WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney pulled a muscle in his back while moving boxes and will be in a wheelchair for Tuesday's inauguration ceremony.
White House press secretary Dana Perino said Monday that Cheney was helping to move into his new home outside Washington in McLean, Va., when he injured his back.
His doctor recommended that he needed a wheelchair for the next couple of days.
[via msnbc]
A complete ass right until the end. Increasing import duties on Roquefort cheese? What the hell?
Less than a week before it leaves office, the Bush administration has sparked anger across the Atlantic by tripling the import duty rate on roquefort cheese to 300%, a move which the US hopes will "shut down trade" in the sheep's milk product by making it prohibitively expensive.
The decision, part of Washington's attempts to force the EU into dropping its ban on hormone-treated beef, was greeted with disbelief by the French government and by farmers in the south-western Aveyron region who depend on the industry for their livelihoods.
"Maybe the Bush administration indulged itself by taking this decision just before it leaves," Robert Glandieres, president of the roquefort producers' group, told Reuters.
The tariff on roquefort, condemned as "incomprehensible and inadmissible" by the French government, will probably have a minimal effect, given exports to the US account for just 2% of annual sales. French farmers said it would mean "the end" for roquefort in the US and vowed to take "symbolic actions" in return.
i can't wait to see what those "symbolic actions" turn out to me. more tainted milk and salmonella laden peanut butter? my best guess would be tainted 'freedom fries.'
[americablog via slog]
a vero beach, florida man faces a domestic violence charge after authorities said that he assaulted his girlfriend with a cheeseburger. the sheriff's office arrest report said a 22-year-old man and his girlfriend got into an argument as they sat in a car in front of their home. the report said the man would not let the woman out of the vehicle, so she threw his drink out of the car. in response, the man allegedly grabbed her arm and smashed the cheeseburger into her face. the pair got out of the car, and authorities say the man again took the mcdonald's sandwich and smashed it on her face.
[ap via aolnews]
thank god i'm not in high school anymore, because i don't know what a high school party would be like without a six-pack of zima and a bag of jolly ranchers. the makers of zima ("booze" that i thought that they stopped making eight years ago) have announced that they have discontinued the increasingly unpopular "malternative beverage." *tear*
you're in luck though, because according to the official release announcing the retirement of zima, you should be able to purchase it through the end of the year. stock up while you can! (and pick up a mega-pack of tums too, you'll need it for the heartburn that follows.)
[ap via gawker]
...not this year at least.
here's an enjoyable, yet appalling compilation of facts that were stretched, truth wise during the primetime speeches at the republican convention last night. i would like to think that if democrats had done this, the sweet little kkk members delegates in the audience at the rnc would have burnt a few crosses on our lawns. i didn't hear of any lynchings, so you can't call it "retaliation."
from the ap:
PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate."god, where's jiminy cricket when you need him?
THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.
MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of the nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.
THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state — by population.
MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.
THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.
FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."
THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.
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