Will They Extend Unemployment Again???

Congress could vote as early as today on a bill to cut the payroll tax and extend unemployment benefits. The extension has a price tag of $30 billion. The bill has a way to help pay for it. Newly hired federal workers would contribute 3.1 percent of their salaries towards retirement. The current rate is 0.8 percent. The bill has widespread but not complete support in both houses.

More US Government Websites Hacked By Anonymous

LONDON (AP) - The hacking group known as Anonymous has claimed a new series of hacks against the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and consumer rights websites.

The loosely organized collection of cyber rebels said it attacked the FTC's consumer protection business center and the National Consumer Protection Week websites.

Both sites were replaced with a violent German-language video satirizing the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA.

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iHop

Save 6 Percent On Energy-Efficient Appliances

WASHINGTON - If you've been putting off buying a new clothes washer or refrigerator, this may be the weekend to buy. There is no tax on energy-efficient appliances in Maryland.

Through Feb. 20, you'll get the 6 percent tax break as part of the annual Shop Maryland Energy weekend.

One weekend every February Maryland exempts its sales tax on the following Energy Star products:

• Air conditioners
• Clothes washers
• Furnaces
• Heat pumps
• Boilers
• Solar water heaters (tax-exempt at all times now)
• Refrigerators
• Dehumidifiers
• Programmable thermostats
• Compact fluorescent light bulbs

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Markell Halts Compassion Centers

Delaware — A law that decriminalized medical marijuana in Delaware has come to a standstill since Gov. Jack Markell suspended licensing for dispensaries. The suspension followed a series of letters that led Markell to conclude if the centers open, Delaware distributors, growers and state employees could be acting in violation of the federal Controlled Substances Act.

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Five Myths About White People

For decades, trends in American life have usually been analyzed through the prism of race, with white Americans serving as the reference point — comparing black unemployment with white unemployment, for instance, or the percentage of Latino high school students who go on to college compared with white students. Those comparisons are illuminating, but they neglect how that reference point itself is changing. Our understanding of white America is subject to a number of outdated assumptions that need rethinking.

1. Working-class whites are more religious than upper-class whites.

This is a pervasive misconception encouraged by liberals who conflate the religious right with the working class, and by conservative evangelicals who inveigh against the godless ruling class.

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SU Gospel Choir Performs Saturday, February 18

SALISBURY, MD---The Salisbury University Gospel Choir performs 7 p.m. Saturday, February 18, in Holloway Hall Auditorium.

The performance also includes the Fellowship Ensemble of the Pentecostal Church of God of Lincoln, DE. The public is invited. A free-will offering will be taken.

For more information call 410-543-6030 or visit the SU Web site at www.salisbury.edu.

Mystery Mountain Man To Utah Cabin Owner: Get Off My Mountain

SALT LAKE CITY – He's eluded authorities for more than five years, a mountain man who roams the wilderness of southern Utah, breaking into remote cabins in winter, living in luxury off hot food, alcohol and coffee before stealing provisions and vanishing into the woods.

Investigators have clawed for clues, scouring cabins for fingerprints that match no one and chasing reports of brief encounters only to come up short, always a step behind the mysterious recluse.

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Seems Democrats, (liberals) Want More Power

The Obama administration has submitted a bill to give the President more authority to consolidate and reorganize federal agencies. Jeffrey Zients, the acting budget director, is the point man with Congress. He says the bill is needed to create what the administration calls a 21st century government. President Obama has said his first priority is trade competitiveness. He wants to reorganize six trade-related agencies under a single Cabinet-level agency.

Maryland Hospitals To Share Patient Data

Maryland’s 46 acute-care hospitals will soon be able to share basic patient information among themselves and with credentialed doctors, a key step that health officials and clinicians say will improve patient care and cut costs.

The development, to be announced at a news conference Friday at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, is being led by the Maryland’s health information exchange, a statewide system that is working to promote the secure electronic sharing of health information among approved doctors’ offices, hospitals and other health organizations.

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The Global Land Grab

In Vietnam, Peter Doan Van Vuon, a farmer who fought back when police came to confiscate his farm, is widely regarded as a hero. His neighbors have actually considered building a statue in his honor. In the United States, he would almost certainly be dead.

The strike team that assaulted Vuon’s 40-hectare fish farm in Hai Phong on January 5 did demolish the family’s modest two-story home, forcing them to live in a makeshift shelter fashioned from a tarp. On previous performance it’s reasonable to say that their counterparts in the employ of the Regime in Washington would have made sure to incinerate the family as well.

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Be Careful Who Your Facebook Friends Are

Homeland Security is friending lots of people on Facebook, it's following millions on Twitter and it's analyzing the data it gathers. But agency brass tell Congress, it's not breaking any laws or invading privacy. DHS officials were called before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The hearing followed a lawsuit by a privacy group concerned about a social media monitoring program by DHS. Mary Ellen Callahan, the department's chief privacy officer, says the program operates with the bounds of the Privacy Act and the First Amendment.

What Happened To The Stink Bugs?

Early this fall, I prepared for war.

I went to Lowe’s. I bought new insulation for the front door. I bought the strongest bug killing liquid that U.S. dollars could buy. I did not read “The Art of War,” but it crossed my mind.

It was me versus the stink bugs, and I was not going to lose.

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The New Blacklist

My days as a political analyst at MSNBC have come to an end.

After 10 enjoyable years, I am departing, after an incessant clamor from the left that to permit me continued access to the microphones of MSNBC would be an outrage against decency, and dangerous.

The calls for my firing began almost immediately with the Oct. 18 publication of Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?

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The Farce-Hole Gets Deeper: Obama's "Robo-Settlement For Votes" Cost To Taxpayers: $40 Billion

Plunging deeper into the farce-hole, [7] the FT reports [8] tonight that Obama's foreclosure settlement with the banks over their improper seizure of tax-paying US citizens' homes will in fact be subsidized by those very same US taxpayers. It is a hidden clause (that has not been made public yet) that allows the banks to count future loan modifications under the $30bn (taxpayer funded) HAMP initiative towards their $35bn agreement to restructure obligations under the new settlement. As the FT goes on to note, BofA will be able to use future mods made under HAMP towards the $7.6bn in borrower assistance it is committed to provide - which means, in a (as TARP inspector general Neil Barofsky describes) 'scandalous' turn of events the bank will receive payments for averting a borrower default and be reimbursed by the taxpayer for the principal write-down. We have much stronger words for how we are feeling about this but Barofsky sums it up calmly "It turns the notion that this is about justice and accountability on its head". Are the Big Five banks truly beyond the law?

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Mexican President Unveils ‘No More Weapons!’ Billboard On US Border

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — President Felipe Calderon on Thursday unveiled a “No More Weapons!” billboard made with crushed firearms and placed near the U.S. border. He urged the United States to stop the flow of weapons into Mexico.

The billboard, which is in English and weighs 3 tons, was placed near an international bridge in Ciudad Juarez and can be seen from the United States.

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The Red Roost Re-Opens March 15!!

Faulty Battery Likely To Blame For Electric Cigarette Exploding In Man's Mouth

Puffing away on an electric cigarette is viewed by many as a healthier option than the traditional tobacco smoke stick, but in the case of one Florida man the e-cigarette turned out to be pretty darn dangerous to his health too, after it exploded in his mouth.

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Wis. Man Says He Mistook Malnourished Teen For 8

MILWAUKEE (AP) — A Wisconsin man who found a severely malnourished 15-year-old girl walking barefoot outside in pajamas says she was bleeding from a gash on her nose and crying.

Mike Vega told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the teen he found walking near her Madison home Feb. 6 also had scrapes and a big bruise on her forehead and was so scrawny he mistook her for an 8-year-old.

Vega says while they waited in his car for an ambulance to arrive, she told him her stepmother had thrown her down the basement stairs and that she escaped through a window.

Police say the girl told officers her father and stepmother had kept her confined to the basement for years and had starved her and even forced her to eat her feces.

Source

EMBARRASSING MEDICAL EXAMS

At the beginning of my shift I placed a stethoscope on an elderly and
slightly deaf female patient's anterior chest wall. 'Big breaths,' . . . I instructed. 'Yes, they used to be,' . . . replied the patient. Submitted by Dr. Richard Byrnes , Seattle , WA
While acquainting myself with a new elderly patient,I asked, ' How long have you been bedridden? ' After a look of complete confusion she answered . . . 'Why, not for about twenty years - when my husband was alive.'Submitted by Dr. Steven Swanson- Corvallis , OR

I was performing rounds at the hospital one morning and while checking up on a man I asked . . . ' So how's your breakfast this morning? ' 'It's very good except for the Kentucky Jelly. I can't seem to get used to the taste,' Bob replied. I then asked to see the jelly and Bob producedA foil packet labeled ' KY Jelly. 'Submitted by Dr. Leonard Kransdorf , Detroit ,

A nurse was on duty in the Emergency Room when a young woman with purple hair styled into a punk rocker Mohawk, sporting a variety of tattoos, and wearing strange clothing, entered .. . . It was quickly determined that the patient had acute appendicitis, so she was scheduled for immediate surgery. When she was completely
disrobed on the operating table, the staff noticed that her pubic hair
had been dyed green and above it there was a tattoo
that read . . . 'Keep off the grass. ' Once the surgery was completed, the surgeonwrote a short note on the patient's dressing, which said 'Sorry . . . had to mow the lawn. 'Submitted by RN no name,
AND FINALLY!! ! .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . ..
As a new, young MD doing his residency in OB. I was quite embarrassed when performing female pelvic exams. To cover my embarrassment I had unconsciously formed a habit of whistling softly. The middle-aged lady upon whom I was performing this exam suddenly burst
out laughing and further embarrassing me. I looked up from my work and
sheepishly said. . .I'm sorry. Was I tickling you?' She replied with tears running down her cheeks from laughing so hard . . . 'No doctor but the song you were whistling was . . .'I wish I was an Oscar Mayer Wiener.' Dr. wouldn't submit his name...

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Baby's First Doctor Visit This made me laugh out loud. I hope it will give you a smile! A woman and a baby were in the doctor's examining room, waiting
for the doctor to come in for the baby's first exam. The doctor arrived, and examined the baby, checked his weight, and being
a little concerned, asked if the baby was breast-fed or bottle-fed.
'Breast-fed,' she replied. 'Well, strip down to your waist,' the doctor ordered. She did. He pinched her nipples, pressed, kneaded, and rubbed both breasts
for a while in a very professional and detailed examination. Motioning to her to get dressed, the doctor said, 'No wonder this baby is
underweight. You don't have any milk.' 'I know,' she said, 'I'm his Grandma, But I'm glad I came.'