Warning - turning busses

Hope all of the passengers have seat belts!

Snow rescue in Siberia

A rescuer clears snow on a highway from Krasnoyarsk, Siberia to Mongolia after several avalanches on the Kulumys Pass in the Western Sayan Mountains

Obama administration to squelch opposing views

There is a very troubling article at the link below that shows an attempt by the Obama administration to target conservatives.

One wonders if this report was drawn up even before Janet Napolitano (pictured) was named Homeland Security Czar. With referrals to “white-power,” “first black president,” and other racist innuendo, the report could easily have been written before the election.

The article does not say who compiled the report and what "evidence" they have.

From the article:

The Department of Homeland Security is warning law enforcement officials about a rise in "rightwing extremist activity," saying the economic recession, the election of America's first black president and the return of a few disgruntled war veterans could swell the ranks of white-power militias.

A footnote attached to the report by the Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines "rightwing extremism in the United States" as including not just racist or hate groups, but also groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority.

"It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration," the warning says.

It is interesting that this report surfaced on the eve of the “Tea Party” protests.

According to this report, not only returning Veterans but anyone who opposes killing babies are considered “right-wing extremists.”

It appears that anything the administration sees as a possible threat immediately becomes a ripe target for vilification.

One only needs to look at how much media investigation was devoted to Sarah Palin vs. how much attention was paid to digging into Obama's background which still remains an unresolved mystery.

The report obviously is an attempt to paint all conservative Christian’s and returning Veterans as radical extremists that law enforcement should be wary of.

This appears to be an attempt by the Obama administration to squelch opposing views.

Link

President of France: Obama is weak and meek

A report from the UK (at the link below) says:

France has been cooing along with everyone else over the arrival of Barack Obama at the White House but the master of America's new First Dog is no longer in good odour with President Sarkozy (pictured).

Mr. Sarkozy gets it!

Mr Sarkozy is pouring cold water on President Obama's efforts to recast American leadership on the world stage, depicting them as unoriginal, unsubstantial and overrated. Behind leaks and briefings from the Elysée Palace lies Mr. Sarkozy's irritation at the rock-star welcome that Europe gave Mr. Obama on his European tour earlier this month.

Yes, Nicolas Sarkozy really does get it - and so does the British media!

The American President's call "to free the world of the menace of a nuclear nightmare" was hot air.

"It was rhetoric – not a speech on American security policy but an export model aimed at improving the image of the United States.”

More here.

It happens every spring…

Snowman funeral

McTrash down under

How about a McGrubby and a gastro to go?

We have seen some grubby McDonald’s but this one in Adelaide, Australia is surely the worst of all.

(click on picture to see video)
We have said for years that if you enter a fast food restaurant and see flies on poorly cleaned tables, you know you’re at McDonald’s. However, we never could have imagined a McDonald’s this filthy!

Justice Ginsburg defends use of foreign law

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (pictured) doesn’t understand all the fuss lately from Congress and even from some of her own colleagues about referring to foreign law.

The following Jusices oppose the citation of foreign law in constitutional cases:

Chief Justice John Roberts

Justice Samuel Alito

Justice Antonin Scalia

Justice Clarence Thomas

Chief Justice Roberts said at his confirmation hearing:

If we’re relying on a decision from a German judge about what our Constitution means, no president accountable to the people appointed that judge and no Senate accountable to the people confirmed that judge, and yet he’s playing a role in shaping the law that binds the people in this country.

It is puzzling why any U.S. Supreme Court Justice would even consider foreign law when deciding constitutional cases. However, that is no more puzzling than why so many liberal activist Circuit Court Judges are prone to legislate from the bench rather than interpret the law.

Link

Facebook users get lower grades

Computerworld says that new study released by Ohio State University shows that college students who use Facebook spend less time studying and have lower grades than students who don't use the popular social networking site.

Don't count on the Facebook users admitting the problem. The university report noted that 79% of them said that using the social networking site was not interfering with their studies.

"We can't say that use of Facebook leads to lower grades and less studying -- but we did find a relationship there," said Aryn Karpinski, co-author of the study and a doctoral student in education at Ohio State University.

"There's a disconnect between students' claim that Facebook use doesn't impact their studies, and our finding showing they had lower grades and spent less time studying."

And who was more likely to use Facebook? Yup, future systems administrators and CIOs.

The study found that science, technology and business majors most likely to regularly use Facebook.

During the survey students only spoke about Facebook and did not focus on other social networking sites, like Myspace or Twitter.

The Ohio State University study found that 85% of undergraduates use Facebook, while 52% of graduate students had accounts. It also found that Facebook users, who generally studied between one and five hours per week, had GPAs between 3.0 and 3.5, but nonusers, who studied 11 to 15 hours per week, had GPAs between 3.5 and 4.0.

The title of the Computerworld article could just as well be, Students Facebook their way to lower grades.

Link

Speaking of Facebook…

I recently received an e-mail from my son inviting me to see his photos on Facebook.

Like most social networking sites, I will need to sign up as a member and then accept an invitation to be a “friend” of a member.

In a weak moment I joined MySpace two years ago thinking it would be a good way to communicate with family and friends who were members.

There were a lot of relatives and friends there but it wasn’t what I expected and I soon stopped logging on.

It just wasn’t my cup of tea.

I began blogging five years ago and started a blog similar to this four and one-half years ago.

Two way communication is nearly non-existent for bloggers but maybe that’s one of the reasons I prefer to blog. For communicating with family and friends, I prefer to use my 1,000 minute per month (free evenings and weekends) mobile phone or e-mail.

Now, however, I may cave in and do Facebook. Just the last few days I have received invitations to be Facebook “friends” with three grandchildren, five nieces/nephews, a son and daughter-in-law. Oh, yes, a sister wanted me to join several months ago.

Maybe I’ll finally begin doing Facebook next week or so - too many things going right now. Gotta get a recently purchased van ready to take back out to sell at the local wholesale auto auction and then look for another to either fix up and keep or take back out and sell.

Whenever you hear that retired people don’t have anything to do - don’t you believe it!

Texting driver slams into Boise patrol car

A texting driver crashed into the back of a parked Boise patrol car at over 60 miles per hour. The incident occurred in Meridian, a town just west of Boise, Idaho.

The force of the crash sent the cruiser sliding about 200 feet down the highway. It skidded to a stop just shy of another police car parked on the shoulder.

Sargent Lori Sperry says nobody was in the patrol car when it was hit. The texting driver was taken to St. Luke's Hospital in Meridian with minor injuries.

The accident smashed the tail end of the cruiser, leaving a three-foot crater and totaling the vehicle. The texting driver's Corsica was also totaled, scraping to a stop in the far left lane.

The driver had been drinking, but his blood alcohol level was under the legal limit.

Link

Environmental Agency pollutes creek

This is a classic case of do as I say, not as I do.

Washington state environmental regulators say they've finally found the source of pollution that has been fouling a creek near Vancouver Lake: the agency's own sewer pipes.

City workers have discovered that the office building's sewer line was mistakenly connected to a storm drain, rather than the municipal sewer main.

Sewage from the building has been making its way into Burnt Bridge Creek and eventually into the lake. Jay Manning, the environmental agency's director, says the discovery was "embarrassing and upsetting."

Link

Largest egg in the world

A man above poses with the alleged largest egg in the world in central London.

The egg was laid in the early 17th century by the now-extinct Great Elephant Bird of Madagascarto.

It is priced at $7,340 and will be sold at The Chelsea Antiques Fair.

Your new neighbor may be a foreclosure squatter

A story at the link below tells about a woman in Miami, calling herself Queen Omega, who moved into a three-bedroom house.

She introduced herself to the neighbors, signed contracts for electricity and water and ordered an Internet connection.

What she did not tell anyone was that she had no legal right to be in the home.






Ms. Omega, 48, is one of the beneficiaries of the foreclosure crisis. Through a small advocacy group of local volunteers called Take Back the Land, she moved from a friend’s couch into a newly empty house that sold just a few years ago for more than $400,000.

Much more of the foreclosure squatter story here.

Jumping cycles

Two riders perform in front of the Metropolitan Cathedral during the Red Bull X-Fighters motocross exhibition in Mexico City.

Storage unit auctions on the rise as economy sags

When the renter of a storage unit stops paying rent an auctioneer is brought in to sell the contents. The entire contents is sold as a package to the single highest bidder.

The photo shows bidders leaning forward to get a look at the contents of a storage unit being auctioned off.

Bidders are not allowed inside the unit or to touch the contents. Many bring flashlights in an attempt to get a better view of the contents.

The scene is evidence of an unusual opportunity: Business is booming in the sale of belongings that owners can no longer afford to keep at the nation's storage units.

For buyers, it's a grab bag that can yield either junk or the luxuries of a life left behind.

The troubled economy is reflected in the items being sold - trendy clothes, high-end appliances and other indicators that the owners were, until recently, well off.

"What we are selling now is indicative of higher-income people than what we were selling in the past," said Rich Schur of Schur Success Auction Services in Colorado Springs, Colo. "Clearly these are people who fell on hard times."

One auctioneer said he's selling off the belongings of customers who have rented storage space for years and until recently paid their bills.

More here.

Happy Easter

Navy rescues American sea captain unharmed

At the link below Andrew Breitbart reports:

An American ship captain was freed unharmed Sunday in a U.S. Navy operation that killed three of the four Somali pirates who had been holding him for days in a lifeboat off the coast of Africa, a senior U.S. intelligence official said.

One of the pirates was wounded and in custody after a swift firefight, the official said.

Capt. Richard Phillips (pictured), 53, of Underhill, Vermont, was safely transported to a Navy warship nearby.

Earlier negotiations had broken down because of the U.S. insistence that the pirates be arrested and brought to justice.

More of the story here.

Woman watches burglars in her house on webcam

Imagine watching burglars ransacking your home on a security webcam.

Jeanne Thomas was sitting at her desk at work when she decided to check the security camera that she installed in her home. The Thomas home had been burglarized before, so she installed a monitoring device where she can watch a live video feed of the camera in her home.

When Thomas decided to pull up the feed of her house Wednesday morning, she couldn't believe what she saw. There was someone inside her home, someone she didn't know.

Thomas picked up the phone and called 911. Police later arrested Curtis Williams, 20, and Steven Morales, 19.

Link to the story here. A video of burglars in her house can be found here.

Penitents walking to church in Spain the week before Easter

Brother of US president refused entry to UK

The News of the World (NOTW) reports that the half brother of the president of the United States was refused a visa to enter the UK after being accused of an attempted sex attack on a young British girl.

The News of the World can reveal that Kenya-based Samson Obama tried to get into Britain on his way to Washington for his family's big day, the historic inauguration in January.

Eagle-eyed immigration officials at East Midlands Airport, using the latest biometric tests, discovered he was linked to an incident here last November.

The NOTW article continues:

Details on the hi-tech database revealed that Samson-who manages a mobile phone shop just outside Nairobi -was in fact the same man who was arrested by police in Berkshire after he approached a group of young girls, including a 13 year-old, and allegedly tried to sexually assault one of them.

He then followed them into a cafe where he became aggressive and was asked to leave by the owner.
That's when police were called to the scene and Samson was arrested.

But he gave officers a false ID - claiming to be Henry Aloo, a genuine refugee and asylum seeker - and supplied his mother's address in Bracknell.

Mum Kezia, 67, has lived in the town for six years. She married the US president's father Barack Obama Senior in Kenya when she was a teenager.

Will this story appear in the US media? Probably not. All of the news outlets in this country are too busy telling us about how Sarah Palin has a problem family.

More of the story with photos here.