Monday Newsbreak: 7/7

--Barack Obama is apparently trying to appear more centrist by expressing more caution about removing U.S. combat troops from Iraq, as well as trying to sound more sympathetic to the pro-life/anti-abortion movement. But what he seems to be accomplishing right now, at least the way I see it, is simply to confuse his supporters. I believe that the greatest danger of a serious, campaign-derailing gaffe can be when any candidate steps outside his/her ideological comfort zone and makes statements that either go against that candidate’s political creed or expose ignorance on his/her part. Obama needs to be extremely careful treading on this ground. For if he goes too far, he may just lose some of his most ardent supporters when they either stay home on Election Day, go over to vote for Ralph Nader, or even pick John McCain as the lesser of two evils.

--Former North Carolina senator Jesse Helms, an extreme right-wing conservative, died this past Friday at 86 of natural causes. I respect those elected office-holders whose strong political leanings (left or right) do not impede them from acting with dignity and respect for others who differ with them. For example, Alabama senator Jeff Sessions is currently one of the most conservative senators today. He speaks for his causes articulately and passionately. But I have never seen him display anything like the meanness of spirit that Senator Helms showed at times in his career. Helms was strongly against federal funding for AIDS research simply because the victims (in the U.S.) tended to be gay or illegal drug users. Although being a staunch opponent of abortion, he also opposed federally-sponsored low-income aid programs for poor families with children. Just from spite, he used his position in a senate committee to kill Bill Clinton’s nomination of former Massachusetts governor William Weld to be ambassador to Mexico. And he ran a racist campaign for re-election against his African-American Democratic opponent in 1990. I know that I’m not supposed to knock the recently deceased. So someone please tell me how great this guy really was (with reasons)!

--Atlantic tropical storm Bertha is expected to become a category-one hurricane within the next day or two. Its projected path has it passing just north of the Leeward Islands. Eventually, a developing high pressure area in the southeast U.S. should deflect it in a more northerly direction. By Thursday Bertha, although probably far out at sea, will also probably be close enough to north Florida beaches to cause bad surf and rip tides. And I’ve been planning to take my family to Jacksonville Beach the following day! Phooey!

--In the “out of the blue” department, Kent Couch successfully floated high in the eastern Oregon sky and safely landed, all while sitting in a lawn chair, supported by 105 big helium party balloons. On a whim, I had written an article about this exact type of endeavor back on June 15! It turns out that the original “chair-trekker” was Larry Walters, who lifted up three miles into the sky over Los Angeles in 1982 using the balloons/lawn chair/bb gun combo. So my question has been answered: this was no urban legend! But I heard that Couch invested about six thousand dollars on his “simple” device, most of it for the helium in his balloons! Well, back to the drawing board!