Matt has been in contact with staff at the nursing home. Miss Vicky's mom is okay, and everyone will be evacuated to Baton Rouge.
We're very happy that everything turned out well for them.
Finally got a few minutes to call my mom to check on one of my cousin's whom I used to babysit. He's a career SeaBee & he & his family live outside of Gulfport. His wife & her kids made it through Katrina alright, and their house wasn't seriously damaged though they lost quite a few trees.
He, on the other hand, has been in Iraq again (which I didn't know) and just got back in the states a couple of days ago. He's presently in Maine, having been re-routed due to the storm. He doesn't know when he'll be able to get back home. But at least he's all in one piece.
And as my dad says, that's the mainest thing.
Part of the mess in our new back yard is the remnants of a large walnut tree which had gotten blown down in a thunderstorm earlier this year....and I get the giggles every time I look at it. During one of our pre-sale visits to the house, the seller's sister saw me inspecting the piles of large branches and told me what had happened. After the storm, she said, a 'very good friend' of theirs had volunteered to 'help them out' by getting rid of the tree for them because he heated with wood.
*ahem*
Now that may very well be true, but I couldn't help but notice that the trunk appeared to be the only thing he'd taken....even though most of the remaining branches were plenty big enough to use as firewood. And I also know that good walnut is in very high demand right now. I'm not sure what the current market rate is, but as my dad puts it, it's higher than a cat's back. In other words, very expensive.....as in practically worth its weight in gold. So either he was a complete idiot & burned some high dollar firewood, or he took advantage of a couple of women who didn't know any better.
And when this poor girl kept going on & on about what a 'nice guy' their friend was to help them out like that, I got just plumb tickled thinking ummm, yeah. I've had 'friends' like that before too.
But not for long.
I was meandering around our new back yard yesterday, planning some badly needed pruning and clearing, when I spied something that made my little heart go pitter-patter. Not 1 but 2 sassafras saplings and 1 young sassafras tree.
As WildChild would say, that make me so hoppy!
Sassafras has always been one of my favorite trees, probably because it was one of the first I learned as a child to identify.....easy because of its mitten-shaped leaves and their distinctive spicy rootbeer smell when crushed. It's handy to have around as well, as you can make tea from its leaves and/or roots, which my Ma used to give me occasionally when I wasn't feeling well. As my mom taught me, you can make a fairly servicable toothbrush from one of its twigs in a pinch. And of course, we couldn't have gumbo without it.
Best of all, sassafras are absolutely gorgeous in the fall.
I can't wait to clear everything out from around them & watch them grow!
Our good neighbors Matt & Miss Vicky are desperately seeking information about Miss Vicky's mom, who was in a nursing home near Ochsner Hospital in Metairie, Louisiana. If you have any information or contacts in the area, please let drop by & them know.
Here's another cool research tool: MapSexOffenders.com. Enter a street address from any of 37 states & get an interactive map showing nearby registered sex offenders. And it's free.
Just remember these are only as accurate as the registries from which they're taken....which is to say not entirely. But it's a good place to start.
Remember as well that it isn't so much the ones you know about, but the ones you don't that you have really to keep an eye out for.
I'm not a hard core birder, but when I see an unfamiliar bird I'm always curious to identify it. I ran across this website by Cornell University the other day that looks to be a pretty handy guide to identifying different types of birds. It has just about any information about a particular bird you could want....including recordings of their calls. With which I had fun driving Smokey crazy the other morning. Seems he's got quite the well-developed predator instinct for such a little kitten.
Heh.
WildChild has been concerned about our pending move, for several reasons. We've lived in the same house for all his life, and he's been having a hard time imagining us anywhere else. Plus, like his dad and others with ADHD, any change upsets him and he's somewhat of a worrywart. Because of this, we've always made it a point to keep his room & things the same as much as possible because a stable, consistent environment is very important for him.
So Ma & Pa's new house is a big deal for him. We've been trying to reassure him that all his stuff will get moved to the new house, and that the only thing that will be different will be that he gets a new bed.**** But it's never worked out that he was here when we were going inside the house for one reason or another, so he'd never actually seen anything but photos. I had promised him as soon as we got the keys, I would take him to see it. Which we did yesterday afternoon.
He was hilarious.
Non-stop chatter all the way up there. We pulled into the driveway and he got quiet for a minute looking it over. Then the motormouth fired up again until I got the door unlocked. He rushed past me into the living room....stopped & looked around.....and screamed WOW! WOOHOOO! I LIKE OUR NEW HOUSE! WHERE'S MY NEW ROOM?
Now the former owner had allowed a tenant to (badly) paint one of the smaller bedrooms, the one we plan for him to use. It is presently this hideous, eye-blinding screaming fluorescent yellow. A painful to look at, shield your eyes when you walk into the room yellow.
However, yellow happens to be WildChild's favorite color.
I showed him the way to his room, he ran inside and stopped...speechless for a change. I said "I told you it was very yellow." Eyes dancing, he spun around to look at me and laughed "I like my new yellow room Ma!" I let him run around and check everything out until he wound down a little. Then he & I planned where we going to put things....new bed will be over here, clothes & toys in the closet, and so on.
He seemed very relieved. Of course, then we had to check out the rest of the house & the garage & the yard & every little thing. We've promised him a swing set & a sandbox since this lawn, unlike where we live now, is nice & level. So he was telling me his swings can go here and his sandbox over there and you & Pa need to put a garden here and Ma you need to mow the grass. He was cracking me up.
Then my daughter arrived, to see the house & to pick him up for an overnight stay, and he had to give her a guided tour. Even showed her where we were going to put the dryer. LOL
He finally wound down and was satisfied that he'd seen everything so we left to get some dinner. He seems pretty excited about moving now, and not so upset about the change. I've told him when we get everything ready, he's to help me pack all his things and move them into his new yellow room.
I'm sure that's going to be quite an experience for us both.
****His new bed looks something like this, except instead of a desk at the end it has a slide off the top bunk. And no, we don't spoil him rotten. We found the bed at such a good price, about the same as a plain bunkbed, that we couldn't resist it.
And yes I do know it's a broken arm waiting to happen. If he's anything like his dad, and believe me he is, he's going to have broken bones anyway. He may as well break them doing something fun.
He is going to go apeshit when he sees it. hehe
Just when you think it couldn't get any more absurd Rev. Al shows up.
The Rev. Al Sharpton will go to Texas on Sunday to support anti-Bush protester Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq and who is demanding a troop pullout from that country.
All that's left is for them to hook up with Jihad Jane on her Magical Mazola bus tour.
Sheesh.
Seems a couple of the authors of the much-publicized fetal pain study have interesting backgrounds that weren't so publicized.
One author, Susan J. Lee, a medical student, is also a lawyer who for eight months from 1999 to 2000 worked in the legal department at Naral, an abortion rights group. Another author, Dr. Eleanor A. Drey, performs abortions and is medical director of an abortion clinic.
Somehow they forgot to mention this to the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, who printed the study. Why not, you might ask?
In interviews yesterday, Dr. Drey and Ms. Lee said they did not regard their work as a conflict of interest and so it had not occurred to them to report it to the journal editors.
It's not a problem because, you know, they're completely objective scientists and their beliefs could never influence their findings. [/sarcasm]
To be fair, neither have tried to actively conceal their backgrounds. OTOH, neither did they actively disclose them.
But they should have.
It took most of the afternoon, but.....WE ARE HOMEOWNERS! Yay!
Honestly, I'm still not sure if we're excited, terrified or both.
Now the real work starts, moving all our crap.
Oy.
Professor Howard Brill has been appointed the U of A law school's interim dean. If you didn't go to school here, you probably couldn't care less, but I had to mention it because, well, I think Professor Brill is da bomb. If I ever have a tricky ethics or civil procedure question, he's the one I call.
Besides, anyone who can make Pennoyer and International Shoe interesting has got to be the coolest.
The first Distinguished Service Cross of the Iraq war has been awarded.
It went to Col. James Coffman. He was the last man still fighting after his unit and Iraqi troops were ambushed by insurgents in Mosul November. He kept fighting despite a severe wound to his left hand, his shooting hand. Coffman was down to his last four rounds of ammunition before help came.
Coffman said he was just doing his job, and that he was determined that his wounded men "were not going to die that day."
Congratulations to Col. Coffman, and thanks for a job well done.
Finally (maybe) someone's selling clothes I might actually wear.
So it is with considerable interest in the retail industry that Gap Inc., the nation's largest chain of clothing stores, chose the Palisades Center to introduce a new chain yesterday aimed at that unwieldy and indefinable category known as grown-ups. These are customers who are past any longing for shrunken polo shirts and low-slung denim styles ubiquitous at youth-oriented stores like Abercrombie & Fitch, yet consider themselves too hip for conservative stores like Ann Taylor or Talbots, and too frugal to pursue the elitist designs that make up that minuscule slice of apparel known as high fashion.
The new chain is called Forth & Towne, and will be opening initially in Chicago & New York. Just look at the skirt on page 2. Now that I would wear.
It's about damn time someone started selling clothes for women like me....women who have no desire to show their buttcrack in public. I have no unrealistic illusions about trying to look 16 again; I want clothes that are comfortable & classic.
Just like me.
A guinea pig farm in England has closed after 6 years of terrorism by animal rights activists. Not only were the owners "subjected to hate mail, malicious phone calls, hoax bombs and arson attacks", but also death threats. And here's the real corker:
The family said they hoped the decision would prompt the return of the body of their relative Gladys Hammond, whose remains were stolen from a churchyard.
Un-freaking-believable.
n. the act of packing one's Collected Works of Emily Dickinson, boxes of ammo and gun cleaning kits in the same box.
I could not stop for Death
So I shot the sumbitch.
Hehe.
cuz they're crawling out of the woodwork right and left.
I think I'll stay hidden amongst my packing boxes today.
Britain's mysterious Piano Man really wasn't. (link via fark)
The Mirror reported today that he told nursing staff he was German, had been working in Paris, but caught a Eurostar to England after losing his job. The newspaper says that he has now returned to Germany, where he has two sisters and his father owns a farm.
An insider at the Little Brook Hospital in Dartford, Kent, told the newspaper that the man had been attempting to commit suicide when he was picked up by police. He is said to have once worked with psychiatric patients and mimicked their characteristics to dupe doctors into believing that he was ill.
He's no virtuoso either.
When he was first discovered, the man refused to speak but when presented with a pen and paper, sketched a detailed picture of a grand piano. He was subsequently led to a piano in the hospital's chapel where his four-hour performance was described by Michael Camp, his social worker, as "really amazing".
Now it is suggested that he merely tapped at one key repeatedly.
It is surprisingly easy to fool those who want to be fooled.
We need to buy flashlight batteries.
Lightening hit a piece of equipment at a Southwestern Electric power plant leaving thousand`s [sic] in the dark. Swepco officials say a 160,000 volt line shut down at their Gentry Plant affecting not only them but Caroll and Ozarks Electric customers as well.
Which meant most of NW Arkansas had no power at all. For a while the only connection we had to the world was the DSL and my little battery powered weather radio. We were beginning to wonder if the revolution had started and we didn't get the memo.
Sad sign of the times.
This almost made me choke on my (salt-free) pretzel***:
See, the Bush Family made a deal with the Grays: in return for letting the Slender Ones Of Infinite Power mutilate all the cows they can handle, Republicans get alien weapons technology in return. But before they can use this alien technology for its intended purpose-- to vaporize small brown children-- they naturally have to test it, to see if it works. Hence, they're teaming up with Big Business in order to put this technology into hybrid vehicles, where one day soon all the environmental liberals driving them will be instantly vaporized, killing two birds with one stone: finally proving the weapons work, and incinerating Ed Begley, Jr.
Hey, it could happen.
***Feel free to insert your own McChimpyBushitler joke here.
I've never had a phobia about snakes, just a healthy respect for them. But this story gives me the creeps. (Registration req'd or use Bugmenot)
A team of zoologists from Arkansas State University is trying to figure out why at least 100 male copperheads have gathered at the base of a large tree on a farm in Marion County over a three-week period.
The poisonous snakes have apparently slithered up to mark their scent on one certain dead cedar tree on a farm owned by Chuck Miller, who lives off of Highway 14 south of Yellville.
"The snakes started showing up in scads the last week in July and I've been watching them go to the same tree every night," said the 35-year-old construction worker who is building his cabin about 40 yards away from the tree.
Mr. Miller says the same thing happened last year at an adjacent cedar, which he's since cut down. But the snakes just started using a different one.
*shudders*
I think I'd just move and let 'em have it.
UPDATE: You can read the entire report here.
Arkansas' Department of Family & Child Services remains problematic, according to a new report by Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families.
Visits between foster children and their natural parents did not occur in some cases where the goal was reunification. The visits did not occur 60 percent of the time in 2004. Also, last year family needs assessments occurred only 43 percent of the time within the required 30-day period.
The study also found that required staffing occurred within the recommended six-month period just 43 percent of the time.
The percent of siblings placed in foster care declined from 91 percent in 2000 to 73 percent in 2004.
Those are some pretty crappy figures, the end result of which is that children stay in the system much longer than they should.
The underlying cause of Arkansas's DFCS problems is and has been inadequate funding. Inadequate funding equals inadequate staffing, inadequate services and inadequate care. But now that there's a budget surplus, will these issues be addressed by the Rev. Gov. & the legislature?
In a statement released from his office Thursday afternoon, Gov. Mike Huckabee said the budget request for the Division of Children and Family Services was fully funded in the current budget.
"If they needed more money, they certainly didn't tell us or legislators," Huckabee said. "This administration finally ended the Angela R. case after almost 20 years. We certainly don't want to go back to it."
.....
[Rep. Jay Bradford, D-Pine Bluff] said later that he supports that idea.
"It would be a shame not to take the excess money and use it to address a problem like this," he said, adding the Legislature would have go into a special session to appropriate the money before the 2007 session.
Whether or not any additional funding will be given to DFCS remains to be seen. Talk is cheap, and while this topic makes for nice sound bites on the evening news, follow-through has historically been weak. After all, there's also been lots of talk of refunding some or all of the budget surplus to taxpayers....which makes even nicer sound bites.
I know which of For The ChildrenTM vs. For The TaxpayerTM has usually lost in the past....which is the reason DFCS is in its present sorry state.
Let's hope our Rev. Gov. & our legislature does better this time.
I disagree with her statements. I think she is dishonoring her son's memory. But mostly I just feel pity for her.
Now can everyone please drop it and leave that poor crazy woman alone.
Intense projection or just a big steaming pile of condescending crap?
You know, if you're going to sneer at Arkansas, you could at least spell it correctly Oxford boy.
(Via Instapundit, who else)
Somewhat better photos of the new kitty are here, here and here.
This was after he & Sollie had spent about 20 mins. chasing each other through the house and 'helping' me sort & pack some stuff in our home office. I mean 'help' as in playing peek-a-boo in the trash bag, trying to sit on the paper shredder, and jumping in & out of drawers, onto shelves, etc.
Now that they're both worn out, I think I'll go see if I can finish without their help.
It's been impossible to get a good photo of the new kitty, now officially named 'Smokey' by WildChild, but I did finally manage to catch him sleeping....somewhere other than my lap that is. Now that's one happy kitty, isn't it?
Sollie is ecstatic about his new friend. The two of them are just hilarious together. Like yesterday when Smokey was playing with his favorite toys, a paperwad inside a paper sack. (Yes he has real cat toys, but just like a kid, likes the sack better. Go figure.) Anyway, so Smokey's inside the sack batting the paperwad around and making all kinds of noise. Sollie, being a pug of very little brain, got scared because the sack was moving & rustling and started barking his head off.....and running away everytime the sack would move. Even though he watched his kitty go inside the sack. I was LMAO at him. And long after Smokey got bored with the sack and left, Sollie was still eying the sack suspiciously and barking at it every now and then. You know, just in case the sack was entertaining any ideas of becoming re-animated and scaring him again.
Silly old pug.
The union's investment in the Washington governor's race sure paid off.
The union also gave $200,000 to the Democratic Governors Association and paid $250,000 to the state Democratic Party to underwrite the third vote count that finally put Gregoire into office.
What did they get for their $450,000 investment?
After taking office this year, Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire gave state workers a raise and then gave the union the power to have any worker fired who didn't either join or fork over a representation fee of up to $45 per month.
The return on investment for the union?
The federation has nearly doubled its membership since Gregoire's changes. It's [sic] income also nearly doubled to what is now nearly $10 million.
Not too shabby....for the union.
And people wonder why similar unions are slavering after Wal-Mart's million or so workers.
It's all about the Benjamins, baby.
Cuss lawyers all you want, but this is what happens when you have too few legislators with adequate legal training.
Luke Stricklin will be appearing on the Grand Old Opry this Saturday.
The Opry has two shows Saturday. Stricklin is scheduled for the 8 p.m. segment of the first show, along with countrymusic veterans Porter Wagoner and Jean Shepard, and for the 11 p.m. segment of the second show with Bill Anderson and Connie Smith.
If your local stations don't carry it, you can listen online here, or on Sirius Channel 137.
Federal authorities have arrested a Norman, Oklahoma man they allege tried to board a plane with a bomb.
FBI spokesman Gary Johnson said federal agents arrested Charles Alfred Dreyling Jr., 24, at about 9:30 a.m. Dreyling was going through a security checkpoint when a Transportation Security Administration employee noticed something suspicious in his bag on the X-ray machine.
Johnson said the suspicious item appeared to be an explosive device. Federal sources said security officials found a CO2 cartridge with a black-powder detonator and a wire in the man's carry-on bag. They're calling it an Improvised Explosive Device (IED).
.....
Dreyling's father said that he believes the device was a homemade firecracker made during a recent family vacation.
Whatever it is, why on earth would anyone try to take it in their carry-on?
Duh.
Oy vey, what a hectic day! Errands, a doctor's visit that took much longer than I expected.......and a visit to a local animal shelter to pick out a kitty. (Big thanks to BloodSpite for the suggestion! You were right, they were very nice & had just about every kind of cat you could imagine.)
That's right. Sollie has a New Kitty. However, New Kitty is worn out from all the excitement, and is happily purring in his sleep as he is draped across my shoulders. Apparently that's his Happy Place, and I'm enjoying the opportunity to sit down for a few minutes too much to disturb him. (And I wondered why the shelter workers called him "Monkey". Duh.)
We originally wanted an orange one I'd seen on their website, but that one was sick and so not available for adoption for a while. But go take a look in the back, they said. You might see another one you like.
And so of course I did. Lots of them. Plus there was this beagle who immediately decided I was his new best friend, and followed me everywhere looking up at me with his big sad brown eyes. Sheesh. That's why I've never gone to a shelter. I want to bring them all home with me.
Anyway, I finally picked out this little guy because his personality seemed like it would be a good match for Sollie. He's very playful and bold, and is a beautiful smoky blue-grey.
Now he just needs a new name....because I refuse to call him Monkey.
That's just undignified.
If you weren't there, you don't understand man. The pilsner, the wienerschnitzel! The Oktoberfest offensive!
The horror! The horror!
WildChild & I were coming home Friday night after meeting Mike for dinner, when he spied the little red caboose over on Gregg Street. It's been turned into a business (currently a hair salon I think), and it just fascinates him every time we go by it. He started talking about how it looked like the trolley on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood....which led to a long soliloquy on all the places Mr. Rogers' trolley went.
It goes to this neighborhood and that neighborhood, he said, describing them all. And then he said "And it even goes to the bad neighborhood." "The bad neighborhood???" I asked.
"Yeah," he said. "It goes to the bad neighborhood sometimes and Mr. Rogers has to get his gun and shoot all the bad guys."
I almost lost it because of course the mental image of Mr. Rogers with a MAC-9, doing a drive-by on the trolley was the first thing that popped into my twisted mind. Struggling to keep my composure, I said "I think you're using your imagination. I don't think Mr. Rogers has a gun."
"I am?" he asked. "How come Mr. Rogers doesn't have a gun?"
I didn't want to go there, so I just said "Well there aren't any bad neighborhoods where Mr. Rogers lives so he doesn't need one."
"Oh," he said, sounding just a bit disappointed. He's currently in the SuperHero stage, you see, and so someone who doesn't fight bad guys isn't too interesting to him right now.
I steered the conversation back to all the things you could see while riding Mr. Rogers' trolley, which he did think was interesting, and so we went on home.
Now if I could just get the image of Mr. Rogers poppin' a cap while hanging out of the trolley out of my head......
BloodSpite's post about coffee reminded me of a couple of my pet peeves about tea. The first is that it's almost impossible to get a decent cuppa anywhere but home. Starbucks or other coffe shops? Forget it. They don't serve tea, they serve chai. Repeat after me, chai is not tea. Sure, it once was tea, but then all this other crap got added making it unfit for human consumption. Real tea does NOT contain herbs, spices or fruit. Or anything else save tea, sugar and/or cream.
Which brings me to my next pet peeve: gift sets. Mike & I have a running joke about those. We call 'em "Hey, you drink tea don't you?" Here's some advice for my well-meaning family & friends: Stop buying those damn things for me. I do not need another useless teapot. I will not 'enjoy' the so-called tea contained within. It invariably tastes like crap. It bears about as much resemblance to real tea as a dog turd does to pate. Sure you can spread them both on a cracker, but I'll bet they taste entirely different. This is real tea. This is not. If you don't know the difference, just buy me a box of Lipton. At least I'll drink it.
Finally, my biggest pet peeve is ordering hot tea in restaurants, and getting only one tea bag.....with refills of hot water. Gee, thanks. Tell me, do you re-use the coffee grounds to make coffee for free refills? I didn't think so. Then why in the hell would you think I want to do that with a tea bag? And don't tell me it's because of the cost. That little tea bag is much cheaper than the perpetual coffee & soda refills that everyone else gets free of charge.
I tell you, it's hard to be a hot tea drinker in the South.
I was saddened to learn last night that Richard Atkinson, current U of A Law School Dean, had died suddenly while attending a conference in Chicago. (More details here) He taught my Real Estate class years ago, and was one of the few law professors I geniunely liked. He was one of those rare educators who had a knack for teaching, and who cared deeply about his students. He will be greatly missed.
Our deepest condolences to his family.
Last year, a Washington state judge created an uproar when he rescinded a divorce decree because the woman lied about being pregnant. Now the state appellate court has upheld his decision.
The appeals court ruled Spokane County Superior Court Judge Paul Bastine was correct in vacating the divorce order because Carlos Hughes and the state had not been properly notified of Shawnna Hughes' pregnancy.
"Requiring Ms. Hughes to fairly give due notice and an opportunity to be heard to Mr. Hughes and the state will cause delay," the appeals panel wrote Tuesday. "But, just delay is not justice denied."
The learned opinions of the ACLU & women's groups aside, the court is correct. The wife lied in her pleadings, and did not give proper notice to the husband or to the state. The divorce should not have been granted under those circumstances. While she certainly has a right to get a divorce, it's not all about her.
The husband has a right to have the issues of paternity, child support and visitation determined. The state, because the wife was receiving welfare, has a right to have the issues of paternity and child support determined. And then there's the unborn child, who arguably has similar rights to be determined.
All of these issues can be settled relatively quickly once the child is born. The judge merely delayed the divorce until that time. As he should have.
If I remember correctly, the husband was eventually found not to be the father of the child in this case. If that's true, it's hard to have much sympathy for Ms. Hughes, who could've avoided this entire mess by simply keeping her pants on until her divorce was final.
Simple, but effective.
Talked to DIL yesterday via IM, she'd been to the doctor for a checkup. Mom & baby are doing fine. She said she had her first ultrasound, and the first thing they saw was the baby waving at them.
Awwww! How precious!
If my son doesn't send me copies of the ultrasound photos, I'm going to get someone to go thump his head. And I know just the person to do it too. Hehe.
Escape the wrath of Ma you cannot.
Sorry for the erratic posting, but I'm presently riding the 'Medication Dosage Adjustment' rollercoaster....please keep hands & feet inside the ride until it comes to a complete stop. So far the results are that I'm alternating between feeling like absolute shite and marginally human.
Side effects, ain't they grand?
At any rate, I'm trying to stick it out until I go back to my doc next week (mostly so I can say 'I told you so' hehe)...after which we'll keep trying to find the magic combination that will be safe for me to take long term AND relieve my pain & other symptoms. I'll get there, but it's going to be a bumpy ride.
So fasten your seat belts and thanks for your patience & understanding. I appreciate it a great deal.
Posting will now continue on a sporadic basis.
Actual worthwhile content may vary.
In case you're wondering, using a shop vac to clean your laptop keyboard only seems like a good idea. In reality, it'll suck the keys right off that puppy....and it's never the ones you don't use, like Z or Q. Oh no, it'll be something you can't do without, like the D key.
And it's no fun digging through the crud inside the shop vac to find it either.
Trust me on this one.
Our local paper has a nice background piece on Luke Stricklin (registration req'd, sorry). My SIL tells me that they recently did a concert in Ft. Smith that went very well, and they're shooting for a concert in Vegas soon.
Keep checking his website if you're interested in seeing them perform or want to hear samples from his new album.
I've been a bit out of the loop, so I hadn't heard about this until this morning.
Bloggers scavenging the Internet in July for scandals about Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. thought they had red meat. On July 20, Secrecy News, a Web publication of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, reported that Judge Roberts was involved in the Iran-Contra affair.
New Media had bested Old Media again. Secrecy News uncovered chinks in Mr. Roberts's armor that NBC, ABC, CBS, the New York Times and The Washington Post had missed.
It was a sensational scoop and bloggers quickly circulated it. The Daily Kos.com reprinted portions of Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh's final report about Mr. Roberts's role in the Iran-Contra affair. Democrats were salivating.
One small problem. It was the wrong John Roberts.
I don't care who you are, that's funny.
The correct John Roberts has all the details here.
John Hawkins did a survey of right-leaning bloggers for their "Least Favorite People on the Right".
The results might surprise you....and some of the potential presidential candidates as well.
In fact, some of them might want to re-think that whole running for president thing.
