$280 million wasted

A rocket carrying a NASA satellite crashed near Antarctica after a failed launch early Tuesday, ending a $280 million mission to track global warming from space.

- AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal (link here)

How much did launching and crashing the satellite contribute to global warming?

Ecomigration

Adam Fier recently sold his home, got rid of his car and pulled his twin 6-year-old girls out of elementary school in Montgomery County. He and his wife packed the family's belongings and moved to New Zealand -- a place they had never visited or seen before, and where they have no family or professional connections. Among the top reasons: global warming.

- Washington Post (link here)

Pathetic.

22 years late

An Oregon woman finally received an invitation to her nephew's high school graduation in New Jersey, but she may be a little late — it was in 1987.

Peter Hass, spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service's Portland district, called the delay "very unusual and very unfortunate."

- AP/ajc (link here)

Maybe raising the price of stamps will improve efficiency.

Virtuecrats

"...we don’t need sermons from liberal virtuecrats...."

- Maureen Dowd, NY Times (link here)

I always find it a little weird when I agree with Maureen Dowd.

Soak the rich?

President Barack Obama is putting the finishing touches on an ambitious first budget that seeks to cut the federal deficit in half over the next four years, primarily by raising taxes on businesses and the wealthy and by slashing spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, administration officials said.

- Washington Post/Denver Post (link here)

We do this in Wisconsin all the time. Create a business-unfriendly climate and then complain about no new private sector jobs.

Political cartoons

Editorial cartoonists are bending over backwards a lot these days, as they try to satirize the nation's first black president. And when they don't, the result is the kind of outcry that erupted this week after a New York Post cartoon featured a bloody chimpanzee - intentionally or unintentionally evoking racist images of the past.

- AP/Miami Herald (link here)

Maybe they should satirize Mohammed instead.

Muslim stereotypes

The crime drips with brutal irony: a woman decapitated, allegedly by her estranged husband, in the offices of the television network the couple founded with the hope of countering Muslim stereotypes.

- AP/ajc (link here)

What makes them stereotypes?

Alleged death threats

Police said Thursday that they will investigate death threats against octuplet mom Nadya Suleman and advise her publicist on how to handle a torrent of other nasty messages that have flooded his office.

- AP/Denver Post (link here)

But are they credible death threats?

Barack Obama High School

The leader of a group of students who had proposed changing the name of Boulder High School to Barack Obama High School said this afternoon that the group is backing off the plan.

- Denver Post (link here)

Lack of support seems a bit of an understatement.

Obama's ethics

The Senate voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to confirm William Lynn as deputy defense secretary, endorsing President Barack Obama's decision to waive ethics regulations by putting a former defense lobbyist in charge of day-to-day operations at the Pentagon.

- AP/Denver Post (link here)

Freedom from Religion

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is placing "Praise Darwin" billboards in Whitehall, Ohio; Madison, Wis.; Grand Junction, Colo.; Dayton, Tenn.; and Dover, Pa.

The foundation is based in Madison and made up of agnostics and atheists opposed to government displays of religion.

- AP/azcentral (link here)

They fit right in at Madison, the armpit of Wisconsin.

Another grim prediction

If our new, changed and hopeful federal government keeps spending money as if there were no tomorrow, there will be hell to pay. And the persons we can blame, first and foremost, will be President Barack Obama, Rep. Nancy Pelosi and our own Sen. Harry Reid. It will ruin the Democratic Party for a generation, maybe forever.

- Sherman Frederick, Las Vegas Review-Journal (link here)

Left-wing news & The Biker

(Thanks to my brother for this one.)

The Biker

A biker is riding by the zoo, when he sees a little girl leaning into the lion's cage. Suddenly, the lion grabs her by the cuff of her jacket and tries to pull her inside to slaughter her, under the eyes of her screaming parents.

The biker jumps off his bike, runs to the cage and hits the lion square on the nose with a powerful punch.

Whimpering from the pain the lion jumps back letting go of the girl, and the biker brings her to her terrified parents, who thank him endlessly. A reporter has watched the whole event.

The reporter addressing the biker says, 'Sir, this was the most gallant and brave thing I saw a man do in my whole life.'

The biker replies, 'Why, it was nothing, really, the lion was behind bars. I just saw this little kid in danger, and acted as I felt right.'

The reporter says, 'Well, I'll make sure this won't go unnoticed. I'm a journalist, you know, and tomorrow's paper will have this story on the front page... So, what do you do for a living and what political affiliation do you have?''

The biker replies, 'I'm a U.S. Marine and a Republican.'

The journalist leaves.

The following morning the biker buys the paper to see if it indeed brings news of his actions, and reads, on the front page:

U.S. MARINE ASSAULTS AFRICAN IMMIGRANT AND STEALS HIS LUNCH

Modern day Scrooge

An attorney says a 93-year-old Michigan man who froze to death after a power company restricted electricity to his home over roughly $1,000 in unpaid bills left an estimated $600,000 to a hospital.

- AP/azcentral (link here)

Scrooge liked it dark and cold.

Paying Dr. Death

Since his release from jail, Kevorkian has spoken on a handful of college campuses and television shows. A year ago, he spoke to a crowd of more than 5,000 at the University of Florida for a fee of $57,500.

- Miami Herald (link here)

It sure is lucrative being a criminal.

There are a lot of honest, hard-working Americans that do not make $57,500 in an entire year.

Bloggers

Bored, anonymous, pathetic bloggers who lie annoy me.

- Sarah Palin, quoted by Esquire (link here)

Me, too.