Official: 7 arrested in Sears Tower plot – Yahoo! News MIAMI – Seven people were arrested Thursday in connection with the early stages of a plot to attack Chicago’s Sears Tower and other buildings in the U.S., including the FBI office here, a federal law enforcement official said. ADVERTISEMENT As part of the raids related to the arrests, FBI agents swarmed a warehouse in Miami’s Liberty City area, using a blowtorch to take off a metal door. One neighbor said the suspects had been sleeping in the warehouse while running what seemed to be a “military boot camp.” Ho-lee CRAP.…

Senator Barack Obama comments on Stephen Colbert’s commencement speech to Knox College, wondering if he missed Stephen’s convention speech or something: Obama to Stephen Colbert: How’d Your Convention Speech Go? | U.S. Senator Barack Obama “Stephen, Congratulations on being asked to speak at the 2006 Knox College Commencement. This is an enormous honor and on behalf of the people of Illinois, I’d like to welcome you to our state. As you know, I was invited to speak at Knox after my keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention and subsequent election to the United States Senate. Your convention speech…

NPR’s ‘Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me!’ You Can’t Make This Stuff Up. Or Can You? – New York Times IT’S hard to picture the anchor of NBC’s nightly television newscast enjoying “appointment radio,” but that’s what Brian Williams said he does at home each weekend. He sits with his avalanche of Sunday papers, yelling out answers to public radio’s comedy news quiz, “Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me!” “Like so many fans of the show,” Mr. Williams said recently, “I have said to more than one family member at times, ‘Boy, I bet I could do well on there.’…

Okay, this makes total sense to me. Last time David came back from an out of town trip, I did this very thing on my own by parking out at the “Kiss N’ Fly” place, which is a turnaround right by the north exit of the ground transportation rail link to remote parking. There were a few spots right there within site of the door that were 30 minute wait, so I stumbled upon the idea all on my own. No more driving in circles at airports | Chicago Tribune “This is something that is desperately needed at O’Hare and…

I hadn’t heard about this before, but apparently the FAA has been blocking the development of new wind farms in the Midwest. This came about because of a Congressional amendment requiring an inquiry into whether wind farms interfere with military radar. So, several Democratic senators (including both of my senators, Durbin and Obama, and the redoubtable Russ Feingold of Wisconsin) are calling for the ban to be removed. Revive wind farms, senators ask | Chicago Tribune WASHINGTON, D.C. — Six Democratic U.S. senators are urging federal officials to quickly resolve a dispute that has blocked construction of more than a…

First, I saw this BBC NEWS | Americas | Hard labour for Abu Ghraib abuser, who was sentenced to a big, whopping, 90 days hard labor for urging his big guard dog to bark and growl menacingly, inches from prisoners’ faces. And then I saw this: the guy who stuffed a dead mouse in his Taco Bell Burrito in a botched extortion attempt gets… 16 to 30 months in prison. There’s justice for you.

Not sure how I feel about this. I’m all for sharing. I’m not keen on megacorp entertainment’s enforcement of copyright when the artists themselves get a very small cut of the price of the “product.” What if an artist wants to share their own music, offering free music to introduce their work to potential fans? I’ve got some like that right now on my iPod. Which I will listen to later, I might add. BBC NEWS | Technology | Police hit major BitTorrent site A website accused of directing users to pirated films, music and software has been closed by…

local6.com – News – STDs Running Rampant In Retirement Community A doctor blamed Viagra, a lack of sex education and no risk for pregnancy for the spike in sexually transmitted diseases at The Villages. Yep, STDs are running rampant at a retirement community in Florida. It’s probably traceable to just a few old guys with more little blue pills than sense who refuse to wear raincoats. Bleach is available for sanitizing your brain after reading this story.

Bush admits `disquiet’ in nation | Chicago Tribune But the president insisted his Iraq strategy will work: “There’s a deep desire by the Iraqi people to live in a democracy,” he said. And he urged Americans to be patient as his administration looks for ways to help ease the pain at the gas pump. Thanks to us, they’re dying for the chance to live free and to suffer less pain at the source of our gas. Via Huffington Post’s Michael Shaw

Bush Says U.S. Spying Is Not Widespread – New York Times The article, in USA Today, said that the agency did not listen to the calls, but secretly obtained information on numbers dialed by “tens of millions of Americans” and used it for “data mining” — computer analysis of large amounts of information for clues or patterns to terrorist activity. Oh! Right! That’s all right then. This is just like an episode in NUMB3RS, isn’t it? This makes me feel much more trustiful about the NSA’s data-mining millions of American citizen’s phone numbers. So now I suppose the secretive and…