Today a surprise announcement by the Washington, DC police in the case of the 2001 murder of Chandra Levy, the intern for former representative Gary Condit. Levy went jogging in DC's Rock Creek Park and disappeared in 2001. Her remains were found in the park a year later. Condit stated all along that despite having had an affair with Levy, he had nothing to do with her disappearance. Today's announcement stated that an arrest warrant was being issued to a Salvadoran immigrant, who is currently serving 10 years for attacking two women in the same park where Levy had disappeared. It charges the inmate with Levy's murder, which he is known to have confessed to while interacting with another inmate. The Chandra Levy disappearance was the top story of its' time until the 911 attacks put it on the back burners.
Residents of Seal Cove, Newfoundland found it difficult to sleep the last few nights, courtesy of the three crying dolphins who were trapped in the ice at Seal Cove Harbor. The three mammals became stuck in an oval shaped hole in the ice and were not able to find a way out back to the open ocean. The town's mayor attempted to secure an ice breaker, but none were available. So, on Thursday night, fisherman with their trawler, managed to cut a path out of the harbor resulting in two of the dolphins swimming away freely. The third one was too exhausted to go on his own, so a 17 year old boy, dressed in a wet suit, jumped into the frigid water. The remaining 8 foot mammal wrapped his fins around the boy, who guided him through the path to the open waters, where he swam away. What a great story.
Sometimes we get so wrapped up in humor that we don't always notice how damaging it can really be. Take the case of a cartoon that appeared in a recent edition of the New York Post. The cartoon depicts two police officers with guns drawn looking down at the body of a bullet riddled chimpanzee. At this point, one of the officers states 'They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill' 
This morning, my cousin forwarded me an e-mail that I found a little disturbing. It stated that her friends had visited the WWII Memorial in DC and in the process of reading the granite facades, an elderly person had pointed out to the crowd a major inaccuracy. The next to last paragraph of the speech President Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave to the nation on December 8, 1941 reads as follows:
A closeup of the statue by the lamp post.
Baseball will never be the same now that our last hope has just been swept away. This weekend it was revealed that Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez tested positive for steroid use in 2003 when he was a member of the Texas Rangers. Alex Rodriguez now joins the growing ranks of players who's careers have suffered blows due to their partaking in the use of performance enhancing drugs. The list includes Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro, and Roger Clemens. Believed to have avoided the use of steroids, Rodriguez was baseball's true hope for breaking the all time home run record, recently broken by Barry Bonds. He was currently on pace to break that record in his career, saving MLB a lot of embarrassment, but with this revelation, it will not happen. 
Wildfires continue to burn throughout Australia amidst 100+ temperatures, wiping out homes and entire towns in their path. A night time aerial photo on the right shows how intense these blazes are. More than 100 deaths have been attributed to these fires so far, as firefighters see no immediate relief in sight. Our thoughts and prayers go out to these brave people in their tireless efforts to bring this disaster under control. 
OK folks, the election is over. All of the messy campaigning, name calling, critical speeches and anything else one can think of related to electing a candidate to the highest office of the land is now history. So why in Heaven's name is Sarah Palin still considered Public Enemy number one. Just today, Hollywood bimbo Ashley Judd called Palin out for the aerial hunting of wolves in Alaska in order to control the wolf population. This is just one example of how pot shots have been aimed at the Alaska governor on a regular basis ever since she ran as John McCain's running mate in the last election. To those who relentlessly continue to attack her, let me give you one valuable piece of advice, she is no quitter and I believe that this kind of thing only makes her stronger and more determined than ever to succeed. Make no mistake about it: she WILL fire back!
The Federal Aviation Administration today, released the tapes of the communication from US Airways flight 1459 between Captain Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger and the LaGuardia flight tower. From the moment he took to the air until his forced landing in the Hudson River, Sullenberger maintains a steady calmness and quiet confidence reflective of his remarkable professionalism. He then proceeds to bring down the aircraft to a perfect landing on the river. The more we hear about this story, the more amazing it gets.
Just coming over the wire is a rather weird story concerning Facebook. It seems that a Milwaukee teenage boy was posing as a girl on the popular Internet site and persuading boys to post nude photos of themselves. He then used these pics to blackmail the boys into performing sexual acts with him.
In 2004 on Maryland's Eastern Shore, he was slapped with a DUI charge and issued an apology stating that it would not happen again. Fast forward to November, 2008 at a party in a house on a North Carolina college campus. A photo showing Michael Phelps smoking what appears to be a marijuana pipe appeared recently on the cover of a London newspaper. The picture was apparently taken at that November party. Yesterday, Phelps issued an apology through his publicist stating that he had acted in an inappropriate manner, and that it would not happen again. It all sounded too familiar.
Tom Daschle withdrew his name today for Secretary of Health and Human Services due to a tax issue. Daschle became the latest in a growing line of Obama Administration cabinet nominees who were found to be tied to potentially damaging character issues. How are these people supposed to run our government if they can't even keep their own affairs in order? If I owed better than one hundred thousand dollars in back taxes, you can rest assured this post would be coming to you from the county jail. Now I know that President Obama's intent is to put transparency into his administration, and I admire his acting quickly on these matters, but perhaps a little more scrutiny in the choice process will result in a lot less embarrassment in the confirmation process. 
