The United Auto Workers may be out of the hole now that President Bush has approved a $17 billion bailout of the U.S. auto industry, but the union isn’t out of the bunker just yet. Even as the industry struggles with massive losses, the UAW brass continue to own and operate a $33 million lakeside retreat in Michigan, complete with a $6.4 million designer golf course. And it’s costing them millions each year.

The UAW, known more for its strikes than its slices, hosts seminars and junkets at the Walter and May Reuther Family Education Center in Onaway, Mich., which is nestled on “1,000 heavily forested acres” on Michigan’s Black Lake, according to its Web site. But the Black Lake club and retreat, which are among the union’s biggest fixed assets, have lost $23 million in the past five years alone, a heavy albatross around the union’s neck as it tries to manage a multibillion-dollar pension plan crisis. Critics call it a resort for union leaders that wastes money from union dues. “It’s their members’ money that they’re spending on this thing,” said Justin Wilson, managing director of the Center for Union Facts, a union watchdog group. “The union has bigger issues at hand than managing a golf course.”

For Mr Invisible, the first and last blow to his burgeoning career as a superhero was an unexpected punch that flattened his nose. “After months of designing my costume, getting my street moves just right, it was my first week out as a Real Life Superhero – and probably my last. This tiny, tiny girl did not like me trying to calm down her screaming boyfriend. She blindsided me, I’m still bruised. It’s dangerous out there,” said the deflated would-be crime fighter last week. Mr Invisible is cheered that at least his grey one-piece “invisibility suit” works, proven when a drunk urinated on him in an alley. But he is weary of lurking in dark, down-town Los Angeles after dark.

The 29-year-old graduate is “refocusing” on his day job as an insurance salesman. His farewell appearance will be at a New Year’s Eve party. Mr Invisible may be living up to his name but his spray-painted “supershoes” will quickly be filled by another Real Life Superhero eager to save America from itself. There are, according to the recently launched World Superhero Registry, more than 200 men and a few women who are willing to dress up as comic book heroes and patrol the urban streets in search of, if not super-villains, then pickpockets and bullies. In recent weeks, prompted by heady buzz words such as “active citizenry” during the Barack Obama campaign, the pace of enrolment has speeded up. Up to 20 new “Reals”, as they call themselves, have materialised in the past month.

The Real rules are simple. They must stand for unambiguous and unsponsored good. They must create their own Spandex and rubber costumes without infringing Marvel or DC Comics copyrights, but match them with exotic names – Green Scorpion in Arizona, Terrifica in New York, Mr Xtreme in San Diego and Mr Silent in Indianapolis.

Um, you just know this is going to end well.

As if Things Weren’t Bad Enough, Russian Professor Predicts End of U.S. – WSJ.com — I’m thinking this guy is merely thinking that the fractal dissolution of the CCCP would be reflected in the USA. Yeah, right.

For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. For most of that time, he admits, few took his argument — that an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S. — very seriously. Now he’s found an eager audience: Russian state media.

In recent weeks, he’s been interviewed as much as twice a day about his predictions. “It’s a record,” says Prof. Panarin. “But I think the attention is going to grow even stronger.”

Prof. Panarin, 50 years old, is not a fringe figure. A former KGB analyst, he is dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s academy for future diplomats. He is invited to Kremlin receptions, lectures students, publishes books, and appears in the media as an expert on U.S.-Russia relations.

But it’s his bleak forecast for the U.S. that is music to the ears of the Kremlin, which in recent years has blamed Washington for everything from instability in the Middle East to the global financial crisis. Mr. Panarin’s views also fit neatly with the Kremlin’s narrative that Russia is returning to its rightful place on the world stage after the weakness of the 1990s, when many feared that the country would go economically and politically bankrupt and break into separate territories.

Found by Pierre Bourgeois.

A Colorado Springs private investigator who has worked on the JonBenet Ramsey case for almost a decade says he’s asking the district attorney and police to take another look at a one-time suspect who he thinks could be a threat to other girls. Ollie Gray, who initially was hired by the Ramseys and has worked independently on the case for years alongside retired Colorado Springs homicide detective Lou Smit, said Saturday that he believes John Mark Karr has sent a new e-mail indicating he has targeted other girls, that he has killed and will kill again.

Karr, 43, was arrested in Bangkok, Thailand, on Aug. 15, 2006, after he implicated himself in JonBenet’s death. Karr was released about two weeks later after Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy announced that his DNA didn’t match evidence from the crime scene. But Gray said he received an e-mail Friday — which marked 12 years since JonBenet’s body was found in the basement of her family’s University Hill home — that he believes was originally sent from Karr to an acquaintance that tells of his lurid plans. “I will kill again,” an excerpt from the message states. “It will not atone for her death but it will honor it.” The message, which Gray said he forwarded to the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office and the Boulder Police Department, was signed by the pseudonym “Daxis.” Police have said Karr used the name in a series of e-mails that led to his arrest two years ago.

Could someone please put this psychopath away, I really don’t think he would mind.

A Swedish man’s attempt to impress his date went horribly awry Friday, as he ended up lighting himself on fire and going into shock. The 33-year-old man also faces allegations of endangering the public as he recovers from serious burn injuries in a hospital in Vastervik, The Local reported. The unidentified man’s girlfriend said he was attempting a stunt when he poured gasoline over his arm and set the fuel on fire.

“It obviously didn’t go well. He burned his arm and other parts of his body and was in a state of shock,” Kalmar police spokesperson Reine Johansson told the TT news agency. “Don’t ask me what the point of the trick was supposed to be.”

Police told The Local the man will likely need specialized care at the burn clinic of Linköping University Hospital.

*Moran — an inside term used on the internet to describe someone exhibiting Moronic behavior.

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating whether the pilot and copilot of a Feb. 13 Go! Airlines flight fell asleep while in the air between Honolulu and Hilo, an FAA spokesman said today. Flight 1002 left Honolulu around 9 p.m. local time on what was scheduled as a 30-minute flight, said Ian Gregor, spokesman for the FAA’s Western-Pacific Region. The aircraft overshot Hilo by 15 miles while at cruising altitude, and air traffic controllers were unable to reach the flight crew for approximately 20 to 25 minutes, he said. The plane eventually turned around and landed at Hilo without incident. The FAA investigation is underway and will involve interviews with the pilots, air traffic controllers and witnesses, Gregor said. Investigators will also review radar tracks and audio tapes to determine if, in fact, the pilots fell asleep, he said.

Paul Skellon, a spokesman for Mesa Air Group, the owner of Go! Airlines, said that the company was cooperating fully with the FAA.

These guys can’t stay awake for 30 friggin’ minutes?!?!

Found by John Ligums.