Riddle Me This #4

This one comes from CNS News via Blogs For Victory.

I've heard of "new math", but this might give term new meaning.  How is it that the federal government ran a $98 billion deficit in July, but the overall federal debt stayed exactly the same for the entire month?  According to the CNS News link above:

The FMS said that the deficit went up $98 billion ($97,594,000,000) in the Monthly Treasury Statment for July, which it released on Monday. 

At the same time, the FMS said the debt stayed at exactly $16,699,396,000,000 in its Daily Treasury Statements, which are published every business day. The Daily Treasury Statements show the daily value of the federal government debt that is subject to a legal limit set by Congress.

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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 Wedding Of "Epic Porkportions"

Vista, California residents Adrienne Dunvan and Eddie Quinones, who spent their first date eating a Puerto Rican pork shoulder dish called pernil, tied the knot this past Sunday at the Big Bacon Bite Fest at the San Diego County Fair.  The couple had won a contest to be wed at the Fest.  They had dated for six years before becoming engaged in 2011, and also have adopted four children, all of whom participated in the ceremony.  They will honeymoon this coming October around Baltimore ("the bacon capitol of the world") attending the 12th annual Pigtown Festival, which includes Squeakness, the Running of the Pigs.

Naturally, I hope they enjoy their visit to in Maryland, and will pig out (pun intended) to their hearts' content.

Read the story at San Diego County Fair, Yahoo! Shine and ABC 10 News.

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A Rat On Mars?

The Mars rover Curiosity may not have killed any cats, but it appears to have found something that resembles a rat.  It's really "a piece of dusty orange rock", but it does kinda, sorta resemble a small rodent.

Read the story at HNGN.  If you're on Twitter, you can follow the Mars Rat.

Interestingly enough, this is not the first time that a martian rock reminded people of an earthly creature.

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Riddle Me This #2

This one comes from the Tipsheet at Townhall:

Why, especially with the Sequester going on, does the Department of Homeland Security need, of all things, bagpipes?

Does this mean that we're headed for our version of the Highland Clearances?  (To learn more, you can also go here and here.)

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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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Thursday Links

A few stories in the news:

From CNN, the Chinese solar energy company Soltech Power's Wuxi subsidiary has gone into bankruptcy.

From the Washington Times, Colorado movie theater shooter James Holmes has converted to Islam.

From The Blaze, while in Israel discussing Israeli-Palestinian relations, President Obama evokes the relationship between the United States and Canada.  That's funny, I don't recall any Canadians launching rockets at American towns full of civilians, or any Canadian suicide bombers.

From Time, the Palestinians aren't all that pleased with Obama.

From World Net Daily, in a speech to young Israelis, the president quotes Saul Alinsky.

From Fox News, in southern Idaho, nearly 40 dogs have mysteriously disappeared, with some of them eventually turning up dead.

From CBS Bay Area, CVS pharmacy is ordering its employees to reveal their health information.

From Liberty News, congressman Charles Rangel claims that "millions of kids" have been shot down by "assault weapons", a number that is actually way off the mark.

From MSN News, Chicago school officials announce plans to close 54 schools, due to a billion-dollar deficit.

From the Military Times, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry has found no proof that the Navy's use of bombing ranges on the island of Vieques has caused its inhabitants to get sick.

From the New York Post, Saudi Arabia, despite being the homeland of most of the 9/11 hijackers, will become just the fifth nation to receive "trusted traveller" status.

And from Phillyburbs, the up-for-reelection Bucks County Sheriff has been petitioned to remove his nickname from the upcoming ballot.

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Does Satan Look Like Obama?

No, but the actor playing Satan in the miniseries The Bible seems to have some resemblance to the president.  Mark Burnett and Roma Downey, the married couple who are the show's producers, flatly deny any any intention of making a political statement.  Let's keep in mind that the actor's on-screen appearance is likely to some extent to be the result of makeup.  Still, Moroccan actor Mehdi Ouzaani does appear to look somewhat like Barry, but if you ask me, a few years older.  Read the story at the New York Post, the Independent, MSNBC and the Daily Beast, and judge for yourself.

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Don't Mess With A Human Statue

From the New York Post:

A jerk wearing a purple shirt first poked around the street performer's mustache, hat, ears and ribs.  He then gave him a wet willie, and rubbed his hand in the performer's face, after which he received his just desserts.

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"Jedi Mind Meld"?

It appears that President Obama will never be a genuine sci-fi geek.  At a press conference today, he said that he couldn't do a "Jedi mind meld" with the Republicans to make them understand his positions on taxes and spending, thus getting mixed up between the Star Wars Jedi mind trick and the Star Trek Vulcan mind meld.  Even so, it's probably a good thing.  Could you imagine how much damage politicians could do if they could link their minds together?  Oh well, live long and prosper and may the Force be with you.

Read more at ABC News, CBS News, Reuters and the Washington Post.

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We're NASA And We Know It

Some geeky musical satire about the Mars Curiosity Rover and its NASA operators back on earth:

This video came out about 6 months ago, but I only ran across it earlier today.  Other than a YouTube channel, I don't anything about its source.

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Tennessee Cops Pull Car Over For Sticker

On February 4th, Guido Boggioni and Bonnie Jonas-Boggioni, a married couple in their 60's, were driving home to Plano, TX after attending a funeral for his mother in Tennessee.  As they approached Memphis on Interstate 40, they were pulled over by two police SUVs because of sticker on their car.  The cops thought it depicted a marijuana leaf, but it was actually a buckeye, the symbol of Ohio State University.  Jonas-Boggioni had grown up in Columbus and rooted for the Ohio State Buckeyes her entire life.  This event is disturbing because the couple were pulled over for nothing more than a sticker.

Read more at the Columbus Dispatch, where the article's writer suggests that the police might want to learn some botany and something about Ohio State football.  I would think that this would be especially true if Ohio State decides to schedule a game against either the U. of Tennessee or Vanderbilt.  If I ever drive through Tennessee, just to be safe, I won't put any Hokiebird stickers on my car, to avoid being pulled over for smuggling exotic birds.

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Links For (Fat) Tuesday

Today is Mardi Gras (French for "Fat Tuesday"), the day before Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent as observed by the Catholic Church and most of western Christianity.  The Orthodox Churches (Greek, Russian, etc.) use a different calendar, and thus schedule their Easter and Lent differently.  Tonight, President Obama will give his State Of The Union address, which like most SOTUs, I have no intention of watching.  Here are some other things going on:

From the Los Angeles Times, police in San Bernardino County, CA have a gun battle with former officer and murder suspect Christopher Dorner near Big Bear Lake.

From My Fox LA, a timeline and live stream of Dorner's suspected crimes and the resulting manhunt.

From the Inquisitr, the Antarctic ozone hole has shrunk to its lowest size in a decade.

From the Washington Post, the Virginia Senate has passed a bill to allow counties in northern Virginia to pass a 1% income tax without a public vote.

From ABC News, former police Sgt. Kimberly Munley, who with her partner stopped the Fort Hoot shooting spree, says the president has broken his promise that "the victims would be well taken care of".

From Fox News, gay rights activists have called for DC comics to fire Orson Scott Card, because he opposes gay marriage.  (via Weasel Zippers)

From the Daily Caller, several Democrats have have invited to the State Of The Union speech some guests who shouldn't even be in the country.

From the NY Post, the hacker group called Anonymous threatens to disrupt online broadcasts of the SOTU speech.

From Yahoo News, diners in Tokyo eat dirt.

And from SFGate, a postcard sent by a 13-year-old boy to his mother in Pauls Valley, OK arrives after 46 years.

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Fresh Air Now Comes In A Can

Yes, you can now buy a can of fresh air.  However, there is a catch.  You have to travel a few thousand miles to get your hands on one.  Canned fresh air is available only in China, where it's being sold by entrepreneur Chen Guangbiao.  His product comes in several flavors, including Tibet, Taiwan and Yan'an, which was an early home of the Communist Party.  Each can costs 5 yuan, equivalent to about 80 American cents.

Read more at the Brisbane Times and Yahoo News.

Canned air from various parts of China could eventually lead to the art of pairing food with air, similar to how food is paired with wine.  For example, which regional type of air should be inhaled while eating Szeshuan beef, pork Chungking or Hunan chicken?

The Brisbane Times report includes this video:

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A Sad Anniversary, And Today's News

On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court released its ruling on Roe v. Wade, striking down abortion laws in all 50 states, greatly expanding the conditions under which an abortion may be obtained, and its ruling on Doe v. Bolton, which defined "health" as a factor those conditions.  Today marks the 40th anniversary of that decision.  Over the years, both Jane Roe (Norma McCorvey) and Mary Doe (Sandra Cano) have
come out against abortion.  Cano's story may be read here.

Today, some pro-lifers decided to remember the anniversary by placing 3,300 flowers on the steps of the Supreme Court building, to mark the 3300 abortions that occur daily in the U.S.  The two sides held dueling protests in front of the SCOTUS.  The Washington Examiner presents the results of Roe v. Wade in three grim charts.  The country's largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, performed a record number of abortions and received a record amount of taxpayer-funded subsidies in 2011.

Some news items from today:

From Fox News, two suspects are hospitalized after a shooting at a community college in Houston.

Also from Fox News, despite President Morsi's rhetoric, America's gift of F-16's is on its way.

From Yahoo News, Israeli voters have re-elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

From the Canada Free Press, tens of millions of birds and bats are killed by wind turbines.

From Gateway Pundit, the First Lady's inaugural outfit cost over half the median U.S. yearly income.

From Reuters, pungent gas released in France has reached England.

Speaking of England, from the Daily Mail, Prince Harry says that no sensible woman would be his bride.

From SFGate, three thieves trying to rob a Chinese restaurant in Massachusetts are stopped, not by any gun-wielding worker, but by the cash register.

And from NBC News, a Utah woman gets a rude awakening as a huge boulder crashes into her bedroom.

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The Te'o Hoax, And Some Other Stories

Manti Te'o is a college football player who recently completed his senior season with Notre Dame, the team losing to Alabama in the BCS Championship Game.  During the 2012 season, he endured the deaths of his grandmother, Annette Santiago, and his girlfriend, Lennay Marie Kekua, within days of each other.  Earlier during 2012, Te'o had learned that Kekua was in a car accident, recovered from the resulting injuries, graduated from Stanford, and then was diagnosed with leukemia, from which she eventually died.  There was one problem with all of this.  Te's and Kekua never met in person.  Their relationship was completely online.  All of these events, and Lennay Kekua's very existence, were a hoax.  The only remaining question is whether Te'o was purely the victim of this hoax, or was in on it.  Read more at Deadspin, CBS Sportsline, Newsfeed, Fox News and the Sporting News.

In other news:

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, an Illinois woman survived for two days after her car skidded into a ravine.

From the Sioux City Journal, a tribute to Sioux City native Pauline Friedman Phillips, known to the world as Dear Abby.  She recently passed away at the age of 94.

From Yahoo News, a Florida man was killed when he was run over by his dog.

From Israel National News, about 4,300 of Nazi-seized advertising posters will be auctioned off in New York.

From WGRZ, Border Patrol agents have arrested a man who entered the United States illegally, by paddling across the Niagara River into Fort Niagara State Park.  (Full disclosure:  I have visited Fort Niagara.  It's in the northwest corner of New York state, on the east bank of the Niagara River where it empties into Lake Ontario.  If the sky is fairly clear, you can see Toronto on the other side of the lake.)

From Breitbart's Big Journalism, the NRA, which has been vilified in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, has a better approval rating than the president.

And finally, to return to our first topic, it seems that Manti Te'o might have been living out a song that I remember from the 1970's.

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Kelly Hildebrandts To Divorce Each Other

This is definitely one from the "You can't make this stuff up" department.  After contacting each other on Facebook, meeting in person and getting married, all during 2009, Mr. Kelly Hildebrandt of Lubbock, Texas and Ms. Kelly Hildebrandt of Coral Springs, Florida filed for divorce in 2012.  They made their home in Coconut Creek, Florida, but he has moved back to Lubbock, where he has his own business.  They have cited "irreconcilable differences" as the reason for divorcing.

Read the story at NBC News.

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White House: Sorry, No Death Star

In response to the petition submitted last month which called for the federal government to build a Death Star, the White House has released a statement denying the request.  According to the Obama administration's science and space adviser Paul Shawcross, building a Death Star would cost about $850 quadrillion, "at a time that the White House is working to reduce the federal budget".  (They want to "reduce" the budget?  Please excuse me for second while I roll my eyes.)  He also indicated that the administration "does not support blowing up planets."

Read the story at SFGate and CBS News.

If our intentions do not include blowing up planets, what would we do with our own Death Star?  We could, perhaps, park it above a city known for being a sanctuary for illegal aliens.  You want aliens?  Here you go:

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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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