Rosie's World

Picture of the Day

A picture of Rosie's little girl Vivi from her web page. Read some of her readers' comments about the picture.




The history of today:
1990 : Days of Thunder is released
1976 : Ebola breaks out in Sudan
1940 : Germans get Enigma

More quotes:
Approximately 80% of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation, so let’s not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emission standards from man-made sources.
- Ronald Reagan (10 Sept. 1980)
Any idiot can get laid when they're famous. That's easy. It's getting laid when you're not famous that takes some talent.
- Kevin Bacon, 1996
That scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass, and I'm just the one to do it.
- A congressional candidate in Texas.


Immigration Bill Clears Test Vote in Senate - A bill to overhaul the immigration system, all but given up for dead two weeks ago, cleared a crucial test vote in the Senate today, bolstering its chances for passage by the Senate within days. The senators voted, 64 to 35, to invoke cloture, or move to consideration of the bill itself. Since 60 votes are required for cloture, and only 45 voted for cloture two weeks ago, the measure’s supporters were heartened by today’s vote. Had the cloture vote failed today, the bill would have been dead for the foreseeable future. “This bill puts 12 million people on a pathway to legalization,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, who pulled the bill from the floor on June 7 after a previous attempt to invoke cloture received only 45 votes. President Bush repeatedly urged Republican senators (only seven of whom had voted for cloture the first time) to give the legislation another chance. Mr. Reid, who was sharply criticized for pulling the bill, relented and said he was willing to take it up again.

Vote Summary

By Senator Name

By Vote Position

By Home State

Grouped By Vote Position

YEAs ---64
Akaka (D-HI) Bennett (R-UT) Biden (D-DE) Bingaman (D-NM) Bond (R-MO) Boxer (D-CA) Brown (D-OH) Brownback (R-KS) Burr (R-NC) Cantwell (D-WA) Cardin (D-MD) Carper (D-DE) Casey (D-PA) Clinton (D-NY) Coleman (R-MN) Collins (R-ME) Conrad (D-ND) Craig (R-ID) Dodd (D-CT) Domenici (R-NM) Durbin (D-IL) Ensign (R-NV)	Feingold (D-WI) Feinstein (D-CA) Graham (R-SC) Gregg (R-NH) Hagel (R-NE) Harkin (D-IA) Inouye (D-HI) Kennedy (D-MA) Kerry (D-MA) Klobuchar (D-MN) Kohl (D-WI) Kyl (R-AZ) Lautenberg (D-NJ) Leahy (D-VT) Levin (D-MI) Lieberman (ID-CT) Lincoln (D-AR) Lott (R-MS) Lugar (R-IN) Martinez (R-FL) McCain (R-AZ) McConnell (R-KY)	Menendez (D-NJ) Mikulski (D-MD) Murkowski (R-AK) Murray (D-WA) Nelson (D-FL) Nelson (D-NE) Obama (D-IL) Pryor (D-AR) Reed (D-RI) Reid (D-NV) Salazar (D-CO) Schumer (D-NY) Snowe (R-ME) Specter (R-PA) Stevens (R-AK) Voinovich (R-OH) Warner (R-VA) Webb (D-VA) Whitehouse (D-RI) Wyden (D-OR)

NAYs ---35
Alexander (R-TN) Allard (R-CO) Barrasso (R-WY) Baucus (D-MT) Bayh (D-IN) Bunning (R-KY) Byrd (D-WV) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX)	Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC) Dole (R-NC) Dorgan (D-ND) Enzi (R-WY) Grassley (R-IA) Hatch (R-UT) Hutchison (R-TX) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Landrieu (D-LA) McCaskill (D-MO)	Roberts (R-KS) Rockefeller (D-WV) Sanders (I-VT) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Smith (R-OR) Stabenow (D-MI) Sununu (R-NH) Tester (D-MT) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA)

Not Voting - 1

Johnson (D-SD)

China shuts 180 food factories for using illegal chemicals - China has closed 180 food factories after inspectors found industrial chemicals being used in products from candy to seafood, state media said Wednesday.The closures came amid a nationwide crackdown on shoddy and dangerous products launched in December that also uncovered use of recycled or expired food, the China Daily said.Formaldehyde, illegal dyes, and industrial wax were found being used to make candy, pickles, crackers and seafood, it said, citing Han Yi, an official with the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, which is responsible for food safety.

Iran fuel rations spark violence - Several petrol stations have been torched in the Iranian capital Tehran, after the government announced fuel rationing for private vehicles. Windows were smashed and stones thrown at the stations, and there was traffic chaos as motorists queued to buy fuel. Iranians were given only two hours' notice of the move that limits private drivers to 100 litres of fuel a month. Despite its huge energy reserves, Iran lacks refining capacity and it imports about 40% of its petrol.

Giuliani Slams Bill Clinton on Terrorism - Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani on Tuesday accused former President Clinton of not responding forcefully enough to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing or later terrorist attacks. The former New York mayor criticized Democrats, accusing them of weakness and naivete in dealing with terrorism. Giuliani made the comments to about 650 business, corporate and political leaders at Regent University, the conservative Christian college founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson. "Islamic terrorists killed more than 500 Americans before Sept. 11. Many people think the first attack on America was on Sept. 11, 2001. It was not. It was in 1993," said the former New York mayor.

Bill Clinton won't hit the campaign trail for his wife until next week, but he's already pitching in -- at least electronically -- to help boost Hillary's second quarter fundraising numbers. In an email solicitation that just arrived in our inboxes, Clinton says 1) that Hillary's opponents might outraise her; 2) that she won't let Swift Boat-like attacks go unanswered; and 3) that she turned down high-paying jobs out of law school to help children -- which is similar to the message that Obama tries to get across in his first TV ads.

GOP Support for Iraq War Slips - Republican support for the Iraq war is slipping by the day. After four years of combat and more than 3,560 U.S. deaths, two Republican senators previously reluctant to challenge President Bush on the war announced they could no longer support the deployment of 157,000 troops and asked the president to begin bringing them home. "We must not abandon our mission, but we must begin a transition where the Iraqi government and its neighbors play a larger role in stabilizing Iraq," Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, wrote in a letter to Bush. Voinovich, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released his letter Tuesday - one day after Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the panel's top Republican, said in a floor speech that Bush's strategy was not working.

Bolton: I'm 'very worried' for Israel - Sanctions and diplomacy have failed and it may be too late for internal opposition to oust the Islamist regime, leaving only military intervention to stop Iran's drive to nuclear weapons, the US's former ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. Worse still, according to Ambassador Bolton, the Bush administration does not recognize the urgency of the hour and that the options are now limited to only the possibility of regime change from within or a last-resort military intervention, and it is still clinging to the dangerous and misguided belief that sanctions can be effective.

John Leo’s 2007 Sheldon Awards: Tufts Leads the Pack - John Leo, nationally syndicated columnist and tireless critic of campus PC, has announced his Sheldon Awards for 2007 in today’s New York Sun. The Sheldon is “named for Sheldon ‘Water Buffalo’ Hackney, the former president of the University of Pennsylvania,” and is “dedicated to identifying the worst college president of each academic year.”

Steroids discovered in probe of slayings, suicide - Pro wrestler Chris Benoit strangled his wife, suffocated his 7-year-old son and placed a Bible next to their bodies before hanging himself with the pulley of a weight machine, authorities said Tuesday. Investigators found prescription anabolic steroids in the house and want to know whether the muscle man nicknamed "The Canadian Crippler" was unhinged by the bodybuilding drugs, which can cause paranoia, depression and explosive outbursts known as "roid rage."

Suit - A Beaverton mom says the record industry terrorized her with bogus claims - A disabled single mother from Beaverton has filed a federal lawsuit against the Recording Industry Association of America, claiming that she is the victim of abusive legal tactics, threats and illegal spying as part of an overzealous campaign to crack down on music pirating. The recording industry sued Tanya J. Andersen, 44, in 2005, accusing her of violating copyright laws by illegally downloading music onto her computer. Andersen claims in a suit she filed last week in U.S. District Court in Oregon that the recording industry refused to drop its case after its own expert supported her claims of innocence. Instead, industry officials threatened to interrogate Andersen's 10-year-old daughter, Kylee, if she didn't pay thousands of dollars. The intimidation included attempts to contact Kylee directly. A woman claiming to be Kylee's grandmother called the girl's former elementary school inquiring about her attendance, according to Andersen's suit.

Venezuela's Chavez seen wanting office "for life" - Insecurity, "malignant narcissism" and the need for adulation are driving Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's confrontation with the United States, according to a new psychological profile.Eventually, these personality traits are likely to compel Chavez to declare himself Venezuela's president for life, said Dr. Jerrold Post, who has just completed the profile for the U.S. Air Force.Chavez won elections for a third term last December. Since then he has stepped up his anti-American rhetoric, vowed to accelerate a march towards "21st Century socialism" and suggested that he intends to stay in power until 2021 -- a decade beyond his present term.But Post -- who profiled foreign leaders in a 21-year career at the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and now is the director of the Political Psychology Program at George Washington University -- doubts that Chavez plans to step down even then. "He views himself as a savior, as the very embodiment of Venezuela," Post said in an interview.