Is It a Planet or a Star?

Just teasers here; you'll have to follow the links into the Kansas City Star to get the full stories:

Someone's got something to hide. The Senate was about to pass a bill that "would create a searchable database of government contracts, grants, insurance, loans and financial assistance." But then some unknown senator used a little known rule to place a secret "hold" on the bill. Nothing will come of the bill now (unless the senator changes his mind) and we'll never know who's responsible.

So why even bother having intelligence agencies? The warmongers in power say that our spy and intelligence agencies haven't gathered the "truth" about Iran since their reports claim the country doesn't represent that much of a threat. Can you say "Iraq: The sequel?" -- OK, this is strange. I just read an article titled, "U.S. intelligence agencies are coming under fire" in yesterday's print Star, attributed to the New York Times. I've searched the websites of both papers for a link and can't find the article. I searched Google for that phrase and got no results. Can you say conspiracy?

Better prison than embarrassment. A man told airport security that the suspicious looking item x-rayed in his bag was a bomb rather than admit in front of his mother that it was part of a penis pump.

So much for being the breadwinner. And on the good news front, I'll be able to cut back to part time soon if this trend continues. :-)

And to those of you who've been wanting to do some hiking, we need to plan that before it gets too cold so we can enjoy the local wildlife.