If you haven’t caught the news it appears the Cash For Clunkers website has what must be the strangest or maybe scariest User Agreement statement I’ve ever seen on a site. Below is a screen capture as well as the text from the site:

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Thomas Lifson

This picture truly is worth at least a thousand words.

I am stunned that the official White House Blog published this picture and that it is in the public domain. The body language is most revealing.

Sergeant Crowley, the sole class act in this trio, helps the handicapped Professor Gates down the stairs, while Barack Obama, heedless of the infirmities of his friend and fellow victim of self-defined racial profiling, strides ahead on his own. So who is compassionate? And who is so self-involved and arrogant that he is oblivious? Read the rest of this entry »

John Tantillo – FOXNews.com – July 30, 2009

While campaigning, Senator Obama was often admired for playing it cool; President Obama has to do the same if he wants to be known as the leader with certain professorial tendencies — rather than the professor who somehow became a president.

The health care debacle and the botched handling of the Gates arrest are showing us an important weakness in the Obama brand.

As I’ve mentioned before, Obama is at real risk of over-exposure. Even though it might seem that he has to appear everywhere to sell health care reform– the opposite may be true at this point. Read the rest of this entry »

While supporters of “cash for clunkers” say the results prove the program has been an unqualified success, critics argue that it demonstrates the incompetence of the federal government.

No one disputes the results of the “cash for clunkers” rebate program: It succeeded in blowing through nearly all its $1 billion in a week and can burn rubber at least through the weekend.

Congress is racing to infuse it with an additional $2 billion, but although supporters say the results prove the program has been an unqualified success, critics argue that it demonstrates the incompetence of the federal government. Read the rest of this entry »

It was — note the past tense — the worst housing recession anyone but survivors of the Great Depression can remember.

From the frenzied peak of the real estate boom in 2005-2006 to the recession’s trough earlier this year, home resales fell 38 percent and sales of new homes tumbled 76 percent. Construction of homes and apartments skidded 79 percent. And for the first time in more than four decades of record keeping, home prices posted consecutive annual declines.

A staggering $4 trillion in home equity was wiped out, and millions of Americans lost their homes through foreclosure.

Now take a deep breath and exhale. The worst is over. Read the rest of this entry »

Budget Deal Not Complete But A Big License Plate Will Cost You $100

Although the state is still operating without a budget it appears elected officials had time to pass a bill to outlaw large license plate frames and sent the bill to Gov. Perdue to sign. At the same time state Democrat leaders have been meeting to iron out the new $19 billion budget that calls for cuts in school spending for grades 7-12 including staff and teachers, raises the sales tax by a penny which will now include many services as a taxable sale, increase taxes on cigarettes and alcohol, increase income taxes by as much as 3%, and cuts in tax revenue disbursements to local jurisdictions by as much as 66%.

As The Start Of School Nears Local H1N1 Cases Increase

State medical officials stated recently that the number of H1N1 cases in North Carolina has neared 500 with as many as 90 cases in the Triad Region alone. As the start of school nears officials are taking notice and have emphasized good hygiene such as frequent washing of hands however as of now they have no special plans for H1N1 that they wouldn’t apply to any other outbreak.  The CDC has reported as many as 40% of the population will get H1N1 over the next two years and has planned for multiple flu vaccinations started as early as September. For more information in H1N1 visit www.noflu.org.

North Carolina Fisherman Lost And Presumed Dead At Sea

Michael L. Dodick has been missing since July 9th after being reported late for returning from a fishing trip off Atlantic Beach, North Carolina. On July 10th the Coast Guard located Dodick’s 28 foot boat adrift with the engines running and all fishing lines broken.

Did www.digtriad.com, WFMY’s website, pull a story about the new baseball stadium or is it just a web server error which is causing the post to fail in loading? In either case all you need to do is to look below as BITS was able to retrieve a copy of the story by Sarah Lanse which apparently reports that the city doesn’t have a team signed up to play at the stadium. According to the story the city is still working on the terms for the lease and even if completed in the next few weeks the stadium would not be complete until fall.

According to Matt McKinney of WFMY this was just an error in the web server and a more complete story can be found here so I guess we will drop the conspiracy theories, for now anyway.

My Funny Valentine*

James A. Gray Auditorium
Old Salem Visitors Center
Saturday, August 22, 2009
7:00 and 9:30 PM
(Separate admission for each set)

Acclaimed vocalist Martha Bassett joins musicians Matt Kendrick, Federico Pivetta, John Wilson, Wally West, Ken Wilmot, and Jacqui Carrasco for two sets of classic songs from the Rodgers & Hart Songbook including “The Lady is a Tramp”, “Manhattan”, “My Funny Valentine”, “This Can’t Be Love”, and “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered.”