Creating Monsters...From Paris

If I asked you to identify Frankenstein, would you say "a 19th century monster?" If so, you'd be like most. You'd also be wrong. Most people tend to incorrectly call the gothic romantic novel-monster 'Frankenstein', when in fact, Mary Shelley's Victor Frankenstein invented the monster. According to many sources, Mary Shelley anonymously penned her novel in 1818. Not until her second edition in 1831, was her name revealed.

Humm. Penning thoughts anonymously. Creating monsters. Oh no...I feel...a story...COMING ON!...WARNING: If you prefer hard core news, do NOT tune in tomorrow evening. I repeat. Look away. Look quickly away...

Apple

 Apple's Blockbuster Quarter Includes 8.7 Million iPhones and 21 Million iPods Sold

Apple blew the doors off of Q4, with strong performances from almost every corner. It's their highest revenue and profit ever, but will they say anything else about Wednesday's announcement?

The “they” is us.

THEY OWE: $12,245,872,000,000

This is classic

Obama to House Dem: “The big difference here and in ‘94 was you’ve got me”

Diddy gives son $360K car for 16th birthday

How do you think his son will ever learn the value of money? Tsk Tsk

Dan Steinberg / AP Photo

Diddy didn't get the memo about conspicuous consumption during a recession. He threw his son Justin an absurdly lavish 16th birthday bash on Saturday at the trendy New York club M2, where Trey Songz, Fabolous, Lil' Kim, and Juelz Santana performed for Justin and about 1,000 of his friends, including Jersey Shore stars Snooki and Pauly D. And, of course, what would a 16th birthday be without an irresponsible car? Diddy surprised Justin by parking his gift, a new $360,000 Maybach complete with driver, outside the club. Because every 16-year-old needs a car that can go 155mph.

Read it at New York Post

Hmmm: State of the union or Apple table unveiling, which is more interesting?

My money is on the tablet! It's between something you can hold in your hand and hot air, signifying nothing

On Wednesday, the president's first State of the Union address faces off against a geek's infomercial for absurdly expensive pieces of plastic. The jobless, broke, physically ill citizenry of this country is, naturally, way into the shiny plastic bits.

Just ask Google. Steve Jobs' imaginary Jesus Tablet is the number one trending topic among U.S.-based users of the search engine. Barack Obama's big speech about the economy and health care and the future of this badly divided country and whatnot barely registers (see Google chart below). Obama obviously should have kept his "health care reform" idea secret until the last possible second, manufactured it in China, and unveiled it using a Power Point deck and a Gap outfit he hasn't washed since 1997.

Stimulus: Americans waking up to Obama’s waste

CNN
Poll: Three out of four voters say much of stimulus money was wasted

More stimulus $$, fewer jobs.

It shows how not only that many workers have lost their jobs since the administration started spending stimulus funds, but also that many more workers have exited the labor market

BHO administration steers NO-BID Afghan work contract to Dem campaign contributor

Can we please use plain English to define the services the $24M+ contract will provide? Uh, probably not.

Sunday: U.S. Army soldiers patrol inside Pech Valley, Kunar province, in

northeastern Afghanistan. Private consultants Checchi & Company won a

no-bid contract from the Obama administration to 'train the next

generation of legal professionals' in Afghanistan.

Despite President Obama's long history of criticizing the Bush administration for "sweetheart deals" with favored contractors, the Obama administration this month awarded a $25 million federal contract for work in Afghanistan to a company owned by a Democratic campaign contributor without entertaining competitive bids, according to Fox News.

The contract, awarded on Jan. 4 to Checchi & Company Consulting, Inc., a Washington-based firm owned by economist and Democratic donor Vincent V. Checchi, will pay the firm $24,673,427 to provide "rule of law stabilization services" in war-torn Afghanistan.

A synopsis of the contract published on the USAID Web site says Checchi & Company will "train the next generation of legal professionals" throughout the Afghan provinces and thereby "develop the capacity of Afghanistan's justice system to be accessible, reliable, and fair."

The legality of the arrangement as a "sole source," or no-bid, contract was made possible by virtue of a waiver signed by the USAID administrator. "They cancelled the open bid on this when they came to power earlier this year," a source familiar with the federal contracting process told Fox News.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/25/obama-administration-steers-lucrative-bid-contract-afghan-work-dem-donor/

What the hell is “rule of law stabilization services”? Nothing but Chicago.

Obama Donor Gets 'Sweetheart' Contract

EXCLUSIVE: Dem campaign contributor awarded $25M no-bid contract to train 'legal professionals' in Afghanistan

Checchi & Company Consulting, Inc., a Washington-based firm owned by economist and Democratic donor Vincent V. Checchi, will pay the firm $24,673,427 to provide "rule of law stabilization services"

The legality of the arrangement as a "sole source," or no-bid, contract was made possible by virtue of a waiver signed by the USAID administrator. "They cancelled the open bid on this when they came to power earlier this year," a source familiar with the federal contracting process

If it's late January, it must be speechmaking season

Lucky for BHO, he's never too far from a teleprompter, but will it be enough?

Since Republican Scott Brown won the Massachusetts race last week, the White House has struck a noticeably more populist tone. Presidential advisers, and the president himself, have been at pains to say that the same basic phenomenon that elected Brown -- dissatisfaction with how Washington is doing business -- also elected Obama himself.

"The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office,"the president told George Stephanopoulos. "People are angry and they are frustrated. Not just because of what's happened in the last year or two years, but what's happened over the last eight years."

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2010/01/25/obama_state_of_the_union/index.html

Jack Bauer would be very put off by this.

The Associated Press reported yesterday that the amount of time FBI interrogators had with the EunuchBomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, prior to reading the terrorist his Miranda rights was all of fifty minutes.  They spoke directly with Abdulmutallab long enough to send the FBI on a wild-goose chase for a second bomb on the airplane, and for hours before going into surgery they overheard him discussing his attack with anyone who would listen, including medical personnel treating his severe burns.  When Abdulmutallab came out of surgery, the FBI decided to read him the Miranda rights despite having an exception for imminent threats — and the terrorist clammed up

Story behind the story: analysis of Coco's fall

Forget the acrimony and blame gaming, it was the 'demographics,' and the short attention spans of the young abandoned the late night host

Sally Ryan for The New York Times

Alex Gough, center, a student at Northwestern University, dressed up on Friday as the FedEx pope, a Conan O'Brien character.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/25/business/media/25conan.html?th&emc=th

Sad

Massachusetts cops arrest brother of Nancy Kerrigan in connection to the death of her father, who was found unresponsive at the ex-Olympic skater's childhood home.

Not Good News

December home sales down nearly 17%; Largest monthly drop in more than 40 years...

ON THREE SHOWS, THREE OBAMA AIDES GIVE THREE CONFLICTING ESTIMATES: HOW MANY JOBS STIMULUS HAS CREATED...

Poverty rate hits 17.5% in Nashville...

Wow Factor

#customcars

Ferrari P540 Superfast Aperta Shows Off Gold Skin In Palm Beach

While much of the automotive world this weekend was worried about pitched tents flying away out at Russo & Steele, Ferrari officially debuted the one-off P540 Superfast Aperta this weekend at the Cavallino Classic in Palm Beach, Florida.

Marines Leave Iraq

Thank You! U.S. Marines Finish Mission in Iraq Victorious

Meanwhile in the heartland

THE SECRET TO FORD’S SUCCESS. “There hasn’t been any negative reaction. A lot of customers that come in here, they’re tired of all the government bailouts. We’ve gotten calls from people encouraging us and telling us their next vehicle will definitely be a Ford.”

And reader Justin Binik-Thomas of the Cincinnati Tea Party emails:

I received this picture from a member of our West Chester Community Tea Party. This sign is hanging in the West Chester Community (a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio).

Please take note to the sign on the bottom as needed corrections have been made:

1. “Putting America to Work” has been corrected to “Putting America in Debt”
2. A ball and chain has been added to the American Worker (yellow diamond)

Lets see remove 565 thermometers from the data set, all in the north and presto: you get GW

A weather research laboratory located on Ellesmere Island at Eureka, Nunavut.

Call it the mystery of the missing thermometers.

Two months after “climategate” cast doubt on some of the science behind global warming, new questions are being raised about the reliability of a key temperature database, used by the United Nations and climate change scientists as proof of recent planetary warming.

Two American researchers allege that U.S. government scientists have skewed global temperature trends by ignoring readings from thousands of local weather stations around the world, particularly those in colder altitudes and more northerly latitudes, such as Canada.

In the 1970s, nearly 600 Canadian weather stations fed surface temperature readings into a global database assembled by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Today, NOAA only collects data from 35 stations across Canada.

Worse, only one station -- at Eureka on Ellesmere Island -- is now used by NOAA as a temperature gauge for all Canadian territory above the Arctic Circle.

Ummm…

VIDEO: Obama Uses Teleprompters During Speech -- To 6th Graders...