U.S. to lift ban on lighters on airline flights | U.S. | Reuters WASHINGTON Reuters – Screeners at U.S. airports will stop confiscating common cigarette lighters because authorities now consider them a distraction from efforts to find bombs and other threats, officials said on Friday. …but flame retardant gels will still have to be carried on in a 3.5 ounce bottle, sealed in a Ziploc â„¢ bag.
-
-
Bush butt probed, Cheney in charge (AXcess News) Washington – A shudder could be felt across Capitol Hill Friday after news came out that President Bush would be having his butt checked out which meant that while Bush was going through the colonoscopy, Vice President Dick Cheney would be in charge of the nation. “It’s a chilling thought,” one passerby told AXcess News when asked if they were concerned over Cheney’s short-term rule of the White House. Press Secretary Tony Snow told reporters this morning that President Bush would be going to Camp David, MD where doctors were going to…
-
Now this is journalistic excellence: staff members of the local alternative weekly paper in Salt Lake reports the big story, after decamping to the nearest bar to wait out the boring part of being evacuated because of a bomb scare at the bank building across the street. Not only is it insightful and edgy, but traditional and slightly boozy at the same time. Mom would have gotten the biggest laugh out of this, because in her younger days she knew a lot of boozy old journalists who would have covered the story from the nearest bar, too. CW Blog: Irregular…
-
NYT: Here’s a whole new meaning for the phrase “phony war:” we started under a fake pretext, we celebrated a fake victory, and for quite a while now, we’ve been chasing after a fake insurgent leader. Add this to the litany of failure. BAGHDAD, July 18 — For more than a year, the leader of one the most notorious insurgent groups in Iraq was said to be a mysterious Iraqi called Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. As the titular head of the Islamic State in Iraq, Mr. Baghdadi issued incendiary pronouncements. Despite claims by an Iraqi Interior Ministry official in May that…
-
It’s been a busy couple of weeks around here and my blogging has dropped off by quite a bit – not that there’s anyone making note of that or anything, but some spammers may be slightly disappointed. Nyah, etc. I’ve read 3 books in the last week or so, and hope to get around to reviewing them. I’ve been busy being team leader of something called “Inviting Team” at Holy Moly. More on that later. I’ve been keeping an eye on the news, but not blogging about it. There’s a lot going on at worked – swamped, job task list about…
-
Nominee: Politics wont trump science | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle WASHINGTON — President Bush’s nominee to become the next surgeon general said Thursday he would resign rather than allow politics to push aside science.
-
A Hipper Crowd of Shushers – New York Times ON a Sunday night last month at Daddy’s, a bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, more than a dozen people in their 20s and 30s gathered at a professional soiree, drinking frozen margaritas and nibbling store-bought cookies. With their thrift-store inspired clothes and abundant tattoos, they looked as if they could be filmmakers, Web designers, coffee shop purveyors or artists. My friend Debbie will probably have seen this, but I’ll send her a link anyway – she’s a librarian, and once did a paper on the stereotype of the be-bunned, shushing librarian in…
-
CORRECTED: Estonia dominates wife-carrying championship – Yahoo! News It’s not just funny that there’s a wife-carrying championship, or that Estonia is the powerhouse in the sport of wife-carrying, but that somebody cared enough to CORRECT this particular news item. And it keeps showing up in my feed, like it’s undergoing continuous tweaking.
-
A Decision Made Largely Alone President Bush limited his deliberations over commuting the jail term of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby to a few close aides, opting not to consult with the Justice Department and rebuffing efforts by close friends to lobby on Libby’s behalf, administration officials and people close to Bush said yesterday. Let’s see… on that short list would be Cheney, Rove, and maybe Barney. Possibly Laura, if she can take time off from her “No Regrets Tour.” Bush listens to no one else except that voice in his head that keeps telling him he’s doing God’s work. January…
-
Price of machetes drops after elections | Oddly Enough | Reuters Political thugs can buy machetes at bargain prices, now that the national elections are over…