A five star hotel is in the background of the photo above.
2,000 years ago, this was a thriving Greco-Roman port city, boasting villas of merchants grown rich on the wheat and olive trade.
Whatever happened to recovery summer?
This was supposed to be the season the economy heated up, thanks to a wave of public works projects, funded by the government's stimulus program.
And before long, stimulus dollars will be fading like autumn leaves.
But wait…according to a report at the second link below, Obama is calling for another $50,000,000,000.00 stimulus to for public works projects.
That's right -- the failed Recovery Summer spurs a request for $50 Billion additional stimulus.
If it didn't work last summer, why would it work this fall?
Link here and here.
The Los Angeles Times reported over the weekend that the $75.5-million Carson-Gore Academy of Environmental Sciences (the late environmental author Rachel Carson got top billing over Gore), set to open to students next week, was built on top of more than a dozen storage tanks containing industrial toxins.
A nearby gas station may have also polluted the soil with fuel leaks, the Times reports.
As construction crews worked through the weekend to replace the polluted soil, the irony of Gore’s name sitting atop a deemed toxic site has proved irresistible to the right.
The 84-year-old Lewis (shown above with one of his MDA kids) said, "I'm heartened by the unique ability of Americans to help others in need, when they themselves are likely struggling financially."
Balloon Boy dad Richard Heene’s probation was transferred from Larimer County to Florida at his request.
The photo above shows Richard Heene with his son, Falcon at the time of the hoax.
The Heenes became infamous after claiming October 15 that a homemade, UFO-shaped balloon had floated away with their young son, Falcon, then 6, aboard. The boy was, instead, found safe in the family garage several hours later.
Richard Heene pleaded guilty to falsely influencing authorities and his wife, Mayumi, pleaded guilty to filing a false report. Richard Heene served 90 days in jail and was placed on home detention. Mayumi Heene spent 10 weekends working at nonprofits.
The Lower photo shows Mayumi and Richard Heene at the time of their sentencing.
Link
A House ethics panel has charged the Harlem Democrat with 13 violations, including using a rent controlled Manhattan apartment as a campaign office and failing to pay taxes on a rental property in the Dominican Republic.
Rangel has maintained he has done nothing wrong and has said he will continue to fight the charges.
The New York Daily News reported that the congressman's latest campaign filing Friday shows he's spent more than $1.8 million on legal fees ($111,000 since July) related to the case. He's paying much of the money out of his campaign account.
Mr. Rangel is running for re-election and faces several challengers in a Democrat primary September 14.
Link
A farmer eats his lunch while following his flock of ducks along a country road in Guangyuan County, China.
Days after the U.S. officially ended combat operations and touted Iraq's ability to defend itself, American troops found themselves battling heavily armed militants assaulting an Iraqi military headquarters in the center of Baghdad on Sunday. The fighting killed 12 people and wounded dozens.
It was the first exchange of fire involving U.S. troops in Baghdad since the Aug. 31 deadline for formally ending the combat mission, and it showed that American troops remaining in the country are still being drawn into the fighting.
Hillary, a Border Collie, is shown herding several ducks dressed in formal attire during a demonstration inside the new Purina Event Center in Gray Summit, Missouri.
Social Security officials say more than 19,000 people in Alabama and Tennessee got an extra check, accidentally printed by the U.S. Treasury Department.
With an average monthly payment of $1,100 per person, that's more than $20 million extra circulating.
Anyone who cashes the extra check will get a call from Social Security saying the money will be deducted from future checks.
It wasn't Christmas in September after all.
Link
The graph above shows the presidential approval in December, 2009 based on the Rasmussen daily tracking poll. 
The change has been a steady and relentless downward slide for the last eighteen months.
It also has a quotation attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr. Problem is the quote is not a King quote.
The report said the 70-year-old pilot walked away from the wreckage. However, the report also said the pilot was in serious condition.
More than 10,000 vehicles are stuck in a 120km (75-mile) traffic jam on China's Beijing to Tibet motorway.
A 100km traffic jam that had lasted nine days on the same motorway was cleared just over a week ago.
How long will this traffic jam last? So far this highway has been plugged up for five days.
The gridlocked section of the road, in the north-eastern region of Inner Mongolia, has been turned into a parking lot.
Most of the vehicles stuck in the jam, which began on Tuesday, are coal trucks heading to Beijing.
The stranded motorists complained of nowhere to attend to bathing and toilet needs.
Locals brought food to the stranded drivers. In the previous nine-day traffic jam drivers complained of price gouging by local food providers.
Link
"She has more experience working in and with the White House than most living presidents. She is one of the most admired women in our nation's history.
Let's make sure the president we should have elected in 2008 will be on the ballot in 2012. Hillary Clinton for President. Start now.
Where there's a Hill there's a way," says an ad that began running on television in New Orleans Wednesday.
The TV ad was paid for by William DeJean a Chicago dentist.
DeJean said he put the ad up because "I'm a dentist and I don't think this country is headed in the right direction."
Actually, his reasoning makes about as much sense as most anything else in politics.
Bill will probably volunteer to be the Intern Czar if she is elected.
More here.
A Mona Lisa mosaic artwork made of 6,000 slices of toast on show at a shopping mall in Hong Kong
Hasani, a 6-month-old western lowland gorilla, sits in the grass at a gorilla exhibit during his first public viewing at California's San Francisco Zoo, June 5, 2009.
The college vote is up for grabs this year — to an extent that would have seemed unlikely two years ago, when a generation of young people seemed to swoon over Barack Obama.
Though many students are liberals on social issues, the economic reality of a weak job market has taken a toll on their loyalties: far fewer 18- to 29-year-olds now identify themselves as Democrats compared with 2008.
“Is the recession, which is hitting young people very hard, doing lasting or permanent damage to what looked like a good Democratic advantage with this age group?”
A jobless reality in the wake of failed stimulus programs that have hardly slowed the decline in the unemployed rate seems to be getting the attention of those on college campuses.
Many students, especially seniors nearing graduation, said that worries about the economy, and about getting a job after graduation, had filtered through the campus, dampening enthusiasm for Democrats in Congress and Mr. Obama.
The number of garage sales could go down significantly if a $25 fee is attached which could decrease the revenue estimate.
If this keeps up, no one's going to trust any scientists.
The global-warming establishment took a body blow this week, as the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change received a stunning rebuke from a top-notch independent investigation.
Al Gore and many other warming alarmists have insisted that "the debate is over" -- that the science was "settled."
That claim is now in shreds -- though the grants are still flowing, and advocates still hope Congress will pass some version of the economically ruinous "cap and trade" anti-warming bill.
The entire report is here.
www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/meltdown_of_the_climate_consensus_G0kWdclUvwhVr6DYH6A4uJ
A divided Supreme Judicial Court ruled yesterday that a state board had the power to sidestep community opposition to grant the controversial Cape Wind energy project local and state permits it needs to start construction in the waters off Cape Cod.
That sound you hear is Teddy Kennedy, a vocal opponent of Cape Wind, rolling in his grave at the court ruling.
In the photo above Interior Secretary Ken Salazar seems to be blessing the waters off Cape Cod. Below is what Cape Wind will probably look like.
Cape Wind will be America's first offshore wind farm on Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound. Miles from the nearest shore, 130 wind turbines will produce up to 420 megawatts of clean, renewable energy.
It is claimed that in average winds, Cape Wind will provide three quarters of the Cape and Islands electricity needs.
That may happen until the first category 5 hits and plunks the windmills in the drink - except for one left standing as a twisted, mangled reminder that, just maybe, Teddy was right after all.
Cape Wind must still win approval from the Department of Public Utilities.
While the wind farm is proposed in federal waters, beyond the reach of most state and local agency decisions, a transmission line will cross state waters and tie into the region’s electricity grid on land, giving various government agencies authority to review pieces of the project.
Time will tell if Teddy has the last laugh or if Cape Wind will be build "over his dead body."
Link
The 70-year-old actor was served with a departure prohibition order while in Australia to attend his 101-year-old mother's funeral.
Joseph Thomas Hansen (pictured), of Claire City, was arrested Aug. 23 after someone tipped off a police school resource officer that Hansen had talked about an attack, authorities said.
Clair City is a small town between Sisseton, South Dakota and the North Dakota state line.
He has pleaded not guilty to selling, transporting or possessing an explosive device and possessing substances with the intent to make a destructive device, and is due back in court Sept. 14. If convicted of all charges, he could face up to 25 years in prison.
He listed 39 people he hated and the reasons why, and he researched the 1999 Columbine school massacre in Littleton, Colo., in which two student gunmen killed 12 classmates and a teacher and wounded 26 others before committing suicide.
Left to right: Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush
Police shot and killed a gunman who held three hostages for several hours Wednesday at the Discovery Communications building in Silver Spring, Md., authorities said.
They said the hostages were safe.
At least one explosive device on his body went off when he was shot, and other explosive devices could still be in the building in Montgomery County in suburban Washington, D.C.
The man, James Jay Lee, 43, was a longtime protester at the building.
Included in a manifesto by Mr. Lee:
“Nothing is more important than saving ... the Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels. The humans? The planet does not need humans.”
Lee said he experienced an ‘‘awakening” when he watched former Vice President Al Gore’s environmental documentary ‘‘An Inconvenient Truth."
More here.
A rocket enthusiast prepares a rocket at the International Rocket Week in Largs, Scotland.
An experimental synthetic cornea implanted in 10 patients may be a potential alternative to cadaver corneas for curing vision loss caused by corneal inflammation and scarring.
Eye surgeons primarily use cadaver corneas for transplants, but that requires the use of anti-rejection drugs and presents a risk of infection.
There is also a shortage of donated corneas in much of the world.
Plastic corneas can be used, but they present other problems and are generally tried only when tissue transplants have failed.
More here.
Two things most people took away from the Oval Office speech:1) The war is over in Iraq.
2) There will be a federal cost saving as a result.
Not mentioned in the speech:
The stimulus program has cost more than the entire Iraq war!
The graph below shows deficits with and without the Iraq war. 
The Iraq war spending is shown in blue. Other federal spending is shown in red. Notice how the skyrocketing red coincides with the Obama stimulus programs.
Link
Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski (upper photo) was defeated by Sarah Palin-backed candidate in GOP primary Tuesday by a little-known conservative lawyer in what could be the biggest political upset of the year.
Joe Miller (lower photo), backed by Sarah Palin and the Tea Party Express, became the latest newcomer to the national political stage to take down an incumbent in 2010 amid deep dissatisfaction with the Washington establishment.
Murkowski trailed Miller, a Faribanks attorney, by 1,668 votes after the Aug. 24 primary. Election officials began counting absentee and outstanding ballots Tuesday, and Murkowski made slight gains. But after more than 15,000 ballots were counted, she remained 1,630 votes behind.
The stunning result was a huge validation of the political power of Palin as the former Alaska governor has been playing kingmaker in midterm elections ahead of a potential 2012 White House run.
The photo above shows Jamie and Frank McCourt in 2004 when they became the fourth owners of the Dodgers since the team moved from Brooklyn in 1958.
Researchers in the Netherlands report that among heart-attack survivors, those who boosted their omega-3 intake had the same risk of a second heart attack as those who did not supplement their diet with added omega-3s.
More here.
Kevin Aylward entered this photo of the ethically challenged Congressman Charlie Rangel in one of his photo caption contests last month.
A picture of my cave
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