It Appears As Though A Good Portion Of Delaware, Northeastern Maryland, Southeastern Pennsylvania And New Jersey Might Receive At Least 6 Inches Of Snow From Late Sunday Into Monday.

Sales of “Atlas Shrugged” Soar in the Face of Economic Crisis

Washington, D.C., February 23, 2009--Sales of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” have almost tripled over the first seven weeks of this year compared with sales for the same period in 2008. This continues a strong trend after bookstore sales reached an all-time annual high in 2008 of about 200,000 copies sold.

“Americans are flocking to buy and read ‘Atlas Shrugged’ because there are uncanny similarities between the plot-line of the book and the events of our day” said Yaron Brook, Executive Director at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “Americans are rightfully concerned about the economic crisis and government’s increasing intervention and attempts to control the economy. Ayn Rand understood and identified the deeper causes of the crisis we’re facing, and she offered, in ‘Atlas Shrugged,’ a principled and practical solution consistent with American values."

In related news:

Class warfare returns to Washington

President Barack Obama has spent months recasting Democratic goals on climate change and health care reform from liberal-leaning moral imperatives to hard-core economic necessities.

But when it comes to paying for them, Obama’s creative juices seemed to run dry as he turned Thursday to his party’s most predictable revenue enhancer: taxing the wealthy.

In the course of a generally frank and direct speech, one might expect the president to explain honestly why American education is lagging. It doesn’t need “more investments,” it needs more efficiency and greater productivity — like our health-care system. It’s no accident that our schools aren’t producing enough well-educated graduates; that’s because the system has been designed to place the needs of adults over the needs of kids. But saying any of that would put him at odds with the education establishment, which he doesn’t appear to want to cross. More

Before Dr. Martin D. Handler, Brandywine Heights superintendent, came to Berks, he oversaw the merger of three school districts in Sullivan County, N.Y., in 1999. He said some people there still lament the loss of their school mascots.

"If you do one of these mergers, it's not a walk in the park," Handler said.

"The school district and the school buildings are often the center of the community, and you lose a little of that when you go to massive configurations," he added.

The referees had no choice. But opposing coach Rohlman did.

"I gathered my kids and said, 'Who wants to take these free throws?'" Rohlman said, recounting the game to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "Darius McNeal put up his hand. I said, 'You realize you're going to miss, right?' He nodded his head."

McNeal, a senior point guard, went to the line. The Milwaukee Madison players stayed by their bench, waiting for the free throws. Instead of seeing the ball go through the net, they saw the ball on the court, rolling over the end line.

Said Rohlman: "Darius set up for a regular free throw, but he only shot it two or three feet in front of him. It bounced once or twice and just rolled past the basket."

Rebirth of Cool Cal

He is America's most underappreciated president, a tax-cutting, budget-slashing politician whose very name became synonymous with the fast-growing 1920s economy: "Coolidge Prosperity," they called it. Coolidge stood defiantly as an anti-Progressive between two activist eras, the first led by Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, the second by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. That's the real reason so many modern academics dislike him: Coolidge didn't participate in the onward march of an ever-growing government. In fact, he actively resisted it. "The people cannot look to legislation generally for success," he said in one of his most famous speeches. "Industry, thrift, character, are not conferred by act of resolve. Government cannot relieve from toil."

Coolidge Quotes:
All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.

Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery.

Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong.

Duty is not collective; it is personal.

Economy is the method by which we prepare today to afford the improvements of tomorrow.

I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.

If I had permitted my failures, or what seemed to me at the time a lack of success, to discourage me I cannot see any way in which I would ever have made progress.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of face within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity.

You can't know too much, but you can say too much. No man ever listened himself out of a job.

No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.

We need more of the Office Desk and less of the Show Window in politics. Let men in office substitute the midnight oil for the limelight.

We draw our Presidents from the people. It is a wholesome thing for them to return to the people. I came from them. I wish to be one of them again.

Today is either a celebration of love or an irritating reminder of loneliness. - Woot.com

As man advances in civilisation, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races. — Charles Darwin

Six Massachusetts middle school students could face child porn charges after a boy took a nude photo of his 13-year-old girlfriend and “sexted” it to his pals’ cell phones, cops said. The six boys, ages 12 to 14, will be summoned to Falmouth District Court for a hearing to determine whether they should be charged with possessing, exhibiting or distributing child porn in the form of a text message photo.

Agriculture and related private wage and salary workers - 18.7%

Construction - 18.2%

Leisure and hospitality - 11.5%

Manufacturing - 10.9%

Professional and business services - 10.4%

Nonagricultural private wage and salary workers (total) - 9.0%

Wholesale and retail trade - 8.7%

Transportation and utilities - 8.4%

Information - 7.4%

Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction - 7.0%

Self employed and unpaid family workers - 6.5%

Financial activities - 6.0%

Education and health services - 3.8%

Government workers - 3.0%

“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.” - Steve Jobs

THE doctor who sparked the scare over the safety of the MMR vaccine for children changed and misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a possible link with autism, a Sunday Times investigation has found.

Confidential medical documents and interviews with witnesses have established that Andrew Wakefield manipulated patients’ data, which triggered fears that the MMR triple vaccine to protect against measles, mumps and rubella was linked to the condition

Three contractors are bidding to fix a broken fence at the White House. One is from Chicago, another is from Tennessee, and the third is from Minnesota.

All three go with a White House official to examine the fence. The Minnesota contractor takes out a tape measure and does some measuring, then works some figures with a pencil. “Well,” he says, “I figure the job will run about $900: $400 for materials, $400 for my crew and $100 profit for me.”

The Tennessee contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then says, “I can do this job for $700: $300 for materials, $300 for my crew and $100 profit for me.”

The Chicago contractor doesn’t measure or figure, but leans over to the White House official and whispers, “$2,700.”

The official, incredulous, says, “You didn’t even measure like the other guys! How did you come up with such a high figure?”

The Chicago contractor whispers back, “$1000 for me, $1000 for you, and we hire the guy from Tennessee to fix the fence.”

“Done!” replies the government official.

Kenyan police say the half brother of President Barack Obama has been arrested for possession of marijuana.

Area police chief Joshua Omokulongolo said George Obama was picked up Saturday and was being held at the Huruma police post in the capital. Omokulongolo said officers found one joint of marijuana on him.

The Pittsburgh Public Schools will operate on a two-hour delay Monday because of the Super Bowl, Superintendent Mark Roosevelt said today.

Noting that Sunday's big game means a "late night," Mr. Roosevelt said the delay should cut down on student and staff absenteeism.

He said the district operated on a two-hour delay the day after the Steelers won the Super Bowl three years ago.

Doesn't seem right but guess he is just bowing to realities. The Dallas schools would probably have had the whole day if not the week off.