Facing Certain Death

Residents living in single-family homes in some parts of coastal Texas face "certain death" if they do not heed orders to evacuate ahead of Hurricane Ike's arrival, the National Weather Service said tonight.

The unusually strong wording came in a weather advisory regarding storm surge along the shoreline of Galveston Bay, which could see maximum water levels of 15 to 22 feet, the agency said.

"All neighborhoods ... and possibly entire coastal communities ... will be inundated during the period of peak storm tide," the advisory said. "Persons not heeding evacuation orders in single-family one- or two-story homes will face certain death."

Cocky Wacko

Another recovering republican ... former Rhode Island republican senator Lincoln chafee has called vice presidential candidate sarah palin a "cocky wacko" and said her selection as McPain's running mate has energized supporters of democrat Barack Obama.

Chafee left the republican party last year after losing his bid for re-election and now supports Obama...

"People were coming into my office, phone calls were flooding in, e-mails were coming in, 'I just sent money to Obama, I couldn't sleep last night' — from the left. To see this cocky wacko up there," Chafee said to laughter.

Report on murder at Fort Bragg

A pregnant soldier's unit at Fort Bragg didn't follow procedures for keeping track of newly arrived personnel, the Army said in a report Thursday on the disappearance of the woman, whose body was found this summer at an off-base motel.

The report also said one noncommissioned officer had been reprimanded for lying during the investigation, but the report said the oversights and mistakes would not have prevented the death of Spc. Megan L. Touma, 23, of Cold Spring, Ky.

Two other sergeants were reprimanded, one for not getting Touma's phone number the day she reported to the post and the other for not telling the company commander and senior sergeant he'd heard there might be a problem regarding the woman.

No commissioned officers were reprimanded, said Fort Bragg spokesman Tom McCollum.

"Accountability of all of our soldiers falls to the noncommissioned officer chain," McCollum said.

The sergeant who lied "made it appear he followed all the procedures," he added

Touma was a dental specialist who arrived June 12 at Fort Bragg after traveling from a base in Germany.

Her decomposing body was found June 21 in a motel room bathtub not far from the North Carolina base.

The report said the noncommissioned officer in charge of Touma's unit, the 19th Replacement Co., failed to follow "a number of redundant checks and balances."

Sgt. Edgar Patino, 27, of Hope Mills, was the father of Touma's unborn baby and has been charged with first-degree murder.

Investigators said Touma and the married Patino began a relationship while both were stationed in Germany.

Chavez orders US ambassador out

It has come to this:

President Hugo Chavez ordered the U.S. ambassador to leave Venezuela in 72 hours and said he was immediately withdrawing his ambassador from Washington.

Chavez said Thursday night that U.S. Ambassador Patrick Duddy is no longer welcome, just as his close ally Bolivia expelled the American envoy from La Paz a day earlier.

And with they way the cabal has acted over the last 7 plus years I am surprised it took this long.

More drug infested water

Testing prompted by an Associated Press story that revealed trace amounts of pharmaceuticals in drinking water supplies has shown that more Americans are affected by the problem than previously thought - at least 46 million.

That's up from 41 million people reported by the AP in March as part of an investigation into the presence of pharmaceuticals in the nation's waterways.

The AP stories prompted federal and local legislative hearings, brought about calls for mandatory testing and disclosure, and led officials in at least 27 additional metropolitan areas to analyze their drinking water.

Positive tests were reported in 17 cases, including Reno, Nev., Savannah, Ga., Colorado Springs, Colo., and Huntsville, Ala.

Results are pending in three others.

The test results, added to data from communities and water utilities that bowed to pressure to disclose earlier test results, produce the new total of Americans known to be exposed to drug-contaminated drinking water supplies.