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Friday, February 25, 2011

My cat stole my sunglasses.

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4 Amish children die when buggy flips in Ky. creek

Traffic sign alerting drivers for Amish Buggie...Image via Wikipedia
DUBLIN, Ky. — A horse-drawn buggy carrying an Amish family of nine who went to make a phone call toppled in a rain-swollen creek in rural Kentucky, killing four children who were swept away in the water, authorities said Friday.
The group was traveling in a downpour in the dark Thursday about 8:30 p.m. CST when the buggy flipped during a severe storm. The buggy was crossing a creek that is normally a trickle, but often floods during heavy rains.
Those killed were a 5-month-old; a 5-year-old; a 7-year-old and an 11-year-old. Three of the children were siblings and one was a cousin.
Two adults and three other children escaped. The horse that was pulling the buggy also survived.
The uncle of the 11-year-old who died said the family had used what is known as a "phone shack" and was going home when the buggy overturned.
"She was just an all-around good girl," Levi Yoder, 30, said of his niece.
The discovery of her body about 9:45 a.m. Friday dashed hopes that she might have been alive, clinging to a tree or rock through the night. The other three bodies were discovered shortly after midnight.
They buggy was traveling in the sparsely populated farming community of Dublin, heavily populated with Amish, in far western Kentucky near the Tennessee, Missouri and Illinois borders.
The apparently unnamed creek flows through farmland along a narrow, paved road.
"Whenever they crossed it, the water was so swift it just took the buggy and tipped it over," Graves County Sheriff Dewayne Redmon said.
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2 arrested in Rio casino heist of $32K in chips

Rio Hotel & Casino Las VegasImage via Wikipedia
LAS VEGAS — Las Vegas police have arrested two people and are searching for a third person allegedly behind the robbery of a Las Vegas casino where a suspect wearing a fake mustache and a fedora grabbed $32,000 worth of gambling chips and then pulled a gun on a dealer who tried to stop him.
Las Vegas Police said they would reveal new details about the arrests involving the early Thursday morning heist at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino during a press conference scheduled for 10:30 a.m. on Friday. They declined to provide details about the arrest before then.
The robbery comes two months after $1.5 million in chips was stolen during an early-morning stickup at the nearby Bellagio hotel-casino. The suspect, 29-year-old Anthony Carleo, was arrested earlier this month.
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SARAH PALIN OR THE JOKE OF ALASKA???

Sarah Palin in Savannah, Georgia, Dec 1, 2008 ...Image via Wikipedia

Palin's milk joke goes sour

Sarah Palin spoke Thursday at the Long Island Association, a business group in New York. The event was notable for the fact that Palin invited the press--something she does rarely. And it was newsworthy in that she gave another sign she might actually run for president: News reports say she hinted with a smile that someone who is good at multitasking ("a woman, a mom"), as well as someone who's already run for something ("a vice-presidential candidate?") would be most qualified for the job.
During the event, in which Palin was interviewed by the Long Island Association's president, she sounded off about presidential things--the deficit, whether or not to raise the nation's debt ceiling and President Obama's health-care reform law. And she weighed in on the debate over Obama's citizenship, reportedly saying it is "distracting. It gets annoying. Let's stick to what really matters."
But if that's what she really wants people to do, why did she crack a joke about Michelle Obama's campaign to make it easier for women to breastfeed? When the conversation turned to the escalating price of gas and groceries, Palin reportedly said, "It's no wonder Michelle Obama is telling everybody you better breastfeed your baby--yeah, you better--because the price of milk is so high right now!"
It may have just been an attempt to draw a laugh from the crowd over issues--childhood obesity and the medically proven benefits of breastfeeding--that are no laughing matter. But even though she followed up by saying "and may that not be the takeaway, please, of this speech," it has become one of them. Headlines saying that Palin was mocking Michelle Obama's attempt to make it easier for women to breastfeed have lead stories following the speech.
Who knows whether or not Palin will run for the nation's highest office. But if she does, comments like this one do little to make her sound presidential. For one, even if it was a joke, Palin was making light of something that has to do with the future of this country--the health and well-being of its children. And even if Palin spent most of the talk discussing deficits, health-care reform and foreign affairs, it's unnecessary side comments like these that will--whether she likes it or not--lead the news.
Just consider the contrast in the coverage following Palin's talk with the coverage following New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's speech at the American Enterprise Institute Wednesday. While political experts lauded Christie--who has repeatedly said he won't run for president--with praise for his straight talk and focus on the meaning of leadership during the speech, Palin's unusually open event found her the subject of much less flattering headlines.
Leaders are judged as much on what they do take the time to weigh in on as on what they don't say at all. Jumping into the debate about Michelle Obama's campaign to fight childhood obesity, and make breastfeeding easier for those women who choose to do it, may have been like throwing candy to certain elements of her base. But if she wants to sound presidential, then sticking to what really matters (as Palin puts it) without throwing in little cracks about a universally agreed-upon problem would be a lot less, in a word, distracting.
THIS WOMAN KEEPS HER FOOT IN HER MOUTH DOESN'T SHE?
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Wis. Assembly passes bill taking away union rights

    State Reps. Jon Richards Kelda Helen Roys AP – State Reps. Jon Richards, D-Milwaukee, left, and Kelda Helen Roys (D-Madison), right, shout while approaching …
    MADISON, Wis. – Republicans in the Wisconsin Assembly took the first significant action on their plan to strip collective bargaining rights from most public workers, abruptly passing the measure early Friday morning before sleep-deprived Democrats realized what was happening.
    The vote ended three straight days of punishing debate in the Assembly. But the political standoff over the bill — and the monumental protests at the state Capitol against it — appear far from over.
    The Assembly's vote sent the bill on to the Senate, but minority Democrats in that house have fled to Illinois to prevent a vote and say they won't return unless Republican Gov. Scott Walker agrees to discuss a compromise. Republicans who control the Senate sent state troopers out looking for them at their homes on Thursday, but they turned up nothing.
    "This kind of solidifies our resolve," Democratic Sen. Chris Larson said Friday after the Assembly vote. "If we come back, they're going to ram this through without us having a say."
    Walker's contains a number of provisions he says are designed to fill the state's $137 million deficit and lay the groundwork for fixing a projected $3.6 billion shortfall in the upcoming 2011-13 budget.
    The flashpoint is language that would require public workers to contribute more to their pensions and health insurance and strip them of their right to collectively bargain benefits and work conditions.
    Democrats and unions see the measure as an attack on workers' rights and an attempt to cripple union support for Democrats. Union leaders say they would make pension and health care concessions if they can keep their bargaining rights, but Walker has refused to compromise.
    Tens of thousands of people have jammed the Capitol since last week to protest, pounding on drums and chanting so loudly that police providing security have resorted to ear plugs. Hundreds have taken to sleeping in the building overnight, dragging in air mattresses and blankets.
    Click image to see photos of the Wisconsin protest

    AP/Wisconsin State Journal, M.P. King
    Walker issued a statement Friday praising the Assembly for passing the bill and renewing his call for Senate Democrats to return.
    "The fourteen Senate Democrats need to come home and do their jobs, just like the Assembly Democrats did," Walker said.
    Democratic Sen. Jon Erpenbach said Friday that the Assembly's passage of the bill did not change Senate Democrats' intent to stay away.
    With the Senate immobilized, Assembly Republicans decided to act and convened the chamber Tuesday morning.
    Democrats launched a filibuster, throwing out dozens of amendments and delivering rambling speeches. Each time Republicans tried to speed up the proceedings, Democrats rose from their seats and wailed that the GOP was stifling them.
    Debate had gone on for 60 hours and 15 Democrats were still waiting to speak when the vote started around 1 a.m. Friday. Speaker Pro Tem Bill Kramer, R-Waukesha, opened the roll and closed it within seconds.
    Democrats looked around, bewildered. Only 13 of the 38 Democratic members managed to vote in time.
    Republicans immediately marched out of the chamber in single file. The Democrats rushed at them, pumping their fists and shouting "Shame!" and "Cowards!"
    The Republicans walked past them without responding.
    Democrats left the chamber stunned. The protesters greeted them with a thundering chant of "Thank you!" Some Democrats teared up. Others hugged.
    "What a terrible, terrible day for Wisconsin," said Rep. Jon Richards, D-Milwaukee. "I am incensed. I am shocked."
    GOP leaders in the Assembly refused to speak with reporters, but earlier Friday morning Majority Leader Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford, warned Democrats that they had been given 59 hours to be heard and Republicans were ready to vote.
    "I applaud the Democrats in the Assembly for earnestly debating this bill and urge their counterparts in the state Senate to return to work and do the same," Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, R-Horicon, said in a statement issued moments after the vote.
    The governor has said that if the bill does not pass by Friday, the state will miss a deadline to refinance $165 million of debt and will be forced to start issuing layoff notices next week. However, the deadline may not as strict as he says.
    The nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau said earlier this week that the debt refinancing could be pushed back as late as Tuesday to achieve the savings Walker wants. Based on a similar refinancing in 2004, about two weeks are needed after the bill becomes law to complete the deal. That means if the bill is adopted by the middle of next week, the state can still meet a March 16 deadline, the Fiscal Bureau said.
    Frustrated by the delay, Senate Republican Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, Jeff Fitzgerald's brother, ordered state troopers to find the missing Democrats, but they came up empty. Wisconsin law doesn't allow police to arrest the lawmakers, but Fitzgerald said he hoped the show of authority would have pressured them to return.

    Gadhafi militia open fire on Libya protesters

    The leader de facto of Libya, Muammar al-Gaddafi.Image via Wikipedia
    BENGHAZI, Libya – Militias loyal to Moammar Gadhafi opened fire Friday on protesters streaming out of mosques and marching across the Libyan capital to demand the regime's ouster, witnesses said, reporting at least four killed. In rebellious cities in the east, tens of thousands held rallies in support of the first Tripoli protests in days.
    In the capital's Souq al-Jomaa district, protesters came under fire from gunmen on rooftops as they tried to march to Tripoli's central Green Square, several miles (kilometers) away. "There are all kind of bullets," said one man in the crowd, screaming in a telephone call to The Associated Press, with the rattle of gunfire audible in the background.
    One witness reported seeing three protesters killed in Souq al-Jomaa, and another reported a fourth death in the district of Fashloum, where another rally was trying to march to the center. The reports could not be immediately confirmed.
    Gunmen opened a hail of bullets on thousands heading toward the center from Tajoura, a crowded impoverished district on the eastern side of the capital, a participant said.
    "We can't see where it is coming from," he said. "They don't want to stop." He said one man next to him was shot in the neck. Others reported gunfire near Green Square itself where dozens of militiamen opened fire in the air to disperse protesters coming out of a nearby mosque. Other armed Gadhafi supporters were speeding through streets in vehicles, said another witness.
    The call for regime opponents to march from mosques after prayers was the first attempt to hold a major anti-Gadhafi rally in the capital since early this week, when militiamen launched a bloody crackdown on protesters that left dozens dead. In the morning and night before, SMS messages were sent around urging, "Let us make this Friday the Friday of liberation," residents said. The residents and witnesses all spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
    Tripoli, home to about a third of Libya's population of 6 million, is the center of the eroding territory that Gadhafi still controls. The uprising that began Feb. 15 has swept over nearly the entire eastern half of the country, breaking cities there out of his regime's hold.
    Even in the pocket of northwestern Libya around Tripoli, several cities have also fallen into the hands of the rebellion. Militiamen and pro-Gadhafi troops were repelled Thursday when they launched attacks trying to take back opposition-held territory in Zawiya and Misrata, near the capital, in fighting that killed at least 30 people.
    Support for Gadhafi continued to fray within a regime where he long commanded unquestioned loyalty.
    Libya's delegation to the United Nations in Geneva announced Friday it was defecting to the opposition — and it was given a standing ovation at a gathering of the U.N. Human Rights Council. They join a string of Libyan ambassadors and diplomats around the world who abandoned the regime, as have the justice and interior ministers at home, and one of Gadhafi's cousins and closest aides, Ahmed Gadhaf al-Dam, who sought refuge in Egypt.
    On a visit to Turkey, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the violence by pro-Gadhafi forces is unacceptable and should not go unpunished.
    "Mr. Gadhafi must go," he said.
    The New York-based Human Rights Watch has put the death toll in Libya at nearly 300, according to a partial count. Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said estimates of some 1,000 people killed were "credible."
    The upheaval in the OPEC nation has taken most of Libya's oil production of 1.6 million barrels a day off the market. Oil prices hovered above $98 a barrel Friday in Asia, backing away from a spike to $103 the day before amid signs the crisis in Libya may have cut crude supplies less than previously estimated.
    The opposition camp says it is in control of two of Libya's major oil ports — Breqa and Ras Lanouf — on the Gulf of Sidra in central Libya. A resident of Ras Lanouf said Friday that the security force guarding that port had joined the rebellion and were helping guard it, along with residents of the area.
    Signaling continued defiance, Gadhafi's son Seif al-Islam, vowed his family will "live and die in Libya," according an excerpt from an interview to be aired later Friday on CNNTurk.
    Asked about alternatives in the face of growing unrest, Gadhafi said: "Plan A is to live and die in Libya, Plan B is to live and die in Libya, Plan C is to live and die in Libya.
    Gadhafi's militiamen — a mixture of Libyans and foreign mercenaries — have clamped down hard in Tripoli the past week after the Libyan leader called on his supporters to take back the streets from protesters and hunt them in their homes. A wave of arrests has taken place in recent days, with residents reporting security forces raiding homes and dragging away suspected protest organizers.
    Starting Friday morning in Tripoli, militiamen set up heavy security around many mosques in the city, trying to prevent any opposition gatherings. Armed young men with green armbands to show their support of Gadhafi set up checkpoints on many streets, stopping cars and searching them. Tanks and checkpoints lined the road to Tripoli's airport, witnesses said.
    Several tens of thousands held a rally in support of the Tripoli protesters in the main square of Libya's second-largest city, Benghazi, where the revolt began, about 580 miles (940 kilometers) east of the capital along the Mediterranean coast.
    Tents — some with photographs of people who had been killed in fighting — were set up and residents served breakfast to people, many carrying signs in Arabic and Italian. Others climbed on a few tanks parked nearby, belonging to army units in the city that allied with the rebellion.
    "We will not stop this rally until Tripoli is the capital again," said Omar Moussa, a demonstrator. "Libyans are all united ... Tripoli is our capital. Tripoli is in our hearts."
    Muslim cleric Sameh Jaber led the prayers in the square, telling worshippers that Libyans "have revolted against injustice."
    "God take revenge from Moammar Gadhafi because of what he did to the Libyan people," the cleric, wearing traditional Libyan white uniform and a red cap, said in remarks carried by Al-Jazeera TV. "God accept our martyrs and make their mothers, fathers and families patient."
    Similar rallies took place in other cities in the east, as well as in opposition-controlled Misrata, Libya's third largest city, located in the northwest of the country, about 120 miles (200 kilometers) from the capital.
    Several thousand were gathered in Misrata's main square, chanting their support for the Tripoli protesters, a doctor at the main hospital said. A day earlier, militiamen attacked Misrata residents guarding the local airport. The doctor said 20 residents and one attacker were killed in the violence.
    The worst bloodshed Thursday was in Zawiya, 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of Tripoli. An army unit loyal to Gadhafi opened fire with automatic weapons on a mosque where residents — some armed with hunting rifles for protection — have been holding a sit-in to support protesters in the capital, a witness said. A doctor at a field clinic set up at the mosque said he saw the bodies of 10 dead, shot in the head and chest, as well as around 150 wounded. A Libyan news website, Qureyna, put the death toll at 23.
    Zawiya, a key city close to an oil port and refineries, is the nearest population center to Tripoli to fall into the opposition hands.
    The European Union's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said Friday that the bloc needs to consider sanctions such as travel restrictions and an asset freeze against Libya to achieve a halt to the violence there and move toward democracy.
    NATO's main decision-making body also planned to meet in emergency session Friday to consider the deteriorating situation, although Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said the alliance has no intention of intervening in the North African nation.
    The U.N.'s top human rights official, Navi Pillay, meanwhile, said reports of mass killings of thousands in Libya should spur the international community to "step in vigorously" to end the crackdown against anti-government protesters.
    _____STOP THE MADNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!

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    CBS, Warner pull plug on season of Sheen's sitcom

    LOS ANGELES — "Two and a Half Men" star Charlie Sheen has skirted disaster as a wayward, middle-aged party boy who regularly tested the patience of the TV network and studio trying to protect their valuable sitcom property.
    It was a violence-tinged and anti-Semitic radio rant that helped push him over the edge and, finally, forced CBS and Warner Bros. Television to take action.
    In a one-sentence joint statement Thursday, the companies said they were ending production on television's No. 1 sitcom for the season, a decision based on the "totality of Charlie Sheen's statements, conduct and condition."
    Whether he's gone far enough to sink the series and, possibly, his career as one of TV's highest-paid actors remained unclear. Sheen's rambling interview Thursday with host Alex Jones was reminiscent of Mel Gibson's tirade during a 2006 traffic stop _ but Sheen knew his remarks were public.
    The production halt leaves CBS eight episodes shy of the 24 half-hours it had expected to air as the cornerstone of its Monday night comedy lineup. And it makes the network and Warner, which reaps hundreds of millions from the show in syndication, the potential go-betweens between Sheen and "Two and a Half Men" executive producer Chuck Lorre.
    Lorre bore the brunt of Sheen's attacks during the radio interview and in a subsequent "open letter" sent to TMZ after the CBS-Warner decision and posted on the entertainment website.
    In the letter, the actor called Lorre a "contaminated little maggot" and wished the producer "nothing but pain."
    "Clearly I have defeated this earthworm with my words _ imagine what I would have done with my fire breathing fists," the 45-year-old Sheen wrote.
    Improbably, he also called on his admirers to start a protest movement for him.
    "I urge all my beautiful and loyal fans who embraced this show for almost a decade to walk with me side-by-side as we march up the steps of justice to right this unconscionable wrong," Sheen wrote.
    WELL ANOTHER STAR BITES THE DUST BY RUNNING THAT BIG MOUTH.

    Sounds like 2 Rednecks fighting.

    http://www.wxii12.com/news/26996458/detail.html

    Cupid Shuffle

    GO ELMO!!!!!!!!!!!