Here are some news stories from this week that I think the mainstream media completely missed out on. All links are from legitimate news sources and not the fringe / wacko sites.

* Ford, the only ones not to take a government handout, posts a $2.7 Billion 2009 Profit. Good going guys! [BLOOMBERG]

* Tony Blair is facing a serious inquiry into the Iraq war over in England. While he was busy getting grilled, he said “he would do the same again – and warned world leaders they may soon have to take similar decisions over Iran… Saddam had been a ‘monster’ and it had been right to remove him even to prevent the ‘possibility’ that he could acquire weapons of mass destruction. He warned that Iran’s nuclear weapons program now poses an even greater threat.” Danke, Kommandant. Haben Sie einen angenehmen Tag. Nächster! [DAILYMAIL]

* Global Warming really shifted weather patterns 56,000 years ago. Wait… global warming happened 56,000 years ago too? [DISCOVERY]

* Obama cut the NASA budget. No Constellation program, and no Ares I or V rockets. “We certainly don’t need to go back to the moon,” one administration official said. Sad. [LA TIMES]

* The EFF set up a website to show how easy it is for someone to find out your surfing habits. Visit their website and they’ll tell you a lot about your web browsing habits for free. [EFF]

* The movie studio Miramax is done this weekend. My Left Foot, Reservoir Dogs, The Piano, Pulp Fiction, Sex, Lies and Videotape, Clerks, The English Patient, Shakespeare in Love, The Crying Game, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Chicago, Kill Bill I, Kill Bill II, The Ciderhouse Rules, Good Will Hunting and Swingers apparently weren’t good enough for Hollywood. [THE WRAP]

* Speaking of movies, here’s a good movie idea – the second and third place superpowers in the world secretly combine forces to pump up certain bonds and then cause the sudden drop of their value to force the number one superpower to spend a fortune just to stabilize its’ infrastructure. Wait… it really happened? [BLOOMBERG]

* Bans on cellphone use while driving…. do nothing to stop accidents! I wouldn’t plan on the bozos who came up with this stupid law to give up their city’s lucrative moneymaking machine without a lawsuit though. [NYTIMES]

* John “Scumbag” Edwards just officially dumped his wife who is suffering with incurable breast cancer because he finally admitted he fathered a child with his employee / mistress. He was lying about everything this whole time to make “Mrs Edwards’s dying days a bit easier.” And this idiot thought he could be president with such rotten morals? With real grade-a despicable character like this, can you imagine what he would have done in the white house? And why isn’t this all over the US media? The news in England is carrying this front and center! [DAILYMAIL]

* And now for something fun to close out…. Three wild cheetahs catch a tiny antelope… and then play with him! And then let him go! Somebody wasn’t reading the right playbook. [DAILYMAIL]

Tag!

** This entry was actually posted late Sunday because of a really fun birthday party Saturday.

Here are some news stories from this week that I think the mainstream media completely missed out on. All links are from legitimate news sources and not the fringe / wacko sites.

* Kucinich says democrats have betrayed “the promise of change” and are in deep trouble in November if things don’t get back on track. Wow! Kucinich actually gets it! [RAWSTORY]

* And to emphasize Kucinich’s point, there’s apparently a tax on married couples in the new healthcare plan. So not only are we going to be fined and face possible jail time if we do not get this new mandatory no-public-option government insurance, but now the government says it’s better to not be married to save money. Great message! [MONEYCENTRAL.MSN]

* This did make some of the mainstream news, but it really is important to mention again… “the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday struck down laws that banned corporations from using their own money to support or oppose candidates for public office.” So now, it’s perfectly legal for there to be attack ads by large corporations against Congressmen who advocate a change they do not agree with. A company with billions of dollars versus nickel and dime donations from the general public. This. Is. Not. Good. [MSNBC]

* Texas college tuition is heading up. Way up. Who needs smart people anyway? [TEXASTRIBUNE]

* The New York Times, bleeding money left and right, has decided to “charge some frequent readers for access to its Web site .” Wow. They’re going to spend serious money to put a web blocker in place that can be bypassed by either (a) deleting the cookie left on a computer or (b) visiting their site through any of the hundreds of free proxy websites out there. Brilliant job, guys! [NYTIMES]

* YouTube is getting into movie rentals! That works. $3.99 for a 48-hours is a bit high, but it’s a start. Plus, since YouTube is part of Google and Google just introduced their own phone, I think this movie rental thing is probably going to lead somewhere bigger in a few months. [MSNBC]

* Finally, some “cute” news… “Baby”, a 13 year old cat who went missing after saving his owners in Chicago from a house fire, just turned up safe and sound. A cat acting for the good of his owners? That’s a strange cat! [MSNBC]

Today, NASA announced that “Astronauts aboard the International Space Station received a special software upgrade this week – personal access to the Internet and the World Wide Web via the ultimate wireless connection.”

Wait… this wasn’t in place already? A multi-nation multi-billion dollar project and there was no internet access until 2010? I guess rocket science really is hard work.

The first thing the Astronauts did was set up an official “NASA_Astronauts” Twitter account that you can read here. Now that should be an interesting set of tweets to follow!

It’s not all free and clear for them to surf anywhere they want to, though. “Astronauts will be subject to the same computer use guidelines as government employees on Earth. In addition to this new capability, the crew will continue to have official e-mail, Internet Protocol telephone and limited videoconferencing capabilities.” Also… “the crew will have remote access to the Internet via a ground computer [and be able to] view the desktop of the ground computer using an onboard laptop and interact remotely with their keyboard touchpad.”

I still think Astronaut productivity will fall off just a little bit for the next few months.

Here’s the link to the NASA article.