The safe word was allegedly "green balloons." The next day, Jetton allegedly told the victim: "You should have said green balloons."

Yeah, those family values at work...

BREAKING: Former Missouri speaker faces felony assault charge | KansasCity.com Prime Buzz

In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.

I seem to remember saying something like this was going to happen a while back. If people thought the current recession hurt, wait until this gets stacked on.

The demise of the dollar - Business News, Business - The Independent

An apology from David Letterman was good enough for Sarah Palin - but not for protesters who demanded the late night host's dismissal Tuesday at a Broadway demonstration.

Note to CBS. None of these people watch Dave anyway, so to hell with 'em.

'Fire Dave!': Crowd lines up to protest Letterman's 'Late Show' Palin joke

Her father, John Corpus of Green Bay, stood to ask Obama about health care during the president's town hall-style meeting at Southwest High School on Thursday. He told Obama that his daughter was missing school to attend the event and that he hoped she didn't get in trouble.

"Do you need me to write a note?" Obama asked. The crowd laughed, but the president was serious.

On a piece of paper, he wrote: "To Kennedy's teacher: Please excuse Kennedy's absence. She's with me. Barack Obama." He stepped off the stage to hand-deliver the note — to Kennedy's surprise.

Brilliant! Funny, common sense, appealing, OMG HE HELPED A KID CUT SCHOOL! HE'S ANTI-EDUCATION! Oh wait, sorry, that was what I think I'll hear from Rush...

The Associated Press: Obama writes girl a note for missing school

A three-judge panel today required Republican Norm Coleman to pay Democrat Al Franken $94,783 to cover court costs in the seven-week U.S. Senate trial.

This is finally coming to an end, and oh does this hurt...

Court: Coleman must pay Franken $95,000 in court costs

Law enforcement officials identified the suspect as James Wenneker von Brunn, born in 1920, from the Eastern Shore of Maryland, NBC News reported. NBC said he may have had connections to hate groups or anti-government groups.

For those who started something when the terror book came out about right wing groups, this and the Tiller murder are the sort of thing it was talking about. How many lefty attacks have there been? Oh that's right, none.

Reality does have a liberal bias, and it's because of people like these guys.

Gunman, guard shot at Holocaust museum - Crime & courts- msnbc.com

A Republican senator who is also a doctor is calling for a new era of Prohibition — outlawing cigarette smoking and other tobacco use.

The unlikely demand comes from Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), one of the staunchest free-market conservatives in the Senate.

Really? I mean because that war on drugs is working so well, and prohibition worked so well, and there are how many tobacco farmers, and how many people whose jobs are on the line?

No question, I'm a lefty, and this is one of the dumbest damn ideas I've seen in a while. If you want to do something worthwhile with this one, you do exactly what they just did, raise the taxes on the stuff, then put that money into a kitty that pays off the health costs of smoking related illnesses. Forced health insurance, paid for by the money spent on it.

But oh no, that would be socialism, and it's far better to create a whole new group of people to stick in jails (the 40 MILLION smokers), and a whole new class of criminals running smokes to those 40 million smokers, and hey, lets not leave out the fact that cigs become the most profitable enterprise in the country generating a wave of violence making Chicago in the 20's look tame, or the lost tax money coming in, or anything else.

Tom Coburn, you rat bastard commie!

TheHill.com - Republican senator seeks to outlaw tobacco

Bremerhaven zoo veterinarian Joachim Schoene says the egg was placed in the male penguins' nest after its parents rejected it in late April. The males incubated it for some 30 days before it hatched and have continued to care for it. The chick's gender is not yet known.

Now that gay penguins are adopting, I am waiting for the religious wrong to call them out as heathen.

Two Gay Penguins And A Chick: German Zoo Pair Raising Baby

An aide to a McCandless state senator known for her tough stance on sex crimes was arrested late Thursday on accusations he propositioned a 15-year-old over the Internet.

In a series of instant messages and online chats, Alan David Berlin, 40, of Carlisle, discussed dressing up in animal costumes and engaging in various sex acts with the boy, the state attorney general's office said yesterday.

That would be "aide to State Senate Republican Whip Jane Orie." Can I get a HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Orie aide accused of soliciting teen for 'furry' sex

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs wasn't buying it. Asked about it at his daily press briefing, he referred reporters to a Pentagon statement denying the story, then added, "If I wanted to read a write-up today of how Manchester United fared last night in the Champion's League Cup, I might open up a British newspaper. If I was looking for something that bordered on truthful news, I'm not entirely sure it would be the first stack of clips I picked up... I think if you do an even moderate Google search, you're not going to find many of these newspapers and truth within, say, 25 words of each other."

In "Woodstein" that's called "a non-denial denial," and means the story is likely true. Abu Ghraib is getting ready to go from a debacle to a complete disaster. IF this is true (looks likely) and IF the courts order the pictures (and VIDEO?) released (also looks likely), you can expect the Muslim world to explode. They stone people for this kind of thing.

As more and more about Abu Ghraib, Bagram and Gitmo comes out, this is turning into not "a few bad apples," but straight from the top. This is not going to go away, and it is turning the US under the prior administration into the first minor monsters of the 21st century, with Bush and Cheney standing next to Pinochet, Somoza, the Shah and Milosevic from the last.

We didn't just lose the "War on Terror," we became a first hand practitioner.

Is Obama covering up photos of detainee rapes? - War Room - Salon.com