House-Sized Boulder: Blocks Highway 2, then is exploded; the highway reopens this afternoon.

40 Snakes and an Alligator: Removed from Vancouver, WA home.

“Mix of Priorities and Personality”: Former Mayor Greg Nickels’s green agenda just “wasn’t enough.”

Ugh: Focus on the Family founder Dr. James Dobson and his son get a radio show.

President Obama: Backs Democrat Martha Coakley in heated Massachusetts US Senate race.

In Health Care: Safeway policies influencing health care bill, sort of.

PHOTOSHOP: Spanish lawmaker shocked to find that the FBI used his photo to help construct image of what Osama Bin Laden might look like today.

Scary: Journalist found killed in Tijuana, soldiers deployed to fight drug cartels. 59 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2000.

Whoops: Some banks are blocking online donations to the Haiti relief effort over fraud concerns.

German Government: Issues official warning against using Internet Explorer.

In Iraq: Ali Hassan al-Majid, a former Iraqi official, has been given his fourth death sentence.

In Pakistan: US drone attack kills 15.

I Will Never Get Sick of Cats: Look at this cat beat up a pit bull while riding a Roomba!

More in NEWS

Local (and not-so-local) news from your favorite writers.

Suite Deal

The longest hotel strike in Washington state history is over now that workers at the downtown Embassy Suites have a contract.

41 replies on “The Morning News: Haiti, Pakistan, House-Sized Boulders”

  1. “Even in Massachusetts, a solidly Democratic state represented by the proudly liberal Kennedy for 47 years, Brown has been riding a wave of populist anger over Obama’s proposed health care reform plan, taxes, and government spending. A mere blip in the polls until recently, Brown has captivated independents by his promise to slow the Obama agenda in Washington.”

    Democrats/Obama took an issue with wide public support (health care) and have totally screwed it up.
    When we tried to tell you Obama was inexperienced THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WE MEANT.

    Obama=Carter=Malaise

  2. “His agenda potentially imperiled by the outcome of a close Senate race, President Barack Obama was set to lend his “prestige” to Democrat Martha Coakley, whose effort to succeed the late Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy has gone from shoo-in to nail-biter.”

    sorry, Maggie-
    you’re TOAST now….

    “Obama’s track record for helping other Democrats hasn’t been stellar. He campaigned hard for New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine who ran for re-election last year and in Virginia for Creigh Deeds, the Democratic nominee to replace outgoing Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine. BOTH LOST.”

    Obama doesn’t have coat tails.
    He wears a thong.

  5. “The German warning comes after Microsoft admitted IE was the weak link in recent attacks on Google’s systems.”

    Gawd.
    Is there no end to the misery that Microsoft will inflict on Civilization?

    The tumor cut from Steve Jobs’ cancerous pancreas has more creativity than everyone at MicroSoft combined…

  6. @4, we’ve always been at war with Asia….

    @5, well Microsoft isn’t known for creativity; I mean I’ve slept with a couple of guys who work in Redmond and let’s just say they both were the worse pieces of ass I’ve ever encountered. So the fact their software sucks shouldn’t come as any suprise.

  7. 2
    “The president was also rebuffed after making a high profile pitch for his home city of Chicago to host the 2016 Olympics. After traveling to Copenhagen last fall to personally make the city’s case, the International Olympic Committee eliminated Chicago on the first ballot.”

    It’s called the “Reverse Midas Touch”…

    “Brown tells voters he looks forward to becoming “the 41st vote” to block the president’s initiatives.”

  9. The article on Nickels in the Times says Seattle is “America’s greenest city” — bad reporting, Fairway Fanny!
    From the worldchanging site we’re not number one at all. They link a study of per capita carbon foot print in metric tons, for metro areas, from residential and transportation uses, using 2005 data, and we’re behind tens of millions of other Americans in our carbon footprint/capita:
    1. Honolulu, HI, 1.356
    2. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA, 1.413
    3. Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, OR-WA , 1.446
    4. New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA, 1.495
    5. Boise City-Nampa, ID, 1.507
    6. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA , 1.556
    7. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA , 1.573
    8. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA , 1.585
    9. El Paso, TX , 1.613
    10. San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA , 1.630
    Maybe we should start with milestones like besting Portland, Oregon — or Boise Idaho (!) — before declaring we’re no. 1.
    That is, if we want to actually be greenest, rather than just think we are….

  14. i think #11 is right, someplace outside of Mexico City when i read the paper this morning.
    i thought it would be the genesis for a great made-for-e-reader pulp fiction story. Paul Constant could play the journalist, no worries, because he would just have to pretend to be the journalist, and i think that’s his preferred type of method acting. The slim details of the murder are juicy.

  15. “no one at Apple had Gates’ business savy “

    I don’t know about that, the Apple stock I bought in 1991 let’s me sit around and post on Slog everyday.

  17. troll @ 1,2 – worry about your own incompetent party. you may be able to get the senate to 59:41 but what the fuck else you got – stupid ideas and infidelity.

  21. “This is a vulnerability that was announced in the last couple of days. Microsoft have no patch yet and the implication is that this is the same one that exploited on the attacks on Google earlier this week,” he said. . . . Microsoft traditionally release a security update once a month – the next scheduled patch is the 9th of February.

    I’ve always thought that an excellent representative or symbol for Microsoft would be J.P. Patches.

    It’s interesting how the British will write and say “Microsoft have” and “Microsoft traditionally release” instead of our “has” and “releases.” It’s as if we view a company or organization as an singular entity whereas they view it as a collection of individuals (i.e. “[The people of] Microsoft traditionally release”)

  24. The thought just dawned on me that a pithy representative or symbol for Roma would be a clown. Not the loving person Roma, but the city Roma, the urban entity, the collection of cats. That would be my pick. And ‘here then there’ I tend to hanging around with dogs. Funnily enough, the dogs i know have absolutely no interest in video. I’m jealous, anthropomorphically.

  26. 24: but the city Roma, the urban entity, the collection of cats

    I take it you’ve been there? Before my first visit, I had no idea it was famous for cats. I especially loved all the cats at the Largo di Torre Argentina. When I was there on my second visit, I noticed an adorable girl about six years old. She had on a orange and fuchsia outfit and was petting a black cat. It was very striking so I asked her father’s permission to take a photo and he graciously granted it.

  28. @26. thanks for the story. go ahead and call me a perv, but most, if not all, six year old girls are adorable, even dead ones after an earthquake, or are they not to be adored.

    i don’t remember much from the 3 days i spent near Rome. the sistine chapel was strangely small (books and internet photos sometimes skew my perception), the roman ruin guidemaps had neat overlay transparencies, and i think we walked by a wall? that ‘surrounds’ the city? didn’t quite understand it then, nor followed up on it, but it was part of a wall we saw, made of rock.

    all this cat stuff has started me purring for some t.s. eliot. nice chatting. see ya tomorrow or the next day

  29. Great to see oil rich Nigeria stepping up to the plate in Haiti:

    Nigeria – The 121-strong police contingent serving with the UN mission in Haiti is working with rescue teams in the capital, Port-au-Prince, according to This Day newspaper. The country’s Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan said in a statement: “As the international community mobilizes in aid of Haiti, it can count on Nigeria’s support.”

    http://www.irinnews.org
    /Report.aspx
    ?ReportId=87761

  30. SAUDI ARABIA: Unlike Qatar, Iran and Jordan, kingdom fails to cough up Haiti cash

    “Oil-rich Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s wealthiest countries. But though it’s generous when it comes to building Islamic religious schools and mosques throughout the world, Saudi Arabia has been rather miserly when it comes to the suffering of the people of Haiti, which was struck by a cataclysmic earthquake that destroyed its capital and killed tens of thousands. “

    http://latimesblogs.latimes.com
    /babylonbeyond/2010/01
    /saudi-arabia-unlike-qatar-iran
    -and-jordan-kingdom-fails-to
    -cough-up-haiti-cash.html

  31. Fiiivvvvveee mmeeeeeelllllyon dollars!

    Asian and Latin American countries commit to help Haiti

    “Taiana said the group wanted to extend a “feeling of solidarity” to the Haitian people.

    His comments came after Japan announced it would provide up to five (m) million US dollars in aid, along with 330-thousand US dollars worth of tents and blankets.”

    http://www.necn.com/Boston
    /World/2010/01/17
    /Asian-and-Latin-American
    /1263734489.html

  32. Cato @ 6:

    “I mean I’ve slept with a couple of guys who work in Redmond and let’s just say they both were the worse pieces of ass I’ve ever encountered. So the fact their software sucks shouldn’t come as any suprise.”

    That’s definitely one of the better explanations of Microsoft’s lack of quality control…

  33. Oh, okay, so THAT is how Safeway can afford their employees’ health plans? That and their damn high prices? Target and Trader Joe’s are better deals by far.

    Oh yeah, addressing the point of the story: Their idea would be the exact opposite as well as the undoing of the intent of the health care bill in the first place. AHA and ACS have it right . . .

  35. @34 ads sicken me when going to the movie theater, even more than brutality contained in some films. Tarantino was on radio this year talking about how he wanted Brad Pitt and his men to humiliate the Nazis as much as possible. Like apaches they scalped and left the dead for future comrades to see. They took their boots, taunted etc, Tarantino went on, emphasizing the need to really disgrace their enemy.

    I hope someone can point out how I’m foolish to believe that the Basterds on film strike a resemblance to real-life people at Abu Ghraib doing a Lynndie

    http://www.romanguide.com/ancientrome/an…
    Roma, here’s the link for Rome’s walls, you have my permission to take a picture of the webpage. These links aren’t barely visible to me.

  37. @19
    (and, duh- 20…)

    What kind of useless freak trolls the troll who trolls the morning news? Way to begin your day, freak.

  38. @19
    (and, duh- 20…)

    What kind of useless freak trolls the troll who trolls the morning news? Way to begin your day, freak.
    .

  39. @15 (and 16)

    Apple has definitly been a good stock for a lot of folks, and is on and has been on a mega roll.

    I was thinking of way back to when Gates snagged the contract from IBM to write the operating system for the first PCs, and wonder how much different the world would have been if that had been someone from Apple, and if the Apple OS had become the universal used by business etc from the beginning.

    if only…

  40. Sorry Haiti, your lack of planning is not our emergency. If your government hadn’t completely mismanaged your resources then this shitstorm wouldn’t be half the crisis that it is now. Your country is ruined now and the only people you have to blame are yourselves.

  41. Sorry New Orleans, your lack of planning is not our emergency. If your government hadn’t completely mismanaged your resources then this shitstorm wouldn’t be half the crisis that it is now. Your city is ruined now and the only people you have to blame are yourselves.

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