Friday TOON Roundup 1 - 2 more years! 2 More Years!

'Drivin drunk' Facebook post gets Astoria teen booked into jail

By Lori Tobias, The Oregonian
on January 03, 2013

Some things just aren't meant to be shared – not even on Facebook and especially not when you have 655 – ahem –"friends."

That's the New Year's lesson for Jacob Cox-Brown, 18, who wound up in Clatsop County Jail after posting a message on Facebook, complete with emoticons, admitting he'd been driving drunk and apologizing for hitting someone's car.

Astoria police were already investigating a hit and run on Fifth Street involving a Scion that received significant damage after being sideswiped, police said. A second car was also damaged.

That call came in at about 1 a.m. New Year's day.

Later that day, an Astoria officer got a phone call from someone who wanted to share Cox-Brown's message, which read: "Drivin drunk ... classic but to whoever's vehicle i hit i am sorry. "

more

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2013/01/drivin_drunk_facebook_post_get.html

Orly Taitz's Obama 'birther' claims rejected in court – again

By Sam Stanton
[email protected]
Published: Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013 - 5:39 pm
Last Modified: Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013 - 10:49 pm

Nothing succeeds like persistence – unless you're Orly Taitz.

The 52-year-old lawyer-dentist-real estate agent from Laguna Niguel brought her years-long battle to oust Barack Obama from the presidency to a federal courtroom Thursday in Sacramento.

Her appearance was part of a last-minute bid to stop the counting of electoral college votes in Washington, D.C., that will pave the way for the president's second inauguration Jan. 21.

She failed. Again.

But the hearing before U.S. District Judge Morrison C. England Jr. was hardly routine.


Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/01/03/5091099/orly-taitzs-obama-birther-claims.html

Absurd, delusional RW cartoon for the day

Year in Photographs 2012 by Pete Souza (White House Photographer)

Thursday TOON Roundup 3- The Rest

Syria






Guns







Jobs

Thursday TOON Roundup 2 -Repubs and Sandy

Thursday TOON Roundup 1 -Budget

Ask Amy: Conservative husband mocks, criticizes liberal wife

By Amy Dickinson, Published: December 31

DEAR AMY: I would like your advice on how to handle a growing problem in my marriage. My husband has become increasingly conservative politically. He has moved away from formerly moderate views and is now very right wing.

A recent poll he took ranked him in the most conservative 9 percent of people in the country. I have been a lifelong Democrat and continue to support liberal viewpoints. This has resulted in some heated arguments between us.


My husband claims that if I don’t agree with him it’s because I’m not listening. He refuses to acknowledge any validity to my opinions. He criticizes and mocks any Democratic politician or supporter. In the heat of an argument, he has said that if I can’t agree with him, we should just get divorced.

I even voted for Mitt Romney in November to avoid a fight, not because I supported him for president. How can I resolve this? Can Democrats and Republicans have a happy relationship? -- Democrat in Hiding


more

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/ask-amy-conservative-husband-mocks-criticizes-liberal-wife/2012/12/21/57096596-4af7-11e2-a6a6-aabac85e8036_singlePage.html

Bacterial traces from 3.5 billion years ago are ‘oldest fossils,’ experts say

By Devin Powell, Published: December 31

Scientists analyzing Australian rocks have discovered traces of bacteria that lived a record-breaking 3.49 billion years ago, a mere billion years after Earth formed.

If the find withstands the scrutiny that inevitably faces claims of fossils this old, it could move scientists one step closer to understanding the first chapters of life on Earth. The discovery could also spur the search for ancient life on other planets.


These traces of bacteria “are the oldest fossils ever described. Those are our oldest ancestors,” said Nora Noffke, a biogeochemist at Old Dominion University in Norfolk who was part of the group that made the find and presented it last month at a meeting of the Geological Society of America.

Unlike dinosaur bones, the newly identified fossils are not petrified body parts. They’re textures on the surfaces of sandstone thought to be sculpted by once-living organisms. Today, similar patterns decorate parts of Tunisia’s coast, created by thick mats of bacteria that trap and glue together sand particles. Sand that is stuck to the land beneath the mats and thus protected from erosion can over time turn into rock that can long outlast the living organisms above it.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/bacterial-traces-from-35-billion-years-ago-are-oldest-fossils-experts-say/2012/12/27/9261e02c-4acb-11e2-9a42-d1ce6d0ed278_story.html