Facebook is trying its hand at democracy. ...more

February 27, 2009

On Monday I was so upset that I lost my keys to my car and home. I searched everywhere for them. I was very uncomfortable that the keys would get into the wrong hands. On Thursday, I talked to Sue Beson, the Tai Chi instructor at the YMCA, and told her I may join the YMCA again as I love Tai Chi. My membership at the YMCA had expired last year. ...more

February 23, 2009

Can you see the similarity between President Obama's announcement to close Gitmo in one year and JFK's goal of having a man on the moon by the end of the decade? In both cases, neither could specifically say how it would be accomplished. They just had a sense that once they set an important goal and put the best in minds on achieving it, it would get done. Of course, they had preliminary discussions and studies and understood the main issues and possible solutions, but what they did, as executives, was set a goal, and expectation – a reasonable timetable. The Bush years will soon be viewed as an anomaly by the rest of the world, a brief period in our long history where we fell into the wrong hands, were overcome by fear, lost our moral compass and became decidedly un-American. ...more

January 27, 2009

Almost everyone has them: old, expired or unneeded prescription drugs sitting in pill bottles around the house. ...more

December 31, 2008

It's a total goof, of course. A lark, a one-off. "Burn After Reading," the latest offering in the eclectic filmography of Joel and Ethan Coen, is not to be taken seriously - one look at Brad Pitt's blond-streaked pouf of hair tells you that - and it's certainly not to be compared to their starkly violent Academy Award winner from last year, "No Country for Old Men." ...more

September 12, 2008

HARTFORD, Conn. - Passing notes in study hall or getting your best friend to ask a boy if he likes you or, you know, LIKES you, is so last century. Nowadays, teenagers are snapping naked pictures of themselves on their cell phones and sending them to their boyfriends and girlfriends. ...more

June 4, 2008

My letter is in regard to the four-wheel ATV accident in Orange Blossom Estates last week. I have for seven years tried to get the four-wheel ATV vehicles off our county roads and the rights of way, with little success. In 2007 there was an accident on Canter Path Silver Fox. A young man speeding, wrecked and had to be airlifted in critical condition. Now we have a fatality and another hospitalized. It is time that the laws regarding ATVs be changed. Captain Blackman of the Highlands County Sheriff's Office stated that the fine for using an ATV on our roads is on $78; this is not sufficient and needs to be amended. The price of an officer to respond, wear and tear on the vehicle and the cost of fuel is greater than $78. This law needs to be amended. A four-wheel ATV is like a car or even a gun in the wrong hands, under the wrong conditions. People are severely injured and in this case killed. ...more

February 19, 2008

TAMPA - Postal inspectors in Puerto Rico flagged a suspicious express mail package bound for Polk County. Turns out it contained nearly 2 pounds of cocaine inside coffee bags, Polk County deputies say. ...more

February 14, 2008

Weeks before it is to begin, an ambitious U.S. aid plan to counter militancy in Pakistan's tribal areas is threatened by important unresolved questions about who will monitor the money and whether it could fall into the wrong hands, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials and analysts familiar with the plan. ...more

December 25, 2007

HUDSON - It was a simple idea, with big potential. For years, marksmen have been using a technique called bump firing, shooting a semiautomatic rifle from the hip and allowing the weapon's recoil to pull the trigger. With federal regulations keeping fully automatic weapons out of their hands, it was one of the few ways for firearm enthusiasts to enjoy the thrill of firing a machine gun. ...more

December 21, 2007