The days of the wild wild west were infamous for elaborate train robberies. Of course it was certainly harder to protect and enforce some remote areas where they chugged along. Flash forward to modern day Manhattan. Sound like the usual location for a train robbery? Hardly. But it happened and the guy was caught. It all started on subway train #7. McCollum was his name and he was impersonating a transit authority working while carrying various robbery “tools”. He rode train #7 to the Manhattan transfer station where he got off. He was then caught trying to enter a door marked restricted area in the station. Looks like luck finally ran out buddy. He has been busy messing with trains since 1981.

[Image Source]-efluxmedia

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Where’s the government going to get the money to pay for this?  Are they going to print more money and cause more inflation?  Or will they borrow the money from China and get our nation into even more debt.

The hard cold truth folks is that 1) The government needs to repeal those tax cuts on the rich.  They did not have the trickle down effect that they were intended to have. 2) We need to limit the amount that the oil companies can gouge us for.  There are people who are having to choose between heating their home and paying their rent/mortgage.  It’s not right.  Have any of you gone to the grocery store recently?  The price of food seems to have doubled in the past couple of months.  3)  The government needs to force those banks that made the "sub-prime" mortgages to refinance the homeowners who had a history of stable payments before they payments got off the hook crazy with a fixed rate mortgage.  That is what a lot of those home owners were promised when they signed on with those mortgages to begin with.  I know about this because in 1997, I wanted to buy my own little piece of the American Dream.  I was offered an APR mortgage.  When I was hesitant about it, I was assured that after I established a stable payment history for a few years, I would be allowed to refinance based on that alone - regardless of my credit.  I was also assured that the amount that my payments would go up would be negligable.  Lucky for me, I have a very savvy grandmother who sat me down and explained to me the truth about APRs and I did not become an unfortunate statistic.  4) They will pass legislation stopping these lenders from making these kinds of loans in the future.

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People in Battleboro, Vermont have started a petition to have President Bush and Vice President Cheney arrested and charged with Crimes Against the Constitution.  Personally, I think they’re right.  George Bush has used the Constitution as toilet paper, and he also called it just a g.d. piece of paper.  But, I also think the people in Battleboro or nuts because eventhough I believe Bush to be a criminal and Cheney the devil incarnate, I don’t believe either will ever be charged.

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I really wish Obama wouldn’t go here.  Everything he said is 100% true, but it is leaning in toward negative campaigning, and IMHO that is so far beneath him.

"It is time for new leadership that understands the way to win a debate with John McCain or any Republican who is nominated is not by nominating someone who agreed with him on voting for the war in Iraq or who agreed with him in voting to give George Bush the benefit of the doubt on Iran, who agrees with him in embracing the Bush-Cheney policy of not talking to leaders we don’t like, who actually differed with him by arguing for exceptions for torture before changing positions when the politics of the moment changed," Obama said.

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Two years ago in Spain, Thomas Delgado, was speeding along a country road.  He hit a seventeen year old boy on a bike and dragged him 347 feet.  For some reason, charges were not filed against Delgado.  After all that, Delgado had the nerve to file a law suit against the dead boy’s parents asking for approximately $30,000 for damages to his car and car rental costs!  This week in Spain after national exposure, Delgado, still insisting he was the victim in this, dropped the suit.  His lawyer claimed that all the negative publicity that he got from this was tantamount to a public lynching.  Awwwwww.  Poor Mr. Delgado!  Not!  Being both that stupid and that big of an @$$hole should be a crime.

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Ted Kennedy to the Clintons: 

Okay, he says he didn’t intend to slight the Clintons with his endoresement, but effectively that’s what he did.  Kennedy said,  "We need new energy. We need someone who can bring people together. (he’s basically saying the Clinton’s can’t do that) People are basically saying that they want to new day and a new generation. (see my post on the Obama Factor)"

Kennedy praised Obama’s health care plan which Billary has criticised saying it will leave 15 million uninsured.  But, it wouldn’t potentially cause the homeless rate to go up, like hers would.  See my post on Clinton, Obama, and Health Care.

Caroline Kennedy compared Obama to her father, which is not an insignificant thing.  Younger candidates, including Bill Clinton, have been trying to compare themselves to JFK since JFK died.  Caroline said, ""Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and imagine that together we can do great things. In those rare moments, when such a person comes along, we need to put aside our plans and reach for what we know is possible."

"We have that kind of opportunity with Senator Obama. It isn’t that the other candidates are not experienced or knowledgeable. But this year, that may not be enough. We need a change in the leadership of this country — just as we did in 1960."

And it’s 100% true.  I can still remember hearing Obama speak for the first time during the Democratic Convention in 2004.  His speech was electrifying.  All the hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I looked at my dad and said, "That man is going to be president."

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Remember Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden?  They were the two monsters who brought us the Jonesboro School Shooting.  They killed five people, but because they were 13 and 11 at the time, they did not get life sentences.  Mitchell Johnson has apparently been out of prison since 2005, when he turned 21. 

Well….. he got arrested this past New Years Day for having pot AND TWO GUNS!!!!!  He is facing federal charges of possessing firearms while being under the influence or addicted to a controlled substance.  I didn’t even know there was such a charge.  I think they made it up special for him.  If he wasn’t Mitchell Johnson, he wouldn’t be charged with this. 

But, here’s what gets me….. one of the guns….. he got it as a Christmas present!!!  Oh gee!  There’s what that little psychopath needs!  A gun!  I think the person who gave him the gun should be put on trial for reckless endangerment!!!!

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After Obama’s win in South Carolina over the weekend, Bill Clinton said something along the lines of, "Big Whoop!  Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in 1984 and 1988."  When I first heard him say it, I just kind of rolled my eyes and went on, but boy he has got some people HOT over it.  I got home from church yesterday and my significant other (SO) had on some news show talking about how Bill Clinton went too far, he’s a racist, he’s going to split the Democratic party.  Then, we heard references to it on CNN.  But, here’s the thing - Obama didn’t just get the black vote in SC.  He got the majority of the white vote as well - something Jesse Jackson failed to do.  Obama isn’t running on his race.  It is the Clintons and the media who keep making an issue out of his race.  Many are speculating that it was Bill Clinton’s in bad taste remarks that motivated the Kennedys to get into it by endorsing Obama.  Here’s hoping it will continue to backfire on them.

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A Japanese marketing company offers its employees up to three days "heartache leave" for break ups.  The same firm also gives employees time off to hit all the good sales during the holiday season. 

Not everyone needs to take maternity leave but with heartbreak, everyone needs time off, just like when you get sick," CEO Miki Hiradate.

Why don’t I work there? 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080128/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_japan_leave

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A woman in Russia came home from her summer home and found her house was gone!  It was accidently torn down by contruction workers clearning a site - well, the cleared the wrong site.  Could you imagine coming home one day and your house and all the stuff you had in it was just gone?

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