George Dorunda - Entertaining & Interesting News Items

In a free society, government exists, at most, to protect people's rights, and should neither provide for people nor punish them for activities that interfere with no one else.

Let's analyze this: Giving one person a "right" to the services of another. I thought we abolished that over 100 years ago.

Don't you find it odd that the media scrutinizes and slams McCain for the houses he owns and heralds Ted Kennedy in a tribute with images on his yacht off Cape Cod?

New Haven Connecticut League officials accused 9-year-old pitcher Jericho Scott, of pitching "so hard, fast and accurate that it might frighten or discourage other players."

Nancy Pelosi said, "You want to talk about drilling offshore? Let's talk about profits made by the oil companies without paying royalties. They're taking your oil without paying any royalties."

Translation: Nancy isn't interested in lowering gas prices for consumers. It's all about money being paid by consumers to oil companies and then funneled to the government as a "royalty."

Unfortunately, most Americans are apparently too economically ignorant to comprehend political hack Nancy's plan, which is a tax increase on consumers. That's you!

Wisconsin Appeals Court ruling overturns speeding tickets based on federal speed limit sign regulations. The signs were not posted in the correct position.

BO, the person aspiring to be the most powerful person in the world, preaches about poverty and saving the world, and he can't even help his own brother?

An analysis by Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS) found House lawmakers have approved $290 million more in earmarks this year. They've also approved about 200 more projects compared to last year.

Government spending through these vote buying schemes is up and paid for by YOU through your tax dollars.

32 states have speed limits of 70 mph or higher on some portion of their roadways. Now the government political hacks want to return us to 1974.

"No other law, other than Prohibition, has not been adhered to as much as that 55 mph limit," said Bonnie Sesolak of the National Motorists Association in Wisconsin. "It just wasn't the answer then, and it's not the answer now."

Congress, with prompting from the media, demanded mortgages for people with bad credit, limited incomes and poor job histories. Loans were made to people who couldn't realistically qualify. Under threat of government interference in the banking industry, banks provided credit to people who didn't qualify.

97% of homes with mortgages are not in default. If you are capable of doing the math, this means that only 3% of 62% of all homes in this country, or 1.86 out of every 100 homeowners (1.86%), are in default.

Are candy canes in schools offensive? The U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether a fifth-grade student's religious expression (candy canes) on a classroom project can be considered "offensive" and subject to censorship by school officials. The boy made the ornaments as part of a classroom project in which students develop and "sell" products. School officials told the youngster to remove the message, even though he received an A on the assignment.

The Democrats can't even plan a convention correctly and think they can run the country. After all, they have known about this convention for over a year. Couldn't they plan any better? And, why aren't limo services coming into town from other areas around Colorado. Could it be that smart business owners know that Hitlary Clinton and the Democrats do not pay their bills? Hitlary still owes millions to vendors from her failed campaign.

In the effort of "going green," perhaps the Democrats should rent bicycles to demonstrate their sincerity to reduce their "carbon footprint."

Courtesy of the fraudulent NEA and with the approval of the City of Los Angeles.

I have been saying this for years. Education is not a substitute for intelligence and common sense.

"Clothing is not a huge issue at Franklin Avenue School," said Principal Leslie Clark-Yvon.

Apparently, the problem lies with the mentality of Principal Clark-Yvon and her government stooges.

There is a general dress code for all schools that prohibits the wearing of certain clothing.

We can't start the war against the individual too soon. Keep turning your kids over to the government for indoctrination. It worked in Germany.

A New York man who pleaded guilty to murder in Oregon in exchange for buckets of fried chicken will get calzones and pizza to go with his life sentence.

Deputy District Attorney Josh Lamborn said Multnomah County Judge Eric Bergstrom made the right call in allowing the unusual plea agreement because it saved the expense of a trial and possible appeals.

One of its passengers was accused of beheading and cannibalizing another traveler.

McCain likes ABBA and Roy Orbison while Obama favors Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan and John Coltrane.

This is just the information you need to make your decision easier when you ponder who to vote for this year for president. As I said, this is the American Idol Beauty Contest election. Why focus on real issues when candidates have Batman and Spiderman to save the day. Does Batman wear boxers or briefs? We'll have to ask Clinton.

Voting for president is not a constitutional right. Our founding fathers were very wise indeed.

Four Mexican soldiers wearing desert camouflage and carrying weapons held a U.S. Border Patrol agent at gunpoint. The agent repeatedly identified himself in English and Spanish. After four minutes the soldiers lowered their weapons and crossed back into Mexico on foot.

The government permitted the oil companies to drill and prove many sites, subsequently making them cap the wells and keep the proof of the finds secret. Seismographic testing has indicated that there is as much crude oil on the North Slope of Alaska as in Saudi Arabia.

The Postal Service had a net loss of more than a billion dollars in the third quarter of the fiscal year.

It's a government operation. And, some people want the government to control the healthcare and energy industries.

You want proof? Go to Disney World and observe all the "pretend to be handicapped" riding around on their scooters.

Obama voted for a 2005 energy bill that included billions in subsidies for oil and natural gas production. McCain opposed the bill on grounds it included billions in unnecessary tax breaks for the oil industry.

Now BO flip-flops and demands a tax on what he calls excessive energy-company profits.

A new Obama ad says Big Oil filled McCain's campaign with $2 million in contributions and that he "wants to give them another $4 billion in tax breaks." The ad doesn't mention Obama has taken some $400,000 from oil company executives.

That $4 billion consists mainly of potential revenue from a McCain proposal to lower corporate taxes on all American businesses.

The United States has the second-largest corporate income tax in the industrialized world. Our punishing tax rates are chasing businesses and capital overseas.

The shelters would have to be easily accessible and equipped with drinking water, bathrooms, tables with seating and trash facilities.

These requirements would be paid for by the private businesses through the force of the police power of government. This will increase the businesses' exposure to legal actions should these illegal aliens get injured while loitering on company property. Then again, considering this is the Peoples' Republic of California, the businesses may next be required to serve free breakfast burritos while the "day laborers" loiter.

"Now I think you will be able to imagine many things Senator McCain will be able to say. He's never been the president. But he will put forth his lifetime of experience. I will put forth my lifetime of experience. Senator Obama will put forth the speech he made in 2002." - Hillary Clinton 2008

A new poll of U.S. women voters showed Women would rather carpool or go on vacation with Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama than with his Republican rival John McCain.

Do women think Obama is a better driver and is more amusing on vacation? Is this useless information likely to become reality in the lives of American women?

The poll was commissioned by Lifetime Network as part of its "Every Woman Counts" campaign to engage women in politics.

Aren't you glad that American women are capable of focusing on the "real" issues?

Carbon Dioxide is NOT A POLLUTANT! CO2 is vital for plants to survive, plants that create oxygen for you and I to breathe. Our carbon dioxide generator farm is restoring valuable carbon dioxide to the atmosphere at the rate of one cubic foot per hit on this website. Every time you use this website, you are helping to restore the carbon dioxide that the plants and trees require to survive.

Exxon's profit margin stood at 10% for 2007, which is hardly out of line with the oil and gas industry average of 8.3%, or the 8.9% for U.S. manufacturing (excluding the sputtering auto makers).

If that's what constitutes windfall profits, most of corporate America would qualify. Take aerospace or machinery -- both 8.2% in 2007. Chemicals had an average margin of 12.7%. Computers: 13.7%. Electronics and appliances: 14.5%. Pharmaceuticals (18.4%) and beverages and tobacco (19.1%) round out the Census Bureau's industry rankings.

In a tax bill on oil earlier this summer, no fewer than 51 Senators voted to impose a 25% windfall tax on a U.S.-based oil company whose profits grew by more than 10% in a single year and wasn't investing enough in "renewable" energy. This suggests that a windfall is defined by profits growing too fast. No one knows where that 10% came from, besides political convenience. But if 10% is the new standard, the tech industry is going to have to rethink its growth arc. So will LG, the electronics company, which saw its profits grow by 505% in 2007. Abbott Laboratories hit 110%.

Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett's outfit, pulled in $11 billion last year, up 29% from 2006. Its profit margin -- if that's the relevant figure -- was 11.47%, which beats out the American oil majors.

Or consider Google, which earned a mere $4.2 billion but at a whopping 25.3% margin. Google earns far more from each of its sales dollars than does Exxon.

Bill Clinton took down as much as $15 million working as a rainmaker for billionaire financier Ron Burkle's Yucaipa Companies. This may be the very definition of "windfall."

The bottom line is a windfall is nothing more than a profit earned by a business that some politician dislikes. And a tax on that profit is merely a form of politically motivated expropriation.

"I believe this is a victory for the people of South and southeast Los Angeles, for them to have greater food options," said socialist Councilwoman Jan Perry.

The ban covers a 32-square-mile area for one year, with two possible six-month extensions.

Keep in mind that whenever there is a government ban it is likely to create a black market for the desired products. Be on the lookout for underground Big Macs.

Where in the constitution is it government's job to determine what restaurants can serve what food options at what locations?

Fast food restaurants opened in these neighborhoods because there was a demand for their products. It is not up to the government to regulate their desires. No one was forcing neighborhood residents to eat at these restaurants. If people didn't patronize them, they wouldn't have a marketplace. What a concept, let the marketplace decide.

Who ever thought the "smartest woman in the world" would prostitute herself so cheaply? What a Presidential way to beg.

Actually, after assessing the fair market value of the product, she is still priced a little too high.

I distinctly remember when my phone at my Washington hotel room rang at 1 AM during the spring of 1996. A distraught President Clinton was calling. "We're getting killed on radio," he blurted into the phone as soon as I picked it up.

"What do you mean?" I answered blearily trying to get a grip on what he was talking about.

"Hillary's mother just drove here from Pennsylvania and all during the trip she heard them saying the most awful things about me on radio," the president explained.

"On whose show?" I probed.

"Rush Limbaugh," Clinton replied.

"He's been on your case for years," I answered.

"Yeah, but its getting serious," he insisted.

The next morning, I got in touch with Terry McAuliffe at the Democratic National Committee to discuss setting up a war room to feed talking points to liberal talk show hosts to counter the pernicious influence of Rush!

Now that the wind blows at my back - no longer in my face - Rush sure comes in handy when its time to put the liberals in their place. There is, quite simply, nobody like him.

After all, before there was talk radio, there was Rush.

And before there was Fox News, there was Rush.

And before there was NewsMax, there was Rush.

And before their was Sean Hannity or Neil Boortz or Michael Medved or Dennis Prager or Mike Gallagher, there was Rush.

No other modern political commentator can lay claim to founding a branch of political discourse.

Honoring Rush for his contributions to America is not an empty exercise. At this moment, the liberal forces that hope to come to power with Barack Obama are set on a course to destroy the very institution that Rush founded - talk radio. Through a rigid application of the so-called fairness doctrine, they threaten to drive talk radio off the air and onto the Internet. Who knows if the listeners and the advertisers will follow?

Their goal is not to assure that liberals will be heard on the airwaves, but to guarantee that conservatives will not. The liberals know that left wing talk radio does not attract an audience and is a financial black hole. The collapse of Air America attests to that fact. NPR, black radio, Hispanic stations, and radio aimed at young people creams off the bulk of the would-be audience for liberal talk radio. So if stations can only air Rush or Sean or Neil if they also air the likes of Al Franken, they'll probably cancel all talk radio and play music instead.

In our new book Fleeced, my wife Eileen McGann and I also raise the prospect that the left will seek to enforce sections of the FCC law which require "community participation" in the "ownership and management" of radio stations. As the National Review has pointed out, this can be a cover for infiltrating boards of directors and programming departments with liberals - an effort to hijack talk radio.

The liberals wouldn't be trying to destroy talk radio if it weren't working. And it was Rush who founded it and Rush who still leads the parade. Having attempted to discredit him, imprison him, silence him, or cow him, they have failed miserably. And, as a result, Rush still rules….and rocks!

Dick Morris

Mr. Morris was an adviser to Bill Clinton for 20 years. He is the author of a new book "Condi vs. Hillary."

We need Rush. As I used to say on the air, "If you disagree, get your own show and say (or do) what you want." It's the American way.

I am not sure if this is a world record, but it is consistent with speeches Obama has made in all "57 States." This particular speech lasted 41 minutes with over seven and a half minutes of stuttering. And people criticize Bush's eloquence? Obama definitely doesn't speak like a profound world leader.

"We fear that this is a potentially slippery slope where the list could go on and on & and basically restaurants would be criminalized for having an ingredient in one of their recipes," said Jot Condie, president of the CRA.

"Consumers are smart and restaurants are very smart and know what consumers want," said Condie, who deems the law entirely unnecessary.

As I predicted, the government and their Fat Nazis will soon be telling you what you can and can't eat. Government has no place in our businesses and our diets.

In Williston, FL, an armed home invader was shot and killed by a resident after the robber, one of two who had broken into the house, reportedly pointed a gun at him. One of two brothers living at the house fatally shot one of the robbery suspects, Jonathan Gaal, 19.

Roger Dan Garrison, 49, told investigators that he was sleeping in his bedroom when he heard his dog barking. He went into his living room and saw two men dressed in black with their faces covered.

Garrison's brother, Martin Randy Garrison, 54, was sleeping in the living room on a couch that had a handgun underneath it. Martin Garrison told investigators that he grabbed the gun and shot Gaal at point blank range after Gaal pointed a gun at him.

A sheriff's deputy found Gaal in the yard of the residence with a gun in his hand.

The committee hosting the Democratic National Convention has used the city of Denver's gas pumps to fill up and apparently avoided paying state and federal fuel taxes.

The practice, which began four months ago, may have ended hours after its disclosure.

In Colorado, consumers pay 40.4 cents per gallon in state and federal fuel taxes.

Democratic Presidential Candidate Obama preaches "change." Apparently the messiah and his people think they are beyond paying the taxes that the average American citizen is required to pay.

According to Dr David Evans, who was a consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1999 to 2005, there has not been a public debate about the causes of global warming and most of the public and our decision makers are not aware of the most basic salient facts:

The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it.

There is no evidence to support the idea that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. None. There is plenty of evidence that global warming has occurred, and theory suggests that carbon emissions should raise temperatures (though by how much is hotly disputed) but there are no observations by anyone that implicate carbon emissions as a significant cause of the recent global warming.

The satellites that measure the world's temperature all say that the warming trend ended in 2001, and that the temperature has dropped about 0.6C in the past year (to the temperature of 1980).

The new ice cores show that in the past six global warmings over the past half a million years, the temperature rises occurred on average 800 years before the accompanying rise in atmospheric carbon. Which says something important about which was cause and which was effect.

Al Gore made his movie in 2005 and presented the ice cores as the sole reason for believing that carbon emissions cause global warming. In any other political context our cynical and experienced press corps would surely have called this dishonest and widely questioned the politician's assertion.

The world has spent $50 billion on global warming since 1990, and we have not found any actual evidence that carbon emissions cause global warming.

"I want to try to get security for my family, retirement, health issues, all of those things, to try and get myself a little piece of mind." said Mendy Harris, 40, a mother of five who works for a transportation company and lost her rented home in Phoenix after her husband lost his job.

Just where in the constitution does it state that the government is responsible for providing security for retirement, health issues and "a little piece of mind?"

"Low income and homeless people are more energized than I have ever seen before," said Michael Stoops, executive director of the National Coalition of the Homeless.

If they were truly "energized" about improving their lives, they wouldn't be low income and homeless.

This should come as no surprise. These people are waiting for someone - Barack Obama - to do it for them. People do not realize that you could do more without the government if it wasn't for the government.

The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming.

Climate sensitivity -- the rate of temperature change a given amount of greenhouse gas will cause -- has been grossly overstated.

"Global warming" halted ten years ago, and surface temperature has been falling for seven years.

CO2 enrichment will add little more than 1 °F (0.6 °C) to global mean surface temperature by 2100.

"In the past 70 years the Sun was more active than at almost any other time in the past 11,400 years ... Mars, Jupiter, Neptune's largest moon, and Pluto warmed at the same time as Earth." (I didn't know we sold SUVs on Mars and Jupiter.)

The price of oil fell six bucks in 15 minutes this morning. Why is the oil price coming down? Because there was a report that inventories are increasing, and why are inventories increasing? People are using less because the price has gone up.

When Congress and government stay out of things, market forces level off naturally. Now, let's get government out of our lives and business, start drilling and watch the price of oil really plummet.

"It is very sad when every man with a camera enjoying a Sunday afternoon out in the park with his children is automatically assumed to be a pervert."

Does this sound familiar? Coming soon to a paranoia filled government controlled public park near you.

Raising taxes, increasing government spending and demonizing business? That is straight out of the New Deal of the 1930s. Economists and historians have concluded that New Deal policies are what prolonged the Great Depression. The political issue is whether socking it to "the rich" in the name of "fairness" gains more votes.

Is this change for the better? It sounds like more of the same political hack jargon to me.

Corey Ramsey entered the Sanco Drug Store in southeast Roanoke with the intent to rob the establishment. When the 22-year-old went into the convenience store, the store's owner Robert Kennedy pulled out a gun. The two struggled over it and, according to police, Kennedy shot and killed Ramsey. The criminal was dead and the store clerk was injured.

The family of Corey Ramsey now says that the store owner, who was protecting his property with a legal handgun, went too far and should be punished for killing Corey.

"The guy went too far because, since he got robbed four times... he just took it out on Corey," says Ramsey's fiancée Violet Barber.

"I know Corey was wrong for going in there and trying to rob the place, but he was unarmed," says Ramsey's friend Vanessa Moore. "Corey was a good person. He wouldn't have harmed anyone."

Hello Vanessa! Corey was wrong! He was a bad person who tried to rob someone of their property. And even though he was "unarmed," he wrestled with the store owner for his gun. Therefore, Corey was a threat.

Ramsey's friend Dana Lucas said, "I think they are showing the public you can kill somebody if they go on your property."

Absolutely! And hopefully, more people will catch on and legally protect themselves when criminals illegally go on their property with intent to do harm and commit crimes.

This reminds me of the parents who use the excuse, "He's not a bad kid. He just fell in with the wrong crowd."

Fact: Corey was not "a good person." He was a thug. He is now a dead thug. Dead thugs are good thugs.

A federal judge has overturned a decision by the U.S. Forest Service to allow oil and gas drilling near a forest and a river in Michigan's northern Lower Peninsula.

"The drilling might affect the Kirtland's warbler, an endangered songbird that nests in the area."

Thank your local environmentalist wacko as you pay more for your gasoline and energy.

For the first time in decades, and perhaps ever, the richest 1% of tax filers will have paid more than 40% of the income tax burden. The top 50% will account for 97% of all federal income taxes, while the bottom 50% will have paid just 3%.

Barack Obama has decided the rich still don't pay enough. He would redistribute the tax burden even more heavily on small business owners and the entrepreneurial class (two-thirds of the tax filers in the highest income tax bracket are small-business owners.)

Economist Glenn Hubbard of Columbia University has shown that in 1970, when the highest tax rate was 70%, the top 1% shouldered 16.7% of the income tax burden. Today the top tax rate is 35% and the same class of taxpayers pays a whopping 39% of the burden. The worst way to "soak the rich," Mr. Hubbard finds, is to raise tax rates.

This Robin Hood scheme has proven that it won't work. But it sounds really good to ignorant voters on the campaign trail.

At least 14 Democratic members of the House and one senator, John Kerry, have holdings ranging from several thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars in companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. or partnerships such as Schlumberger and Hornbeck Offshore Services.

"I always vote against the companies I own," said Representative Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.). "I don't give a damn." Cohen owns $15,000-$50,000 of stock in Chevron, $50,000-$100,000 in Exxon Mobil, and $15,000-$50,000 in Schlumberger, a highly profitable oil-services company that provides technical expertise and equipment.

When Kerry ran for president four years ago, he criticized President Bush's "energy policy of Big Oil, by Big Oil, and for Big Oil." Kerry has tens of thousands of dollars invested in those same companies. Kerry's financial disclosure reports show two investments in Exxon Mobil worth between $65,000 and $150,000 combined. He also showed a stake in BP worth between $15,000 and $50,000.

A Florida teen whose arm was ripped from his body by an 11-foot alligator said he knew the canal was infested with alligators before taking a 2 a.m. swim.

Cable TV was one of the family's budget-cutting casualties, leaving Sadie, 9, and her 7-year-old sister without their favorite cartoons and shows.

One sign read, "All of my mom's monny goes to the gas tank!" The other sign read, "mom had to cut cabel."

Evidence in this case shows that these kids would probably be better off staying away from television and concentrating on their spelling. People grew up without cable TV for years unscathed.

Send this to everyone you know that is economically ignorant and blames the "evil" oil companies for high gas prices.

Two studies released show that federal ethanol mandates have placed significant pressure on food prices, while any effect on gasoline prices has been "almost too small to measure."

The study concludes that ethanol actually has had little effect on gas prices, only about 4 cents per gallon.

"Consumers will suffer as food and fuel costs rise and supplies of corn-based foods diminish. The overall economy will be damaged from higher inflation and lost jobs in the food production sector."

"The increase in retail food prices due to biofuels is estimated to be 23-35 percent above the normal increase in food prices that would occur over 2-3 years. Accordingly, biofuels are now becoming a significant factor in higher food prices."

Let's see, the sun becomes more active. As a result, the earth becomes slightly warmer through natural occurrence. Actually, the earth has cooled in recent years and has been predicted to, by these same scientists, to cool over the next decade. Now to hold a public trial and persecute those evildoers believed to be responsible for the natural occurrence.

Does this sound familiar? Talk about a modern-day witch-hunt! And these idiots call themselves "scientists?"

We need to "accuse" these alleged scientists "of being fully aware of the disinformation about climate change they are spreading."

"When you are in that kind of position," masquerading as scientists "who have been putting out misinformation even via organisations that affect what gets into school textbooks, then I think that's a crime."

As the small amount of food ran out, the survivors debated whether they should eat the pilot.

During the discussion I wonder if they considered the finer points of pilot dining such as what parts do you start with and who gets the best parts? Also, do you barbeque or boil? What if someone yells out, "I've had pilot before and it isn't very good?"

Florida columnist Michael Mayo wants to hold oil hostage for a national hurricane insurance program. That's just what we need, another government program.

In this idiot's mind, it is the federal government's job to ensure that others pay for insurance for someone who decides to live in a high risk uninsurable hurricane area.

He continuously talked about being "fair." Where was the fairness when our own government decided that American companies couldn't drill off of our own coasts while other countries are perfectly capable of doing so? Where was the fairness when Barack Obama said he wants the government to tax windfall profits from private oil companies and distribute it to non-achievers to pay for gas? Where is the fairness when oil company executives are dragged to Congress like criminals because they actually make a profit in their businesses?

It's "unfair" that Florida has been the problem and not the solution of American energy policy for so long.

"FEMA may be hindered in its ability to perform disaster response in an effective and timely manner."

The response to those storms exposed deep flaws within the agency, including breakdowns in its ability to track food, water, ice and other supplies. FEMA's logistics systems do not track disaster goods from initial shipment to final delivery.

And the political hacks want this same government to "control" our healthcare and the flow of our oil.

A new study finds that natural variations in how clouds form could actually be causing temperature changes, rather than the other way around, and could also lead to overestimates of how sensitive the Earth's climate is to greenhouse gas emissions.

"Since the cloud changes could conceivably be caused by known long-term modes of climate variability, such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, or El Niño and La Niña, some, or even most, of the global warming seen in the last century could simply be due to natural fluctuations in the climate system," says lead author Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama-Huntsville.

He is calling for construction of 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030 and pledging $2 billion a year in federal funds to make clean coal a reality.

Put the government in control of oil and gas production and you can look for gasoline prices to triple. This can be proven by looking at all of the other programs that government controls.

The Democrats called for the government to own refineries so it could better control the flow of the oil supply.

They want to control the flow of the oil supply, not improve it. When has government improved anything?

"We (the government) should own the refineries. Then we can control how much gets out into the market." - Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY)

"You cannot drill your way out of this." - Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), chairman of the House Select Committee on Global Warming

What else would you expect from an idiot from the Peoples' Republic of Massachusetts who believes in the manmade global warming scam.

The concept of Government controlling business. Hitler would be so proud of our elected fascists.

Apparently so. Southwest Cove, which is part of Willoughby State Forest, has had a reputation for being nude friendly for about a quarter-century. The beach is on public land that isn't visible from the highway. The state -- which has no laws banning public nudity -- advises visitors with a sign at a trail head leading to the beach that warns ''be advised, you may encounter nude bathers.''

Regulars say the nude beach is an accepted part of the area that doesn't cause any trouble.

Yet some residents want to be able to use the beach without having to worry they or their kids will confront a (gasp) naked person. They're pushing the town to pass an anti-nudity ordinance.

How many of these parents get distressed with local movie theatres showing films depicting murder and violence?

The bottom line is nobody is forcing these people to go to this beach. Here's an option: go somewhere else.

You may want to give credit where credit is due to Al Gore and his global warming campaign the next time you fill your car with gasoline, because there is a direct connection between Global Warming and four dollar a gallon gas. It is shocking, but true, to learn that the entire Global Warming frenzy is based on the environmentalist's attack on fossil fuels, particularly gasoline. All this big time science, international meetings, thick research papers, dire threats for the future; all of it, comes down to their claim that the carbon dioxide in the exhaust from your car and in the smoke stacks from our power plants is destroying the climate of planet Earth. What an amazing fraud; what a scam.

With a preacher's zeal, Mr. Gore sets out to strike terror into us and our children and make us feel we are all complicit in the potential demise of the planet.

There is no significant man made global warming. There has not been any in the past, there is none now and there is no reason to fear any in the future. The climate of Earth is changing. It has always changed. But mankind's activities have not overwhelmed or significantly modified the natural forces.

Through all history, Earth has shifted between two basic climate regimes: ice ages and what paleoclimatologists call "Interglacial periods". For the past 10 thousand years the Earth has been in an interglacial period. That might well be called nature's global warming because what happens during an interglacial period is the Earth warms up, the glaciers melt and life flourishes. Clearly from our point of view, an interglacial period is greatly preferred to the deadly rigors of an ice age. Mr. Gore and his crowd would have us believe that the activities of man have overwhelmed nature during this interglacial period and are producing an unprecedented, out of control warming.

Well, it is simply not happening. Worldwide there was a significant natural warming trend in the 1980's and 1990's as a Solar cycle peaked with lots of sunspots and solar flares. That ended in 1998 and now the Sun has gone quiet with fewer and fewer Sun spots, and the global temperatures have gone into decline. Earth has cooled for almost ten straight years. So, I ask Al Gore, where's the global warming?

The cooling trend is so strong that recently the head of the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had to acknowledge it. He speculated that nature has temporarily overwhelmed mankind's warming and it may be ten years or so before the warming returns. Oh, really. We are supposed to be in a panic about man-made global warming and the whole thing takes a ten year break because of the lack of Sun spots. If this weren't so serious, it would be laughable. Here's the bottom line: the entire global warming scientific case is based on the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the use of fossil fuels. They don't have any other issue. Carbon Dioxide, that's it.

Hello Al Gore; Hello UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Your science is flawed; your hypothesis is wrong; your data is manipulated. And, may I add, your scare tactics are deplorable. The Earth does not have a fever. Carbon dioxide does not cause significant global warming. Here is the deal about CO2, carbon dioxide. It is a natural component of our atmosphere. It has been there since time began. It is absorbed and emitted by the oceans. It is used by every living plant to trigger photosynthesis. Nothing would be green without it. And we humans; we create it. Every time we breathe out, we emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It is not a pollutant. It is not smog. It is a naturally occurring invisible gas.

Let me illustrate. I estimate that this square in front of my face contains 100,000 molecules of atmosphere. Of those 100,000 only 38 are CO2; 38 out of a hundred thousand. That makes it a trace component. Let me ask a key question: how can this tiny trace upset the entire balance of the climate of Earth? It can't. That's all there is to it; it can't.

May I stop here for a few historical notes? First, the internal combustion engine and gasoline were awful polluters when they were first invented. And, both gasoline and automobile engines continued to leave a layer of smog behind right up through the 1960's. Then science and engineering came to the environmental rescue. Better exhaust and ignition systems, catalytic converters, fuel injectors, better engineering throughout the engine and reformulated gasoline have all contributed to a huge reduction in the exhaust emissions from today's cars. Their goal then was to only exhaust carbon dioxide and water vapor, two gases widely accepted as natural and totally harmless. Anyone old enough to remember the pall of smog that used to hang over all our cities knows how much improvement there has been. So the environmentalists, in their battle against fossil fuels and automobiles had a very good point forty years ago, but now they have to focus almost entirely on the once harmless carbon dioxide. And, that is the rub. Carbon dioxide is not an environmental problem; they just want you now to think it is.

Numerous independent research projects have been done about the greenhouse impact from increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide. These studies have proven to my total satisfaction that CO2 is not creating a major greenhouse effect and is not causing an increase in temperatures.

So now it has come down to an intense campaign, orchestrated by environmentalists claiming that the burning of fossil fuels dooms the planet to run-away global warming. Ladies and Gentlemen, that is a myth. To start with global warming has the backing of the United Nations, a major world force. Second, it has the backing of a former Vice President and very popular political figure. Third it has the endorsement of Hollywood, and that's enough for millions. And, fourth, the environmentalists love global warming. It is their tool to combat fossil fuels. So with the environmentalists, the UN, Gore and Hollywood touting Global Warming and predictions of doom and gloom, the media has scrambled with excitement to climb aboard. After all the media loves a crisis. From YK2 to killer bees the media just loves to tell us our lives are threatened. And the media is biased toward liberal, so it's pre-programmed to support Al Gore and UN. CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, The LA Times, The Washington Post, the Associated Press and here in San Diego The Union Tribune are all constantly promoting the global warming crisis.

On May 20th, a list of the names of over thirty-one thousand scientists who refute global warming was released. Thirty-one thousand of which 9,000 are Ph.ds. Think about that. Thirty-one thousand. That dwarfs the supposed 2,500 scientists on the UN panel. In the past year, five hundred of scientists have issued public statements challenging global warming. A few more join the chorus every week. There are about 100 defectors from the UN IPCC. There was an International Conference of Climate Change Skeptics in New York in March of this year. One hundred of us gave presentations. Attendance was limited to six hundred people. Every seat was taken. There are a half dozen excellent internet sites that debunk global warming.

In my remarks in New York I speculated that perhaps we should sue Al Gore for fraud because of his carbon credits trading scheme.

I think stamping out the global warming scam is vital to saving our wonderful way of life.

The battle against fossil fuels has controlled policy in this country for decades. It was the environmentalist's prime force in blocking any drilling for oil in this country and the blocking the building of any new refineries, as well. So now the shortage they created has sent gasoline prices soaring. And, it has lead to the folly of ethanol, which is also partly behind the fuel price increases; that and our restricted oil policy. The ethanol folly is also creating a food crisis throughput the world - it is behind the food price rises for all the grains, for cereals, bread, everything that relies on corn or soy or wheat, including animals that are fed corn, most processed foods that use corn oil or soybean oil or corn syrup. Food shortages or high costs have led to food riots in some third world countries and made the cost of eating out or at home budget busting for many.

So now the global warming myth actually has lead to the chaos we are now enduring with energy and food prices. We pay for it every time we fill our gas tanks. Not only is it running up gasoline prices, it has changed government policy impacting our taxes, our utility bills and the entire focus of government funding. And, now the Congress is considering a cap and trade carbon credits policy. We the citizens will pay for that, too. It all ends up in our taxes and the price of goods and services.

So the Global warming frenzy is, indeed, threatening our civilization. Not because global warming is real; it is not. But because of the all the horrible side effects of the global warming scam.

I love this civilization. I want to do my part to protect it.

If Al Gore and his global warming scare dictates the future policy of our governments, the current economic downturn could indeed become a recession, drift into a depression and our modern civilization could fall into an abyss. And it would largely be a direct result of the global warming frenzy.

My mission, in what is left of a long and exciting lifetime, is to stamp out this Global Warming silliness and let all of us get on with enjoying our lives and loving our planet, Earth.

John Coleman

I have one question for Martha, or anyone else out there who would care to provide me with this information: Precisely, where in our United States Constitution does it guarantee a right to a government education?

It's astounding that this uninformed fool is teaching the youth of this country.

Diane Feinstein said, "Candidly, I don't think the taxpayers should be subsidizing something that doesn't need to be. There are parts of government that can be run like a business and should be run like businesses."

Obama said, "I'll make oil companies like Exxon pay a tax on their windfall profits, and we'll use the money to help families pay for their skyrocketing energy costs and other bills."

Windfall Profit Tax by definition: A tax levied on an industry by a politician eager to pander to economically ignorant voters who, for whatever reason, are upset with that industry.

The economic ignorance of the American people is astounding. Most people couldn't tell you the difference between a profit and a profit margin if their flat-screen TVs depended on it. Oil company profit margins (the amount of money they earn for a dollar of sales) have in fact declined to some extent. Meanwhile, banking institutions, cosmetics companies and pharmaceutical companies are just part of a long list of businesses that earn more than the evil oil companies. But oil companies are a hot topic at the moment. Thus, they become cannon fodder for political hacks like Obama.

Keep in mind that if you own mutual funds or have a pension, Obama is talking about taxing YOU! Taking YOUR MONEY!

Obama is talking about taking the savings, investments and retirement funds of middle class Americans. That would be YOU! Not oil company executives. Not George Bush and Dick Cheney. YOU!

Unfortunately, the American people would rather continue to be ignorant to what is in fact going on because they are too busy watching reruns of American Idol.

The U.S. government knows where it can get its hands on more untapped petroleum than exists in the proven reserves of Iran or Iraq, which have 136 billion barrels and 115 billion barrels, respectively.

We are responsible for artificially increasing oil prices. It is our oil that sits untapped beneath our deserts, our forests, our swamps and our oceans. It is our politicians -- the ones we freely elected, and re-elected, and re-elected -- who are not allowing our oil to be drilled by us and sold to us.

In February 2006, Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) published the report on offshore oil resources on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). It determined there were 85.9 billion barrels of "undiscovered technically recoverable" oil sitting off our beaches.

Just this offshore portion of our undiscovered oil is more than all the proven oil in Venezuela, and more than all the proven oil in Russia, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain combined.

Of the 279 million acres of federal land "with potential for oil or natural gas resources," 60 percent is off limits to leases as a matter of federal statute or administrative policy. Another 23 percent is open to leases with "restrictions." These include such things as "lands that can be leased but ground-disturbing oil and natural gas exploration and development activities are prohibited" and "lands that can be leased, but stipulations ... limit the time of the year when oil and gas exploration and drilling can take place to less than 3 months."

D.C. police will seal off entire neighborhoods, set up checkpoints and kick out strangers.

Under an executive order expected to be announced today, police Chief Cathy L. Lanier will have the authority to designate "Neighborhood Safety Zones." At least six officers will man cordons around those zones and demand identification from people coming in and out of them. Anyone who doesn't live there, work there or have "legitimate reason" to be there will be sent away or face arrest.

Peter Nickles, the city's interim attorney general said, "I'm not worried about the constitutionality of it."

Why should the law matter to an attorney general? Does anyone see a problem with this?

Kristopher Baumann, chairman of the D.C. police union and a former lawyer, called the checkpoint proposal "breathtaking."

"I think they tried this in Russia and it failed," said Shelley Broderick, president of the D.C.-area American Civil Liberties Union and the dean of the University of the District of Columbia's law school.

One of the freedoms Americans cherish is the freedom of movement. Our freedoms are rapidly disintegrating.

For this episode of government school idiocy, we take you to the City of Chicopee, Massachusetts.

Adam is a seven year old Chicopee boy who, after much fundraising, finally received a service dog to help him with his disabilities. Adam's mother Sue asked Chicopee school officials last fall about bringing his service dog into school. Permission was denied. You see, Richard Rege, the Superintendent of Chicopee Public Schools said, "No one has given me any documentation to prove that having the dog with Adam during the school day would in anyway have a positive impact on either his health safety, or access to the educational program."

This sounds simple to me and is something that any reasonable and intelligent person should be able to comprehend. If Mr. Rege is incapable of comprehending and abiding by these basic laws, he is apparently incapable of properly administering a school system.

Read it for yourself. This is another scheme for political hacks to seize more wealth from American taxpayers. Global warming is a political hoax, nothing more.

Hitlary Care or Omaba Care, they both shall bring similar quality healthcare to a hospital near you.

Heather Degasperis, 60, has a dangerous bacterial condition and was sent by her doctor to Toronto Western because it has the experts for her condition.

Mark Degasperis was furious his mother spent five days on a stretcher at Toronto Western Hospital waiting for a room with 25 patients ahead of her, until the Toronto Sun made a call and she was suddenly moved to a room yesterday.

Mark said, "I'm angry we pay such high taxes and the more money we throw at the health care system the worse it gets. People shouldn't be lined up on stretchers in the emergency department. If you are sick you should get a room."

People who support and vote for pro-government healthcare candidates deserve what they will be getting.

The mindless political hack kooks are at it again. Proponents say, "Congress adopted a nationwide 55 mph speed limit law during the oil embargo of the 1970s and threatened to withhold highway funding for any state that didn't comply. It repealed the law 13 years ago, when oil was cheap and gas plentiful. But with prices going through the roof and everyone worried about global warming…"

Conservation is great, but it is not practical. Driving 55 will not produce more oil. Driving 55 will not diminish oil imports. Driving 55 will not thwart natural global warming. Driving 55 might save you a little money, but driving 55 is going to frustrate you, particularly when travelling on interstate highways engineered for speeds far greater than our current speed limits. As a result, you'll end up spending more in contrived speed trap related speeding tickets than you will save.

Keep in mind that most traffic tickets are for revenue raising, not safety or any other reason.

Experts from 10 countries, including the United States, have defined life-long premature ejaculation.

The bill would set up a Reasonable Profits Board to determine when these companies' profits are in excess, and then tax them on those windfall profits.

As oil and gas companies' windfall profits increase, so would the tax rate for those companies.

Kanjorski said his legislation will encourage oil companies to lower prices to prevent them from receiving higher tax rates.

What is reasonable about the Imperial Federal Government controlling business? After all, just yesterday we had a story about California Congresswoman Laura Richardson who can't manage her own personal finances and mortgage. Do we want these idiots controlling business?

This idiot Kanjorski doesn't understand that if you limit or cap profits, you remove any corporate incentive to produce products. This would actually encourage oil companies to reduce production, which would create oil shortages and increase prices.

So much for a free market. Many of you may have read "Atlas Shrugged." Wasn't there a comparable government entity in that epic book?

She can't manage her own financial business yet she thinks she is qualified to deal with the business of our country.

California Rep. Laura Richardson walked away from the mortgage on her $535,000 Sacramento home, letting the house slip into foreclosure and disrepair less than two years after she bought it with no money down.

Richardson apparently stopped making payments on her new Sacramento home, and eventually walked away from it, leaving nearly $600,000 in unpaid loans and fees.

Capitol Weekly, citing tax records at the Sacramento County assessor's office, reports "... in January 2007, Richardson took out a mortgage for the entire sale price of the house -- $535,000. The mortgage amount was equal to the sale price of the home, meaning she was able to buy the house without a down payment, even though the housing market was beginning to turn. A March 19, 2008 notice of trustee's sale indicates that the unpaid balance of Richardson's loan, which is held by Washington Mutual, is more than $578,000 -- $40,000 more than the original mortgage."

In addition to 100% financing on the home itself, the report quotes the woman who sold the house to Richardson as saying she also gave Richardson $15,000 toward closing costs.

Another bad risk is now in Congress. Maybe she will save the country and just walk away.

The court, in a 7-2 decision, brushed aside concerns that the law could apply to mainstream movies that depict adolescent sex, classic literature or innocent e-mails that describe pictures of grandchildren.

The law sets a five-year mandatory prison term for promoting, or pandering, child porn. It does not require that someone actually possess child pornography. Opponents have said the law could apply to movies like "Traffic" or "Titanic" that depict adolescent sex.

The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it makes a crime out of merely talking about illegal images or possessing innocent materials that someone else might believe is pornography. The law could apply to an e-mail sent by a grandparent and entitled "Good pics of kids in bed," showing grandchildren dressed in pajamas.

Global warming isn't to blame for the recent jump in the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic, concludes a study by a prominent federal scientist whose position has shifted on the subject.

Warmer temperatures will actually reduce the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic and those making landfall, research meteorologist Tom Knutson reported in a study released Sunday.

A group of experts, those who study hurricanes and who are more often skeptical about global warming, attribute the recent increase to a natural multi-decade cycle.

NOAA hurricane meteorologist Chris Landsea, who wasn't part of this study, praised Knutson's work as "very consistent with what's being said all along."

San Francisco resident Carla Ruff's safe-deposit box was drilled, seized, and turned over to the state of California, marked "owner unknown."

Unknown? Carla's name was right on documents in the box at the Noe Valley Bank of America location. So was her address -- a house about six blocks from the bank. Carla had a checking account at the bank, too -- still does -- and receives regular statements. Plus, she has receipts showing she's the kind of person who paid her box rental fee. And yet, she says nobody ever notified her.

To make matters worse, Ruff discovered the loss when she went to her box to retrieve important paperwork she needed because her husband was dying. Those papers had been shredded.

And that's not all. Her great-grandmother's precious natural pearls and other jewelry had been auctioned off. They were sold for just $1,800, even though they were appraised for $82,500.

Your grandparents may have been correct. You can always trust your mattress, and these days, fireproof boxes are cheap.

Officials decided to lock down the Clarke School in Swampscott, MA Tuesday after a raccoon bit a school crossing guard minutes before school was released for the day. The school was placed in lockdown until the raccoon was disposed of.

School Superintendent Matthew Malone said, "Everyone did a phenomenal job today. School and public safety officials did an outstanding job. We used an alternate door for dismissal and the students were dismissed in an orderly manner."

"Phenomenal job?" This was a "phenomenal job" of teaching our kids to panic. Mindless government schools at work. Although, you never know, it could have been one of those dangerous terrorist raccoon gang leaders. Perhaps next time Superintendent Malone should call the SWAT team and the Department of Homeland Security. We can't be too careful.

According to the Department of Energy, US oil production has fallen 40% since 1985 while consumption's grown more than 30%. In real barrels, US oil production is now below five million barrels a day. It was approximately nine million barrels a day in 1985. Our production has been cut in half in 20 years.

At the same time, we've stopped drilling and exploring for new sources. According to federal government estimates, there is an abundance of oil in the domestic areas, Gulf of Mexico, off the coasts and Alaska, 112 billion barrels that we are currently aware of. That would be enough to power more than 60 million cars for 60 years, but we have eco-radical moratoriums on drilling for our oil. The Outer Continental Shelf in the United States contains over 44 billion barrels of oil, and 232 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Eighty-five percent of the outer continental shelf is off limits to domestic exploration due to more eco-radical moratoriums. Yet we have the usual whining and complaining about dependence on foreign oil, and the resulting price increase. In the Gulf of Mexico, there is enough natural gas to heat 60 million homes for 160 years. You can't get the natural gas if you don't get the oil. It's a by-product.

The oil market is so big and so complex, there's no one company or person that can manage it, not even OPEC. They can momentarily impact it, but they don't produce all of the world's oil. If OPEC decided to limit their production of oil to a substantial degree for a length of time, a country that is not a member of OPEC would be ready to pump more. That's business.

Barack Obama, in response to a question yesterday, said, "I don't think that we're necessarily going in the direction of the Depression." He added, "There are some similarities, though, to the Great Depression, to what happened back in the late twenties and the early thirties and what's been happening now, and the biggest similarity is how we've been dealing with Wall Street and what's happening in the financial markets. As your president, my job is to regulate what happens in the financial markets to make sure that people aren't taking these kinds of risks and that we're having full disclosure."

Just what we need, more government regulation. But this raises another question. How did Obama graduate from Harvard not having a clue about the Great Depression?

The stock market crash, alone, was not the cause of the Great Depression. The Great Depression caused a worldwide economic downturn. Milton Friedman said that the Great Depression was not caused by the stock market crash in 1929. It was part of a regular downward cycle.

However, the single most exacerbating cause of prolonging the Depression was the Smoot-Hawley Tariff act, which was government induced protectionism. The act was protectionist policies and tariffs on anything that were imported. Not only didn't this help the economy, but it strangled global trade, which led to the rest of the world suffering an economic downturn. Businesses that suffered most during this period were agricultural, mining, and logging. The New Deal was supposed to get us out of the depression and get an active government involved in solving the Depression. The problem was the New Deal actually backfired and exacerbated the depression. Government solutions never work. World War II pulled us out of the Great Depression. Seventeen percent of the American male population ended up being drafted. That solved most of the unemployment problem. Even women went to work in factories building airplanes and ships. Remember Rosie the Riveter?

Obama also said yesterday that the US housing crisis resulted from a lack of regulation and mortgage lenders, investment banks who ended up with worthless assets. We're discovering more about the recent subprime business. Many of the people who are abandoning their homes never lived in them. These people were speculators who got caught in a flip. The latest term is "walk-away mortgage." People walk away because ostensibly they can't afford them. They're walking away because they know they're going to be made whole because they don't have to pay for them. They never lived in these houses, they were flipping them, they were speculating.

The Great Depression? Harvard graduate and presidential candidate Obama gets it wrong.

Here is one additional note on taxes and the Great Depression: In 1923, the rich paid 32% of all taxes. In 1925, the rich paid 45% of all taxes. In 1929, the year of the stock market crash, the rich paid 65% of all income taxes. That is a significant similarity to the present. However, we can fix this with the Fair Tax.

In Irvington, which accounted for more than a quarter of questionable expenses within the latest round of audits, examiners from the accounting firm KPMG flagged $6,421 for a school board retreat in Atlantic City; $56,721 for advertising; $33,102 worth of office furniture for unspecified employees and $126 for a floral arrangement for one board member. Some 250 purchase orders totaling more than $15.5 million were not supported with invoices.

Nearly $1 million in legal fees incurred by the East Orange Board of Education lacked proper documentation or appeared excessive. The district also spent $10,836 for a superintendent's convocation; $23,834 for 14 Dell laptop computers for board members, and $753 to cover the cost of 34 cakes -- with no explanation as to why the cakes were purchased.

The Orange Board of Education spent $3,100 for a Christmas party for teachers and support staff and $12,144 for wireless phone services for district administrators.

The Gloucester City school district spent $14,901 for a goose-chasing service to remove birds from an athletic field; $70,900 for the installation of sod at the high school; and $6,000 for meals for teachers and administrators. It also spent $2,251 for snacks for a health fair at the high school.

Barr said neither McCain nor Barack Obama, the Democratic frontrunner, would rein in a government that he said has grown too powerful after the September 11 attacks.

"A vote for the status quo ... is really and truly a wasted vote, because it is not going to do anything," Barr said.

Barr has broken with the Bush administration in recent years over its domestic surveillance program and what he called its abuse of due process rights.

With the incredible growth of government the Republicans are responsible for, why should I be concerned that the Republicans wouldn't get another shot at the White House?

Whatever occurs, this election isn't going to turn out well for people who believe in smaller government, lower taxes and more individual responsibility. We're spiraling this country into a massive assisted care living center. I am not seeing a great deal in this election that is going to alter that course. The fact is, neither the Democrats nor Republicans are going to bring any genuine meaningful and positive "change" to Washington. Obama claims that he stands for "change we can believe in." It's all vacant, political hack rhetoric.

Let's get the libertarians into the debate. If the Libertarian candidate polls at 15%, he will be included in the debates. Bob Barr's exploratory committee says he is currently polling at approximately 7%.

The Red Thai manager, Craig Gereau, said children disrupt people who are trying to enjoy a quiet dinner.

This is the second time this reporter, Michelle Kosinski, has been caught in an embarrassing news reporting fabrication.

They found that the ES&S tabulation system and the voting machine firmware were rife with basic buffer overflow vulnerabilities that would allow an attacker to easily take control of the systems and "exercise complete control over the results reported by the entire county election system."

They found that a voter or poll worker with a Palm Pilot and no more than a minute's access to a voting machine could surreptitiously re-calibrate the touch-screen so that it would prevent voters from voting for specific candidates or cause the machine to secretly record a voter's vote for a different candidate than the one the voter chose. Access to the screen calibration function requires no password, and the attacker's actions, the researchers say, would be indistinguishable from the normal behavior of a voter in front of a machine or of a pollworker starting up a machine in the morning.

In November 2006 in Sarasota, Florida, more than 18,000 ballots recorded no votes cast in the 13th congressional race between Democrat Christine Jennings and Republican Vern Buchanan. Election officials say that voters intentionally left the race blank or failed to see the race on the ballot. But hundreds of voters complained during the election and afterward that the machines had been malfunctioning. Some said the machines simply failed to respond to their touch in that race -- the rest of the ballot, they reported, was fine. Others said that the machines appeared to initially respond to their selection of Christine Jennings, but then showed no vote cast in that race when they reached the review screen at the end of the ballot. Jennings lost to Buchanan by fewer than 400 votes. The race is under investigation by Congress and the Government Accountability Office.

But one of the most worrisome flaws in my mind involves that infrared port on the front of ES&S touch-screen machines because it doesn't require anyone to open a machine to hack it.

A Pennsylvania farmer has been fined $4,000 for dealing in raw milk in violation of the state's bureaucracy that demands he hold a permit to sell his natural products to friends and neighbors.

Substitute teacher Jim Piculas does a 30-second magic trick where a toothpick disappears then reappears. The resulting charge from the school district - Wizardry!

Maybe Jim can make the idiots in government school administration disappear. Government education at its finest.

This is another government entitlement program to add to the list. It appears that Americans feel the federal government should help them:

Pay for medical care. Pay to heat their homes. Pay their children's day care. Educate their children. Buy gasoline every month. Find them a job.

In actuality, the paramount thing that could happen is for the Imperial Federal Government to stay out of peoples' lives.

Is Hillary Clinton implying that once you make more than $250,000 you are no longer "doing hard work to keep our country going"? Let's keep that in mind the next time she says that she is "working hard."

"Those natural climate variations could be stronger than the global-warming trend over the next 10-year period."

If we can have "natural climate variations" in the cooling cycle, then why do so many people believe the warming part of the cycle is manmade and not due to "natural climate variations?"

"There can be natural fluctuations that may mask climate change in the short term."

Perhaps all of the global warming hysteria is part of the world's "natural fluctuations." It only stands to reason that if we can have "natural fluctuations" in the colder direction, we can have "natural fluctuations" in the warmer direction.

Kristoff Wennersten and 12 of his varsity lacrosse teammates, whom he recruited to help spell out the message at a school soccer match via their derrieres.

The players displayed the question, "Will You Go To The Prom With Me? Yes or No?" on their posteriors while mooning Huron senior Carolyn Campbell at a game.

Campbell, who accepted the prom invitation by patting the lower back of the player displaying the word 'Yes,' described Wennersten's method as "cute" and said she wasn't upset by the manner in which she was asked.

Most students said they found the proposal humorous and thought school officials blew it out of proportion.

"It's hard to know what to do," Melinda Campbell said. "It just happened. I hate to say, 'No harm, no foul' because some people were harmed. But it has certainly caused a lot of excitement."

Bad taste, yes. But who exactly was "harmed." That's right; we live in the world of the hyper-offended.

"Some very nice kids made a really bad choice," said Van Eck whose sophomore son, Forrest, plays for Huron's junior varsity lacrosse team. "I think it all boils down to respect. Who wants a bunch of boys with their butts hanging out (representing the school)? They had to do something."

Keep in mind that government school administrators make "really bad" choices every day that negatively impact and harm people. Those are the professional contributors to government school idiocy that need to be suspended.

Ragusa was first arrested March 13 and charged with having sex at least three times with a Davidsen Middle School student, then 14, between January and May of 2007. During that relationship, police say she began another with a second Davidsen boy, who was 15 when they started sleeping together in February of 2007.

Ragusa and the second teen, who was one of her math students, had sex at least 20 times, according to the sheriff.

Officers discovered Ragusa and the now-16-year-old boy at his house about 12:20 p.m. Monday, the arrest affidavit states. Ragusa had gone to the teen's house to discuss the criminal case but wound up in bed with him, police said.

Detectives nabbed the woman as she was leaving and getting into her boyfriend's truck.

Talk about an open relationship. Providing transportation for your girlfriend so she can cheat on you with a middle school student.

This purports to be a view of the American election as reported in Dutch newspaper.

"We in Denmark cannot figure out why you are even bothering to hold an election. On one side, you have a lawyer who is married to a lawyer, and a lawyer who is married to a lawyer. On the other side, you have a true war hero married to a blonde with a huge chest who owns a beer distributorship.

The president, in this case, is an 18-year-old Pennsylvania high school student who claims he was forced to resign as head of his senior class because he skipped gym and left school to see Democratic presidential would-be Barack Obama.

Colin Saltry, a Scranton High School senior, and fellow classmate Joey Daniel reportedly bolted school on Monday to catch a glimpse of the Illinois senator during a campaign stop at "The Glider" restaurant, just minutes away from their school.

Saltry and Daniel say they met Obama, snapped photos with him, and even had the candidate sign excuse slips to present to their teachers.

But their decision to skip out did not sit well with school administrators, who said the students broke the rules by leaving school without permission.

Both Saltry and Daniel were issued one-day suspensions. Saltry also claims school Principal Brian McGraw told him to "start writing his resignation letter," according to the Scranton Times-Tribune Web site.

McGraw reportedly denied the claim and said Saltry voluntarily withdrew as class president.

Federal spending: In 1900 federal spending was $0.5B. In 2000 it was $1,789B . Those amounts translated to 2.5% of GDP in 1900 and 21% in 2000. Government spending at all levels in the U.S. was 36.5% of GDP in 2006. That 2.5% of GDP that could sustain the entire federal government in 1900 is not even enough to cover the Medicare program today.

The Medicare program, by the way, did not exist in 1900; it was established in 1965.

Federal taxes: A federal income tax did not exist in 1900; it was unconstitutional, and would remain that way until the 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913. The first 1040 form included one page of instructions, and appeared to apply to both individuals and businesses. Today's 1040 instructions for individuals runs 155 pages, with no guarantee that you won't have to fill out other forms and consult other instructions.

Federal regulation: There were few enough federal regulations in 1900 that the government did not do anything special to keep track of them. That changed in the middle of the New Deal. The Federal Register, the master list of federal regulations, came into existence in 1936. In that year it had 2,620 pages of regulations. The next year it had 3,450. In the year 2000, it had 83,294 pages.

Cabinet Departments: There were seven cabinet level departments in 1900: State, Treasury, War, Navy, Justice, Interior and Agriculture. All but Interior (1849) and Agriculture (1889) were established prior to 1790.

In 2000 there were 14 cabinet departments, including 9 created after 1900: State, Treasury, Justice, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce (1903), Labor (1913), Defense (1947), Health & Human Services (1953), Housing and Urban Development (1965), Transportation (1966), Energy (1977), Education (1979), and Veterans Affairs (1988).

In 2002 the Department of Homeland Security was established, making the current total 15 departments. If the "cabinet level" positions are included (excluding the Vice President), the total is 20. The cabinet level positions (excluding VP) are White House Chief of Staff, Office of Management and Budget, U.S. Trade Representative, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Constitutional Amendments: The first 10 Amendments (the Bill of Rights) and the 11th were passed prior to 1800. The 12th was passed in 1804. In the next 109 years, only three more Amendments were added to the Constitution; all three were passed in the five years between 1865 and 1870 and related to ending slavery and establishing the rights of ex-slaves. The last 12 Amendments were all passed between 1913 and 1992. There are now 27 Amendments.

Federal Bureaucracy: The following sampling of government agencies did not exist in 1900. (The years given are when the agency was established. When a range is given, it includes the related pre-cursor agencies.)

FDA, Food and Drug Administration (1906-1930)

FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation (1908-1935)

Federal Reserve (1913)

IRS, Internal Revenue Service (1913)

FTC, Federal Trade Commission (1914)

BATF, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (1920-1972)

FCC, Federal Communications Commission (1934)

SEC, Security and Exchange Commission (1934)

Social Security (1935)

Medicare and Medicaid (1965)

EPA, Environmental Protection Agency (1970)

OSHA, Occupational, Safety and Health Administration (1971)

DEA, Drug Enforcement Administration (1973)

FEMA, Federal Emergency Management Administration (1979)

Crime and Punishment: In 1900 there were no Federal laws against drugs . None. In fact, you didn't even need a prescription for medicine. Now, of course, the Federal government outlaws marijuana even where a state government has made it legal (over the dissent of Justice Clarence Thomas, by the way), and has the FDA, DEA and other departments of armed men ready to enforce those laws and regulations. More generally, the federal departments we normally associate with law enforcement, the FBI and BATF for examples, did not exist at all in 1900.

In 1900 there were about 100,000 people (1 in 760) in U.S. prisons. In 2000 there were about 2 million (1 in 140). The incarceration rate increased over 400%.

In 1900 there were 1.2 murder victims for every 100,000 people. The rate has been over 10 per 100,000, and in 2000 it was 6.1 per 100,000, an increase of over 400% compared to 1900.

Generally, the federal government has stepped into law enforcement in a big way since 1900. Unfortunately, we did not become safer, either from criminals or from zealous prosecutors and lawmen. More of us get locked up. More of us get murdered. Four hundred percent more of us.

Property: Owning property used to mean something; it meant you could do pretty much what you wanted with it and on it. Now it's not even yours if the government at any level decides it could be put to better use by someone else (again, over the dissent of Justice Clarence Thomas). Don't let your kids build a tree house; you need a building permit for that and no city would ever approve such a thing. I wouldn't even say I own my house; I rent it from the county for about $450 per month in property taxes, on a house assessed right around the U.S. median.

Personal: The above examples might seem too abstract or impersonal. Even the high overall tax rate (over one third of every dollar) can seem removed from our personal life either because we never see the money (due to withholding, which started in World War II) or the tax is relatively hidden (e.g., gas tax is paid at the pump). Here are just a few examples of a more personal nature, none of which would have been conceivable in 1900.

An eighth-grade honor student was strip-searched by school officials for the suspicion of having Ibuprofen, a common over-the-counter drug for pain . No Ibuprofen was found on her, by the way. On the other hand, behavior modifying drugs such as Ritalin can be forced on students over the objection of parents. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has already ruled that "parents have no due process or p