AS IT STANDS
my name is Dave Stancliff. I'm a retired newspaper editor/publisher; husband/father, and military veteran. Laker fan for 64 years. This blog is dedicated to all the people in the world. Thank you for your readership!
A laid off paramedic who turned to delivering pizzas to make ends meet is credited with saving the life of a man who went into cardiac arrest just as a pizza was delivered to his door.
“Christopher Wuebben, 22, was delivering a pizza late last week to the suburban Denver home of George Linn, when he heard the man's wife screaming for help, according to Wuebben's boss, John Keiley.”
AND TO GIVE THIS STORY AN EVEN HAPPIER ENDING…
“Keiley said Wuebben is a military veteran who recently moved to Colorado after he was laid off from his paramedic job in Illinois. He said Wuebben is not scheduled to work at the pizza restaurant until later in the week, but Keiley may not have his new employee for long. At least one local hospital and a fire department have called to offer Wuebben a job in his chosen field after hearing of his heroics.”
Sherrod will likely turn down USDA job offer. She said she would like to have a talk with Obama, but not an apology. I can understand why she wouldn’t want to go back. This is an embarrassing situation all the way around. People reacted to an extreme conservative blogger’s post (Andrew Breitbart) showing her speaking (out of context). It worked better than expected for him and caused all of the ensuing chaos.
Obama’s broken promise: As for Obama, it is clear that his hope of creating “a more perfect union” on the subject of race -- the title of his famous 2008 speech in Philly -- has so far been a broken promise. As Ben Smith observed yesterday, “The election of Barack Obama, America’s first black president, was supposed to be a sign of our national maturity, a chance to transform the charged, stilted ‘national conversation’ about race into a smarter and more authentic dialogue, led by a president who was also one of the nation's subtlest thinkers and writers on the topic. Instead, the conversation just got dumber.” It is clear that Obama -- perhaps correctly -- has decided that it is more important to govern than it is to tackle the issue of race. Still, it is a broken promise, and Robert Gibbs implied yesterday we won't see a so-called "national conversation" on race anytime soon. In truth, it's probably a topic the president can't tackle until he's, well, an ex-president.
Are we mature enough to have a conversation about race? But even if Obama tries to tackle race during his presidency, is Washington mature enough to listen? Probably not when there are so many questioning whether the president was born in this country, when the NAACP is accusing the Tea Party of being racist, when a handful of "new" Black Panthers are on the prowl (who, btw, aren't really members of the actual Black Panthers AND who are about as relevant on the left as the John Birch Society is on the right), and when someone like Andrew Breitbart is so fixated on proving via a concerted campaign that somehow there is racial bias being practiced by this president or members of his administration (whether it’s ACORN, Sherrod, etc.).
Federal authorities in Virginia have arrested the man who allegedly wrote online posts threatening the creators of South Park after the show ran an episode that included the Prophet Muhammad.
The Justice Department announced the arrest of 20-year-old Zachary Chesser Wednesday, saying authorities had stopped him at a New York airport on July 10 before he made a planned trip to Somalia to allegedly try to join an Islamic militant group.
Crude pours out after pipeline blast; at least 1 firefighter dead
Anyone who says drilling for oil offshore is a safe and reliable process is just plain stupid, or has a stake in the operation.
China’s latest oil spill is shaping up to be their worst one. So far, the oil slick covers 165 miles of ocean. While the leak has been contained, the damage has been done to miles of coast line and marine life in the area.
This is just another compelling reason to stop off shore drilling for oil. How many disasters like this do we need to experience before it’s too late to save the ocean and the creatures in it?
Are we getting to a tipping point? If not yet, then we’re getting close. American isn’t the only country to use fossil fuels. China has recently surpassed our economy’s thirst for oil. It won’t take too many more accidents like this to destroy China’s beaches and waters. Until Big Oil loses it’s death grip on the countries of the world, we can all expect more catastrophes to further blight our environment.
I think those small-scale “garden growers” have something to worry about it with this mega grow.
This giant grow is what people have been concerned about since talk of legalization surfaced. I hope no other cities plan on doing the same thing.
There’s too many reasons why a corporate grow like this is going to hurt the market. Establishing grow monopolies is going to hurt independent farmers, and the quality is going to be questionable. There’s a good chance that pesticides will be used or other harmful chemicals in that super garden. Someone is making a lot of money here. I wonder who is making out like a bandit with this latest development? You know someone is.
The city of Oakland, California on Tuesday legalized large-scale marijuana cultivation for medical use and will issue up to four permits for "industrial" cultivation starting next year.
The move by the San Francisco Bay Area city aims to bring medical marijuana cultivation into the open and allow the city to profit by taxing those who grow it.The resolution passed the city council easily after a nearly four-hour debate that pitted small-scale "garden" growers against advocates of a bigger, industrial system that would become a "Silicon Valley" of pot.
Amateurish use of Photoshop causes yet another BP embarrassment
It's been a long season of embarrassment for BP, but leaking oil isn't what the blogosphere is ripping the company for today.
A site called Americablog spotted a photo of BP's Houston command center, ostensibly taken on July 16. The image had quite visibly been Photoshopped — badly — to include more on-screen camera action.
Once word got out — the story was picked up by the Washington Post, where it was then spotted by the tech blog Gizmodo and others — BP 'fessed up. A spokesman admitted that the image was altered, said that a photographer had inserted shots where the TV screens were blank, and provided the original image.
A new poll says the site scored 64 on a 100-point scale, which “puts Facebook in the bottom 5 percent” of private sector companies “and in the same range as airlines and cable companies, two perennially low-scoring industries with terrible customer satisfaction,” according to results of a survey released today.
This has all the makings of a sci-fi thriller movie, but I’m afraid it’s already been done. I think the name of the movie was “Arachnophobia,” or something close to that.
It was all about deadly spiders chasing people. Then there was the airplane thriller “Snakes on the Plane,” (or something like that – I’m too lazy today to check it out further!)
Spiders and snakes have been done separately, but how about putting those creepy crawlers together in a Sci Fi flick? The two species could fight it out in a war…in say the streets, back alleys, and board rooms in Washington D.C. What could be more fun that watching snakes and spiders chasing politicians and lobbyists? (the answer is, of course, watching them catch up to them!)
Meanwhile, back in the real world, agriculture officials say they don't know what type of spiders were on the ship, but said it's a type that isn't normally found on the island.
They said there was concern the spiders could damage Guam's environment.
There’s no doubt in my mind that racism is rampant in this country. Here’s just another example. Anyone can be a racist, regardless of their color. This nation doesn’t really want a “national dialogue” on race relations. Americans tend to hide behind false facades regarding racial equality publically, but privately many have issues with people of another color. Be it black, brown, yellow, or white.
A black USDA official in Georgia has resigned after publicly admitting she didn't help a white man trying to save his farm to the "full force" of her power and instead referred him to "one of his own."
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack accepted Shirley Sherrod's resignation, saying there was "zero tolerance for discrimination at USDA."
Authorities say an emergency medical technician accused of refusing to help a dying pregnant woman during his coffee break was fatally shot near a New York City nightclub.
Police believe those accusations and the shooting were unrelated. I can’t help wondering if they were related, as in a relative (or friend) of the woman who died, getting revenge.
The online poster who reportedly 
It's been a long season of embarrassment for BP, but leaking oil isn't what the blogosphere is ripping the company for today. 
Facebook, the 
