The Manning Verdict And Other Stories

Pfc. Bradley Manning, who disclosed a large number of government documents to Wikileaks, has been acquitted of the charge of aiding the enemy but convicted of over 20 other charges, including espionage.  The judge, Col. Denise Lind, reached the verdicts after a trial that lasted about 8 weeks, which took place at Fort Meade.  Although acquitted of the most serious charge, Manning still faces a maximum possible sentence of 136 years.

Read more at the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, NBC News, Reason(dot)com and WJLA.

In other news:

The Chattanooga Times Free Press tells President Obama, quite literally, where to put his new jobs plan.  (via The Examiner)

From CBS News, unemployment is up in 90% of American cities.

From The Daily Beast, the U.S. cities that offer the best combination of economy and culture are "mostly southern and modest sized".

From US News, Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) has invoked the death of Trayvon Martin in sponsoring his End Racial Profiling Act.  (via Weazel Zippers)

From the Associated Press, an appeals court has ruled against New York City's prohibition on large sodas.

From The Daily Galaxy, for the first time, x-ray observations have detected an extrasolar planet passing in front of its parent star.  (Is The Daily Galaxy anything like the Daily Planet?)

Global Research answers the question, "How rich is Congress?"

From CNN, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) calls Governor Chris Christie the "king of bacon".

From USA Today, a girl in Arkansas, after swimming in a lake in Little Rock, has been infected with a brain-eating amoeba.

From NBC News, an outbreak of food poisoning in Iowa and Nebraska has been traced to a prepackaged salad mix.

And from CNS News, Saddam Hussein's "ceremonial sword" has been returned to Iraq.

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Wednesday Links

Some stories from today's news:

From CBS News, a search for art stolen from the Netherlands appears to have turned up ashes in the oven of a woman in Romania.

Also from CBS News, a new "intelligent knife" can distinguish between healthy tissue and cancerous tissue.

From BBC News, the Greek parliament has approved budget cuts amid an atmosphere of protest.

From the Irish Times, a well-known defender of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has been gunned down in Lebanon.

From Boston(dot)com, Democrats pursuing an immigration bill are pinning their hopes on congressman and former vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan (R-WI).

From Breitbart's Big Government, congressman Steve Stockman (R-TX) thinks that if Speaker John Boehner tries to salvage the "gang of eight" immigration bill, "it will blow up in his face".

From the Washington Post, the federal government's collection of phone records does not sit well with, believe it or not, the man who authored the Patriot Act.

From Yahoo News, state and local police have been using license plate scanners, thus tracking the movements of your vehicle.

From Time, the Rolling Stone's cover depicting accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev has not sat well with some retail stores.

From USA Today, the jury in the trial of George Zimmerman was correct, according to former president Jimmy Carter.

From Breitbart's Big Hollywood, Bill Maher tells some jokes about Zimmerman on the Late Show with David Letterman, and gets booed.

From CNS News, as the Pentagon furloughs civilian workers, the Army spends $81,000 on TVs for Gitmo.

From the Washington Free Beacon, Samantha Power, nominated to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, promises to fight against anti-Israel sentiment if confirmed.

And from the New York Post, British researchers say that they have developed a cell phone that can be recharged by using a very convenient fuel.

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A Few Items

A few things I've run across in the last couple of days:

In a hospital in central New York, doctors intent on harvesting a patient's organs suddenly realized that rumors of her death had been greatly exaggerated.

The United States is no longer the world's fattest nation.  We've been overtaken by Mexico.  Sí, se puede....comer!

Two House Democrats have proposed a new National Historical Park - on the moon.  This would present a number of difficulties, starting with the fact that while the moon was explored by twelve Americans, is not United States territory.  And any Department of the Interior personnel assigned to such a park would face an exceptionally difficult commute.

A House Republican has inserted an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would protect the religious freedom of military personnel.

If you're a legislator, please be careful how you write your laws.  A law in Florida that bans Internet cafes might also ban computers and smartphones.

This next item is two and a half years old, but still relevant in light of the recent Supreme Court rulings on "gay marriage".  This is a look inside the gay culture and the gay rights movement, from a former participant.

The Virginia Tech football team has lost a running back, due to his own fault.  This past April, Michael Holmes was charged with malicious wounding, a felony, for his actions in a fight that started between his then-girlfriend and an ex-girlfriend.  Holmes plea-bargained the charge down to assault and battery, a misdemeanor.  School policy allows a misdemeanor offender to be reinstated to his athletic team, but a student judicial panel decided to expel Holmes from both the team and the school.

Scuba divers off the coast of Alabama have discovered the remains of a 50,000-year-old forest.

It would appear that protesters outside the U.S. embassy in Cairo have some complaints about our president.  Like many teabaggers/hobbits/wacko-birds back here in the U.S., I say, "Join the club."  Thankfully, many Egyptians seem able to distinguish between Barry and America.

The recent train wreck in Quebec, Canada may have been the result of tampering.

To finish, a musical blast from the past.  Here's Nat King Cole and Billy Preston (age 11) performing Fats Domino's Blueberry Hill.

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A Few Stories Before The Weekend

I'll shortly be heading out of town to visit my family over the Easter weekend.  Meanwhile, here are some things in the news:

From the Military Times, a U.N. arms trade treaty gets some opposition - from Iran and North Korea.

From CNN, a former U.S. soldier has been charged with firing an RPG in Syria.

From Prophecy News Watch, there are only 57 churches left in Iraq.

Business Insider reveals what is the most hacked mobile device.

From the Christian Science Monitor, actress Ashley Judd has decided against running for the Senate against Mitch McConnell (R-KY), but the Democrats have found another potential challenger.

From the New York Post, some artifacts belonging to the author William Faulkner will be auctioned off, including an unpublished story.

From Heritage Action, 75 Senators have voted for what might be called the "shop China bill".

From the Associated Press, the American economy grew at a 0.4% annual rate during the last quarter of 2012, up from a previous estimate of 0.1%.  (via Gateway Pundit)

The Washington Times reports that Food Stamp use has increased 70% during the Obama presidency.

From Natural News, that old saying about "an apple a day" is starting to make a lot of sense.

From Fox 8 in Cleveland, I tawt I taw a putty tat.

And from Duh Progressive, some satire aimed at the Mayor of New York.

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Monday News And Notes

A few news items and a bit of humor:

From the Los Angeles Times, despite some new information on the death of Natalie Wood (1938-1981), the LA County Sheriff's Department says that the evidence is insufficient to show homicide.

From the Daily Mail, the story of a British woman who decided against aborting her severely disabled baby, who sadly lived just 9 hours after being born.  (via Life Site News)

From NBC News Vitals, research that marijuana use lowers IQ is challenged by a new study pointing to other factors.

From the Dallas Morning News, George P. Bush, who intends to run for Texas Land Commissioner, has raised $1.3 million for his campaign in the past two months.  He is the son of Jeb Bush, nephew of George W. Bush and grandson of George H.W. Bush.

From the Examiner, another relative of an American president is running for office.  The president's brother Malik Obama is running for governor in Saiya, Kenya.

From the Daily Caller, Representative Steve Stockman (R-Texas) says that he will go as far as filing articles of Impeachment to prevent President Obama from implementing gun control by executive order.  (What's this, a Republican with a spine?  What's going on here?)

From Creative Minority Report, three Massachusetts men were arrested after throwing punches and smashing furniture - at a baby shower.

From CBS New York, State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-64th District) says that the state legislature will "ban assault weapons".

And from Jimmy Kimmel, Los Angeles overreacts to the recent cold snap.

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A Few Things Going On

Some recent developments in the news and in the blogosphere:

National Review claims out that if electoral votes were awarded by congressional district, Mitt Romney would have won.  The number of electoral votes each state gets is equal to their total representation in Congress.  For example, if a state has 8 Representatives in the House, it has 10 votes in the Electoral College, the other two corresponding to the two Senators.  In the system that NR contemplates, each district gets its own distinct vote, with the state retaining the two "senator" votes to be determined by the overall popular vote within the state.  Currently, Nebraska and Maine each assign their electors in this manner.

Life Site News takes us into a recently-closed abortion clinic in Michigan, and gives us "10 surprising quotes from abortionists".

From Breitbart's Big Government, Vice President Biden will be meeting with the NRA.

From Newsmax, Obamacare is helping to create a shortage of physicians.

From CNS News, a history of Senator and apparent Secretary of State-designate John Kerry's criticism of America's foreign policy.

From The Foundry, regulations from the Obama EPA continue to bring about coal power plant closings.

From CNN, Illinois lawmakers have passed a bill that would allow illegal aliens to receive "temporary" driver's licences.

Remember the rash of church-burnings during the 1990's, the churches mostly belonging to black congregations, and how then-President Clinton recalled how they reminded him of the burning of black churches during his childhood in Arkansas?  I wonder what he thinks of the burning of churches in Nigeria?  (from Truth Be Told)

From Yahoo News, several hundred people in Boulder, Colorado hold a vigil for the victim of a police shooting - an elk.

From ABC10 News, after a couple ties the knot thousands of feet in the air, their balloon comes crashing down.

And last but not least, after being off the web for over a year, the blog And Rightly So, where yours truly used to contribute, has been restarted.  Raven has once again asked me to join the crew, so I'll be posting over there from time to time, in addition to what I post here.

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Baby Girl Literally Reaches Out

During the past few days, a picture showing a baby reaching out from her mother's womb and grabbing the finger of the doctor performing Caesarian section has gone viral on the Internet.  The baby girl, named Nevaeh ("heaven" spelled backwards), is now 11 weeks old.  She and her parents, Randy and Alicia Atkins, live in Glendale, Arizona.  Read the story and see the picture (along with a few more) at the Mail Online.

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Thursday Evening Links

Some stories I've run across today:

From the Washington Post, the UN General Assembly has decided to recognize the "state" of Palestine.

Business Insider wonders why the US is building a $100M underground complex near Tel-Aviv.

In Breitbart's Big Government, John Nolte tells the Republicans to go ahead and take us over the fiscal cliff.

From the Weekly Standard, when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell about President Obama's proposal for avoiding the fiscal cliff, McConnell "burst into laughter".

From the USA Today, House Speaker John Boehner isn't too pleased with Obama's proposal, either.

From Newsbuster, columnist Charles Krauthammer goes as far as saying that Lee was offered better terms at Appomattox.

From KTVU, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has announced that he will shut down a historic oyster farm operating along Point Reyes National Seashore.

From the Examiner, Obama orders the CIA to close down its Center on Climate Change and National Security.  You know, maybe there's a start to some spending cuts.

From CNS News, Congressman Hank Johnson calls for a Constitutional Amendment to control the speech of corporations.  This is the same guy who was worried that if you put too many Marines on Guam, it might capsize.

From Yahoo News, former president and occasional sky-diver George H. W. Bush has been hospitalized with bronchitis.

From Life News, a medical board in New Mexico has been accused of illegally closing a hearing to discipline an abortionist who botched a 35-week abortion, leaving a woman with a ruptured uterus.

From NBC News, six middle school students in Richmond, VA have been charged with assaulting a bus driver.

And from SFGate, a graduate of East New Mexico University has sent his alma mater a box of toilet paper, to atone for stealing toilet paper while enrolled (if you'll forgive the pun) as a student.

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