State of the Union 2011
It’s be
en nearly a year since Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. told an audience that he was “very troubled” by the “setting, circumstance and decorum” of the
State of the Union speech where justices are forced to sit expressionless while Congress, “literally surrounds them” at times cheering and hollering.
Roberts was reacting to President Obama’s last State of the Union address where the President criticized Citizen’s United, the Supreme Court decision that invalidated decades-old federal legislation restricting corporate expenditures for electoral advocacy.
Six of the nine justices of the Supreme Court were sitting in the audience, and the cameras captured Justice Samuel Alito, shaking his head in disagreement when Obama said, “With all due deference to the separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates.”
Democratic senators sitting close to the justices stood up and cheered the president’s words.
The justices rarely applaud the event, fearful that it might send the message that they are taking sides on an issue which might come before them.
Several weeks later Roberts commented on the experience and said, “to the extent the State of the Union has degenerated into a political pep rally, I’m not sure why we are there.”
This year’s State of the Union might be a very different atmosphere because several members of Congress have stated their intention to sit next to a member of the opposing party in order to send a message of comity to the American public.
A press spokeswoman for the Court said that Justice Samuel Alito will miss this year’s speech due to a commitment in Hawaii but she had no information on the plans of the other justices. It will be Justice Elena Kagan’s first State of the Union.
[Jan. 17 -- Editorial]
National Geographic is justly famed for its professional photojournalism, but the photos that readers themselves shoot and submit are nothing to sniff at, either. Every weekday, the magazine's editors choose their Daily Dozen favorites, and those that are rated highest by online visitors are made available for download in National Geographic's Weekly Wrapper as computer wallpaper. The "vapor cone" shown here was shot at the Miramar air show in San Diego by Steve Skinner.
rupaul s drag race season 3 -Rethink the challenges/performance format. I am still flummoxed that the winner got all the way to the final 10 minutes of the show before having to actually show us how well she can perform. galih18.blogspot.com/2011/01/rupaul-s-drag-race-season-3.html
2 and may be an early victim of the Green River Killer. Authorities have long believed that Rebecca (Becky) Marrero may have been another victim of serial killer Gary Ridgway. Ridgway pleaded guilty to the murder of 48 women, but Marrero was not one of those victims. 
The child’s body was face downward, covered with leaves and insects. It was little more than a skeleton, the outline of a form in a dark, murky heap of rotting vegetation. The left leg was missing from the knee down, as were the left hand and right arm. Most of its organs were gone, scavenged by the animal life dwelling in the wooded area. It had decomposed so completely that it was not possible at first to determine whether it was a boy or a girl. The cause of death was a massive fracture of the skull. The body had been left to the elements for two to three months. Less than twenty-four hours later, and an hour after it had been identified as Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr. by its nurse and father, the remains were cremated. Seventy-three dramatic days of waiting had come to an end.
My wife and I were hiking with some friends recently, and as often happens now with people our age, we started talking about retirement — more specifically, about whether we'd have enough retirement income to make ends meet. Our friend, Bill, commented that he had two small pensions from prior employers for whom he had worked more than ten years ago, but that he hadn't stayed in touch with them. He wondered if it was worth his time to track them down. Here's how our conversation went after that.
The foreclosure action by lender GE Commercial Finance Business Property Corp. claims that OCC missed mortgage payments of approximately $96,400 and $14,000 due on July 1 on 2 loans of $11 million and of $1.5 million used to build the Newburgh, NY headquarters. The Orange County (Industrial Development Agency (IDA) is also named as a defendant in the action, since it owns the property under a payment-in-lieu-of taxes arrangement with Orange County Choppers.
