Hotline OnCall admires a very nice thank you gift recently delivered for services rendered during last year’s primary campaign for the democrat party presidential nomination.

It’s not often that a plum ambassadorship goes to someone who isn’t a career foreign service officer or a big bucks campaign contributor, but Pres. Obama has nominated Anne Slaughter Andrew to be the ambassador to the Republic of Costa Rica.

Hmmm.

The prospective diplomat is an Indiana Univ. trained atty who currently is Principal of New Energy Nexus, LLC, and, according to the WH release on her nomination, “advises companies and entrepreneurs on investments and strategies to capitalize on the New Energy Economy.”

But Andrew is also wife of ex-IN Dem chair Joe Andrew, who was tapped by Bill Clinton to be DNC from ‘99 to ‘01 who also was a big backer of then-Sen. Hillary Clinton in her ‘08 bid—until five days before the must-win IN Dem primary last year, when Andrew with great fan-fare threw Clinton under the bus, endorsed Obama, urged all his fellow Hoosiers to vote for Obama and called up party leaders and fellow superdelegates (Andrew had that status to the Dem convo because he was an ex-DNC chair) to basically shut the nominating contest down after the IN primary and get behind Obama.

In a public letter that at times was melodramatic and angst-ridden, Andrew wrote: “Why call for superdelegates to come together now to constructively pick a president? The simple answer is that while the timing is hard for me personally, it is best for America. We simply cannot wait any longer, nor can we let this race fall any lower and still hope to win in November. June or July may be too late.”

Well, the contest did run until June and Obama still somehow made it to the WH. But for Joe, this was a selfless act: “My endorsement of Senator Obama will not be welcome news to my friends and family at the Clinton campaign… If the campaign’s surrogates called Governor Bill Richardson, a respected former member of President Clinton’s cabinet, a ‘Judas’ for endorsing Senator Obama, we can all imagine how they will treat somebody like me.”

Geee, somehow he managed to survive and somehow the current Sec/State must have an amazing amount of equanimity and grace not to have choked on this administration nomination.

A small white kitten climbed up sales representative Steve Johnson’s tire while he was stopped at a Piggly Wiggly in Evansville, Indiana. The stowaway rode more than 1400 miles in the engine compartment in the course of a week, until Johnson stopped for an oil change in Madison, Wisconsin and his passenger, a little dehydrated, but otherwise none the worse for wear, was discovered.

Channel 3000

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WQOW News18

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The NRA’s Armed Citizen column in American Rifleman has for many years published accounts of successful cases of self defense with firearms. But how often do you read a story of someone defending his home with a samurai sword?

Muncie Star Press:

Muncie man is in jail with samurai sword injuries after allegedly breaking into another man’s home to get his wife back.

Joseph M. Hartman, 28, and his friends Bobby Joe Overbay, 18, and Matthew Michail Wilson, 23, all from Muncie, broke into the home of Jessy Mann, 26, 1910 S. May Ave., early Saturday morning to “take Hartman’s estranged wife by force,” according to the Muncie Police Department.

In a telephone interview on Saturday, Mann gave this version of the incident:

The three men knocked at the door and refused to leave when Mann asked them to do so. Then they entered the home and began throwing objects at him, including an alarm clock and furniture. Mann grabbed a collectible sword to defend himself and swung at the three men, hitting Hartman in the head and chest and Overbay in the forehead.

“It was crazy,” Mann said. “It was like something you would see in a movie.”

At one point, Mann said Hartman found his wife, from whom he is separated, in the bedroom calling the police, and he grabbed her by the hair.

“They were saying ‘Just let us take her, just let us take her.’ I was like ‘You ain’t taking nobody from my house,” Mann said.

Hartman and his friends left the home without his wife. Before fleeing, they got into a Jeep Cherokee and ran into the house three times and then drove away.

The police arrested the suspects and took them to Ball Memorial Hospital before booking them into the Delaware County Jail with no bond. ...

Mann said he never intended to use the sword as a weapon and he was glad no one was killed.

“I just like swords,” he said. “I just have them around for novelty. I never expected I’d have to do some crazy stuff like that.”

Rob of Say Anything notes that the Obama campaign’s $800,000 payment to ACORN seems to be producing visible results.

According to STATSIndiana, In 2007, Indianapolis/Marion County had an estimated population of 876,804. Of that number 232,607 were below 18 years of age, for a total of 644,197 people in Marion County/Indianapolis 18 or over and thus eligible to vote. (Indiana allows felons to vote as long as they are not incarcerated).

So we have 644,197 people eligible to be registered in Marion County/Indianapolis, and 677,401 people registered. Congratulations go to Indianapolis for having 105% of its residents registered!

WIS10:

Police in Indiana think an injured man who was found in a cemetery over the weekend might be guilty of vandalism.

He was found amid 14 damaged headstones—including a thousand-pound stone that had tumbled over and pinned the young man to the ground. Police say the 22-year-old was found unconscious, with both legs broken.

They say it took five officers to lift the headstone. The impact left the letter “V” imprinted on Michael Schreiber’s thigh. Police say the “V” stood for the name on the family tombstone.

Schreiber will face charges of criminal trespassing, criminal mischief and public intoxication. He may also be ordered to pay for damage to 14 headstones.