accompanied by his "political counselor." In each country, Kennedy met with prominent Communists or other left-wing leaders.

Judicial Watch Obtains Material from the FBI File of Senator Ted Kennedy.  "The FBI's reluctance to follow the law and release this material shows that it, too, is not above politics.  Our tough fight with the Obama administration shows that it was not keen on letting the American people know that Ted Kennedy, one of Obama's leftist politician heroes, liked to hang out with communists and prostitutes," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.  "We will continue to investigate why the FBI improperly chose to keep this information secret."

Mary Jo Kopechne was unavailable for comment.
 The Polecat of the Senate.  The latest releases, while not pretty, are certainly not surprising to those familiar with the long career of the man the left hailed as "The Lion of Senate."  The facts suggests that the late Senator, well-known as a heavy drinker and the terror of young female campaign workers, was more of a cross between Alger Hiss and Charlie Sheen.  The newly released files report that Kennedy arranged to rent an entire Chilean brothel to satisfy his outsized libido, and invited one of the American Embassy's chauffeurs to participate in the festivities.

Oklahoma Police Captain Faces Disciplinary Action for Refusing to Attend Islamic Event.  The Tulsa Police Deptartment is investigating a captain who refused an order to assign officers to attend an upcoming Islamic event because he said it would violate his religious beliefs.  Capt. Paul Fields was reassigned after he refused to order officers under his command to attend the Islamic Center of Tulsa's Law Enforcement Appreciation Day, a spokesman for the department said.

Churches Open Doors to Muslim Worship.  Two Protestant churches are taking some heat from critics for opening their church buildings to Muslims needing places to worship because their own facilities were either too small, or under construction.  Heartsong Church in Cordova, Tenn., let members of the Memphis Islamic Center hold Ramadan prayers there last September.  And Aldersgate United Methodist Church in Alexandria, Va., allows the Islamic Circle of North America to hold regular Friday prayers in their building while their new mosque is being built.

Stop opening churches to Muslims.  Last week, Fox News posted a report that Heartsong Church in Cordova, Tenn., and Aldersgate United Methodist Church near Alexandria, Va., have made their church buildings available to Muslims to use as places of worship.  Critics of these outreach initiatives, such as Mike Huckabee, have been accused of ignorance.  However, the contents of Muslim prayers and teachings about Isa, the Islamic Jesus, give reasonable grounds for churches to reject such arrangements.

Ex-pilots shoot down timeline of Navy.  A foundation set up to celebrate Navy aviation's 100th birthday has disavowed an official history on its website, after former combat pilots complained of inaccuracies and political correctness. ... The foundation's official history slide show featured four "firsts" for women, such as the first female operations officer in 1992.  It also accentuated humanitarian missions.  But it devoted only two slides to World War II and barely mentioned Vietnam, during which the Navy orchestrated a decade of multiple aircraft carrier operations.

The Federal Government's Unspent Billions.  An arcane budgetary category called "unobligated funds" includes money that Congress has appropriated for agencies and programs in every corner of the federal government.  When that money goes unspent, it just sits there — like an ancient wooden chest on a Caribbean island, just waiting to be pried open.  Senator Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) holds the treasure map.

Don't put wire on your windows — it might hurt burglars!  Residents in Surrey and Kent villages have been ordered by police to remove wire mesh from their windows as burglars could be injured.  Home owners in the villages of Tandridge and Tatsfield in Surrey and in Westerham, Brasted and Sundridge in Kent have said they are furious that they are being branded 'criminals' for protecting their property.

The Editor says...
 Boo hoo.  The would-be burglar might hurt his fingers.  Just wait til someone imports razor wire to England.

Outbreak at Playboy Mansion.  Can the Playboy Mansion make you ill?  Hugh Hefner's iconic bachelor pad is under investigation after more than 80 guests at a conference and party there became sick with a suspected strain of Legionnaires' disease.

Walmart fires Layton guards for disarming shoplifter.  The whole incident happened in matter of seconds, Lori Poulsen said.  She and the other security employees at the Layton Walmart Supercenter had stopped a man who had unwrapped a laptop and hidden it under his clothes.  Trent Allen Longton was taken into an office, where he handed over the merchandise.  When Longton was asked to sit down, he said he needed to leave.  He told the group he had something on him that he couldn't get caught with.

Sweetheart deal for billionaire could cut off GPS service.  In the past decade, millions have come to depend on the seeming magic of the global positioning system (GPS) to guide them to their destination.  The navigational gadgets in cars, cell phones and other hand-held devices can even be a lifesaver.  Now the system may be undermined by a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decision last month to allow a well-connected company to exploit a slice of the airwaves in a way that potentially blocks GPS signals.

Party elite executed to clear path for Kim Jong-un.  A reign of terror has descended on the Communist Party in Pyongyang.  There have been reports of purges and executions to secure the succession of Kim Jong-un as North Korea's new dictator.  South Korean newspapers say more than 200 officials have been executed or detained by the state security bureau and one official jumped to his death.  North Korean guards are reported to have shot dead five would-be escapees along the frozen river on the border with China, and notices have appeared threatening the death penalty for anyone caught using a Chinese mobile phone or trading in US dollars.

Government OK's Comcast purchase of NBC.  The federal government on Tuesday [1/18/2011] gave Comcast Corp., the country's largest cable company, the green light to take over NBC Universal, home of the NBC television network.

A secret $6 billion bailout for Puerto Rico?  The Obama administration is eying a secretive tax deal critics charge is an indirect bailout for Puerto Rico to the tune of billions of taxpayer dollars.  The U.S. territory, desperate for revenues in the midst of the recession, surprised industry with a $6 billion tax on foreign firms  — including a significant bloc of U.S. pharmaceutical firms — Oct. 22 in a rare weekend legislative session without any public debate in advance.  But now U.S. taxpayers, not the firms, could end up footing at least a significant chunk of the bill.

Did someone mention Puerto Rico?

It'll cost a lot more if they DON'T.
 Democrat: Citing Constitution will cost taxpayers $570K.  Democratic Rep. Corrine Brown said a GOP requirement that lawmakers cite the Constitution in each bill they introduce will cost $570,000 in additional printing costs.  The Florida Democrat, who is in her ninth term in Congress, said the extra costs are attributed to "supplies, labor and delivery."

America needs a new national debate on the Constitution.  It might seem unlikely that a lone law professor could spark a national discussion about the kind of government Americans want in the 21st century, but that's exactly what Georgetown Law School's Randy E. Barnett hopes to do with his modest proposal known as the Repeal Amendment.

Who is afraid of the Repeal Amendment?  Arising from those who are distressed at the seemingly limitless power of the federal government — taking over everything from car companies, banks, student loans, and even the practice of medicine — the Repeal Amendment seems to have touched a nerve on the left.  First, the Washington Post's Dana Milbank played the race card.

Nazis in America.  After a lawsuit and pressure from private interest groups, the Justice Department finally released a 617-page report detailing how the American government not only welcomed but employed Nazis after World War II.  Although this might appear to be ancient history, this report is perhaps more relevant to our age than it might seem.

Former Treasury Secretary Paulson loses $1 million selling D.C. home.  Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who spent his final years in George W. Bush's administration trying to stave off the housing crisis gripping the nation, has lost over $1 million selling his own Washington, D.C., home.

Ivory Coast president refuses phone call from Barack Obama.  The incumbent president of Ivory Coast is hardening his resistance to international pressure to stand down, even refusing to take a phone call from Barack Obama.  Laurent Gbagbo, who is widely viewed as having lost a recent election, is refusing to leave office despite attempts to persuade him from West African leaders and others in the broader international community.

45 people lynched amid Haiti cholera fears.  Angry Haitian mobs have lynched at least 45 people in recent weeks, accusing them of spreading a cholera outbreak that has killed over 2500 people across the country, officials said.  The number included at least 14 suspected sorcerers previously known to have been lynched in the far southwestern region of Grand'Anse as local people feared they were spreading cholera with a magical substance.  The area has been largely spared by the outbreak.

Ohio Election Panel Unanimously Throws Out Dems' Complaint Against FNC.  Ohio election officials have unanimously dismissed a complaint by the Democratic Governors Association, alleging that the Fox News Channel made an illegal in-kind contribution of nearly $170,000 to then-gubernatorial candidate Republican John Kasich.  The DGA had alleged that the 90 seconds Kasich's campaign web address appeared at the bottom of the screen during an interview on Fox amounted to a political advertisement.  The Ohio Elections Commission ruled 5-0 that it did not.

Sixth Circuit Rules that Emails Protected from Warrantless Searches.  To what extent can the police secretly root through email?  It's a core question about the limits of police surveillance that the Sixth Circuit yesterday [12/14/2010] tackled in [a] lengthy opinion.  In short, privacy advocates are pleased as punch with the opinion, which holds that the government must obtain a search warrant based on probable cause before it can search emails stored by Internet Service Providers.

Expose the Public Pension Mess.  It seems that many members of the incoming Congress are mindful of the looming tsunami of unfunded state and municipal worker pension liabilities, not to mention the impending insolvency of cities and even states (such as California, Illinois, and New York).  A recent estimate put these unfunded public employee pension liabilities at as much as $3.574 trillion.  As frightening as that estimate is, it is probably unrealistically low.

Man guilty of duping Harvard, taking financial aid.  A Delaware man has admitted faking his way into Harvard University and has been ordered to repay more than $45,000 in financial aid he received.

The Editor says...
 I wonder if anyone has ever faked his way into Harvard Law School...

The Municipal Debt Bubble:  When state and local governments want to spend more than they collect in revenues, they issue bonds.  Such bonds are a longstanding feature of the American landscape, going back at least as far as 1812, but during the last decade they have spun out of control, as states and cities have increased their borrowing to indulge in more and more spending on new stadiums, schools, bridges, and museums.  They have even started borrowing to cover their basic operational expenses.  Since 2000 the total outstanding state and municipal bond debt, adjusted for inflation, has soared from $1.5 trillion to $2.8 trillion.  The recession didn't slow the spending.

Duck And Cover, Obama-Style.  During the long Cold War, liberals said atomic bombs were non-survivable and so we had to negotiate disarmament.  Today, the Obama administration says cheer up, you might survive.

U.S. Rethinks Strategy for the Unthinkable.  Suppose the unthinkable happened, and terrorists struck New York or another big city with an atom bomb.  What should people there do?  The government has a surprising new message:  Do not flee.  Get inside any stable building and don't come out till officials say it's safe. ... Administration officials argue that the cold war created an unrealistic sense of fatalism about a terrorist nuclear attack.  "It's more survivable than most people think," said an official deeply involved in the planning, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.  "The key is avoiding nuclear fallout."

Sunbathing can be good for you, say health charities.  Experts have overturned decades of advice by urging people to go out in the midday sun without sunblock — because the dangers of missing out on Vitamin D can outweigh the risk of cancer.

Stunning new Gallup Poll finds 13% of Americans still approve of Congress.  A fresh Gallup Poll released this morning reveals that somehow 13% of Americans still approve of the job being done by Congress.  The new Gallup survey did not identify those people, understandably.  However, even though it is a surprisingly high number given the work not done there in recent years, the 13% is a record low job approval for Congress since Gallup began compiling such data in 1974.

Whoopi Goldberg Doesn't Believe Japanese Attacked Pearl Harbor.  Whoopi Goldberg on Tuesday [11/23/2010] demonstrated an absolutely staggering ignorance concerning a variety of subjects.  Appearing on Fox News's "O'Reilly Factor," Goldberg admitted not knowing what a madrasa is, said it wasn't the Japanese that attacked America at Pearl Harbor, and claimed Muslims in America are more persecuted than Jews.

Can the U.S. Rare-Earth Industry Rebound?  Rare-earth elements were obscure until the past year, when China, their primary producer, tightened export quotas on the materials.  Rare-earth elements are used in a multitude of technologies, including magnets for wind turbines, hybrid-car batteries, fluorescent lightbulbs, and hard drives.  China is not the only country with significant reserves of these valuable materials; in fact, the U.S. was their primary producer until the 1990s, when the Chinese began undercutting the Americans on cost.  Now companies in the U.S. and Australia are ramping up production at two rich sites for rare earths, but the process will take years.

Sears to be open Thanksgiving for first time.  Sears will open on Thanksgiving Day for the first time in its 124-year history.  The Hoffman Estates-based retailer will open stores from 7 a.m. to noon on Thanksgiving Day.

Ponzi promises and priceless gold.  In August, Boston University Professor Laurence Kotlikoff wrote an article in the Finance and Development Journal of the International Monetary Fund titled "U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don't Even Know It."  In it he warned:  "Let's get real.  The U.S. is bankrupt.["]  He estimated that "Based on the Congressional Budget Office's data ... a fiscal gap of $202 trillion (exists already), which is 15 times the official Treasury debt."  Last week, the Federal Reserve announced its intention to print another $600 billion plus to subsidize further the greatest Ponzi scheme in history called the U.S. Treasury market.  What does it mean for ordinary Americans?

Fox News Turned Off At Local Gym.  A member of a Southside gym is complaining the owners of the gym are being unfair, saying that Fox News has been banned from TVs where she works out.

U.S. phasing out paper savings bond.  The venerable U.S. savings bond, which has been issued in paper form since 1935, will soon become yet another casualty of the computer age.  As of Jan. 1, the U.S. Department of Treasury will no longer issue printed savings bonds through the traditional payroll savings bond purchase program.

Photographer Sues Texas For Using Image On Auto Inspection Stickers.  Jon Snow points us to the story of a photographer who discovered that a photograph he took of a cowboy hoisting a saddle is being used as the background image on approximately 4.5 million inspection stickers. ... I could see the state claiming "sovereign immunity," which has become popular for state governments when they're accused of patent and copyright infringement claims.  You see kids, when governments infringe, it's no big deal.

October surprise!
 Delay's Trial Begins Five years after Indictment.  Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, one of the most polarizing politicians of the Bush years, is finally getting his day in court, five years after being charged with illegally funneling corporate money to help elect Republicans to the Texas Legislature.

The new hierarchy in news.  Fox is now the reference standard for news, and not just in the cable universe.  CNN's former status as the breaking news source has been lost, while MSNBC merely manages to retain its viewers, a sure sign that it is a niche ideological player, while Fox is perceived as fair and balanced by viewers — mainstream, in other words, despite years of demonization by the left.  It is the go-to source for hard news, not an ideological outlet.  That label belongs towhat used to be called "mainstream" media.

Newly Dead Now Oppose Obama.  As a Chicago pol, President Barack Obama must be familiar with rumors that the cemeteries vote.  If so, he'd probably be worried to find out that in this campaign year, he's even lost the dead.  In death notices from around the nation, the recently deceased are reaching back to canvass the living.  "In lieu of flowers, Hal has requested that donations be made to your local animal shelter or to any candidate running against Barack Obama in 2012," reads the death notice of Harold Groves, a retired Air Force fighter pilot who died at age 77 on Aug. 26 in Myrtle Beach, Fla.

Debt, Depression, Default.  America is in Deep Trouble.  Consumers are spending less.  Small retailers are closing shop — even cable television subscriptions are seeing a loss in revenue.

One Trillion Attend One Nation Rally.  The One Nation rally had empty streets and by all reports parking spaces aplenty.  As also shown in the fenced-in photo linked [in this article], the side overflow areas lacked any crowds whatsoever.  Photo after photo from Twitter throughout the day showed gaping holes in the "crowd" shots.

'One Nation Working Together' Rally Claims Bigger Numbers Than 'Restoring Honor'.  Organizers of today's [10/2/2010] "One Nation Together Rally" are claiming that, based on a "satellite image," there are definitively more people on the Washington Mall today than there were on the 29th of August.  Congratulations, liberals!  Except "Restoring Honor" was on the 28th.

More about the One Nation rally.

Communism dries Cuba's coffee crop.  With suspicious haste, Cuba's communist government abruptly announced it would let private farmers cultivate their crops on government land.  Now we have an inkling why:  The government wanted to get out while the getting was good.

A Cuban time bomb?  [Scroll down]  Remembering how suddenly other seemingly iron-clad communist regimes fell, the possibility of a Cuban implosion is real.  That, of course, would be a nightmare for the U.S.  The memory of Fidel Castro dumping 125,000 political opponents and jailbirds he called "worms" on Miami in the summer of 1980 is all too vivid in Florida, now the fourth-largest state.  A sudden refugee flood would tax U.S. facilities already inadequately handling illegal Mexican immigration.

Conservative group banned from holding rally where Obama announced presidential run.  A conservative group has been banned from holding a rally at Illinois's Old State Capitol because the site prohibits political demonstrations — yet it's the same place where President Obama announced his run for president and later, his choice of Joe Biden for vice president.

Venezuela is the world's worst socialist hellhole.  It's a hallmark of authoritarian socialism that even as it wreaks economic havoc it issues grandiose claims and promises.

Clinton Administration's Chickens Come Home to Roost.  On August 16, 2010 the U.S. Department of Defense released a congressionally mandated report entitled "Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2010."  The release of the report created worldwide headlines and has been taken seriously by serious military analysts.

No time for Islam.  In a severe case of clock envy, Saudi Arabia has erected a nearly 2,000-foot-high timepiece intended to stake a symbolic claim for Mecca as the world's center.  Islamic scholars have proposed that the Royal Mecca Clock Tower supplant the observatory in Greenwich, England, to set the new global standard time.  It is the latest form of Muslim global outreach — taking control of time itself.  The Mecca clock is as much propaganda as it is a timepiece.

Price:  The Lame-Duck Threat.  Rep. Tom Price (R., Ga.), the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, tells National Review Online that he wants to prevent the House from having a lame-duck session in order to stop Democrats from passing "crazy legislation." ... Price's reasoning is simple:  House Democrats, he predicts, "won't be honest with the American people," and may attempt to "shove through" a "national-energy tax," an "amnesty bill," and card-check for labor unions — even if they lose their majority in November.

Political Revenge.  If the majority party loses one or both chambers this fall, what could beaten and embittered Democrats do to the nation before the next Congress is seated?  They could actually make things worse.

Dropouts, underworked push U.S. rate to 16.5%.  Included in the national jobs report out Friday was an important — and uglier — number that often gets lost in the noise around the official unemployment rate.  Officially, the U.S. jobless rate is 9.5 percent, but by a broader measure the rate is well into double digits — at 16.5 percent.  The larger number — called the U-6 unemployment rate — counts jobless people actively seeking work but also includes those who have stopped actively looking for a job and part-time workers who want more hours.

WH Official Pushes Cap and Trade for Lame Duck Session.  Obama Energy Czar Carol Browner appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday with host David Gregory touting a lame duck session of Congress after the November elections as a means to pass elements of the unpopular Obama agenda.  The new Congress would not be sworn in until January.

You Vote, They Don't Listen.  It's official.  There will be a lame duck session of Congress even after voters have rendered their verdict on the work of the current incumbents in November.  This week, the House voted down a resolution opposing a lame-duck session to tackle hot button issues such as new taxes and climate change.

Good luck taming this corporation.  No corporation on the planet comes close to the United States government in sheer magnitude, or unimaginable, unprecedented power.  The nation's top 100 corporations combined still fall far short of the behemoth in Washington, D.C., which conducts extensive operations in agriculture, weapons production, medical care, housing, real estate, education, mail delivery, policing, resource development, banking, the arts, security services, food provision, transportation and much, much more.  Within five years, federal spending will consume 25% of every dollar generated by the private economy.

The Lame Duck Session Could Get Lamer.  There has been much concern about the Obama administration attempting to ram through various bills, such as Cap and Trade, after the November elections when Democrats will have no fear of influencing voters against them — especially if they have just lost their election bid.

FinReg's Crucial Congo Codicil.  What's the Congo have to do with financial overhaul?  Absolutely nothing.  But Democrats have sneaked it into the final bill, along with a host of other race-related oddities.

America's Fast Track to the Third World.  The Department of Defense has sounded an alarm about our access to a strategically vital group of metals called the rare earth elements.  A report on the problem prepared by the GAO is not pretty.  It concludes that the Chinese now control the production, processing, and manufacture of final products of these vital metals and now own the patents for many of these processes.  The worries of the DoD are well-justified; missile guidance systems, smart bombs, night vision gear, unmanned aircraft, and much more are dependent on the rare earth elements in some way.

Charges That Obama Stole the Nomination From Hillary Clinton.  Maybe the New Black Panther intimidation case is not an isolated event.  This could be the tip of a very large iceberg.

Parents deliver US citizenship.  Wang Rong, who is six-months pregnant, is about to leave Beijing for California so she can give birth to her baby in the United States and give the child its first gift — US citizenship.  The special delivery will cost Wang and her husband, both white-collar workers in the capital, 100,000 yuan ($15,000), but they say it is money well spent.

U.S. Plans Cyber Shield for Utilities, Companies.  The federal government is launching an expansive program dubbed "Perfect Citizen" to detect cyber assaults on private companies and government agencies running such critical infrastructure as the electricity grid and nuclear-power plants, according to people familiar with the program.

Unwelcome truths.  The White House, Democrats and the media have been having a collective cow over Gen. Stanley McChrystal's remarks, as reported in Rolling Stone, expressing disappointment in our commander-in-chief and critical of the president's team's handling of the war in Afghanistan. ... Anyone who actually reads the article will wonder what the flap is about.  The fact is, the general may have done a great service for us all, including our troops in Afghanistan.

Gallup:  Majority of Americans Don't Know What "Progressive" Means.  Today [7/12/2010], Gallup released the results of a recent poll which quantifies why so many on the left have eschewed the liberal label in favor of progressive.  It finds that while just 12 percent of Americans say they would describe themselves as "progressive" and 31 percent say they would not, a majority of 54 percent are unsure about the meaning of the term.

The Editor says...
 Until the American public finds out what "progressive" means, it's a great place for socialists to hide.

Kingdom of Lies.  In past elections for North Korea's Supreme People's Assembly, authorities have reported 100 percent voter participation and a 100 percent approval rate for all the candidates.  During the last election, however, the government admitted a 99.98 percent voter turnout — though public approval held steady at 100 percent.  Such are the increments of North Korean concessions to reality.  The regime's constitution is deception. Everything, starting with the birthplace of its leader, is a lie.

California License Plates May Go Digital.  California drivers may soon come bumper to bumper with the latest product of the digital age:  ad-blaring license plates.  State lawmakers are considering a bill allowing the state to begin researching the use of electronic license plates for vehicles.  The device would mimic a standard license plate when the vehicle is moving but would switch to digital messages when it is stopped for more than four seconds in traffic or at a red light.

The Editor says...
 Isn't California where all those "urban blight" activists live, who hate to see advertising all over the landscape?  The people who hate to see others stoop to the level of "anything for a buck"?  Apparently it's okay for big government to be so mercenary.  It sounds as if the advertising is going to be on every license plate, and the products or services thus promoted will be chosen by the state.  What if the state decides to advertise something the driver finds repugnant?  How will the driver know?

Obama Administration to Start Direct Deposit.  Americans receiving payments for Social Security, unemployment insurance, veterans benefits, IRS tax refunds, railroad retirement, and government benefits will now find the money automatically deposited into their personal bank accounts.

Air Force Prepares for Homeland Defense.  For the first time ever, the Air Force is preparing to fight an enemy on American soil. ... What "enemy" could they be preparing to fight against on U.S. soil?

What Is Going On in South Carolina?  Alvin Greene has been accused of being a plant, and, honestly, it's an accusation that may not be too far from reality.  After winning the state's Democratic Senate primary with over 100,000 votes, becoming the challenger for Republican Jim DeMint, the 32-year-old unemployed veteran has given interviews and appeared on TV.  When asked about his campaign, he does not give answers that indicate he ran a real one.

Rasmussen Reports:  Three of Ten Americans are Nuts.  Well, that's not exactly what Rasmussen Reports said.  Technically, the poll showed that seven of ten Americans don't believe Congress knows what it is doing when it legislates on economic issues.

Testosterone Makes People Suspicious of One Another.  A dose of testosterone might be enough to save gullible types from being ripped off, a new study reveals.  Testosterone is linked to aggression, competition and social status.  Now scientists have found that the hormone also reduces naive individuals' confidence in others.

MSM Cowers, ABC News Execs Hunker In Bunker As Whistleblowers Attack.  ABC News is being publicly slaughtered by its own staff at the The New York Observer website, giving specific accusations of an ABC executive's illegally hiring and firing without just cause, promoting based on whims, discriminating against homosexuals, blacks and sexually harassing of employees.

Movie Tickets Reach the $20 Mark.  For the first time, a major Hollywood film will hit the $20 threshold at the box office, as movie-theater owners test the public's ability to absorb ever higher ticket prices.  Several theaters will charge $20 per adult ticket to IMAX showings of the animated 3-D family film "Shrek Forever After," the fourth "Shrek" installment from DreamWorks Animation.

WWII Vet Ordered to Remove American Flag From Outside New Hampshire Home.  Joe LeVangie, 88, is a World War II veteran who didn't think twice about flying an American flag outside his New Hampshire home.  At least until last week, when the Hillsborough housing complex where he lives told LeVangie and his neighbors that flying the flag was forbidden.

Coburn wants to certify bills are read.  Sen. Tom Coburn wants his colleagues to prove that reading is fundamental — at least when it comes to the dozens of bills that pass over their desks, often with nary a glance from lawmakers.  The Oklahoma Republican wants senators to certify they've read and understood the hundreds of bills that pass each year without any floor debate in the Senate.  The effort comes a year after last summer's "read the bill" campaign highlighted lawmakers who acknowledged they hadn't read the entire House health care bill, even as they tried to explain its intricacies to constituents.

The Dollar's Inevitable Demise.  To put it bluntly, the dollar's days are numbered and its demise is inevitable.  Anyone who still hopes there may be a way around it, must answer that ultimate money question:  Where in the world is the American federal government going to get $117 trillion?

On the other hand...
 The Dollar's Demise is not Inevitable.  Look up the debt for the years 1997 through 2002.  What you'll find is that the debt went up from 1998 through 2001.  Yet, these are the very years frequently cited as having produced record budget surpluses.  How odd.  We have a surplus but the debt goes up.

GOP to insist on 10th Amendment.  Republicans are so determined to stop what they say is abusive and unlawful expansion of the federal government under President Obama that they are willing to abdicate power to the states to do it.  Taking its cue from the Bill of Rights, the Republican Study Committee, a group of conservative House Republicans, says that the 10th Amendment dictates that initiatives such as the health care reform law and other massive government programs are the business of state governments, not Washington.

Fox Rolls Along #1 For 100th Consecutive Month.  Fox News Channel which evokes the ire of liberals across the country has just finished first among cable news channels for the 100th consecutive month.

Obama's Granny is now a 'Doctor'.  Joining the ranks of her famous grandson, President Barack Obama's 88-year-old step grandmother Sarah Hussein Obama was awarded an honorary doctorate degree from a university in Kenya yesterday [5/3/2010].

The Editor says...
 You remember Sarah, don't you?  She's the woman who says she witnessed President Obama's birth — in Kenya.*  If you haven't heard all about that story, it's because you've been watching television instead of visiting this page.

Proposal:  All New Yorkers Become Organ Donors.  "We have 10,000 New Yorkers on the list today waiting for organs.  We import half the organs we transplant.  It is an unacceptable failed system," [New York State Assemblyman Richard] Brodsky said.  To fix that, Brodsky introduced a new bill in Albany that would enroll all New Yorkers as an organ donor, unless they actually opt out of organ donation.  It would be the first law of its kind in the United States.

Troubling Precedent:  NJ Court Says Bloggers Are Not Journalists.  In the words of New Jersey Superior Court Appellate Judge Anthony J. Parrillo:  ["]Simply put, new media should not be confused with news media.["]  This backward-looking, snobbish decision is troubling for many reasons.  Before we get into the upcoming righteous outrage from someone who was a regular member of the "news media" for nearly 20 years — but is now a "new media" journalist — here's some background on the case.

Sniper kills Qaeda-from 1½ mi. away.  It was silent but deadly.  A British sniper set a world sharpshooting record by taking out two Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan from more than a mile and a half away — a distance so great, experts say the terrorists wouldn't have even heard the shots.  Craig Harrison killed the two insurgents from an astounding distance of 8,120 feet — or 1.54 miles — in Helmand Province last November firing an Accuracy International L11583 long-range rifle.

Barry and the Pirates.  The government of Kenya is no longer accepting pirates captured by the international task force operating in the Red Sea and approaches.  Kenya claims that its justice system is overloaded with Somali pirates and that it just can't handle any more of them. ... Which raises the question:  what world leader happens to have close relatives serving in the government of Kenya?  That's right — none other than the Obamessiah himself.  His father, Barack Sr., was an economist in the first post-colonial government.  One of his half-brothers, Malik Obongo Obama, is a rising political star, and I'm sure you wouldn't have to throw many stones to hit a cousin or two employed by various ministries.  Obama has more personal pull in Kenya than in any other country in the world.

Protesters Disrupt Congressional Hearing.  The 111th Congress hit a new low last week — one that should make us all wonder exactly where the federal government is headed.  Four coal industry CEOs voluntarily showed up to testify before Rep. Ed Markey's House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. ... As one CEO testified from his seat at the witness table, several protesters wearing masks suddenly appeared at the table.  They placed chunks of coal on the table where the CEOs sat and then stood in the area between the CEOs and Chairman Markey chanting "Coal is dirty."  You might think that Chairman Markey moved quickly and forcibly to protect the witnesses and reassert control over the hearing.  But again you'd be wrong.  This scene went on for 9 minutes.

Has Noah's Ark Been Found on Turkish Mountaintop?  The remains of Noah's Ark have been discovered 13,000 feet up a Turkish mountain — according to a sensational claim by evangelical explorers. ... Mt. Ararat has long been suspected as the final resting place of the craft by evangelicals and literalists hoping to validate biblical stories.

The Editor jumps in...
 Suspected?  The reason "Mt. Ararat has long been suspected as the final resting place" is because the Bible flatly states that's where it landed.*

New conservative 527 group has raised $30 million.  If you are unhappy with the Republican National Committee and still wish to find a way to support Republican candidates, there is a new organization to which you might contribute:  American Crossroads.  Like New Ledger's Pejman Yousefzadeh I supported Michael Steele's candidacy for head of the RNC and now regret it as he has consistently failed to meet my expectations.  If the Republicans are to take back the federal government it must be by proving their willingness to be fiscally responsible and the wasteful spending of the RNC under Steele is no way to send that message.

Judge:  Lejeune can't ban car decals linking Islam, terrorism.  After his son was killed in the attack on the USS Cole, Jesse Nieto put decals on his car that included "Islam=Terrorism" and "We Died, They Rejoiced."  But the Marine Corps deemed the decals offensive and told them he had to remove them or he could not park on federal installations.  So he went to court, and won.

Inhofe Ranked Most Conservative Senator, Sherrod Brown Most Liberal.  Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) is the "most conservative" member of the Senate, and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) is the "most liberal," according to National Journal magazine.

Unfortunate Coincidence.  There is no denying that flying from Poland to Russia in a Russian-maintained airplane and then crashing into the woods where Soviet secret police murdered 22,000 Poles can be described only as an "unfortunate coincidence," especially after being warned that something you did "could not go unpunished."

The Obama Bubble.  Why is there a remarkable stock market rally in the midst of the worst recession (depression) since 1930?  While we hear explanations of every day's rise and fall of the indices (e.g., the "whatever" numbers were not as bad as expected, or they were better than anticipated), the obvious answer is that a few serious investors have studied their (arcane) National Income and Product Accounting.  The stock market is rising because extraordinarily high corporate profits are just around the corner.

The Database That Ate American Business.  By this time next year American business will be reeling from the launch of what will become a government sponsored virtual bulletin board for the serial slandering of American manufacturing.  Reputations will be ruined and brands deeply damaged once the Congressionally-mandated internet bulletin board becomes operational.

Fee to Overthrow the Government: Five Dollars.  Since 1951, South Carolina has had a law on its books requiring anyone looking to overthrow the government to, well, register with the government.  No one had actually registered until February, when news of the law's existence spread on the internet and talk radio.

Rep. Hank Johnson:  Guam could 'tip over and capsize'.  Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) is afraid that the U.S. Territory of Guam is going to "tip over and capsize" due to overpopulation.  Johnson expressed his worries during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on the defense budget Friday [3/26/2010].

Democrat Rep. wonders if additional Navy personnel will make Guam 'tip over and capsize'.  Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., was questioning Admiral Robert Willard about the Navy's plans to relocate 8,000 personnel and their families to Guam.  After noting at some length that the island is narrow, Johnson says "My fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated it will tip over and capsize."

The Editor says...
 If a Republican had demonstrated such monumental ignorance, does anyone believe this would not be front-page news?

7 The curious disappearance of Lachlan Cranswick.  Lachlan Cranswick, a 41 year-old nuclear scientist working in Ontario vanished last month without a trace.  The circumstances surrounding his disappearance are indeed curious and the case merits more than a casual mention, especially in light of numerous other instances of nuclear scientists and microbiologists turning up missing or dead within the last few years, many under mysterious circumstances.

Obama's exclusionary Easter Egg Roll.  The Obama administration announced on Tuesday it has reserved 3,000 free tickets to the annual White House Easter Egg Roll for students in D.C.-area public and charter schools, but not for children who attend private or parochial schools.

The Editor says...
 Remember, Obama's daughters go to a private school.  Are they unwelcome, too?

Read the bill.  More than two dozen states have enacted legislation mandating the creation of searchable online databases detailing comprehensive information on government spending, and several governors have taken executive steps to create such Web sites.

Sometimes "conspiracy theories" have merit.
 Did the CIA test LSD in the New York City subway system?  [Frank] Olson's ignominious end was written off as an unremarkable suicide of a depressed government bureaucrat who came to New York City seeking psychiatric treatment, so it attracted scant attention at the time.  But 22 years later, the Rockefeller Commission report was released, detailing a litany of domestic abuses committed by the CIA.  The ugly truth emerged:  Olson's death was the result of his having been surreptitiously dosed with LSD days earlier by his colleagues.

Who's Behind the Financial Crisis?  The New York Times is quoting a spokesman for George Soros as saying that the well-known hedge fund operator is guilty of no wrong-doing in connection with the financial upheaval currently affecting Greece and Europe as a whole.  But Zubi Diamond, author of the powerful new book, Wizards of Wall Street, says the agenda of Soros and other short sellers is clear.  Their purpose, he says, is "to loot America and any foreign country which invested in America.  Greece was one of them.  Iceland was ravaged and annihilated."

Is Greece Our Future?  Greece's financial collapse is turning into theater of the absurd.  Today [3/6/2010], public employees in Athens staged an occupation of a government building to dramatize their demand that they be maintained at taxpayer expense, in the style to which they have become accustomed, forever.

Five of the Royal Family demoted as BBC changes its protocol on broadcast death list.  The BBC has downgraded five senior members of the Royal Family by ordering that their deaths should no longer trigger an automatic interruption of normal broadcasts.  [They] had formerly belonged to a special BBC list known as Category 2, which has now been abolished.

6 Pieces of Advice for Hotel Guests from an Ex Housekeeper.  Everyone has seen the black light specials they roll out on the nightly news programs.  Oh ... the filth!  The horror!  It's come to be expected, really.  Hotel blankets are teeming with bodily fluids.  So are the floors and walls.  We've seen the less than shocking exposes.

The burger and beverage recession.  Want more proof that the U.S. economy is still in a fragile state?  Consider this.  People are still holding back on buying burgers, soda and beer.  So much for fast food, soft drinks and booze being recession-proof.

World Wide Web May Split Up Into Several Separate Networks.  Google's threat to exit China is igniting worries that the Web, a linchpin of globalization, may fracture into regional fiefdoms.

Chowing down on the Haiti run.  The Guardian reports that the cruise line, Royal Caribbean International, which leases a private peninsula from the Haitian government for a luxury resort, elected to continue sending in the Independence of the Seas as scheduled despite appreciating the poor optics of fatcat westerners partying while bodies were being stacked up a few miles away.

World air passenger traffic plunges.  World airline passenger traffic fell 3.1 percent in 2009, the biggest drop in aviation industry history, fuelled by the global financial downturn, the International Civil Aviation Organisation said.  Preliminary figures for airline travel this year showed that international traffic declined by about 3.9 percent and domestic traffic by 1.8 percent, despite sharp growth in some regions.

The Editor says...
 Three percent is a "plunge"?

What Every American Should Know About the National Debt.  [Scroll down]  Spending last year was about $3.5 trillion.  The deficit was $1.42 trillion, which means that revenues were about $2.1 trillion.  So $2.1 trillion is equal to their annual income.  The total national debt right now is $12.3 trillion.  So we owe five to six times more than we make every year.  But that's not the big deal.  In addition to that, there is another $45 trillion to $50 trillion in unfunded obligations that are off the balance sheet, which I think you ought to count.  Medicare is the biggest part of it by far, and Social Security is a large part, too.  So in reality, we owe between 25 and 30 times what we make every year.

President Byrd?  Yet as president pro tempore of the Senate, the nonagenarian former Ku Klux Klansman is third in line for the presidency.  If a ceiling were to drop on Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi — a scenario at the heart of the political thriller "The Man" — Byrd would be plotting the U.S. response to terrorism and the burgeoning federal debt.

It's Barbie in a burkha.  One of the world's most famous children's toys, Barbie, has been given a makeover — wearing a burkha.

Technology Predictions Are Mostly Bunk.  "Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further developments," said Roman engineer Julius Sextus Frontinus in 10 A.D.  This end-of-progress view has been echoed many times, including by Charles Duell, commissioner for the U.S. Patent Office, who in 1899 said, "Everything that can be invented has already been invented."

Man with "XXXXXXX" number plate receives lots of parking fines.  Traffic wardens in Birmingham, Alabama, enter seven letter Xs onto their forms when they issue tickets to cars without plates.  Unfortunately the default code matches the vanity plate of a motorist from the nearby town of Huntsville, who has received hundreds of incorrect payment notices over the past year.

'Little Buddy' GPS device keeps tabs on your kid.  Best Buy is selling a transmitting device that lets parents keep track of their children.  Parents can place the device in a child's backpack or lunch box, for example.

The Editor says...
 GPS signals are very weak.  A GPS receiver will not work inside a metal lunchbox.  (Neither will a cell phone, which is the other half of this gadget.)  But even if the product works as advertised, if a kid with one of these devices is abducted, the "Little Buddy" will be the first thing tossed out the window.

Framed for Child Porn — by a PC Virus.  Of all the sinister things that Internet viruses do, this might be the worst:  They can make you an unsuspecting collector of child pornography.

DeMint tries to ban 'permanent politicians'.  Sen. Jim DeMint says Washington politicians are like fruit on the vine:  the longer they hang around, the more rotten they get.  The South Carolina Republican — hearkening back to the days of the party's "Contract with America" — on Tuesday [11/10/2009] offered a fix to the corrupting influence of "permanent politicians," introducing an amendment to the Constitution that would limit Senate members to three six-year terms and House members to three two-year terms.

California vs. Texas:  The Verdict Is In.  Texas, increasingly, is the economic and intellectual leader of the U.S. During the last 18 months before the current recession took hold, while the country as a whole was still creating jobs, more than half of those jobs were created in a single state:  Texas.  Texas has usurped the leadership position that, decades ago, belonged to California.  Today California is in decline, likely irreversibly so.

The Big-Spending, High-Taxing, Lousy-Services Paradigm.  One out of every five Americans is either a Californian or a Texan.  California became the nation's most populous state in 1962; Texas climbed into second place in 1994. ... According to the most recent data available from the Census Bureau, for the fiscal year ending in 2006, Americans paid an average of $4,001 per person in state and local taxes.  But Californians paid $4,517 per person, well above that national average, while Texans paid $3,235.

Visiting the White House.  The day before Halloween, the White House released a partial list of visitors since Jan. 20 of this year.  The list is fascinating and highlights exactly what kind of house the Obamas are running.  Topping the visitor chart is Andy Stern, president of the far-left Service Employees International Union. ... Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, clocks in with 14 visits.

$400 per gallon gas to drive debate over cost of war in Afghanistan.  Pentagon officials have told the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee a gallon of fuel costs the military about $400 by the time it arrives in the remote locations in Afghanistan where U.S. troops operate.

Did Flu Shot Cause Cheerleader's Rare Nerve Damage?  A sad story out of Virginia, where a 25-year-old woman, who was training to be a Washington Redskins cheerleader, has come down with a rare neurological disorder days after receiving a seasonal flu vaccination.  Now she can hardly walk forward without severe contortions or speak normally.  But amazingly, she can walk backwards, run forward and speak just fine as long as she's running.

C.I.A. Is Still Cagey About Oswald Mystery.  For six years, the agency has fought in federal court to keep secret hundreds of documents from 1963, when an anti-Castro Cuban group it paid clashed publicly with the soon-to-be assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.  The C.I.A. says it is only protecting legitimate secrets.  But because of the agency's history of stonewalling assassination inquiries, even researchers with no use for conspiracy thinking question its stance.

The Editor says...
 How many "legitimate secrets" are 45 years old?  For example, the secret of the Navajo code talkers was declassified after only 25 years.

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Now FHA.  A huge, government-run housing agency shows massive losses and needs a bailout.  Fannie Mae?  Freddie Mac?  No.  It's the Federal Housing Administration, in a bad case of financial-meltdown deja vu.  The FHA, which insures mortgages made by first-time buyers with low down payments, says it may need a bailout because it will have losses of — get this — $54 billion.  And how did it lose all that?  By backing home loans made to people who couldn't pay them off.  Where have we heard this before?

Still think this Country isn't going Socialist?  Eight years after our country was attacked by those who seek to destroy us someone decides to honor the anniversary of another group of people that have been less than cooperative with America.  Wednesday night, September 30, 2009, the Empire State building was lit up in with the colors of red and yellow commemorating the anniversary of socialism in China.  Since when do Americans celebrate the birth of a regime that is guilty of atrocities towards human liberties?  Don't we have government agencies to keep these people in China under watch in order to protect America from them?

Kellogg's will use laser to burn logo on to individual corn flakes.  According to the advertising slogan, if you see Kellogg's on the box then you know it's Kellogg's in the box.  But now the company has become so concerned about similarly packaged supermarket cereals, it has developed a laser to burn its logo on to individual Corn Flakes.  The concentrated beam of light creates a toasted appearance without changing the taste.

The Editor says...
 Don't stop there!  How about etching lottery numbers on Kix?  How about Mona Lisa on Melba Toast?  How about a checkerboard on Chex?

Tidal wave of patriots washing over D.C..  Rep. John Shadegg has been trying to get a bill enacted for 15 years that would simply require legislators to cite the constitutional authority for any legislation that is proposed.  His bill is called the Enumerated Powers Act (HR450).  It now has 52 co-sponsors, but there is very little chance that it will ever get to the floor for a vote.  Why?  Because the Democrats in Congress will not allow it.

The Public Takes a News Quiz ... and Doesn't Do So Well.  The quiz included 12 multiple-choice questions and those who took it answered an average of 5.3 questions correctly.  Here are some of the results:  Seventy-five percent answered correctly when asked which party controlled the House, (the Democrats). ... Twenty-three percent knew that "cap & trade" had to do with energy and climate legislation.

Did Bubba's Tapes Break the Law?  Recall that President Clinton didn't have an exemplary record for veracity when responding to legal discovery.  His impeachment, suspension from the Arkansas bar and resignation from bar of the U.S. Supreme Court each arose from false testimony he offered in the Paula Jones case.  And now comes the question of whether he again failed to fulfill an obligation to produce information.

Is the US Government bankrupt?  Before we continue to debate the merits of any Obama health care plan, we need to consider a few important facts.  By any rational means, we must consider the present condition of our Government's financial situation.  An honest look at those finances would have a prudent person conclude that our government is tacitly bankrupt.  Our unfunded liabilities far exceed our assets.

Federal Reserve Scandal Bigger than ACORN.  For the first time, a hearing is being held on Rep. Ron Paul's Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009 (H.R. 1207) by the House Committee on Financial Services.  Grass-roots pressure has been credited with forcing the hearing into what has happened to trillions of dollars supposedly spent by the Federal Reserve on the stabilization of the financial system.  In prepared testimony, Thomas E. Woods, Jr. of the Ludwig von Mises Institute offers his strong support for the bill and declares, "...if our monetary system were really as strong, robust, and beyond criticism as its cheerleaders claim, why does it need to rely so heavily on public ignorance?"

Did someone mention ACORN?

The Coming Flood of Government Jobs.  As the job news grows ever darker — according to the Labor Department unemployment has now hit a 26-year high of 9.7% — a ray of light is shining from one unexpected quarter:  the federal government.

Win one by being like the Gipper.  Rasmussen reports that all political labels are trending negative except one.  "'Liberal' is still the worst and remains the only political description that is viewed more negatively than positively.  Being like Reagan is still the most positive thing you can say about a candidate."

Red Flag To Fly Over White House.  Lest anyone doubt the communist leanings of President Barack Obama, look no further than to his decision to hoist the Red Chinese flag (for the first time in history) over the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, September 20. ... Why is the mainstream press not all over this story?  Where is the outrage by veterans' organizations (especially Korean War veterans)?  Where is the national VFW?  Where is the American Legion?

Editor's note:
 This story was also reported here:  [1] [2] [3] [4]

Update:
 White House Debunks Reports It Will Fly China's Flag on South Lawn.  A ceremony, indeed, will take place.  But it won't happen on the White House grounds — rather, on the Ellipse, on the other side of E Street from the presidential residence.

Reid On The Rocks.  As [Harry] Reid pursues cap-and-trade, a medical overhaul and the rest of the leftist agenda, Nevadans are increasingly asking:  What about Nevada?  Reid is a high-profile incumbent in a state that's becoming an economic basket case.  Nevada has the third highest jobless rate in the country at 12.5%.  For 31 months, it's had the highest foreclosure rate of any state, and Las Vegas has the highest foreclosure rate of any major U.S. city.

57% Would Like to Replace Entire Congress.  If they could vote to keep or replace the entire Congress, just 25% of voters nationwide would keep the current batch of legislators.  A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 57% would vote to replace the entire Congress and start all over again.  Eighteen percent (18%) are not sure how they would vote.

ACLU questions Obama cookie plan.  A proposal to loosen restrictions on the use of tracking cookies by federal government websites should be carefully scrutinized so they don't jeopardize the privacy of people who visit them, groups advocating civil liberties warned Monday [8/10/2009].

51% Say Congress is Too Liberal, 22% Say It's Too Conservative.  Fifty-one percent (51%) of voters nationwide believe that Congress is too liberal while 22% hold the opposite view and say it is too conservative.  A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 14% say the ideological balance of Congress is about right and 12% are not sure.

The Editor says...
 Those who believe the Congress is too conservative are probably those who get all their information from late-night TV comedians.

Military helicopters land in Rolesville field.  Three Chinook military helicopters set down in a Rolesville field Monday afternoon, witnesses said.  People reported seeing the helicopters flying low and slow over Holly Springs, downtown Raleigh and elsewhere in Wake County.  A viewer told WRAL News they came to rest off Rogers Road about half a mile from U.S. Highway 401.

The Editor asks...
 Isn't that what Fort Hood is for?  Why must this be done in a small town?

Repeating History.  Investors are worried about what they see in the U.S. and are parking their money in non-dollar foreign assets and gold.  When nonproductive assets are more valuable than land, factories and labor, something's amiss.

Voters Turn Negative On All Political Labels Except Reagan.  "Progressive" is becoming more of a dirty word, but all political labels — except "being like Ronald Reagan" — are falling into disfavor with many U.S. voters, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.  "Liberal" is still the worst and remains the only political description that is viewed more negatively than positively.  Being like Reagan is still the most positive thing you can say about a candidate.

Obama gives "urban bulldozer" czar a greenlight on 50 U.S. cities.  The London Telegraph reported earlier this month that, "Dozens of US cities may have entire neighbourhoods bulldozed as part of drastic "shrink to survive" proposals being considered by the Obama administration to tackle economic decline."  Flint, Michigan, the birthplace of General (now "Government") Motors, may be the first town to pioneer the concept.

How End-Users Suffer Under Socialism:  Central planners announced this week that they were fresh out of money to buy toilet paper — yes, toilet paper — for the island's 9 million citizens.  But not to worry.  A nameless official for state-run monopoly Cimex and quoted by Reuters assured that "the corporation has taken all the steps so that at the end of the year there will be an important importation of toilet paper."  The predicament would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic.  But toilet tissue is hardly the only item Cuba is lacking.

Shifting the Right of Way.  Sometime in the early morning hours of Sept. 7, residents of this small Pacific island nation will stop their cars, take a deep breath, and do something most people would think is suicidal:  Start driving on the other side of the road.

Leaked e-mail shows how GE puts the government to work for GE.  "The intersection between GE's interests and government action is clearer than ever," General Electric Vice Chairman John G. Rice wrote in an Aug. 19 e-mail to colleagues.  Rice was calling on his co-workers to join the General Electric Political Action Committee. ... The full letter suggests that "share the values and goals of GE" really means "support policies that profit the company."

Governors oppose DoD emergency powers.  A bipartisan pair of governors is opposing a new Defense Department proposal to handle natural and terrorism-related disasters, contending that a murky chain of command could lead to more problems than solutions.  Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas (R), chairman of the National Governors Association, and Vice Chairman Gov. Joe Manchin (D) of West Virginia penned a letter opposing the Pentagon proposal, which they said would hinder a state's effort to respond to a disaster.

The Editor says...
 Until you can find the word emergency in the Constitution, I'd say the federal government should leave local disaster plans to the local officials.

GOP Not Allowed to Say 'Government-Run Healthcare'.  Rep. John Carter (R-Texas), the secretary of the House Republican Conference and a former District Court Judge, is having his messages to constituents censored by Democrats on the Franking Commission.  Republicans are no longer allowed to use the words "government run health care" in the communications to their constituents.  Carter received an email from the Franking Commission informing him of the censorship.

Democrats Censor Mailing of Health Care Bill Chart.  Republican Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) also found himself being censored yesterday [7/23/2009] by Democrats who refused to allow mailings that included a chart he asked his Republican staff at the Joint Economic Committee to create. ... There are three Republicans and three Democrats on the Franking Commission tasked with approval of franked mail pieces to ensure there is no abuse of the system.  The Democrats are refusing to let newsletters that include the chart be mailed.

The Franking Sign Monster.  [Scroll down]  Leaving aside for a moment the disturbing implications, the issue at the center of this dispute is a congressional rule which bars franked mail from being "partisan, politicized, or personalized."  This is, as they say, one of those ideas that sounds great on paper but quickly becomes problematic in practice and delivery.  Since these rules were last revised in 1997, the bar for judgments regarding the "partisan" nature of franked communications between House members and their constituents has been set quite low out of necessity.

Republicans Say Democrats Are Censoring More GOP Mail.  House Republicans this week accused Democrats of censoring GOP mailings to constituents on a variety of subjects and of imposing uneven requirements on the minority party's mail.  Democrats on the franking commission — which must approve all official mail — have blocked Republicans from using politically weighted descriptions of climate change legislation, the stimulus bill and other issues, according to e-mails obtained by Roll Call.

For Mature Audiences Only.  Almost four decades ago, the 26th Amendment lowered the US voting age to 18.  At the time, most neurologists believed that the human brain was fully developed by about age 12, so allowing Americans to vote at 18 seemed like a safe move.  But parents of teenagers knew that was nonsense, and new research is confirming those parental observations.

The Associated Press Declares War on the Online World.  My beloved, eternally bumbling Chicago Cubs swept the even lowlier Washington Nationals in a three-game mid-July series.  I read that in an Associated Press report headlined "Big 4th inning gives Cubs sweep of Nationals."  Will reporting this result to readers get me in trouble someday soon?  That result isn't as far-fetched as you might think.

Napolitano Lets the Word 'Terror' Come Out of the Closet at Homeland Security.  It's OK to call them terrorists again.  Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who drew criticism for not mentioning the word "terror" during her first appearance before Congress in February, has reinserted the term into her lexicon.  The former Arizona governor used the term or its variants 23 times Wednesday [7/29/2009] during a 30-minute speech before the Council of Foreign Relations in New York.

48% Say Obama Is Very Liberal.  Seventy-six percent (76%) of U.S. voters now think President Obama is at least somewhat liberal.  Forty-eight percent (48%) say he is very liberal, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

About that charity you run, Professor Gates.  Dan Riehl explores a charity headed by Professor "Skip" Gates which takes in a lot of money, pays out very little, mostly to his colleagues and assistants at Harvard, was late filing the necessary papers and lists as its office the house Gates rents from Harvard.  Perhaps as Ann Althouse suggested yesterday [7/24/2009] on her blog there was something in his home that Gates did not want the police to see.

Amazon Removes E-Books From Kindle Store, Revokes Ownership.  Today, Amazon removed George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm from its Kindle e-book store.  The company also went ahead and removed any digital trace of the books, too — striking them from both users' digital lockers and from Kindle devices.  This disturbing, Orwellian move underscores how, in spite of comments otherwise, a purchase in the digital realm can't be compared to physical ownership of content.

Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle.  In George Orwell's "1984," government censors erase all traces of news articles embarrassing to Big Brother by sending them down an incineration chute called the "memory hole."  On Friday [7/17/2009], it was "1984" and another Orwell book, "Animal Farm," that were dropped down the memory hole — by Amazon.com.

Update:
 Amazon CEO apologizes for deleting Orwell books.  Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has issued an apology to Kindle customers after "1984" and other books by British novelist George Orwell were remotely deleted from their electronic readers.  "This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of '1984' and other novels on Kindle," the Amazon chief executive said in a post on Thursday [7/23/2009] on the Kindle Community discussion forum.  "Our 'solution' to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles," Bezos wrote.

The Editor says...
 Who in his right mind would buy an e-book device now that we all know how easily those books can be erased and/or removed?

Another update:
 Amazon sued over Kindle deletion of Orwell books.  A high school student is suing Amazon.com Inc. for deleting an e-book he purchased for the Kindle reader, saying his electronic notes were bollixed, too.  Amazon CEO Jeffrey P. Bezos has apologized to Kindle customers for remotely removing copies of the George Orwell novels "1984" and "Animal Farm" from their e-reader devices.

OAS kicks out Honduras, welcomes Cuba.  The Organization of American States embraces tyranny while rejecting a state for following its constitution.  Not that the MSM notices.

Honduras quits Organization of American States.  The newly installed Honduran government withdrew from the Organization of American States Friday night [7/3/2009], after a tense visit from the hemisphere's top diplomat who urged the return of the nation's deposed leader.  OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza visited Honduras Friday on a mission to convince members of the Supreme Court and other civic leaders to allow the return of President Manuel Zelaya, who was overthrown in a pre-dawn raid Sunday.

Prisoners on run cannot be named 'due to privacy rights'.  Prisoners on the run from Holleseley Bay prison cannot be identified because it would breach their rights to privacy, the Ministry of Justice has said.

The Editor says...
 That's quite a contrast to the U.S., where the courts have ruled that no one on a public highway has a right to privacy.

California is about to hit the wall.  The demography of California today is the demography of America tomorrow, just as the social and fiscal policies of California in the last decade mirror those of the U.S. government today.  One-third of all U.S. wage-earners today have been amnestied from paying U.S. income taxes, as the top 1 percent haul fully 40 percent of that huge load.  So, too, in California, the well-to-do and the wealthy are hammered, which is why many have quietly closed their businesses, packed and gone back over the mountains whence their fathers came.

California Digging.  Ignoring the first rule of holes, a bankrupt state passing out IOUs welcomes an EPA waiver allowing it to further kill its economy.  Too bad the state can't stop the air pollution imported from a growing China.

Coffers Empty, California Pays With I.O.U.'s.  An ever-widening budget gap joined with intractable political paralysis to deliver California its biggest fiscal blow in decades on Thursday [7/2/2009], when the state's controller began printing i.o.u.'s in lieu of cash to pay taxpayers, vendors and local governments.  It was only the second time the state had adopted the emergency payment method since the Great Depression.  The National Conference of State Legislatures had no record of any other state's ever using them.

R.I.P.:  Budget Woes Spell Doom for Roadside Rest Stops.  As millions of Americans take to the road for the holiday weekend, a humble highway fixture is under attack.  Later this month, cash-strapped Virginia plans to barricade entrances and switch off the plumbing and electricity at nearly half its highway rest areas.  Other states also are lowering budgetary axes on the public pit stops that have lined the interstate highway system since its creation in 1956.

The Editor says...
 The states would have plenty of money for the maintenance of roadside rest stops if they were not giving away money to people who are too lazy to work.

EPA Holds First-Ever Bedbug Summit as Infestations Rise.  The bedbug, an obnoxious pest long thought confined to the sleepless nights of a bygone era, is back.  From college dormitories and homeless shelters to hospital maternity wards, high-end condos, and swanky hotels, bedbugs are embarked on one of the most remarkable entomological comebacks in recent memory.

Beware of "Cash for Clunkers" Scams.  President Obama signed the cash for clunkers bill into law less than 24 hours ago, and already scams have started popping up.  CNNMoney reports, "Some purported 'Cash for Clunkers' Web sites are asking consumers to provide personal information, including names, addresses and social security numbers, so they can 'register' for the program ... NHTSA spokesman Eric Bolton told USA Today about the scam sites:  "Some want a lot of personal information, and talk about consumers being able to pre-register.  Consumers don't have to register for this program at all."

Politicians share personality traits with serial killers: Study.  Using his law enforcement experience and data drawn from the FBI's behavioral analysis unit, Jim Kouri has collected a series of personality traits common to a couple of professions.  Kouri, who's a vice president of the National Assn. of Chiefs of Police, has assembled traits such as superficial charm, an exaggerated sense of self-worth, glibness, lying, lack of remorse and manipulation of others.  These traits, Kouri points out in his analysis, are common to psychopathic serial killers.

Nagin's Phone Calls Screened 'to Keep Him Safe' While Quarantined in China.  They take their quarantines very, very seriously in China.  They don't even allow phone calls.  The mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, is under lockdown in a suburban Shanghai hotel after a passenger on his flight from the U.S. exhibited symptoms of swine flu — and now his Chinese hosts are screening his calls "to keep him safe."

China Requires Censoring on New PCs.  China has issued a sweeping directive requiring all personal computers sold in the country to include sophisticated software that can filter out pornography and other "unhealthy information" from the Internet.  The software, which manufacturers must install on all new PCs starting July 1, would allow the government to regularly update computers with an ever-changing list of banned Web sites.

Bank of America reports threat by Federal Reserve.  Bank of America's chief executive Thursday for the first time said publicly that officials in the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve threatened to remove top executives of the bank unless the financial giant merged with the troubled Merrill Lynch for the good of the foundering economy.  Bank of America's Kenneth Lewis told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that the threat was not the deciding factor in the bank's acquisition of the nation's largest investment banking firm.  But he added:  "What gave me concern was that they would make that threat to a bank in good standing."

Anti-President Obama message removed from business.  "I'm not going to stop what I believe," Iron Block Harley Davidson Owner Erik Dunk said.  Wednesday [6/10/2009], the electronic sign out in front of the Iron Block Harley Davidson in Adams Center read this:  "Obama are you kidding?  We're not Muslim.  You are not Christian." ... Shop owner Erik Dunk says Harley Davidson got involved after a motorist complaint and told him they wanted him to remove it.

8 New Ways You Might Be Insane.  "Psychiatrists manufacture mental diagnoses the way the Vatican manufactures saints," says Dr. Thomas Szasz, an outspoken critic of modern psychiatry and author of Psychiatry: The Science of Lies.  This view may be extreme, but some of the new "mental illnesses" under consideration for the new edition nonetheless sound a little... crazy.  Here are eight you may already be suffering from, whether you knew it or not.

What's Keeping Obama Up?  The Rasmussen Poll conducted over the weekend of May 30-31 asks the key question, designed to give us perspective on Barack Obama's current popularity.  The question asked was whether the current problems "are due to the recession that began under the Bush administration or to the policies Obama has put in place since taking office."  In other words, who's to blame, George W. Bush or Obama?  By 62 percent to 27 percent, voters say Bush is still the culprit.  As long as this opinion remains prevalent, Obama will continue his high popularity.

Obama Dismisses Alleged Snub of the Sarkozys.  In the days leading up to president's stop in France, rumors swirled that the Obamas had declined a dinner invite from the French first couple, leading some to suggest that it was a reflection of frosty U.S.-French relations.

'World's cheapest car' coming to US.  India's Tata Motors hopes to offer the Nano, dubbed the world's cheapest car, in the United States within two years, its chairman said.  "It will need to meet all emission and crash standards and so we hope in the next two years we will be offering such a vehicle in the U.S," Ratan Tata told a panel at the Cornell Global Forum on Sustainable Global Enterprise late Wednesday.

The Editor says...
 It will be amusing to see how much the US emission and crash standards add to the price of the car.

Robocall case sheds light on a secretive industry.  The despised robocall companies that send out illegal recorded calls nationwide to try and get people to buy car warranties or apply for credit cards are among the most secretive operations outside the CIA.  Employees are told they can be fired merely for mentioning the name of their employer.

Crisis spurs spike in 'suburban survivalists'.  Emergency supply retailers and military surplus stores nationwide have seen business boom in the past few months as an increasing number of Americans spooked by the economy rush to stock up on gear that was once the domain of hardcore survivalists.

Psychiatrists rewriting the mental health bible.  Is the compulsion to hoard things a mental disorder?  How about the practice of eating excessively at night?  And what of Internet addiction:  Should it be diagnosed and treated?  The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, commonly called DSM, is getting an update.  Now experts must decide what is a disorder and what falls in the range of normal human behavior.

Broadway's No-Hitter.  When the nominees for this year's Tony Awards were announced, I was struck by the fact that I hadn't cared for any of the musicals that turned up on the list.  Then I looked through my columns for the year and saw, much to my surprise, that I'd panned every musical that opened on Broadway in the 2008-09 season.  Some of my verdicts were mixed, others brutally dismissive.  But the bottom line was clear:  I didn't review a single Broadway musical that I would have paid to see.

Hugo's big purge.  The purge of foes and friends by Venezuela's socialist strongman Hugo Chavez — a kinder, gentler version (so far) of Stalin's Great Purge shortly before World War II — shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with a paranoid personality.  Mr. Chavez, who now prefers "Comandante-Presidente," is cleansing the nation, including his United Socialist Party, of people he judges to be disagreeable.

Waxman to push global warming bill without allowing subcommittee vote.  House leaders struggling to pass a major energy bill appear ready to bypass the subcommittee system because powerful carbon state Democrats aren't willing to go along with the proposal for hundreds of billions in new global warming fees.  With little hope of passing the measure out of the global warming subcommittee, Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., signaled he will move the bill to the full committee, where the legislation would likely pass.

Dubious but interesting...
 H1N1 Government Manufactured?  There has been a lot of speculation, of late, that has come to my attention regarding the possibility that the H1N1 Virus, also known as the Swine Flu, is not a product of nature.  After all, the virus is made up of components from the human flu virus, avian flu virus, and swine flu virus — a combination not possible, according to some scientists, in the natural world.  There are no cases of swine being infected with this particular virus, either.  The origin, in essence, is a complete mystery.

The limits of terrorism:  With terror attacks having become a routine and nearly daily occurrence, especially in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the conventional wisdom holds that terrorism works very well. ... But Max Abrahms, a fellow at Stanford University, disputes this conclusion, noting that they focus narrowly on the well-known but rare terrorist victories — while ignoring the much broader, if more obscure, pattern of terrorism's failures.

An Inconvenient Truth: Your Prius Is Making You Fat.  According to the report in the current issue of the International Journal of Epidemiology, obese people are responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than their slimmer neighbors partly because they are more prone to driving instead of walking. But the authors have the cause-and effect all wrong. It's not that obesity causes driving — it's that driving, in part, causes obesity.

Americans still fear big government more than big business.  With unemployment and economic uncertainty rising, the stock market stubbornly stumbling and President Obama promising an immense federal spending program and deficits to match even before his first 100 days are over, Americans remain convinced the larger threat to the nation's future remains Big Government, not Big Business.

Ex-assemblyman pushes plan to split California into two states.  The revolution will begin in Visalia — and it will be led by a man named Maze.  As in Bill Maze, a termed-out Assembly member turned rebel who is pushing for California to split in two:  the conservative interior as one state and the liberal coast as another.  He's serious.

A 'Copper Standard' for the world's currency system?  Hard money enthusiasts have long watched for signs that China is switching its foreign reserves from US Treasury bonds into gold bullion.  They may have been eyeing the wrong metal.

Canada Issues a Wake-Up Call:  You May Be a Citizen.  Thanks to a new law, Canada will bestow citizenship Friday on what its government believes could be hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting foreigners, most of them Americans.  The April 17 amendment to Canada's Citizenship Act automatically restores Canadian nationality to many people forced to renounce it when they became citizens of another country.  It also grants citizenship to their children.

Creeping Narcostate.  Venezuela is the weakest link in this hemisphere's war on drugs.  It's a leading transshipment point between the cocaine producers of Colombia and the drug lords of Mexico, one of whom just "earned" himself a spot on the 2009 Forbes billionaire's list.  About half of the 600 tons of cocaine produced in Colombia each year rolls through Venezuela undisturbed before it heads north to consumers.

Pirates of Puntland.  The United States and other countries have been cutting back on the ships needed to stem the piracy threat.  In 1989, the United States had 164 destroyers and frigates; today we have about 73.  In the same period, the British went from 48 such craft to 25.  This mirrors trends in other Western states.  The pirates in Puntland and elsewhere are exploiting a vacuum created by the withdrawal of Western navies from the sea.

If Congress Shall Make Any Law?  Congresswoman Michele Bachmann is rocketing up the Obama Administration's enemies list because she is asking questions no liberal wants asked and making points they certainly do not want made. ... What is this thing she did?  Why, she cited the Constitution of these United States.  And for yet another brief moment in a growing long line of brief moments it became clear once again that Timothy Geithner was indeed not the smartest man in the room.  You could hear the uneasiness in Geithner's voice as he was forced to attempt to answer an actual question of substance.

Miles of Idled Boxcars Leave Towns Singing the Freight-Train Blues.  Folks here figured the mile-long stretch of a hundred-plus yellow rail cars, which divides this small town like a graffiti-covered wall, would leave soon after it arrived.  That was a year ago. ... Tens of thousands of boxcars are sitting idle all over the country, parked indefinitely by railroads whose freight volumes have plummeted along with the economy.  And residents of the communities stuck with these newly immobile objects, like the people of New Castle, are hopping mad about it.

Just 53% Say Capitalism Better Than Socialism.  Only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism.  The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 20% disagree and say socialism is better.  Twenty-seven percent (27%) are not sure which is better.

Gitmo in Conformity with Geneva Convention, Obama-Ordered Report Confirms.  The Guantanamo Bay prison where terror suspects are held was examined by a special task force ordered by President Barack Obama.  In its 81-page report, released Monday, the task force concluded:  "After considerable deliberation and a comprehensive review, it is our judgment that the conditions of confinement in Guantanamo are in conformity with Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention."

Study:  Fire a major killer of Indian women.  More than 100,000 young women were killed in fires in India in a single year, and many of the deaths were tied to domestic abuse, according to a new study published Monday.  Young Indian women are more than three times as likely to be killed by fire as their male compatriots, according to an article published on the Web site of the British medical journal.

Is there any gold inside Fort Knox, the world's most secure vault?  For several prominent investors and at least one senior US congressman it is not the security of the facility in Kentucky that is a cause of concern:  it is the matter of how much gold remains stored there — and who owns it.  "It has been several decades since the gold in Fort Knox was independently audited or properly accounted for," said Ron Paul, the Texas Congressman and former Republican presidential candidate, in an e-mail interview with The Times.  "The American people deserve to know the truth."

This sounds like a story out of a thousand-year-old newspaper.
 Nigerian police detain goat over armed robbery.  Police in Nigeria are holding a goat on suspicion of attempted armed robbery.  Vigilantes took the black and white beast to the police saying it was an armed robber who had used black magic to transform himself into a goat to escape arrest after trying to steal a Mazda 323.

So does this.
 This phone number will NOT kill.  Nigeria's government is assuring people in Africa's most populous nation that a phone call can't kill you.  A text message has spread across the country in recent days, warning that people will die if they answer mobile phone calls from 09141.

Village mob thwarts Google Street View car.  A spate of burglaries in a Buckinghamshire village had already put residents on the alert for any suspicious vehicles.  So when the Google Street View car trundled towards Broughton with a 360-degree camera on its roof, villagers sprang into action.  Forming a human chain to stop it, they harangued the driver about the "invasion of privacy", adding that the images that Google planned to put online could be used by burglars.

FBI database links long-haul truckers, serial killings.  The growing database includes more than 500 female victims, most of whom were killed and their bodies dumped at truck stops, motels and other spots along popular trucking routes crisscrossing the U.S.

88% Say It's Important To Keep The Dollar As America's Currency.  Eighty-eight percent (88%) of Americans say it is important for the dollar to remain the currency of the United States, including 70% who say it is Very Important.  Only three percent (3%) say it is not at all important if the dollar remains America's currency, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.  China's top government banker and a United Nations panel have both proposed that the dollar be replaced with a new global currency.  However, only 21% of American adults believe the proposal is intended primarily to help the global economy.

Bad News:  Scientists Make Cheap Gas From Coal.  If oil prices rise again, adoption of the new coal-to-liquid technology, reported this week in Science, could undercut adoption of electric vehicles or next-generation biofuels.  And that's bad news for the fight against climate change.

The Editor says...
 That development is "bad news" only if the global warming hoax has any merit, which it does not.

Media ratings show Fox has right stuff.  The TV ratings for February have been tabulated, and in the world of cable news there is weeping on the left.  Fox News Channel, which is generally tougher on the president, hammered the two networks that most favor President Obama — CNN and MSNBC.  Also, unique visitors to the Obama-loving Web site Daily Kos have declined a whopping 73 percent since last fall — a disaster.  What's going on?

A life thrown into turmoil by $100 donation for Prop. 8.  [Margie] Christoffersen was a manager at El Coyote, the Beverly Boulevard landmark restaurant that's always had throngs of customers waiting to get inside.  Many of them were gay, and Christoffersen, a devout Mormon, donated $100 in support of Proposition 8, the successful November ballot initiative that banned gay marriage.  She never advertised her politics or religion in the restaurant, but last month her donation showed up on lists of "for" and "against" donors.  And El Coyote became a target.

Oil Companies Voting With Their Feet.  Much political hay has been made in Congress about "unpatriotic" corporations that move operations abroad.  Weatherford International is the latest, taking its headquarters from Houston to Switzerland.  The oil services company said that it wants to be closer to its markets.  But what it really meant was that it no longer saw the future in the U.S.  In a political atmosphere of blaming corporations, it's no wonder.  Halliburton fled to Dubai in 2007.  Tyco International, Foster Wheeler and Transocean International all went to Switzerland.

Versace hotel's cool beach bugs greenies.  The Versace fashion house is to create the first refrigerated beach so that hotel guests can walk comfortably across the sand on scorching days.  The beach will be next to the Palazzo Versace hotel being built in Dubai, where summer temperatures average 40°C and can reach 50°C.  The beach will have a network of pipes beneath the sand containing a coolant that will absorb heat from the surface.  The swimming pool will be refrigerated and there are also proposals to install giant blowers to waft a gentle breeze over the beach.  The scheme has infuriated environmentalists.

China tells rich nations to pay up on climate change.  Wealthy nations should divert as much as 1% of their GDP to help developing nations tackle climate change, say Chinese officials.  This would mean a total $284 billion a year if members of the Organisation for Cooperation and Economic Development (OECD) paid a sum based on the size of their economies in 2007.

Lawmakers being forced to give up gas-guzzling cars.  Congress has been bearing down to do more about global warming.  But a little-noticed amendment to last year's energy bill has hit especially close to home.  It requires House members who lease vehicles through their office budgets to drive cars that emit low levels of greenhouse gases.  Among the victims: Texas Republican Joe L. Barton, who will probably have to give up his Chevy Tahoe, despite his protests that it is made in his district.  "I guarantee you my district is not upset that I'm driving a Chevy Tahoe," he said.

Milk Prices Rise to Record Highs.  It's cheaper than oil and, barring a global mad cow crisis, we'll probably never run out of it.  But milk has one thing in common with oil:  It's trading at record highs.

Baskin-Robbins co-founder dies.  Irvine Robbins, who delighted ice cream afficionados by conjuring up ever more inventive flavours as co-founder of the Baskin-Robbins empire, has died aged 90.  Mr Robbins, who started the Baskin-Robbins ice-cream chain with late brother-in-law Burt Baskin in 1945, died on Monday at the Eisenhower Medical Centre in Rancho Mirage, California, company officials said.

Smallest car for sale in U.S. receives top crash scores.  Unlike most cars on the road, the pint-sized 2008 Smart fortwo evokes a simple question at first glance:  "How safe is it?"  The micro car, the smallest car for sale in the U.S. market, offers a good level of safety, according to new crash tests conducted by the insurance industry.

Pastors plan to defy IRS ban on political speech.  Setting the stage for a collision of religion and politics, Christian ministers from California and 21 other states will use their pulpits Sunday to deliver political sermons or endorse presidential candidates — defying a federal ban on campaigning by nonprofit groups.  The pastors' advocacy could violate the Internal Revenue Service's rules against political speech with the purpose of triggering IRS investigations.

Dish Network Now Has An Obama Channel.  Three readers from different parts of the country email that Channel 073-00 on the Dish Network is now labeled OBAMA.  The channel plays his two-minute ad laying out his economic plan on a loop, over and over.

Paul McCartney 'horrified' as his eco car is flown 7,000 miles from Japan.  The Lexus LS600H, which costs £84,000, was a gift from Lexus to the 65-year-old former Beatle, who helped promote the hybrid vehicle.  But instead of arriving by boat as expected, the car was flown to Britain on a Korean Air flight, creating a carbon footprint almost 100 times bigger than if it had come by sea.

Sir Isaac and the Airbus:  What the GAO is saying, in its lawyerly language, is that the facts show that the Airbus 330 cannot reach a sufficient speed to pull away from one or more aircraft it's supposed to refuel.  And if it can't, there could be a mid-air collision.

Are the Polls Accurate?  Harry Truman was trailing Thomas E. Dewey by 5% in the last Gallup poll in 1948, conducted between Oct. 15 and 25 — the same margin by which Mr. Obama seems to be leading now.  But on Nov. 2, 18 days after Gallup's first interviews and eight days after its last, Truman ended up winning 50% to 45%.  Gallup may well have gotten it right when in the field; opinion could just have changed.

UN says Iceland is the best place to live, Africa the worst.  Iceland has overtaken Norway as the world's most desirable country to live in, according to an annual U.N. table published on Tuesday [11/27/2007] that again puts AIDS-afflicted sub-Saharan African states at the bottom.

France reaffirms its faith in future of nuclear power.  It looks like an ordinary building site, but for the two massive, rounded concrete shells looming above the ocean, like dusty mushrooms.  Here on the Normandy coast, France is building its newest nuclear reactor, the first in 10 years, costing $5.1 billion.  But already, President Nicolas Sarkozy has announced that France will build another like it.

Man says 9-foot tapeworm came from undercooked salmon salad.  Anthony Franz had started to eat healthy, but the salmon salad he ordered for lunch from Shaw's Crab House in August 2006 wasn't the best choice, according to a lawsuit filed Monday.  Franz says he became violently ill for several days after eating that salad and later "passed a 9-foot tapeworm."  A pathologist determined the giant tapeworm only has one source — "undercooked fish, such as salmon," according to court papers.

Lost cameras "phone home" to catch thieves.  Alison DeLauzon thought the snapshots and home videos of her infant son were gone for good when she lost her digital camera while on vacation in Florida.  Then a funny thing happened:  her camera "phoned home."  Equipped with a special memory card with wireless Internet capability, DeLauzon's camera had not only automatically sent her holiday pictures to her computer, but had even uploaded photos of the miscreants who swiped her equipment bag after she accidentally left it behind at a restaurant.

Airlines Are Safer Than Ever.  Flights on U.S. airlines have never been more crowded — nor have they ever been safer.  The last crash of a commercial jet occurred in November 2001, although the number of flights has increased substantially in the past six and one-half years.

Editor's note:
 The last crash was that of American 587.

Argentina lays new claim to Falklands.  Argentina's claim to the Falkland Islands, which remain in British hands after a 1982 war, is "inalienable", President Cristina Kirchner says.  "The sovereign claim to the Malvinas Islands (Argentina's name for them) is inalienable," she said in a speech marking the 26th anniversary of Argentina's ill-fated invasion of the two islands 480km offshore.

Judge Denies McDougal Bid To Unseal Whitewater Testimony.  A federal judge has denied an attempt by Whitewater figure Susan McDougal to unseal her grand jury testimony from the case.  Lawyers for McDougal, who served 18 months in jail for civil contempt for refusing to answer grand jury questions, argued the reasons for sealing the case had "grown stale and disappeared" in the time since.

Post-9/11 Dragnet Turns Up Surprises.  In the six-and-a-half years that the U.S. government has been fingerprinting insurgents, detainees and ordinary people in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Horn of Africa, hundreds have turned out to share an unexpected background, FBI and military officials said.  They have criminal arrest records in the United States.

Sonny Bono 'assassinated' by hitmen.  Sonny Bono, former husband and singing partner of superstar Cher, was clubbed to death by hitmen on the orders of drug and weapons dealers who feared he was going to expose them, a former FBI agent claims.  Ted Gunderson, now a private investigator, has told the US Globe tabloid that Bono, who served as mayor of Palm Springs for four years, did not die after hitting a tree on a Nevada ski slope in January 1998 as everyone believed.

Climate change will boost farm output.  Australian agricultural output will double over the next 40 years, with climate change predicted to increase, rather than hinder, the level of production.  A recent spate of reports forecasting the decline of Australian agriculture because of climate change have greatly exaggerated, and even completely misreported the threat of global warming, according to senior rural industry figures.

Presidential Candidates Find 51st State Overseas.  The number of Americans living overseas is commonly estimated at about 6 million — twice the population of Chicago and greater than that of 33 U.S. states.  Britain is home to about 300,000 Americans, nearly the population of Pittsburgh.

Sex and the city leads to this.  Last week it was revealed that a staggering one in four adults in New York has the virus that causes genital herpes, with the rate climbing to a colossal one in two for African-Americans.  Far more women carry the virus than men — 36% vs. 19%.  This makes New York the national capital for genital herpes, something which will surely grace the state's licence plates in years to come.

The OPEC of Vitamin C:  Most U.S. consumers are aware that Chinese products dominate the shelves of most retail stores, but few realize the dominance extends to vitamins and drugs.  Fully 90 percent of all the vitamin C sold in America comes from the communist trade giant.  This near-monopoly control of the vitamin-C market caused the Wall Street Journal to dub China the "OPEC of vitamin C," and like the oil cartel it has been accused of price fixing.

Plane flies five passengers from US to London.  A major airline is under fire from environmentalists for flying an aircraft across the Atlantic with only five passengers on board.  The flight from Chicago to London meant that the plane, a Boeing 777, used 22,000 gallons of fuel.

The Editor says...
 There's nothing wrong with flying a plane with only five passengers aboard.  The error was in the use of such a large jet.  Was that the only available jet?

Shock horror for would-be power cable thief.  Police in central England are hunting for a badly scorched would-be copper power cable thief after finding a hacksaw embedded in an 11,000 volt power cable Saturday night [2/9/2008]. … Copper prices have more than doubled in the last four years as China has gobbled up huge quantities of it, sparking a wave of copper thefts across the globe from South Africa and the United States to Italy and Britain.

Fake fears over Ethiopia's gold.  Ethiopia's national bank has been told to inspect all the gold in its vaults to determine its authenticity.  It follows the discovery that some of the "gold" it had bought for millions of dollars was gold-plated steel.

Canon is using Iris watermarking.  While visible watermarks are common among a variety of photographers, invisible watermarks, which are embedded in the image file, are somewhat less prevalent — but gaining ground and acceptance among photographers.

IBM to shove ads onto DVDs.  IBM hopes to slip commercials onto your DVDs.  Big Blue has asked the US Patent Office for the exclusive rights to a "system and method of providing advertisements during DVD playback."  If this thing ever shows up in your DVD player, your discs won't be ad-free — unless you shell out some cash for some sort of digital certificate.

The Editor says...
 The only difference between that and a virus is the size of the organization that produced it.

Capital has severe HIV epidemic, report finds.  Washington, D.C., has the highest rate of AIDS in the United States, and more babies are born with the AIDS virus in Washington than in other U.S. cities, according to a report released on Monday [11/26/2007].

NYC traffic fees closer to fruition.  A panel in charge of solving the chronic gridlock plaguing New York City made its final recommendations Thursday [1/31/2008], offering a scaled-back version of the original plan but still proposing an $8 charge on cars entering the most traffic-choked parts of Manhattan.

Do As Dems Say, Not As They Dine.  According to auditors, the chain of restaurants run by the Senate food service, including the snooty Senate Dining Room, has almost never been in the black.  It's lost more than $18 million since 1993 and dropped about $2 million this year alone.  If the food service doesn't get an emergency bridge loan of a quarter-million dollars, it won't be able to make payroll.  So how will the Senate fix the problem?  Well, with California Sen. Dianne Feinstein taking the lead, the Democrats — that's right, the Democrats — have called a classic Republican play:  Privatize it.

Code Talkers' reunion shows their numbers are dwindling.  They were an elite group, assisting in the development of an unbreakable code that helped to win World War II.  And only 11 are still surviving.

Titanic search was cover for secret Cold War subs mission.  The man who located the wreck of the Titanic has revealed that the discovery was a cover story to camouflage the real mission of inspecting the wrecks of two Cold War nuclear submarines.  When Bob Ballard led a team that pinpointed the wreckage of the liner in 1985 he had already completed his main task of finding out what happened to USS Thresher and USS Scorpion.  Both of the United States Navy vessels sank during the 1960s, killing more than 200 men and giving rise to fears that at least one of them, Scorpion, had been sunk by the USSR.

Barr forms exploratory committee.  Former Republican Rep. Bob Barr said Saturday he has formed a presidential exploratory committee and may seek the Libertarian party nomination. … He currently runs a lobbying and public affairs firm with offices in Atlanta and outside Washington.  His clients have included the American Civil Liberties Union and the Marijuana Policy Project, a group pushing Congress to allow medical marijuana use and to cut spending for what it says are failed anti-drug media campaigns aimed at young people.

Barr Fight:  Libertarians are not necessarily looking for the same things as anti-McCain Republicans.  Barr's 98 percent American Conservative Union rating, pro-life voting record, and hard line on immigration might help him in the general election.  But these positions aren't necessarily assets in a party that is officially pro-choice, supports open borders, and prefers the Nolan Chart to the left-right political spectrum.

Judge blocks Clinton deposition over FBI files.  A federal judge has rejected an effort to force Hillary Rodham Clinton to testify in a decade-old lawsuit over White House acquisition of FBI background files.  The court ruling spares Clinton a politically sensitive deposition at a time when she is fighting to overtake Barack Obama in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Jihadists' useful idiots:  Given that hard evidence is often scarce in trials of unsuccessful terrorists, prosecutors in Miami no doubt felt fortunate to be trying defendants who participated in a ceremony pledging allegiance to al Qaeda — and it was captured on video. … Narseal Batiste stated — on tape — that it was for creating an "Islamic army" to wage a "full ground war" and commit an attack that would be "as good or greater than 9/11," such as blowing up the Sears Tower.  It wasn't enough.  He wasn't convicted.

Alan Keyes Leaving Republican Party.  After 20 or so years of working within the GOP to try and reform it into a more Christian/conservative Party, Dr. Alan Keyes is leaving the Republican Party.  He will soon make this announcement and explain why he can no longer, in good conscience, remain a Republican.

Army begins using $150,000 artillery shells in Afghanistan.  Canadian army gunners in Afghanistan are now cleared to fire GPS-guided artillery shells at Taliban militants — at the cost of $150,000 a round.  The Excalibur shell could very well be the most expensive conventional ammunition ever fired by the military.  Supporters argue that the weapon, which has the ability to correct itself in flight, has pinpoint accuracy.

Pressing Need for Blue-Collar Labor.  I am going to be politically incorrect.  The fact is not everyone should go to college.  Yet we have pushed the notion that the only way to get a useful education is to obtain a college degree.  Recently I spoke with an official of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).  He supervizes an important part of the subway system.  He told me there are hundreds of vacant jobs.  The result is that the infrastructure is deteriorating. … Another downside is that many people who go to college are out of place — they simply don't belong there.

Police concerned about order to stop weapons screening at Obama rally.  Security details at Barack Obama's rally Wednesday [2/20/2008] stopped screening people for weapons at the front gates more than an hour before the Democratic presidential candidate took the stage at Reunion Arena.  The order to put down the metal detectors and stop checking purses and laptop bags came as a surprise to several Dallas police officers who said they believed it was a lapse in security.

Big Brother is a liar.
 Badda Bing Badda Boom.  Even though the satellite's orbit was over populated areas, the risk to humans was low according to research scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).  "It certainly would seem that protecting people against a hazardous fuel was not what this was really about," said Geoffrey Forden, a (sic) MIT researcher.  Forden and his colleagues calculated there was a 3-in-100 chance that the fuel tank would land within 100 yards of someone and there was virtually no chance it would remain intact.  So why did the president go ahead with the estimated $40 million operation if the risk was so low?  Apparently, the unspoken advantages tipped the scales on the disadvantages.

Pastors in China Imprisoned to String Christmas Lights.  Their fingers bleed.  If they don't see through their day's quota — 5,000 bulbs, they are beaten.  The next day they report to duty under guards' eyes.  They thread the fine wire through plastic frames for Christmas lights to be strung for selling around the world.  But their Christmas celebration is confined to being imprisoned.  Their crime?  Preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.  This past year, 600 pastors alone were put behind Chinese bars.

Read All About It.  Papers remained quite profitable, for the most part.  But as the future began to look increasingly troubled, one publisher's stock after another got hammered, starting around the turn of the century.  Especially hard hit were publishers of prestigious newspapers.  Dow Jones stock was at less than half its high before News Corp. made its successful bid for the Wall Street Journal publisher last spring.  Times-Mirror fell more than 50% before being acquired by Tribune Co., which in turn has fallen around 45% from its high.

No Safe Harbor.  China's closing of its ports to the U.S. Navy is another action by a hostile power.  So why are we turning the other cheek to a dictatorship that threatens us?  Apparently the phrase "any port in a storm" does not translate well into Chinese.  Two U.S. minesweepers, the USS Patriot and the USS Guardian, found that out when they requested refuge in Hong Kong from an approaching storm and were refused by Chinese authorities in clear violation of long-standing naval tradition.

A very mysterious foundation.  Some 3,000 scientists, including more than 100 Nobel laureates, have apparently accepted membership of a body called the World Innovation Foundation (WIF), which claims to be a powerful world-changing network to provide "the technological tools and miracle technologies that we shall all need to solve the world's impending global problems". … [Robert] Huber, described as vice-president, claims that he has no recollection of joining the organization.  "I am not aware what this organization is," he says.

Proposal raises bones of contention.  Alarm is growing among anthropologists in the United States over a plan that could empty institutions of about 120,000 human skeletons currently stored for research purposes.  Under a new proposal, the bones at museums, universities and federal facilities across the nation could be given to Native American tribes now living in the area from which the remains were excavated, even if the skeletons are not culturally identifiable to the tribes.

None dare call it 'conspiracy'.  On Tuesday [11/6/2007], the U.S. national debt topped $9 trillion for the first time in history, according to the U.S. Treasury Department's daily accounting of the national debt.  Nine trillion dollars!  The number is so staggeringly high that it exceeds our ability to comprehend it in monetary units.  Million, billion, trillion — in financial terms, for most of us, it means a lot of money, really a lot of money, but that is about as specific a picture as most ordinary people can grasp.

The Olympic Bible:  The organizers of the 2008 Olympic Games in China have put the Bible on the list of items that athletes are banned from bringing with them to Beijing … This would seem to undermine claims by a Chinese government official, Ye Xiaowen, who told Reuters last month that China would accommodate the religious needs of visiting athletes.

Did someone mention the Olympics?

Police tell woman who had bag snatched 'sorry, that's not a crime'.  A mother who had her bag snatched was told by police it was not a crime — because she chased after the thief and won her property back.

Last pineapple cannery in the U.S. is gone.  The Ginaca machine is as Hawaiian as — well, as pineapple — maybe even more.  Pineapple was introduced, but the Ginaca was invented in Hawaii.  It cores and peels pineapples with little human labor.  It made possible the Hawaii pine industry, which at one time produced 82 percent of the world's canned pineapple.

Pilot of plane that bombed Hiroshima dies.  Paul Tibbets, who piloted the B-29 bomber Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, died Thursday [11/1/2007].  He was 92 and insisted almost to his dying day that he had no regrets about the mission and slept just fine at night.

On the Death of 'Hiroshima Bomb' Pilot Paul Tibbets.  A bulletin topping many news sites this afternoon announced the passing of Paul W. Tibbets, pilot of the plane, the "Enola Gay" (named for his mother), which dropped the atomic bomb over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.  Tibbets was 92, and defended the bombing to the end of his life.  Some of the obits noted that he had requested no funeral or headstone for his grave, not wishing to create an opportunity for protestors to gather.

Nitrite, Nitrate-Rich Foods Boost Heart Attack Outcomes.  Eating nitrite/nitrate-rich foods such as vegetables and cured meats may help improve the chances of surviving a heart attack and of recovering more quickly.

Robbery Suspect Charged With Murder After Alleged Accomplices Killed by Homeowner.  Three young black men break into a white man's home in rural Northern California.  The homeowner shoots two of them to death — but it's the surviving black man who is charged with murder.  In a case that has brought cries of racism from civil rights groups, Renato Hughes Jr., 22, was charged by prosecutors in this overwhelmingly white county under a rarely invoked legal doctrine that could make him responsible for the bloodshed.

Shooting of theft suspects may test self-defense law.  In a case legal experts say may "stretch the limits" of the state's self-defense laws, a Pasadena [TX] man shot and killed two suspected burglars during a confrontation as they attempted to flee his neighbor's property Wednesday afternoon [11/14/2007].

Battling Ghost Calls, That Telemarketing Annoyance.  The culprit behind what is becoming a common occurrence in some households may have a less than otherworldly explanation.  More often than not it is a telemarketer — and one that complies with federal regulation.  Indeed, adherence to the rules may be one reason for the ghost calls.

Twenty percent of Republicans vote 'present' on Ramadan resolution.  Forty-one Republicans, more than 20 percent of the caucus, and one Democrat voted "present" on a resolution recognizing the commencement of Ramadan on Tuesday.  The 42 lawmakers make up more than 10 percent of the members voting on the resolution.  There were zero "no" votes, and 14 members did not vote. … Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) said, "I voted 'present' because I read somewhere that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion."

The Editor says...
 If Congressman Pence really thought Congress was about to establish Islam as a national religion, he should have voted "no" instead of "present".

Elian II:  The Sequel "Elian II," the sequel we hoped never to see, is what fathers' groups are calling a Miami case that once again highlights our confusion about paternal rights in child custody battles.  This time, the dispute revolves around a 5-year-old Cuban girl, her biological father in Cuba, her mentally unstable mother in the U.S., a passel of relatives, therapists, guardians ad litem, activist attorneys and, finally, a wealthy, influential Cuban-American foster family.

Headline translated from British to American English.
 War Hero Dies As Paramedics Have Their Tea.  An 82-year-old war hero choked to death in front of his daughter — while a nearby ambulance crew were having their tea.  Paramedics were just 500 yards from stricken Ernie Rutkiewicz.  But a crew took 22 MINUTES to reach him because of a Government rule which says crews can't be disturbed during their meal breaks.

Congress considers Concord hazardous?  NASCAR fans might seem rabid, but are they actually contagious?  Getting a hepatitis shot is standard procedure for travelers to parts of Africa and Asia, but some congressional aides were instructed to get immunized before going to Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord and the racetrack in Talladega, Ala.

NASCAR cooties:  House Homeland Security Committee staffers are on a peculiar mission to study "public health issues at events involving mass gatherings," which has personally insulted Rep. Robin Hayes of Concord, North Carolina.  The event:  NASCAR.  The rub:  the requirement that the Democrat and Republican staffers attending first be immunized against Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, tetanus, diphtheria, and influenza.

'USAF struck Syrian nuclear site'.  The September 6 raid over Syria was carried out by the US Air Force, the Al-Jazeera Web site reported Friday [11/02/2007].  The Web site quoted Israeli and Arab sources as saying that two strategic US jets armed with tactical nuclear weapons carried out an attack on a nuclear site under construction.  The sources were quoted as saying that Israeli F-15 and F-16 jets provided cover for the US planes.  The sources added that each US plane carried one tactical nuclear weapon and that the site was hit by one bomb and was totally destroyed.

The Editor says...
 The story above comes from Al-Jazeera, so there's at least a 99 percent chance that it's a pack of lies.  But just suppose that this is really true — what a story!  The first hostile use of nukes in 60 years!  And I can't think of more deserving recipients.

How Many Site Hits?  Depends Who's Counting.  The growth of online advertising is being stunted, industry executives say, because nobody can get the basic visitor counts straight.

Threats aren't confined to the war zone.  Tainted toothpaste is only the latest in a series of Chinese import disasters.  As the New York Times reported last month, all 24 of the toys recalled for safety reasons this year were made in China.  Chinese exports have inspired a massive recall of pet food, a recall of 450,000 tires, and a ban on China's farm-raised shrimp, catfish and eel, prompting this shot from Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.:  "'Made in China' is rapidly becoming a warning label for American consumers."

Fire ants may have met their match.  Imported red fire ants have plagued farmers, ranchers and others for decades.  Now the reviled pests are facing a bug of their own.  Researchers have pinpointed a naturally occurring virus that kills the ants, which arrived in the U.S. in the 1930s and now cause $6 billion in damage annually nationwide, including about $1.2 billion in Texas.

Surging debate surrounds the use of 'smart' meters.  As early as next year, some electricity customers in western New York may be able to save money, thanks to new "smart" meters, by doing their laundry and dishes at night or programming their air conditioner to raise the temperature in their homes if power becomes too expensive.  Advocates see the new meters as a tool that will help New Yorkers cut their utility bills, reduce the demand for power and help the environment.  But critics see a darker side to this idea.

Scientists hail 'frozen smoke' as material that will change world.  A miracle material for the 21st century could protect your home against bomb blasts, mop up oil spillages and even help man to fly to Mars.  Aerogel, one of the world's lightest solids, can withstand a direct blast of 1kg of dynamite and protect against heat from a blowtorch at more than 1,300C.

Drought?  HOA requires grass be green.  Amid record drought and heat that have pushed cities across the state to severe water conservation measures, residents of the Margot's Pond community outside Raleigh have been ordered by their homeowners association to keep the grass green.

Chavez puts Venezuela's clock ahead 30 minutes.  President Hugo Chavez has announced that Venezuela's official time will be put ahead by half an hour starting January 1, and its first-ever offshore oil rig will start pumping before the year is out.

Kathleen Willey Reports Stolen Manuscript, Suspects "Clinton Operative".  Kathleen Willey had planned to spend the Labor Day weekend proofing pages of her forthcoming book, "Target:  In the Crosshairs of Bill and Hillary Clinton."  Instead, she says, someone broke into her Powhatan County home Friday, Aug. 31, and stole a copy of her unpublished 230-page manuscript.  Her publishers are "aghast," she says.  "I think it's a Clinton operative," Willey says.  "It sounds like Watergate.  It's amateurish, but I know they're not amateurs."

The poorest countries in the world are the ones with the worst pollution.
 Oxygen supplies for India police.  Police stations across the Indian city of Calcutta have been equipped with oxygen devices to enable police to offset the effects of pollution.  The extra air is for the benefit of hundreds of traffic policemen in the city who have to brave some of the worst pollution in the world.

Ranch exempt from 'Click It or Ticket'.  President Bush found himself in a flap Tuesday about seat-belt use, a day after a federal agency began a campaign to encourage drivers to buckle up.  Video cameras caught Bush without his seat belt while driving a pickup on his Texas ranch last weekend, giving a tour to NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

The Editor says...
 Most of the reporters who cover the White House beat probably have very little experience with wide-open ranch land.  It is also possible that some of the reporters have never considered the possibility that certain laws do not apply on private property.

Al Gore's son busted for drugs in hybrid car.  The 24-year-old son of former Vice President Al Gore was arrested for drug possession on Wednesday after he was stopped for speeding in his hybrid Toyota Prius, a sheriff's official said.

Al Gore's Son Arrested on Drug Suspicion.  Al Gore's son was pulled over for speeding on a California freeway early Wednesday and arrested on suspicion of possessing marijuana and prescription drugs, authorities said.  Al Gore III, 24, was driving a blue Toyota Prius about 100 mph south on the San Diego Freeway when he was pulled over by sheriff's deputies who said they smelled marijuana, said Sheriff's Department spokesman Jim Amormino.

The Editor says...
 So... if you stand on the gas pedal long enough a Toyota Prius will go 100 mph.  That's the real news here.  But can you even imagine the media frenzy that would surround this story if it had been one of President Bush's kids arrested for the same thing?

Condo rule waived so U.S. flag can wave.  Although his condo complex has strict rules against decorations, Brendan Davis figured he could put up a small American flag outside his unit door.  After all, who would object to a flag on Memorial Day?  Apparently, a condominium security guard.  Albert Gonzalez, a guard at the ParkCrest Harbour Island condominiums, found the small flag stuck in a light fixture and warned, then later fined, Davis for violating the rules.

Official caught off-roading in preserve.  In this 11-hour battle between mud and man, the mud won.  It beat Chris Sharek, the director of Venice's utilities department, whose job is to ensure that the city obeys environmental regulations, though he apparently failed to do so himself.  A judge slapped Sharek with 25 hours of community service and probation last month for off-roading through a protected wilderness preserve with his wife and father-in-law.

Another target for terrorists...
 Spain and Morocco to link by tunnel.  Spain and Morocco are planning a joint effort to link their countries by undersea train tunnel, Spanish news agency EFE reported Wednesday [3/7/2007].

Women at Love Field 'acting suspiciously'.  Dallas police and federal terrorism officials are investigating two women, both dressed in camouflage pants under their traditional Muslim robes and scarves, who were seen conducting what appeared to be surveillance and acting suspiciously at Dallas Love Field.

Airport watch figure confirms terrorist tie.  One of the subjects of a Dallas police intelligence bulletin, Asma Al-Homsi, says she's known convicted terrorist Wadih el Hage and his wife for more than two decades.  Mr. el Hage, a former Arlington resident and naturalized U.S. citizen, was the personal secretary of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden before he was sent to prison.  But Ms. Al-Homsi said she still considers him and his wife to be close friends.

Family film audience shown glimpse of horror flick in New York.  A family film audience was stunned to get an unintended glimpse of a horror movie, which left some parents and their children shaken and the theatre chain apologizing for the movie mix-up.

All noise banned on thrill ride.  No screaming on the Screamer!  A suburban amusement park has gotten so many complaints from neighbours about blood-curdling screams that it has instituted a no-shrieking rule for its scary new thrill ride, the Scandia Screamer. … Riders who let out a screech — or just about any other noise — are pulled off and sent to the back of the line.

The Editor says...
 What kind of an amusement park demands total silence from people riding on roller coasters and other machines that are designed to be frightening?  Only in a place like California would this kind of prohibition be considered reasonable.



Habitat for Humanity

This subsection has moved here.



A few words about pennies

U.S.'s dilemma:  It costs 1.7 cents to make a penny.  The U.S. penny is not what it appears to be, and some in Congress would like to see it change further, if not disappear entirely.  Because of a surge in the price of copper, the U.S. Mint decided 25 years ago to manufacture the coins almost entirely with zinc, save for the coating on which Abraham Lincoln's profile is engraved.

Lawmakers Consider Elimination of Pennies.  The rising cost of metals isn't just hurting jewelry makers and aluminum consumers.  The price of copper and nickel, the very materials used to make U.S. currency, is on the minds of House lawmakers trying to find a way to cut production expenses.

Ditch The Penny.  Giving money away for free is not behavior one expects from ordinary, rational Americans.  But it's something they do every day in massive numbers — that is if you consider the penny to be money.  At store counters around the country, people will leave pennies for the next customer, something they'd never do with a dime or quarter or any piece of currency they actually value.

Coin shortage could turn pennies to nickels.  Sharply rising prices of metals such as copper and nickel have meant the face value of pennies and nickels are worth less than the material that they are made of, increasing the risk that speculators could melt the coins and sell them for a profit. … The best solution, [Francois] Velde said, would be to 'rebase' the penny by making it worth five cents rather than one cent.  Doing so would increase the amount of five-cent coins in circulation and do away with the almost worthless one cent coin.

[A penny very clearly has "ONE CENT" printed on it.  That's an iron-clad (or at least copper-clad) guarantee that it is never going to be worth five cents.]

Congress looking at steel pennies and nickels.  Further evidence that times are tough: It now costs more than a penny to make a penny.  And the cost of a nickel is more than 7½ cents.  Surging prices for copper, zinc and nickel have some in Congress trying to bring back the steel-made pennies of World War II, and maybe using steel for nickels, as well.

House passes bill to make coin-making cheaper.  The House voted for cheaper change Thursday [5/8/2008], the kind that would make pennies and nickels worth more than they cost to make and save the country $100 million a year. … The bill would require the U.S. Mint to switch from a zinc and copper penny, which costs 1.26 cents each to make, to a copper-plated steel penny, which would cost 0.7 cents to make, according to statistics from the Mint and Rep. Zack Space, D-Ohio, one of the measure's sponsors.  It also would require nickels, now made of copper and nickel and costing 7.7 cents to make, to be made primarily of steel, which would drop the cost to make the five-cent coin below its face value.

Do pennies still make sense?  Penny haters ... love Lincoln.  It's the zinc lobby they're after.  As an "act of civil disobedience" among the scones, Concord Teacakes became the first retailer in the nation Thursday [2/12/2009] to refuse to accept pennies as payment, rounding down all transactions to bypass small change.

The latest:
 Will Nickel-Free Nickels Make a Dime's Worth of Difference?  It costs the federal government up to nine cents to mint a nickel and almost two cents to make a penny.  So, in addition to overhauling Big Finance, President Barack Obama wants to tinker with America's small change.  The president's plan to save money by making coins from cheaper stuff seems simple on its face.  But history shows it would rekindle an emotional debate among Americans who fear changing the composition of their currency will hurt its value.

Speaking of coins...
 Keep the change.  The American people have never loved the Susan B. Anthony, nor the Sacagawea.  Even the presidential $1 coin has been a total flop.  Yet Capitol Hill commands the production of five new dollar-coin designs every year, with a 20 percent quota for Sacagawea, an Indian guide on the Lewis and Clark Expedition.  Aside from a handful of numismatists who enjoy adding new specimens to their collections, the coins simply aren't used.

Kill the dollar bill, some lawmakers say.  Some House Republicans have introduced legislation to phase out the paper bill we all know and crumple in our pockets and replace it with coins that'll likely wear a hole in our pockets instead, The Hill reports.


Metal thieves knock Vancouver radio station off air.  A Vancouver radio station was knocked off the air for several hours Thursday after thieves raided its transmitter, stealing copper and other metal.  CFUN program director Stu Ferguson said the station went off the air around noon.

Public has almost no access to new police radios.  A new police and fire communications system designed to help emergency crews stay in touch also means the news media has less access to information about incidents affecting the public.  Abilene police and fire departments recently ditched an 18-year-old dispatch system for a new $14 million system that has better encryption capabilities and keeps many of the conversations people using police scanners are accustomed to hearing off the air.

Scientists cast doubt on Kennedy bullet analysis.  In a collision of 21st-century science and decades-old conspiracy theories, a research team that includes a former top FBI scientist is challenging the bullet analysis used by the government to conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

JFK single-bullet theory in question.  More than four decades after his death, John F. Kennedy's assassination remains the hottest cold case in U.S. history, and the clues continue to trickle in.  Now Lawrence Livermore Laboratory scientists say a key piece of evidence supporting the lone-gunman theory should be thrown out.

The Editor says...
 The single-bullet theory has been in question since the day it was announced.

Pot linked strongly to mental illness.  The report, released today by former Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Palmer, analysed the growing body of evidence of the long-suspected link between marijuana use and mental disorders.

Jermaine Jackson wants Michael to convert to Islam.  Jermaine Jackson said on Monday [1/29/2007] he wants his brother Michael to convert to Islam; and he believes the reclusive superstar has given it serious thought.

["Convert" from what?]

Dinner with Louisiana Governor Goes for $1 at Auction.  Call it a sign of the times for Louisiana's embattled governor:  A chance to dine with Gov. Kathleen Blanco fetched a winning bid of $1 at a recent fundraising auction hosted by a group of business leaders.

Web chief warns of domain name chaos.  Plans to fast-track the introduction of non-English characters in website domain names could "break the whole internet", warns ICANN chief executive Paul Twomey.  At present there are 37 possible characters that can be used in domain names, but if non-English letters are allowed, this number would rise to 50,000 or more, said Twomey.

California court says bloggers can't be sued.  The California Supreme Court ruled Monday [11/20/2006] that bloggers and participants in Internet bulletin board groups cannot be sued for posting defamatory statements made by others.

Just for a nickel token.  Because Mrs. Romanski picked up an abandoned token, she was surrounded, arrested and led to a security office.  There the guards stole her orphaned nickel.  They refused to let her use a restroom by herself.  They prevented her from having lunch with her friends.  Finally they threw her out of the casino.

Children charged in video store holdup.  Three children, including a 9-year-old boy, were taken into police custody after a video store was held up by a 14-year-old girl wielding a BB gun that looked like a pistol, authorities said.  The holdup happened about 9 p.m. Wednesday at a Hollywood Video store downtown.  A 14-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy were charged as juveniles with armed robbery.  The 9-year-old was not charged because police said he was too young.  He was released to his mother.

Official in S.C.:  Sterilize Bad Parents.  A City Council member, reacting to a video store holdup believed to have been carried out by children, says parents who can't properly care for their kids should be sterilized.  "We pick up stray animals and spay them," Larry Shirley said in a story published Saturday by The Post and Courier of Charleston.  "These mothers need to be spayed if they can't take care of theirs.  Once they have a child and it's running the street, to let them continue to have children is totally unacceptable."

[The stray animals analogy is inappropriate.  Stray animals are usually put to death.]

Getting help to remember passwords.  In 2005, RSA Security Inc. surveyed 1,700 business computer users.  It found that almost 60 percent had to manage at least six passwords, while 28 percent had to manage more than 13.  And that doesn't count personal passwords for who-knows-how-many e-mail accounts, voice mail boxes and Web sites.  Some are important, such as bank, credit card and stock brokerages, and some aren't.  But they require passwords all the same.

Poverty Reduction or Pork?  One likely reason for the World Bank's dearth of profits is its penchant for granting zero interest loans — grants by any other name — to middle-income countries such as China and India.  The World Bank sends 80% of its loans to 12 middle-income countries, including Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, and China.  It sends only 10% of its loans to Africa.

Solved:  the mystery of the crumbling €50 notes.  Thousands of Germans have been stuffing euro notes up their noses — and destroying not only their health but also the currency, police believe.  They say that the mystery of why euro notes have been falling apart since the summer — many look moth-eaten after only a day in the pocket — is down to an increasing use of crystal methamphetamine.  In Germany this drug is fast replacing cocaine as the illegal party substance of choice.

High metal prices drive coin smuggling.  Smugglers have tried to ship out millions of older one-peso coins from the Philippines, not for their face value of less than 2¢ each but for the copper and nickel content as metals prices soar.  The central bank said customs authorities seized a 40-foot container at the weekend that was loaded with 2 to 3 million coins, weighing 12.2-18.3 tonnes, bound for Japan.

Speaking of money, the following article is lengthy but very interesting.
 No Ordinary Counterfeit.  After the indictments were released, U.S. government and law-enforcement officials began to say in public something that they had long said in private:  the counterfeits were being manufactured not by small-time crooks or even sophisticated criminal cartels but by the government of North Korea.

Speaking of North Korea...
 Elk Grove man remembers the Pueblo.  The USS Pueblo still stands prisoner 40 years after its capture.  Tethered on the Taedong River in Pyongyang, the only commissioned U.S. Navy ship in foreign hands is promoted as a trophy celebrating the communist nation's Cold War conquest.

Army to switch from green to blue uniforms.  The U.S. Army plans to eliminate the green uniform worn by its soldiers for more than 100 years and switch back to traditional blue worn by those fighting the Revolutionary War.  Everyday-wear uniforms will include a dark blue jacket, light blue trousers and gray shirt, the Army said.

Is 60 too old to be a pilot?  Robert "Hoot" Gibson was not the happiest camper Friday, despite a party in his honor.  Not only was the longtime astronaut piloting his last commercial airline flight because of a forced retirement, but the flight was five minutes late, to boot.  Gibson, a colorful member of NASA's elite astronaut corps who commanded four of the five space shuttle missions he flew, is ending a 10-year run with Southwest Airlines because he turns 60 on Monday, the mandatory retirement age for pilots in the U.S. Gibson calls it blatant age discrimination.

[How many former astronauts are now airline pilots?]

Data files erased at Aznar Government systems.  Aznar Government deleted all the Spanish Government Presidency computer systems in "La Moncloa" Official Palace after the elections (three days after the terrorism attacks in Madrid-Atocha train station).  There is a 12 thousand Euros bill just for deleting everything, even data back-ups. … As far as we know, in USA is not possible to do anything like that, and even Henry Kissinger files will be known in the years to come.  I mean that USA presidents can encrypt and legally protect that information, but they can not erase as Aznar did.

Deal With Wen Ho Lee Begets Warning of Yet More Claims.  A decision by five major news organizations to pay $750,000 to a nuclear scientist named in news stories as the target of an espionage investigation is prompting warnings that the unusual payment could embolden others aggrieved by government leaks and lead to more litigation involving the press.

Many drivers are on the road illegally.  About 5 percent of South Carolina's drivers — more than 156,000 — have suspended or revoked licenses, according to South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles records.  Officials say many of those people continue to drive, causing crashes and financial strain because many people with suspended licenses also are uninsured.

FOX News Steps in the PC Puddle.  It's official.  FOX News has joined the rest of the politically correct and liberal news outlets.  Like CBS and NBC, FOX has given a $10,000 donation to the pro-homosexual journalism organization National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA).  FOX News is listed as a "Feature Level" sponsor of the NLGJA annual convention which runs through this weekend in Miami.

FBI says Violent crime was on the rise in 2005.  FBI statistics Monday [6/12/2006] confirmed what big cities like Philadelphia, Houston, Cleveland and Las Vegas have seen on the streets:  Violent crime in the U.S. is on the rise, posting its biggest one-year increase since 1991.

As DVD sales slow, Hollywood seeks a new cash cow.  After more than half a decade as Hollywood's savior, the DVD is looking a little tired — and the movie studios, for once, are having trouble coming up with a sequel.  DVD sales represent more than half of the revenue studios generate from most of their movies.  But those sales are expected to grow just 2 percent this year, a far cry from the double-digit growth the industry enjoyed just two years ago.

Penny-wise, pound-for-pound foolish?  The cost of zinc, one of its main current component elements, is rising.  A penny was worth just under a cent (.97 to be exact) in metal last year; each one is worth 1.4 cents now.

New spyware program blackmails computer users.  A new spyware program that lures computer users by claiming to give free access to pornographic Internet content ends up "blackmailing" them into purchasing a program to clean the infection.

The Wrath of Grapes:  In today's remarkable economy, with just a few minutes online, you can buy almost any product imaginable from almost anywhere in the world and have it delivered to your front door.  Except wine.

Truth About Castro:  The Lost City not only is a loving tribute to Havana and Cuban art and music, it is also a loving tribute to liberty, democracy and capitalism.  Castro's regime is clearly portrayed as an evil dictatorship.

Moussaoui Sentenced To Life In Prison.  A federal jury rejected the death penalty for al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui on Wednesday [5/3/2006] and decided he must spend life in prison for his role in the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history.

Castro says he will resign if the US proves him wealthy.  Cuban President Fidel Castro has said that he would offer his resignation if his arch-rival, the United States, can prove that he has a huge personal fortune as claimed by Forbes magazine.

Does Rupert Murdoch Own your MySpace Content?  Originally, the MySpace terms of service granted the website a limited license that give it non-exclusive rights to use the material users display there, but only while they keep it there.  If a user deletes the data, MySpace no longer has any rights to it (if they happened to keep an archived copy).  But soon after MySpace was bought by Rupert Murdoch's media empire News Corporation last year, the terms were changed to indicate that "Content posted by you may remain on the MySpace.com servers after you have removed the content from the services, and MySpace.com retains the rights to those copies."

Murdoch could endorse Obama.  Rupert Murdoch, CEO of News Corp, says he could endorse Democratic Sen. Barack Obama for president in several of his newspapers, including the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, according to an interview published in Silicon Alley Insider, a business blog.

10 years after Ron Brown:  Only weeks earlier, Brown had been Clinton's bag man in a trip to New York where he collected about $1.2 million from Loral for the Democratic Party to use as "soft money." … America's security was traded for Clinton's re-election campaign.  Following the Clinton meeting and the money delivery, a close friend of Ron Brown told a Justice Department presentencing conference that he only had one option — to report the president's possible treasonous dealings with China.  Soon thereafter Ron Brown died in an air crash.

Did someone mention Ron Brown?

NJ Bill Would Prohibit Anonymous Posts on Forums.  Too much important opinion, including that leading to the founding of the country, was published anonymously to permit the government to ban anonymous opinion.  Even unto this day, anonymous pamphleteering is an honorable activity at the core of the First Amendment. … I would expect that such a statute, were it to be enacted, would be quickly challenged and almost as quickly overturned.

[Yeah, but that's what they said about Campaign Finance Reform.]

Curt Weldon:  Bin Laden Is Dead.  Rep. Curt Weldon, who broke the Able Danger story last year revealing that military intelligence had identified lead hijacker Mohammed Atta as a terrorist threat before the 9/11 attacks, now says that Osama bin Laden has died.

Massive fraud hits tsunami aid.  Of the 170,000 homes promised to the people of Aceh, only about 15,000 have been built, one year and four months after the tsunami.

Tsunami aid 'spent on politics'.  Three years after Australians donated $400 million to rebuild Asian lives devastated by the 2004 tsunami, aid groups are under attack for spending much of the money on social and political engineering.  A survey by The Australian of the contributions by non-government organisations to the relief effort found the donations had been spent on politically correct projects promoting left-wing Western values over traditional Asian culture.

'Hanoi Jane' Fonda Honor Withdrawn.  The sponsor of an effort to honor Jane Fonda in the Georgia state Senate withdrew her resolution Thursday [3/16/2006], after a rocky reception from some colleagues and a phone call from the actress' office.

California gang members to be tracked by GPS.  California prison officials have begun using Global Positioning System anklets to track known gang members.

[GPS receivers are not infallible.  They do not work deep inside buildings, in underground parking garages, or when wrapped in cement shoes at the bottom of a river.]

Neither King nor abortion foes are racketeers.  The Supreme Court's unanimous 8–0 decision this week rejecting claims by the National Organization for Women that demonstrations at abortion clinics are extortion and therefore punishable under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act was an important vote for freedom and free speech.

Bottled water, a natural resource taxing the world's ecosystem.  Bottled water consumption, which has more than doubled globally in the last six years, is a natural resource that is heavily taxing the world's ecosystem, according to a new US study. … "Making bottles to meet Americans' demand for bottled water requires more than 1.5 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel some 100,000 US cars for a year," according to the study.  "Worldwide, some 2.7 million tons of plastic are used to bottle water each year."

This is what "swift and sure" means...
 Prosecutor says Guilty Saddam would hang quickly.  The Iraqi High Tribunal's chief prosecutor says Saddam Hussein will hang immediately if he is found guilty on charges relating to deaths of 148 Shiites. … "If the court passes a death sentence on any of the defendants in the Dujail case, the law is clear, the sentence must be carried out within 30 days following the appeal," Mr Mussawi said.

ACLU opposes creation of 'Catholic town'.  The founder of Dominos Pizza, Tom Monaghan, plans to create a town in Florida named Ave Maria.  No condoms, birth control pills or porn would be sold there.  The ACLU of Florida's executive director, Howard Simon, opposes it.

Invasion of the Computer Snatchers.  Hackers are hijacking thousands of PCs to spy on users, shake down online businesses, steal identities and send millions of pieces of spam.  If you think your computer is safe, think again.


Special Subsection about Patrick Kennedy's brush with the law:

Another Kennedy Cover-up?  If this driver is you then you can get ready for your field sobriety test.  Time to blow into the little tube!  Ohhhh … but not Patrick Kennedy!  He's Ted Kennedy's son!  According to one of the Capitol Hill police officers on the scene superior officers did not permit them to perform a field sobriety test.  Patrick Kennedy was put into a supervisor's car and driven home.

The Kennedy Tradition:  After his second smash-up in three weeks — and a lot of unanswered questions about an alleged police cover-up — Rep. Patrick Kennedy yesterday declared that he's entering rehab to deal with an addiction to painkillers.  Those questions need to be answered.  Because not even a Kennedy should be above the law.

Riding With Kennedy Worse than Hunting With Cheney, Group Says.  "I'd rather go quail hunting with Dick Cheney than get in a car being driven by a Kennedy," said Second Amendment Foundation founder Alan M. Gottlieb.  "As it stands right now, I think Congress should consider mandating drug testing of its members before they vote on legislation that would take away any of our civil rights.

Read Rep. Patrick Kennedy's Traffic Accident Report for Yourself.  In a statement to the press, Kennedy said that he "do[es] not remember getting out of bed, being pulled over by the police, or being cited for three driving infractions."

The Editor says...
 Nonsense!  Who among us has ever had such a reaction to prescription medicine (...while driving at 3:00 a.m.)?  And who, after having such a complete loss of consciousness, would be able to drive a car at all?  And how many of us ordinary citizens, under the same circumstances, would escape DUI charges?

Sleepwalking Into History, Kennedy Style.  Police officers involved in the incident complained through their labor union about the special treatment afforded Rep. Kennedy, whose "eyes were red and watery," according to the police report, which added that his "speech was slightly slurred and, upon exiting his vehicle, his balance was unsure."  Rather than cop to drinking, Kennedy claimed he had no memory of the incident because of an interaction between "the prescribed amount of Phenergan and Ambien."
Yeah, right.

The Sleeping Pill Ate My Homework.  A couple of months back, US Congressman Patrick Kennedy drove his car into a security barricade near the Capitol building early one Thursday morning, leading many observers to think this scion of Camelot had been throwing back a few too many at the Hawk 'n' Dove, a Capitol Hill bar where, according to the Boston Herald, he'd been seen drinking earlier that evening.  But, "no," said Paddy.  "I consumed no alcohol prior to the incident."  In an excuse reminiscent of 'the dog ate my homework,' Kennedy said it was his sleeping pills that did it.


Special Subsection about the Sony Copy Protection Scandal of 2005:

Sony's anti-file-sharing CD causes a firestorm of anger.  On Halloween, a developer with an Austin-based software company posted on his blog a detailed report on a troubling discovery — a CD from Sony BMG had installed software on his PC that uses the same technique for hiding itself as the most pernicious type of spyware.

Sony halts production of music CDs with copy-protection scheme.  Stung by continuing criticism, the world's second-largest music label, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, promised Friday [11/11/2005] to temporarily suspend making music CDs with antipiracy technology that can leave computers vulnerable to hackers.

 Editorial Comment:   If an individual had done what Sony did, peddling a product with a built-in rootkit, he could have been sent to prison as an evil, pernicious hacker.  But the courts seem to look favorably on music companies that are trying to protect their intellectual property, no matter how they do it.

Sony CD DRM Blow-Up Continues — Recalls Ordered, Lawsuits Possible.

Sony's DRM Rootkit:  The Real Story.  On Oct. 31, Mark Russinovich broke the story in his blog:  Sony BMG Music Entertainment distributed a copy-protection scheme with music CDs that secretly installed a rootkit on computers.  This software tool is run without your knowledge or consent — if it's loaded on your computer with a CD, a hacker can gain and maintain access to your system and you wouldn't know it.

Texas sues Sony BMG over alleged spyware.  Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed a civil lawsuit on Monday [11/21/2005] against Sony BMG Music Entertainment for allegedly including spyware on its media player designed to thwart music copying.

Update:
 Sony BMG Settles Suit Over CDs.  Sony BMG Music Entertainment will pay $1.5 million and kick in thousands more in customer refunds to settle lawsuits brought by California and Texas over music CDs that installed a hidden anti-piracy program on consumers' computers.  Not only did the program itself open up a security hole on computers, but attempts to remove the software by some customers also damaged the PCs.  The settlements, announced Tuesday [12/19/2006], cover lawsuits over CDs loaded with one of two types of copy-protection software — known as MediaMax or XCP.


Conyers Aides Say He Used Them as Servants.  Three former aides to U.S. Rep. John Conyers say the lawmaker used them as baby sitters and personal servants while they were supposed to be working in his Michigan offices.

Or perhaps this is the next U.N. scandal:
 Overheads take up to 1/3 of tsunami funds.  Up to about a third of the $590 million U.N. fund spent for the Indian Ocean tsunami relief may have gone to pay for overhead.  The Financial Times says its two-month investigation showed the money appears to have been spent on administration, staff and related costs.  The $590 million was part of the United Nation's $1.1 billion disaster flash appeal.

Louis Freeh On Clinton's Skeletons.  In his upcoming book, My FBI, Freeh writes, "The problem was with Bill Clinton — the scandals and the rumored scandals, the incubating ones and the dying ones never ended.  Whatever moral compass the president was consulting was leading him in the wrong direction.  His closets were full of skeletons just waiting to burst out."

Freeh at last.  In his book, Freeh says … "There was always some new investigation brewing, some new calamity bubbling just below the headlines."  Freeh continued:  "The problem was with Bill Clinton, the scandals and rumored scandals, the incubating ones and the dying ones never ended.  Whatever moral compass the president was consulting was leading him in the wrong direction.  His closets were full of skeletons just waiting to burst out."

Hands off the Internet.  The international bureaucrats and influence-seekers who want to hand the Internet over to the United Nations just got a major boost from the European Union.  In an apparent about-face from its previous positions, the EU announced last month that it supports transferring the assigning of Internet domain names — currently handled by a California nonprofit — to an international body.

Who Should Control the Internet?  The United Nations next week will hold the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunisia, at which national representatives will discuss strategies to bridge the "digital divide" and harness information and communication technologies.

Will the Internet become the UNTERNET?  The United Nations wants control of the internet. … At the WSIS Preparatory Commission meeting held this past September in Geneva, the European Union joined with countries like China and Iran in rejecting the concept of not fixing what is not broken and decided that increased international supervision — maybe even international control — of the internet has become necessary.

Update:
 US retains hold of the internet.  The US has won its fight to stay in charge of the internet, despite opposition from many nations.

Bored readers cutting off Globe's circulation.  Circulation is melting away at the Boston Globe, on top of vanishing ad revenue, and the need for deep cuts is forcing closure of its national news desk and two sections within the broadsheet.

Seceding seldom succeeds, but Vermonters try.  "If we had a right to join the Union, we certainly have a right to disband from it," SVR founder Thomas Naylor told the assembly.  In his view, Vermonters should join the cause if they say the US has lost moral authority and is unsustainable, ungovernable, and unfixable.  [And if they] want to help take back Vermont from big business, big markets, and big government — and do so peacefully.

The Mother of All Connections.  We know from these IIS documents that beginning in 1992 the former Iraqi regime regarded bin Laden as an Iraqi Intelligence asset.  We know from IIS documents that the former Iraqi regime provided safe haven and financial support to an Iraqi who has admitted to mixing the chemicals for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center.  We know from IIS documents that Saddam Hussein agreed to Osama bin Laden's request to broadcast anti-Saudi propaganda on Iraqi state-run television.  We know from IIS documents that a "trusted confidante" of bin Laden stayed for more than two weeks at a posh Baghdad hotel as the guest of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.

What is wrong with the legal system in this country?
 Michael Jackson Called for Jury Service.  Authorities want Michael Jackson back in court — this time as a juror.  Jackson received a jury summons at his Neverland Valley Ranch, four months after he was acquitted of child molestation charges.

Republicans Introduce Bill That Unions Won't Like.  Labor unions and their Democrat allies have been howling ever since President Bush suspended the Davis-Bacon Act in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  The suspension allows federal contractors to hire employees at less than the prevailing wage in hurricane-devastated Gulf states.

Sustainable Earth and UN Delusions:  The bureaucratic international boondoggle hilariously misnamed the United Nations came together in 1992, without a great deal of fanfare that I recollect, to build a new Tower of Babel called "sustainable earth."  Very simply, all they want to do is to manage the world … not a very new or very creative idea.

BRAC Wars, Episode Three.  One of the most important issues in military transformation today is Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC). … President George W. Bush has initiated a new round of BRAC designed to eliminate excess basing infrastructure and free up resources that can be reinvested into the Pentagon's critical transformation initiatives.

Shortsighted tall tales:  Mr. Rove has testified before the grand jury several times.  So has Mr. Libby and many others.  E-mails and memos have been produced.  Phone logs have been examined.  There is no hint of complaint from Mr. Fitzgerald that the White House has been anything less than cooperative.  But top Democratic leaders, desperately looking for an issue in the absence of a real agenda, are crying "stonewalling" and some people apparently believe that's happening here.

I agree, let's not let the Rove story die just yet.  Before President Bush's Supreme Court nomination of Judge John Roberts completely overshadows the misidentified Karl Rove scandal, I think we better take a second look at the twisted direction this sad story has taken.  As far as Karl Rove's conduct in the Plame/Wilson affair, there is no scandal.  He didn't come close to committing a crime, nor even an ethical infraction.

How the Media Created Rovegate:  It's clear, based on the notes of his discussion with Matt Cooper of Time, that Rove wasn't aware of the facts and didn't have access to classified information about Valerie Plame's service or status in the CIA.  He said she "apparently" worked at the agency.  In any case, it turns out she isn't covered under a law designed to protect the identities of secret CIA agents.

A role model he is not.  The American Heart Association believes you can trust President Bill Clinton to mentor your daughter.  But try getting the nonprofit organization to admit that Mr. Clinton is a good role model for children.

Birth Control Patch Claims 23 Lives — and Counting.  Federal drug safety reports obtained by The Associated Press under a Freedom of Information Act request, "indicate that in 2004 — when 800,000 women were on the patch — the risk of dying or suffering a survivable blood clot while using the device was about three times higher than while using birth control pills."

Bollixing up the Ballot:  Once the Democrat pulled ahead, Washingtonians were told it was time to move on.  "The election is over," Gregoire announced in December.  "I hope we can move forward, unite our state and address the problems our state is facing."  One problem the state faced, and presumably will face again, is voter fraud.  Even in dismissing Rossi's lawsuit, the judge admitted there were at least 1,678 illegal ballots cast — more than enough to flip the outcome in either direction.

FEC Rules Against DNC/Jesse Jackson.  The Federal Election Commission announced [May 26, 2005] that the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Democratic National Committee have been found guilty of violating federal election law.

Earlier coverage, now somewhat outdated:
 Clinton Case Mystery:  A Democratic fund-raiser involved in Senator Clinton's 2000 campaign has offered a guilty plea to bank fraud charges and is likely to become a government witness at the upcoming federal trial of a top finance aide to Mrs. Clinton, David Rosen, court records obtained by The New York Sun show.

Terri's grave:  "I kept my promise".  Michael Schiavo had a grave marker placed yesterday [6/20/2005] on the cremated remains of his wife Terri Schiavo that lists her death as Feb. 25, 1990 — more than 15 years before she died of court-ordered dehydration.

Terri Schiavo's Autopsy Report Leaves Unanswered Questions.  What is a surprise is that Dr. Thogmartin found no evidence of bulimia or of a potassium imbalance that would have caused Terri to collapse on February 25, 1990.  There is no evidence she had a heart condition before that date, either.  Michael Schiavo made the talk show rounds, asserting that Terri's profound disability resulted from undiagnosed bulimia.  That means Michael Schiavo lied.

Schiavo Autopsy Shows She Died of Severe Dehydration.  Media coverage of the autopsy results have centered on the lack of evidence for abuse and Terri's brain being "severely atrophied."

Vegetative Woman Awakens After Six Years.  A woman who went into a vegetative state more than six years ago awoke this week for three days and spoke with her family and a local television station before slipping back. … Her neurologist, Dr. Randall Bjork, said he couldn't explain how or why she awoke.  "I'm just not able to explain this on the basis of what we know about persistent vegetative states," he said.

Schiavo-like woman speaks after 2½ years.  A Kansas woman severely brain-injured after an accident in 2002 has begun speaking — to the amazement of her doctor.

In Canada, the Schiavo case with an outrageous twist.  An elderly Orthodox Jew is on life support.  His children have adamantly opposed his removal from the ventilator and feeding tube, on the grounds that Jewish law expressly forbids any action designed to shorten life.

Funeral called off after dying mom wakes from coma.  As Raleane (Rae) Kupferschmidt lay motionless in her hospital bed, family and friends said their final goodbyes and the funeral home was called.  But just as the grieving began in her Lake Elmo home, Kupferschmidt woke up from her coma.

First no more air maps, next no more road maps?  The U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) has proposed to withdraw all aeronautical data and products from public distribution.

Information about political junkets paid by lobbyists:
 Rahall slips in the freebie poll.  The list of travel paid by lobbyists and other friends of Congress has an interesting pattern.  Democrats dominate the list, holding the top 12 positions.  The way Democrats have been demonizing Tom DeLay of late, I figured DeLay would be one of the biggest mooches in Congress.  But he is way down at 119th in travel paid for by lobbyists and the like.

Here is the list:  the ranking of Members of Congress taking privately-funded trips, from 2000 to winter 2005.

Also of interest:  Members Receiving the Most Gifts of Travel  during the last five and a quarter years the ranking of Members of Congresss receiving privately-funded trips.

2001 Clinton logging plan challenged.  The Wyoming attorney general and an environmental lawyer challenged the legitimacy of a 2001 Clinton administration logging plan Wednesday [5/4/2005] before the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.  The plan set aside 58 million acres nationwide as roadless areas in which logging is prohibited.  It also barred the U.S. Forest Service from maintaining roads in those areas.

Less speech, and no more car ads.  In 1965 Russ Darrow founded the business — Russ Darrow Group Inc. — that now includes 22 new and used vehicle dealerships.  Because of [the McCain-Feingold legislation], the company felt compelled to ask the Federal Election Commission whether it can continue to advertise when its founder is running for federal office.

Hazel O'Leary, Clinton's Energy Secretary, Removed From Plane.  Nine days after being named president of Fisk University, Hazel O'Leary found herself being questioned by the FBI after being escorted off a commercial airplane.  O'Leary disputes a report that she was loud and abusive.

United Flight 93 crashed without cockpit struggle.  Passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93 fought back against the hijackers but never actually made it into the cockpit, the Sept. 11 commission concluded.

Subway's Anti-American Tray-Liners.  Subway's advertising strategy is a new low in corporate behavior — exploiting cultural tensions and inflaming anti-American sentiment abroad just to sell more sandwiches.  It is appalling that Subway, a U.S. company, would attack Americans and the Statue of Liberty in a time of war ... just to gain market share.

58 Million Wage Earners Pay No Federal Income Tax.  According to the Washington, DC-based Tax Foundation, "a record 44 million tax returns filed in 2005 will be correctly demanding the return of every dollar (or more) that is being withheld from their paychecks during 2004."

Automatic registration for the draft:  The Texas DPS is going to automatically register 18 to 26 year old males with the US Selective Service (military draft) when they apply for or renew a Texas driver's license.

 Editor's Note:   This raises some important questions.  How many state agencies use their leverage to gather information for federal agencies?  And what other agencies will begin using this technique?

Charges Dropped Against Yee.  Citing national security concerns, the Army on Friday [3/19/2004] dropped all charges against a Muslim chaplain accused of mishandling classified documents at Guantanamo Bay, which houses suspected terrorists.

 Editor's Note:   The charges were dropped because of "national security concerns"?  That's why he was arrested!

Cheney:  War Could Last Generations.  Vice President Dick Cheney warned that the battle against terrorism — like the Cold War — could last generations, according to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Review of death sentences "ordered".  The International Court of Justice ruled [3/31/2004] that the United States "must" review the convictions and death sentences of 51 Mexicans in U.S. jails, saying local authorities had failed to consult Mexican consulates in violation of international law.

 Editor's Note:   Obviously the International Court has no leverage with which to enforce this order.

Dean urged unilateral action in Bosnia.  In a letter to President Clinton, Howard Dean appears to contradict his core complaint that President Bush has followed a unilateral foreign policy, instead of a multilateral approach that relies on consultation and joint action with allies.  He has repeatedly attacked Bush's decision to invade Iraq.

Supreme Court Upholds Political Money Law.  A sharply divided Supreme Court upheld key features of the nation's new law intended to lessen the influence of money in politics, ruling Wednesday [12/10/2003] that the government may ban unlimited donations to political parties.

Is Haiti Facing a Voodoo-Christian Showdown?  In late April, Haiti's President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a former Catholic priest, declared voodoo an officially recognized religion.  The decision means, among other things, that marriage ceremonies conducted by voodoo priests now have equal standing with Catholic ones.

Hi-tech hunt for music downloaders:  Using a surprisingly astute technical procedure, the RIAA examined song files on a woman's computer and traced their digital fingerprints back to Napster.

Clinton Whitewater costs won't be paid by taxpayers.  An appeals court in Washington, D.C., [has] rejected a request by former President Bill Clinton and Sen. Hillary Clinton that the federal government reimburse them for legal fees incurred during the Whitewater independent counsel investigation.

Juanita Broaddrick Dares Hillary:  Clinton rape accuser Juanita Broaddrick took to the radio airwaves on Friday [06/06/2003] to challenge Hillary Clinton's claim that she didn't know about her husband's philandering.

Carter Silent On Castro's Crackdown:  Jimmy Carter is the self-appointed globetrotter on behalf of human rights.  But when Carter friend Fidel Castro unleashed a brutal wave of repression recently, that included extradjudicial executions, Carter's reaction was silence, followed by muted criticism, and finalized with a stinging criticism of — the United States!

Fidel Castro's Dupes:  In Castro's Cuba, it is a crime to meet to discuss the economy, to write letters to the government, to report on political developments, to speak to international reporters, to advocate human rights, to visit friends or relatives outside your local area of residence without government permission.

Chicago Uses Storm-Troop Tactics to Trash Meigs.  The City of Chicago used surprise and shock tactics to start demolishing Meigs Field, the world-renowned airport serving downtown, ripping up runway without notice in the dark of night under police guard.

Why not just outlaw the potatoes?  Homemade potato cannons have become popular in Germany, and "prosecutors in the republic's 16 states are passing emergency rulings to try to outlaw them."

Nation's Most-Dangerous Cities Ranked:  Rankings Based On FBI Crime-Figures Analysis.

The list:  America's safest — and the most dangerous - cities:  St. Louis, Missouri is the Most Dangerous.

Was United Flight 93 shot down on September 11?  Report revisits nagging question of what really happened to the doomed jet.

To protect and serve:  Chances are the 42-year-old mother of two who was allegedly gang-raped in New York City by five illegal aliens did not know that Article Four, Section Four of the Constitution says that the federal government will protect each state against "invasion" and "domestic violence."

Smithsonian Museum Blasted for Stressing America's Failures.  A tour of America's premier federal historical museum in Washington D.C., reveals an unflattering historical portrait of America oppressing minorities.  Some tourists and cultural critics say the Smithsonian curators have "washed out" the nation's European ancestry in favor of "diversity" history.

U.S. won't support Net "hate speech" ban:  The Bush administration said on Friday [11/15/2002] that it will not support a proposed treaty to restrict "hate speech" on the Internet.

Political history – and the future:  Not since Ronald Reagan has a man who was supposed to be so dumb kept beating people who were supposed to be so smart.

Crying Wolf — The Genuine Dilemma of False Alarms:  It's absolutely astonishing that up to 98 percent — yes, 98 percent! — of all alarms are false.  Millions upon millions of dollars' worth of precious law enforcement time and resources are squandered annually responding to erroneous alarm calls.  And, even more tragic, over the years numerous police officers have been severely injured, and indeed killed, answering false alarms.

A New "Standard" For Customer "No-Service":  We have taken a giant step backwards with regard to the use of the telephone based customer service.  More and more companies are making it absolutely impossible for customers to reach them by telephone.

Painting Depicting Police Shooting Not a Threat, Court Rules:  A California high school student's painting, which depicted him shooting a female police officer in the head, does not constitute a threat, according to a recent ruling by a state appeals court in Sacramento.

 Excellent!   Four Attacks on the Rule of Law:  The Rule of Law is of profound value to all of us.  Yet most of us fail to raise a finger against those who are waging flat-out war against its very foundations.  The assault comes from four directions.

Mailboxes Vanish:  If you've noticed that mailboxes seem harder to find than ever, it's true:  The government has removed almost 7,000 of them since September 11.

Neighborhood mailboxes being stamped out.  If you're suddenly having trouble finding a neighborhood mailbox, you've got lots of company.  In recent weeks, one-quarter of the 3,700 collection boxes in the Los Angeles area have been removed, said Joseph L. Harrison, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service's Los Angeles district.

"Metric Martyrs" Appeal To Go To UK's Highest Appeals Court:  Five small businessmen who were prosecuted for selling goods in imperial measures plan to take their case to Britain's highest appeals court, arguing that a series of lower court rulings have resulted in a constitutional crisis and may even jeopardize the U.K.'s sovereignty.  The five "metric martyrs" are battling against European Union regulations requiring loose goods to be sold in metric units only.

Eight years later,  All food must be weighed and sold by the kilo.
 EU to ban selling eggs by the dozen.  British shoppers are to be banned from buying eggs by the dozen under new regulations approved by the European Parliament.  For the first time, eggs and other products such as oranges and bread rolls will be sold by weight instead of by the number contained in a packet.

White House vandalism report delayed:  The investigation into last year's White House vandalism has stalled because staffers have not been available for interviews for three months, a General Accounting Office investigator told WorldNetDaily.

NOW got federal tax dollars:  Feminist group received anti-tobacco money during Clinton years.

Survey: 1 in 5 Teenagers Ignorant About U.S. Independence:  As America celebrated its 225th birthday, a recent poll shows that almost a quarter of America's teenagers have trouble passing a fourth-grade level U.S. history test.  In fact, 22 percent could not name the country from which the United States declared its independence.


Please note that the apolitical news is now on the Apolitical News Page.

 New!   The Spillway:  Overflow from this and other pages.



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