Gallup poll: presidential race a tie

The race for the presidency has moved back into a tie in the latest Gallup Daily tracking poll of national registered voters.

What makes this rather surprising is that conventional wisdom would suggest that Barack Obama should be at least 15 points ahead after his world tour reported around the globe in glowing terms by an adoring media. Two popular rock stars even performed just prior to his big speech in Germany.

Compare this to McCain who seems like cold oatmeal next to the oratory skills of Obama

A tie with Senator McCain after the overly publicized world tour must be very troubling for the Obama campaign.

Does this mean voters can see through the media hype surrounding Mr. Obama?

Maybe it’s time for George Soros to dig up another hundred million or so to prop up the junior Senator from Illinois.

Link

Granite counter tops pose a radiation risk

You checked the house you just purchased for mold. Everything checked out fine - or so you thought.

Then you read the report, at the link below, called: What’s Lurking in Your Countertop?

A further check with a Geiger counter showed evidence of radiation in the kitchen and bathrooms.

It turned out to be the granite counter tops.

Granite can contain high levels of uranium, which is not only radioactive but releases radon gas as it decays.

There are different types of granite and some emit very low levels of radon.

Health physicists and radiation experts agree that most granite countertops emit radiation and radon at extremely low levels.

They say these emissions are insignificant compared with so-called background radiation that is constantly raining down from outer space or seeping up from the earth’s crust, not to mention emanating from manmade sources like X-rays, luminous watches and smoke detectors.

But with increasing regularity in recent months, the Environmental Protection Agency has been receiving calls from radon inspectors as well as from concerned homeowners about granite countertops with radiation measurements several times above background levels.

More of the story here.

Rock climbing near Chattanooga Tennessee

Nick Peterson rock climbing near Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Flag removal from the Obama campaign jet: the FULL story

Did you receive a host of e-mails about the flag removal from the tail of Obama’s campaign jet? Me too.

Is the story true? Well, yes and no. The flag removal story is half-true. The huge American flag was replaced by his own logo but a very small flag was put back on the plane

Most of the “big name” web sites didn’t get to the bottom of the story and only showed the large American flag replaced by Obama’s personal logo.

What they didn’t show is the American flag placed on the side of the plane

As shown below the Boeing 757 chartered from North American Airlines originally had a huge American Flag on the tail of the plane.



The huge American flag on the tail was replaced by Obama's personal logo. A new tiny flag was placed on the side of the fuselage, near the back of the plane next to the registration number as shown in the photo below:



Does that mean I have changed my mind about the arrogant Barack Hussein Obama? Not at all! By replacing a huge American flag with his own logo, he has proved just how much he loves himself. He loves himself more than the country he wants to govern.

By the way, John McCain does not have an American flag on the campaign plane he is chartering. The plane didn’t come with a flag and he didn’t add one.



Even the usually reliable Snopes didn’t get the entire story the first time.

Excessive security may lead to ‘no-fun’ Olympics

Probably the biggest challenge the Chinese have to face is ensuring that their intense security doesn’t suffocate the festival atmosphere that usually surrounds the Olympics.

Just three weeks before the Beijing Olympics, concerns are growing that China’s sweeping security measures could end up sucking all the fun out of the world’s biggest sportsfest.

The atmosphere was less than festive this week at a checkpoint in Yanjiao on the outskirts of Beijing, one of hundreds thrown up around the capital where police with laptops and sniffer dogs halt traffic.

“I know they are working hard, but this really is overkill. We had been checked three times already before we arrived here,” said a bus driver from neighbouring Hebei Province.

The checkpoints are part of a security operation thrown up around the Games by leaders who fear they could be marred by protests, sabotage by “hostile forces” or terrorist attack.

Link

This web site now loads properly using IE

For the last few hours this web site would not load properly using any version of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser.

In order to fix the problem I had to remove the SiteMeter script temporarily until my blog host can fix the problem.

This site loaded fine using any version of the Firefox browser but would not load using any version of Microsoft Internet Explorer.

SiteMeter will be re-installed when it will no longer be a problem (SiteMeter counts blog visits).

Sorry for any inconvenience.

McDonald’s iced coffee on Vegas TV news set

Las Vegas Fox 5 TV viewers have been exposed to a “nontraditional revenue source” along with their morning news.

Two cups of McDonald’s iced coffee sit on the Fox 5 TV news desk, a punch-you-in-the-face product placement (BUY!) to chase down your morning news.

They’ve been on the Las Vegas station set for about two weeks, following the lead of a few TV stations across the country, and they’re still looking every bit as frosty and tantalizing (BUY!) as they were the first day you laid your eyes on them.

No wonder they look “frosty and tantalizing” -- they’re fake -- made to scale models filled with a bogus liquid and fake ice that never melts.

So there you have it -- fake coffee on the real news there for your viewing pleasure. Completely ignored by the news anchors, subliminally tugging you to your nearest McDonald’s for a cup of real iced coffee.

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Natural childbirth out - the ‘posh push’ is in

Today, natural childbirth is a medical anomaly in the United States. In fact, many doctors are often thrown off guard when a determined woman insists on natural childbirth without pain medication.

One doctor who was asked about breathing techniques replied, "How do I know? I've only ever done two natural childbirths."

A small but growing number of women who seek to avoid aggressive medical techniques like induced labor, epidural blocks and Caesarean sections find they are a lone voice among their friends and doctors.

Pre-planned Caesareans (the ‘posh push’) are in vogue. Women want to avoid future complications of multiple vaginal births, like uterine or bladder collapse. And today's body-conscious women worry needlessly about loss of muscle-tone.

Now, new technologies, the rising cost of malpractice insurance and even the changing attitudes of women have all contributed to the near-demise of natural childbirth.

With the high cost of liability insurance, doctors must take on more patients to keep their practices lucrative. This gives them less time to wait out a long labor.

Doctors more frequently induce labor, using synthetic hormones like pitocin to strengthen and quicken labor, an intervention that was once used only as a "last resort."

More of the story here.

Candidates based on experience

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Clever ploy to revive Vista’s image

Microsoft is counting on Mojave enhance Vista’s image. Microsoft is also counting on the naiveté of computer users.

Spurred by an e-mail from someone deep in the marketing ranks, Microsoft last week traveled to San Francisco, rounding up Windows XP users who had negative impressions of Vista.

The subjects were put on video, asked about their Vista impressions, and then shown a "new" operating system, code-named Mojave.

More than 90 percent gave positive feedback on what they saw. Then they were told that "Mojave" was actually Windows Vista.

The Mojave project is likely to be just one of many efforts designed to resuscitate Vista's image as well as lend strength to the Windows platform among stepped-up competition from Apple and Google.

Mojave indeed!

Microsoft may lure some individual users over with the Mojave trickery but it’ll take more than smoke and mirrors to get corporations to shell out millions to convert to Vista.

Link

Fire Sale at Hillary campaign headquarters

An article at the link below says, In the end, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign was sold for parts.

Staffers, supporters and bargain seekers had the chance to take a small piece of the historic campaign with them before the lights went out on HRC headquarters in Arlington, Va. - for a price.

Clinton's June campaign finance filings show that the second-place finisher raised $42,000 in the fire-sale liquidation of her campaign headquarters' assets.

Now, one can find $230 worth of Clinton's old office chairs backstage at a nightclub in Washington.

Great, but did the purloined White House silver show up at the fire sale? How about Monica Lewinsky T-shirts? … just asking …

Link

Don’t be caught dead without your iPhone

Ever wanted to be buried in an iPhone coffin?

A company called Creative Coffins can fulfill your desire. Really.

Link

Traffic jam at San Ysidro Mexican border crossing

The photo below shows motorists waiting in line to cross the border into the US from Tijuana, Mexico. They are waiting at the US Customs and Border protection port of entry in San Ysidro, California near San Diego.

It looks like any Southern California traffic jam—except you can buy a cappuccino and a 4-foot statue of Jesus from your car while watching dogs sniff vehicles for drugs.

This is the U.S.-Mexico border's most congested crossing, where local residents say already epic lines into San Diego have grown even longer since January, when the U.S. began phasing out a long-standing practice of allowing people they believed to be American citizens to enter by simply stating their citizenship.

Border guards now require most crossers to present a U.S. passport or other proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate—though they are still permitted to exercise their own judgment in order to keep lines moving. As always, Mexican citizens and other foreign nationals must show valid immigration documents to enter.

More than half the 21 million cars crossing from Tijuana to San Diego each year wait in lines of 90 minutes or more, with 26 percent waiting more than 2 hours, according to a recent survey.

The delays cost both cities an estimated $7.2 billion in 2007, while supporting a small army of Tijuana vendors that sell everything from cappuccino’s to crucifixes to commuters stuck in line.

Link

Man’s best friend…

Anybody who doesn't know what soap tastes like never gave an active dog a bath.

Violence erupts while buying Olympic tickets in Beijing

So much for the good impression the Chinese wanted to present to the world prior to the Beijing Olympics.

Violence broke out today among the 50,000 people queuing for tickets for the Olympics in Beijing as police struggled to control crowds who had been waiting in line for over two days.

(click on picture to enlarge)

At one point the surging crowd broke through a control barrier and lurched towards the ticket counters where the final batch of tickets for the Olympics, which begin next month, were about to go on sale.

In hot and dusty conditions, some groups in the crowd chanted insults at the police who were seen dragging people out of the line and kicking and punching them before leading them away.

The Police were apparently unprepared. One witness said, “ "The police didn't have a clue how many people would come here and there was no organization at all, it was chaos."

Link

Terminological inexactitudes

Sometimes politicians don’t speak the truth because they just don’t know better such as when Obama said he had travelled to all 57 of the United States not including Alaska and Hawaii, and still had "one left to go." Hmm … maybe he was referring to the 57 Arab states …

However, most of the time when a politician tells tall tails it’s on purpose. Winston Churchill called these falsehoods terminological inexactitudes.

Apollo 14 astronaut claims aliens exist

Former NASA astronaut and moon-walker Dr Edgar Mitchell - a veteran of the Apollo 14 mission - believes in ET.

And he says extra-terrestrials have visited Earth on several occasions - but the alien contact has been repeatedly covered up by governments for six decades.

Dr Mitchell, 77, said during a radio interview that sources at the space agency who had had contact with aliens described the beings as 'little people who look strange to us.'

Chillingly, he claimed our technology is "not nearly as sophisticated" as theirs and "had they been hostile", he warned "we would be been gone by now".

Preductably, NASA officials were quick to play down the comments of Mitchell.

In a statement, a spokesman said: "NASA does not track UFOs. NASA is not involved in any sort of cover up about alien life on this planet or anywhere in the universe.

'Dr Mitchell is a great American, but we do not share his opinions on this issue.'

Link

Arrested after 400-yard motorcycle wheelie

A 29-year-old Cookeville, Tennessee man was arrested for reckless driving after police observing him doing a 400-yard wheelie on his motorcycle.

The photo shows the late daredevil Evel Knievel doing a wheelie.

At least the man in Tennessee wasn’t trying to jump a row of busses.

Link

Special Olympic traffic lanes on Beijing streets

Beijing will have special Olympic traffic lanes to help ensure that officials, athletes and referees arrive at their destinations on time.

The Olympic traffic lanes will open on 25 July, some 14 days before the games start, and close on 20 September, three days after the Paralympic Games – a total of 58 days.



Many of the 7,000 vehicles designated for official Olympic use will be fitted with satellite navigation systems to prevent drivers from getting lost.

Link

Berlin speech

He earned $100K while living in company paint shed

A New York man lived in a company paint shed while earning $100,000 last year.

He even had his mail delivered to the paint shed!

He was a maintenance worker who lived on the grounds of the Rockland Psychiatric Center in New York City's northern suburbs for three years.

He stayed in a back room of the shed and had a couch, microwave and refrigerator.

Link

Gray Lady 2Q profit down 82 percent!

The Gray Lady is up to her elbows in financial trouble.

New York Times Co. says its second-quarter earnings fell 82 percent from the year-ago quarter boosted by a one-time gain. Meanwhile, print advertising revenue continued to shrink.

The New York Times was nicknamed the Gray Lady for its staid appearance and style as shown in the illustration below.



In her heyday the Lady was regarded as a newspaper of record because it was often relied upon as the ‘official and authoritative reference for modern events.’

So where did she go wrong?

Pajamas Media has this to say about the Grey Lady:

Thought of as the newspaper of record for more than 100 years, the Times eventually succumbed to disappearing ad revenue, a catastrophic decline in circulation, and the consequences of a perpetual, unrelenting, obvious and sickening bias exhibited against its political enemies.

Because of her extreme partisan editorial stance, the Gray Lady will get little sympathy from Republicans and moderate, principled Democrats.

Link

Iraq tour de farce

(click on cartoon to enlarge)

= = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Lets move along now folks … nothing new to see here … haven’t you ever seen a cowering presidetnial candidate before?

Beijingers told to wear a smile during Olympics

Chinese people, who will be in Beijing during the games, are told to mind their manners.

Beijing citizens have been told not to pick their noses, yawn or scratch their heads when talking to foreigners during the Olympics.

They have also been given a list of things not to ask overseas visitors - a list so exhaustive it could make conversation difficult.

Ordinary people have also been given detailed instructions on how to talk to disabled people during the Paralympics.

The booklet advises Beijing people to say to disabled people such things as: 'You're really excellent'

Queuing will also be stressed. Officials want the Chinese people to queue up in lines rather than to barge onto buses and trains as shown above.

Will they also be told not to cough to loudly if the smog in Beijing happens to be heavy?

Link

Beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Yup, it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas. At least it did in Copenhagen Denmark.

The annual Santa Clause congress celebration was held in the Bakken amusement park, just north of Copenhagen.



The realization that many Santas are too pot-bellied to slide down a chimney prompted many of the participants to "adhere not to a diet that would kill off their good spirits but to a series of exercises that would put them in super shape by December.”

The Santas will begin toiling Tuesday morning. Dressed in their traditional fur-lined red suits, they will take a long bike-ride around the Copenhagen harbor, parade through the streets and take a quick dip at the port to check out the water quality.

Once they have dried off they will even attempt to set a new, wacky world record: the largest possible number of Father Christmases hula-hooping in unison.

That would be a sight worth viewing!

The convention is scheduled to wrap up on Wednesday.

Link

What to do when a compact fluorescent bulb breaks?

The environmentalists are campaigning to have everyone get rid of their 17-cent incadescent light bulbs and replace them with compact fluorescent bulbs at $5 to $6 each. That’s right, we got a 4-pack of 60-watt bulbs for 66 cents at our local Wal-Mart (60-watt bulbs are perfect for 3 to 6 bulb chandeliers).

The big worry about compact fluorescent bulbs is the mercury vapor leak if a bulb cracks. Is mercury harmful?

When I was a kid I grabbed every non-working thermometer I could find so I could salvage the mercury. I would capture some mercury between my thumb and forefinger and transfer the slippery, silver stuff to a dime. The dime will glisten and almost glow. As a 10-year-old I thought it was cool.

I’m not sure if getting mercury on my fingers was harmful. What does seem alarming is to breathe in the mercury vapor.

We had an energy-efficient light bulb suddenly break a seal and a large amount of pungent smelling smoke poured out. We were able to turn the switch off quickly but the room smelled so bad it took quite a while to air the room out. What would have happened if we had been gone for several hours?

We may never use one of the bulbs pictured unless the light bulb police break down our door and put us in chains.

What do you do when compact fluorescent crack bulbs crack? The link below gives TEN things to do if one of these bulbs crack.

A word of warning, after you have read all ten things you must do if a bulb cracks, you may just throw out the ones you have and never buy another. And that’s not even considering the cancer and migraine headache warnings attributed to these bulbs.

Link

China to modify weather for Olympics

August is part of Northeast Asia’s rainy season (upper picture) and chances of precipitation over Beijing on any day that month will approach 50 percent.

To prevent rain over the roofless 91,000-seat Olympic stadium that Beijing natives have nicknamed the Bird’s Nest (lower picture), the city’s branch of the national Weather Modification Office–itself a department of the larger China Meteorological Administration–has prepared a three-stage program for the 2008 Olympics this August.





The city’s weather engineers will shoot and spray silver iodide and dry ice into incoming clouds that are still far enough away that their rain can be flushed out before they reach the stadium.

Finally, any rain-heavy clouds that near the Bird’s Nest will be seeded with chemicals to shrink droplets so that rain won’t fall until those clouds have passed over. Zhang Qian, head of Beijing’s Weather Modification Office, explains, “We use a coolant made from liquid nitrogen to increase the number of droplets while decreasing their average size. As a result, the smaller droplets are less likely to fall, and precipitation can be reduced.”

Link

Two German men related through 3,000 year-old-ancestor

Two German men share the longest proven family tree in the world.

The men, Manfred Huchthausen, a 58-year-old teacher, and Uwe Lange, a 48-year-old surveyor, had known each other from living in the same village, about half a mile apart from each other.

But they never knew they were related through a 3,000-year-old shared ancestor.

They only recently found out they are both true descendants of Bronze Age cave-dwellers who lived in the area three millenniums ago.

More of the story here.

Political rock star

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E-racers: racers from erasers

These cool e-racers are made from Pink Pearl trapezoidal erasers.

They are probably fairly easy to make and can be made to look really cool.

Draw on them with a pen as on the right or carve them as shown on the left.

A great rainy-day project for kids.

McDonald’s franchisee fined $1 million for hiring illegals

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) probe in Nevada led to a $1 million fine for hiring illeals.

One current and one former top executive for a franchisee that owns 11 McDonald’s restaurants in and around Reno, Nev., and the corporation itself pleaded guilty in federal court in Las Vegas today to federal felony immigration offenses for encouraging illegal aliens to reside in the United States.

Mack Associates’ [the Corporation owning the 11 Reno McDonald’s restaurants] management employed individuals they knew were in the country illegally, including two restaurant managers, by furnishing them with names and Social Security numbers belonging to other individuals.

"This case should serve as a reminder to employers that knowingly hiring illegal aliens violates federal law," said U.S. Attorney Brower. "Companies and their managers who engage in such conduct are on notice that violations will be prosecuted and that the criminal penalties can be significant."

Link

Obama: Jimmy Carter warmed-over

Somebody in Scotland really gets it!

The article at the link below has a realistic interpretation of the upcoming Obama European tour.

YES, folks, it's déjà vu all over again. That charismatic American politician Jimmy Carter II, aka Barack Obama (pictured), is carrying all before him – at least in Europe – riding a tsunami of media-driven hysteria.

When you are possessed of unlimited reserves of rhetoric, boundless ambition, an increasingly undisciplined ego and – er – not a lot else, the soap-box becomes addictive.

German Chancellor can also see through the Obama European sharade.

Obama's bid to deliver one of his substance-free orations at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin has infuriated Chancellor Merkel, galvanized the media and provoked thoughtful calculations among the McCain camp.

The actual déjà vu evoked by Obama is the ill-starred Carter presidency.

The article points out that Carter was the father of the Iranian Revolution which deposed the Shah and set up the Ayatollah Khomeini.

Khomeini executed more people during his first year in power than the Shah had done in 25 years.

Now, over 30 years later, it will truly be déjà vu as Obama has pledged to sit down unconditionally with Iran President Ahmadinejad.

Link

1930’s Kodak folding bellows camera

During the 1970’s I collected a few old cameras. Most of them were common cameras that sold for three to six dollars when they were new in the 1930’s.

Inside the back cover of the camera is a Kodak decal that shows several patent numbers and a picture of a yellow Kodak Verichrome panchromatic film box.

It says, “Use Kodak film V616 or 616”. It also says, “Use Kodak film in the yellow box.”

The sides of the camera are decorated with a pleasing art deco design.

I found this camera in a little antique shop located in the basement of a house near downtown Beatrice, Nebraska in 1979.

Electronic gadgets blamed for lightening deaths in Russia

An official in Russia is blaming the recent surge of deadly lightning strikes on electronic gadgets such as cell phones and music players.

Lightning has killed and injured more than a dozen people in Russia in the past two weeks, officials say, blaming widespread use of electronic gadgets such as cell phones for an increase in deadly strikes.

Leonid Tarkov of the weather observation center FOBOS said he believes that the surge in lightning strikes may be connected to the increased use of portable electronic technology.

"These things are electromagnetic field carriers," he said. "That makes them, in essence, conductors. Thunderbolts are frequently attracted to such things, and hits are often connected with a lethal outcome."

The idea that lightning can follow the weak electromagnetic fields of such devices is rejected by virtually all scientists, although there is evidence that a lightning strike is more likely to be fatal for a person carrying any object with metal in it.

There have been no such reports from other counties.

Link

Boy tracks speeders with toy radar gun

A boy in Louisville, Kentucky is waging his own war against speeders.

Many in the subdivision are frustrated that motorists tear through the neighborhood at 55 mph despite signs posting a 25 mph limit.

Landon Wilburn, 11, has a future as a cop — a traffic cop.



The youngster, who used to shout at speeders to slow down as they drove through the Stone Lakes subdivision in Louisville, now has taken matters into his own hands.

Dressed in a reflective vest, wearing a bicycle helmet and armed with an orange Hot Wheels brand radar gun, he points and records the actual speed of passing traffic.

Landon also carries a flashlight with a built-in siren.

"When I saw it happening, I got the biggest kick out of it," said resident George Ayers, 61. "People were locking up their brakes when they saw him."

Link

China in urgent cleanup for Olympic games

Beijing's plan to lift the Chinese capital's gray shroud of pollution begins this week.

"Pea-soup air at the opening ceremony would be their worst nightmare," said Victor Cha, director of Asian Studies at Georgetown University.

The Olympic games begin in just three weeks. Will they be able to pull it off?

Half of Beijing's 3.3 million vehicles will be pulled off the roads and many polluting factories will be shuttered.

Chemical plants, power stations and foundries left open have to cut emissions by 30 percent—and dust-spewing construction in the capital will be halted.

In a highly stage-managed Olympics aimed at showing off the rising power of the 21st century, no challenge is greater than producing crystalline air for 10,500 of the world's greatest athletes.

(click on picture to enlarge)

Will this new stadium glisten under clear skies during the Olympic games?

International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge has repeatedly warned that outdoor endurance events lasting more than an hour will be postponed if the air quality is poor.

Striking venues and $40 billion spent to improve infrastructure cannot mask Beijing's dirty air. A World Bank study found China is home to 16 of the 20 worst cities for air quality. Three-quarters of the water flowing through urban areas is unsuitable for drinking or fishing.

Link

Sports referees: biased when they see red

A study found that referees awarded more points when they saw red.

Referees try to be fair, but on occasion even the best make bad calls. Now it would seem that sometimes they cannot help it. Researchers reveal that colors worn by competitors can shape referee decisions.

Reaserchers suggested that this was due to an association between red and dominance and/or aggression.

To test their theory, they showed 42 referees of the martial art taekwondo video excerpts from sparring rounds between similarly skilled athletes. In each video, one athlete wore blue protective gear and one wore red.

Each referee individually judged each clip, assigning points for the attacks made. They then watched the same bouts, in a different order, but this time with the colour of the protective gear digitally reversed, so that combatants wearing blue now appeared to wear red, and vice versa.

The team found that referees gave 13% more points to red competitors, even when the performances were exactly the same.

Link

Obama to rid the world of nuclear weapons

Barack Obama (pictured), the freshman Senator from Illinois, met with other Democrats for a roundtable discussion.

Among those joining him for the panel discussion were two potential running mates, Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga.

Nunn, a defense expert, is viewed as a senior statesman who could offset the relative youth of Obama, a freshman senator from Illinois. He said he supported Obama's nonproliferation pledge and outlined the challenges Obama would face in the Oval Office as if he were already elected!

Mr. Obama said that two goals of his administration would be to secure all loose nuclear material during his first term and to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

Two lofty goals indeed, for a man with less experience than anyone else in the U.S. Senate (he has been absent for much of his eighteen months in office). His naiveté is almost breathaking!

Link

Nancy Pelosi drilling policy explained

Cartoon by Michael Ramirez

Fifteen teens rescued from overloaded dorm elevator

Fifteen boys piled into a dormitory elevator at Eastern Michigan University and it got stuck between floors for about an hour.

The boys were attending a Brigham Young University Especially for Youth camp at the university.

Ypsilanti Fire Capt. Max Anthouard said that when firefighters arrived shortly after 11 p.m. at EMU's Walton Hall, two of the 15 boys stuck in the elevator were having difficulty breathing and five or six of them showed signs of significant dehydration.

All of them were released after being examined and treated.

Whatever happened to cramming into a phone booth? At least they don’t get stuck between floors.

Link

Denver homeless will disappear during Democrat Convention

With the Democratic National Convention in town next month, an advocacy group plans to make the unsightly street people in Denver disappear.

The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless plans to get 500 movie tickets as well as passes to the Denver Zoo, Denver Museum of Nature and Science and other cultural facilities to get city street people out of sight during the convention.

They will be given bus tickets for events out of walking distance. Anything to get them out of sight.

A more sure way to get them off the streets is to give them beer money and send them to LoDo (Lower Downtown) bars. How long would a wino agree to stay at the Zoo or Museum of Nature and Science?

Link

The Brett Favre soap opera

When the Brett Favre soap opera finally ends will The Chicago Bears have their first real quarterback in decades?

Favre (pictured), the future Hall of Famer, apparently is struggling with his March retirement announcement, specifically the part of the announcement in which he said he was, you know, retiring. Sources have told

Chicago sports writer Rick Morrissey says Brett Favre “will unretire, or whatever it is you do when you have told the world you never will play football again, only to later wonder whether the ‘itch’ you're feeling will require more than a mere scratch.”

Two things strike me about the Brett Favre story:

1. The 36-year-old future Hall of Famer has been a premier quarterback in the NFL for years and is still able to play the game at a high level.

2. I was saddened by his childish appearances on TV trying to explain his change of heart and his frustration with the Green Bay Packers. At 3:00 a.m., during a bout with insomnia, I watched a re-run his interview with Greta Van Susteren on Fox.

A film of this interview can be found here.

As the interview progressed, I became increasingly more embarrassed for Favre as he kept wallowing in self-pity. Too bad Greta didn’t mercifully cut the interview short.

Link

Time to enjoy a nice summer afternoon

Most crowded swimming pool in the world

The pool shown below is in Penglai, Sichuan in western China.

(click on picture to enlarge)

If you want to swim a lap or two -- forget it!

Best you can hope for is treading water. And, of course, trying to find room for you and your rubber ring.

Link

He rode in easy chair to Golden Gate Bridge

Tyler MacNiven of San Francisco put wheels under his recliner and asked strangers for a push.

His goal was be pushed from his Mission District home to the Golden Gate Bridge.



The trip began at 9:00 a.m. and he arrived at the bridge by 4:45 p.m. with the help of strangers.



Wonder how long it took him to push his empty chair back to the Mission District?

Link

Feedback rule still has eBay sellers seething

Sellers on eBay are now banned from posting negative or neutral feedback to buyers no matter how badly the transaction went.

When a buyer or seller wants to post feedback, the following notice appears on the computer screen:

Important changes to feedback

Buyers, you can no longer receive negative or neutral Feedback from sellers.

You should leave honest and accurate Feedback without the fear of receiving negative or neutral ratings.

It’s an invitation for buyers to give bad feedback and at the very least, treat sellers with no regard for courtesy or fair dealing.

But then, eBay has always catered to the buyer. eBay has never had a problem getting a steady stream of sellers. It is hoards of buyers that eBay must have to remain successful.

Link

Flood aftermath: toxic sludge

A report at the link below says that runoff from sewage plants, gas stations and other sites turns water toxic.

As floodwaters begin to recede in some of the most devastated parts of the Midwest, residents there are shifting their focus toward recovery.

In hundreds of homes, a layer of toxic sludge has covered everything, brought into the houses after floodwaters ran through gas stations, paint stores, sewage plants and farms that house fertilizer and pesticides. Its pungent smell is the least of homeowners' problems.

"We found some elevated levels of bacteria, e-coli, and some industrial chemicals, some motor oil and diesel fuel," said Michael Wichman, Associate Director of Environmental Health at the University of Iowa, where the sludge was tested.

More of the story here.

Poll: congressional approval is lowest ever

Congressional approval falls to single digits for the first time ever.

A Rasmussen poll found that only 9% of respondents say Congress is doing a good or excellent job.

Not exactly a rousing endorsement for a congress controlled by Democrats.

Link

Amuse friends with backward running clock

Hang this on your office wall and stop your co-workers in their tracks with this clock that runs backwards.

If you work in a cubicle farm, hang it on your cube wall beside your desk.

Start your day at the end and work back.

Cost is 11 British pounds which is about $20.40. Shipping from the UK is extra.

Link

Law of Inverse Correlation

The chance of an open-faced jelly sandwich landing face down on a floor is directly correlated to the newness and cost of the carpet

New Yorker cover: Obama in Oval Office with Osama on wall

Satire is not new to the New Yorker magazine.

When it comes to the July 21 The New Yorker cover, the campaign of Barack Hussein Obama thinks it went beyond satire. They called it “tasteless and offensive.”



The cartoon cover shows Michelle dressed as militant radical and Barack wearing a turban and robe celebrating with a fist bump in the Oval Office in front of a portrait of Osama bin Laden on the wall and an American flag burning in the fireplace.

Barack Obama had no response to the cover of the July 21st issue of New Yorker Magazine, seen above, except to shrug incredulously and tell reporters, “I have no response to that.”

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Cops find 50 pounds of cocaine hidden in one of their police cars

Dallas police seized a 2004 black Infiniti automobile at a drug house earlier this year.

The Infiniti was placed into service as an undercover car on May 7.

Two months later an officer cleaning out the car found nearly 50 pounds of cocaine carefully hidden in hydraulically controlled compartments.

"These compartments have recently been more and more popular with drug operations," said Deputy Chief Julian Bernal, commander of the narcotics division.

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China takes dog meat off menu at Olympics

Dog meat is eaten in some Asian countries. However, to avoid offending foreign visitors, China has ordered dog meat to be taken off the menu at its 112 official Olympic restaurants.

Any restaurant found violating the ban would be black-listed, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The ban, issued by the Beijing Catering Trade Association, forbids all designated Olympic restaurants from offering dog and urges other food outlets to remove the meat from menus.

Rover is off the menu in Beijing -- for a short time anyway.

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Isle seat, window seat or next to corpse?

Passenger deaths on airliners received renewed attention last winter when a 44-year-old woman died on a flight from Haiti to New York.

Actually, hundreds of people have died on planes in recent years.

It can be a traumatizing experience for family members and fellow passengers who are forced to take a close-up look at frailty and death and share their journey in close quarters with a corpse.

"It's one of the most overwhelmingly emotional situations possible," said Heidi MacFarlane, a spokeswoman for MedAire, a company that has doctors available on the ground to advise flight crews in a medical emergency. "When you're the one sitting next to the remains, it can be shocking and upsetting."

If the person dies, the crew often throws a blanket over the corpse or puts it in a body bag, an item routinely kept on some planes.

The dead passenger is sometimes placed on the floor in a galley area, or kept buckled in his or her seat, since a corpse cannot be allowed to block certain emergency exits.

Pilots may consider making an emergency landing, but often they keep going.

Airlines are not required to track or report the medical incidents they handle, so an exact tally of in-flight deaths is hard to find. But fatalities and serious illnesses on planes are rare when compared to the large number of people who fly.

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Man breaks record: sits in 39,250 seats in Rose Bowl

A new world record was broken as a 56-year-old man only took 48 hours to sit in 39,250 seats in the Rose Bowl stadium.

Jim Purol took a seat at the Rose Bowl, and then another, and then another, until he broke a world record.

The Anaheim man set a Guiness World Record on Wednesday for "Most Seats Sat in 48 Hours" by sitting in 39,250 seats.

The feat has taken a toll on his body and his cleanliness, as soot on the seats rubbed off on his clothes. He says he loves the Rose Bowl but calls the place "filthy."

He began the task Monday morning, and he's still going, hoping to rest his tush in each of the stadium's 92,542 seats by sometime this week.

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First looks at McCain’s home as a POW

There are pictures at the link below of cell that was the home of John McCain (pictured) as a POW in Vietnam.

These are the never-before-seen last known photos of Sen. John McCain’s Hoa Lo prison cell, images that prove that even after being cleaned up for an American historical filmmaker, the terror of the Hanoi Hilton is real.

These pictures and a video were taken in 1993 and 1994 before this and other areas of the century-old prison were destroyed.

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John McCain is truly an American hero. It is providential that these pictures are coming to light now in time to refute General Wesley Clark, and others in the Barack Hussein Obama campaign, who have claimed that anyone can steer a plane around the sky and get shot down and that McCain’s military experiences do not qualify him to be president.

Obama’s only qualification is the 153 days (fewest of nearly any other Senator) he has appeared in the U.S. Senate.

Would Mr. Obama have stayed strong after years of captivity as a POW or would he have folded like a cheap tent in a gale?