National News

Related Articles

• Toss out ‘Obamacare’ myths, find truth about Affordable Care Act: Truth about Obama's health care reform law is out there if you look for it amid the myths of "Obamacare."
• Oil spill moving toward Florida beaches, news reports say: That monster oil spill — perhaps better called an oil “spew” — appears to be heading toward some of the best of the resort beaches along Florida’s west coast, from [...]
• Wow, Gulf oil monster just keeps chomping stuff down: I guess the BP technical geeks must be feeling pretty desperate by this point. (Probably well before this point, if I know engineers.) No matter what they’ve shoved at the [...]
• Taming oil spill monster truly awesome, amazing story: Speaking of news stories — I suspect before all is said and done the whole nightmare of the devastation caused by that out-of-control oil spill and the details of how [...]
• Have you returned your Census Form yet? Only once or did you do it twice??: Have you returned your U.S. Census Form (or questionnaire or whatever you want to call it) yet? You should. On the other hand, as Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show” [...]
• Coming down to ‘crunch time’ for health care reform: All news points to a resolution of some kind, an “up or down vote,” on the President’s health care reform efforts within the next week or so. Fortunately, I’ve been [...]
• Battlegrounds in fights over censorship changing: I remember back in the “good old days” (say, anytime before about 1970?) when censorship and censorship issues making the news generally focused on matters of sex and/or graphic violence. [...]
• Cautious signs recession may be ending, but jobs still lagging: I’ve read a number of stories and reports online and off-line (yes, in the “real” daily newspaper I still read most days) in which economists are saying there are cautious [...]
• So-called ‘birthers’ display continued ignorance, arrogance: Not long ago, I posted a video dealing with the idiotic so-called “birthers” and their insistence that President Obama’s was not really born in the U.S. and is, therefore, constitutionally [...]
• Obama birth certificate story put to rest for all but nuts out there: I swear, one of the most insane, nutty issues surrounding President Obama has got to be the paranoia surrounding his birth certificate. Here’s a video you need to see. It [...]
• Our leaders are only human — but does that give them license to mess up?: Whether you’re talking about politicians, film and TV celebrities, or prominent sports figures, our culture thrives on putting individuals up on high pedestals so that we might “look up” to [...]
• What a country! Room for both Palin and Obama: Today is the official 233rd birthday of the United States of America, so it seemed fitting for me to make a couple of comments about our great country. I couldn’t [...]
• Teens and drug use — how accurate are survey results, really?: I have two adult children, both wonderful people who, really, were pretty painless to rear — even during their teen years. At a time when I followed such news as [...]
• What ‘lessons’ can we learn from Gov. Sanford’s affair?: Once again, a high-profile politician bites the dust. South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford held a press conference yesterday to confess his infidelity to his wife, and his failure to “be [...]
• ‘Dumbest Generation’ book title may have something: I tried to find something at BookTV.org linking to the video of an interview they did with a writer named Mark Bauerlein, about his recent book, “The Dumbest Generation.” Unfortunately, [...]
• Why does the U.S. continue to fail military veterans?: I was disturbed reading a story today about the medical and financial crises being faced by increasing numbers of military veterans in America. Oh, sure, we all remember the Walter [...]
• If you can’t celebrate Earth Day — how about Earth Minute?: If you can’t find the time and effort to celebrate Earth Day on Wednesday, April, 22, how about finding a spare minute — literally — to celebrate Earth Minute? Go [...]
• Scary news from front lines of ‘cyberespionage’ reported today: Some scary news from the front lines of the battle of “cyberespionage” was reported today: Cyberspies from foreign nations have penetrated the nation’s powergrid — and left various types of [...]
• Helpful information about why, how The Fed is handling economic crises: The CBS show “60 minutes” has a great interview and feature going on as I write this with Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke. Very revealing, and it helps understand why the [...]
• Sen. McCain calls out the President on helicopter contracts — handled well or not?: Sen. McCain called out President Obama on a contract for White House helicopters at a press conference yesterday and it got a lot of media play by the networks. But [...]
• Are you willing to show off your body parts to airport security personnel?: Are you willing to show off your body parts to airport security personnel?? Okay, I’ll admit I used “show off” mostly to get your attention. But surely you’ve heard by [...]
• Wishing for some serious healthcare reform, but may not happen: I’m wishing for some serious healthcare reform, based on President Obama’s good intentions during the campaign, but that may not happen, at least for some time. I suspect getting something [...]
• Despite well-publicized recent airline tragedies, flying still very safe: Despite at least two well-publicized recent airline tragedies — the so-called “Miracle on the Hudson” and the more recent commuter plane crash in Buffalo, N.Y. — flying is still one [...]
• Here’s hoping the stimulus plan will help the economy: Here’s hoping that gigantic federal stimulus plan will help the economy. Despite what Rush Limbaugh and others have said, it really is in the best interest of us all to [...]
• Still waiting — on both economic stimulus AND Super Bowl …: SO — here we are 10 days into President Obama’s presidency, and we’re still waiting on the economic stimulus plan AND the Super Bowl. As you may recall, in my [...]
• Rush Limbaugh to world: ‘I hope he fails’: Yeah, perhaps you’ve already seen coverage of Rush Limbaugh’s remarks yesterday concerning Barack Obama — he hopes the president fails. That’s right. While 99 percent of the nation sees how [...]
• Have you adopted or considered adopting a child?: Have you adopted or ever considered adopting a child? My wife and I have never adopted nor considered adopting a child. Nor do we know of anyone in our immediate [...]
• Everyone should hope, pray for President Obama’s success — then work to help it happen: I just finished watching the Inauguration of President Barak Obama and I was struck again by the HUGE turnout. I’ve jokingly posted here references to Obama as “Messiah” or Obama [...]
• Would you go to the Inauguration if you could? Or perhaps you are?: I don’t know whether any of you reading this are headed to D.C. for Barack Obama’s Inauguration or not — but would you if you could? Assuming you had whatever [...]
• ‘Hero’ doesn’t seem adequate for airline pilot who landed in Hudson: The term “hero” really doesn’t seem adequate for the, what, “superhero,” pilot who landed the US Airways jetliner in New York City’s Hudson River yesterday. Yeah, probably “superhero” is a [...]
• How is the economy impacting your insurance picture? Or is it?: Is the economy and all the economic woes going impacting your insurance picture? Your family’s insurance or medical needs? If you’re like a lot of people, you may be either [...]
• Interesting bunch for lunch at White House today: What an interesting “lunch bunch” is gathering at the White House right now! How cool is this country, really? We battle over politics daily at every level. Politicians back-stab and [...]
• Democrats in Senate just plain wrong on Sen. Roland Burris: I truly believe the Democrats in the Senate are just plain wrong on refusing to seat Sen. Roland Burris, the newly appointed junior Senator from Illinois. Hello in there, Sen. [...]
• Is Obama the Messiah or the Aniti-Christ?: Odd question in this title, I suppose: Is Barack Obama the Messiah or the Anti-Christ? I pose this silly question as hyperbole — I personally believe he is neither. He’s [...]
• What, really, does the economy hold in store for us in 2009?: Give me your best guess — will the economy improve significantly in the U.S. and worldwide in the coming new year? I really don’t know, either. I spent some time [...]
• What adventures await in your new year?: The fun thing about a new year is trying to imagine what adventures await, both good and bad, as we look forward to it? President-Elect Barak Obama has his bags [...]
• Ho ho ho — candidate for most horrible news story of 2008 here: The media has been saturated since Christmas Eve with the story I think is a leading candidate for the most horrible news story of 2008. I’m sure you’ve seen and [...]
• One of history’s men of mystery, Mark Felt, dies at 95: If you grew up during the era of “Watergate” and Richard Nixon’s presidency, you might remember Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, and the others involved with bringing the Nixon “Watergate” scandal [...]
• Biggest economic need in U.S. — replace panic with OPTIMISM: I’ve never been the sort of person who thought problems would just go away if I ignore them, but I’m starting to think a crucial ingredient that we MUST get [...]
• When does clothing stop being funny and become ‘disruptive’?: When do funny t shirts become “disruptive or inflammatory”? The county I live in has decreed that people wearing “clothing, apparel, or other accessories containing distruptive or inflammatory language or [...]
• Who’s going to bail out U.S. automakers now?: If it’s true that tough times call for tough people, then I hope those who work in the U.S. automobile industry are high on the toughness scale. Amazingly, the government [...]
• Can magnetic bracelets help with aches, pains, general health?: For years I’ve seen various ads on TV, in print, and on the Internet for magnetic bracelets, usually touted as an aid for general aches and pains. I’ve never tried [...]
• How I did with major presidential election prediction — I was probably too cynical: Not long ago, I predicted, cynically, that American voters would be so taken by “cutesy” Sarah Palin and war hero John McCain that McCain-Palin would win the election. Happily, I [...]
• Are you ready for the political rat race(s) to end? Make sure you vote!: I don’t care what “rats” you’re cheering on in the race, you must be as eager as I am to see this electoral rat race to end, aren’t you? (Please [...]
• You think elections are expensive? How about Halloween?: I read a news story in our local paper a few days ago that says all the election races combined this year — presidential, congressional, senatorial, etc. — will total [...]
• Hockey mom and kids needed to see the Big City — on Alaska’s ticket: Who would begrudge Gov. Sarah Palin using a little money from the State of Alaska to take her kids on a trip to the Big City? Anyone out there that [...]
• Wow — Powell crosses party lines, endorses Obama for president: I don’t know whether he would want me telling you this, but a very close relative of mine — very close — who is a conservative Republican once served closely [...]
• Lipstick lady did all right in VP debate, I thought: Despite all the silliness since Gov. Palin was named Sen. McCain’s running mate, she and Sen. Biden were able to put much of it behind them and give us a [...]
• Certainly interesting to hear responses to failure of ‘bailout’ bill: I must say, watching a lot of CNN reports yesterday and today, that it’s certainly interesting to hear the many responses to the failure of that economic “bailout” bill. Many [...]
• We really must come to our senses regarding oil drilling: We really must come to our senses regarding oil drilling. Am I the only person in the world who understands that opening restricted U.S. areas to oil exploration and drilling [...]
• If we elect McCain-Palin, the joke’s on US!: If Americans, through apathy or idiocy, elect the McCain-Palin ticket in November, the jokes on all of us. Presidential campaigns and political campaigns in general are usually built upon various [...]
• Storm named Fay really dumped on Florida, didn’t she?: I suppose it’s been a pretty good year for Orlando vacations, despite tropical storms and hurricane threats. I guess if you live in Florida or visit their much, you get [...]
• Most of America’s homeowners hope for ‘Fannie’ and ‘Freddie’ to stay well: I know very little about mortgages, mortgage lenders, and the whole mortgage industry. We’ve lived in the same old house (built in 1911, I think?) since 1980. Although we’ve refinanced [...]
• As I get older, I worry more and more about Medicare surviving: Let me say up front — I currently have NO medical insurance. Since I quit the old “day job” last fall to work full time at this Internet adventure, I [...]
• So why are the San Diego U drug busts so newsworthy?: We were sitting here enjoying our new patio furniture and watching the evening news when our son came by. He works at a local university, and he came in just [...]
• Looks like ‘Dr. Phil’ has messed up again — or at least one of his producers did: Remember last year when Britney Spears was doing drug rehabilitation or alcohol rehab or whatever it was, and TV’s famous Dr. Phil went to visit her? Then got himself in [...]
• Beware of the increase in metal thefts — lock up all your fillings: Okay, so metal theft hasn’t become a big enough problem to require you to lock up your silver and/or gold fillings yet (unless your a dental lab?), but it might [...]
• Would you believe — 63,000 lost their jobs during February??: So, really — do they make up these unemployment numbers as they go along and try to change them to look better? Or is there an honest system of statistics [...]
• Nice shooting — missle blows up broken spy satellite on the first shot: Well, whether you support the long-running, multi-trillion dollar “Star Wars Missile Defense Project,” or whatever the recent name is for it, you’ve got to admit that satellite “kill” was some [...]
• Sounds pretty sci-fi to me — shooting down our broken satellites: Wow, this is just like something out of a sci-fi novel or movie of my childhood. We have a broken satellite headed to hit the Earth sometime in early March. [...]
• Now that the hearing is over — who do you think ‘won’ in Clemens v. McNamee?: What a dog and pony show that was! I hope you got to watch some of it, just to reflect on this: Do we really pay those folks in Congress [...]
• So who’s winning the Clemens v. McNamee pitch before Congress?: I actually sat her and watched about an hour and a half of the Congressional testimony by MLB pitching great Roger Clemens in his faceoff with former trainer Brian McNamee. [...]
• Recession? What recession? More bad news, though, for automakers: I remember the days when manufacturing and heavy industry were what drove America — and the auto industry did a lot of that driving. Today I just read that General [...]
• Now we’re going to have to pay the tab — Bush’s ‘tax-cut-and-spend’ legacy: The president submitted a $3 trillion budget to Congress yesterday which, I’m told, cuts domestic spending and boosts defense spending. Not really a big surprise, is it, that a Republican [...]
• Ouch! Lost jobs for January could be another sign of U.S. going into recession: Remember that R-word none of us wants to utter regarding the U.S. economy? We just got another disturbing sign it could be right around the corner — the Labor Department [...]
• New Grisham novel reflects reality of ‘buying’ justice in America: I haven’t yet read John Grisham’s latest novel, “The Appeal,” and I normally never write about books I haven’t read — but I have some interesting personal knowledge of Grisham’s [...]
• State of the Union Address — about a C+, maybe, for that one: No one expected President Bush to give a rousing State of the Union Address. I’d say he made about a C+ on it — but when I was teaching the [...]
• Low-life scum people out there are already starting tax rebate scams: Just heard on our local television news this evening that the low-life scum people out there who prey on others are already cranking up the scams regarding the prospective tax [...]
• Government may be reselling data tapes with recoverable data: I wonder how many of you reading this could answer the following question accurately: It is possible to recover deleted data from computer storage media — True or False? If [...]
• Missouri governor surprises everyone: He suddenly decided not to run again: I’m living in Missouri, and when a Blunt in Missouri chooses NOT to run for reelection, that’s big news. When that Blunt is current Governor Matt Blunt, that’s really big [...]
• Got ‘gephyrophobia’? Latest report on collapsed bridge offers little comfort: Don’t ask me when or where it began, but I’ve found in the last decade or so that I’ve developed a bit of “gephyrophobia.” That’s the formal term for “fear [...]
• Never mess with heroes — and Roger Clemens would be one: I don’t like it when people mess around with the handful of sports figures, movie stars, etc., that I consider “heroic” because of their accomplishments and/or character. Roger Clemens would [...]
• Did you REALLY think the ‘OPEN Government Act of 2007′ improved freedom of information?: I was reading some stuff about the new bill President Bush signed at the end of 2007. The media touts it as a wonderful reform of the Freedom of Information [...]
• Odd zoo story — director admits tiger’s enclosure fence was too low: I suppose I must applaud the honest of San Francisco Zoo Director Manuel A. Mollinedo — he told a press conference yesterday that the wall surrounding the tiger’s enclosure was [...]
• Of zoos and tigers — we must remember that these are wild animals: Over the years, I’ve read all sorts of bizarre stories of people jumping into zoo pens/cages/whatever to be with the animals. Not long ago, I think I read of someone [...]
• ‘Tis the season to be less than jolly about a lot of the day’s news: It doesn’t take long for holiday cheer to turn into sadness, does it? Looking around the Internet and watching TV news today, I’ve seen a litany of violence and horror [...]
• Smile, my friends, you may be on FBI’s version of ‘Candid Camera’: Am I giving away my age when I remind you of the old TV series, “Candid Camera”? If you aren’t old enough to remember the original, you may have seen [...]
• Church gunman in Colorado killed himself, police report: Aside from the horrible tragedies of those wounded and killed by the crazy man at a church and a missionary center in Colorado stands the oddity of the whole story. [...]
• How to spend our money — mental health care or prisons?: The now too-widely-covered horrors of yesterday’s mall killings in Omaha, Nebraska, point to many flaws in our national health care system, among other things such as mall security, too many [...]
• Supreme Court to look at Second Amendment and D.C. gun law: The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments regarding the Washington, D.C., extremely strict gun law. At the same time, the High Court is expected to rule about the [...]
• Stem cells from skin cells — scientists revolutionize controversial research: You’ve undoubtedly read about the breakthrough in the news, seen about it on TV, and already know the story: Researchers have released groundbreaking work in which they produced what appear [...]
• Best laid holiday travel plans go astray when weather turns sour: Earlier this week our President gained a round of quick applause when he announced the opening of East Coast military flight zones to commercial air travel in the interest of [...]
• Why have Democrats been suspect regarding national security?: I’ve never understood why public perception has generally said Republicans are strong on national security, while Democrats are weak on national security. Yet, that seems to reflect the way public [...]
• I expected more when reading report about ‘Grandpa Bandit’: As someone who turned 60 last summer, I’m probably more sensitive to various forms of “ageism” or age discrimination than many of you, and a story I saw recently about [...]
• Mailer’s death diminishes American writing and ‘letters’: Norman Mailer died yesterday, one of the first truly “modern” American novelists and a pioneer in “protest journalism” whose work stands as an important legacy. Although Mailer’s chief aspiration was [...]
• Should ‘No Child Left Behind’ continue as law of the land?: President Bush called today for renewal of his “No Child Left Behind” federal education law. As a writer and a former teacher, I’m all in favor of education, literacy, and [...]
• Would ‘CITO’ work in the war against terrorism? John Edwards thinks so: Democratic Presidential Candidate John Edwards announced a plan for an international organization which would pool resources and information in the worldwide war on terrorism. He’s calling it the “Counterterrorism and [...]
• Nuclear transport issue is one most of us choose to ignore: When I was a kid, I used to try really hard not to think about some of the science stuff I’d see or read about — things like a wayward [...]