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A St. Petersberg man, accused of taking a smoke break in the bathroom on a Spirit flight from Detroit to New Orleans, has been banned from flying on the airline for life. An attendant on Flight NK 985 said she saw him take a drag from an e-cigarette and exhale into a bag while he was sitting in his seat. When she admonished him, the 30-year old man got up and headed for the restroom, according to a report filed with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office. While he was in the bathroom, the plane’s smoke alarm went off. When a...

Putting a solid definition in place to allow us to focus on what we need to do.

WASHINGTON (AP) - First lady Michelle Obama says women should do what makes them happy, a lesson she says she learned after realizing her two children, her husband and her physical health feed off of her good moods. In an interview appearing in the November issue of Prevention magazine, Mrs. Obama discusses the meaning of good health, aging and her exercise, diet and beauty routines. She sat for the interview at the White House in late July.

Today's American high school students are far likelier than those in the 1970s to believe they'll make outstanding spouses, parents and workers, new research shows. They're also much more likely to claim they are "A" students with high IQs -- even though other research shows that today's students do less homework than their counterparts did in the 1970s. The findings, published in the November issue of Psychological Science, support the idea that the "self-esteem" movement popular among today's parents and teachers may have gone too far, the study's co-author said. "What this shows is that confidence has crossed over into...

PENSACOLA, Fla. -- The White House did not hide its irritation Monday at Florida GOP gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist for ducking President George W. Bush at a campaign rally in the Republican friendly Panhandle. Crist said he considered the Pensacola area so firmly in his camp that it made more sense to campaign elsewhere in the state as the race to replace outgoing Gov. Jeb Bush tightened. On a tarmac in Texas where the president boarded Air Force One for the trip east, Bush political strategist Karl Rove mockingly questioned what kind of alternate rally Crist could put together that...

As Chad Kingsbury watches his daughter playing in the sandbox behind their suburban Chicago house, the thought that has flashed through his mind a million times in her two years of life comes again: Chloe will never be sick. Not, at least, with the inherited form of colon cancer that has devastated his family, killing his mother, her father and her two brothers, and that he too may face because of a genetic mutation that makes him unusually susceptible. By subjecting Chloe to a genetic test when she was an eight-cell embryo in a petri dish, Mr. Kingsbury and his...

Hatin’ on Hillary: N.H. Dems lambaste Clinton By Brett Arends Boston Herald Business Columnist Monday, August 7, 2006 - Updated: 02:56 AM EST MANCHESTER, N.H. - Dick Bennett has been polling New Hampshire voters for 30 years. And he’s never seen anything like it. “Lying b**** . . . shrew . . . Machiavellian . . . evil, power-mad witch . . . the ultimate self-serving politician.” No prizes for guessing which presidential front-runner drew these remarks in focus groups. But these weren’t Republicans talking about Hillary Clinton. They weren’t even independents. These were ordinary, grass-roots Democrats. People who identified...

A seven-month pregnant woman - her belly vast - was at a supper with a friend. He, being of the family type, told her she was very lucky to be expecting a baby. He was the first person who had said such a thing, she told him. [snip] How is it that in cultures all over the world pregnancies prompt congratulations rather than anxious questions about childcare? How is it that in a culture equipped, materially and medically, to ease child-rearing, we are so reluctant to enjoy new life? [snip] The answer, I would argue, is that a bias against...

Mark Williams Says GOP Must Dump ArnoldSpecial Opinion Article by KFBK (1530 AM) Radio Host Mark Williams Published: November 9, 2005 14:49 | Last Updated: November 16, 2005, 6:26 pm Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t just a duck who’s a little gimpy, he’s a carrier of a deadly political form of Avian Flu and he is going to destroy the few tattered remains of the state’s Republican Party. Where to begin? How about with the look on Assembly Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s face Tuesday night in Hollywood. As the TV cameras followed Arnold swagger onto stage to do a victory dance...

Press Conference just concluded: According to the Duluth Police Chief, Jennifer purchased bus ticket for Austin TX a week before to take her on the 26th to Austin, TX. She rode the bus and then changed the bus to Dallas TX, then onto Las Vegas for a few days. Then she took another bus to New Mexico. Then contacted her fiancee, collect. When the Duluth GA Chief of Police spoke with her on the phone she did say she had been kidnapped (and gave details). Up to that point the sheriff said she had not broken any laws. Giving a...

Well, that time has come for me. I’m leaving FR. However, I do not consider this an “opus”, as I am NOT going to use it to rehash old slights or arguments, or to give my personal opinion of what “should be done around here”. As has been so often pointed out, this is Jim Robinson’s site, and he runs it as he sees fit. Rather, all I’m going to do here is give a general reason for my departure, and say a hearty-but-sad “GOODBYE!” to all the folks here who have enriched my life in the past four years....

No Name Calling Week?     1/12/2005By Warren Throckmorton, Ph.D.Yes, name-calling is wrong. But this event’s sponsors reveal the agenda behind banning it. “There is a special place in hell for people like you!” These words were directed at me by a teacher during this past summer’s National Education Association (NEA) convention in Washington, D.C. This delegate to the NEA convention made his prediction in response to my presence at the NEA’s Ex-Gay Educators’ Caucus booth in the convention exhibit hall. His cheery salutation caught me off-guard given the message of tolerance and acceptance I had been hearing around the exhibit hall....

LONDON, December 2, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A study published in the current issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry has revealed that 43% of gays, lesbians and bisexuals have a mental disorder. The study carried out by the Imperial College in London surveyed 1285 respondents from these groups. Mental problems included anxiety, sleep disturbance, panic attacks, depressive moods or thoughts, problems with memory or concentration and compulsive behaviour or obsessive thoughts. The researchers noted that there is a dearth of research into the mental health of gay men, lesbians and bisexual men and women in the UK. The study found...

O.K. Two days left. I'm sitting here wondering what verbal gem Teraaaaaaaayza may dump on America in the next 48 hours. I have a feeling she won't be able to help herself, even if the DNC has her hidden away in some secluded and quiet place like was done to the once infamous Martha Mitchell (of John Mitchell/Richard Nixon fame).Teraaaaaayza probably has an over abundance of her favorite gin-soaked white raisins nearby, so what could come from her sweet lips before the election to give G.W. just another little welcome boost? Could she pull a Walter Cronkite and suggest that...

Robert Reich’s Religion Problem Witless rhetorical oppositions. Liberals tend to take umbrage when it is suggested that they are hostile to religion, or to religious people, or to some subset thereof. They have nothing against evangelical Christians, they respond, so long as they do not seek to use the state to impose their faith on others. Some liberals go further, saying that they are religious progressives who advocate a bigger welfare state as an outgrowth of their religious values. (A number of my fellow contributors to the new Brookings Institution book One Electorate Under God? take this approach, including Paul...

Received this from a friend at work: Subject: Thought I sat in my seat of the Boeing 767 waiting for everyone to hurry and stow their carry ons and grab a seat so we could start what I was sure to be a long and uneventful flight home. With the huge capacity and slow moving people taking their time to stuff luggage far too big for the overhead and never paying much attention to holding up the growing line behind them, I simply shook my head knowing that this flight was not starting out very well and although I had...

Excluding homosexuals does not reflect God's way, that of compassion, writes Dorothy McRae McMahon. The Bible is an amazing testimony to the wonder of the grace and faithfulness of God as people journeyed down the ages. It gives clues to the way we are to live with that God, but only clues. It takes little reading to discover that understandings on many issues, and particularly on human relationships, changed over the centuries, even in biblical times. We do not now have slaves and masters. We do not in our church believe that men are morally superior to women and thus...

Sleazeball spoiled brats totally blocking the road.

This thread has been started and halted from time to time for gross neglect and it is not my fault. Today's drama queen award goes to AwfulJoey. No explanation is needed. The previous drama queen award went to another Joey aka Joe(I'm 6'6")Everywuss. That distinction was for verbose prose about a cop-killer or something like that...sorry, couldn't finish reading it. Other winners in the past? Ask and ye shall be rewarded.