Senate sends Sotomayor to Supreme Court

The Senate sends the self-described “wise Latina woman” to the Supreme Court.

Democrats praised the 55-year-old Sotomayor as a mainstream moderate.

Most Republicans voted against her, saying she'd bring personal bias and a liberal agenda to the bench.

Link

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Former congressman could get 150 years in prison

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Former Democrat congressman William Jefferson from New Orleans, Louisiana faces a maximum possible sentence of 150 years in prison.

Amelia Earhart mystery solved?

It has been 72 years since famed aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared while attempting to fly around the world.

Earhart is pictured above. She is also shown below with her Lockheed Electra airplane.

Some claim Earhart and Noonan survived the crash of their Lockheed Electra but were captured and killed by Japanese soldiers. Still others have said they were eaten by cannibals.


But the mystery remains unsolved: Nobody knows exactly what happened to Earhart or her plane.

Now researchers at the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery or Tighar, say they are on the verge of recovering DNA evidence that would demonstrate Earhart had been stranded on Nikumaroro Island (formerly known as Gardner Island) before finally perishing there.

During May and June of next year, Tighar will launch a new $500,000 expedition, continuing the archaeological work it has been doing on the island since 2001.

More of the story here.

Culture of corruption: former congressman convicted

Former Congressman William Jefferson (pictured) was convicted Wednesday on 11 of 16 criminal counts filed against him — including charges that he accepted bribes and engaged in money laundering while serving in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Jefferson was a Democrat who represented constituents in New Orleans Louisiana. He was convicted Wednesday on 11 of the 16 corruption charges against him in a case that included the discovery of $90,000 cash in his freezer.

A federal court jury convicted Jefferson on four bribery counts, three counts of money laundering, three counts of wire fraud and one count of racketeering. He was acquitted on five other counts including wire fraud and obstruction of justice.

Jefferson had pleaded not guilty. He faces a maximum possible sentence of 150 years in prison, with sentencing tentatively set for October 30.

Link

Democrat attacks on what WH perceives as attacks on ObamaCare

When Washington Democrats begin to see opposition to any of their programs, it is usually perceived as “mob attacks” that must be stopped.

The White House launched a coordinated effort Tuesday to combat what it calls a “viral whisper campaign” to torpedo health care reform.

Its playbook: the same one Barack Obama’s campaign used in 2008 to shoot down rumors and questions about his citizenship, faith and patriotism.

It worked then by neutralizing charges regarding Mr. Obama’s citizenship as well as the fact that Obama is a Muslim and refused to say the pledge of allegiance.

Now, it appears that the Obama administration wants Americans to report any of their relatives, friends and neighbors who are opposed to ObamaCare.

Additionally, the administration is making it sound like any opposition to ObamaCare from citizens attending town hall meetings held by administration officials is caused by thugs as reported by Politico at the link below:

Democratic National Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse both saying a series of confrontational town hall meetings were manufactured by Republicans, conservative groups and lobbyists who are paid to drum up opposition.

Woodhouse described them as “angry mobs of rabid right-wing extremists” that populated McCain-Palin rallies last year.

Tuesday was just the start of the offensive, White House aides said.

For the record -- the people attending the McCain-Palin rallies last year were cheering crowds of ordinary people who liked what the conservative candidates were saying.

They were just the opposite of “angry mobs of rabid right-wing extremists!”

This is not your father’s Democratic Party!

Link

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They are out of control! Report them! Arrest them!

UFO Festival Alien Pet Costume Contest

A pup named Meatball lets out a big yawn while awaiting the start of the 2009 UFO Festival Alien Pet Costume Contest last month at the Roswell Convention Center in Roswell, New Mexico.

Meatball took 2nd place in the contest. Ya gotta love the name of that dog!

Poll: 71% say Obama’s policies have increased deficit

Americans can see through Obama’s plan to spend his way out of a recession.
Only 5% of respondents to a recent Rasmussen Reports survey say Obama’s policies have cut the deficit, and 10% say they have had no impact. Thirteen percent (13%) are not sure.

Eighty percent (80%) of investors say Obama’s policies have driven up the deficit, a view shared by just 57% of non-investors.

Seventy-one percent (71%) of U.S. voters say President Obama’s policies have increased the size of the federal deficit, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

A plurality of voters (37%) say cutting the federal deficit in half in the next four years is number one among the four priorities the president listed in a speech to Congress in February, but 66% view it as the goal he is least likely to achieve.

Link

A Kansas wind farm viewed from I-70

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The state of Kansas has several wind farms. The most visible wind farm is near Ellsworth.

The wind turbines can be seen for more than 20 miles along the north side of Interstate 70.

He followed me home can I keep him?

This unusual photo picture appears to show a little girl about to be attacked by a 370 pound Royal White Bengal Tiger.

Actually, the girl is safe. The girl and tiger are separated by a thick pane of glass at Cougar Mountain Zoo, near Seattle, Washington.

The change Obama promised

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North Korea pardons US journalists

North Korean President Kim Jong Ill has issued pardons for the two US journalists who have been detained in the country.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee (pictured) were arrested on March 17 near the North Korea border.


Both Ling and Lee worked for Al Gore’s San Francisco-based Current TV and were in the country working on a story about human trafficking along the Tumen River border area between China and North Korea.

The North Korean government convicted the pair on June 8 of illegally entering into and committing "grave crimes" against the country.

The pardon and imminent release follows former President Bill Clinton's visit to North Korea on Monday.

The White House has said the Clinton visit was a private trip.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs flatly denied that Clinton carried a message from Obama, telling reporters, "That's not true."

How can it be a private trip
when he is a former president and his wife is the Secretary of State?

One wonders what Obama promised the North Korean leader in exchange for the release of the journalists.

There is no way Kim Jong Ill would have released the girls out of the goodness of his heart.

Link here and here.

Administration withholding data on clunkers

A report at the link below says the Obama administration is refusing to release government records on its "cash-for-clunkers" rebate program. Yet the White House is pressing the Senate for a quick vote for another $2 billion to boost car sales.

Senators should demand this data which could substantiate or undercut White House claims of the program's success.

Besides replacing low-mileage vehicles with more fuel-efficient vehicles, the clunker program was intended to help the sale of Ford, Chrysler and General Motors vehicles. It hasn’t.

Ford Focus so far is at the top of the list of new cars purchased under the program. But the limited information released so far shows most buyers are not picking Ford, Chrysler or General Motors vehicles, and six of the top 10 vehicles purchased are Honda, Toyota and Hyundai.

More here.

Alvin Dark: an act of God to win

Former manager Alvin Dark was asked to compare teams he managed over the years.

Dark replied:

With the A's we depended on pitching and speed to win.

With the Giants we depended on pitching and power to win.

With the Indians we depended on an act of God to win.

Elephant wash

A firefighter hoses down an Asian elephant from Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus in Philadelphia last May.

Windsock on house in Enterprise Kansas

Not all city dwellers have windsocks on their rooftops.

No global warming in New York City

The New York Times reports that in New York City it’s the summer that isn’t.The Times report says:

It’s a gross, grungy, disgusting summer-in-the-city tradition: the muggy 90-degree day or, worse still, the 99-degree day.

But this summer has been conspicuously different in New York City. Not one 99-degree day in Central Park. Not a single day that the temperature even approached 90.

For just the second time in 140 years of record keeping, the temperature failed to reach 90 in either June or July.

Link

Al Gore couldn’t be reached for comment - he was probably too busy cleaning his office (shown below).

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Cash for clunkers so good it needs to shut down?

A report on ABC News, at the first link below, wonders if the cash for clunkers program will hit the scrap heap this week along with the clunker cars.


A Time Magazine report, at the second link below, says:

The government's cash-for-clunkers program appears to be working like a charm, so — time to shut it down. Good old Washington!

It appears that inadequate planning may doom the program about as soon as it began.

Will ObamaCare suffer from the same flawed planning?

Link here and here.

2 Obama officials won’t guarantee no tax hike for middle-class

An Associated Press report at the link below says that two Obama administration officials have said they can't guarantee middle-class Americans won't see tax hike.

Translation: there will be a tax hike for middle-class Americans to go along with the promised tax hike for higher wage earners.

As the White House sought to balance campaign rhetoric with governing, officials appeared willing to extend unemployment benefits.

With former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan saying he is "pretty sure we've already seen the bottom" of the recession, Obama aides sought to defend the economic stimulus and calm a jittery public.

If the Obama administration must rely on Alan Greenspan’s opinion that the we have seen the bottom of the recession, we are surely in deeper trouble than we thought.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council Director Larry Summers both sidestepped questions on Obama's intentions about taxes.

Geithner said the White House was not ready to rule out a tax hike to lower the federal deficit; Summers said Obama's proposed health care overhaul needs funding from somewhere.

More at the link below.

We wonder if the old Democrat label tax and spend liberal should be changed to tax and squander liberal?

Link

The Lincoln penny is 100 years old today

Today is the 100th anniversary of the Lincoln penny, the longest-running U.S. coin still in circulation.

The U.S. Mint had been producing one-cent coins since its founding in 1792, but the 1909 penny (which replaced the Indian-head coin) was the first coin on which a President's likeness appeared.


President Teddy Roosevelt commissioned the coin to celebrate the 100th birthday of Abraham Lincoln.

Most people were in favor of the new Lincoln coin. However, former Confederate soldiers were not happy about the prospect of carrying the image of Lincoln in their pockets. After all, Lincoln was the President of an “enemy country” during the Civil War.

According to a Time Magazine online report - pennies can often be more trouble than they're worth.

While a 1909 penny could send a postcard or buy a few eggs, in 2009 it can't even purchase itself: the U.S. Mint spends 1.4 cents on every penny it produces. "When people start leaving a monetary unit at the cash register for the next customer, that unit is too small to be useful," argued Harvard economics professor Gregory Mankiw in a 2006 Wall Street Journal article.

Arizona representative Jim Kolbe introduced the 2002 Legal Tender Modernization Act to Congress, which would have eliminated the penny. The bill failed miserably.

In response to the copper coin's declining value, some stores have stopped accepting it as a form of payment.

In 2007, a New York City man was so incensed when a Chinese restaurant refused to let him pay for his dinner with 10 pennies (along with other cash) that he persuaded a state senator to draft a bill requiring pennies to be accepted everywhere and at all times. (The bill was not passed.)

Though pennies may be more trouble than they are worth, don’t look for them to disappear anytime soon.

Abilene and Smokey Valley Railroad 4-6-2 steam locomotive

Leaving Abilene, Kansas on the way to Enterprise


Midway between Abilene and Enterprise


Arriving in Enterprise

Cash for clunkers suspended?

CBS News reports:

In a shocker, the government announced it would suspend the program at midnight because demand was too great.

New York City car dealers are asking, how could the Obama administration mess this up??


Is the whole clunker program in the dumpster?

If they foul up ObamaCare this badly, the entire country will be much worse off than we feared.

More here.

Line in the sand

A bather walks past the "Line in the Sand" sculpture by artist John Hutchinson at the Sculpture by the Sea coastal exhibition at Cottesloe Beach in Perth, Australia.

Texting tow truck driver hits car and crashes into pool

A tow truck driver tow was texting on one cell phone while talking on another when he slammed into a car and crashed into a swimming pool.

Police said the 25-year-old driver admitted he was texting and talking when his flatbed truck hit the car Wednesday morning in Lockport, New York.


The truck then crashed through a fence and sideswiped a house before rolling front-end first into an in-ground swimming pool.

The 68-year-old woman driving the car suffered head injuries and was in good condition. Her 8-year-old niece suffered minor injuries.

The tow truck driver was charged with reckless driving, talking on a cell phone and following too closely.

Link

Texting and driving is a bad combination

Rose Garden or Beer Garden?

Obama, the bartender-in-chief, is shown hosting the black Harvard professor who acted stupidly according to the Cambridge Police Department and the Cambridge cop who acted stupidly according to Mr. Obama.

Study finds organic foods no healthier

We decided long ago not to spend the extra money required to buy organic foods. We thought non-organic food was just as nutritious.

Another reason we avoid organic food is the fear that a few organic growers occasionally use raw manure in their effort to avoid chemical fertilizer.

A study at the link below shows that our decision was justified on price alone. The study is from the UK but why would it be any different here?

Organic food has no nutritional or health benefits over ordinary food, according to a major study published Wednesday.


Researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said consumers were paying higher prices for organic food because of its perceived health benefits, creating a global organic market worth an estimated $48 billion in 2007.

Will proponents of organic foods stop paying extra money based on this study? Probably not. Most will continue buying organic foods along with “twisted” light bulbs that are many times more expensive and are a proven health hazard if not disposed of by experts.

Link

The White House beer summit is today

Sunflowers in Japan

Japanese girls walk through a sunflower field at Chita, a town near Nagoya in Aichi prefecture, central Japan. A total of some 200,000 sunflowers welcomed guests in the summer sunshine as Nagoya area's temperature climbed to more than 90 degrees.

Be careful what you Tweet

A Chicago renter was sued over a Twitter posting.

Amanda Bonnen was sued for allegedly posting on her Twitter account a "tweet" that accuses her management company of being OK with moldy apartments.

According to the suit filed Monday in Cook County Circuit Court Bonnen wrote an update that said "Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it's okay."

Because Bonnen's Twitter account is set to "public," everyone following on Twitter can view the defamatory statement, the suit said.

The suit went on to say Horizon Group Management has been greatly injured in its reputation as a landlord in Chicago because of Bonnen's Tweet.

Horizon Group Management seeks an excess of $50,000 in damages.

So, as the title of this posting says, “Be careful what you Tweet.”

Actually, you could be sued for what you say anywhere on the Internet such as in Facebook postings or for postings on any of the other social networking websites as well as blog postings.

Link

Chris Matthews leg says Obama is slipping

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews told his viewers last winter that a speech by Barack Obama sent a tingle up his leg.

Good likeness of Matthews don’t ya’ think?

Hooligans dunk Smart cars in Dutch canals

A new craze in Holland is leaving Smart car owners smarting.

Dutch pranksters in Amsterdam have dumped dozens of the tiny two-seater cars into the city's waterways.

And now police fear the bizarre trend will spread to the UK and the rest of Europe.

Eco-friendly Smart cars are small enough to be picked up by just a few people and dumped into the Dutch capital's canals.

One Smart sales worker said: "We're not supposed to talk about this because the police don't want the craze to spread but we've had quite a few drowned cars returned to us."

Photo shows a crane pulling a Smart car out of an Amsterdam canal.

Link

White House beer diplomacy

Over the decades, we’ve had ping-pong diplomacy, shuttle diplomacy and cowboy diplomacy. And now we’ve got beer diplomacy.

Barack Obama is going to sit down for a beer on Thursday night at a picnic table outside the Oval Office with the two main players in a racially charged case — Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates and Cambridge, Massachusetts, police Sergeant James Crowley.

This is damage control. Obama is still trying to put out a fire that began when he accused Cambridge police of acting stupidly when a white policeman arrested a black Harvard professor.

Link

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Cliff hanger

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A 1987 Dodge van that got stuck on a rock overhang, near Grand Junction, Colorado, after the driver sent the vehicle off a cliff in an apparent suicide attempt. The 34-year-old male driver survived the incident.

Stimulus jobs lasting less than one week

Politicians are straining to convince people that the government is stimulating the economy.

In Oregon, where lawmakers are spending $176 million to supplement the federal stimulus, Democrats are taking credit for a remarkable feat: creating 3,236 new jobs in the program's first three months.

But those jobs lasted on average only 35 hours -- a little less than one work week!

After that, those workers were effectively back unemployed, according to an Associated Press analysis of state spending and hiring data.

By the state's accounting, a job is a job, whether it lasts three hours, three days, three months, or a lifetime.

In defense of the flawed statistics, Oregon's Senate president said, “sometimes some work for an individual is better than no work at all.”

The spin meter is working overtime declaring that very temporary jobs are part of the stimulus job creation numbers.

Link

At the World Series of Dog Shows

Justin, a Lhasa apso dog, pauses during the Reliant Park World Series of Dog Shows in Houston, Texas

Cash for clunkers: last minute rules change

Just before the "cash-for-clunkers" program the government changed the mileage figures on about 100 older vehicles. The new figures will alter which vehicles would be eligible for up to $4,500 in sales inducements.


About half the 100 suddenly did not qualify because their combined mileage rating was revised upward; others unexpectedly got in.

Link

Israel to hold anti-Obama rally

For the first time in years there will be a large-scale rally against United States policies toward Israel. The protest will be held in downtown Jerusalem.

Not surprising since the United States now has the first anti-Semitic leaning president since Jimmy Carter.

Link

Voter reaction to Obama's “stupidly” accusation

Mutton bustin’ the hard way

Mutton buster Justin Uribe competes during the California Rodeo in Salinas.

Next time he’ll try to ride on top like the sport was intended.

No Happy Meal for McDonalds robbers

Denver Channel 4 reports:

No Happy Meal for McDonalds robbers in Colorado.

Colorado Springs police say a McDonalds worker foiled an armed robbery in the drive-through lane just by closing the window.

Authorities say two men ordered a drink in the drive-through at about 3 a.m. Monday, and when they pulled up to the window, two other men walked up, pulled a gun and demanded money.

When the employee closed the window, the men all left.

No one has been arrested.

Link

World’s most crowded swimming pool?

A heat wave has hit many parts of China with temperatures reaching a sweltering 40 degrees (104 degrees Fahrenheit).


This has caused many Chinese to grab their speedo’s and head for swimming pools and even the polluted Yangtze river for relief.

Link

China blocks ABC's Newser blog

ABC reports that their Newser blog is blocked again today by the Chinese Government. ABC reports:

The World Newser appears to be blocked in China today.

Try to access it and a message pops up saying: “Oops. This link appears to be broken.” Why? The Chinese government rarely, if ever, offers an explanation.

Upon further investigation, it turns out other ABC News blogs are blocked today too -- including Jake Tapper’s Political Punch and George Stephanopoulos’ Bottom Line.

Political Punch by Jake Tapper is generally a good, well written, fair and balanced blog. However, Bottom Line by George Stephanopoulos is about as irrelevant as it’s writer and the first word in the name of the blog is all you need to know about its contents and worth.

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

The action of the Chinese Government in this matter is viewed by many as blatant censorship. On the other hand, blocking the ultra-liberal ABC News may simply demonstrate good taste by the Chinese.


Have the Chinese figured out this censorship thing all by themselves or did they buy a “Censorship for Dummies” book from Amazon.com?

Link

The Facebook lying down photo game

The photos shown here are people doing the Facebook lying down game. More Facebook lying down game photos are at the first link below.


The last time I looked there were more than 9,000 photos of people doing the Facebook lying down game.

More information from the originator of the “game” is at the second link.

The rules are simple. Just take a photo of yourself or a friend lying flat, face down. You have to be as if you are standing up with arms by your side. Select as public a space as possible for the photo and then post it with the others in the Facebook gallery.

Link here and here.

Obama continues to drop in tracking polls

Results of the latest Rasmussen Reports daily tracking poll shows the difference between those who strongly approve of his performance and those who strongly disapprove is at an all-time low of -11 as shown in the Rasmussen graph below:

The Strongly Disapprove number has gone up by five percentage points in that many days. It was 35% last Wednesday morning and now it 40%.

The numbers appear to be in near “free-fall” mode - assisted by the “cops acting stupidly” accusation. An apology would have helped but, as the old Dutchman used to say: “regrets do not an apology make.”

Link

Starting the work week right ...

...just one more peek in the mirror then it’s off to work.

Master Pieces

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A magnifying glass shows individual paintings forming a puzzle mosaic of the Mona Lisa at the International Tokyo Toy Show.

Unkept promises of stimulus hurting ObamaCare

A report at the link below outlines the main ObamaCare stumbling block - unkept promises of the $787 stimulus bill.

If Barack Obama fails to enact national health care, it will be because he sowed the seeds of his own demise last Feb. 17 -- the day the president, surrounded by Democratic leaders, signed the $787 billion economic stimulus bill.

Obama and congressional Democrats made promises and took actions that are now coming back to haunt them and could hurt their quest of remaking the nation's health care system.

Now the Democrats have another trillion-dollar bill - ObamaCare - that they want to pass before anyone has a chance to read it.

Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, who has emerged as a leader of the opposition in the health care fight, said:

"It's becoming clear that they misunderstood the economy, and now Americans are wondering whether they misunderstand health care."

"People are less trusting now."

Now, to judge by the polls, a lot of people view things differently.

Link

A diver stands on his hands as he attempts to help set the world record for most divers submerged at Gilboa Quarry, in Giboa, Ohio. The current mark was set in Feb. 2006 off the shores of the Indian Ocean nation of the Maldives when 979 divers submerged at once.

Fooled me. I thought he was preparing for an underwater seashell-painting contest.

Bodies go unclaimed in LA as families can’t pay funeral costs

The poor economy is taking a toll even on the dead, with an increasing number of bodies in Los Angeles County going unclaimed by families who cannot afford to bury or cremate their loved ones.

At the county coroner's office -- which handles homicides and other suspicious deaths -- 36% more cremations were done at taxpayers' expense in the last fiscal year over the previous year, from 525 to 712.

"It's a pretty dramatic increase," said Lt. David Smith, a coroner's investigator. "The families just tell us flat-out they don't have the money to do a funeral."

Link

CBO deals another blow to ObamaCare

For the second time this month, Congressional Budget Office analysts have dealt a blow to Democrat's health reform efforts, this time by saying a plan touted by the White House as crucial to paying for the bill would actually save almost no money over 10 years.

Link

Blind faith in ObamaCare