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Why? Did someone say something they shouldn't have? Did someone get in trouble for what someone said? Is it democrats only? Is it me only? I just would like to know why my content now has to be submitted for approval? I've only been bloging here as long as there has been a blog. I think its safe to say I am a regular. I don't curse, I don't make any bad comments about someone else unless provoked, like sooooo many on here. I've seen people call others idiots on here and they dont have to wait for their stuff to be approved. Or do they? I just wanna know whats up with this. If its for everyone, then its cool, but if its just me then what gives?

(I have spoken to another blogger here who lives in my area and his stuff isn't regulated)

John Adams predicted in a letter to his wife Abigail that Americans would celebrate their Independence Day on July 2. Off by two days - not too bad for government work.

On July 2, 1776, Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, signed only by Charles Thompson (the secretary of Congress) and John Hancock (the presiding officer). Two days later Congress approved the revised version and ordered it to be printed and distributed to the states and military officers. The other signatures would have to wait.

 

Many actually viewed the Declaration of Independence as a yawner - a rehashing of arguments already made against the British government. John Adams would later describe the Declaration as "dress and ornament rather than Body, Soul, or Substance." The exception was the last paragraph that said the united colonies "are and of Right ought to be Free and Independent states" and were "Absolved of all Allegiance to the British Crown."

 

For Adams, it was the momentum towards achieving American independence initiated on July 2 that future generations would consider worth celebrating, not the approval of this document on July 4.

 

Interestingly, the pomp and circumstance that many Americans presume took place on July 4, 1776, actually occurred days to weeks afterwards.

 

The Philadelphia Evening Post published the Declaration's full text in its July 6 newspaper. And the Declaration of Independence was publicly read from the State House in Philadelphia on July 8. Later that day, it was read in Easton, PA, Trenton, NJ, and to the local embryonic militia to provide much-needed inspiration against the formidable British.

 

The shouting and firing of muskets that followed these first public readings represent America's first celebrations of independence.

 

As copies spread, the Declaration of Independence would be read at town meetings and religious services. In response, Americans lit bonfires, fired guns, rang bells, and removed symbols of the British monarchy.

 

The following year, no member of Congress thought about commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence until July 3 - one day too late. So the first organized elaborate celebration of independence occurred the following day: July 4, 1777, in Philadelphia. Ships in the harbor were decked in the nation's colors. Cannons rained 13-gun salutes in honor of each state. And parades and fireworks spiced up the festivities.

 

Fireworks did not become staples of July 4 celebrations until after 1816, when Americans began producing their own pyrotechnics and no longer relied on expensive fireworks from across the pond.

 

Since 1777, the tradition of celebrating America's independence on July 4 has continued.

George Carlin, the frenzied performer whose routine "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television" led to a key Supreme Court ruling on obscenity, has died. Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, went into St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica on Sunday afternoon complaining of chest pain and died later that evening, said his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He had performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas. He was 71.

"He was a genius and I will miss him dearly," Jack Burns, who was the other half of a comedy duo with Carlin in the early 1960s, told The Associated Press.

Carlin's jokes constantly breached the accepted boundaries of comedy and language, particularly with his routine on the "Seven Words" — all of which are taboo on broadcast TV and radio to this day.

When he uttered all seven at a show in Milwaukee in 1972, he was arrested on charges of disturbing the peace, freed on $150 bail and exonerated when a Wisconsin judge dismissed the case, saying it was indecent but citing free speech and the lack of any disturbance.

When the words were later played on a New York radio station, they resulted in a 1978 Supreme Court ruling upholding the government's authority to sanction stations for broadcasting offensive language during hours when children might be listening.

"So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of," he told The Associated Press earlier this year.

Despite his reputation as unapologetically irreverent, Carlin was a television staple through the decades, serving as host of the "Saturday Night Live" debut in 1975 — noting on his Web site that he was "loaded on cocaine all week long" — and appearing some 130 times on "The Tonight Show."

He produced 23 comedy albums, 14 HBO specials, three books, a couple of TV shows and appeared in several movies, from his own comedy specials to "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" in 1989 — a testament to his range from cerebral satire and cultural commentary to downright silliness (and sometimes hitting all points in one stroke).

"Why do they lock gas station bathrooms?" he once mused. "Are they afraid someone will clean them?"

He won four Grammy Awards, each for best spoken comedy album, and was nominated for five Emmy awards. On Tuesday, it was announced that Carlin was being awarded the 11th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, which will be presented Nov. 10 in Washington and broadcast on PBS.

Carlin started his career on the traditional nightclub circuit in a coat and tie, pairing with Burns to spoof TV game shows, news and movies. Perhaps in spite of the outlaw soul, "George was fairly conservative when I met him," said Burns, describing himself as the more left-leaning of the two. It was a degree of separation that would reverse when they came upon Lenny Bruce, the original shock comic, in the early '60s.

"We were working in Chicago, and we went to see Lenny, and we were both blown away," Burns said, recalling the moment as the beginning of the end for their collaboration if not their close friendship. "It was an epiphany for George. The comedy we were doing at the time wasn't exactly groundbreaking, and George knew then that he wanted to go in a different direction."

That direction would make Carlin as much a social commentator and philosopher as comedian, a position he would relish through the years.

"The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things — bad language and whatever — it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition," Carlin told the AP in a 2004 interview. "There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body. ... It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have."

Carlin was born on May 12, 1937, and grew up in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan, raised by a single mother. After dropping out of high school in the ninth grade, he joined the Air Force in 1954. He received three court-martials and numerous disciplinary punishments, according to his official Web site.

While in the Air Force he started working as an off-base disc jockey at a radio station in Shreveport, La., and after receiving a general discharge in 1957, took an announcing job at WEZE in Boston.

"Fired after three months for driving mobile news van to New York to buy pot," his Web site says.

From there he went on to a job on the night shift as a deejay at a radio station in Fort Worth, Texas. Carlin also worked variety of temporary jobs including a carnival organist and a marketing director for a peanut brittle.

In 1960, he left with Burns, a Texas radio buddy, for Hollywood to pursue a nightclub career as comedy team Burns & Carlin. He left with $300, but his first break came just months later when the duo appeared on Jack Paar's "Tonight Show."

Carlin said he hoped to emulate his childhood hero, Danny Kaye, the kindly, rubber-faced comedian who ruled over the decade Carlin grew up in — the 1950s — with a clever but gentle humor reflective of the times.

It didn't work for him, and the pair broke up by 1962.

"I was doing superficial comedy entertaining people who didn't really care: Businessmen, people in nightclubs, conservative people. And I had been doing that for the better part of 10 years when it finally dawned on me that I was in the wrong place doing the wrong things for the wrong people," Carlin reflected recently as he prepared for his 14th HBO special, "It's Bad For Ya."

Eventually Carlin lost the buttoned-up look, favoring the beard, ponytail and all-black attire for which he came to be known.

But even with his decidedly adult-comedy bent, Carlin never lost his childlike sense of mischief, even voicing kid-friendly projects like episodes of the TV show "Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends" and the spacey Volkswagen bus Fillmore in the 2006 Pixar hit "Cars."

Carlin's first wife, Brenda, died in 1997. He is survived by wife Sally Wade; daughter Kelly Carlin McCall; son-in-law Bob McCall; brother Patrick Carlin; and sister-in-law Marlene Carlin

Hill Valley, CA- In the aftermath of a blaze which started at Universal Studios and spread to Hill Valley's historic Courthouse Square, Mayor Goldie Wilson lashed out against President Bush and the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Wednesday.

"Both the President and FEMA have dropped the ball in this situation. How can an entire American town burn down in this day and age?" contended Wilson. "We've already lost the clock tower, the Texaco station, and most of Lyons Estates.   How long will the government wait to intervene?"

"It's been four days without federal assistance," continued Wilson. "Hill Valley as we know it is destroyed. I worked at Lou's Cafe as a young man, and now it's a pile of ashes. We have entire neighborhoods taking up residence in Lone Pine Mall."

President Bush's slow response came under attack from the town's few surviving residents, including Hill Valley High's Principal Strickland: "Bush is a slacker. He reminds me of his father when he was President. He was a slacker, too."

Among the town's disillusioned inhabitants is George McFly, author of the 1985 sci-fi classic, A Match Made in Space . "FEMA's response is disgraceful. I used to believe if you put your mind to it, you could accomplish anything. Now, I'm not so sure."

Local musician Marvin Berry is organizing an all-star benefit for Hill Valley's displaced residents. Expected to make an appearance is his cousin, Chuck.

Developers had planned to renovate Courthouse Square with a Cafe '80s theme restaurant, state-of-the-art Holomax Theatre, and reflection pool. But due to damage caused by the conflagration, the new structures might not be feasible until 2014 or 2015.  

Walking past the charred remains of two local residents, Mayor Wilson could not contain his grief: "To think, 50 years ago, teenagers roamed these streets in poodle skirts and 3-D glasses. It's all gone now."

As the death toll continued to escalate without government assistance, Mayor Wilson reached out to local inventor "Doc" Emmett Brown, who has proposed a mysterious solution requiring cooperation with a Libyan fringe organization.

"At this point, we're desperate," said Mayor Wilson, stressing the need to quickly rebuild the town's infrastructure: "We need simple necessities- water, shelter, and accessible roads."

Emmett Brown added: "Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads."

 

www.funnyordie.com

Most of the time, a kiss is just a kiss in the stands at Seattle Mariners games. The crowd hardly even pays attention when fans smooch. But then last week, a lesbian complained that an usher at Safeco Field asked her to stop kissing her date because it was making another fan uncomfortable.

The incident has exploded on local TV, on talk radio and in the blogosphere and has touched off a debate over public displays of affection in generally gay-friendly Seattle.

"Certain individuals have not yet caught up. Those people see a gay or lesbian couple and they stare or say something," said Josh Friedes of Equal Rights Washington. "This is one of the challenges of being gay. Everyday things can become sources of trauma."

As the Mariners played the Boston Red Sox on May 26, Sirbrina Guerrero and her date were approached in the third inning by an usher who told them their kissing was inappropriate, Guerrero said.

The usher, Guerrero said, told them he had received a complaint from a woman nearby who said that there were kids in the crowd of nearly 36,000 and that parents would have to explain why two women were kissing.

"I was really just shocked," Guerrero said. "Seattle is so gay-friendly. There was a couple like seven rows ahead making out. We were just showing affection."

On Monday, Mariners spokeswoman Rebecca Hale said that the club is investigating but that the usher was responding to a complaint of two women "making out" and "groping" in the stands.

"We have a strict non-discrimination policy at the Seattle Mariners and at Safeco Field, and when we do enforce the code of conduct it is based on behavior, not on the identity of those involved," Hale said.

The code of conduct — announced before each game — specifically mentions public displays of affection that are "not appropriate in a public, family setting." Hale said those standards are based on what a "reasonable person" would find inappropriate.

Guerrero denied she and her date were groping each other, saying that along with eating garlic fries, they were giving each other brief kisses.

On Tuesday, Guerrero said a Mariners director of guest services had apologized to her. The team spokeswoman could not immediately confirm that.

After the story broke, the Mariners were blasted by the sex-advice columnist Dan Savage, who wrote about the incident on the blog of the Stranger, an alternative weekly paper.

"I constantly see people making out," Savage said. "My son has noticed and asked, `Do they show the ballgame on women's foreheads?'"

Savage called for a "kiss-in" to protest against the Mariners.

Web sites have been swamped with blog postings for and against Guerrero and her date. And the story has people talking in Seattle.

"I would be uncomfortable" seeing public displays of affection between lesbians or gay men, said Jim Ridneour, a 54-year-old taxi driver. "I don't think it's right seeing women kissing in public. If I had my family there, I'd have to explain what's going on."

"It all depends on the degree," Mark Ackerman said as he waited for a hot dog outside Safeco Field before Wednesday's game. "Even for heterosexual couples."

Since the incident, Guerrero's job and her past have come under scrutiny. She works at a bar known for scantily clad women and was a contestant on the MTV reality show "A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila," in which women and men compete for the affection of a bisexual Internet celebrity.

"People are saying it's 15 more minutes for my career," Guerrero said of the ballpark furor, "but this is not making me look very good."

In 2007, an Oregon transit agency chief apologized after a lesbian teenager was kicked off a bus when a passenger complained about her kissing another girl.

Also in 2007, a gay rights group protested a Kansas City, Mo., restaurant they said ejected four women because two of them kissed, and a Texas state trooper was placed on probation in 2004 for telling two gay men who were kissing at the state Capitol that homosexual conduct was illegal in Texas.

"There's a double standard. That's the bottom line," said Pat Griffin, director of the It Takes a Team! Education Campaign, an initiative from the Women's Sports Foundation to eliminate homophobia in sports.

___

On the Net:

Seattle Mariners: http://seattle.mariners.mlb.com

I live back in the woods a little bit and to get where I am, you got a few turns you have to make. I was outside today, looking at the rain clouds and hoping for the rain to fall, which it did, when a Volusia County officer pulled up. He rolled his window down and asked me "where is Beal Street?" I knew this street and told the cop where it was. The thing is that it is on the OTHER SIDE OF DELTONA! About a 15 minute drive from my house! If this was something that needed to be answered ASAP, it didn't happen because the Volusia County cops DO NOT know the City of Deltona!!!!! I know this has nothing to do with the Mayor, Dennis Mulder, because he is for it. Its the people under him that are giving him the trouble! Heck, they even want to put a limit on how many cars you can have on your property. I have three, they say thats too much. Each one belongs to a different person in the house. This city is starting to look bad, most of the streets are in bad condition, and everyone on the board, besides the Mayor, are trying to sell their land to companies, real estate, condos, or other buyers for housing developments. There is a new development going in on Doyle road that is not needed, the city library is being closed for one year.....why? To fix it up. last time I was in there it looked great. Why not spend the money on something this city needs. We could use a place over on this side of Volusia county for our High School seniors to graduate. Right now Pine Ridge and Deltona High graduate over in Daytona at the Ocean Centre. I would be happy with our own Police force to start.

BERLIN (Reuters) - The director of a new film that explores the hypothetical question of whether another dictatorship could ever emerge in Germany has come to the chilling conclusion that it could happen again. Dennis Gansel, whose film "Die Welle" (The Wave) opens on Thursday, said the horrors of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich haven't made modern-day Germans more immune to the lure of charismatic leaders or persuasive group dynamics than any other nationality. "It's wrong to say, 'No way -- a Nazi dictatorship could never happen here'," Gansel said in an interview with Reuters ahead of the release of his film, adapted from a U.S. novel by Morton Rhue based on a California high school experiment in 1967. "I think it would be possible even today for something like that to arise in Germany again," a claim that is unsettling for a country which studies its Nazi past intensively in schools and where the burden of guilt still weighs heavy six decades later. Gansel's film has already electrified the German media even before its release. "It's already the most-talked about film of the year," wrote Bild newspaper. Bunte magazine said: "It shows how vulnerable people can be in authoritarian situations." "Die Welle," a 4.6-million euro ($7 million) film, has attracted film buyers abroad. The foreign rights were quickly acquired by distributors in 20 countries after it won critical acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival in January. The film set in a Berlin suburb is about bored, ill-mannered teenagers jolted out of their apathy by a dynamic teacher. Just as in the 1967 experiment by California high school teacher Ron Jones, the students accept a new regime of discipline and obedience -- and ostracize any dissenters. In the film, the German teens eagerly start snapping to attention in the classroom, wearing "uniforms" of white shirts, calling themselves "The Wave" and rallying to help each other. As the powerful, if ominous, group dynamic gains momentum and the number of participants multiplies to include half the student body, a handful of students try in vain to stop it. The original experiment in California was aborted after five days. The students were invited to a rally to see the leader of the movement but were instead shown a film about the Nazis. But Gansel's film, adapted to conform with contemporary mores and modern-day violence at schools, takes a more sinister path with its own tragedy as the movement spins out of control. "I read the book in high school and haven't stopped thinking of it since," said Gansel, 34, whose film also drew praise from Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and a standing-room only audience of 1,400 at a Berlin Film Festival screening. The novel and a made-for-TV movie in 1981 may have long been forgotten in the United States but the book has remained popular in Germany, where it is required reading in many schools. Gansel said group dynamics, though often benign, can be seen everywhere: from soccer fans to anti-globalization protesters at the Group of Eight summit in Heiligendamm last year. "Group dynamics can be benevolent but they can also be menacing," he said. "It's frightening how fast it can change. Just look at what happened in the United States after 9/11."

DAVIE, Fla. - Kim Sjostrom wanted a real-life version of the film "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," which played in the background as friends fixed her hair and makeup before her own marriage ceremony.

But less than an hour after she and Teddy Efkarpides were wed, Sjostrom crumpled in her husband's arms during a Greek song that means "Love Me."

At 36, Sjostrom was dead from heart disease.

The wedding had became a project at Davie Elementary School, where Sjostrom taught first grade. Fellow teachers provided the wedding gown, the flowers and decorations. One of them, an ordained minister, performed the ceremony.

"It was perfect for her," said Dominic Church, the minister friend.

Sjostrom carried blue and white flowers during the ceremony — the colors of the Greek flag — as she exchanged vows with Efkarpides, a 43-year-old carpenter and Navy veteran. They had met three years to the day before the Jan. 19 wedding.

During the couple's first dance, Sjostrom complained of being lightheaded. Efkarpides thought his wife, a diabetic, needed sugar, but she collapsed.

Wedding guests, paramedics and doctors at a nearby hospital were unable to revive her.

She had a previous cardiac episode in her 20s and was a poster child — literally — for juvenile diabetes, relatives and friends said. Efkarpides recalled seeing the poster featuring her on New York subways.

He consoles himself by reading a list of "101 Reasons Why I Love You" that Sjostrom gave him their first Christmas together. "Number 1. You make me smile."

No. 98 is especially difficult: "You're the one I want to grow old with."

A 60-year-old Apopka man died after he crashed while driving a Richard Petty Driving Experience car at the Daytona Beach International Speedway, authorities and family members said today. Robert Boswell was taking part in the Richard Petty Driving Experience, a program where fans pay to get behind the wheel of a NASCAR car, said his son, Greg Boswell. The crash occurred about 5 p.m. Sunday, police said. Robert Boswell was taken to Halifax Health Medical Center where he was declared dead at about 7 p.m. An autopsy report released this afternoon showed he died of a heart attack and not from the crash. Chris McKee, director of media relations for the Richard Petty Driving Experience, said Boswell had completed lap three at 125 mph when he slowed to take Turn 1. He began to drive erratically around turn one, jerking at the wheel, said an instructor who was driving ahead of Boswell. He then slumped over and steered the car into the concrete retaining wall on the inside of Turn 2, McKee said. Speedway officials said this was the first Richard Petty Driving Experience death at Daytona. However, McKee said this is the third death of a driver among all participating tracks. The two earlier deaths were later determined to be the result of medical conditions and not mechanical failure, McKee said.

Bobby Fischer, the reclusive American chess master who became a Cold War icon when he dethroned the Soviet Union's Boris Spassky as world champion in 1972, has died. He was 64.

Fischer died Thursday in a Reykjavik hospital, his spokesman, Gardar Sverrisson, said. There was no immediate word on the cause of death.

Born in Chicago and raised in Brooklyn, Robert James Fischer was a U.S. chess champion at 14 and a grand master at 15. He beat Spassky in a series of games in Reykjavik to claim America's first world chess championship in more than a century.

The event had tremendous symbolic importance, pitting the intensely individualistic young American against a product of the grim and soulless Soviet Union.

It also was marked by Fischer's odd behavior — possibly calculated psychological warfare against Spassky — that ranged from arriving two days late to complaining about the lighting, TV cameras, the spectators, even the shine on the table.

Spassky said in a brief phone call from France, where he lives, that he was "very sorry" to hear of Fischer's death.

Former Russian chess champion Garry Kasparov said Fischer's conquest of the chess world in the 1960s was "a revolutionary breakthrough" for the game.

But Fischer's reputation as a chess genius soon was eclipsed by his idiosyncrasies. He lost his world title in 1975 after refusing to defend it against Anatoly Karpov. He dropped out of competitive chess and largely out of view, emerging occasionally to make erratic and often anti-Semitic comments, although his mother was Jewish.

"The tragedy is that he left this world too early, and his extravagant life and scandalous statements did not contribute to the popularity of chess," Kasparov told The Associated Press.

Fischer lived in secret outside the United States but emerged in 1992 to confront Spassky again, in a highly publicized match in Yugoslavia. Fischer beat Spassky 10-5 to win $3.35 million.

The U.S. government said Fischer's playing the match violated U.N. sanctions against Yugoslavia, imposed for Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic's role in fomenting war in the Balkans.

Over the years, Fischer gave occasional interviews with a radio station in the Philippines, often digressing into anti-Semitic rants and accusing American officials of hounding him.

He praised the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, saying America should be "wiped out," and described Jews as "thieving, lying bastards." His mother was Jewish.

He also announced he had abandoned chess in 1996 and launched a new version in Argentina, "Fischerandom," a computerized shuffler that randomly distributes chess pieces on the back row of the board at the start of each game.

Fischer claimed it would bring the fun back into the game and rid it of cheats.

In July 2004, Fischer was arrested in Japan and threatened with extradition to the United States to face sanctions-busting charges. He spent nine months in custody before the dispute was resolved when Iceland — a chess-mad nation and site of his greatest triumph — granted him citizenship.

Fischer told reporters that he was finished with a chess world he regarded as corrupt, and sparred with U.S. journalists who asked about his anti-American tirades.

"The United States is evil. There's this axis of evil. What about the allies of evil — the United States, England, Japan, Australia? These are the evildoers," Fischer said.

In his final years, Fischer railed against the chess establishment, alleging that the outcomes of many top-level chess matches were decided in advance.

Instead, he championed his concept of random chess.

"I don't play the old chess," he told reporters upon arrival in Iceland. "But obviously if I did, I would be the best."

 

I almost forgot how crazy his statements were. I figured that this was news to people that remember what he did for America back in the mid 60's.

I was asked today at work, what are some of the rules for when flying an American flag. I didn't know everything, so I figured I'd share it here for everyone that has ever had the same question. There are many rules. If you have any more questions, go to http://www.ushistory.org/betsy

How to Display the Flag http://www.ushistory.org/betsy

1. When the flag is displayed over the middle of the street, it should be suspended vertically with the union to the north in an east and west street or to the east in a north and south street.

2. The flag of the United States of America, when it is displayed with another flag against a wall from crossed staffs, should be on the right, the flag's own right [that means the viewer's left --Webmaster], and its staff should be in front of the staff of the other flag.

3. The flag, when flown at half-staff, should be first hoisted to the peak for an instant and then lowered to the half-staff position. The flag should be again raised to the peak before it is lowered for the day. By "half-staff" is meant lowering the flag to one-half the distance between the top and bottom of the staff. Crepe streamers may be affixed to spear heads or flagstaffs in a parade only by order of the President of the United States.

4. When flags of States, cities, or localities, or pennants of societies are flown on the same halyard with the flag of the United States, the latter should always be at the peak. When the flags are flown from adjacent staffs, the flag of the United States should be hoisted first and lowered last. No such flag or pennant may be placed above the flag of the United States or to the right of the flag of the United States (the viewer's left). When the flag is half-masted, both flags are half-masted, with the US flag at the mid-point and the other flag below.

5. When the flag is suspended over a sidewalk from a rope extending from a house to a pole at the edge of the sidewalk, the flag should be hoisted out, union first, from the building.

6. When the flag of the United States is displayed from a staff projecting horizontally or at an angle from the window sill, balcony, or front of a building, the union of the flag should be placed at the peak of the staff unless the flag is at half-staff.

7. When the flag is used to cover a casket, it should be so placed that the union is at the head and over the left shoulder. The flag should not be lowered into the grave or allowed to touch the ground.

8. When the flag is displayed in a manner other than by being flown from a staff, it should be displayed flat, whether indoors or out. When displayed either horizontally or vertically against a wall, the union should be uppermost and to the flag's own right, that is, to the observer's left. When displayed in a window it should be displayed in the same way, that is with the union or blue field to the left of the observer in the street. When festoons, rosettes or drapings are desired, bunting of blue, white and red should be used, but never the flag.

9. That the flag, when carried in a procession with another flag, or flags, should be either on the marching right; that is, the flag's own right, or, if there is a line of other flags, in front of the center of that line.

10. The flag of the United States of America should be at the center and at the highest point of the group when a number of flags of States or localities or pennants of societies are grouped and displayed from staffs.

11. When flags of two or more nations are displayed, they are to be flown from separate staffs of the same height. The flags should be of approximately equal size. International usage forbids the display of the flag of one nation above that of another nation in time of peace.

12. When displayed from a staff in a church or public auditorium on or off a podium, the flag of the United States of America should hold the position of superior prominence, in advance of the audience, and in the position of honor at the clergyman's or speaker's right as he faces the audience. Any other flag so displayed should be placed on the left of the clergyman or speaker (to the right of the audience).

13. When the flag is displayed on a car, the staff shall be fixed firmly to the chassis or clamped to the right fender.

14. When hung in a window where it is viewed from the street, place the union at the head and over the left shoulder.

PLAINFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. - Steve Flaig wasn't sure how to approach his co-worker with his big news. It would seem brash to walk up and say, "Hi, I'm Steve, your son." How would she react to that, he wondered.

Flaig's long search for his birth mother ended in early October when he learned that she was the woman he previously knew only as Chris, the head cashier at a Lowe's home-improvement store just outside Grand Rapids, in Kent County's Plainfield Township.

"I would walk by her, look at her from a distance, not knowing how to approach her," Flaig, 22, told The Grand Rapids Press for a story published Wednesday. "You don't come stocked with information on how to deal with this."

When Lowe's Cos. hired Christine Tallady to work at the store last April, she had no idea that the young delivery driver to whom she was introduced was her son.

She gave birth to him on Oct. 5, 1985, while she was single and not ready to be a mother. It was a difficult decision for her to give him up for adoption.

Tallady left the adoption record open, figuring that her son might someday want to contact her. She often thought of him, particularly on his birthday, but life went on. She got married and had two more children.

Flaig, meanwhile, always knew that he was adopted. His parents, Pat and Lois Flaig, supported him when he decided to search for his birth mother. They had done the same with their younger son, Scott, who found his birth mother almost a year ago.

When Steve Flaig turned 18 four years ago, he asked DA Blodgett for Children, the agency that arranged his adoption, for his background information.

It arrived a couple of months later and included his birth mother's name. He searched the Internet for her address but came up empty.

In October, around his 22nd birthday, Flaig took out the paperwork from DA Blodgett and realized he had been spelling his birth mother's surname wrong as "Talladay."

He typed "Tallady" into a search engine and came up with a home address that was less than a mile from the Lowe's store and just around the corner from where his adoptive parents raised him.

When he mentioned it to his boss, she said, "You mean Chris Tallady, who works here?"

Flaig was stunned: "I was like, there's no possible way."

On Dec. 12, on his day off, Flaig happened to be driving past DA Blodgett's offices, so he stopped in and told them of his find. An employee there volunteered to call Tallady for him.

Tallady, now 45, was surprised to get the call at Lowe's and astonished to learn that the son she had given up for adoption 22 years earlier was a co-worker.

"It was a shock," she said. "I started crying. I figured he would call me sometime, but not like this."

Flaig said he is eager to meet her other two children, 12-year-old Alexandria and 10-year-old Brandon, his half-siblings.

"I have a complete family now, all my kids," Tallady said. "It's a perfect time of year. It's the best Christmas present ever."

The honeymoons are over for a 26-year-old woman who authorities say has at least 10 husbands. Eunice Lopez has been charged with bigamy, accused of marrying 10 men between 2002 and 2006 without divorcing any of them, federal immigration authorities say. The Miami Herald reported Saturday that a records search by the newspaper found seven additional marriages under the bride's name and birth date. Lopez arrived in South Florida from Cuba in 2002 and was a legal U.S. resident. "I can tell you that none of the individuals she married had any type of residency," said Terry Chavez, a spokesman for the Miami-Dade office of the state attorney. Prosecutors say she charged her husbands an unspecified amount to help them secure immigration status and continued asking the men for money long after the wedding, threatening to expose them if they didn't pay. Chavez said the state attorney's office began investigating after being tipped off by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Lopez was released on $18,000 bond. Her last known address was in Hialeah, just north of Miami. A telephone listing for her could not be located, and it was not known whether she had an attorney.

 

 

LOS ANGELES - New observations from NASA's long-running Voyager 2 spacecraft show the solar system is asymmetrical, likely from disturbances in the interstellar magnetic field, scientists reported Monday. The discovery came after the 30-year-old unmanned probe sailed near the edge of the solar system this past summer following its twin, Voyager 1, which reached that part of space in 2004.

Researchers have long suspected the solar system was bent, but never had direct evidence until now, said Voyager mission scientist Edward Stone of the California Institute of Technology.

Voyager 2 crossed a barrier in the solar system known as the termination shock in August, some 10 billion miles from the site where Voyager 1 passed through. The termination shock is the region where charged particles from the sun collide with other particles and a magnetic field in interstellar gas and abruptly slow down.

Voyager 2 passed the termination shock five times and determined the boundary in the southern hemisphere was about a billion miles closer to the sun than the spot where Voyager 1 crossed in the northern hemisphere, Stone said at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

Scientists believe the unevenness is caused by the interstellar magnetic field that is pitched at an angle to the plane of the Milky Way.

"The magnetic field is disturbing an otherwise spherical surface," Stone said.

Although Voyager 2 was the second probe to zip past the termination shock, scientists were nonetheless excited about the milestone. Unlike its twin, Voyager 2 had a working instrument that made the first direct measurements of the speed and temperature of the solar wind.

The nuclear-powered Voyager spacecraft, launched in 1977, are hurtling toward an uncharted region of space where the sun's influence wanes.

Voyager 1, the most distant of any manmade object, is traveling at 10 miles a second with its twin trailing close behind.

It will take about a decade before the probes reach the heliopause, marking the beginning of interstellar space and the end of our solar system.

 

 

I think this very interesting. Anyone agree? I love learning how out world was formed and ehat formed it and ehat formed that and what formed that. I love reading about that stuff. I wanna know what created it all. I figure its just as simple as a few atoms hit and BOOM!

LOS ANGELES - New observations from NASA's long-running Voyager 2 spacecraft show the solar system is asymmetrical, likely from disturbances in the interstellar magnetic field, scientists reported Monday. The discovery came after the 30-year-old unmanned probe sailed near the edge of the solar system this past summer following its twin, Voyager 1, which reached that part of space in 2004.

Researchers have long suspected the solar system was bent, but never had direct evidence until now, said Voyager mission scientist Edward Stone of the California Institute of Technology.

Voyager 2 crossed a barrier in the solar system known as the termination shock in August, some 10 billion miles from the site where Voyager 1 passed through. The termination shock is the region where charged particles from the sun collide with other particles and a magnetic field in interstellar gas and abruptly slow down.

Voyager 2 passed the termination shock five times and determined the boundary in the southern hemisphere was about a billion miles closer to the sun than the spot where Voyager 1 crossed in the northern hemisphere, Stone said at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

Scientists believe the unevenness is caused by the interstellar magnetic field that is pitched at an angle to the plane of the Milky Way.

"The magnetic field is disturbing an otherwise spherical surface," Stone said.

Although Voyager 2 was the second probe to zip past the termination shock, scientists were nonetheless excited about the milestone. Unlike its twin, Voyager 2 had a working instrument that made the first direct measurements of the speed and temperature of the solar wind.

The nuclear-powered Voyager spacecraft, launched in 1977, are hurtling toward an uncharted region of space where the sun's influence wanes.

Voyager 1, the most distant of any manmade object, is traveling at 10 miles a second with its twin trailing close behind.

It will take about a decade before the probes reach the heliopause, marking the beginning of interstellar space and the end of our solar system.

 

 

I think this very interesting. Anyone agree? I love learning how out world was formed and ehat formed it and ehat formed that and what formed that. I love reading about that stuff. I wanna know what created it all. I figure its just as simple as a few atoms hit and BOOM!