With the astounding revelation that Barack Obama has “always supported decriminalizing marijuana” even though he has said otherwise at various times, I have updated the 2008 Presidential Candidates spreadsheet.

I am no longer updating the original (which shows Giuliani and Edwards before they dropped out), but feel free to download this update, which shows 31 important positions of each of the remaining 6 candidates.

In a rare event we seldom see in high profile cases, a known killer has actually plead guilty to the crime.

Wearing shackles, a bullet-proof vest, and an orange jail uniform, Georgia drifter Gary Hilton, 61, has just entered a guilty plea to the murder of UGA graduate Meredith Emerson.

The guilty plea came just three hours after a 23-member grand jury in Dawson County handed down a true bill indictment of murder against Hilton.

During a hearing that got underway just after 1 a.m., District Attorney Lee Darragh read the murder indictment and said Hilton had signed a plea of guilty in exchange for avoiding the death penalty. Investigators told Hilton that he could make such a deal if he were to lead them to Emerson’s body, which he did earlier this month.

It’s too bad deals like this have to be made just to learn the truth about what happened to someone. Hopefully the investigators in the other cases they suspect him in can get convictions there as well so those families can have some closure.

If you follow my food and recipe blog, Bits Of Dust, you’ll know that my wife is putting together a complete 5 week “eating right” meal plan. She’s doing a magnificent job, although I am not allowed to post the actual recipes just yet, I have been sharing some of the photos as I get time.

Well, one of the things we make ourselves now, instead of buying at the store, are tortillas. It’s so much easier to make them ourselves, and they taste 100 times better when they are fresh too.

Tonight, while we were at the store picking up some meat for fajitas, I noticed the following sign.

Exactly what is a ‘hoestyle” tortilla? I’m not sure I want to know. “Hey babe, what’s for dinner?”

“Oh, I don’t know, why don’t we try something hoestyle tonight.” Blech.

I was sitting here tonight listening to some ‘older music’ when I heard a song that took me back. A long way back. As most of you know I spent my earlier years growing up near Las Vegas, and then living in Las Vegas until 1994. When that song came on the radio, I felt as though I was sitting in the Thomas & Mack Center at UNLV listening to it live in concert. That’s the problem when I listen to music from the 1980’s. I always end up flooded with memories I didn’t know I still had.

I haven’t been inside the Thomas & Mack Center since December of 1987 when I attended the National Finals Rodeo. I was never a huge fan of rodeos, but I found myself with a couple of NFR Tickets that I had won from a local radio station. While it wouldn’t have been my first preference at the time, I was very lucky to have won them, and I had a great time at the rodeo. It smelled funny inside the arena, but that was understandable. These four guys sang the National Anthem, I can’t remember their names, but they were damned good, and the competition in the rodeo was very intense to say the least. I have no idea how those rodeo guys do it. I know I never could.

If I got the chance, I would love to attend the National Finals Rodeo one more time, although it was only one day out of my entire life, I have such vivid memories of it, that I would love to be there, even in the nodebleed section, once again.

And then there were 6. In light of the fact that Rudy Giuliani and John Edwards are dropping out of the race, I thought I would eliminate them from the 2008 Presidential Candidate ‘At A Glance’ Chart.

You can still download the original, or you can download this update.

Sherri Shepherd says she has never voted.

On The View this morning, Sherri Shepherd recounted her close call of almost missing the cutoff for registering to vote via absentee ballot for the election in November. (Shepherd resides in New York, but is a California resident.) And apparently this is the first time that Sherri will be voting…ever!

Having turned 18 in 1985, the now-41-year-old has missed out on the past five presidential elections because she “never knew the dates or anything.” She said it was important to vote in this one, though, because otherwise, she wouldn’t have a right to complain on The View about whomever is elected for an entire year. (She probably meant to say “four years.”)

Elected for an entire year? Is she serious? First she thinks the world is flat, then she thinks the president is elected for one year. She must have attended one of those famous government run schools.

Maybe there’s a reason why she hasn’t voted. (cough)

EBay announced yesterday that they are cutting the listing fees and making the shopping experience simpler and safer! Awesome huh?

EBay unveiled changes to its online marketplace Tuesday that the company characterizes as sweeping and historic and that are aimed at boosting sales by making the shopping experience simpler and safer.

The changes, which include lowering some fees and raising merchant standards, were announced at the company’s eCommerce Forum by John Donahoe, who will succeed Meg Whitman as president and CEO in March.

The changes, which will be implemented at different points in the coming weeks and months, come at a time when eBay is struggling to boost growth of transaction volume and revenue amidst increased competition from the likes of Amazon.com, which in recent years has attracted many merchants away from eBay.

Too bad their “fee cuts” are anything but that. What? You don’t believe me?

For the sake of argument, let’s pretend we’re listing and selling an item for $25.00. The fee changes are as follows:

The current listing fee is $1.20. The new listing fee will be $1.00.
The current gallery fee is $0.35. The new gallery fee will be $0.00.
The current final value fee is 5.25%. The new final value fee will be 8.75%.

Sounds nice and puffy doesn’t it? Well, let’s take a closer look.

Before the cuts:

Sale Total: $25.00

Listing fee: $1.20
Gallery fee: $0.35
Final Value fee: $1.31

Net Sale Amount: $22.14 (aka your profit)

After the cuts:

Sale Total: $25.00

Listing fee: $1.00
Gallery fee: $0.00
Final Value fee: $2.19

Net Sale Amount: $21.81 (aka your profit)

$22.14 vs. $21.81. Is sure doesn’t sound like much of a cut in fees to me. If it was up to me, I would much rather make $22.14 from my item than $21.81. Imagine if you are a high volume seller and you have to pay 33 cents more for every item you sell. If you sell 100 items you’ve made $33 less than you used too.

All hail the fee cuts!

Are journalists no longer allowed to ask non-politically correct questions? This “I’m offended at anything you say that I don’t agree with” attitude is beginning to really piss me off. I thought journalists were supposed to ask the hard questions. I guess they just aren’t supposed to ask the ‘insensitive’ ones anymore.

Harry Smith, from CBS’s The Early Show asked Ted Kennedy if he was fearful about Barack Obama being the target of a possible assassination attempt if he is elected president. Sure, it was a bit weird for him to ask the question the way he did, but I think he was told to sugar-coat it as much as he could and not say the ‘A’ word itself. But I think it was a valid question.

SMITH: I just, I think what I was trying to say is, sometimes agents of change end up being targets, as you well know, and that was why I was asking if you were at all fearful of that.

Now people are all in a frenzy because Harry Smith had the audacity to bring up the possibility of assassination. Why? Is that topic taboo just because he was speaking about Barack Obama? Was it uncalled for simply because he was speaking to Ted Kennedy? The possibility of assassination is a reality that any person faces when they choose to run for public office, and like it or not, the Kennedy’s have suffered immeasurably because of it. Who better to ask about such a topic?

Some say he shouldn’t have asked in the first place, and I wonder why. Are people really that dense? It’s time they wise up because you don’t have to be uncaring, insensitive, or even a screwball racist to understand that there are people out there that just might not like seeing Obama sitting in the Oval Office.

[Source: NewsBusters]

Margaret Truman, the only child of former President Harry S. Truman who became a concert singer, actress, radio and TV personality and mystery writer, died Tuesday. She was 83.

Truman, known as Margaret Truman Daniel in private life, died at a Chicago assisted living facility following a brief illness, according to a statement from the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum in Independence. She had been at the facility for the past several weeks and was on a respirator, the library said.

…

She and Daniel had four sons; he died in February 2000. Son William died in September 2000 when he was hit by a taxi; he was 41.

She was honorary co-chair of the Harry S. Truman Library Institute, the nonprofit partner of her father’s presidential library, and a governing board member of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. Health issues had prevented her from visiting the library in recent years, but she remained actively interested in its operations, said Michael Devine, director of the library.

Rest In Peace, Margaret.

The United States government gave Suharto a free ride, right up until the end. I’m afraid this is sounding more and more like every other “we supported the lesser of two evils” story I have heard over the course of the past twenty years.

The United States declassified documents Monday detailing how Washington propped up ex-Indonesian leader Suharto, who died at the weekend, at the expense of democracy and human rights.

The documents, declassified following requests under a freedom of information law, showed the US administration did not use its leverage to bring Suharto to account during his 32-year reign until his last months in office.

“One thing that is clear from the tens of thousands of pages of which we had declassified concerning US ties with Suharto from 1966 to 1998 — at no moment did US presidents ever exercise their maximum leverage over his regime to press for human rights or democratization,” Brad Simpson of the National Security Archive told AFP.

How disgusting. I know, I know, we’ve done it before, and we’ll do it again. I’m just sick and tired of hearing about them all. How many more evil power hungry dictators are there in the world?

We should be ashamed of ourselves. It’s one thing to bring hope and freedom to people around the world, it’s another to stifle it for our own gain.