SunSeeker
SunSeeker's JournalRomney to appear with possible VP pick Ayotte in New Hampshire
(CNN) – GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney will return to the campaign trail on Monday after taking the weekend off, and for the second week in a row will appear alongside a figure who is likely on his vice presidential short list, his campaign said Saturday.
Romney will appear with U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, a native of New Hampshire who has backed him and is seen as a rising star in the Republican party, at an event in Portsmouth.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/28/romney-to-appear-with-possible-vp-pick-ayotte-in-new-hampshire/
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You know, because it worked so well for McCain. 
Dog Seamus ‘Loved’ Trips Atop Family Car, Says Ann Romney
Source: ABCNews.com
Seamus, Mitt Romney’s Irish setter who traveled with his young family strapped to the roof of their station wagon, “loved” those trips, despite once getting ill, Ann Romney told ABC’s Diane Sawyer in an exclusive interview. Seamus’ 1983 trip from Boston to a summer cottage in Ontario, Canada, inside a dog carrier lashed atop the family’s Chevrolet, has become a regular barb in Romney’s side and is routinely used by his critics to paint him as uncaring.
Mitt Romney told Sawyer that the Seamus attacks were the most wounding of the campaign “so far,” but Anne Romney insisted the dog loved traveling that way and looked forward to trips. “The dog loved it,” Ann Romney said. “He would see that crate and, you know, he would, like, go crazy because he was going with us on vacation. It was to me a kinder thing to bring him along than to leave him in the kennel for two weeks.”
Adding to the left’s narrative that Romney had little compassion for the animal is a detail from the 1983 trip that Ann Romney confirmed to Sawyer. The dog became sick, defecating all over itself and the windshield of the car, leading Romney to hose them both off before they continued on the drive to Canada. “Once, he — we traveled all the time — and he ate the turkey on the counter. I mean, he had the runs,” Ann Romney said, laughing as she explained how the dog got diarrhea.
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/04/dog-seamus-loved-trips-atop-family-car-says-ann-romney
Well, now we know Ann Romney is clueless and a liar (yeah right, Seamus "loved" it, each and every time). Same old Mitt though: I'm running for office for Pete's sake, of course I wouldn't put the dog on the roof again!
California nuclear plant shut indefinitely amid hunt to find cause of problems
Source: CNN
A large Southern California nuclear plant is out of commission indefinitely, and will remain so until there is an understanding of what caused problems at two of its generators and an effective plan to address the issues, the nation's top nuclear regulator said Friday.
The power plant has been shut down since this winter, when a small amount of radioactive gas escaped from a steam generator during a water leak. At the time, federal regulators said there was no threat to public health, though they could not identify how much gas leaked or exactly why it had happened.
Each of the 65-foot-tall, 640-ton generators -- built by Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries -- are packed with thousands of narrow tubes that carry hot, pressurized water from the reactors. The heat produces steam in a separate loop that drives the plant's turbines and generators.
Located near San Clemente, the San Onofre nuclear plant's twin reactors are "Southern California's largest and most reliable sources of electricity," according to Southern California Edison's website. When operational, the facility -- which is owned by that utility, San Diego Gas and Electric, and the city of Riverside -- supplies power for 1.4 million households at any given time.
Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/06/us/california-nuclear-plant/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
I hope this blight on the most beautiful surf spot in So. Cal. is shut down forever. And this is the first I've heard mention of it being built by Japan's Mitsubishi. Gee, what could go wrong?
After Record Sales, Chevy Volt Production Will Resume One Week Early
Source: Talking Points Memo
Buoyed by record monthly sales of its Chevy Volt hybrid electric plug-in car in March, General Motors will resume production of the Volt at the Detroit Hamtramck plant one week early, the United Auto Workers told TPM on Tuesday night. “They’re adding a week of production back in,” said Don LaForest, the chairman of the UAW’s bargaining committee at the Detroit Hamtramck plant, where the Volt is manufactured, in a phone interview.
GM in early March startled observers by announcing a temporary hold on Volt production scheduled for five weeks, from March 19 to April 23, during which time employees would be temporarily laid-off but receive SUB pay. At the time, GM and the UAW told TPM that hold was “totally normal,” and put in place to “re-align” supply of the Volt with demand, following sluggish sales in January at just 603 units. But now, thanks to the GM’s news on Monday that the Volt sold a record 2,289 units in March, employees will be coming back to work a week early.
More to the point, LaForest said UAW workers remained confident in the Volt’s propensity for success, and that many at the plant were bewildered and angered by the verbal attacks on the American-made car by Republican Presidential candidates Mitt Romney on Tuesday and earlier, Newt Gingrich.
“Anybody who’s been in a Volt knows it’s not a boondoggle, they know it’s for real,” LaForest told TPM. “I don’t think Newt or Mitt have said a single negative thing about the Nissan Leaf,” (the Volt’s Japanese competitor).
“They’re attacking our car to get at the President,” LaForest told TPM. “But our car is going to change the way America does business. It’s a breath of fresh air.”
Read more: http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/04/gm-will-restart-chevy-volt-production-one-week-early-uaw-reveals.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
The Republicans having been working so hard at trying to make America fail, this news must hurt.
A boy to be sacrificed
A riveting opinion piece:
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"In the Morocco of the 1980s, where homosexuality did not, of course, exist, I was an effeminate little boy, a boy to be sacrificed, a humiliated body who bore upon himself every hypocrisy, everything left unsaid.
...
I was barely 12, and in my neighborhood they called me “the little girl.” Even those I persisted in playing soccer with used that nickname, that insult. Even the teenagers who’d once taken part with me in the same sexual games. I was no kid anymore. My body was changing, stretching out, becoming a man’s. But others did not see me as a man. The image of myself they reflected back at me was strange and incomprehensible. Attempts at rape and abuse multiplied.
...
It all came to a head one summer night in 1985. ... These men, whom we all knew quite well, cried out: “Abdellah, little girl, come down. Come down. Wake up and come down. We all want you. Come down, Abdellah. Don’t be afraid. We won’t hurt you. We just want to have sex with you.” ...But my brother, the absolute monarch of our family, did nothing. Everyone turned their back on me. Everyone killed me that night. ...To save my skin, I killed myself. And that was how I did it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/opinion/sunday/a-boy-to-be-sacrificed.html?_r=1&hp#
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It struck me that the vicious nickname they used was "the little girl." I am convinced that as long as there is sexism, there will be homophobia. They seem to be two sides of the same coin.
Plaintiff challenging healthcare law went bankrupt – with unpaid medical bills
Source: Los Angeles Times
Mary Brown, a 56-year-old Florida woman who owned a small auto repair shop but had no health insurance, became the lead plaintiff challenging President Obama's healthcare law because she was passionate about the issue.
Brown "doesn't have insurance. She doesn't want to pay for it. And she doesn't want the government to tell her she has to have it," said Karen Harned, a lawyer for the National Federation of Independent Business. Brown is a plaintiff in the federation's case, which the Supreme Court plans to hear later this month.
But court records reveal that Brown and her husband filed for bankruptcy last fall with $4,500 in unpaid medical bills. Those bills could change Brown from a symbol of proud independence into an example of exactly the problem the healthcare law was intended to address.
Lawyers who represent Brown dispute the significance of her bankruptcy. They say her unpaid medical bills were only a small part of her debts and did not cause her bankruptcy. They say that she and her husband owe $55,000 to others, including credit card companies. And they say her financial troubles were caused by the failure of her auto repair shop. Brown said in the bankruptcy petition that her only income was $275 a month in unemployment benefits.
Brown, reached by telephone Thursday, said the medical bills were her husband's. "I always paid my bills, as well as my medical bills," she said angrily. "I never said medical insurance is not a necessity. It should be anyone's right to what kind of health insurance they have.
"I believe that anyone has unforeseen things that happen to them that are beyond their control," Brown said. "Who says I don't have insurance right now?"
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/health/la-na-healthcare-plaintiff-20120309,0,6657163.story
Who says you don't have insurance? Your lawyer, Karen Harned. Good luck getting it on $275 a month.
Franklin Graham apologizes for questioning Obama's faith commitment
The Rev. Franklin Graham on Tuesday apologized for publicly raising questions about President Barack Obama’s Christian faith, saying “I regret any comments I have ever made which may have cast any doubt on the personal faith of our president, Mr. Obama.”
The statement from Graham came in response to a letter from faith leaders associated with the NAACP that said Graham’s statements “have enormous negative effects for America and are especially harmful to the Christian witness.”
In a television interview last week that provoked huge media attention, Graham appeared to question the sincerity of Obama’s Christian commitment.
"You have to ask him,” Graham said, pondering whether Obama is Christian. “I cannot ask that question for anybody."
In the February 21 interview on MSNBC, Graham repeated earlier statements about Obama’s ties to Islam, while denying that the president is a Muslim.
"Under Islamic law – Sharia law – Islam sees him as a son of Islam," Graham said. “Because his father was a Muslim, his grandfather was a Muslim. ... That's just the way it works."
In his statement on Tuesday, Graham said, “The president has said he is a Christian and I accept that (and have said so publicly on many occasions).”
“I apologize to him and to any I have offended for not better articulating my reason for not supporting him in this election—for his faith has nothing to do with my consideration of him as a candidate,” Graham’s statement continued.
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/28/franklin-graham-apologizes-for-questioning-obamas-faith-commitment/
Tasered woman now brain dead
A woman shot with a Taser by a trooper in Florida, falls into a coma, now brain dead. Jane Velez-Mitchell speaks with her parents.
http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_t3#/video/bestoftv/2012/02/21/exp-jvm-taser-coma.hln
Local news story with (disturbing) video of tasing:
A young woman was left with severe brain damage and in a vegetative state after being tasered by a police officer. The officer's dash cam shows 20-year-old Danielle Maudsley handcuffed, as she ran away from the Florida Highway Patrol officer. She was only feet away when she is tasered in the back. The victim collapsed and her head slammed to the ground.
http://www.wcti12.com/news/30482005/detail.html
San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant Unit 3 Shut Down for a Possible Leak
SCE: San Onofre Unit Shutdown "Precautionary"
Unit 3 shutdown for a possible leak
By Michelle Wayland | Tuesday, Jan 31, 2012 | Updated 7:44 PM PST
The San Onofre atomic power plant in northern San Diego County. A potential leak in a “steam generator tube” prompted a precautionary shutdown of Unit 3 at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, according to California Edison (SCE) officials. Sensors installed in the reactor unit detected a possible leak in one of the unit’s steam generator tubes, according to officials.
“The potential leak poses no imminent danger to the public or plant workers. There has been no release to the atmosphere,” SCE said in a statement. San Onofre personnel were working to evaluate the cause of the leak, according to officials. “Unit 2 is currently offline for a planned maintenance, refueling and technology upgrade outage,” the statement said. Power to customers was not expected to be affected.
Source: SCE: San Onofre Unit Shutdown "Precautionary" | NBC San Diego
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/SEC-San-Onofre-Unit-Shutdown-Precautionary--138453884.html
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