The Pres Has a Very Bad Week

The woman who told President Obama she was "exhausted" with defending him on CNBC on Tuesday set the tone for what has turned into a pretty bad week for Obama.

"Quite frankly, I'm exhausted. Exhausted with defending you, defending your administration, defending the man for change I voted for, and deeply disappointed with where we are right now," Velma Hart told the president in a televised question and answer session. "I've been told that I voted for a man who said he was going to change things in a meaningful way for the middle class. I'm one of those people and I'm waiting, sir, I'm waiting. I don't feel it yet."

Obama answered the question deftly, defusing the tension with a few jokes and then touting some of the legislative changes that he says will help her and other middle-class families. But as Obama supporter Jesse Jackson told The Daily Beast, Hart looks like "canary in the mine" for Obama and his team, showing that even some of those who enthusiastically voted for him in 2008 are losing confidence, which may prevent them from going out and voting this November.

You can watch a video of Hart's question after the jump.



Then on Wednesday night, Obama was heckled by angry AIDS protesters at a Democratic fundraiser in New York--not usually a place where a Democratic president would have to worry about getting a hard time.

Obama got annoyed with the protesters, who wanted more funding for AIDS prevention and treatment as well as a repeal of the military's ban on openly gay service. He said he had raised funding for AIDS prevention, and then said those angry about 'don't ask, don't tell' would be better off mounting protests at GOP events.

"But hold on a second.....But hold on a second. Think about....think about what happened in Congress two days ago where you got 56 Democrats voting to debate this issue, and zero Republicans. And as a consequence, some of those signs should be going up at the other folks' events," he said. Here's the video of Obama's exchange with the heckler:

Just last night, "Daily Show" host and frequent Obama-defender Jon Stewart told Fox News' Bill O'Reilly that he's "saddened" that Obama hasn't done more to change Washington.

"I think people feel a disappointment in that there was a sense that Jesus will walk on water and no you are looking at it like, 'Oh look at that, he's just treading water'¦I thought he'd do a better job," he said.

Meanwhile, if Stewart's disenchantment weren't enough of a blow, the artist Shepard Fairey, who had created the iconic "Hope" portrait of Obama during the 2008 campaign, told the National Journal in an interview today that, while he still regards Obama favorably, he has felt some "disappointment" with the president's performance as well. The younger voters who flocked to Obama's campaign "wanted somebody who was going to fight against the status quo," Fairey told Aamer Madhani of the National Journal's Hotline blog. "And I don't think that Obama has done that."

Well, it goes to show you, that even super heros can disappoint. After a brilliant start to  his administration whereby he pulled his country up by it's bootstraps, out of a recession, made hundreds of changes to the way America conducts business, overhauled the banks and insurance companies and installed a fair and equitable health care system, initiated an end to the war in the middle-east and, oh, another thousand or two improvements; too many to list right now; don't get me started; he  hasn't performed any more miracles for a while. Give the guy a break. He's the best thing to come along in quite a while. He cares about you. So shut up.

Endangered National Parks -- Time Is Running Out

Grand Canyon National Park , Arizona

Everglades National Park , Florida

Yosemite National Park ,California

Biscayne National Park , Florida:

Our national parks system is a thing of beauty -- but the parks are in danger and need our help and it's time for everyone to step up and be counted.

While many of America's  most beautiful and thrilling national parks ( these are just a few ) are on the endangered list -- the result of everything from global warming to traffic pollution to poaching to underfunding  -- plenty of other pieces of our heritage , even including one commuter highway are also in jeopardy.

***You ask what can I do, I'm only one person....well get  up off the couch, stop complaining and get out there and  talk to people ...some will brush you off ...but some will listen and the word will began to spread . We are all in this together  so lets work together and  as 'Larry the Cable Guy' says , lets get it done. Try it , I dare you but I promise you will meet some very interesting people.

I guarantee it will work .We have to save our  world one piece at a time.

Justice for Jaycee...Garridos Indicted at Last

A grand jury has indicted Phillip and Nancy Garrido in the kidnapping and rape of Jaycee Dugard, who was taken from her South Lake Tahoe home 19 years earlier, an attorney says.  The panel concluded its review of the case earlier this week and an arraignment will be scheduled, says attorney Stephen Tapson, who represents Nancy. Tapson says he was surprised by the indictment.
"I had assumed they weren't going to," Tapson says. "I'm surprised they waited so long."
He says his client is upset that Jaycee and the two daughters fathered by Garrido haven't visited the couple in jail.   "They're still running up my Kleenex budget," Tapson says. " She wants to see the kids and Jaycee."

Prosecutors have said that Jaycee doesn't want to see the Garridos, and they have also refused to tell the couple's lawyers where Jaycee and the girls are living.  Tapson adds that he remains hopeful that a plea deal can be worked out in which the defendants plead guilty and get some sentence other than life without parole.
This summer, the state agreed to pay $20 million to settle the family's claim that the parole of Phillip Garrido, a violent convicted sex offender, was poorly supervised.

Geez Louise, get real! Jaycee and the girls will never want to see you again. Their eyes have been opened to who you are and what you have done to them. You deserve a life sentence and your husband deserves a life sentence in a padded room. He is a total nut job as well as a child rapist.
As for the twenty million, I have heard people are complaining about it. Stop carping people. It's not enough.  How can you put a price on eighteen years of captivity and torture? You don't have enough to repay her for neglecting to monitor a convicted rapist and kidnapper.

Jaycee Dugard Marks First Year of Freedom

 It was one year ago Thursday that authorities rescued Jaycee Dugard from a sex offender and reunited her with the mom who hadn't seen her in 18 years. The anniversary is a "happy time" for family members who prayed for her for so many years, says her step-grandmother, Wilma Probyn. "Jaycee continues her life in private," she says.  Now 30, Dugard is making progress in her therapy sessions while writing in her journal, family spokeswoman Nancy Seltzer tells KTXL-TV in Sacramento.  "She has a talent for it and she wants to pursue it," says Seltzer, who adds that Jaycee is interested in starting a foundation for victimized children.

The Discovery:
On Aug. 26, 2009, Phillip Garrido, now 59, walked into a Concord, Calif., parole office with a young woman who identified herself as Alyssa, the mother of two girls also brought to the office – who called Garrido "daddy."
Parole officers, knowing Garrido wasn't on record as having children, grilled him and Alyssa until Alyssa identified herself as Jaycee Dugard, abducted at age 11 outside her family's home in South Lake Tahoe while on her way to her fifth-grade class.  Investigators also learned that Dugard and her daughters, now 12 and 16, hadn't been to school since the abduction and lived in a series of backyard shanties on the Garrido property without ever receiving medical care.

In the months that followed, Dugard, her daughters and Dugard's mom, Terry Probyn, took refuge in a nondescript ranch-style home in a Northern California suburb to rebuild their lives and undergo private tutoring and counseling, as the girls reckoned with stunning new realities.

Painful Revelations:
In the last year, the girls have come to learn that Dugard was their mother, not their sister, and that their father and his wife, Nancy Garrido, now potentially face a lifetime in prison for Dugard's abduction and repeated rape (they have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial).  The state last month agreed to pay $20 million to settle the family's claim that Garrido's parole was poorly supervised, but challenges remain. The state estimates lifetime therapy costs for the Dugard and her daughters at about $7 million.  But the family has worked toward a normal life.

They have the pets they kept at the Garridos' now-abandoned home in Antioch, Calif., and they buy cat food and other staples at Wal-Mart. Dugard got her driver's license in February, and she takes the kids on local trips in her SUV. The family enjoys Subway sandwiches, camping and horseback riding. Sometimes the girls play on a neighbor's swingset.  While they have little interaction with outsiders or the media, Dugard and her daughters have for the past year helped give many families of missing kids new hope, Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, says.
"The fact that she and her family have responded to pure evil by moving forward with purpose and conviction is proof to millions of the resiliency of the human spirit," says Allen, who calls Jaycee "a symbol of hope and inspiration."

Bizarre New Dinosaur Species Found In Utah

An artist reconstruction of  Utahceratops

An artist reconstruction of Kosmoceratops , one of two new dinosaur species  discovered in Utah.

Scientists say they've found  two new dinosaur spieces in Utah that are among the most bizarre and blinged out ever discovered.

The Utah reptiles belong to the horned-dinosaur family, which is known for outlandish anatomy , and are wowing seasoned fossil hunrers . Even the three-horned tricertops , the most familiar horned dinosaur , looks like the no-frills model compared with the newcomers.

The species named Kosmoceratops had 15 horns decorating it's massive head , giving it the most elaborate dinosaur headdress known to science . At 15 feet long , it was larger than  Ford Fiesta . Its name mean "ornate horned-face" in  Latin.

The Utahceratops was adorned with unusual short horns that stuck out to the side like  a bison's. It was roughly 20 feet long and weighed 3 to 4 tons, as much as a large pickup truck. Its name is  Latin for "Utah horned -face."

The new species  "would've both been quite spectacular ," Michael Getty of the Utah Museum  of Natural History , who first spotted the first Utahceratops , he told the AOL News . And quite big : The skulls alone can be in axcess of 6 feet long [among]  the largest heads on any land animal that ever lived," he said.

The new discoveries are "first class finds , no doubt  about it," said the University of Pennsylvania's Peter Dodson , an authority on horned dinosaurs. Kosmoceratops in particular  "is absurd , a really ,really bizarre-lookong animal. Kosmoceratops is an outier even in its class," he said. The dinosaurs probably used those formidable horns to beackon lady dinosaurs , perhaps to fend off rival suiters , but certainly not to impaale prey.

The hooks at the back of the skull would've been relatively useless as weapons , but they're great for showing off," said study leader Scott Sampson of the Utah Museum of Natural History told the press. "These are effectively the Peacock feathers ...of the dinosaur world.."

Both species were plant eaters , somehow  swellling to a massive size o the vegetation  that thrived in the warm , swampy landscape that Utah had during the Late Certaceous period , more than 70 million years ago.  Today these dinosaurs would quickly strave in their once-lush homeland. The bone yards that yielded the fossils lie in what is now the Grand Staircase-Esaalante National Monument , an isolated ,rocky desert granted strict federal protection in 1996.

Fossil hunting at Grand Staircase is an endurance sport. The researches live in research camps that are among the most remote in the U.S.  , Getty says. The water source is a 90-minute  drive from camp. The scientists walk several miles from their camp to the dig site , sometimes carrying jackhammers and the heavy plaster needed to protect fossils. Getty was stung by a scorpion earlier this year , which at least was not as bad as being bitten by the local rattlesnakes.

But Getty says the hardships  are worth it. In addition to uncovering two eye-popping new speices  , the researches helped solidify the theory that a no-zone in nothern Utah divided dinosaurs into northern and southern populations . Dinosaurs from Canada are completely different from those in Utah .  Something , perphaps  a change in climate , kept the two groups from mixing.

Getty vividly recalled uncovering the first Utahceratops. "Finding such a significant  animal ...[that] looked liked a new species , different from  anything else we'd seen -- it couldn't get much more exciting," he said.

Happy fossil hunting ...

How Could We Do This

A Polar Bear Speaks

I am Nanook. That is what my Eskimo brothers call me. You probably know me better as the polar bear. I also go by the name of ice bear or sea bear.  I'm famous all over the world but especially in Canada where they even have my image on the back of their 2 dollar coin. That's probably because 60 percent of my extended polar bear family lives there. The rest of them live in Alaska, Norway, Greenland and Russia.

I earn my living in the freezing polar seas and can swim up to 60 miles at a time but recently I've had a hard time finding the ice packs I depend on to rest during those long swims. More and more of my brothers have died this way lately, hunting and foraging for food to feed their families.  

Unlike you land dwellers, we polar bears are marine animals. We need the ice packs to hunt for ring seals, mate, raise our young and take a break on our forages for food. Ring seals as you may or may not know, also live on the Arctic ice and make up the bulk of our diet. There's not as many of them as there used to be so we go hungry for longer periods of time. Without them we literally starve since other food is so scare in the Arctic.

It's getting tougher and tougher these days to find ice packs. I don't know very much about science but I hear people talking about global climate change and how it's causing my Arctic home to shrink. I don't know about that, but I can tell you that my swims are longer and I'm not as heavy as I once was because of it.
Humans are always trying to take weight off but we polar bears need it to survive the freezing temperatures and cold water we live in so we need large bodies with lots of fat. When we feed ourselves, we purposely eat the blubber of the seals in order to gain lots of weight and add insulation to our bodies. A fat bear is able to survive better in our icy, watery world.

Like you, we're mammals but we differ in many ways and live in places that most people usually avoid visiting. Maybe that's why some people don't seem to care about what's happening to us. It's hard to relate to us since you might only have seen us in a zoo and not our natural environment where we're regarded as kings.

We're having fewer babies too. My mate can only give birth once every three years and since I'm spending more and more time looking for a meal, we've been missing the mating season so we haven't had any cubs for awhile.

If you haven't guessed by now, polar bears can't really speak. But if I could I would stand up for myself in the governments and legislatures of the world and tell them what's going on in my Arctic homeland.  Bears are drowning, bears are being hunted for sport, cubs are starving. The seas are polluted and so are the animals I feed on. There is cannibalism among the polar bears and my brothers and sisters are now so thin you can see their bones through their fur. Bears are forced to scavenge around human settlements for scraps of food instead of hunting on the ice packs that were so plentiful once upon a time.

All these things I didn't cause and can't control add up to a life that's full of hunger, misery and despair. It's almost not worth living unless something can be done soon to offset the damage from humans and the effects of global climate change.  What can be done about it? I don't know. I'm only a bear and have no rights in human courts. I don't read, I don't write and can't stand up for myself. I can't march in a rally or sign a petition. If I could, believe me I would.

Since I can't do any of of these things myself, would you do it for me?
Won't you at least sign a petition to let authorities like the governments of Canada and the USA know that you care about me and want something done about my situation as soon as possible?  If you help me, you'll be helping lots of other Arctic animals too since they're feeling the same effects. If something isn't done now, humans will eventually also face the devastation that global climate change causes.

No one can stop climate change but something needs to be done to reduce the impact and lessen the misery it causes. Please go to these websites and sign the petitions.

http://supporter.naturecanada.ca/site/PageServer?pagename=CharlesandRogerPetition


 http://www.savethepolarbear.org/