In Japan: Authorities are categorizing the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdown on par with Chernobyl according to nuclear crisis level.
In Ivory Coast: After refusing to step down as president and sparking conflict, Laurent Gbagbo has been captured in Abidjan and is being detained by opposition forces.
In Belarus: Twelve people were killed and more than 120 were injured in a subway bombing early this morning in Minsk.
In Arizona: A federal appeals court has ruled to block the most contentious components of Arizona’s immigration law that was passed last year.
On Long Island: Authorities are linking human remains found recently on a beach yesterday with several other murders in Nassau County.
In Washington, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray and six city councilmembers were arrested yesterday for protesting the budget deal’s D.C.-only restrictions on abortion and clean needle exchange.
In Olympia: Senate Bill 5073, which would provide regulation and criminal liability protection for medical marijuana dispensaries, has passed the state house.
Hey Southwest Airlines, you’re welcome! An Air France Airbus A380 and a Comair plane—likely a regional jet—“clipped” each other last night at JFK.
Today, in rewarding crazy: The conservative group Sam Adams Alliance named Tim Eyman “a modern day Sam Adams” and gave him a $20,000 award on Friday.
Bunnies and ceiling cats will probably be next: The state gaming commission in Pennsylvania has just declared open season on porcupines. “My main objective is to make it clear that you are allowed to harvest them,” said commission member Dave Putnam.
Finally, here is video footage from the D.C. protest against the budget deal rider. Good morning!
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The Sam Adams award is fitting considering the colossal scumbag he was.
Ah, Megan. Once again, you missed a big story. Sigh.
150 years ago today, the first shot of the Civil War was fired at Fort Sumter.
Interestingly, a CNN poll released today found that 46% of respondents said the war was about “something other” than slavery. The truly scary thing about that is that these cretins vote.
@2 If only we called for a symbolical civil war to protect the poor and middle class from Repugnican’ts attacks. They put the burden of the debt on the least able, to protect the super rich. And, shamefully, Barack Obama went along. Shame on them all!
To be sure, slavery was just a part of it, and is not what started it. It was more about the south’s desire to cecede.
@JFK it was an A380 (not A320 as you stated) “clipping” a small regional jet/plane – that’s quite the mismatch!
Yeah, @4, people were secedin’ all the time back then, just because. It’s what all the cool kids were doing.
Vince, there are so many paralells between then and now that it’s actually kinda freaky. Makes me wonder yet again if we wouldn’t have been better off if we’d just let them secede.
@4: You’re one of those cretins I was talking about.
@4,
Yes, the South’s desire to secede, because the leaders of the South at the time were angry the North wouldn’t give in to their demands that all new territories be slave states (and this, despite the fact that the territories themselves would likely have voted to NOT be slave states… yeah, states’ rights, eh?).
So yeah, slavery was a part of it. A 100% part of it. And slavery is exactly what started it.
There are very few hard-and-fast answers to anything. I dispute that global warming is anthropogenic. I dispute that Obama has a birth certificate from Hawaii. But you’ve got to be a really special grade of nuts to say the Civil War wasn’t about slavery.
nerd alert* the Air France plane was a A380 – they don’t fly 320’s to JFK
I’ve always thought that airplane controllers would probably stay awake more often if they had old-fashioned shaving bunnies …
Seattle isn’t getting a Space Shuttle
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttl…
“At a ceremony held at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced the facilities where four shuttle orbiters will be displayed permanently at the conclusion of the Space Shuttle Program.
Shuttle Enterprise, the first orbiter built, will move from the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia to the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York.
The Udvar-Hazy Center will become the new home for shuttle Discovery, which retired after completing its 39th mission in March. Shuttle Endeavour, which is preparing for its final flight at the end of the month, will go to the California Science Center in Los Angeles.
Atlantis, which will fly the last planned shuttle mission in June, will be displayed at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida”
I rather suspect that should be the Pennsylvania state *game* commission, not *gaming* commission. The gaming commission more likely regulates gambling, not hunting.
@10: And there you have it. Sure, the massive amounts of CO2, a major greenhouse gas, that we’re pumping into the atmosphere aren’t going to have any noticeable effects. Sure, our President doesn’t have a valid birth certificate, even though watchdog agency after watchdog agency has declared his valid, and all alternate certificates from other countries have been shown to be fakes.
But the American Civil War wasn’t about slavery? What are you smoking?
Reading comprehension FAIL. Go back and read it again.
@16: I know you don’t BELIEVE those things, but rather question their inverses. I’m exaggerating to make a point as to how ridiculous the suggestion that the Civil War wasn’t about slavery is. Crawl back under your rock.