Not a lot of time this morning, due to a work-type “crisis” that I have to deal with. So, I’ll resort to the weather. It’s a very windy day here, with more wind and thunderstorms headed our way, as the weather that brought tornadoes to the midwest arrives sometime this afternoon. Hopefully things won’t blow for you today.
Leon Russell reminds me of PJ!
Really? I don’t think my hair’s white enough. Though the rest of Vernon’s gnome description is sadly accurate.
The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence — an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters.
“This is about being a true-blooded American guy and girl,†said A. J. Lowenthal, a sheriff’s deputy here in Imperial County, whose life clock, he says, is set around the Explorers events he helps run. “It fits right in with the honor and bravery of the Boy Scouts.â€
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/us/14explorers.html?_r=2&hp
The Obama administration’s new drug czar says he wants to banish the idea that the U.S. is fighting “a war on drugs,” a move that would underscore a shift favoring treatment over incarceration in trying to reduce illicit drug use.
In his first interview since being confirmed to head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske said Wednesday the bellicose analogy was a barrier to dealing with the nation’s drug issues.
“Regardless of how you try to explain to people it’s a ‘war on drugs’ or a ‘war on a product,’ people see a war as a war on them,” he said. “We’re not at war with people in this country.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124225891527617397.html
Former top White House official Karl Rove will be interviewed tomorrow as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into the firing of U.S. attorneys during the Bush administration, according to two sources familiar with the appointment.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/14/AR2009051402816.html
I hope this is for real and the prosecutors are really interested in prosecuting.
The head of the National Transportation Safety Board on Wednesday told executives of Colgan Air, whose plane crashed outside Buffalo in February, that paying new pilots very low wages without taking into account that some would commute across the country to their jobs constituted “winking and nodding†at safety policy.
Members of the board said that the crew of the twin-engine turboprop that crashed, killing all 49 people on board and one on the ground, was set up for fatigue and inattention before they even took off, partly because of the structure of the commuter airline business.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/nyregion/14pilot.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper
Oh, the joy of laissez faire capitalism. The market will fix everything though a few expendable folks may be expended in the process.
Miss California will co-host Fox and Friends will host the 6 a.m.-to-7 a.m. slot on May 27, filling in for Gretchen Carlson—the 1989 Miss America—who will be off that day.
I think she’ll fit right in.
Gretchen Carlson is from Anoka, Minnesota, the same hometown as Garrison Keillor. She is a pretty fair violinist but that is the extent of her talent I believe.
Sorry I did not get this out earlier but I just got back from a great in-store with Steve Earle supporting his new album of Townes Van Zandt songs. Too late for Seattle but he is doing it in Denver tomorrow at Twist and Shout.
Friday May 15: Time 6PM
Denver, CO
Twist & Shout Records
2508 E. Colfax Ave. Denver, CO 80206
This one ain’t on it.
http://www.steveearle.com/