Full price is the new black

REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. — The Under Armour Outlet® has a special rack as a service to their customers that has an ample selection of items at full price.

Phew! Offering discounts at outlet stores is so cliché.

Did Obama get Lasik surgery?

Last year, cardboard cutouts of Barack Obama at memorabilia stores featured him holding glasses. Even at the Democratic National Convention last summer in Denver, cardboard versions of the party's leader included glasses.

These days, Obama's cardboard likeness is not carrying glasses. At the Obama store at Union Station (pictured above), the president looks pleased... perhaps because the Lasik surgery went well?

Sofa Delle Muse (UPDATE)

Jason's quest to find the World's Longest Sofa was unsuccessful. Amy & Jeff, too, tried and failed.

It's easy to blame Jason's failure on bad advice from JQB. But what's the deal with the sofa? Where did it go? It is more than 118 feet long and can seat 120 people, so it seems like it'd be tough to hide.

Today, my senior Sofa Delle Muse correspondent "s7teesgirl" reports the breaking news that the sofa has made an appearance at the Wyndham Championship golf tournament currently under way in Greensboro, N.C.

Any chance it can make its way to D.C.?

UPDATE: new Delta uniforms

An update about Delta's new red uniforms for flight attendants:

Last week, my sister and I sat next to a Delta employee who was wearing the dress.

She was dissatisfied with the uniform due to what she felt was an incompatibility with the tights.

I'm flying Delta again in a few weeks — stay tuned for more breaking news on this subject.

Killer astroids

Scientists are pretty sure that dinosaurs died off due to an asteroid called Baptistina, which slammed into our planet, creating the 110-mile-wide Chicxulub Crater and triggering giant tsunamis, global wildfires and dust storms.

With this death-by-meteor postulate in mind, what do we think of the fact that NASA is running out of the money it needs "to spot huge asteroids that could threaten Earth"?

Should we be scared?

Lies that are acceptable in politics

Jimmy Carter told voters in 1976, "I'll never lie to you."

But there is one exception. It is acceptable for a politician to lie to confuse journalists who are trying to report on a presidential running mate.

For example: When Sarah Palin was en route to the official announcement in Dayton, Ohio, that she would be John McCain's running mate, the campaign wanted to keep reporters off their trail. They were sneaky. Palin's plane landed first in Amarillo, Texas, “to refile the flight plan to make tracking the aircraft more difficult for reporters.”¹

When McCain and Palin arrived separately in Ohio, the campaign was concerned that airport workers would notice that private jets had arrived from Arizona and Alaska. They needed a lie. Campaign staffers told workers they were part of a rich entourage swooping into town for a family fishing trip.

Well played. McCain's choice of Palin was indeed a surprise. Still, voters decided this proficiency of staying a step ahead of journalists wasn't enough to win their votes.


¹According to an excerpt from Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson's book "The Battle for America 2008."