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Mr. Scott is the owner and publisher of Mad Mike's America. He is a U.S. Army veteran, career law enforcement executive, and dog trainer. He is a university professor, and criminal justice consultant, holding several degrees, including a master's in criminal justice and human services. He has completed the requisite coursework toward his doctorate, and is still working on his dissertation.
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The president signs the sequester into law and blames the congress, while the Japanese say they’ve no intention of stopping whaling.  Horse meat is found in Taco Bell products, and a sinkhole swallows a man, along with his entire bedroom.  These stories and more from this week.

John Boehner arrives at the Capitol after discussing the sequester at the White House with President Obama on Friday.
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

1. OBAMA BLAMES CONGRESS FOR SEQUESTER
As the dreaded $85 billion in government spending cuts known as the sequester took effect Friday, President Obama blamed Congress for failing to agree on a deal that would avert those reductions. Obama said middle-class families will “have their lives disrupted” and as many as 750,000 jobs could be cut. When asked at a press conference why he couldn’t reach a compromise with Republicans, the president responded with a somewhat botched mashup of Star Wars and Star Trek references, saying he couldn’t do a “Jedi mind-meld and convince them to do what’s right.”
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2. JAPANESE VOW TO CONTINUE SLAUGHTERING WHALES
Almost 6,000 tons of whale meat is in cold storage in Japan, more in storage since 2008   So difficult has it become to sell whale meat that the government is proposing to re-introduce whale meat to mandatory school lunch programs throughout the country, fobbing the meat off on children. Not only will this help to provide a market for the shunned whale meat, but it will also foster, the government hopes, a “culture of eating whale meat” among children.  It promises not to stop whale hunting.
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3. MEDITERRANEAN DIET MAY EXTEND LIFE
About 30 percent of heart attacks, strokes and deaths from heart disease can be prevented in people at high risk if they switch to a Mediterranean diet rich in olive oil, nuts, beans, fish, fruits and vegetables, and even drink wine with meals, a large and rigorous new study has found.
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4. HORSEMEAT FOUND IN EUROPEAN TACO BELL’S GROUND BEEF
Taco Bell has fallen victim to the ongoing European horse meat scandal: British food regulators revealed Friday that they detected horse meat in Taco Bell UK’s ground beef products. The company said in a statement that the tainted beef came from a single supplier, and added that its U.S. market is completely unaffected.
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5. LACKLAND AFB HOME TO SEXUAL SCANDAL
No one is safe from violence, and women are prey to many in power, particularly in the Armed Forces, where trainees are often frightened, and invariably humiliated, while learning discipline. The chain of command is drilled into them, like a mantra, and with that comes an interpretation of respect and some fear, of those above them. Virginia Messick, an AF recruit, was assaulted and raped by her training instructor and she didn’t know where to turn.
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6. MOTHER JONES EXPLAINS THE SEQUESTER
In the summer of 2011, Republicans decided to hold the country hostage, insisting that they’d refuse to raise the debt ceiling unless President Obama agreed to substantial deficit reduction. After months of negotiations over a “grand bargain” finally broke down in July, Republicans proposed a plan that would (a) make some cuts immediately and (b) create a bipartisan committee to propose further cuts down the road. But they wanted some kind of automatic trigger in case the committee couldn’t agree on those further cuts, so the White House hauled out sequestration from the dust heap of history as an enforcement mechanism. It would go into effect automatically if no deal was reached.
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7. MANNING WANTS TO TELL THE COURT WHY HE COMMITTED TREASON
It’s not about the importance of what he leaked, but that he leaked classified material at all to the press. The military has a chain of command and it is the accepted mechanism for bringing issues to the attention of superiors.   If those at the top of the chain want the press to have this information it’s up to them to release it, at a time and place convenient to the service.  Manning was part of the military machine.  There are no individuals in the military paradigm.
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8. FLORIDA MAN SWALLOWED BY SINKHOLE
Jeff Bush, 36, was presumed dead Friday after a sinkhole opened up beneath his bedroom in his Seffner, Fla., home on Thursday night. The 30-foot-wide, 20-foot-deep sinkhole opened up Thursday night at around 11 p.m. Bush’s brother, Jeremy, tried to rescue him but was unsuccessful. “I couldn’t find him,” Jeremy Bush told an ABC News affiliate through tears. “I thought I could hear him hollering for me to help him.” Listening devices and cameras that were sent into the hole “did not detect any signs of life,” police said.
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9. OSCAR PISTORIUS CRUSHED STEENKAMP’S SKULL BEFORE SHOOTING HER
The plot thickens in the case of Oscar Pistorius, ‘Blade Runner,’ accused of murdering his beautiful girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp by shooting her multiple times.  Pistorius, a South African resident and Olympic silver medal winner, is a hero to his countryman but a goat to the family and friends of the victim, and certainly to the police and prosecutors. Now police say he crushed her skull before shooting her multiple times.
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10. ANTI-GAY CARDINAL RESIGNS OVER ACCUSATIONS OF BEING GAY
The UK’s top Roman Catholic honcho has resigned because of accusations about inappropriate behavior that dates back 33 years. Cardinal Keith O’Brien was set to retire next month after voting on the next pope; but after the scandal exploded over the weekend, Pope Benedict has accepted his immediate resignation, the Guardian reports. O’Brien, staunchly anti-gay in his views, was accused by three priests and one former priest of inappropriate physical contact.

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