A family Affair..

Ok so this is a little late, Ihave been pretty busy so that's why i haven't posted in a while. A couple of weeks ago my cousins came for their yearly visit all the way from Midland, Texas.

We had a blast like always!! Every year I see them get a little taller, a little more mature, but I still remember them as my little cousins..

Of course we had fireworks!! They are the highlight of the whole visit!! We spend alot on them and we have fun when it's time to shoot them off!

and they brought their Wii, which of course we played...and played............and played..

It was fun, and as always to short! I look forward to next visit!

Title To My Memoir....

Ok so I was tagged by the lovely Dawn To Dusk, so you are supposed to name the title of your memoir and then tag five people.. Since everyone is already tagged and I'm a little late to jump on the wagon I guess I will just do the title..

"Heart of Solitude"

I have always wanted to write one lol... Maybe I will when I'm older

The Truth About Barack Obama

The Barack Obama presidential campaign introduced a new site last week, FightTheSmears.com, that it hopes will debunk persistent myths about the senator: that he's a Muslim, that he won't say the Pledge of Allegiance, etc. As we have argued before, restating the myths often reinforces them, no matter how persuasively they've been refuted.
Rather than restate untruths about Obama, the campaign would do better to start some rumors of its own. Here's a template e-mail the Obama campaign might consider disseminating.
From: [Redacted]
To: [Redacted]
Subject: WHO IS BARACK OBAMA?
There are many things people do not know about BARACK OBAMA. It is every American's duty to read this message and pass it along to all of their friends and loved ones.

Barack Obama wears a FLAG PIN at all times. Even in the shower.

Barack Obama says the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE every time he sees an American flag. He also ends every sentence by saying, "WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL."

A tape exists of Michelle Obama saying the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE at a conference on PATRIOTISM.

Every weekend, Barack and Michelle take their daughters HUNTING.

Barack Obama is a PATRIOTIC AMERICAN. He has one HAND over his HEART at all times. He occasionally switches when one arm gets tired, which is almost never because he is STRONG.

Barack Obama has the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE tattooed on his stomach. It's upside-down, so he can read it while doing sit-ups.

There's only one artist on Barack Obama's iPod: FRANCIS SCOTT KEY.

Barack Obama is a DEVOUT CHRISTIAN. His favorite book is the BIBLE, which he has memorized. His name means HE WHO LOVES JESUS in the ancient language of Aramaic. He is PROUD that Jesus was an American.

Barack Obama goes to church every morning. He goes to church every afternoon. He goes to church every evening. He is IN CHURCH RIGHT NOW.

Barack Obama's new airplane includes a conference room, a kitchen, and a MEGACHURCH.

Barack Obama's skin is the color of AMERICAN SOIL.

Barack Obama buys AMERICAN STUFF. He owns a FORD, a BASEBALL TEAM, and a COMPUTER HE BUILT HIMSELF FROM AMERICAN PARTS. He travels mostly by FORKLIFT.

Barack Obama says that Americans cling to GUNS and RELIGION because they are AWESOME.

Teen blames pet gerbil for 3-car accident

KSL TV News and Andrew Adams reporting
A teenager is blaming her pet gerbil for a car crash in Springville Tuesday.
Officers say the 17-year-old girl was driving her Jeep on Highway 51. She veered off the road and slammed into a car stopped along the shoulder. That car hit another, which pinned a woman between the two vehicles and struck another person.
Both people went to the hospital, police say, with broken legs.
The Jeep driver said her pet gerbil, also in the car, escaped from its cage. She tried to catch the pet and did not realize she had swerved.

Man Threatens Police with Pet Snake

BRIDGEPORT, CT (AP) -- Bridgeport police say they arrested a city man after he ordered his pet to attack two officers. Lucky for them that 9-foot-long pythons aren't very obedient.Police Lt. James Viadero says 21-year-old Victor Rodriguez was charged with threatening police and disorderly conduct after Monday's incident. No one was hurt. Officers were called to Rodriguez's apartment on a report that he was threatening his girlfriend with the pet reptile.Viadero says that when the building superintendent opened the apartment door for the officers, Rodriguez allegedly threatened them with the snake and told it to ``Get them!''Rodriguez and his pet were both taken away: Rodriguez to jail on a $10,000 bond, and the albino python to the city's animal control shelter.

Escaped burglar asks cops to help with handcuffs

A man caught breaking into a German supermarket late at night escaped despite being handcuffed to railings - only to be arrested after he ran to a nearby police station to get the cuffs removed.
'It was stupid of him,' said a police spokesman in Frankfurt on Monday. 'They took the cuffs off, but they kept him.'
A security guard had cuffed the man and held three others after spotting the break-in. But by the time officers arrived, the man had managed to escape, police said.
Arriving at the police station, the 19-year-old told officers he had been locked up by a friend as a joke, and asked for their help.
The officers at first went along with the ruse, 'also laughing at the man's apparent misfortune,' police said.
However, suspecting he was the missing man from the break-in, they pressed him for details after removing the cuffs.
The man then confessed his role and was promptly re-united with his three accomplices in the station's prison cell.

Tagged

Tagged here.
The rules:
1. Post the rules of the game at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read the player’s blog.
4. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

What were you doing five years ago?
Five years and a month ago I was just gettinf off my crutches after having hip surgery.. It was quite an experience.

What are five things on your to-do list for today?
1. Morning Jog.
2. Play with my baby girl Georgette.
3. Pilates workout.
4. Gym workout.
5. Go to work.

What are five snacks you enjoy?
1. Apples.
2. DARK chocolate.
3. Zesta Saltine crackers.
4. Peanut Butter.
5. DARK chocolate.. lol

What are five things you would do if you were a billionaire?
1. Buy everyone I love something they have always wanted.
2. Bulid my dream home.
3. Start a Business.
4. See the world.
5. Drill my own oilwell! ;P

What are five of your bad habits?
1. Eating to much DARK chocolate.
2. Eating more DARK chocolate.
3. Stubborness.
4. Oversleeping. lol
5. zzzzzzzzzzzzz..........


What are five places where you have lived?
Foster, OK
Bray, OK
Anna, TX
Galveston, TX
Richardson, TX


What are five jobs you’ve had?
Dad's Go-fer.
Painting furniture.
Moving Furniture.
Chuckwagon BBQ.
Blockbuster.


Five people I tag:
Bag Blog..
All others have been tagged :(

Robbery suspect leaves license

Staff Report Authorities say a man who stole money Tuesday from a Grand Bay convenience store left behind some incriminating evidence — his drivers license.
Kenneth Lane Holliday gave a clerk at the Korner Quick Stop on Old Pascagoula Road his license in order to turn on the gasoline pump and get gasoline at about 8 p.m., Mobile County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Kate Johnson said in a news release. A few minutes later, he came back in the store with a handgun and demanded money from the clerk. He took the money, Johnson said, but left behind his Alabama drivers license.
Johnson said Holliday fled the store in an unidentified vehicle. He was last seen driving east on Old Pascagoula Road, she said.

Man killed in freak farm accident

A farmer has died after a sheepdog accidentally pinned him against a wall with a farm machine.
The man, named locally as Harry Emslie, 67, did not survive the freak accident at a farm at Clola near Peterhead in Aberdeenshire.
The Daily Record reported that the dog was in the cab of a telescopic loader machine while the engine was still running and the handbrake off.
The dog reportedly hit a button which caused the machine to jump forward and pin Mr Emslie against the wall.
Emergency services went to the scene following the incident at around 9am on Monday, but were not able to save the farmer.
Aberdeenshire councillor Albert Howie, a friend of Mr Emslie, said: "I've heard that the dog was in the telescopic loader and Harry had been out scraping up some rubbish with a hand shovel and putting it in the front of the loader.
"The dog had put forward the lever and the machine moved forward and pinned Harry against the wall. It's just a tragedy."
Grampian Police said: "It would appear the 67-year-old man was fatally injured in the incident which involved a tractor unit. At this stage the death is being treated as unexplained."
Police and the Health and Safety Executive have launched an investigation into the death.
A post-mortem examination will be carried out and a report submitted to the Procurator Fiscal.

Rotating ice-cream for lazy lickers

Inventors have developed a rotating ice-cream to wipe the contents onto the tongue and save lazy guzzlers the effort of licking.
The developers say the gadget helps avoid drips on hot days and, as well as saving the tongue effort, gives the tired sun-worshipper's wrist a break too.
The device is made for home use so all you have to do, when exhausted from a hard day's lolling in the garden, is fill the cone with your favourite flavour and press go.
The interior compartment which houses the ice-cream then spins gently round in an anti-clockwise direction as the consumer simply holds their tongue out.
A spokeswoman for Kitchen Craft, which is selling the product in the UK, said it would help people avoid melted ice-cream running over their hand.
She said: "We've all had the experience of quickly licking an ice-cream into shape before it starts to melt under the sun.
"It can give the tongue quite a workout.
"All you have to do is put your tongue on to the ice-cream rather than lick. It really is a lazy person's ice-cream cone as it does everything for you."
The rotating ice-cream cup, which is powered by batteries, is washable and on sale now at £5.75.

Gym Sins

It was perhaps the most extreme case of gym rage—ever. While taking a Manhattan spin class last August, Christopher Carter became so annoyed by the unrelenting grunts and shouts of a fellow spinner that he tipped the other guy right off his bike and into a wall. The grunter was hospitalized for two weeks after the incident. Carter was acquitted of assault charges on June 2. Hopefully, the acquittal won't inspire a rash of altercations, as other exercisers decide that they too have had it with obnoxious gym behavior. Because any gym rat can tell you, grunting isn't the most irritating thing people do in fitness clubs. From making lunch in the sauna to sporting unsavory yoga attire, club managers report that some of their patrons are clueless when it comes to gym etiquette, or general decency. Here are nine of the most outrageous fitness club offenses.

1. The Sauna Stovetop A manager at a New York Sports Club was walking through the women's locker room a few years ago when she smelled cheese. Puzzled, she opened the door to the sauna, where a woman had placed bread and cheese on the hot rocks to make a postworkout grilled cheese sandwich. "Not only was it a health code violation, it was not really respectful to the other people in the sauna," says NYSC PR director Linda Hufcut. "She said, 'I do this all the time.' That was, obviously, the last time she ever did it.'"

2. Nude Fitness? A couple of visitors to a Gold's Gym in Paramus, N.J., decided to get naked and weigh themselves before they started working out. The two men didn't seem daunted by the fact that the scale was outside the locker room. They hung out by the scale, in full view of the other, clothed patrons, until a manager asked them to put some clothes on. They told Mike Epstein, the gym's owner, that they did that sort of thing all the time at their home gym. Perhaps they meant "home gym" as in the one in their basement.

3. Creative Blow-Drying A man in a California Crunch gym decided that the best way to dry out his sweaty shoes was to stick a hair dryer in each of them while he took his after-workout shower. He was shocked when managers asked him to cease and desist. "He said, 'I didn't even realize I shouldn't be doing this'," says Keith Worts, chief operating officer of Crunch, a national fitness chain.

4. Downward Dog? At another Crunch location a man had a habit of taking a yoga class while wearing shorts without underwear. He was more than happy to correct his faux pas as soon as managers made him aware that other members were uncomfortable with the view they were getting.

5. Work Out, Sleep In Some people get a little too relaxed at the gym. Gold's Gym managers have reported finding customers who fell asleep in the tanning facility and didn't wake up until the gym was closed, as well as customers who fell asleep on the bench press in between sets.

6. Killer Karaoke It's common and profoundly annoying: gymgoers get carried away listening to their music players. Before they know it they've treated everyone in the room to an off-key rendition of "...Baby One More Time." "I call it karaoke gone bad, because there is no background music and they're singing at the top of their lungs," says Harry Reo, a regional vice president for 24 Hour Fitness.

7. Talking (Too Much of) the Talk Fed up with people gabbing on their cell phones as they used the elliptical, many gyms have banned cell phones around workout equipment and designated areas for patrons to make calls. Still, people forget. "There's nothing worse than running on the treadmill and having someone next to you conducting an extremely loud conversation," says Hufcut, who's seen some people use walkie-talkies while on the treadmill.
8. Sweat Sins It seems basic, but enough people forget to wipe down their equipment after using it that this was one of the four deadly gym sins included on an informational video NYSC taped a few years ago. During the segment a careless gymgoer didn't dry off his machine; when he stood up, the entire machine was covered in dripping goo.

9. Scrimmage to Scuffle It's only logical that testosterone can run high at the gym, and sometimes managers need to break up altercations on the basketball court, says Nancy Pattee Francini, co-founder and president of the Sports Club/LA, which has 10 locations around the country. "Those guys, when they're playing basketball, can get into fights," she says. "They're not terrible fights—we're a high-end club."

These are, of course, the worst offenses, not the norm. Obnoxious behavior can usually be curbed with a little etiquette education, say gym owners. "Most of the time it's really an awareness issue with members," says Worts of Crunch. "We have to remind them that they're in a shared public space." Nonetheless, it might not be a bad idea to look over the list and make sure you're not committing any gym sins.

Crude Oil Drops as IEA Cuts Demand Forecast for a Fifth Month

June 10 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil fell as the International Energy Agency cut its forecast for global oil demand for a fifth month because record prices are slowing consumption.
The IEA, the energy adviser to 27 nations, trimmed its prediction for 2008 demand by about 70,000 barrels a day to 86.77 million barrels, the Paris-based agency said today in its monthly report. The dollar rose to a three-month high versus the yen, potentially cutting demand for oil as a currency hedge.
``At $130 a barrel, we see a lot of airlines cutting back,'' said Helen Henton, head of commodity research at London- based bank Standard Chartered Plc. ``We are seeing a lot of countries in Asia having'' to stop fuel ``subsidies because they clearly can't afford prices at these levels.''
Crude oil for July delivery fell as much as 94 cents, or 0.7 percent, to $133.41 a barrel in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract traded at $133.81 a barrel at 10:10 a.m. London time.
Futures reached a record $139.12 on June 6 and have more than doubled in the past year.
Malaysia and India last week relaxed fuel price controls joining Indonesia, Taiwan, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in boosting costs for business and consumers. The nations subsidized fuel prices to curb inflation expansion.
Higher oil prices are leading to slower growth in demand for fuels. Airlines including Qantas Airways Ltd., China Airlines and EVA Airways Corp. cut flights to cope with jet-fuel costs that have doubled in a year.
`Price Response'
``This is mainly as a response to the high prices,'' said Fatih Birol, chief economist of the IEA. Fuel demand will drop when Asian nations ``phase out those subsidies,'' because ``the bulk of the growth in demand is coming from'' China, the Middle East and India.
Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi yesterday called for a meeting of producers and consumers to discuss what he described as ``unjustified'' prices.
Brent crude oil for July settlement dropped as much as $1.23, or 0.9 percent, to $132.68 a barrel on the Intercontinental Exchange. The contact traded at $133.55 a barrel at 10:13 a.m. in London.
The dollar rose to a three-month high against the yen and gained for a second day against the euro after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said risks to the U.S. economy have diminished, prompting traders to increase bets on higher interest rates.
The U.S. currency's 5.9 percent slide versus the euro this year has boosted demand for oil as investors buy dollar-priced commodities as a hedge against quickening inflation.

10 best excuses for coming to work late

Some people wake up each morning before the alarm rings, glad to see the glowing sun and excited to start the day.
They arrive to work whistling and are hard at work before most people even arrive. These rare creatures, also known as "morning people," are incomprehensible to those of you whose morning routines are exercises in panic and frustration.
A lot more people belong in that latter group than you might have guessed. Fifteen percent of workers admit to arriving late at least once a week, according to a recent CareerBuilder.com survey.
Why are so many of us running late?
You might be surprised that the snooze button is not the primary culprit of tardiness.
Thirty-two percent of workers attribute their late arrivals to traffic gridlock. Seventeen percent claim a lack of sleep is the reason, and 7 percent have trouble arriving on time because they need to get their children ready for school or day care.
Other issues, like forgetting something at home or not feeling well, are also popular.
Fortunately for late arrivers, 43 percent of hiring managers won't count tardiness against you as long as you meet deadlines and turn in good work.
Of course, some managers feel differently and will hand you a pink slip if you're late several times within a year.
Use your imagination
More than 27 percent of hiring managers say they are skeptical of employees' excuses for showing up late. It turns out their doubt is warranted: 24 percent of all employees decide to make up a fake excuse rather than tell the truth.
What does this mean to you?
If you're sitting in a traffic jam watching the minutes tick away and you've decided honesty isn't the best policy for you, think of a believable and acceptable reason you're walking in late.
After all, if you were a hiring manager who heard any of these 10 real-life excuses for being late, you'd be suspicious, too.

1. While rowing across the river to work, I got lost in the fog.
2. Someone stole all my daffodils.
3. I had to go audition for American Idol.
4. My ex-husband stole my car so I couldn't drive to work.
5. My route to work was shut down by a Presidential motorcade.
6. I have transient amnesia and couldn't remember my job.
7. I was indicted for securities fraud this morning.
8. The line was too long at Starbucks.
9. I was trying to get my gun back from the police.
10. I didn't have money for gas because all of the pawn shops were closed.

Be a crowd-pleaser
When it comes to punctuality, your best bet is to take cues from your company's culture. If everyone is diligently working when you drag yourself through the door each morning, then you probably stand out.
However, if everyone filters in at their own pace between 8:45 and 9:15, then an occasional late arrival will probably go unnoticed.
Habitual lateness, on the other hand, will help neither your career prospects nor your workplace relationships. For one thing, your boss and co-workers are relying on you to be at work when you're scheduled to arrive; you don't want to disappoint them.
Also, just because nobody confronts you about your tardiness, that doesn't mean no one's watching the clock and forming an opinion about you or your work ethic.
These judgments can damage you when it comes to performance reviews and promotions. Don't let a few extra minutes of sleep cost you your reputation -- or worse, your job.

My Free Political Tips to John McCain (by Neil Cavuto)

You know how each holiday season I give my shopping tips for men?
It's a huge hit. Men tell me so! And women too!
Now I'm branching out to politics.
And fair and balanced, I am giving my campaign tips, free of charge, to both Barack Obama and John McCain.
Senator McCain, I want to start with you, because of all the attention your opponent's been getting.
So, without wasting another moment:

Tip one: Embrace your inner fuddy duddy. Face it, you're not hip or cool, or even a snazzy dresser. But you know what, senator? Neither was bill gates in school. And he did ok.

Tip two: Don't make your age the issue, make his age the issue. You're the one with the experience. Tell him he reminds you of the kid who was barely six years old when you got captured by the North Vietnamese and thrown in a prison. Oh, wait, he was!

Tip three: Don't hide your temper. Show it. Apparently, when you explode, it's a beaut. I think it shows your passion. And people respect passion. And who cares if they think it's nutty. I'll tell you what, dictators ain't exactly the Rock of Gibraltar. Nuts respect tempers. Winston Churchill had a huge temper, and it didn't hurt him any!

Tip four: In the debates, shake your head. Don't say anything. Just shake your head. I'm telling you, senator, younger guys get nervous when older guys shake their heads at them. My dad did it all the time. Stopped me cold.

Tip five: Tap your inner Bob Newhart. You're very funny. I love that, "I'm older than dirt" line, and got the scars to prove it. Man, that's better than Bob! And need I remind you, old Bob had two very long-running successful TV shows.
There you go, senator. Be yourself, sweater vest and all.
Concede the "dashing good looks charisma thing to Obama," let folks know you're built for comfort. I've built a career on "built for comfort," senator.
And between you and me, Shepard Smith is insanely jealous because of it!
And Senator Obama, hope you're not jealous. Fair and balanced, my tips for you, Monday!

What if Hillary had been at the Alamo?

AUSTIN, Texas -- Has it occurred to anybody but me that if Hillary Clinton had been at the Alamo, either Texas would have won the battle, or we'd still be fighting a war with Mexico?
Nobody can hang in there quite as long and hard as Hillary Clinton. From watching her during her run against Barack Obama, I'm a little surprised that when Bill left the White House, Hillary didn't have the bedroom furniture pushed under the doorknob so they couldn't drag her out of the building.
Or, put nicely, this woman exemplifies Texas fight about as well as anyone out there.
So I'm thinking that if Hillary had been at the Alamo, she would have kicked Santa Anna's butt, and today the Daughters of the Republic of Texas would be selling coonskin pantsuits instead of Davy Crockett's coonskin caps out of the gift shop. The tail on the back of the suit would be optional.
This is a woman who does not accept defeat easily, if at all. I can hear her concession speech to the American people when she finally decides to give it up to Obama.
"I sure hope you're happy."
See, for months, the word on the Hillary presidential campaign has been that there's not a fat girl's chance on "America's Next Top Model" that she could beat Obama for the presidential nomination. The delegate count just wasn't there. And it wasn't going to be there, ever. Every night on the TV news there would be some pundit, showing the figures on these charts I've seen about 100,000 times and saying there just ain't no way Hillary Clinton could catch up. It was more likely George W. Bush would take up Chaucer. Or Al Gore would come on national TV and tell the polar bears to practice their long-distance doggie-paddling.
Still, Hillary refused to face reality. Too bad we didn't have her around here in Texas back in 1836. If the Mexican troops had had to deal with her, they would have marched back to Mexico and started up the margarita machine.
Imagine Clinton at the Battle of the Alamo if it were today. Imagine the Alamo ringed by thousands of Clinton supporters having just rushed over there from their "Sex and the City" parties to urge Hillary to hang on. Do you think the Mexicans would have stood a chance against something like that? Not without earplugs.
Word is that any day now, Clinton will suspend her campaign and announce her support for Obama. Notice how I used the word suspend here, and not concede. Sure, she'd probably suspend the campaign because that means she can keep raising money to pay off her $20 million campaign debt. Suspend is a little different than concede. Concede means "I give up." Suspend could mean "I'm going to take some time off. Then, just maybe, later on I'll get back up and bite you on the butt."
Suspend was not what Santa Anna would have wanted to hear. And if Hillary had been at the Alamo, the Mexicans would be building the wall along the Rio Grande just to keep Hillary from messing with them.

Some Thoughts On A Hypothetical Constitutional Crisis

Strategists for both John McCain and Barack Obama are chewing over a hypothetical scenario wherein Barack Obama recieves millions more votes than John McCain, but, because of the distribution of votes in the electoral college, McCain would become the president. Shades of 2000, of course. The momentum to abolish the electoral college has abated in mainstream debates, and the Democratic Party, not wanting to look like sore-winner-losers, never took up the cause even though Al Gore received more votes than George W. Bush.
One Republican who has advised the McCain campaign thinks the country "can stand that sort of thing once every 100 years, but not twice in 8 years—especially with the Republicans winning every time."
Here's the thought experiment that gives rise to the scenario. As my colleague Ron Brownstein has pointed out, of the 29 states that President Bush won twice, Sen. Kerry received less than 43% of the vote in 21 of them.
In 2008, Democrats are outregistering Republicans. Their level of enthusiasm is much greater and probably will remain so through the election. Many more people identify as Democrats in 2008; in major deep blue states, Barack Obama will, if current trends hold, shatter turnout records.
John McCain will win a state like Mississippi, but it will certainly be by a much narrower margin that George W. Bush held over John Kerry. Think of a state like Georgia, where Obma will turn out potentially a 100,000 more black voters than John Kerry, or a state like Indiana, where Kerry recieved only four out of every ten votes.
By the same token, it is hard to imagine, although not impossible to conceive, that John McCain would be able to narrow President Bush's margins in many of the red Republican states. The Obama campaign will have the resources to narrow the gap in Texas by, say, 800,000 votes, and the McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee will be hard pressed to devote resources to a state they know they're going to win.
So what happens if this scenario comes true? Well, Obama would be in the position of arguing that the popular vote matters more than the electoral vote (and would be wholly justified in doing so), even though the constitution clearly disagrees. The repetition of the problem and the magnitude of Obama's victory would surely throw out the status quo; courts would uphold the constitution and give John McCain a victory, but the public would most likely not stand down as they did in 2000.
It is perfectly within the realm of possibility that John McCain responds very differently than President Bush would have; after all, McCain has a history of working at times against self-interest and, out of a sense of honor, he is more sensitive than most politicians to the application of moral judgments in public life.
In any event, can the two-party system sustain another disparity? Will the grand feature of our democracy -- not its fairness but its ability to perpetuate itself without violence -- withstand the pressure?
Enter Bill Nelson, the Senator from Florida, who today proposed new legislation to abolish the electoral college.

Man Falls After Receiving Spirit, Sues

JUNE 5--Last June, Matthew Lincoln was attending an evening service at his nondenominational Tennessee church when he approached the altar where a visiting minister was offering individual prayers for parishioners. Assigned "catchers" were present on the altar in case congregants fainted, fell, or otherwise lost control. When the minister, Robert Lavala, slightly touched his forehead, the Knoxville-area man "received the spirit and fell backwards." Except nobody was there to catch him, Lincoln charges in a $2.5 million lawsuit filed yesterday against Lakewind Church and its pastors. Lincoln, 58, claims that he fell backwards, striking his head against the "carpet-covered cement floor," according to the Circuit Court complaint, which was first reported by Courthouse News Service. A copy of Lincoln's lawsuit can be found below. Since he already suffered from a "degenerative disc disease of his neck and back," Lincoln, a former church board member, contends the fall exacerbated the pre-existing condition and has caused him "severe and permanent" injuries. As a result of the fall, Lincoln, a recording engineer, claims that he is no longer able to care for his disabled daughter. Lincoln alleges that Lakewind and its pastors were "negligent in not supervising the catchers to be sure that they stood behind the person being prayed for...should they have a dizzying, fainting, or falling in the spirit as had occurred on many occasions before." Lincoln's lawyer, J.D. Lee, told TSG that the church's insurer, Zurich of North America, rejected an insurance claim, asserting that Lincoln should have realized that no catchers were situated behind him.

Some receiving FEMA assistance not willing to help themselves

(BILOXI, MS) June 3 -- What are people who receive FEMA assistance doing to help themselves? That's the question NBC 15's Andrea Ramey asked those who have been staying for free in hotel rooms after they moved out of FEMA supplied travel trailers. What she found out is there are some who are doing very little.The scorching heat puts many at the Quality Inn poolside, but for Gwenester Malone, she chooses to beat the heat by setting her thermostat to sixty degrees. Malone's room for the past three months, along with three meals daily, have all been paid for by taxpayers."Do you work?" asked NBC 15's Andrea Ramey."No. I'm not working right now," said Malone.Malone says she can't drive and it's too hot outside to find work within walking distance. "Since the storm, I haven't had any energy or pep to go get a job, but when push comes to shove, I will," said Malone.Just a few blocks away, Kelley Christian also stays at a hotel for free. She says she's not taking advantage of her situation, but admits it's easy to do. "It's too easy. You know, once you're there, you don't have to pay rent," said Christian. "I kept putting it off and putting it off and now, I'm tired of putting it off."She says she'll be out of the hotel and in an apartment by the end of the month. Push came to shove for Christian when police found a meth lab in a hotel room directly below her. "All kind of people in white suits pulled all kind of chemicals out here. There was enough to line up about three cars worth of chemicals. It scared the heck of me," said Christian.Taxpayers also paid for that meth lab. The men police arrested were receiving FEMA assistance. The hotel owner says he'll now have to spend $5,000 to clean out the room.As for Malone, she says she's not seeing any drug activity at her hotel. It's too nice she says. Why would she want to leave?FEMA has not been able to provide the exact totals as to how much all the meals and hotel rooms are costing taxpayers, but FEMA has said repeatedly it works with people continuously to find permanent housing, and it will not leave anyone homeless.Since Katrina hit the Gulf Coast nearly three years ago, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Mississippi has charged more than 275 people with FEMA fraud.

Fire officials say hoarded gasoline led to fire

DARTMOUTH, Mass. (AP) — Authorities say a couple trying to beat the high cost of gasoline accidentally caused a fire that burned their apartment complex.
Fire Chief Richard Arruda says the couple had about 45 gallons of gasoline in nine plastic jugs stacked in a closet that also housed an air conditioning unit.
The gasoline fumes apparently set off Thursday's fire, which was quickly put out by a sprinkler system.
No one was seriously hurt, but residents of eight units of the complex were displaced.
Investigators believe the couple was storing the gas because of rising prices. Officials say they might face civil penalties for violating the fire code.

Hillary gettin' down.

So I guess now that she LOST she is drinking away her pain?