President Bush, less than a year away from leaving office, gave his final State of the Union address tonight, offering little in the way of new initiatives — likely because, as the AP story says, “With his approval rating near its all-time low, Bush lacked the political clout to push bold ideas and he didn’t try.”

A major challenge for Bush in his address to Congress was simply being heard when many Americans already are looking beyond him to the next president.

Was that the case as you listened to Bush’s speech? Did you listen? And is there something you thought…

Long-time TOTD readers may remember that I used to live in South Florida. Sometime before my son was born in 1995, I tried out one of the relatively new fluorescent bulbs in a table lamp we owned. It was a bulky, old-style bulb, not like the "compact fluorescent" bulbs they sell now. And it’s still working in that lamp. I think I got my $10 out of the bulb. That story comes to mind because Congress has passed a new energy bill that President Bush says he will sign on Wednesday — an bill that increases energy efficiency "from light bulbs…

Is peace on the way in the Middle East? Here’s what today’s Associated Press story said:

After months of frantic diplomacy, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared before a conference of some 50 countries and international agencies that they were intent on achieving what has eluded their predecessors for decades: bringing peace to peoples with clashing dreams and conflicting claims to the Holy Land. They set themselves an ambitious deadline - December 2008, before President Bush’s term ends.

Note that the previous paragraph highlighted the decades of failed peace negotiations. You can read up on…

For me, it’s an easy call. Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, is the one among these eight to have influenced me the most. Loved that book. Will never forget it. You can read more about the eight honorees here. And there’s a more expansive story here, on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution site.
They are:

- Gary Becker, economist and 1992 Nobel Prize winner.

- Oscar Elias Biscet, human rights advocate.

- Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute.

- Benjamin Hooks, NAACP former executive director.

- Henry Hyde. Illinois Republican who served 32 years in…

Apparently, the Pacific Northwest is abuzz over the steamy mystery involving a stripper and murder in Anchorage — a murder that mirrors the plot of a 1994 movie. The drama in Alaska goes something like this, according to the Associated Press story:

In the 1994 movie “The Last Seduction,” a femme fatale coaxes her lover into killing her husband for money. Prosecutors say a beautiful stripper obsessed with the film followed the script to its murderous end…

Life and art were so similar, prosecutors say, that they even sought, unsuccessfully, to have the movie shown to the jury…

Linehan -…