I read the news today, oh boy

Kurt Vonnegut quotes from The Freeway Blogger: "There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president."
"True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country."
"I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center."
"Every passing hour brings the Solar System forty-three thousand miles closer to Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules— and still there are some misfits who insist that there is no such thing as progress."

Extreme sports:

A sturgeon jumped out of a river and hit a woman riding a personal watercraft, the latest such injury involving the flying fish along the Suwannee River . . . the Gulf sturgeon migrate into the Suwannee River in March to spawn, and remain in the river until the fall. And researchers still aren't sure why the large fish jump.

Maybe the fish are just fighting back.

Leading: You can always tell which Democratic presidential candidates the Republicans are most scared of -- its the ones they are working hardest to swift-boat with baseless, irrelevant smear campaigns. Right now, its John Edwards and Barak Obama, either of whom would make an excellent president.

Harper's "personal primper": On the other hand, this is actually funny, though as a taxpayer I laughed 'til I cried:

. . . taxpayers are picking up the tab for Prime Minister Stephen Harper's personal primper.
After two days of ducking media and opposition questions, the Conservatives finally revealed Wednesday that Michelle Muntean is on Harper's government staff.
. . . Harper has been travelling with his personal image adviser for major domestic and international events - most recently at ceremonies at Vimy Ridge in France last week. Muntean helps him perfect his look, including managing his wardrobe and general grooming . . . Muntean began working with Harper during his run for the Conservative leadership, and stayed through two federal campaigns. She hails from the world of film and television, and had become CBC's head of makeup by the late 1990s.
A warm, bubbly personality, Muntean has now become a fixture in Harper's entourage and remains the only staff member he tolerates style advice from. Sources said Harper has tried to convince her to move to Ottawa, but she remains based near Toronto.
In addition to her travels to Vimy Ridge, Muntean was also with Harper in Hanoi, Vietnam when he met with Pacific rim leaders, and in St. Petersburg, Russia for last summer's G8 summit.

Maybe if they called her a butler, rather than a primper, the whole thing would be less offensive (I guess I'm just glad Canadian Press didn't call her a "personal fluffer"!)
Whatever you call her, Harper should be paying for this type of employee with his own money, not ours. But darn it, I guess we won't be seeing any more photos like this one: