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If someone told you they killed a rabid mountain lion with a frying pan, would you believe it?

Chino Valley resident Brandon Arnold has such a story, and he has witnesses to prove it.

Arnold, 24, his girlfriend Tessa Gerdes and seven of their Chino Valley friends, including three children, were camping May 4 at a remote spot on the Tonto National Forest, near the Verde River off Bloody Basin Road, when the story of a lifetime unfolded.

They were getting ready to make breakfast at about 6:45 a.m. when a large animal jumped out of the bushes onto the back of Arnold's dog Apollo, a 90-pound lab-pit bull mix.

"It was hard to tell what it was when it jumped out of there covered with grass and smelling like a skunk," Arnold's friend Donald Jones said. "I thought it was somebody's dog, so I was just pissed off somebody brought a mean dog to camp."

Jones grabbed the neck of both the animals to try to pull them apart.

That's when they all figured out the other animal wasn't a dog.

Jones let go real fast.

"I started screaming at the top of my lungs, 'Holy (bleep), it's a mountain lion!'" Arnold recalled

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The Board of Education decided in an emergency meeting Tuesday to lower the passing grade on the writing portion of Florida's standardized test after preliminary results showed a drastic drop in student passing scores.

The results indicated only about a third of students would pass this year's tougher Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test exam, compared with a passing rate of 80 percent or more last year.

"They've asked students to do more, but that's pretty dramatic," said Florida Education Association spokesman Mark Pudlow. "We need to examine what led to this, not just paper over the problem."

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On "The Late Show" David Letterman went into a partisan speech about Obama's role in the killing of Osama bin Laden.

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'WHAT MORE DO WE WANT THIS MAN TO DO FOR US, HONEST TO GOD?'

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Wichita police are investigating an aggravated attempted robbery at a northeast Wichita restaurant that may have been a prank

It happened at the Subway restaurant, 3200 N. Rock, around 11 a.m. Monday. Police said two teenagers, 15 and 16-year-old boys, walked into the building with their hands in their pockets, ordering everyone on the floor.

One of the suspects started counting people on the floor, while two other teenagers ran out of the restaurant, police said. The third teenager ran away a short time later. No one was hurt.

Authorities identified one of the suspects as a Heights High School student. Officers contacted the student and questioned him. The boy was not arrested and released to his parents.

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The New York Conservative was a blog hosted by Google Blogger. I started the blog in February of this year and had posted 17 columns prior to the KSM entry, commenting on political matters and issues affecting the Catholic Church. I would post my entries on Facebook and occasionally would email a link to friends or other interested parties. I received no complaints about the blog whatsoever.
On Monday, the pro-U.S. security group Secure American Now posted a link to my KSM piece on its website. The link received numerous hits and generated multiple comments on the Secure America Now page.
However, a few hours after Secure America Now linked to the New York Conservative, I received a form email, no reply possible, from Google Blogger informing me that the New York Conservative had been deleted. The email classified my blog as “spam” in violation of Google’s terms of service. There was no further explanation. My URL was dead; all of the content, everything I ever posted, was gone.
I made two telephone calls to Google to protest and demand a reason for the deletion of my blog. The Google representatives told me that Google does not provide “live support” for Google Blogger, meaning you cannot speak with anyone at all about the deletion. The representatives directed me to the Google Blogger website, where the company extols its commitment to free speech and its great reluctance to censor its bloggers.

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This case is a frightening example of what can happen when a photographer encounters ignorant bullies with badges. According to the complaint filed in Federal Court, Nancy Genovese, a mother of three, was driving home on County Road 31 past Gabreski Airport in Suffolk County. Gabreski Airport displays a decorative helicopter shell by the roadway to the public, which is visible to all who pass by.

Nancy Genovese stopped her car on the side of the road across the street from the airport in an area that is open and accessible to the public, and crossed over the road to the airport entryway that is also open and accessible to the public to take a picture of the helicopter display. While still in her car, she took a picture of the decorative helicopter shell with the intention of posting it on her personal “Support Our Troops” web page.

As Nancy Genovese was preparing to drive away, she was stopped and approached by Robert Iberger, a lieutenant with the Southampton Town Police. Lieutenant Iberger demanded to know why she was taking photographs. Nancy showed the lieutenant her camera, but Lieutenant Iberger grabbed her camera and handled it “without care”. In an attempt to prevent the lieutenant from damaging the camera, Nancy removed her memory card, which Lieutenant Iberger confiscated. To date, Nancy’s memory card still has not been returned to her.

Lieutenant Iberger demanded that Nancy remain where she is, and he refused to allow her to leave. At this time, Lieutenant Iberger notified the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office and the authorities at Gabreski Airport of Nancy’s presence outside the airport, and falsely and wrongfully informed them that she posed a terrorist threat.

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Avid texters beware: Fort Lee, N.J. police said they will begin issuing $85 jaywalking tickets to pedestrians who are caught texting while walking.
"It's a big distraction. Pedestrians aren't watching where they are going and they are not aware," said Thomas Ripoli, chief of the Fort Lee Police Department.
Ripoli said the borough, which is home to approximately 35,000 residents, has suffered three fatal pedestrian-involved accidents this year. He hopes his crackdown on people who display dangerous behavior while walking will make his town safer, but not everyone is on board with the idea of issuing $85 tickets.
"When I walk I still look around. I'm not like constantly looking down the whole time," said resident Sue Choe.

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Mitt Romney returned from a three-week spring break in 1965 to resume his studies as a high school senior at the prestigious Cranbrook School. Back on the handsome campus, studded with Tudor brick buildings and manicured fields, he spotted something he thought did not belong at a school where the boys wore ties and carried briefcases. John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.

“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenage son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s look, Friedemann recalled.

A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.

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Obama, Bill Clinton said, “doesn’t know how to be president” and is “incompetent.
...
Bill Clinton’s spokesman Matt McKenna said the excerpts were “totally and completely false” and called Klein “a known liar.”

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