Cairo demonstrator with makeshift helmet

An Egyptian anti-government demonstrator protects his head with a kitchen pot

Cars stranded on Lake Shore Drive, Chicago

A scene from across America this week

Thousands flock to rice paddy crop circle in Indonesia

People gather to see the 70-meter-wide crop circle that appeared over last week in a rice field in Sleman, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Thousands of curious onlookers are flocked to central Indonesia to look at the facture which looks like an intricately designed flower following rumors it was formed by a UFO.

Masked model at Fashion Week

A model wears a creation by Alexandre Herchcovitch during the Sao Paulo Fashion Week in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Unusual style! Looks like the model is ready for "look like a bandit" day.

She would look right at home with the protesters on the streets of Cairo.

Cairo protesters - from camels to burka's

Falling ice at Super Bowl site injures 7

Seven people were injured -- one critically -- when ice fell from the roof of Cowboys Stadium this afternoon.

Five of the seven people were taken to area hospitals.

Photo shows the Cowboys Stadium surrounded by snow.

"The ice and snow melting off of the Cowboys Stadium roof has caused several sliding snow falls onto the plazas,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said in an e-mail sent to the Dallas Morning News.

The accident forced officials to shut all but one entrance to the stadium, the Dallas Morning News reports.

Link

Endless stream heading for US border

Central American migrants ride on top of a northern bound train during their journey toward the U.S. border.

America crushed by snow and ice of Global Warming

From a report at the first link below:

As the deadly two-day blizzard finally passes, huge swathes of America must now brace for more snow and ice over the next three days as a storm brewing in the South and Texas is projected to move north by Saturday, dumping even more snow on top of already record-setting accumulation totals.

Snow is expected to fall over parts of Texas with rain over Louisiana, which will turn to snow over the mid-Atlantic and Northeast. A separate snowstorm will blow over much of the West, just as Chicago is recovering from its most damaging snowstorm in decades.

This week's storm was so catastrophic that buildings were crushed under the weight of the ice and snow.

At the second link below Al Gore claims that this snow and ice is actually caused by 'global warming.'

Remember Al Gore? He is the so-called climate guru who refuses to debate his climate science. He won't allow reporters access to his climate lectures. He relies on the friendly liberal media to give him a pass without challenging his climate science.

At the third link below is a report about a climate scientist in the UK who claimed that Europe would soon not see snow again and that children would grow up not knowing what snow was like.

Didn't Al Gore and the UK climate scientist remember the warnings in the 1970's about a coming ice-age such as the Time Magazine warning about another ice age.

Links:

The "crushed by global warming snow and ice" report is here.

The Al Gore claim that this snow and ice is actually caused by man-made global warming is here.

The claim (with link) that "children in the UK would grow up never knowing what snow was like" is here.

The 1974 Time Magazine 'another ice age' report is here.

New York City smoking ban in parks and beaches

Many believe the Big Apple has become a nanny state.

Smokers have just one message for Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council members: butt out of our business.

"We’re outside. We should have freedom to smoke."

The smoking ban will cover 1,700 parks and 14 miles of public beaches plus boardwalks, marinas and pedestrian plazas.

Link

Obama's electric car hits roadblock:American car buyers

CNN reports on a study that shows:

Barack Obama's goal of putting 1 million electric cars on U.S. roads by 2015 could run into a huge roadblock -- the American consumer.

Photo shows a Nissan Leaf getting a battery charge.

According to a report released by researchers at Indiana University, automakers are unlikely to manufacture enough cars to reach the president's goal because of a potential lack of buyer demand.

Nissan and General Motors, makers of the Leaf and Volt, respectively, already have the capacity to produce enough cars to meet the goal. Serious questions remain, however, about the level of desire among potential buyers worried about cost, ease of use and likely resale value.

If electrics are so good why not make state and local police drive them as a test to see how reliable they are and how their performance stacks up.

If they want the country to go green, start with all police vehicles switching to electrics to prove to everyone if they are reliable and robust enough.

Link

Reporters banned when Obama signed treaty with Russia

The START nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia was promoted heavily by Barack Obama.

However, when it came to signing the document, the White House refused to allow reporters or TV cameras in the room.

Still photographers were the only representatives of the free press permitted to record the historic moment.

If this was a good treaty, it would have been signed in front of several dozen reporters and photographers with Pelosi, Reid and the Russian ambassador standing behind him.

One commenter wrote: "This START treaty with Russia is more like a surrender document. The signing would be more appropriate on a Russian battleship with Obama and our Joint Chiefs of Staff bowing to our new overlords."

From the report at the link below:

The White House Correspondents Association protested the White House’s decision to refuse to permit reporters access to the event, in addition to the dearth of press briefings since the crisis in Egypt began to unfold, a crisis in which President Obama continues to celebrate the great freedoms and openness enjoyed in this country.

No openness during the signing of the START treaty!

Something is very wrong when the President of the United States signs a document with an unfriendly foreign power behind closed doors!

Link

Credit card rates at record highs

According to a CNN Money report credit card interest rates are now hovering near record highs, at an average rate of 14.72%. And if your credit is bad enough, you could even end up with a rate as high as 59.9% APR.

That's because while the CARD Act helped crack down on certain fees and requires more disclosures, it didn't cap every credit card holder's worst enemy: interest rates.

Sure, the new rules prevent banks from raising most interest rates retroactively, but there's no limit on the rates they can charge new customers.

Rates are going up because card issuers know that once you get a card they can't raise the rates, so they're raising rates at the start to ensure they get the revenue from that interest.

First Premier Bank offers a Gold MasterCard with a whopping 59.9% rate for those people with "less than perfect credit", according to its website. And that rate is actually down from the 79.9% rate it originally charged!

Some of the interest rates above are unconscionable. Breathtaking, actually.

Besides a couple of debit cards, we have two credit cards -- one Visa and one MasterCard. However we pay almost no interest on either of them.

There was a time several years ago when we had credit card balances but that was when interest was much lower. Now our Visa and MasterCard get paid off every month just as soon as the statement arrives.

Link

Playing chess amid Cairo turmoil

Cowboys Stadium amid layer of ice

This AP photo taken with a fisheye lens shows a layer of ice outside Cowboys Stadium during preparations for NFL football Super Bowl XLV.

Photo: walking to Cairo airport

Tourists make their way to the Cairo airport.

Red lanterns for Chinese Lunar New Year

A worker lays out newly made red lanterns to dry at a lantern factory in Jishan county, Shanxi province.

The lanterns are being prepared for New Year celebrations and the coming Chinese Lunar New Year, which falls on February 3, 2011.

Newspaper for the iPad debuts

Is Rupert Murdoch's newspaper for the iPad the future of journalism?

It's the only newspaper for the iPad only with a subscription cost of 99cents a year.

Described as the first subscription-based national daily news publication built from scratch specifically for the iPad, The Daily was unveiled Wednesday at a news conference in New York City, as a beaming News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch cradled the tablet on stage like a proud papa.

After first thanking Apple CEO Steve Jobs for being "a champion of The Daily from Day One,' the uber-publisher said the first iPad-only newspaper would be a game-changer for the news-seeking masses around the world.

Link

Get Internet access when your government shuts it down

Internet access was cut off in Iran recently and now Egypt has cut off Internet service and mobile phone service for everyone in that country.

And now the Obama administration has put the 'kill switch' legislation back on the table.

A report at the first link below is titled, "As Egypt goes offline US gets internet 'kill switch' bill ready."

So what will you do when the federal government cuts off our access to the Internet?

A PCWorld report at the second link below offers suggestions and instructions in case Obama shuts down our Internet.

The report is titled, "Get Internet Access When Your Government Shuts It Down."

Link here and here.

Looks like the new teleprompter glasses just arrived