Headlines - Sunday

 

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Iraq was quiet for a while, but on Friday at least 27 Iraqis were killed and 83 more were wounded in both Ashura-related violence and other attacks.

 

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May we all go like this. "As they died side by side Tuesday evening at St. Francis hospital, Loren and Florence Gerber's hearts beat as one. When his blood pressure went up, hers did, too. When his went down, so did hers. The Gerbers had been married 62 years and had known each other since grade school. Florence Gerber liked to tell people that her husband's name fit inside her own. The Harper, Kan., couple were critically injured in a car accident last week on their way home from Wichita. On Tuesday, their family made the decision to take them off life support. The staff in the trauma/surgical ICU at Via Christi Regional Medical Center-St. Francis Campus had an idea: Why not move them into the same room so they could be together in their final moments?"

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The Year of Al Franken: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/photofeatures/2009/12/the-year-of-al-franken.php?img=1&ref=fpb

And now, for a photo that didn't make the cut: Senator Franken with my nephew, Conrad.

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Obama, who ran as an anti-war candidate, calls on every American to do something to support the troops in his Christmas address.

 

Isn't that what my tax dollars do?

 

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Meet Giant George. He's a blue great dane from Arizona who is now the tallest known dog.

 

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Even if you can get past the moustache, would you vote for a guy who has this campaign website?

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Son of Moment of Biology Geek Researchers at North East England Stem Cell Institute have cured a man of a painful and debilitating advancing blindness that was caused by a chemical injury to one of his eyes in 1994 by removing a few of the corneal cells from his good eye and culturing them with stem cells, then implanting them in the damaged eye.

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Now here's something you don't read every day:

 

HYDERABAD, India—The 86-year-old governor of a southern Indian state resigned Saturday, a day after a television news channel broadcast a tape allegedly showing him in bed with three women, an official said.  

 

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Democrats are troubled by the inconsistency of Republican lawmakers who approved a major Medicare expansion six years ago that has added tens of billions of dollars to federal deficits, but oppose current health overhaul plans.
All current GOP senators, including the 24 who voted for the 2003 Medicare expansion, oppose the health care bill that's backed by President Barack Obama and most congressional Democrats.

The Democrats claim that their plan moving through Congress now will pay for itself with higher taxes and spending cuts and they cite the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office for support.

By contrast, when Republicans controlled the House, Senate and White House in 2003, they overcame Democratic opposition to add a deficit-financed prescription drug benefit to Medicare. The program will cost a half-trillion dollars over 10 years, or more by some estimates.

With no new taxes or spending offsets accompanying the Medicare drug program, the cost has been added to the federal debt.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091226/ap_on_bi_ge/us_heal...

 

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Perhaps this is why they do not spell out Sports Utility Vehicle and just let owners get by with SUV: 

 

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Proof the economy's sunk and not rising anytime soon

 

The Archdiocese of Louisville is seeing an increase in men studying for the priesthood, a dramatic reversal of a trend earlier in this decade when the pool of prospects shrank to all but zero.

 

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Still...

 

Wasting money and lives: Once again, the Army decided to side with the same contractor that has overcharged them for feeding our troops, electrocuted our forces due to faulty work, and exposed them to human sewage through their inability to even get a building properly plumbed.

 

Glad to see we're still supporting the Cheneys.

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Drive or take a bus or train or even a ship, because flying on a commercial airliner, which has not been much in the way of fun since 9-11, is about to get a lot worse.

For the last hour of the flight, you now have to sit in your seat with your hands folded in your lap. No food, no computer, no nothing. And if you think you might have to use the bathroom, expect to be arrested and charged with failure to obey a cabin Nazi, or some other felony beef, so you might as well wear one of those homicidal-astronaut diapers.

The "nothing in yor lap, sit down and shut up for the last hour" is nothing other than the same sort of security theater bullshit that one would expect from the lovable stormtroopers at the DBP. The fear-mongerers have to be seen to be doing something, however ineffectual, so each time some bozo tries something, they will make flying even more and more like being incarcerated in a prison. Sooner or later, all passengers will be required to strip naked and will then be issued disposable coveralls and booties for their flight. That may sound ludicrous, but the day is coming. And you can just bet your ass that there are people in the DBP who are planning for the implementation of such a procedure.

 

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Have the bastards even paid for the first spill?

 

A tugboat struck the same reef as the Exxon Valdez tanker 20 years ago, spilling diesel into Alaska's Prince William Sound and creating a three-mile-long slick, the US Coast Guard said on Friday.

 

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I guess he doesn't know about the drone attacks

 

Connecting the dots for Pete Hoekstra: Obama administration has been focused on Yemen. 

 

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Iran protests turn violent.

 

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It never ends. "Palestinian leaders have condemned Israel's killing of three Palestinians in the West Bank as a "dangerous escalation" in violence. Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said Israel's raid in Nablus threatened security and stability in the area. Israel said the three men were behind a recent death of an Israeli settler. Separately, the Israeli army said three Palestinians suspected of trying to infiltrate from the Gaza Strip were killed near the Erez crossing. A security source for Hamas - the Palestinian faction which runs the Gaza Strip - said the three were shot as they collected scrap metal, Reuters reports. The six all died on Saturday, the largest number of deaths in the region in a day since the Gaza conflict a year ago."