Are we getting a VP in Sarah Palin, or a VC, which includes her husband, Todd? There’s a damn good argument for the latter.

Just great… a senile, flip-flopping McCain, a lying fanatical Sarah and her hot-headed husband Todd could all one day soon be running the country.

And I may actually find myself missing the Bush years!

‘First Dude’ illustrates blend of personal, public

Todd Palin’s involvement in Alaska policy surprises some observers

John Harris, the Republican speaker of the Alaska House, said he had never been called by the spouse of a governor before the two calls he got from Todd Palin. One was to argue for moving the state capital to Anchorage. The other was to ask Harris to “keep an eye” on a key aide who had an affair with the wife of one of Todd’s best friends. [...]

Is Washington ready for the ‘First Dude’?

One Republican from the Mat-Su Valley, who has known the Palins for years but did not want to be identified for fear of repercussions, said Todd Palin’s politics over the years have amounted to advancing his wife’s career. The Republican recalled that when Willis Lyford, an Anchorage media consultant, told Palin she wasn’t ready to run for governor — a scene recounted in Kaylene Johnson’s biography of Sarah Palin — Todd Palin “blew up.”

“He’s not political. He’s Sarah-oriented, and believes she can do anything — more than she does,” the Republican said. (emphasis mine)

Probably doesn’t matter because most the people who will vote for him don’t know where Spain is. They probably think it’s a Muslin country.

From Americablog: (links there)

This isn’t funny. It’s actually quite serious. We may have the first evidence, on tape, that McCain’s age, or illness, or both are catching up with him and he’s losing his mental faculties.

Per a post on Josh Marshall’s site, I just listened to an interview John McCain did with a Spanish journalist recently. The interview is in English, but there’s a Spanish translator translating the tape into Spanish at the same time. So the English part is difficult to hear. I am however fluent in Spanish, and what Josh reports is exactly what the Spanish version shows.

Namely, that John McCain didn’t appear to know that Spain was in Europe, or that the leader of Spain was named Zapatero, even after he was told that Zapatero was the leader of Spain.

When asked about Spain and Zapatero, by a Spanish reporter for a Spanish newspaper, McCain responded about Mexico and Latin America. A reader suggested something that Josh had already considered, that perhaps McCain thought the reporter was talking about the Zapatistas in Mexico, the guerilla group. But that’s not possible as the reporter clearly said she was talking about Spain and Spain’s leader, Zapatero. She told McCain this twice. Let me tell you exactly what she asked McCain (per the translation):

“Senator, finally, let’s talk about Spain. If you’re elected president, would you invite President Zapatero to meet with you in the White House?”

McCain then gives this odd answer about America’s friends and America’s enemies. He also, oddly, talks about Mexico (why Mexico? The question was about Spain) and how he’d invite friendly leaders to the White House. She then asks him again, would that invitation include President Zapatero? He says again that he’d have to review relations first, blah blah. She then says again, “so you’d have to wait to see, so would you meet with him in the White House?” He again repeats his weird statement about friends and enemies. McCain also throws in, oddly, to the Spanish reporter, when she’s asking him about meeting the Spanish president, a line about the importance of our relationship with Latin America (this is now the second time he answered a question about meeting the president of Spain with an answer about Latin America). She then says to McCain one last time:

“Okay, but I’m talking about Europe - the president of Spain, would you meet with him?”

This time, there was no room for confusion. McCain then gives this very bizarre answer:

“I will meet with any leader who has the same principles and philosophy as us in terms of human rights, democracy, and freedom and I will stand up to those who do not.”

What does concern about human rights, democracy and freedom have to do with a prerequisite for meeting the president of Spain? Especially when you told the same paper 5 months ago that you’d be happy to meet with him.

McCain had no idea what was going on in the interview. She specifically told him, twice, that she was talking about Spain and the Spanish president. She’s a Spanish reporter with one of the largest, if not the largest, newspaper in Spain, El Pais. I know this paper, McCain certainly knows this paper (and it’s not like McCain’s staff didn’t tell him who he had the exclusive interview with for ten minutes). She made it clear she was asking about her own country and her own president and Mccain had no clue what she was talking about.

Either McCain had no idea what the woman was talking about when she said “Spain,” and then said “the President of Spain,” repeatedly, or McCain intentionally snubbed the country of Spain tonight for no apparent reason, which is very hard to believe, especially given his earlier interview in which he said he was fine meeting Zapatero. The interview is absolutely bizarre, especially in that it sounds like McCain wasn’t even lucid, it sounds like he simply doesn’t have complete control over his faculties anymore. And judging by the fact that just a few months ago McCain was fine with Zapatero, it sounds like McCain simply wasn’t quite all there any more during the interview. He got horribly confused and didn’t know what was going on.

This is just incredibly disturbing. And remember, this is hardly the first time in the last year that McCain has become confused about his signature issue, foreign affairs. It’s happened a lot in the past year, and it never happened before. There’s a pattern here, even if in polite company the media isn’t supposed to talk about. McCain is having trouble focusing and understanding what’s going on around him. He gets increasingly confused. And that’s just scary.

Have we officially became a nation of bed-wetters or what?

Enlarging and maintaining a biometric database on U.S. citizens is “important to protect the borders to keep the terrorists out, protect our citizens, our neighbors, our children so they can have good jobs, and have a safe country to live in.”

Kind of a moot argument, isn’t it? I mean since terrorism will always be ongoing from here on out, won’t those same children be located in far off countries, armed, fighting them over there so that we don’t have to here?

The FBI is gearing up to create a massive computer database of people’s physical characteristics, all part of an effort the bureau says to better identify criminals and terrorists.

But it’s an issue that raises major privacy concerns — what one civil liberties expert says should concern all Americans.

The bureau is expected to announce in coming days the awarding of a $1 billion, 10-year contract to help create the database that will compile an array of biometric information — from palm prints to eye scans.

By Monte Hayes
The Associated Press

LIMA, Peru - A fiery meteorite crashed into southern Peru over the weekend, experts confirmed on Wednesday. But they were still puzzling over claims that it gave off fumes that sickened 200 people.

Local residents told reporters that a fiery ball fell from the sky and smashed into the desolate Andean plain near the Bolivian border Saturday morning.

Jose Mechare, a scientist with Peru’s Geological, Mining and Metallurgical Institute, said a geologist had confirmed that it was a “rocky meteorite,” based on the fragments analyzed.

He said water in the meteorite’s muddy crater boiled for maybe 10 minutes from the heat and could have given off a vapor that sickened people, and scientists were taking water samples.

“We are not completely certain that there was no contamination,” Mechare said.

Jorge Lopez, director of the health department in the state where the meteorite crashed, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that 200 people suffered headaches, nausea and respiratory problems caused by “toxic” fumes emanating from the crater, which is some 65 feet wide and 15 feet deep.

read more HERE

By ERIC TUCKER,
Associated Press Writer

NEWPORT, R.I. - Large grocery and discount stores across the country have been targeted by a caller who threatens to blow up shoppers and workers with a bomb if employees fail to wire money to an account overseas, authorities said.

Frightened workers have wired thousands of dollars - and in one case took off their clothes - to placate a caller who said he was watching them but may have been thousands of miles away. The FBI and police said Wednesday they are investigating similar bomb threats at more than 15 stores in at least 11 states - all in the past week.

“At this point, there’s enough similarities that we think it’s potentially one person or one group,” FBI spokesman Rich Kolko said from Washington.

No one has been arrested, no bombs have been found, and no one has been hurt, though the calls have triggered store evacuations and prompted lengthy sweeps by police and bomb squads.

Law enforcement officials say the caller claims to have a bomb and orders the store to send money to an account through an in’store money transfer service such as Western Union. He often claims to be able to see inside the store, but officials believe he was making it up.

In Newport, employees at a Wal-Mart got three calls Tuesday morning and wired three payments totaling $10,000 to an account out of the country, Sgt. James Quinn said. A spokeswoman for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said the company was assisting in the investigation, but offered no further comment.

read more HERE

from Earth Times.Org

ELMWOOD PLACE, Ohio, Aug. 21 A young Ohio man was so caught up in text messaging as he walked across a railroad track he failed to notice a train bearing down on him.

Zachariah Smith, 18, waited until a southbound CSX train passed, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported. He did not notice the northbound Norfolk Southern train passing by immediately afterward.

Smith was struck by the second train and was seriously injured.

Elmwood Place Mayor Richard Ellison said he arrived at the scene immediately after the accident and talked to three of the five people who saw it. They said the engineer was “blowing his horn like mad” when he saw the young man.

“The only way the train could have missed him was if it could make a turn,” Ellison said.

The lights and gates at the crossing were in working order, witnesses said.

Reuters

HANOI (Reuters) - Rescue officials and soldiers were rushing food to central Vietnam on Thursday, where floods have killed at least 43 people and thousands needed urgent aid, the government and state-run television said.

“Thousands of people are facing hunger and need food aid in the two provinces of Ha Tinh and Quang Binh,” the Vietnam Television (VTV) station said in a news bulletin.

But VTV said rescue efforts had been hampered by serious damage to roads, with many sections washed away, making it tough to deliver aid.

The station showed footage of a man, water up to his chin, receiving packs of instant noodles in the hardest-hit province of Ha Tinh, where at least 15 people have been killed after floods caused by up to 600 mm (24 inches) of rain.

The army has been using high’speed boats to take food to a limited number of flood victims in Ha Tinh, while about 60,000 people have been displaced as floods swept away or damaged their homes, the government said in its disaster report.

Floods killed three people in the neighboring province of Quang Binh and affected 200,000, of whom at least 7,500 had been evacuated to higher ground.

read more HERE

By TODD LEWAN

CityWatcher.com, a provider of surveillance equipment, attracted little notice itself - until a year ago, when two of its employees had glass-encapsulated microchips with miniature antennas embedded in their forearms.

The “chipping” of two workers with RFIDs - radio frequency identification tags as long as two grains of rice, as thick as a toothpick - was merely a way of restricting access to vaults that held sensitive data and images for police departments, a layer of security beyond key cards and clearance codes, the company said.

“To protect high-end secure data, you use more sophisticated techniques,” Sean Darks, chief executive of the Cincinnati-based company, said. He compared chip implants to retina scans or fingerprinting. “There’s a reader outside the door; you walk up to the reader, put your arm under it, and it opens the door.”

Innocuous? Maybe.

More at the AP

The Associated Press
from USA Today

NEW YORK (AP) - An accident involving a gyrating ride at an amusement park north of New York City left a young woman dead Friday night, police said.

The woman was killed while riding the Mind Scrambler ride at around 9:30 p.m. at Playland Amusement Park in Rye, said Westchester County Police spokesman Kieran O’Leary. The indoor ride has cars that travel in a circular path while also rotating themselves.

Emergency workers responded quickly, but the woman was pronounced dead at the scene, O’Leary said. He said the woman was about 20 years old.

Police were still investigating early Saturday, and no details about the circumstances of the accident were available. The woman’s name was not released because her family had not been notified, and it was not known whether she was riding the Mind Scrambler alone or with friends, O’Leary said.

The ride and a surrounding section of the amusement park were closed after the accident, but the rest of the park remained open, O’Leary said.

The park is located on Long Island Sound about 20 miles north of the George Washington Bridge in Manhattan.