New glass balconies on Sears Tower 103rd floor

Visitors to the Sears Tower in Chicago are now treated to unobstructed views of the city from the building's west side and a heart-stopping vista of the street and Chicago River below – for those brave enough to look straight down.

These balconies are not for the faint of heart. Don’t go near them if your are petrified of heights.

The balconies are suspended 1,353 feet (412 meters) in the air and jut out 4 feet (1.22 meters) from the building's 103rd floor Skydeck. They're actually more like boxes than balconies, with transparent walls, floor and ceiling.

The box shaped balconies are made of glass 1.4 inches thick and can hold five tons.

Sears Tower officials have said the inspiration for the balconies came from the hundreds of forehead prints visitors left behind on Skydeck windows every week. Now, staff will have a new glass surface to clean: floors.




The balconies are just one of the big changes coming to the Sears Tower in Chicago. The building's name will also. Later this summer the building will become the Willis Tower.

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Obama assured of chilly reception in Russian

The Obamamania that has swept much of the rest of the world will it be absent when Mr.Obama meets with Russian president Dmitri Medvedev for a summit meeting.

A recent poll by Russia's Levada Centre found only 23 per cent of citizens believe the US president will "do the right thing in world affairs", with many doubting his promise of change will heal antagonisms between Russia and the West.

Makes a difference when the Russian media doesn’t swoon all over him as the US media does.

A long list of issues – from Nato's eastward expansion, to missile defence, to human rights, to the contest for oil and gas in Central Asia – continue to poison relations between the former Cold War superpowers.

Obama will need to have his teleprompters working as they never have before because the Russians see him for what he is.

Russian news agency Pravda was less than subtle in an editorial summing up the Obama administration, headlined: "Obama: Deceiver, cheat, swindler, liar, fraudster, con-artist."

Yes, Pravda gets it!

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Independence Day 2009

...testing remote advance posting

Ain’t comin’ out ‘till the firecrackers stop

British comedy actress Mollie Sugden dies at 86

Mollie Sugden was one of a select group of British performers to achieve national treasure status. She was noted for her portrayal of fearsome battleaxes.

Sugden was best known for playing the bossy sales lady Mrs. Slocombe (pictured) in the long-running BBC sitcom Are You Being Served.

The innuendo-laden television comedy was successfully exported for several years and is still being shown on public broadcasting stations in America.


Mollie Sugden is shown above at the funeral of her Are You Being Served co-star Wendy Richard earlier this year. Richard lost her long battle with cancer at age 65.

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Minnesotan’s must be sooo proud

(click on picture to enlarge)
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Watchful eye

A man vacuums near a replica of the face of the Statue of Liberty in the statue's visitor center in New York City.

Tourists will be allowed to visit the top of the statue again beginning July 4th.

Baby gorilla at Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha

This 12-day-old gorilla was born to Timu, the world’s first test tube gorilla.

Go after ACORN says judge

A judge in Pennsylvania says somebody has to go after ACORN.

A district judge in southwestern Pennsylvania, who held another ACORN worker for trial on election law violations, urged prosecutors to go after the real culprit, the organization that employed him - ACORN.

"Somebody has to go after ACORN," Senior District Judge Richard H. Zoller said about the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)

The judge said it's happening all over the country. “All you have to do is turn on the television," he said, referring to voter registration fraud charges brought recently against ACORN and its workers in Nevada.

More of the story here.

Worlds longest yard sale

This gigantic four-day yard sale is held every year beginning on the first Thursday of the month of August (this year it will be August 6-9)

This sale is 654 miles long - from West Unity, Ohio to Gadsden, Alabama - along the highway 127 corridor.

One of the photos below shows a life-size Darth Vadar - just the thing for your front entry hall.

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Franken declared winner giving Democrats filibuster proof Senate majority

Al Franken (pictured) was given a Senate victory in Minnesota giving the Democrats their magic 60-vote majority.

The Franken win in Minnesota is reminiscent of an election in the Pacific Northwest five years ago.

Remember the 2004 gubernatorial election in the state of Washington? That’s when Christine Gregoire was declared the winner after three recounts. She was behind in the first two recounts until additional ballots were mysteriously discovered in King County.

Al Franken has followed the same path in his Minnesota Senate race against Norm Coleman. After recounts that even produced ballots mysteriously found in the trunk of an election workers car. In on county there were more votes for Franken than registered voters in on the county.

Mr. Franken has managed to pull a “Gregoire” in Minnesota.

As Joseph Stalin once said - elections are not decided by the people who cast the ballots - elections are decided by the people who count the ballots.

One blogger suggested it may be appropriate for Al Franken to publicly thank ACORN for his win.

We reported on the Al Franken saga four times in the past. Two of those reports can be found here and here.

More on the Franken win here and here.

Meet Al Franken the new Minnesota Senator

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Senator Al Franken, Democrat from Minnesota

Michael Jackson fan with Jacko figurine

Racket demolished during tennis tournament

Belgian Kristof Vliegen breaks his racket during a match against Croatian Ivan Ljubicic during the Monte-Carlo ATP Masters Tournament.

Do they ever get their socks clean after playing on a clay court?

Supreme Court overturns Obama’s nominee for Supreme Court

Can’t you just hear conservatives saying, “there, take that Mr. Obama!”

The Supreme Court today narrowly ruled in favor of white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., who said they were denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision by Judge Sonia Sotomayor (pictured) that had come to play a large role in the consideration of her nomination for the high court.

The city had thrown out the results of a promotion test because no African Americans and only two Hispanics would have qualified for promotions. It said it feared a lawsuit from minorities under federal laws that said such "disparate impacts" on test results could be used to show discrimination.

In effect, the court was deciding when avoiding potential discrimination against one group amounted to actual discrimination against another.

Without leaning on affirmative action, Obama and his handlers could not possibly have selected Sonia Sotomayor as a Supreme Court nominee.

Above: firefighters react to SC decision.
Her rulings are simplistic, some of them were reportedly only one or two sentences long. Her rulings were often not bound by case law but by what she thinks the law should say.

As with many other left-wing judges, she was prone to make law from the bench rather than interpret law.

The nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court is actually rather pathetic. By her won admission, Sotomayor didn't have the intellectual capacity to get into Law School without affirmative action.

Now, her nomination to the Supreme Court is a classic case of an affirmative action president nominating an affirmative action judge to serve on the highest court of the land.

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Bernard Madoff: stripped of stolen riches and given life in prison

An article at the link below reports:

Convicted Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff (pictured) was sentenced to 150 years in prison Monday for a fraud so extensive that the judge said he needed to send a message to potential imitators and to victims who demanded harsh punishment.

Scattered applause and whoops broke out in the crowded Manhattan courtroom after U.S. District Judge Denny Chin issued the maximum sentence to the 71-year-old defendant.

The judge said a conservative estimate of the amount Madoff cost his victims is more than $13 billion.


Bernard Madoff owned several homes including a $6.5 million penthouse in a building on Manhattan’s Upper Eastside shown above.


Now he resides in this cell in the Metropolitan Correctional Center prison in New York awaiting transfer to a prison where he will spend the rest of his life.

Before sentencing, one victim said, “Life has been a living hell. It feels like the nightmare we can't wake from.”

Another said, “He stole from the rich. He stole from the poor. He stole from the in between. He has no values. He cheated his victims out of their money so he and his wife Ruth could live a life of luxury beyond belief,”

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Most think they are not old regardless of age

A survey by Pew Research Center found that most people say they feel younger than their calendar age.

The average age considered "old" by respondents was 68 -- but there were real differences in perception driven by the respondents' own ages:

More than half of those under 30 say the average person becomes old before 60.

Middle-aged respondents say it's closer to 70.

Those aged 65 and older say "old" is not until 75.

"What you find is the older people are, the more people push back the age that is old," says Russell Ward, a sociologist who focuses on aging at the University at Albany, State University of New York, and who was not involved in the survey. "It's more in your future. You're not there yet."

But isn’t it how a person feels that determines when a person thinks they are old?

We all know people who look and act much younger than their biological age.

I have often said (with tongue-in-cheek) that sometimes I feel much younger than my calendar years. Other times, however, I get the urge to ship a case of prune juice to the nearest nursing home along with a signed note saying, “hold for arrival.”

Seriously, the secret of aging is to stay young at heart no matter how old the rest of your body is.

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Countless Russians jobless as Putin closes casino’s

Vladimir Putin has decreed that every legal casino and slot-machine parlor in Russia will be shut down.

It will be one of the largest mass layoffs in recent Russian history.

Putin’s anti-vice plan will put hundreds of thousands of people out of work in the midst of a global economic crisis.

The Kremlin has offered the gambling industry only one option for survival: relocate to four regions in remote areas of Russia, as many as 4,000 miles from the capital.


The potential marketing slogans -- Come to the Las Vegas of Siberia! Have a Ball near the North Korean Border! -- may not sound inviting, but that is in part what the government envisions.

None of the four regions are prepared for the transfer, and no casino is expected to reopen for several years leaving the industry’s workers out on the street indefinitely.

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Climate Change Bill could haunt Democrats in future elections

As liberal Democrats struggled to win a narrow, party-line approval of climate change legislation, they had to be haunted by a critical question: has the political climate changed since 1993?

Under pressure from the Clinton administration, many House Democrats reluctantly backed a proposed B.T.U. tax pushed by a young inexperienced president.

The ill-fated B.T.U. bill was intended to tax each unit of energy consumed.

When the bill later went down in flames in the Senate, many Democrats in the House got burned when it was seized upon as a campaign issue by Republicans, who took control of the House the next year.

Now that another equally absurd bill, promoted by another young inexperienced president, has squeaked by the House, how many Democrats who voted for it are looking over their shoulders thinking déjà vu?

Whether Democrats realize it or not, the 2010 election campaign officially began with the narrow passage of this climate change bill in the House.

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TV pitchman Billy Mays dead at age 50

Fox News reported this morning:

Television pitchman Billy Mays (pictured), who built his fame by appearing on commercials and infomercials promoting household products and gadgets, died Sunday.

Mays, 50, was found unresponsive by his wife inside his Tampa, Fla., home at 7:45 a.m. on Sunday, according to the Tampa Police Department.

Mays reportedly had a very pleasant personality and was very approachable.

However, if you ever watched late-night TV, you knew a different Billy Mays. He would pop up every few minutes in yet another commercial, bellowing as if he thought the whole world has gone a little deaf. That’s probably I why never could get myself to buy OxiClean.

No matter how nice Billy Mays was off camera, he had me reaching for the mute button on the remote more than any other single person.

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House narrowly passes climate energy bill

An article at the link below reports:

Sadly, the House passed the 1,200-page climate bill that congress was not allowed to read.


Despite heated objections by some Republicans, the unread 1,200-page Waxman-Markey climate bill ( pictured) was passed 219-212 in the House on Friday.

300 pages were added to the bill at 3 a.m. making it impossible for congressmen to read the entire bill before the vote.

Minority leader John Boehner (upper photo) was criticized for beginning a short filibuster to give time for his colleagues and aides to scan the unread extra passages and present certain excerpts on the floor.

That’s the Obama way - present a bill containing over 1,000 pages with several hundred pages added just a few hours before the vote.

Shockingly, co-sponsor Henry Waxman (lower photo) objected to Boehner’s reading the bill on the House floor, and tried to prevent it on procedural grounds so that is contents would remain unknown and no one would shift support or delay the bill’s passage.

Ed Markey, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, rose to report that a copy was only available at the speaker’s desk or online, which would require members "to leave the floor to access."

It is possible that the Democrats can see the tides turning in the last couple of weeks and they're rushing things through.

Conservatives and most moderates are hoping the Senate will stop the insanity by defeating this bill.

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Obama promotes climate change bill in face of conflicting data

Obama promotes climate change bill in face of conflicting data
Barack Obama (pictured) defends his assertion that a climate-change measure making its way through Congress would greatly reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil even though government figures raised questions about whether he was overstating its effect.

Washington liberals do not want us seek new oil production here at home. In fact they want us to shut down our domestic production while they whine about our dependence on foreign oil. We can’t have it both ways.


Nancy Pelosi is expressing the basic liberal view

Mr. Obama is intent on forcing this bill through congress even though the governments’ own figures show the data behind the bill is flawed.

Why does Obama and the left-wing liberals want this flawed bill pushed through? It’s mostly about power and control over people and businesses.

Mr. Obama warned that it would take a long time for us to see results from this bill.

He even said that ten years from now it won’t even look like much change has taken place. He said it would take twenty to thirty years so see the change he promised.

It will take twenty or thirty years to force U.S. automakers and foreign auto importers to supply electric and/or diesel-electric cars as the only autos available to the general public.


This model could be ordered with teleprompters instead of the solar panels shown above

It is interesting to note that Al Gore has been asked to stay away from Washington during the voting on this bill. He is, however, making telephone calls today from his home in Tennessee to help sway undecided congressmen.

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Siberian tiger and cubs

Siberian tiger looks after her six newborn cubs in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China

Rahm it through with Emanuel’s help

Not your average port-a-potty

A woman examines a decorated toilet during an art show in Kiev, Ukraine.

The event marked the 100th anniversary of the lavatory.

The Ukrainian-Russian art union that organized the show asked pedestrians to sit on the toilets and think about problems produced by the economic crisis.

No, really - that’s what they said - sit on the toilets and think about problems produced by the economic crisis.

You just can’t make up stuff like this!

Massachusetts housing homeless in motels

The state of Massachusetts is renting motel rooms for a record number of families at a cost to taxpayers of $2 million per month.

The state gives high unemployment and the rising number of home foreclosures as the reason the state is taking this action.

It costs an average of $85 per night to have families, including nearly 1000 children, stay in motels.

That’s not good enough for homeless advocates because they say families are not getting the support of shelters with living rooms, kitchens, and play areas.

How long before the homeless will be better off than families living in their own homes?

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The Obama media love affair upstaged by Gov. Mark Sanford

Always room for one more

(click on picture to enlarge)
This Time Magazine photo was taken on the outskirts of Abeche in western Chad.

The New York Times and CBS conduct another “push poll”

A New York Times/CBS News poll released over the weekend showed broad bipartisan support for President Obama’s health care reform.

Only problem is, the New York Times/CBS poll over-sampled Obama voters compared to McCain voters. It was another “push poll” designed to get the pro-Obama results they wanted.

The poll showed 72% support for Obama's Health Care Plan but only because it was stacked with Obama supporters.

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Rain check? Who needs a rain check?

A girl runs into water pouring down from a stadium's upper balcony during a rain delay before the start of a Major League baseball game between the Texas Rangers and Toronto Blue Jays in Arlington, Texas, on June 10.

Even Obama supporters say the honeymoon is over

There is a report at the link below titled: “The presidency at five months.”

The Congressional Budget Office's preliminary cost and deficit calculations of the president's overall budget and specific health proposals have sent tremors through the Democratic Party establishment - and the White House is feeling the vibrations.

Last week, both David Broder, The Washington Post's venerable and authoritative political voice, and Chuck Todd, NBC's new important political voice, declared President Obama's honeymoon over.

The previous paragraph is revealing barometer of the political climate in Washington because both Broder and Todd have been “in the tank” for Mr. Obama from the start of the presidential campaign.

The report says it is a commonplace of Washington politics that it is not news when the other party attacks, but it is noteworthy when there is opposition within a president's own party.

Last week, on two of his three major domestic legislative initiatives - health policy and financial re-regulation - strong Democratic Party congressional doubts (and, on some important details, opposition) emerged.

Obama’s early predictions of unemployment rates have turned out to be well under the actual numbers.

Interest rates on Treasury notes needed to finance Obama’s proposed deficits are steadily climbing which is driving up mortgage rates and driving down housing recovery.

His foreign policy hasn’t been any better.

How many foreign leaders has Barack Obama scraped and bowed to on his apology tours?

The media may soon begin to tire of making excuses for him. In that event, the honeymoon will definitely be over.

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Cliff hangers

Death defying South Korean climbers look diminutive as they go rock-climbing on Buckhan mountain near Seoul, South Korea.

Obama says he is an almost cured smoker

The question of his smoking came one day after Mr. Obama signed a sweeping new law that regulates tobacco companies and their marketing to children. By the way, Obama said he doesn’t smoke in front of his children.

After plenty of huffing about puffing, Obama admitted Tuesday that he still sometimes smokes cigarettes, declaring his habit "95 percent cured."

Mr. Obama acknowledged before taking office that he knew smoking is not allowed on White House grounds, telling NBC, "You will not see any violations of these rules in the White House."

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Signing anti-smoking bill with a cigarette

Cross-country bus travel may be on the rise

An article at the link below reports the following story:

Boarding a Greyhound bus in Washington, D.C., on a recent evening, luggage in hand and collar undone, David Martinez grabs a seat and pops open his laptop. "This is definitely a step up," says the 26-year-old Harvard graduate, who was headed for New York after interviewing for a job with the U.S. State Department.

It's the new face of bus travel. After years as the ugly stepchild of intercity transportation -- thanks to its long-held reputation as unfriendly, uncomfortable and tawdry -- bus travel is bouncing back.

I rode cross-country busses several years ago when I was in the military.


Above is a new luxury bus. Below is an old Greyhound Silversides much like the busses I rode many years ago.


Unfriendly, uncomfortable and tawdry was a good description of the bus travel I experienced.

The amenities consisted of heavily worn seat cushions and that’s about it. No lavatories. No air-conditioning. It’s a good thing they supplied ashtrays because the vast majority of passengers smoked. The blue tobacco haze made it nearly impossible to see passengers boarding the bus unless you were in the first three or four seats.

From Chicago on down to Fort Bragg, North Carolina required a transfer to Trailways, which made me wish I was back on the grubby Greyhound bus I boarded in Omaha.

To make matters worse, this was prior to the end of segregation in the South. If there were no seats in the “whites only” section in the front of the bus, I had to stand even if there were vacant seats in the “colored only” section in the back.

JFK and MLK took care of the “whites only” and “colored only” situation but not until after my bus riding days were over.

I’m not sure about bus riding today. No matter how cushy the buses are with amenities like wireless internet service, most of them will still stop at slummy bus depots. Even if some of the depots have been renovated, they will still be located in undesirable areas.

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Before rushing out to buy that hybrid car...

Unlike conventional vehicles, the highest-mileage hybrids tend to be a bit sluggish when it comes to acceleration.

If you think the hybrid will drive like any other car - think again! Some hybrids exhibit peculiar driving behaviors.

The brakes on some hybrids feel unusual because when the brake pedal is pressed, traditional brakes aren't actually slowing the car, a regenerative motor is recapturing the vehicle's kinetic energy, turning it into electricity to store in on-board batteries.

Hybrids also use electrically-driven power steering. These steering systems often have a less direct feeling that's closer to a video game than a sports car.

These dynamic differences mean that hybrids can feel odd to drive compared to a more traditional vehicle, plus they highlight the complexity that is systemic with hybrid vehicles. The special sub-systems, components, integration, and programming necessary to make hybrids run are nothing short of rocket science.

This complexity is not without cost.

Compare a hybrid vehicle to an otherwise comparable non-hybrid car and the hybrid will cost anywhere from $1750-$5,000 more for small vehicles and up to $15,000 more for larger hybrid vehicles.

There are two negative attributes often associated with hybrids in the minds of potential hybrid buyers:

1. With over inflated fuel-economy claims when the Prius was introduced, how accurate are the new lower mileage estimates? Are the new mileage claims still over inflated?

2. Will fire rescue or police department EMT’s be afraid to use the jaws of live on a hybrid car for fear of electrocution?

Anyone considering the purchase of a hybrid should also know that there are added registration fees in some states.

Buying a hybrid for the savings may not make sense. However, if being environmentally responsible is worth the extra cost, then rush right out and buy that hybrid.

Anti NATO clown

An anti-NATO activist dressed as a clown faces riot police blocking the access to a bridge in downtown Strasbourg, France, during NATO's 60th-anniversary summit last April.

Carson sidekick Ed McMahon dies at 86

Ed McMahon (pictured), the affable sidekick on "The Tonight Show" who bolstered boss Johnny Carson with guffaws and a booming "H-e-e-e-e-ere’s Johnny!" for 30 years, died Tuesday morning at age 86.

McMahon (shown below with Johnny Carson) had been battling pneumonia and other illnesses.

Outgoing, affable and possessing a robust, baritone voice, McMahon began his career with stints as a bingo caller, carnival barker and boardwalk pitchman before becoming a broadcast announcer and TV host.

Trained as a U.S. Marine fighter pilot during World War II, he flew missions in Korea in the 1950s.

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Cool sealion

This is a 21-year-old male sealion named Rook at the Sunshine International Aquarium in Tokyo.

Rook is practicing wearing sunglasses for the solar eclipse next month.

(AFP/Getty Images / June 18, 2009)

Car drives among the gondolas in Venice

Bernd Weise of the Amphicar Club Berlin pilots his 1961 Amphicar down the Grand Canal in Venice.

The German-built amphibious car uses a Triumph Herald engine and is capable of over 70 mph by road and 8 knots on water. The driver needs a regular driving license and a boat license.

New federal climate change report twists data

Dr. Roger Pielke, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado, says the new federal report on climate change is not only wrong, it misrepresents his own research and that it wrongly concludes that climate change is already responsible for an increase in damages from natural disasters.

Dr. Pielke says they are relying on “non-peer reviewed, unsupportable studies rather than the relevant peer-reviewed literature” and for “featuring non-peer-reviewed work conducted by the authors.”

Evidently that’s the only way they can put their data in front of the public with any hope of acceptance.


The Democrats, led by Al Gore in the climate change debate, are determined to promote “man-made global warming” even when the true data no longer supports their claim!

They twist data from scientists like Dr. Pielke to make their “case” and the main stream media is reluctant to print anything that opposes the left viewpoint. Consequently, much of the public actually believes there is such a thing as man-made global warming.

Liberals in Washington are using “junk science,” or in this case “twisted science” to get their cap and trade scheme through congress.

Cap and trade, and the resultant carbon trading, will bankrupt many corporations and make billionaires of a lot of liberal politicians.

More of the story here.

NBC not in panic over Conan ratings crash

A New York Post report says Conan O'Brien seems to be losing viewers faster than DavidLetterman is losing his hair.

NBC is shrugging off the Conan crash saying its too early to tell.

When was it too early to tell that the Titanic was sinking after it hit the iceberg?

Jack Paar, the second host of the Tonight Show, was a snob but could be humorous at times.

Johnny Carson was funny. Carson also was the Tonight Show.

Jay Leno was funny util he turned stale.

Will Conan O'Brien last the year?

Depends on how far NBC will allow the Tonight Show to sink in ratings.

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He has eaten a Twinkie every day for 64 years

Lewis Browning, a retired milk-truck driver, has been eating one or two Twinkies a day for 64 years. "Had one for breakfast this morning with a banana and a glass of milk," he says in a phone interview from his home south of Indianapolis.

The 22,000 he's eaten have earned him an appearance on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" and a lifetime supply of Twinkies from Hostess.

President Bill Clinton and the White House Millennium Council selected the Twinkie to be preserved in the nation's millennium time capsule in 1999, calling it an enduring American icon.

How about you? Do you eat Twinkie’s? It’s OK, go ahead and admit it. You won’t be alone.

A report at the link below says that Americans spent $47 million on them in the past 12 months.

There could be a downside to eating too many Twinkies.

Dan White was convicted of shooting to death San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk in 1978. White’s attorney claimed the shooter was “high” on sugar snack food at the time of the murders. It was dubbed the “Twinkie defense” by the media.

How many sugar snack foods can claim to have a defense in the trial of a double-murderer named after them?

When I first started receiving an allowance as a kid, one thing on my “had to have” list was a package of Twinkies and I have eaten them off and on ever since. It never did make me murder anybody - especially the mayor of a major city.

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Hillary met with eight of her predecessors

How often does a Secretary of State have a chance to consult with eight predecessors at one time?

All but one living former secretary of state attended the event. Those present were:

Henry Kissinger

George Shultz

James Baker

Lawrence Eagleburger

Warren Christopher

Madeline Albright

Colin Powell

Condoleezza Rice.

The only one missing was Alexander Haig.

No details about the conversation or menu were immediately available.

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Swine flu reported at NBC headquarters

Will the Peacock building 30 Rockefeller Plaza get slapped with a quarantine?

From a New York Observer report:

The human resource department at NBC in New York sent out a bulk email to staffers warning them that a couple of employees at 30 Rockefeller Plaza have come down with the flu.

From the email:

"Recently, like many other companies, we had a few NBC New York employees diagnosed with independent cases of the flu. In these cases, the employees quickly sought medical attention and went home immediately after diagnosis, thereby limiting any possible exposure. They are all recovering well."

A commenter to the Observer report wondered if Chris Matthews (upper picture) or Keith Olbermann (lower picture) had the swine flu - then went on to say “Probably not. Even a virus has its standards.”

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