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U.S. Senate hopeful Tim Burns of North Strabane Township exited the U.S. Senate race on Thursday. “Those leaders spoke on Saturday,” Burns said of the GOP endorsement, where committee members confirmed Gov. Tom Corbett’s choice. “ And while it may not have been the outcome I hoped for, I have always known it would be difficult to carry on without their support.”

[T]he film is beautifully composed. There are seductive inserts of bottling machinery and a perfect whiskey old fashioned cocktail being made. Some sequences border upon being high quality advertising agency pornography produced for a liquor industry client. There are no laborers ordering Boilermakers in the final cut... Burns knows his real audience, his business partners at the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (your tax dollars at work) prefer sophisticated cocktails rather than canned beer and pork rinds. The documentary praises Frances Willard of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union as a feminist heroine while ignoring...

Xerox, whose CEO, Ursula Burns, is advising President Obama on exports, last week told its product engineering employees that it is in outsourcing talks with India-based IT services firm HCL Technologies... Burns was appointed last year as vice chairwoman of the President's Export Council, a panel of CEOs advising the Obama administration on how to increase exports, which would lead to an increase in domestic jobs... Burns is outspoken on the need to improve the pool of math and science graduates in U.S. schools. In a recent video interview on CNN, she warned that if graduation rates in these areas...

Traditional Scottish Songs - The Deil's Awa' Wi' Th' Exciseman Robert Burns worked as an exciseman, or customs officer, in Dumfries. While he was apparently good at his job, he would be well aware that tax collection and chasing after smugglers was not always popular! It has been suggested that Burns wrote this song while waiting for reinforcements before boarding a smugglers's ship. He certainly sang it - at an excisemen's dinner - a month after such an incident. The Deil's Awa' Wi' Th' Exciseman The Deil cam fiddlin' through the toun And danced awa' wi' th' exciseman, And ilka...

0, my love is like a red, red rose, that's newly sprung in June. 0, my love is like a melody, that's sweetly play'd in tune. As fair thou art, my bonnie lass, so deep in love am I, And I will love thee still, my dear, till a' the seas gang dry. Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, and the rocks melt wi' the sun! And I will love thee still, my dear, while the sands of life shall run. And fare the weel, my only love! And fare the well awhile! And I will come again,...

As more neo-Soviet horrors are revealed to the public, it's time to call U.S. policy towards Russia its proper name: appeasement. The Russian tinderbox known as Chechnya is smoldering once again, indicating a complete policy breakdown on the part of the Kremlin that has wide and deep repercussions for the outside world — including a greatly increased risk of terrorism at the 2014 Olympic Games. If the Obama administration does not act soon, it may have blood on its hands. Current events coming out of the region look like a public relations nightmare for the Kremlin. First came the renewed...

<p>Roseville, CA Galleria Mall on fire. All shoppers and sore workers evacuated. No injuries known. Perp placed a package which ignited the fire. Perp captured and under arrest. Reporter saying arson suspected. I can see heavy black smoke from my home.</p>

Have you ever worked on your laptop computer with it sitting on your lap, heating up your legs? If so, you might want to rethink that habit. Doing it a lot can lead to “toasted skin syndrome,” an unusual-looking mottled skin condition caused by long-term heat exposure, according to medical reports.

KOKOMO, Ind.(Kokomo Tribune) - A woman suffered second-degree burns to her face, hands and arms after a prank at a westside residence went horribly wrong. Assistant Chief Brad Myers of the Kokomo Fire Department said the victim, Heather McCombs, 24, put out a cigarette in a coffee can she was using as an ash tray. The can contained gunpowder. When McCombs' cigarette came into contact with the gunpowder, it ignited, causing the burns...

Republicans who were already planning their Nancy Pelosi retirement galas for November may want to cancel the caterer. The GOP lost the most important election that was held on Tuesday, and if it fails to learn from the experience the party will lose in the autumn too. The GOP lost the one race in which a seat in Congress was up for grabs, the contest to replace the late Jack Murtha in the 12th House district in southwestern Pennsylvania. John McCain had carried the seat with 49% of the vote in 2008, President Obama's approval rating was well below 40%,...

On Tuesday morning, Republicans who were closely watching the special election in Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District — once represented by John Murtha — did not offer ironclad, take-it-to-the-bank guarantees that their man Tim Burns was going to win. But they liked his chances, and expected him to at least run close to Democrat Mark Critz. The final tally wasn’t close: Critz won 53.4 percent to Burns’s 44.3 percent, with all precincts but one reporting. Critz won a bit more than 71,000 votes, Burns a bit more than 59,000. So what happened? Among the arguments emerging late Tuesday night: Critz ran...

In Pennsylvania’s 12th District, Republican Tim Burns has conceded to Democrat Mark Critz. One reader’s on the ledge: Pa12 is more than a disappointment.  It is a disaster.  You know politics as well as I do (even though I’m probably your senior by at least thirty years).  When there is a political wave the following happens: parties win special elections in normally difficult districts; they win with weak candidates; they win all the close elections. They just win, win, and win.   Burns’s defeat shows, as of now, the Rs will unlikely take the House.  Perhaps they’ll do well; as today’s generic...

WASHINGTON, Pa. -- Bill Steiner had a simple explanation for Tuesday night's result in Pennsylvania's 12th District. "It's Murtha's ghost," said Steiner, about a half-hour after Republican Tim Burns had conceded to Democrat Mark Critz, former aide to the late Rep. John Murtha. "People were afraid to change." Murtha died in February, three weeks after Republican Scott Brown had won the Massachusetts Senate seat held for more than four decades by Ted Kennedy, and the GOP clearly hoped to carry that momentum into the special election to fill the House seat that Murtha had held since the mid-1970s. What happened...

Democrat Mark Critz has defeated Republican challenger Tim Burns in the special election for the House seat formerly held by the late John Murtha in Pennsylvania's 12th district

We needed Toomey to GOTV but he really had the , if it had been Toomey v Specter I think Burns would have had a much better chance of winning. Turnout was key and having competitive Senate and Governors races helped the Democrats turn out nearly 1 million voters. Burns also has a serious primary challenge by Bill Russell since he ran against Murtha last time out. It would be wild if Burns pulls this out against Critz but loses the primary to Russel, a lame duck unless he can run Independent like Charley Crist.

The polls are not yet closed in Pennsylvania's 12th Congressional District. Yet some astute observers are seeing a Tim Burns win in the cards. Why predict a Burns win in a district that is 2 to 1 Democrat? Let's go through the reasons: 1-This years big political theme: The theme of 2010 is change. The 12th district has been Democrat since 1974.It 's hard for Critz to argue he is an agent for change when he is of the same party as Obama and worked for Murtha. Indeed, he campaigns that he can bring home pork like Murtha. This is...

175 People Double Voted in One Precinct in PA-12 by Mike Roman The Precinct Judge of Elections at North Union 4 in Fayette County says she mistakenly gave 175 people 2 ballots this morning. She claims she thought the Special Election to fill the vacancy in Congressional District 12 required her to give a seperate ballot for the Primary and the Special Election. As of now, it is unknown the partisan breakdown of the 175 voters. Jack Murtha carried the precinct with 62% in 2008. His death in February caused the vacancy in the district. Developing…

Pennsylvania Primary Predictions (?) Pennsylvania's primary election is fast approaching, with one of the nation's hottest special election occurring, the spotlight is on Pennsylvania on Tuesday.  As a lifelong resident of Philadelphia, let me share some insights on some of the races in Pennsylvania. Pat Toomey vs Peg Lusik:  In a nutshell, this is Toomey's race and I predict he will carry this primary election easily. Sestak vs Specter:  Rasmussen has Sestak moving slightly ahead of Specter in polling last week. Not surprising as Specter has the same dismal appeal to Democrats in PA as McCain had to Republicans in...

The final poll before Tuesday’s special election to fill Jack Murtha’s unexpired seat in the U.S. House shows that Republican Tim Burns is neck and neck with Democrat and pork barrel specialist Mark Critz. (Yes, Critz’s campaign is funded by lobbyists and special interests.)

In the race to replace the late Congressman John Murtha, businessman Tim Burns (R) leads former Murtha aide Mark Critz (D) by just one point (48% to 47%) in what will probably be the last major poll of the campaign. Leaping into the spotlight of this special election is former President Bill Clinton who stopped by to tell all those bitter Pennsylvanians clinging to their guns and religion that the reason the race is close is that "times are tough and things are all up in the air and people are disoriented."

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. -- Almost four decades after John Murtha stood at the Rod & Wire Division gate and shook enough hands to loosen his arm, Mark Critz's stayed firmly in its socket, a testament to the possibility the 12th Congressional District could soon be in very different hands. "Mr. Murtha told me once, when they're coming out, shake their hand and let them go, because they want to go home. When they're coming in, they'll want to stop and talk," said Mr. Critz, who was awarded the Democratic nomination to Congress after Mr. Murtha, his boss, died three months ago....

A close primary race has divided Republicans in the late Rep. John Murtha's district and has helped Democrat Mark Critz take the lead in the special election to replace him, according to a Susquehanna Polling & Research survey. Critz leads GOP nominee Tim Burns 44 percent to 38 percent with one week to go. Voters on Tuesday will pick between the two to fill Murtha's unexpired term and will choose their parties' nominees for the general election in November. A majority of Democrats back Critz in the primary over challengers Ryan Bucchianeri and Ron Mackell Jr. Burns is locked in...

Filling the void in 12th District Observer-Reporter May 10, 2010 The unexpected death in February of U.S. Rep. John Murtha left a void in the U.S. Congress and, more specifically, in Pennsylvania's 12th Congressional District, that seems unlikely to be filled anytime soon. Murtha not only brought a wealth of expertise on defense issues to the U.S. House of Representatives, but also pulled a bounty of federal projects into his district. Some may have condemned it as pork-barrel spending, but it brought the region a much-needed economic lift as the steel industry withered. Voters in the 12th Congressional District will...

Remember Candidate Barack Obama's opinion of people in small town Pennsylvania? He made it very clear at a 2008 San Fransisco fundraiser when he said, "You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania...they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion." (source) Call it revenge of the clingers - in eleven days the Obama machine is about to be seriously jammed by those small town Pennsylvanians and one native son who wants to bring real hope and change to the area.

At first blush, Democrats should have nothing to fear in Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District special election. John Murtha held this seat for decades. Democrats have a 2-1 registration advantage over Republicans. Their candidate was a Murtha aide for over ten years, while their opponent has had little political experience. And yet, the AP has gotten a big whiff of panic from Pennsylvania Democrats... The polling shows a very close race — with Burns in the lead. That has Democrats worried about how other normally-safe districts might turn out in November. That fear has come out in Critz’ campaigning, where he...

In less than two weeks, voters go to the polls in Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District to pick a replacement for deceased Rep. John Murtha. The polls show a close race between Democrat Mark Critz and Republican Tim Burns. As IBD noted in a story Wednesday, Critz has one possible advantage that could prove crucial: The special election falls on the same day as Pennsylvania’s primary. Democrats have competitive races for governor and the Senate. “There is an opportunity here for higher Democrat turnout

The new Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll of the PA-12 special election gives Republican businessman Tim Burns the edge in the race for the House seat formerly held by the late Democratic Rep. John Murtha. The numbers: Burns 46%, with Democratic candidate and former Murtha aide Mark Critz at 40%. The sample of likely voters has a ±4% margin of error. The Democrats have held this seat since 1974, when Murtha picked it up from the Republicans in a special election held in the midst of the Watergate scandals. The special election will be held on May 18. The TPM Poll...

Kos poll: Burns by six By: Josh Kraushaar April 30, 2010 12:59 PM EDT Weighed down in his district by low presidential favorability ratings and a health care law that's unpopular there, Pennsylvania Democrat Mark Critz now trails by six points in next month's special election for the seat of the late Rep. John Murtha, according to a Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll released Friday. Critz, who served on Murtha's staff before the congressman's death, takes 40 percent of the vote in the poll compared with 46 percent for Republican businessman Tim Burns. The poll shows President Barack Obama's favorability number...

What do you do when you’re a Republican in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and you’ve just stomped Nancy Pelosi’s handpicked Democrat into smithereens in a public debate for the congressional seat formerly held by the late Jack Murtha? Tim Burns headed straight to Coney Island Lunch for the world-famous “Sundowner” burger. The Johnston Tribune-Democrat story about the debate is so “fair and balanced” as to be soporific. It’s 3 a.m., I’ve just driven 240 miles round-trip and I’m too tired to give you the full gonzo account until I get a few hours of sleep. But the neutral objective fact is that...

Free Pennsylvania Rob Gleason’s man Tim Burns appears on radio and television shows across the nation regularly these days, now that he received the Republican party endorsement for the seat formerly held by Jack Murtha. Rob Gleason is PA Republican State Chair and long time Murtha ally. Yes, I said Republican. Burns does not mentioned that the grassroots conservative candidate for the House of Representatives from PA, Lt. Col. Bill Russell is beating him in the polls by 29 points http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/23/defeat-for-another-house-seat/ . Burns is beating Critz the Democrat candidate by 4 according to his website. This translates to Russell smashing...

Many of the defense contractors that benefited from the late Rep. John Murtha's power to dole out Pentagon contracts are lining up to help elect his top aide to the seat. Defense contractors, local business officers and lobbyists that relied on earmarked federal contracts from Murtha (D-Pa.) recently chipped in $142,400 to elect Mark Critz, an analysis by The Washington Post shows. Those donations made up more than 52 percent of the individual contributions that Critz raised in the first-quarter of 2010 as he seeks to replace his late boss, new campaign records reveal. Critz is a friendly face to...

Sunday, April 25, 2010 Rating change: GOP projected to win Murtha's seat With the Pennsylvania preview comes one more projected GOP takeover. On May 18th, a special election will be held to fill the seat vacated by John Murtha's unexpected passing. The pundits call it a toss-up, but polls give Republican Tim Burns an slight edge over Democrat Mark Critz. As a result, the race moves to a Weak GOP Gain. I'm looking forward to seeing if the momentum displayed in Massachusetts in January will still be going strong in May in southwestern Pennsylvania. This change brings the projected House...

PPP: Burns by three By: Josh Kraushaar April 20, 2010 12:07 PM EDT Republican businessman Tim Burns holds a three-point lead in next month's special election for Pennsylvania's 12th Congressional District, according to a Public Policy Polling survey released Tuesday. PPP shows Burns leading Democrat Mark Critz, a former aide to the late Rep. John Murtha, 44 percent to 41 percent. Burns also has a higher net favorability rating than Critz: 45 percent of voters view him favorably and 26 percent view him unfavorably, compared with 41 percent who have a favorable view of Critz and 34 percent who have...

LATROBE – On paper, the nine counties meandering across Western Pennsylvania to form the 12th Congressional District numerically favor Democrats by a nice margin. In reality, people who live, work and pray here could not be more removed from the Democratic Party ruling out of Washington. More rural/suburban than urban/suburban, it is chock-full of conservative Democrats who believe in hard work, God and guns. It is a world that elite liberals fail to understand, as one Democratic strategist confessed in an e-mail: “Have to admit that America is about as foreign as France to me.” On May 18, ex-congressional aide...

While the White House was engaged in hosting a Nuclear Security Summit in Washington D.C., a major nuclear incident occurred in India that escaped the attention of the international press. Five people suffering from serious radiological burns were hospitalized in West New Delhi this week from contact with nuclear material in a Delhi scrap market. The material has been identified as Cobalt-60 which may be used for making a dirty bomb. Indian police sectioned off the 200 market stores in the thickly populated city of 14 million and sealed nearby establishments within a one-kilometer radius. Scrap dealer Deepak Jain and...

This is a VERY important election. We've been fighting for this seat for a long time and finally have a great shot of taking it both in the May 18 Special Election and in November. Tim Burns (R) has been selected as the GOP candidate to run in the May 18 Special Election against Mark Critz (D), but both Burns and another good GOP candidate, Bill Russell, are running in the May 18 Primary to face off against Critz in November. Burns needs our support now to win the seat on May 18.Note that this district went for McCain in...

Prof. (Emeritus) Michael Montgomery has shown a definite link between the Scottish English of the Ulster emigrants to America and the Appalachian English dialect. Robert Burns was a poet and a lyricist who studied and wrote in Scottish dialect. His most famous collection of poetry is "Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish dialect." Burns collected Scottish folk songs, which he sometimes revised or adapted, and he traveled through southern Scotland collecting material for The Scots Musical Museum. Burns' poetry and lyrics thus reflect an extensive knowledge of the Scottish folk idiom. (Burns' letters, in contrast, are written in standard English.)

Russell Accuses State Republican Party Chairman of Collusion March 24, 2010 by David CroyleHarrisburg is talking about last night’s cable show in Kittanning where the Republican candidate for the 12th Congressional District accused the state Republican Party chairman of collusion.Bill Russell ran two years ago against John Murtha in his last election in 2008, raising $3.6 million and earning an impressive 42 percent of the vote. Following his loss, Russell announced he would run against him again.Since Murtha’s unexpected death on February 8, a special election will now be held simultaneously with the Primary on May 18. However, while Russell...

Smuggled and bootlegged, it has been the cause of transatlantic tensions for more than two decades. But after 21 years in exile, the haggis is to be allowed back into the United States. The "great chieftan o' the puddin-race" was one of earliest casualties of the BSE crisis of the 1980s-90s, banned on health grounds by the US authorities in 1989 because they feared its main ingredient ‑ minced sheep offal ‑ could prove lethal.

The Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) ray-cannon, mounted in a specially-equipped Hercules transport plane flying above New Mexico, has now succeeded in "putting a hole in the fender" of a ground vehicle driving along beneath it. The not particularly awesome result was announced by Boeing, maker of the ATL, yesterday. "In this test, a directed energy weapon successfully demonstrated direct attack on a moving target," said Gary Fitzmire, Boeing raygun veep. Though that is nothing new; Boeing's Humvee-mounted "Laser Avenger" ray-turret shot down a small flying robot earlier this year

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SUN NOV 30, 2003 20:42:05 ET XXXXX HOLLYWOOD DEMS GATHER FOR 'HATE BUSH' MEETING AT HILTON **Exclusive** Top Hollywood activists and intellectuals are planning to gather this week in Beverly Hills for an event billed as 'Hate Bush,' the DRUDGE REPORT has learned! Laurie David [wife of SEINFELD creator Larry David] has sent out invites to the planned Tuesday evening meeting at the Hilton with the bold heading: 'Hate Bush 12/2 - Event' The message reads: "This is the most important meeting you can attend to prevent the advancement of the current extremist right wing agenda....

Just listening to CNN online and heard Rick Sanchez interview this Media Matters guy and made no mention of MM's affiliations or slant, just that he works for "a media fact check group". I wanted to barf. It's to be expected coming from CNN, but here's the real shocker: they picked apart a Republican congressman's response (forgot his name) to a question. Sanchez asked him about spending and earmarks under the Bush Administration and why he's making a big fuss now instead of back then. The congressman rattled off several bills that Bush supported that he fought Bush on. Enter...

Thankfully, you don't have to make your own haggis; you can get it straight from the chill cabinet at your local Sainsbury's, Waitrose and Marks & Spencer - in fact, you can even get a lentil-packed vegetarian version if you so desire. In the run-up to Burns Night, Macsweens of Edinburgh exports up to 800 tonnes around the world, from Canada to Kazakhstan, which is an awful lot of haggis by anyone's standards. And Americans will go to extraordinary lengths to lay their hands on a haggis (importing sheep's lungs is banned in the States), even smuggling them through Customs...

BETHESDA, Md. — Quentin C. Aanenson, a Minnesota-born fighter pilot whose wartime experiences helped millions of television viewers understand World War II, has died. A subject of Ken Burns' documentary "The War" and the producer of his own film a decade earlier, Aanenson died Sunday of cancer at his home in Bethesda, his son, Jerry, said. He was 87. "He lived a magnificent life," Jerry Aanenson said. "He said if he had a chance to be 15 again, he wouldn't take it." The native of Luverne, Minn., flew 75 combat missions in Europe as a captain in P-47 Thunderbolt fighters....

Schweitzer 'joke' may have grain of truth By JENNIFER McKEE Gazette State Bureau UPDATE 3:30 p.m. : HELENA - Gov. Brian Schweitzer said this week he was "just joking" this summer when he suggested he tampered with the hotly-contested 2006 Senate election. However, at least one Big Horn County observer was escorted out of a Crow Indian polling place that election night, (snip) Schweitzer has been criticized this week for remarks he made to a lawyer’s group in Philadelphia this July. In the remarks, Schweitzer insinuates that he tampered with election to secure a victory for Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon...

Really? THE FACTS Aloe vera has been a common skin-care remedy since the Greek physician Dioscorides advocated using it for burns in the first century A.D. But only in recent years have scientists conducted research to determine whether it lives up to its reputation. Some have found that aloe contains certain anti-inflammatory compounds and may act as an antibacterial agent. But studies on its effects on minor and moderate burns have been mixed. In 2007, for example, a study in the journal Burns analyzed data from four controlled clinical trials involving a total of 371 patients, some were treated with...

A federal judge has rejected the appeal of a $24.2 million verdict against two railroad companies for injuries suffered by two teenagers climbing on a train car parked near Lancaster in 2002. U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence F. Stengel, who presided over the trial, handed down a 60-page opinion this week rejecting the arguments raised by the responsible railroad companies, Amtrak and Norfolk Southern Corp., denying the companies' request for a new trial or to reduce the amount of the award. The jury could have divided the blame between the young men and the railroad companies, but after the trial...

HELENA - Republicans say John McCain now has a better chance in Montana's unique GOP caucus - open to only about 2,000 party volunteers and officeholders - after getting rid of a state chairman many in that group saw as a traitor. McCain dumped Montana's maverick lieutenant governor recently in favor of former U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns, much more popular with GOP insiders despite losing his re-election bid in 2006 amid suspicions over connections to a Washington, D.C., lobbying scandal. The move comes as McCain has spent time and money nailing down his conservative credentials in other states. In Montana,...

Scots ask US to lift haggis ban   Haggis, traditionally eaten on Burns night, is banned in the US The Scottish Government is considering asking the United States to rethink its ban on haggis imports. Imports of Scotland's iconic dish were banned by the US in 1989 in the wake of the BSE scare because it contains offal ingredients such as sheep lungs. Only an offal-free version of haggis is available in the US. The move would be backed by renowned haggis maker Macsween, which believes the American market could be a very lucrative one. A Scottish Government spokeswoman...

Ode Tae A Fart Oh whit a sleekit horrible beastie lurks in your belly after the feastie Jist as you sit doon amang yer kin There starts tae stir an enormous win’ ***************************** The neeps ‘n’tatties ‘n’ mushy peas Start workin’ like a gentle breeze But soon the puddin’ wi the sauncie face Will hae ye blowin ‘a’ ower the place ****************************** Nae matter whit the hell ye dae A’bodys gonny huv tae pay Even when ye try tae stifle It’s like a bullet oot a rifle ************************* Ye hawd yer bum ticht tae the chair An try tae stop...