Bulletin: A Mexican drug cartel has put a $1 million bounty on the head of Arizona's Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio -- an hombre tough on illegal immigrants in the Phoenix area. Repeat: a Mexican drug cartel, not the U.S. Justice Department. The latter lately has been busy litigiously hazing Arizona.
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And speaking of Arizona, here is one of its U.S. Senators, Republican John Kyl -- the Senate Minority Whip -- on Democratic legislative efforts to impede off-shore oil drilling in the wake of the undersea gusher in the Gulf of Mexico: Drill in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. "You're not in 5,000 feet of water," notes Sen. Kyl. "You've got a pipeline nearby, and you've got experience drilling in that area just a few miles away."
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Carbon-dating has judged the linen Shroud of Turin to be a 13th century creation requiring seven centuries and modern photography not only to discover but to label a fake. In May, saying the shroud bears the image "written in blood" of a crucified man, Pope Benedict XVI effectively declared the relic the burial shroud of Jesus. Despite the comfort fragmentary carbon-dating has given doubters -- prudence, faith, and common sense align with the Pope.
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Finally, yes, of course: (1) Mega-rich Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, who says he supports making the rich pay more in federal taxes, has chosen to moor his $7 million yacht Isabel not in Hyannis, Boston, or some other Bay State port, but in neighboring Rhode Island to save himself half-a-million in sales and excise taxes.
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(2) The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has looked into claims that Toyotas suddenly and unintentionally accelerate out of control (causing the company to recall 8.5 million of its vehicles). Early NHTSA findings from a dozen analyzed Toyotas: driver error. On-board data recorders suggest accelerators were open and the brakes were not being used.
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And (3) longtime Obama family cook -- 29-year-old Sam Kass -- has won a promotion from assistant chef and "food initiative coordinator" for the White House residence to "senior policy adviser for healthy food initiatives." The New York Times helpfully describes Kass as a "bald, intense young man" who is "part chef and part policy wonk." So why doesn't Obama just dub him "food czar"?