This is why I love Trader Joe's... they have a lot of decent wines in the $5-10 range. I've definitely had really good bottles of wine I've bought directly from wineries in Napa or Napa #2 - Paso Robles... but if I'm buying off a shelf in a store there really is no reason to shell out that sort of cash, too many variables.

Wait wait wait, he used his medicare to cover the costs of his procedure?

"Rice was treated at Los Robles Hospital and Medical Center. The top joint of his pinky, including his whole fingernail, was severed, hospital spokeswoman Kris Carraway-Bowman said.
She said his treatment was covered by Medicare."
AP Link

Oh the sweet irony. Let me bask in it for a little while longer.

This isnt a courtroom but a Carson CA City Council meeting.

I thought it had been on here before but now I can't find it so perharps not.

Quote from unknown newspaper:

"Chaos at a Tuesday night City Council meeting in Carson, California, was caught on videotape. The tape shows Vera Robles Dewitt, a former councilmember leading an effort to recall Mayor Jim Dear, hitting Commissioner Jan Schaefer on the head with some papers. After being struck, "Schaefer waited a beat or two, then let out a blood-curdling shriek and rolled onto the floor in apparent agony," according to Daily Breeze newspaper.

Mayor Dear called for DeWitt to be arrested, and after the meeting was adjourned -- after midnight -- DeWitt was arrested on suspicion of battery. She was immediately released after her arrest.

"From where I stood, it was a crime," said Capt. Todd Rogers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. "It was an intentional act of violence against another person. We're investigating it as a crime."

Rogers described the blow as a "bip," according to the Daily Breeze. Asked whether Schaefer's reaction seemed delayed, Dear said she appeared stunned. "It looked like a senior citizen who, unexpectedly, got hit on the head by a hostile person," said Dear. "It upset her to the point where she actually fell forward and lost her balance and fell onto the ground due to the hit on the head."

"It was a little peck," Robert Lesley, a recall supporter told the newspaper. "And then she rolls out on the floor. And I just said, 'Oh man, here we go.' "

Good point Kulpims. Some other factors worth considering, from 'The Absurdity of "Independent" Kosovo' by George Szamuely:

Much as it did before the invasion of Iraq, the United States has said it will do whatever it wants to do -- namely, recognize independent Kosovo -- with or without U.N. sanction. Unlike Iraq, this time the Europeans intend to take an active part in the Easter egg hunt and are as determined to ignore the United Nations as the Americans. Confident that the new state of Kosovo will prove to be a reliable NATO/E.U. satellite, key European countries, and especially the ever-compliant British, promise to recognize Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence on the very day it happens.

[...]

Meanwhile, making use of the engineering skills of Halliburton subsidiary, Brown & Root Services Corp., the United States built a giant military base, Camp Bondsteel, covering some 955 acres or 360,000 square meters. The camp also includes a prison. According to Alvaro Gil Robles, Human Rights Commissioner for the Council of Europe, who visited the prison in 2005."