truesee's Blog

January 24, 2011, 1:27 pm

Court Says Rahm Emanuel Not Eligible to Run for Mayor

MONICA DAVEY

NY Times

CHICAGO — An Illinois appeals court panel has ruled that Rahm Emanuel, the former White House chief of staff, does not qualify to run for mayor of Chicago in next month’s election.

The ruling, which was announced on Monday, comes as a significant and unexpected setback for Mr. Emanuel, who has been a front-runner both in polls and in fundraising in the race to replace Richard M. Daley, the city’s longest serving mayor, who will retire this spring.

The question of Mr. Emanuel’s residency — and whether he had lived in Chicago long enough to appear on the city’s ballot — had been a matter of debate since Mr. Emanuel departed the White House last fall to run for mayor.

Mr. Emanuel contended that he had always maintained a home in Chicago, the city where he was born, and that his time at the White House was a matter of national service. But Mr. Emanuel’s opponents said that Mr. Emanuel did not meet the state’s residency requirements to run for a mayoralty, one of which is to have lived in the city for a year before the day of the election. His return to Chicago in the fall, they argued, was too late to qualify for a Feb. 22 ballot.

The Chicago Board of Elections concurred with Mr. Emanuel, as had a Cook County trial judge. But a three-judge panel of the Illinois Appellate Court ruled against him, 2 to 1. With time running short and ballot arrangements already being finalized, the issues seemed certain to go to the state Supreme Court.

Oprah reveals she has half-sister

Nina Metz Tribune

9:30 a.m. CST, January 24, 2011

Tribune wires contributed to this report

LINK TO PHOTO OF OPRAH'S SISTER:

http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2011/01/24/2011-01-24_oprahs_secret_revealed_winfrey_reunites_with_halfsister_bunny_who_was_given_up_f.html

Health

Letting Sleeping Dogs Lie in Your Bed Can Kill You

Jan 20, 2011 – 6:55 AM 

Andrew Schneider

Senior Public Health Correspondent Medical researchers have long shown that contact with pets can often help both the physically and mentally ill. But now, veterinary scientists say sleeping with your pets increases the chances of contracting everything from parasites to the plague.

What's a pet owner to do?

Most U.S. households have pets, and more than half of those cats and dogs are allowed to sleep in their owner's beds, Drs. Bruno Chomel, a professor at the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine, and Ben Sun, chief veterinarian for California's Department of Health, say in a study to be published in next month's issue of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Andrew Schneider for AOL NewsA new study says it's best to let your dogs and cats sleep in their own beds."We wanted to raise the attention of people, as sleeping with a pet is becoming quite common, and there are risks associated with it, even if it is not very frequent," Chomel told AOL News. "But when it occurs, especially in children or immunocompromised people, it can be very severe."

The authors, both experts in zoonoses, which are diseases or infections transmitted from animals to humans, reported that "the risk for transmission of zoonotic agents by close contact between pets and their owners through bed sharing, kissing or licking is real and has even been documented for life-threatening infections such as plague, internal parasites" and other serious diseases.

How many of us admit to others that we sleep with our furry friends? Many of us do, according to the study.

Among dog owners, 53 percent consider their dog to be a member of the family, and 56 percent of those dog owners admit they sleep with their dog next to them, the researchers reported.

We're not just talking about teacup yorkies and chihuahuas here. Yes, the study says, most are small dogs, but 41 percent are medium-sized, and one out of three are large. Also, consider this fact, which the authors attribute to the American Kennel Club: Women were more likely than men to allow their dogs to share their beds.

As strange as it may be to canine lovers, more people have cats than dogs, and these felines also carry disease. This study and several others show that disease from cats is far more prevalent, and often more serious.

The number of cats snuggling up with their owner is far greater, which may explain the larger number of people acquiring feline-spawned diseases, Chomel explained.

Take cat scratch disease, for example. The bacterial infection, caused by Bartonella henselae, comes from infected fleas and flea feces and is transmitted to humans, often simply by a cat strolling across a food preparation area that isn't disinfected before food is placed on it. Mostly, the victims of cat scratch disease are children, infected by the scratch, lick or bite of a cat. The pathogen can cause swelling of the lymph nodes and sometime lethal damage to the liver, kidney and spleen of humans.

The CDC estimates that more than 20,000 people can contract cat scratch disease a year, but the federal disease agency could offer no information on the number of deaths.

Risks and Benefits

The CDC reports that pets may lower blood pressure, reduce cholesterol and triglyceride levels, and decrease feelings of loneliness, while increasing opportunities for exercise, outdoor activities and socialization.

Medical studies going back at least 30 years have documented the clinical value of pets to cardiac patients, those hospitalized with mental illnesses and the elderly.

Sharing our resting hours with our pets may be a source of psychological comfort, but because pets can bring a wide range of zoonotic pathogens into our environment, sharing is also associated with risks, the authors of the current study reported.

For example:

• A 9-year-old boy from Arizona got the plague because he slept with his flea-infested cat.
• A 48-year-old man and his wife repeatedly contracted MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), which their physicians eventually attributed to their dog. The animal "routinely slept in their bed and frequently licked their face," the California experts reported.

Kissing pets can also transmit zoonoses. A Japanese woman contacted meningitis after kissing her pet's face.

But disease can easily be transmitted by your pet kissing you. The study cited cases where a woman died of septic shock and renal failure after her cat, with whom she slept, licked open sores on her feet and toes. In another case, a 44-year-old man died of infection after his German shepherd puppy licked open abrasions on his hands.

Your pet's food can also be a source of disease. A study published last August in the journal Pediatrics tracked an outbreak of salmonella in 79 people between 2006 and 2008 that was caused by contaminated meat in dry cat and dog food.

Half of the victims were children, who CDC investigators said "might also have played with the pet food and then put their hands -- or the food itself -- in their mouths."

The disease also could have come from pets who rolled or played in their feces, where salmonella can stay alive for up to 12 weeks.

Where do our pets they pick up these diseases? Fleas are a likely starting point. And most of your pets will eat the droppings of other animals.

Take a dog to any beach, park or trail through the woods almost anywhere and watch the speed at which it will find something really foul-smelling and dead in which to roll.

Cats usually do their own killing for food and fun. And just think about the infectious bugs that laced the dead and dying rodents, birds and other critters they eat or try to bring into the home.

What Can Be Done?

The two senior veterinarians say several things can be done to reduce the threat of disease. The main one is for owners to ensure the health of their pets by seeking regular professional checkups and care. Other points include:

• Persons, especially young children or immunocompromised persons, should be discouraged from sharing their bed with their pets or regularly kissing their pets.
• Any area licked by a pet, especially an open wound, should be immediately washed with soap and water.
• Pets should be kept free of parasites, especially fleas; routinely de-wormed; and regularly examined by a veterinarian.
• Preventive measures such as administering anthelmintic drugs for flatworms -- and drugs for flukes, tapeworms and other parasites -- to puppies or kittens within the first few weeks after birth or, even better, to their mothers during the last few weeks of pregnancy. This could help prevent most cases of human toxocariasis, which can cause severe and sometimes permanent vision problems for young children.

The risk of getting sick from being close with your pets is real, but most of the diseases they pass on to humans can be identified and eliminated by regular veterinary care.

Meanwhile, start practicing saying "Get off the bed. I mean it this time."

Claudia Luther

Special to The Times

January 23, 2011, 10:18 p.m.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/01/22/2011-01-22_fox_rejects_jesus_hates_obama_super_bowl_ad_according_to_site_creator_richard_be.html

Wal-Mart vs. Civil War site heads to court

** FILE ** An employee collects carts outside a Walmart Supercenter in Kilmarnock, Va., on January 13, 2009. (The Washington Times)

Steve Szkotak-Associated Press 1:15 p.m.,

Sunday, January 23, 2011

** FILE ** A news conference takes place in May 2009 regarding the Wilderness Battlefield in Orange County, Va., where Wal-Mart Stores Inc. plans to build a supercenter nearby.

RICHMOND (AP) — Nearly 150 years after Gen. Robert E. Lee and Gen. Ulysses S. Grant fought in Northern Virginia, a conflict over the battlefield is taking shape in a courtroom.

The dispute involves whether a Walmart should be built near the Civil War site, and the case pits preservationists and some residents of a rural Northern Virginia town against the world's largest retailer and local officials who approved the Walmart Supercenter.

Both sides are scheduled to make arguments before a judge Tuesday.

The proposed Walmart is located near the site of the Battle of the Wilderness, which is viewed by historians as a critical turning point in the war. An estimated 185,000 Union and Confederate troops fought over three days in 1864, and 30,000 were killed, injured or went missing. The war ended 11 months later.

The 143,000-square-foot space planned by the Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc. would be outside the limits of the protected national park where the core battlefield is located. The company has stressed the store would be within an area already dotted with retail locations and in an area zoned for commercial use.

** FILE ** Academy Award-winning actor Robert Duvall, who greets Zann Miner, president of Friends of Wilderness Battlefield in May 2009, says he is against the proposed Walmart Supercenter development because of its proximity to the Civil War battlefield. (AP Photo)

The Orange County Board of Supervisors in August 2009 approved the special-use permit Wal-Mart needed to build, but the National Trust for Historic Preservation and residents who live within three miles of the site challenged the board's decision.

They argued, in part, that supervisors ignored or rejected the help of historians and other preservation experts when they approved the store's construction in Locust Grove, about 1 mile from the national park entrance.

Hundreds of people, including Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James McPherson, filmmaker Ken Burns and actor Robert Duvall, have appealed to Wal-Mart to walk away and find another place to build in the county of less than 35,000 people.

Mr. McPherson is expected to testify that the store's site and nearby acres were blood-soaked ground and a Union "nerve center" in the battle. Grant's headquarters and his senior leaders were encamped near the site of the proposed store, and Union casualties were treated there or in an area destined to be the store's parking lot, Mr. McPherson wrote in a summary of his testimony.

"Among other things, thousands of wounded and dying soldiers occupied the then open fields that included the Walmart site, which is where many of the Union Army hospital tents were located during the battle," Mr. McPherson wrote.

An attorney representing Orange County argued the board and other officials acted properly and heard the opinions of hundreds of people before approving the store.

"There is no indication that any significant historical event occurred on this land," Sharon E. Pandak wrote in an e-mail to the Associated Press. "No state or federal law precludes development of the site."

Robert D. Rosenbaum, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said he plans to call descendants of Union and Confederate soldiers to testify. The dispute resonates beyond Virginia, where most of the Civil War was fought, he said.

"As we approach the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, this case is a watershed that will demonstrate whether we as a society are really interested in protecting our national heritage," he said.

In Orange County, many residents and community leaders have welcomed the store. It would create 300 jobs and tax revenue, and there would be a convenient big-box store in the county.

A spokesman for Wal-Mart said the retailer is hopeful the court proceedings will clear the way for construction.

"We believe the board made a careful and thoughtful decision that balances historic preservation concerns with the need for economic development," spokesman Bill Wertz said.

If Sarah Palin decides to run for president, she could quickly find that it’s not Arizona, but New Hampshire that poses the bigger threat to her candidacy.

That’s because in all of her travels since the 2008 election – during the midterm campaign and across two expansive book tours – the former Alaska governor has not once set foot in the first-in-the-nation primary state. And residents have noticed.

For all the attention to Palin’s large-scale image problems, from her much-criticized response to the recent shootings in Tucson, Ariz., to an unsteady media strategy, to sliding poll numbers, her seeming disconnect with the Granite State could represent an equally serious hole in any path to the GOP presidential nomination.

An early sign of Palin’s viability in New Hampshire could come this weekend when the 493 members of the Republican State Committee vote in a straw poll for the GOP’s presidential nomination. Several New Hampshire GOP politicos forecast that Palin’s absence from the state will catch up with her, with one predicting she would have “nothing going” and another saying they “wouldn’t be surprised if she is last.”

“In a state that puts a premium on personal contact, the question on Saturday will be whether — or how badly — that’s hurting her among the party faithful,” said one New Hampshire Republican who spoke candidly about the straw poll on the condition of anonymity. “Political celebrities tend to falter here — just ask George W. Bush and Rudy Giuliani.”

But if Palin manages to post a respectable showing in the straw poll, it will almost certainly be a triumph of political celebrity over old-fashioned retail politics since Palin campaigned in a series of competitive races last year but bypassed those in New Hampshire.

Palin also visited more than 30 states to promote her books, but New Hampshire was not among them. Adding insult to injury, Palin has lavished attention on Iowa and South Carolina, two other early presidential states that compete for influence over the nominating process.

Palin visited both states to promote her books. Last May, she traveled to South Carolina to campaign for Gov. Nikki Haley in the Republican primary. In September, she headlined a major fundraising dinner in Des Moines for the Iowa Republican Party.

That’s a surprising snub for New Hampshire, where residents take immense pride in the role they play in screening national candidates. And it’s left New Hampshire Republicans wondering how Palin could have overlooked such an influential stop in presidential politics.

“People are talking about it,” said former Republican Senate candidate Ovide Lamontagne, who lost to Sen. Kelly Ayotte — whom Palin endorsed — in a September primary. “Among the more widely speculated potential candidates, Gov. Palin is one of them who has not at all been in New Hampshire.”

Palin’s aides did not return requests for comment. However, her absence raises something of a worst-case scenario for New Hampshire Republicans: Palin could decide to run for president but look at the primary map and conclude that her prospects in more socially conservative Iowa and South Carolina are good enough that she can give New Hampshire only cursory treatment.

Fergus Cullen, a former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party, sees New Hampshire’s omission from Palin’s schedule as a deliberate political choice and argues: “This isn’t by accident. … They’ve made a decision not to come to New Hampshire, and people have noticed.”

“Palin is almost being mocked, openly, by a lot of observers for the extent to which she has ignored New Hampshire and pretends it doesn’t exist,” Cullen said. “People crack jokes about it — political reporters, elected officials. Not just staff, not just activists.”

And Republican strategist Mike Dennehy, who advised Sen. John McCain in the state, said if Palin “doesn’t send out stronger signals in the state of New Hampshire soon — and by soon, I mean in the next couple months — I would say that’s an indication she doesn’t have an interest for running for president, or running for president in New Hampshire. I would say by April 1.”

While Palin hasn’t been a physical presence in New Hampshire, she left a mark on at least one race in 2010 when she backed Ayotte for retiring GOP Sen. Judd Gregg’s seat.

One Republican operative credited Palin with Ayotte’s narrow primary win over Lamontagne, crowing in September: “There was a time when the Union Leader [newspaper, which endorsed Lamontagne] played kingmaker here. But in this race, Sarah Palin was the queenmaker.”

Yet Palin’s endorsement was delivered via Facebook, and she never actually made a trip to campaign for Ayotte. The former state attorney general defeated Lamontagne’s underfunded campaign by less than a percentage point.

“New Hampshire is a grass-roots state,” Lamontagne said. “To the extent that Gov. Palin got involved in our primary, endorsed my opponent, she did it through social media, and it doesn’t really have the same impact that it would in another state.”

Many rank-and-file Republican voters appear to have a more patient attitude toward the former Alaska governor than the frustrated political class.

A Magellan Strategies automated poll taken earlier this month for the website NH Journal showed Palin in second place with 16 percent in New Hampshire, behind the very familiar Mitt Romney’s 39 percent. Nearly three-fifths of Republicans — 59 percent — had a favorable view of Palin, compared with 31 percent who had an unfavorable view. Half of independents, who can vote in New Hampshire GOP primaries, also viewed her favorably.

So if Palin does decide to run for president, there’s a big slice of the primary electorate that seems willing to give her a look.

One prominent conservative who might fall into that category is Union Leader publisher Joseph McQuaid, who said it’s “too early, other than for the insider, navel-gazing, thumb-sucking crowd” to read into Palin’s travel.

“If she wants to win, I think she’ll come to New Hampshire at some point,” McQuaid said. “If somebody was seriously contesting for the nomination and didn’t come to the first primary state, there would be grave questions about that person’s ability to win a general election.”

Given Palin’s star power, however, some fret that even if she doesn’t skip the state, she could put in a minimal amount of time and still clock a respectable finish that wouldn’t affect her odds at the nomination.

Indeed, McQuaid noted that in the early years of the New Hampshire primary, several widely known candidates succeeded without actually appearing in the state: Dwight Eisenhower won the first New Hampshire primary in 1952 with the help of New Hampshire’s governor, and later White House chief of staff Sherman Adams.

A dozen years later, former Massachusetts Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge won the primary as a write-in candidate while serving as ambassador to Vietnam.

New Hampshire operative Dave Carney suggested that just as many 2010 primaries unfolded differently than in previous years — with activist candidates toppling incumbent senators and congressmen — so might the 2012 presidential contest defy expectations about the way things are supposed to work in the early states.

“We love people to come to New Hampshire all the time. We love the attention. We love the support,” he said. “Are there other ways to win New Hampshire? There may be a dozen ways to win New Hampshire, but people haven’t demonstrated them yet.”

For the most part, however, New Hampshire’s primary has been a grueling, diner-by-diner, boots-on-the-ground contest that’s punished the more aloof class of candidates — such as then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who skipped an early candidate forum at Dartmouth and lost the primary in 2000 to the seemingly omnipresent New Hampshire campaigner John McCain.

“It’s really been more the exception than the rule, that somebody who didn’t spend time here is going to get the nomination,” McQuaid said. But “a high-profile person like Gov. Palin doesn’t need to come here that early.”

He added: “I’d love to meet the lady.”

First in nation, last with Palin By: Alexander Burns January 22, 2011 07:03 AM EST

Officials fear bath salts are growing drug problem

SHELIA BYRD, The Associated Press

Posted: 01/22/2011 12:19:18 PM PST

Updated: 01/22/2011 12:33:51 PM PST

In this Jan. 18, 2011 photo, Itawamba County inmate Neil Brown describes at the jail in Fulton, Miss., hallucinations he experienced after ingesting a bath salt powder that is being sold at convenience stores and over the Internet. The product, which can be legally purchased, contains stimulants which authorities claim can cause hallucinations, paranoia and suicidal thoughts and are now among the newest substances law enforcement agents are having to deal with in the streets. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)       

FULTON, Miss. - When Neil Brown got high on bath salts, he took his skinning knife and slit his face and stomach repeatedly. Brown survived, but authorities say others haven't been so lucky after snorting, injecting or smoking powders with such innocuous-sounding names as Ivory Snow, Red Dove and Vanilla Sky.

Some say the effects of the powders are as powerful as abusing methamphetamine. Increasingly, law enforcement agents and poison control centers say the bath salts with complex chemical names are an emerging menace in several U.S. states where authorities talk of banning their sale.

From the Deep South to California, emergency calls are being reported over exposure to the stimulants the powders often contain: mephedrone and methylenedioxypyrovalerone, also known as MDPV.

Sold under such names as Ivory Wave, Bliss, White Lightning and Hurricane Charlie, the chemicals can cause hallucinations, paranoia, rapid heart rates and suicidal thoughts, authorities say. The chemicals are in bath salts and even plant foods that are sold legally at convenience stores and on the Internet. However, they aren't necessarily being used for the purposes on the label.

Mississippi lawmakers this week began considering a proposal to ban the sale of the powders, and a similar step is being sought in Kentucky. In Louisiana, the bath salts were outlawed by an emergency order after the state's poison center received more than 125 calls in the last three months of 2010involving exposure to the chemicals.

In Brown's case, he said he had tried every drug from heroin to crack and was so shaken by terrifying hallucinations that he wrote one Mississippi paper urging people to stay away from the bath salts.

"I couldn't tell you why I did it," Brown said, pointing to his scars. "The psychological effects are still there."

While Brown survived, sheriff's authorities in one Mississippi county say they believe one woman overdosed on bath salts there. In southern Louisiana, the family of a 21-year-old man says he cut his throat and ended his life with a gunshot. Authorities are investigating whether a man charged with capital murder in the December death of a Tippah County, Miss., sheriff's deputy was under the influence of the bath salts.

The stimulants aren't regulated by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, but are facing federal scrutiny. Law officers say some of the substances are being shipped from Europe, but origins are still unclear.

Gary Boggs, an executive assistant at the DEA, said there's a lengthy process to restrict these types of designer chemicals, including reviewing the abuse data. But it's a process that can take years.

Dr. Mark Ryan, director of Louisiana's poison control center, said he thinks state bans on the chemicals can be effective. He said calls about the salts have dropped sharply since Louisiana banned their sale in January.

Ryan said cathinone, the parent substance of the drugs, comes from a plant grown in Africa and is regulated. He said MDPV and mephedrone are made in a lab, and they aren't regulated because they're not marketed for human consumption. The stimulants affect neurotransmitters in the brain, he said.

"It causes intense cravings for it. They'll binge on it three or four days before they show up in an ER. Even though it's a horrible trip, they want to do it again and again," Ryan said.

Ryan said at least 25 states have received calls about exposure, including Nevada and California. He said Louisiana leads with the greatest number of cases at 165, or 48 percent of the U.S. total, followed by Florida with at least 38 calls to its poison center.

Dr. Rick Gellar, medical director for the California Poison Control System, said the first call about the substances came in Oct. 5, and a handful of calls have followed since. But he warned: "The only way this won't become a problem in California is if federal regulatory agencies get ahead of the curve. This is a brand new thing."

In the Midwest, the Missouri Poison Center at Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center received at least 12 calls in the first two weeks of January about teenagers and young adults abusing such chemicals, said Julie Weber, the center's director. The center received eight calls about the powders all of last year.

Dr. Richard Sanders, a general practitioner working in Covington, La., said his son, Dickie, snorted some of the bath salts and endured three days of intermittent delirium. Dickie Sanders missed major arteries when he cut his throat. As he continued to have visions, his physician father tried to calm him. But the elder Sanders said that as he slept, his son went into another room and shot himself.

"If you could see the contortions on his face. It just made him crazy," said Sanders. He added that the coroner's office confirmed the chemicals were detected in his son's blood and urine.

Sanders warns the bath salts are far more dangerous than some of their names imply.

"I think everybody is taking this extremely lightly. As much as we outlawed it in Louisiana, all these kids cross over to Mississippi and buy whatever they want," he said.

A small packet of the chemicals typically costs as little as $20.

In northern Mississippi's Itawamba County, Sheriff Chris Dickinson said his office has handled about 30 encounters with bath salt users in the past two months alone. He said the problem grew last year in his rural area after a Mississippi law began restricting the sale of pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient in making methamphetamine.

Dickinson said most of the bath salt users there have been meth addicts and can be dangerous when using them.

"We had a deputy injured a week ago. They were fighting with a guy who thought they were two devils. That's what makes this drug so dangerous," he said.

But Dickinson said the chemicals are legal for now, leaving him no choice but to slap users with a charge of disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor.

Kentucky state lawmaker John Tilley said he's moving to block the drug's sale there, preparing a bill for consideration when his legislature convenes shortly. Angry that the powders can be bought legally, he said: "If my 12-year-old can go in a store and buy it, that concerns me."

Voodoo economics? Tote up the jobs from Obama's stimulus

Examiner Editorial

01/22/11 8:05 PM

Gerry Broome/AP By January 2011, the stimulus bill was supposed to have lowered the unemployment rate to 7 percent. The current unemployment rate actually stands at 9.4 percent.Democrats have lambasted Republicans for years for believing in "Voodoo economics."

Well, the evidence is mounting that economic superstition is alive and well in the nation's political circles, though it has nothing to do with a fondness for tax cuts. It's instead the crazy belief that the government can spend its way to prosperity for the rest of us. Underscoring this conclusion, the Ways and Means Committee in the new GOP-majority House released a report titled "It's Official: On Unemployment and Jobs, Democrats' 2009 Stimulus Was a Huge Failure."

The Ways and Means report provides a number of striking reminders about the predictions the White House made in January 2009 while urging the passage of their $814 billion Keynesian spending bill. By January 2011, the stimulus bill was supposed to have lowered the unemployment rate to 7 percent. It now stands at 9.4 percent, and the report notes that "the unemployment rate would be 11.3 percent if it included all the 'invisible unemployed' -- American workers who have simply given up looking for work." The report also claimed that the stimulus would create 3.7 million jobs by now, for a total of 137.6 million jobs in the American economy. Currently, there are 130.7 million jobs. Since passage of the stimulus, 47 of the 50 states have lost jobs; overall, the private sector has seen 1.8 million jobs disappear.

Note as well that unemployment is slightly above what the White House predicted it would be if the Obama stimulus program was not passed as emergency legislation. Any honest assessment of the stimulus has to consider the possibility that flawed economics, kickbacks to unions and other Democratic special interests, corruption and an inefficient bureaucracy simply swallowed all the jobs for which those billions were supposed to pay. In fact, job creation exceeded the White House's expectations in only one area: The District of Columbia created almost twice as many jobs as the White House anticipated. In other words, thanks to the stimulus, the only sector creating new jobs is the federal government.

In response to the failure of Obamanomics, the Ways and Means Committee report offers four solutions to get the economy going again: Streamline the tax code, pass pending free-trade agreements so American companies can easily sell goods overseas, repeal and replace Obamacare with reforms that actually lower insurance costs, and get spending under control so the national debt doesn't threaten the economy. Democrats may call this voodoo economics, but to most Americans it probably sounds like a popular and common-sense plan to get the economy going again. After two years of Obamanomics, almost anything would be a welcome change.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/2011/01/voodoo-economics-tote-jobs-obamas-stimulus#ixzz1BlYcZxLp

New Zealand Woman Partially Paralyzed by Hickey

January 21, 2011

NewsCore

A New Zealand woman was temporarily partially paralyzed by a hickey on her neck from her amorous partner, AFP reported Friday.

The 44-year-old woman went to the emergency department of Middlemore Hospital in Auckland last year after experiencing loss of movement in her left arm while watching television, doctors reported in the New Zealand Medical Journal.

Doctors concluded the woman had suffered a mild stroke but were puzzled about its cause until they found a small vertical bruise on her neck near a major artery, a hickey, she received a few days earlier.

"Because it was a love bite there would be a lot of suction," one of the doctors who treated her, Teddy Wu, told the Christchurch Press.

"Because of the physical trauma it had made a bit of bruising inside the vessel. There was a clot in the artery underneath where the hickey was."

Wu said the clot dislodged and traveled to the woman's heart, where it caused a minor stroke that led to the loss of movement.

"We looked around the medical literature and that example of having a love bite causing something like that hasn't been described before," he said.

The medic said the woman recovered after being treated with an anti-coagulant.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/2011-01-21-absuperbowl21_ST_N.htm

http://www.accessatlanta.com/atlanta-movies/roger-ebert-to-debut-811848.html?cxntlid=thbz_hm

First posted: 1/20/11 12:00 AM EST

SARAH PALIN's husband TODD is caught up in a sleazy sex scandal, The ENQUIRER has learned!

Political bloggers are digging into incredible claims that the "First Dude" - father of the couple's five children - cheated on his wife with a female massage therapist who was busted for prostitution!

The scandal not only has the potential to sabotage Palin's possible 2012 White House bid, but also threatens to destroy her marriage, sources say.

While the story heats up on the internet, The ENQUIRER has uncovered official documents confirming the woman's arrest, and learned police have confiscated physical evidence that could tie Todd to an alleged extramarital affair.

We have also uncovered documents that show the woman  - identified by bloggers as Shailey Tripp - contributed free massages to an anonymous person working for Sarah's campaign for governor of Alaska.

While representatives for Todd Palin vehemently deny he cheated on his wife, allegations of his extramarital affair surfaced on Jan. 4 when an anonymous tipster sent out messages to news outlets making the allegation using the e-mail address thepalinmorals@hotmail.com.

"My sources reveal that a massage therapist and computer technologist, SHAILEY TRIPP, had an affair with Todd Palin that lead (sic) to her arrest March of 2010," claimed the anonymous e-mail.

"According to the tenants in the building of her offices, they saw Todd come and go often and heard noises that sounded like someone was having sex. It was the same tenants who called the police on her."

An ENQUIRER investigation has confirmed Tripp, 36, was arrested on March 4, 2010 in Anchorage and charged with maintaining a house of prostitution.

Tripp pleaded no contest on June 13, 2010 with sentencing set for June 15, 2011.  She agreed to complete 80 hours of volunteer service, not post advertisements on CraigsList and pay a fine of $500.  If she meets with these conditions, Tripp can withdraw her plea at the sentencing hearing and the case will be dismissed, records show.
UPDATE 4.30 pm est 1/21/11: Since the first hours of this breaking story ignited a firestorm of controversy key mainstream media The New York Daily News, Vanity Fair magazine, Yahoo News, The Huffington Post and Forbes Magazine,  among others, have cited The ENQUIRER's bombshell investigation into the Palin cheating scandal.

In fact,  Forbes suggested that "in the Palin-built political arena of 2011, Todd Palin’s affair might be the just the ticket Sarah needs to be the first single mother in the Oval Office."

Interestingly enough, The NY Daily News reported that when the Palins were confronted with cheating allegations in both 2008 and 2009,  the then-Alaskan Governor was quick to issue a denial.

The News reported that neither Todd nor Sarah Palin have yet to comment on The ENQUIRER's report.

Rudest city in the USA? Hint: It's not what you're probably thinking

Jayne Clark

USA TODAY

Los Angeles not only has some of the nation's worst traffic, it has the rudest people, according to a magazine poll. 

 Kevork Djansezian, Getty ImagesIn yet another one of those utterly suspect readers' polls that never fail to grab attention, Travel + Leisure magazine has anointed (drumroll, please) Los Angeles as America's Rudest City, beating out everybody's favorite in-your-face burg, New York.

The dubious honor comes as part of the magazine's annual America's Favorite Cities survey, in which it asks readers to rate 35 cities on 54 mostly subjective qualities. (Last fall, the magazine enlightened its readers about where to find America's Most and Least Attractive Locals. Memphis got hit with the ugly stick. Charleston, S.C., ranked purtiest.)

In the perceived rudeness realm, it's not surprising that congested cities in the nation's northeast corridor rank high on the list. New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston and Baltimore landed in the top seven.

Following are the top 20 in descending order.

Weigh in below on whether you think T+L readers got it right.

20. Anchorage
19. Houston
18. Providence
17. Santa Fe
16. Seattle
15. Chicago
14. San Francisco
13. Memphis
12. Phoenix/Scottsdale
11. Atlanta
10. Dallas/Fort Worth
9. Orlando
8. Las Vegas
7. Baltimore
6. Boston
5. Washington
4. Miami
3. Philadelphia
2. New York City
1. Los Angeles

Jan 21 2011 12:59PM

LINK TO STORY:

http://travel.usatoday.com/destinations/dispatches/post/2011/01/what-is-the-rudest-city-the-usa-hint-its-not-what-youre-probably-thinking/139660/1?csp=hf

MTV's new show 'Skins' under fire for potential child porn violation: report

NEWSCORE Last Updated: 7:44 PM, January 20, 2011

In the wake of a mounting scandal over a possible child pornography investigation of MTV as a result of the racy new show “Skins,” Taco Bell has opted to pull all of its advertising from the program, FOXNews.com reported Thursday.

Taco Bell spokesman Rob Poetsch told The Hollywood Reporter: “We advertise on a variety of MTV programs that reach our core demographic of 18- to 34-year-olds, which included the premiere episode of ‘Skins.’

"Upon further review, we’ve decided that the show is not a fit for our brand and have moved our advertising to other MTV programming," he added.

After the premiere of the racy teen TV show "Skins," the Parents Television Council (PTC) is calling for a federal investigation into whether the MTV series violates child pornography laws, TMZ reported Thursday.

On Thursday, media watchdog group The Parents Television Council called on lawmakers and law enforcement officials to open an investigation regarding possible child pornography on the cable network’s newest series.

The show features several teenage actors engaging in “foul language, illegal drug use, illegal activity as well as thoroughly pervasive sexual content,” PTC President Tim Winter said in a letter sent to the chairmen of the US Senate and House Judiciary Committees and the Department of Justice.

The news of Taco Bell’s decision follows a series of panicked meetings that the New York Times claimed took place at MTV headquarters Tuesday, where executives even went so far as to discuss criminal charges.

In a statement released Thursday, MTV defended the show, which they claim addresses “real-world issues confronting teens in a frank way.”

"We review all of our shows and work with all of our producers on an ongoing basis to ensure our shows comply with laws and community standards," the statement read.

"We are confident that the episodes of 'Skins' will not only comply with all applicable legal requirements, but also with our responsibilities to our viewers. We also have taken numerous steps to alert viewers to the strong subject matter so that they can choose for themselves whether it is appropriate.?"

The controversial British import series “Skins” made its debut on the cable network last Monday, causing uproar for its frank depiction of teenage sex and drug use.

But unlike MTV’s envelope-pushing shows of the past, “Skins” features underage actors engaged in sexual situations. The youngest star of the show is 15.

Nielsen ratings for the premiere, which was heavily promoted during MTV’s hit “Jersey Shore,” show that it drew 1.2 million people younger than 18, or more than a third of its total audience.

“Putting aside whether it is socially acceptable, I certainly believe that MTV is unnecessarily tempting fate,” Ian Friedman, an attorney specializing in computer-based sex offenses, told FOXNews.com.

“It is not clear as to whether MTV is in violation of federal or state child pornography laws, but that does not mean that they won’t end up defending themselves somewhere in the United States," Friedman said, noting that attitudes toward nudity and sexuality are far more lax in the show's native England.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/tv/violation_report_show_skins_under_BeePfWqcHcKqA6UxKQyvGP#ixzz1BjQYNDfJ