Bird flies away with poodle, drops her on nursing home (all is well)

Bizarre story.

If it weren’t for the deep, painful gouges left on the little dog’s back, as well as multiple broken ribs, it would almost seem an angelic presence was looking out for May.

The severely injured six-year-old toy poodle was already in very poor condition by the time she was dropped from the sky onto the grounds of the Shorncliff Nursing Home in Sechelt after being picked up by a bird of prey. Shorncliff nurses attended to the injured animal then called the BC SPCA. SPCA Sunshine Coast branch manager Shannon Broderick says that the unfortunate dog was likely a stray before her unlikely “rescue”.

“In addition to the claw marks on her back and the broken ribs she sustained from the fall, all of her nails were so long they had grown into her paw pads and her teeth were badly decayed. We don’t know how long she had been wandering without care but she was obviously very neglected. It’s ironic, but this bird may have saved her life.”

And apparently the dog needs nearly $4,000 in dental work. I am so finally going to start brushing my dog's teeth. Read the rest of this post...

Republican leadership not thrilled with Romney

AP via Ben Smith:

"A lot of Republicans are hoping someone new pops up," said Kirby Wilbur, GOP chairman in Washington state. "He keeps having to figure out who he is," a reference to Romney's changed positions on issues including abortion and health care.

Don't forget to add gay rights to the mix. Romney ran for Senate against Ted Kennedy in 1994 claiming that he was just as pro-gay as Kennedy. I remember, I helped on the race and was asked to help Kennedy rebut Romney's claim that he was just as liberal Kennedy, in 1994 no less. Romney was an social liberal before it was cool, folks. And now he pretends like he's Mr. Family Values. He's a liar and a fake. It's good to see that at least some people in the GOP are able to smell a fraud. Read the rest of this post...

I hope all those parole meetings don't interfere with Pawlenty's campaign

GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty has a soft spot for hiring staff with criminal records.  And now the police video of the DUI arrest of his campaign manager just hit YouTube.  Not pretty. Read the rest of this post...

Police remove cell phone talker from Amtrak quiet car

As much as I detest mobile phone talkers on quiet cars, bringing in the police does sound a bit extreme. As much as I love using the trains over here in France, I can't stand the Eurostar because they don't have quiet cars. This usually means bumpkins who have probably never experienced electricity jumping onto their mobile phones to give play by play details of the train pulling out of St. Pancras station, as if the train was just created the day before. How scintillating. I have been known to bark at loud talkers who usually are shamed into behaving.

Of course, there are always a few who just can't appreciate how little others care about the blow by blow details of their life. Sixteen hours? Really?

Civilians and quiet-car champions are supporting her ejection for violating policy at high volume during the 16-hour journey. It doesn't help her cause that she became belligerent when confronted about it by one of her fellow passengers.

KOMO News reports that Lakeysha Beard says she felt "disrespected" by the incident, though passengers said it was Beard who was being rude by refusing to stop yapping while sitting in one of the train's designated quiet cars. She had not stopped talking since the train pulled out of Oakland, California, 16 hours before it reached Salem, Oregon, when a passenger confronted her about the talking. That's when Beard got "aggressive," KATU reports, and conductors stopped the train so that police could remove her and charge her with disorderly conduct.

Amtrak created quiet cars in 2001 when a group of passengers who rode the Philadelphia to D.C. route every morning asked if they could reserve a car where cell-phone loudmouths weren't welcome. Ever since, the rare havens of quiet have become a battlefield between silence-loving rule-followers and rebellious cell-phone addicts. Gawker suggested, not without a dose of sincerity, that the cops who removed Beard from the train were heroes, and that Beard should be charged with "unspeakable crimes against humanity and sentenced to life on some distant planet where there are no reception bars, ever."

Note from JOHN: I always ride Amtrak's quiet cars, when they're available, and it's a little bit of heaven (which is a hard thing to contemplate on Amtrak). Cell phones are NOT ALLOWED on the quiet cars - they can't ring, and you can't talk on them. You're not even supposed to talk loudly to the person next to you.  So this really is a bit more than just a woman being unusually loud on her cell. She was breaking the rules and she knew it - she had an entire train on which to make her call, but chose to the quite car, probably because it was, well, quite - and she didn't care. God bless Amtrak and the police for arresting her. Read the rest of this post...

Pressure builds for Strauss-Kahn to resign from IMF

Even if it turns out that he is innocent, it does not appear as though he will be cleared of this any time soon. With the Greek bailout talks faltering, the IMF needs leadership and he is not a realistic option in these circumstances.

Pressure is building on Dominique Strauss-Kahn to resign as head of the International Monetary Fund, with the US treasury chief and European finance ministers questioning if he can carry on in the light of his arrest.

In a speech in New York on Tuesday, Tim Geithner, the US treasury secretary, said Strauss-Khan was "obviously not in a position to run the IMF". He said: "I think it's important that the board of the IMF formally put in place for an interim period somebody to act as managing director."

Geithner's comments came after Austria's finance minister, Maria Fekter, and others, said Strauss-Kahn was damaging the IMF: "Considering the situation, that bail was denied, he has to figure out for himself, that he is hurting the institution," she told journalists at a meeting of European finance ministers in Brussels.

In France this continues to be the news story in the media. Politicians having affairs is uninteresting to the public but serious charges like this makes it different. The fact that it is happening during an election year in a country known for dirty tricks on the campaign trail does leave many wondering. For the average observer though, sure, he looks bad but there are enough small side issues that raise doubts. That said, even if it was a setup, was he really unable to avoid temptation? Or, is this a sign of a much larger illness? So many questions and we won't have answers for a long time but any outcome would not be a complete surprise.

It should be noted that a poll today shows that 57% of the people in France believe this is a conspiracy. Obviously the poll proves neither guilt nor innocence but it does provide a view into where people are on this in France. Read the rest of this post...

Is Obama the adult in the room?

We often worry about the President's political acumen and backbone, so it seems time to offer a dissenting view:

It is easy to forget sometimes, with high unemployment and the constant criticism from Republicans, that Obama is a master political pugilist.

He’s the same man who outdueled and outlasted Hillary Clinton and the establishment Democratic Party. He is battle-tested, hardened and, most damaging to his opponents, presidential.

The President gets kudos for beating Hillary, the conventional wisdom, and John McCain. But, let's not forget that the candidate Obama wasn't doing so well until Wall Street started melting down around the same time John McCain made the mistake of picking Sarah Palin as his running mate. Still, winning is winning, so it'd be unfair not to give the President credit. But I think we do a disservice by forgetting what actually happened on the campaign trail - a lot of us were worried then that the candidate wasn't fighting back nearly hard enough. It's a concern that has stayed with us. Read the rest of this post...

Obama campaign hawking "birth certificate" t-shirts

About freaking time. This turns the issue on its head, and makes it a joke - Obama now owns this issue. Smart on so many levels.  I'm actually surprised the President agreed to this - it's smart, edgy, aggressive, in your face.  Let's see more of this off the campaign trail as well. Read the rest of this post...

Now Gingrich says he would have voted to eliminate Medicare

After criticizing the GOP plan to end Medicare, and being pilloried for it by the right, Gingrich is folding like a cheap Democrat.

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has spent the last few days retreating from his criticism of the House-passed Medicare scheme as "right-wing social engineering," desperately insisting that he was set up by "gotcha" questions and his words were taken "out of context."

At an event in Minnesota last night, Political Correction asked Gingrich point blank whether he would have supported Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) plan when it came up in the House. "I would have voted for the budget," Gingrich said. Asked whether he would still vote for it today, Gingrich replied, "Sure."

Read the rest of this post...

Top McCain aide: Santorum dumbest Senator in 20 years

"Pure blind stupidity."  Ouch. Read the rest of this post...

Watermelons are exploding in China

Another chemical problem in China?

The use of a chemical that prompts plant growth may have contributed to overripe watermelons bursting in their fields in eastern China, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

More than 700 mu (47 hectares or 115 acres) of melons in the city of Danyang in Jiangsu province were ruined when they burst open, Xinhua reported yesterday. The chemical forchlorfenuron may have caused some of the watermelons to burst, the news service reported, citing Wang Liangju, a professor at Nanjing Agricultural University. Heavy rainfall after a recent drought may have also contributed, according to the report.

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Senate Dems will propose millionaire tax, but it's just a negotiating tactic (and they’re admitting it publicly)

Democrats in the Senate are trying to get savvier about negotiating with Republicans (who don't negotiate). Via The Hill:

Senate Democrats are using their proposal to raise taxes on millionaires as a stalking-horse to force Republicans to accept other tax increases.

Democratic officials privately acknowledge that raising personal income tax rates on the wealthy has little chance of passing this Congress. However, the politically popular idea is a key part of the Democrats’ strategy to attack the deficit and gain concessions from Republicans.

Okay. Not a bad strategy. But, here's the thing. If the millionaire tax is just a negotiating ploy (and it should be a line in the sand), don't tip your hand in advance:

But Democrats say both positions are primarily intended to bolster the party’s negotiating leverage with Republicans. They see the proposed surtax on millionaires as more of a rhetorical weapon than a proposal likely to be included in any broad bipartisan compromise.

“I don’t think it’s realistic that would ever pass; I think we’re trying to find a negotiating point,” Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said of a budget proposal with an even ratio of spending cuts to tax increases and a surtax on millionaires.

Got that. Senator McCaskill just gave away the strategy. The Democrats are really just trying to find a "negotiating point." This is a step up from negotiating with themselves, which is usually what Democrats do. But, don't broadcast the strategy -- and don't expect to find a "negotiating point" with the hostage takers. Read the rest of this post...

Al Qaida chooses successor to bin Laden

It sounds like he's in Pakistan so our close allies can maybe use the billions of dollars of US money to help locate him. The Guardian:

Reports from Pakistan named an Egyptian former special forces officer known as Saif al-Adel as the acting leader of al-Qaida.

Al-Adel, who is in his late 40s, is a veteran militant who was close to bin Laden in the 1990s before being detained in Iran after fleeing Afghanistan following the ouster of the Taliban in 2001. According to Noman Benotman, a former Libyan militant now living in London, al-Adel was released from Iranian detention and returned to Pakistan last year.

The report in the Pakistani The News newspaper identified al-Adel as having been chosen as "interim leader" of al-Qaida after a meeting at "an undisclosed location". It also said that "none of sons of Osama Bin Laden has shown willingness" to take up a formal position within the organisation.

Read the rest of this post...

Another blood bath in Syrian border town

If the UN does not already have a team researching crimes against humanity in Syria, there is something seriously wrong and the unit needs to be disbanded. Al Jazeera:

Syria's army and security forces killed at least 27 civilians in a three-day tank-backed attack on the border town of Tel Kelakh to subdue pro-democracy protesters, a rights lawyer told Al Jazeera.

"There are 27 confirmed names. An unknown number of bodies were taken to the main hospital in Tel Kelakh and not handed over to their families," Razan Zaitouna said on Wednesday.

Tel Kelakh is a few kilometres from Lebanon's northern border with Syria.

On Tuesday, security agents violently dispersed university students protesting against Bashar al-Assad, the president, in the country's second-largest city Aleppo, a human rights activist said.

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Architect of Rwandan genocide sentenced to prison

It would be good if justice could always catch up with the guilty. The Guardian:

Augustin Bizimungu, a former head of the army, and Augustin Ndindiliyimana, an ex-military police leader, were found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity by the international criminal tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on Tuesday.

Hutu militias carried out the mass slaughter of ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus between April and June 1994, triggered by the shooting down of a plane carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana. Bizimungu and Ndindiliyimana are two of the most senior figures to be sentenced by the ICTR, set up in Arusha in neighbouring Tanzania to prosecute the ringleaders.

Bizimungu, 59, appeared unmoved when the judge ruled that, as army chief, he had complete control over the soldiers and militia who perpetrated the massacres.

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Report: Libyan oil minister defects to Tunisia

After a period of stabilization for the Gaddafi regime, this can't be a good sign for his future.

The Libyan government is refusing to deny claims that the oil minister has fled the country in the second high-profile defection from Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's regime since the two-month air campaign began.

Shukri Ghanem, who had been oil minister since 2006 and was prime minister for three years before that, is believed to have contacted officials in Tunis after arriving there on Monday.

Libyan officials said they had been trying unsuccessfully to contact Ghanem for the past 24 hours. He is believed to have crossed the border into Tunisia and shortly afterwards made clear his intention to defect.

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