LOTTOMIKE's Blog

some are saying the democratic party could ask al gore to run and make either obama or hillary VP if things get to the point where no resolution can be reached,i'd like this but can they do this?

can you see this pic?   just wondering if its there or the red x.....

pics of my kids and me with my kids........

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A chunk of Antarctic ice nine times the size of Manhattan has suddenly collapsed, putting an even larger glacial area at risk.

Satellite images show the runaway disintegration of a 220-square-mile chunk in western Antarctica.

British scientist David Vaughan says it's the result of global warming.

The rest of the Connecticut-sized ice shelf is holding on by a narrow beam of thin ice and scientists worry that it too may collapse. Larger, more dramatic ice collapses occurred in 2002 and 1995.

does anyone here have lupus?  my mother has had it for a while and i was wondering how others deal and cope with it.

a question about taxes and marriage...

i have two children and a girlfriend i've been with 11 years.i claim the two children and get about 5 or 6 grand each year during tax refund time.if i end up marrying my girlfriend will i get more or way less on my tax refund each year?  yes or no....

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) - Antique store owners in lower Manhattan, ticket vendors at India's Taj Mahal and Brazilian business executives heading to China all have one thing in common these days: They don't want U.S. dollars.

Hit by a free fall with no end in sight, the once mighty U.S. dollar is no longer just crashing on currency markets and making life more expensive for American tourists and business people abroad; its clout is evaporating worldwide as foreign businesses and individuals turn to other currencies.

Experts say the bleak U.S. economic forecast means it will take years for the greenback tosentiment is growing in nations where the dollar was historically accepted as equal or better than local currency - and dollar aversion is even extending to some quarters in the United States.

At the Taj Mahal, dollars were always legal tender, alongside rupees, for entry into the palace. But because of the falling value of the dollar, the government implemented a rupees-only policy a month ago. Indian merchants catering to tourists have also turned bearish on the dollar.

"Gone are the days when we used to run after dollars, holding onto them for rainy days," said Vijay Narain, a tour operator in the city of Agra where the Taj Mahal is located. "Now we prefer the euro. It gives us more riches."

In Bolivia, billboards feature George Washington's image on a $1 bill alongside a bright pink 500 euro note, encouraging savers to turn to the euro to tuck away money earned abroad or sent home in remittances.

"If the dollar's going down ... save it in Euros!!!" say the signs popping up around La Paz for Bolivia's Banco Bisa.

And in neighboring Brazil, the Confidence Cambio money-changing service was the first to start offering yuan so travelers to China no longer have to change the money into dollars first. The service is already a hit because Brazil does big business with China, and lots of Brazilians are heading to the Olympics this summer.

"Now we tell people not to take dollars when they go abroad, it's better to change it directly to the local currency," said Fabio Agostinho, one of the firm's managing partners. "If people leave here with dollars and go abroad, they lose when they exchange them. It's the same thing whether they're heading to China, Europe or even Argentina."

In Manhattan's Bowery district, Billy LeRoy, the owner of Billy's Antiques & Props, prefers payment in euros so he can stockpile the currency for his annual antique buying trip to Paris.

"Whip out dollars at the French flea market now, and they'll shoo you away," he said at his store near apartment buildings where Europeans are snapping up units because they've become dirt cheap. "Before it was like the second coming of Christ, but now they don't want it or if they do take dollars, they're going to take their pound of flesh."

The dollar has steadily eroded in value against the euro and other currencies since 2002 as U.S. budget and trade deficits ballooned, but fears of an American recession and credit crisis have sent the dollar to stunning lows amid predictions the slump will continue for a long time.

The euro traded for a record $1.5625 before declining to $1.5586 Thursday while the dollar dropped below 100 Japanese yen for the first time since November 1995. It traded as low as 99.75 yen before recovering some ground to 101.68 yen. The dollar also recently hit a 10-year low against the Chilean peso, and fell to its lowest level against Brazil's real since the nation floated its currency in 1999.

While low dollar cycles have come and gone for decades, experts caution that it's now much more difficult to predict when this one will end because the euro didn't exist as competition for the dollar before.

During previous U.S. economic downturns, big foreign funds typically snapped up U.S. treasuries, helping to shore up the dollar to a certain degree. But the euro and currencies from other nations are now seen as legitimate options, and interest rates are higher outside the United States - meaning the funds can get better returns on investments elsewhere.

"You have the U.S. still holding this trade deficit, but now you have the possibility of a U.S. led recession, and you have a weakening currency. So it's a very dark outlook for the dollar," said Gareth Sylvester, senior currency strategist with the British firm HIFX Inc., which executed $40 billion in currency trades last year.

Nations that were once seen as incredibly risky for investments - such as Brazil - are now seen as good long-term bets. And countries such as China and Russia, with burgeoning coffers of money to invest abroad, are thought to be shifting some of their reserves or diversifying fresh income to destinations and currencies outside the United States.

It used to be important for most countries "to accumulate dollars as a precautionary element against rainy days, but the accumulation of reserves has become so large in most emerging market countries that the balance is way beyond what's needed for precautionary reasons," said Eliot Kalter, a fellow at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a former International Monetary Fund official.

While most experts believe the dollar will eventually regain strength, no one is willing to predict when that will happen.

"I think the factors that are affecting the weakness of the dollar will be reversed, but no time soon," Kalter said.

The problem right now, is that "people just don't want to be holding U.S dollars and U.S.-based equities," Sylvester added. "If you are an investor with a million dollars to invest, you look for the highest yield - you're looking at South Africa, Australia, New Zealand."

And it's not only the big time investors that are looking for other options.

In Peru, where savings in U.S. dollars were long a popular hedge against inflation, many citizens are closing dollar accounts in favor of Peruvian soles.

At the same time, businesses like supermarkets, movie theaters and cable TV companies that used to accept dollars are now demanding soles.

Edwin Figueroa, a 29-year-old systems engineer, switched his checking account from dollars to soles seven months ago as the dollar's decline started worrying him. He doesn't think he'll be going back anytime soon.

The Peruvian sol "is stable now," he said. "And maybe in a year, the dollar will even go lower."

Associated Press Writers Biswajeet Banerjee and Leslie Josephs contributed from Lucknow, India, and Lima, Peru.

CBS/AP) Gasoline prices were poised Monday to set a new record at the pump, having surged to within half a cent of their record high of $3.227 a gallon. Oil prices, meanwhile, surged above $108 to a new inflation-adjusted record and their fifth new high in the last six sessions on an upbeat report on wholesale inventories.

The national average price of a gallon of gas rose 0.7 cent overnight to $3.222 a gallon, 69 cents higher than one year ago, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Last May, prices peaked at $3.227 as surging demand and a string of refinery outages raised concerns about supplies.

That record will likely be left in the dust soon as gas prices accelerate toward levels that could approach $4 a gallon, though most analysts believe prices will peak below that psychologically significant mark. In its last forecast, released last month, the Energy Department said prices will likely peak around $3.40 a gallon this spring; a new forecast is due Tuesday.

The high prices are affecting transportation habits. New numbers out Monday show Americans took more than 10 billion trips on public transportation last year - the most in 50 years, reports CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy. Even in car-centric Los Angeles, subway ridership is up.

Economists say the economic slowdown and the rude awakening that high gas prices are here to stay are finally changing behavior, Tracy adds.

"We're seeing an increase in public transportation nationwide, SUV sales are down, hybrid sales are up. This is a national trend," says Christopher Knittel, an economist at the University of California at Davis.

Retail gas prices are following crude oil, which has jumped 25 percent in a month. On Monday, crude prices surged to yet another record after the Commerce Department said wholesale sales jumped by 2.7 percent in January, their biggest increase in four years, according to Dow Jones Newswires.

The strong sales report suggested to oil traders that the struggling economy may be doing better than thought.

Light, sweet crude for April delivery rose $2.75 to settle at a record $107.90 on the New York Mercantile Exchange after earlier setting a new trading record of $108.21.

Energy investors shrugged off a relative stabilization of the dollar and a cooling in tensions between Venezuela and its neighbors Colombia and Ecuador.

Many analysts believe speculative investing attracted by the weak dollar is the primary reason oil has risen so far so fast in recent months. Crude futures offer a hedge against a falling dollar, and oil futures bought and sold in dollars are more attractive to foreign investors when the dollar is falling.

"We've got a Fed(eral Reserve) meeting on the 18th that could see a sizeable rate cut," said Brad Samples, an analyst with Summit Energy Services Inc., in Louisville, Ky. "So, it's not over."

Indeed, while the dollar rose against the euro on Monday, many investors believe the greenback is likely to keep falling as the Fed continues to cut rates. Many analysts believe the rise in crude prices is not supported by the market's underlying fundamentals, noting that supplies are generally rising while demand is falling.

"By gobbling up everything in sight, (investors) are pushing food and fuel prices to ruinously high levels," said Peter Beutel, president of the energy risk management firm Cameron Hanover, in a research note.

Investors shrugged off a weekend cooling of tensions in South America, where Venezuela said Sunday it was restoring full diplomatic ties with Colombia after they were broken off following a cross-border Colombian attack on a leftist rebel camp in Ecuador.

Last week, rebels shut down a Colombian oil pipeline in retaliation for the Colombian raid into Ecuador. Venezuela threatened to slash trade and nationalize Colombian-owned businesses, and Venezuela and Ecuador briefly sent troops to their borders with Colombia.

The potential for conflict involving Venezuela, an OPEC member and major U.S. oil supplier, helped push oil higher last week.

"The Venezuelan production was at risk there," Samples said.

Other energy futures also rose Monday. April heating oil futures rose 2.64 cents to settle at $2.9734 a gallon while April gasoline futures rose 2.06 cents to settle at $2.7149 a gallon.

April natural gas futures jumped 25.5 cents to $10.024 per 1,000 cubic feet, the first time a natural gas contract has closed above $10 since January 2006. Natural gas was following oil higher, but also rising in anticipation of cooler temperatures across the Midwest and Northeast, analysts said.

In London, Brent crude futures rose $1.78 to $104.16 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Hillary Rodham Clinton declared Wednesday that her primary victories in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island had reordered the Democratic presidential race in her favor. A resilient Barack Obama countered with fresh pledges of support from superdelegates and said his lead remained intact.

One day after his worst showing in a month, Obama blamed negative attacks by the former first lady for his defeats and quickly made good on a promise to sharpen his criticism of her.

But there was no disputing he had missed a chance to drive her from the race. Or that in contrast to the Republicans, who have settled on Arizona Sen. John McCain as their nominee, the Democrats face the prospect of a potentially divisive campaign lasting deep into spring.

"I'm concerned about unity. That's the major reason I've stayed out of this," said Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, who is neutral. "The longer this campaign goes on, the more difficult it will be to unify and heal."

Returns from Texas caucuses showed Obama reclaiming some of the ground in the delegate competition that he lost Tuesday night as Clinton's victories piled up. Overall, she showed a gain of 12 delegates for the contests on the ballot, according to The Associated Press count, with another dozen to be awarded. In all 370 were at stake. Texas Democrats were still counting ballots from the Tuesday night caucuses.

In addition, Obama gained endorsements from superdelegates in Georgia, Vermont, Ohio, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

Clinton picked up two superdelegates during the day but lost one, for a gain of one.

Obama's overall delegate lead stood at 1,567 to 1,462 as the rivals looked ahead to the final dozen contests on the calendar. It takes 2,025 to win the nomination.

That left weeks for public campaigning, millions more to be spent on television ads, probably one more debate and plenty of private cajoling of party leaders, the superdelegates who attend the convention but are not chosen in primaries or caucuses.

About 350 of them remain uncommitted, enough to swing the nomination in the unlikely event they decide to line up behind one candidate or the other.

"We are vigorously talking to the uncommitted automatic delegates. The Obama campaign is doing the same thing," Harold Ickes, a Clinton adviser, told reporters.

There also was talk of arranging for makeup primaries or caucuses in Michigan and Florida, two states that were stripped of delegates by the Democratic National Committee for holding elections early in defiance of party rules.

The two states' governors, Republican Charlie Crist in Florida and Democrat Jennifer Granholm in Michigan, issued a joint statement calling on party officials "to resolve this matter and to ensure that the voters ... are full participants in the formal selection of their parties' nominees."

While the Democratic Party stripped the two states of their delegates, Republicans cut the two delegations in half.

Of more immediate concern for Clinton and Obama are the Wyoming caucuses, scheduled for Saturday, with 12 delegates at stake, and the Mississippi primary next Tuesday, with 33 more.

Obama has plans to campaign in both states, but it appeared Clinton would focus her energy on the Pennsylvania primary on April 22. It boasts 158 delegates, the largest prize remaining on the calendar.

Both Clinton and Obama made a round of morning interview programs as their campaign entered a new phase.

The former first lady said McCain's ascension meant Democratic primary voters were looking at the race through a new lens. "It is now about who is strongest against the Republican nominee, John McCain," she said on CNN. "You know, people who voted a month ago didn't know who the Republican nominee was going to be.

"They didn't perhaps factor in that it will be about national security," she said of the fall campaign.

McCain is a former Vietnam War prisoner, a veteran of more than two decades in the Senate, with long experience on the Armed Services Committee. One of the hallmarks of his campaign has been his support for the Iraq War, and he frequently tells audiences he supported an increase in troop strength before President Bush announced one a little over a year ago.

Clinton forcefully injected national security issues into the Democratic campaign in Texas with a television ad that did not mention Obama, yet questioned whether he was prepared to handle a crisis if the phone rang in the White House at 3 a.m.

Obama, on a long flight home to Chicago from Texas, told reporters he believed criticism like that helped send him to defeat.

"What exactly is this foreign policy experience," he asked mockingly. "Was she negotiating treaties? Was she handling crises? The answer is no."

Obama also attributed his defeats in part to more skeptical news coverage. "Many of you in the press corps had been persuaded that you had been too hard on her and too soft on me," he said.

His aides signaled a more aggressive tone ahead when they distributed a memo saying Clinton was trying to avoid answering potentially embarrassing questions by keeping her and her husband's tax returns for the past several years private.

Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson, rebutted quickly, saying returns for the years since the Clintons left the White House would be released around April 15.

"Instead of making false attacks, we urge Senator Obama to release all relevant financial and other information related to indicted political fixer Tony Rezko," Wolfson added, referring to a former fundraiser for the Illinois senator who is on trial for corruption.

The anti-establishment consumer advocate made the announcement in a televised interview on Sunday.

Mr Nader was accused by many Democrats of handing the presidency to George W Bush in the November 2000 elections. He ran again unsuccessfully in 2004.

Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are vying for the Democratic ticket. John McCain is almost certain to run for the Republicans.

Nearly three million Americans - more than 2% of the vote - backed him when he stood as the Green Party candidate in the 2000 presidential election.

That election was so close that a small proportion of those votes - particularly in the key state of Florida - would have put Al Gore in the White House.

"I'm running for president," Mr Nader said as he announced the move on the NBC's Meet the Press.

He said most Americans were disenchanted with the Democratic and Republican parties - and denied he was seeking to be a spoiler candidate.

If the Democrats cannot win by a "landslide" this year, he said, "they should just close down".

Mr Nader was born in Connecticut in 1934 and was educated at Princeton and Harvard universities.

He has spent most of his life fighting for consumers and workers against corporations.

In the 1960s his work on car safety led directly to seat belts and shatter-resistant glass being fitted in every American car. From the 1970s he built a reputation for dealing with issues including workers' rights, public safety, the environment and the influence of corporations.

He founded a number of groups including Public Citizen, which in recent years has been active in organising protests against the World Trade Organization and World Bank/IMF.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - His nomination assured, John McCain got an early jump on the general election this week with a swing through Midwestern states likely to be pivotal in the fall and a fresh line of criticism against Barack Obama.

"I will compete very strongly here in the heartland of America," the Republican nominee-in-waiting said in Ohio, underscoring the importance of the state and the region as he embarks on an eight-month effort to cobble together the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.

It was fitting, then, that McCain chose this setting - a state that gave President Bush the 2004 election in a swing-voting region - to step up his rhetoric against the man he considers his most likely opponent this fall.

"I will fight every moment of every day in this campaign to make sure Americans are not deceived by an eloquent but empty call for change," McCain said after winning the Wisconsin primary. It was a thinly veiled suggestion that the Illinois Democrat, who has now won 11 straight primary and caucus contests over Hillary Rodham Clinton, lacks the experience, judgment and character a president needs.

Well into the week, however, a character controversy of his own overshadowed McCain's message.

At a news conference in Toledo on Thursday, McCain was forced to respond to published reports that alleged he showed favoritism to clients of a female telecommunications lobbyist. A New York Times report said top McCain aides became "convinced the relationship had become romantic."

With his wife, Cindy, beside him, he denied any romance or impropriety.

"It's not true," McCain said. "At no time have I ever done anything that would betray the public trust."

"We will move forward," he declared and continued his Midwest trek.

With Obama and Clinton still fighting for the Democratic nomination, the GOP's likely standard-bearer is laying groundwork now for the fall by visiting key states and trying to define his opponents, particularly Obama.

Thus, McCain took his sharper criticism of Obama to five middle America states this week.

He began in Wisconsin, at a county GOP dinner and a get-out-the-vote rally. By Tuesday, he was in Ohio celebrating a Wisconsin victory that inched him closer to the 1,191 convention delegates he needs to clinch the nomination.

McCain also stopped in Illinois on Wednesday and toured a Ford Motor Co. assembly plant in Michigan on Thursday. He rounds out the week Friday in Indiana with a town-hall style meeting.

The Arizona senator was also raising cash in each state. He kept a busy fundraising schedule for someone who doesn't like the chore. "We've got a lot of work to do," McCain acknowledged.

His attention to this region is no surprise.

The Midwest has been hotly contested in recent presidential elections. Both Republicans and Democrats plan to focus on it again this fall.

Some states here have a long history of solidly backing one party or the other. Indiana, for one, is a strong Republican state, where George W. Bush won big in both campaigns. Illinois, conversely, has been a predominantly Democratic state, won comfortably by John Kerry in 2004 and Al Gore in 2000.

But most others are considered swing states.

No Republican has ever won the presidency without winning Ohio. Bush saw very narrow victories here twice.

Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan all sided with Kerry and Gore - but by margins of less than 5 percentage points.

One Midwestern state, Iowa, split in the last two elections. In 2004, Bush won by 1 percentage point four years after losing to Gore by the same margin.

Since 1900, Missouri has backed every presidential winner but one - it went with Adlai Stevenson from neighboring Illinois in 1956. Bush had one narrow and one comfortable win there.

Economic issues dominate campaigns here. Once laden with industry and rich with agriculture, the region is struggling; job losses and recession fears weigh heavily on voters' minds.

McCain focused on that this week.

"We're in an information technology revolution, and it has changed the world. It has changed America. But we can't leave people behind," he said in Columbus. "We have to help them through this transition."

Earlier, in Brookfield, Wis., McCain explained how he might win in Wisconsin and other Midwestern states. "I can appeal not only to our Republican base but to independent voters," he said.

For all the general election maneuvering, McCain remains mindful that Mike Huckabee is still technically competing for the GOP nomination.

So McCain continues to campaign in states with upcoming primaries even as he looks ahead.

In Yellow Springs, Ohio, on Wednesday, he declared, "I intend to win the state of Ohio, both a week from Tuesday and in the general election in November!"

Americans are adept at adopting new technology, and texting (sending a text message via a cell phone) is one of the new tools that has been easily learned and utilized among a population that seems driven to constant communication -- and in many cases, driven to distraction.

Take the rise in incidents in which someone writing or reading a text message while driving ends up causing a bad wreck. Several states have enacted or are considering laws to ban texting while driving.Add Tennessee to the list of places where fumbling with a digital device while driving may soon be illegal, following a trend that is picking up speed around the country.

New Jersey and Washington State already ban the activity and the proposed Tennessee law would slap offenders with a $50 fine plus a $10 court cost. The Tennessee state senate transportation committee has already had a hearing on the bill, introduced by Republican state senator Jim Tracy. The state House has not yet scheduled hearings as the Senate won't be voting for at least another two weeks.