Blog Heap o'Links for March 2011

To its credit, CBS News gave this deadly Obama culture of corruption nightmare mainstream coverage last month. But it’s been brewing on the blogs of gun rights advocates

Hmm. That's weird. So if there are only 1,000 rebel fighters in Libya and there are 1,000 members of Al-Qaeda fighting with the rebels in Libya, then wouldn't that mean that the rebels are 100% jihadists? And, the Obama Administration wants to arm them? Now does that sound like smart power to you?

Hollister said Tuesday a private investigator, Susan Daniels of Ohio, gave him what is purported to be the president's Social Security number. He then accessed the Social Security Number Verification Service to find out to whom it was issued and to access Selective Service documents. The site allows registered users to verify names and Social Security numbers for employment purposes and warns that using it under false pretenses is a violation of federal law. "According to the Social Security Administration, that number was never issued," said Hollister, who challenged whether the president is an American citizen in a lawsuit the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Jan. 18 without requiring a response from the White House. However, that's the Social Security number that appears on the Selective Service documents Hollister obtained.

President Obama speaks about energy at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Obama's Energy Secretary Steven Chu has a Nobel prize in physics.

Comment: Only three words are necessary, CUT, CUT, CUT!

Republican leaders wasted little time playing up reports Tuesday that New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the third-ranking Senate Democrat, told other members of his party that the caucus had urged him to start calling Republican budget cut proposals "extreme" during public battle between the parties of government spending. "Chuck Schumer did us a favor. He exposed their tactic," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Republican of Virginia, told reporters. "You heard his comment. He's basically instructing his members to deem any spending cut unreasonable. Any spending cut. So clearly they're not serious."

the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) told lawmakers Wednesday that the GOP version of the budget bill would result in the deaths of at least 70,000 children who depend on American food and health assistance around the world. "We estimate, and I believe these are very conservative estimates...."

three men -- 40-year-old Afghani Ahmad Rahmani Naeem, 41-year-old Iranian Vahik Petrossian and 27-year-old Iranian Sengekdi Norvik Avanosian -- attempted to get into Camp Pendleton last weekend under what was considered suspicious circumstances... someone reported hearing hateful comments and terrorist threats from three men at a gas station in Oceanside Saturday. Investigators at Camp Pendleton said the men asked the attendant for directions on how to get to Camp Pendleton before they left the gas station....

A Portland, Ore.-bound flight made a "level two emergency" stop in Chicago Tuesday night after passengers said three men, reportedly of Middle Eastern descent, were acting strangely, even fighting with flight crews. At least one of the men walked back to the area of the plane where flight attendants work, laid down and began complaining of illness. That man engaged in "some sort of altercation" with the flight attendant, a passenger said. At one point another man, who was pacing back and forth in the aisles, also got into a "verbal altercation" with a flight attendant, according to a passenger. Other men of "Middle Eastern descent" were passing notes and "writing in their notebooks..."

Ali Sina is an Iranian ex-Muslim who established the organisation for apostates of Islam Faith Freedom International. In his latest book he posits that Muhammad is a narcissist, a pedophile, a mass murderer, a terrorist, a misogynist, a lecher, a cult leader, a madman, a rapist, a torturer, an assassin and a looter. Sina has offered 50,000 dollars for the one who can prove otherwise. Nobody has claimed the reward as yet. And no wonder, as the description is based on the Islamic texts themselves, such as the hadiths, the descriptions of Muhammad's life from testimonies of contemporaries.

Teachers realized the girl was in labor and called an ambulance. Medics rushed to the scene, and the 12 year old delivered a healthy baby girl in a nearby building. The young mother was then taken to the hospital but has refused to name the father. Family members said that the schoolgirl's father previously sexually abused another older daughter and served two years in jail for the sex crime... The girl was living with her father and brother after he won custody following a divorce from their mother....

While Mike went to his office today, his seven lucky colleagues were celebrating their new mega wealth -- $19,129,571 each after taxes -- and Mike was delighted for them. "These seven were the hardest working state employess I've ever come across, go getters," he said. "I'll be sad to see them leave. They were such great people." Mike said none of the five who opted out of the Mega Millions pool are "bitter or angry." "I don't think they'll cut me in. I don't think they should. I don't deserve it," he said before heading back to work. While Mike returned to taking care of his agency's computers, Mike Barth, 63, was regaling the world with the close call he had while buying the winning ticket. "I was at the counter and it was my turn to buy a ticket when I reached down to grab a Snickers bar from the candy display," Barth said. "I like Snickers Dark and I said I just got to have one. And someone reached over me, actually cut in front of me to buy a ticket. I thought about saying something, but let it slide. I bought the next ticket -- the winning ticket. "

The Bronx Zoo's venomous cobra was found on Thursday just about 200 feet from its cage to the relief of neighbors but the likely disappointment of those following lighthearted tweets from @BronxZoosCobra -- a Twitter feed created a few days after the snake's disappearance.

Sarah Palin wrote a note titled Setting the Record Straight on State's Film Production Tax Credit. Read the full text here.

Palin took it to Obama in analyzing his Libya speech tonight, saying that the speech was 'profoundly disappointing' and that the Obama doctrine is still full of 'chaos and questions', and is 'dodgy' and 'dubious'. She makes it very clear that U.S. interests should be to take Qaddafi out or to capture him....

The long-awaited Obama address on Libya contained many of the expected points. We knew he would remind us about what a rotten guy Qaddafi is,

Jim Geraghty writes on NRO: It isn't too hard to imagine this becoming problematic for Sarah Palin on the campaign trail, as noted by the Tax Foundation: In case you missed it, small government crusader and Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin's TLC reality show "Sarah Palin's Alaska" received a $1.2 million subsidy from the state of Alaska. . . .

You have to put something on the line and unfortunately, imposition of a solution on unwilling parties is dreadful... but sadly, you know, we don't just have a democracy here either. We have a liberal democracy... [Israel] requires external intervention. [video]

"While Chuck Schumer and the Democratic caucus have been busy in a backroom crafting their 'blame the Tea Party' talking points, according to Rasmussen, 69 percent of Americans remain 'angry' or 'very angry' with the government," said Mark Meckler, national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots. "Why? It's not that complicated, and it's definitely not because the American public thinks the government isn't spending enough money,"

An eagle ray weighing as much as 300 pounds landed on top of a woman on a boat in the Florida Keys last week, throwing her to the deck and pinning her underneath it -- the "scariest thing" that's ever happened to her, she said.

With her final words before she was fatally shot, Elaine McCall needled her husband for missing with his first shot yesterday morning inside their Wakefield home, police said. " 'You can't even shoot,' " she said, according to her husband David McCall's reported...

"The problem of vitamin B12 deficiency could be linked to the mother's diet..." [uh, Y'THINK? These were not healthy vegans.]

The first spacecraft ever to circle Mercury has beamed home the first-ever photo taken of the small rocky planet from orbit.

Seldom do I waste time with rebutting articles, and especially not from publications like Rolling Stone. Today, numerous people sent links to the latest Rolling Stone tripe. The story is titled "THE KILL TEAM, THE FULL STORY." It should be titled: "BULL$#!+, from Rolling Stone."

So the bottom line here is that one leftist billionaire whose front groups DON'T fully disclose their donors or their coordinated campaigns are attacking two libertarian billionaires who've been remarkably candid (written a book, held conferences, etc.) about what they are up to (i.e. advancing a limited-government, free-market agenda).

The liberal group Media Matters has quietly transformed itself in preparation for what its founder, David Brock, described in an interview as an all-out campaign of "guerrilla warfare and sabotage" aimed at the Fox News Channel.

Sales of bomb shelters and doomsday bunkers are surging as Americans fear the disasters and chaos erupting abroad will soon spread to the United States.

COLLINSVILLE - Hardly a day passes that Harry "Bub" Kaiser doesn't pause in his walker and gaze at a display case in his dining room bearing his World War II medals. He just received them last month, and he remembers vividly the day they came in the mail. "I cried," he said. "I was jubilant. I was so excited I couldn't settle down for three days." The 90-year-old still gets emotional when he talks about his six medals, among them the Bronze Star. "You are looking at one proud man,"

A New Jersey woman has been charged with four counts of animal cruelty after authorities accused of her dumping a starved 1-year-old pit bull down a trash chute.

Lasting nearly four minutes, it was the most powerful recorded earthquake in U.S. and North American history, and the second most powerful ever measured by seismograph.

A 20-inch cobra slithered out of its cage in the onx Zoo Saturday, forcing the exhibit to close while workers searched for the venomous serpent, officials said.

Hungry, hurt and separated from owners who are either dead or in evacuation centres, hundreds of family pets are struggling to survive in the desolation of Japan's tsunami-ravaged northeast coast. Among the many rescue teams sent from around the world to search for survivors and bodies after Japan's worst natural disaster for nearly a century, a handful of specialised animal rescue groups have also been at work.

The reason why we have internet packet switching: The late Paul Baran.

Scientists today claimed one of the milestones in the drive for sustainable energy -- development of the first practical artificial leaf. Speaking here at the 241st National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, they described an advanced solar cell the size of a poker card that mimics the process, called photosynthesis, that green plants use to convert sunlight and water into energy.

Army Spc. Ronnie Zane McCulley has been through hell for his country. On Saturday in Tulsa, he was shown how much his service is appreciated. McCulley, who was badly burned in Afghanistan in October, was the guest of honor at a "Welcome Home" salute held at American Legion Post 308, 11328 E. Admiral Place. "It's very humbling," McCulley said. "It's overwhelming. It really is like a band of brothers." Post Commander Bill Bennett said the veterans and others who gathered Saturday have the "utmost respect" for those who are serving now. "We love every one of them," he said.

Alice Ririe... has been selected by a panel of independent judges as the "2011 Most Progressive Citizen" from numerous candidates submitted by Examiner-Enterprise readers. She is owner of Keepsake Candles, which shines like a beacon of small business success on a knoll in the Osage Hills, just west of downtown Bartlesville.

The White House website proudly says 'President Obama is committed to creating the most open and accessible administration in American history.' But try telling Vice President Joe Biden's staff that, after they held a local reporter in a closet for hours after he was invited to cover a Florida political fundraiser because they did not want him talking with the guests. As the unaware $500-a-head invitees dined on caprese crostini with oven-dried mozzarella and basil, rosemary flatbread with grapes honey and gorgonzola cheese, grilled chicken Caesar and garden vegetable wraps, veteran reporter Scott Powers was locked away.

Why is Obama helping Al-Qaeda in Libya? Why is America helping terrorists who fought against the US in Iraq and Afghanistan? Does a country run by Al-Qaeda-linked terrorists run more efficiently than a country run by an anti-American megalomaniac? Do we have any assurances that Al-Qaeda will not end up in control of Libya? Did Obama ask any of these questions before he rushed into war?

There has been plenty of bipartisan baying about Obama's circumvention, and there are some Democrats who seem genuinely concerned to have been blown off by the president when it comes to making war. ... Congressional Republicans have been squeamish about trying to back the president down on spending and borrowing for fear that a government shutdown means political oblivion for the GOP. Trying to push back on a president over a shooting war must seem like an even more unappealing option.... But most Democrats seem to have already rationalized their way out of confronting the president.

There are so many other women, like the nameless, anonymous readers who have emailed me, sharing their stories, sometimes for the first time. Many of these women were Leftists who turned conservative because of harrowing experiences in radical movements. Was Stanley Ann Dunham one of them; was she a brainwashed victim of a Communist upbringing? Or was she simply an independent thinker, who willingly and happily forged her life's path?

And the girl turned when she heard her father enter the room. "Doing your homework, honey?" "Yes, Dad," she said, resignedly. "I have to do a biography." The father perked up, curious. "Who's the subject?" he asked, secretly hoping as all fathers do that it might just be him. "Barack Obama," she replied. "Who?" asked the father.

AL-QAEDA'S offshoot in North Africa has snatched surface-to-air missiles from an arsenal in Libya during the civil strife there, Chad's President says. Idriss Deby Itno did not say how many surface-to-air missiles were stolen, but told the African weekly Jeune Afrique that he was "100 per cent sure" of his assertion.

(NY Times) — In post-revolutionary Egypt, where hope and confusion collide in the daily struggle to build a new nation, religion has emerged as a powerful political force, following an uprising that was based on secular ideals. The Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group once banned by the state, is at the forefront, transformed into a tacit partner with the military government that many fear will thwart fundamental changes. It is also clear that the young, educated secular activists who initially propelled the nonideological revolution are no longer the driving political force — at least not at the moment.

A man apparently trying to save his wife with CPR collapsed himself, fell on top of her and died Wednesday night in the couple's home in the town of Joyce on the Olympic Peninsula. Rescuers broke into the home and tried to revive both the man, 60, and his wife, 59, but both died.

The catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan's east coast March 11 have left 10,151 people dead, and at least 17,053 were still unaccounted for till Saturday.

By any objective measure, the War On Drugs is a disastrous failure. It's time to end this madness now.

Geraldine A. Ferraro, who earned a place in history in 1984 as the first woman and first Italian-American to run on a major party national ticket, has died, according to her family. Ms. Ferraro passed away today at Massachusetts General Hospital, surrounded by her loved ones. The cause of death was complications from multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that she had battled for twelve years. Ms. Ferraro was seventy-five years old.

Petraeus on the meaning of true importance...

Geraldine Ferraro died today of blood cancer. As the first female vice presidential candidate in 1984, she inspired a generation of women, including me. The moment I knew Sarah Palin has the majesty of soul to be a great leader came during her speech after John McCain announced he had selected her as his running mate, when she thanked Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton, both Democrats, for their accomplishments in clearing the way for other women to run for vice president and president. This video includes both that moment and the moment on the Greta van Susteren show when Rep. Ferraro said that Gov. Palin was the FIRST PERSON EVER TO THANK HER for her achievements as a trailblazer for women.

President says neither he nor Eric Holder approved ATF operation called 'Fast and Furious' [It was just one of those things that magically happened. Unicorns. Rainbows. Look! Over there!]

Authorities in Japan raised the prospect Friday of a likely breach in the all-important containment vessel of the No. 3 reactor at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, a potentially ominous development in the race to prevent a large-scale release of radiation.

CAPROCK CANYONS STATE PARK, Texas — Six years ago, inbreeding threatened to destroy the last herd of southern Plains bison. Only 53 were left, and breeders were having trouble getting females to carry their calves to term. Tests showed that unless something was done to increase the diversity of genes in the historic herd, all the animals would be gone within 50 years.

With appearances on Oprah and across the U.S. it has certainly been an eventful first year for Einstein, the world's smallest horse, as he approaches the big day.

why add <3 as a word? A spokesperson clarified, "While symbols do become spelt-out words relatively frequently, it is usually only with a mundane meaning as the name of the symbol… It's very unusual for it to happen in such an evocative and tangential way." [Could you repeat that again in, say, plain English?]

The dictionary says that although the terms are associated with modern electronic communications, some are surprisingly old. The first confirmed use of "OMG" was in 1917.

The U.S. Defense Department is expected to issue an order today for General Electric Co. and Rolls-Royce Group Plc to halt work on a second engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter .

President Obama had to try a couple of doors at the White House before finally gaining access to the Oval Office on Wednesday., Visit Newsnet5.com for breaking news in Cleveland, Ohio from WEWS. Get updated news, weather and sports for the Cleveland & Akron local area online from ABC TV's local affiliate in Cleveland, Ohio, WEWS - Cleveland's On Your Side News Channel 5

Our far left president released a statement today following the bus station bombing in Jerusalem today. He talked about Palestinian victims.

Calling for Democrats and Republicans to put fighting aside, Obama quips: "I was born in Hawaii, what can I say. I can't change those facts."

Bikers launch a counterprotest Wednesday to Westboro Baptist Church members' picketing of the funeral of Shane Reed, 20, of Bixby at the New Beginnings Baptist Church in Bixby. Reed was one of three people who were killed Sunday in a two-motorcycle crash in Okmulgee County.

passed out while she and three children waited at a Burger King drive-thru... ages 1, 3 and 5... deputies found an oxycodone pill and marijuana... she told them she had smoked marijuana earlier that day... [As the saying goes, "Wasn't the pot!"]

Taira responded to reports that a finless porpoise had been spotted in a flooded rice paddy near Sendai, over a mile from the ocean. The 3-foot long animal had apparently been stranded there by the tsunami's massive wave. Taira located the animal, lifting it out of the water with just his arms. The porpoise was covered in wet towels, taken to the beach using a makeshift rig and then released back into the sea.

booked this week into the Rogers County Jail for animal cruelty complaints for neglecting the dogs and housing them in unsanitary and unsafe conditions... Aside from the nine up for adoption, five dogs are nursing and in foster care at an Owasso residence, seven are unavailable for adoption and about eight "wild and agressive" dogs that are still believed to be living underneath the residence... dog feces was as much as a foot deep in some areas. "... It was plainly clear that nobody had taken care of these animals for quite some time..."

An intense fire that broke out Wednesday night at a fuel tank farm at the Miami International Airport has canceled 36 flights. The blaze broke out at 11 p.m. at the airport's fuel farm, an area where fuel is stored for planes. Six fuel tanks, with the total capacity to hold six million gallons of fuel, were at the center of the blaze. However, it is not known how much fuel those tanks contained when the fire broke out. "Preliminary information that we're gathering is that, it was a malfunction,"

Japanese researchers cultivated small pieces of tissue from the testes of baby mice on a gel bathed in nutrients. After several weeks they collected viable sperm from the tissue.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has ordered a second air traffic controller to be on duty overnight at Reagan National Airport, after the lone controller was unavailable as two planes were trying to land. LaHood alsoordered a review of staffing levels at other airports around the country.

An Owasso soldier who was badly burned in Afghanistan last year returned home Tuesday to the welcoming arms of family members, after months of hospitalization. Walking with the aid of a cane and accompanied by his wife, Kristyn, Army Spc. 4 Ronald Zane McCulley was all smiles as he greeted his family, who eagerly awaited his arrival at Tulsa International Airport. As soon as the 21-year-old McCulley stepped through the arrival gate, his family - parents, siblings and grandparents - rushed him with open arms, followed by hugs. The joyous homecoming was a 180-degree turn from just months ago, when the family was engulfed by tears and anguish at McCulley's bedside at Brooke Army Medical Center at San Antonio. There were times when he held onto life by just a thread.

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin believes Moammar Gadhafi will "end up dead" and that President Barack Obama needs to clarify the ultimate aim of military operations in Libya.... Palin also criticized Obama's approach to military action in Libya, saying he was "in a pickle" over what she described as a lack of "clarity in the mission... We better be in it to win it. And if there's doubt, we get out. Win it means Gadhafi goes and America gets to get on out of there and let the people of Libya create their own government, choose their own leader. And America, no nation building..."

It was during this period that polygamy was slowly being phased out under pressure from state legislators. The results were clear: the more women partnered with a man, the fewer children each of those women had. Exactly why is not clear. Like the Soay rams, men may simply not have had the stamina. Wade says: "It could be owing to competition between women within a plural marriage for shared resources, or it could be owing to other unknown factors." Neither was polygamy a great deal for males. For every man who had multiple wives, there were many who had none. "For every male that has three mates, there must be two who have none," said Wade. "If a male has even more mates, then the disparity among male reproductive haves and have-nots can become quite high."

Joe Biden (D-olt, White House): Republicans Are Like Rape Apologists, Or Something... President Obama has tapped Biden to be his lead negotiator with congressional Republicans on the budget. Good call there, Mr. President. ...

As stories leak out regarding who was responsible for Barack Obama's sudden pivot from passivity regarding Libya towards military engagement (albeit with England and France being in the lead) one name has emerged as playing a key role in persuading him to push the button: Samantha Power.

"Barack Obama has now been responsible for firing more cruise missiles than all other Nobel Peace prize winners combined. He's still in 2nd place for number of Arab deaths caused (and 3rd place for Muslim deaths) behind Yassir Arafat and Mikhail Gorbachev."

"The message I hope to deliver is that democracy, rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of religion — those are not simply principles of the west to be hoisted on these countries. But, rather what I believe to be universal principles that they can embrace and affirm as part of their national identity, the danger, I think, is when the United States, or any country, thinks that we can simply impose these values on another country with a different history and a different culture." But, that was in 2009. Today Barack Obama told Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey that the US intends to impose a democracy in Libya.

This is the third installment of our most recent interview with our Washington D.C. Insider.... The man cannot decide on anything himself. He waits to be told what to think. That is how he functions, if you can call it that. He's a barely functioning president, and that is a big reason why the situation is so dangerous. His primary source of direction is Valerie Jarrett, who has no real experience with this kind of leadership. She manipulates. She schemes. She's a product of the most radicalized section of Chicago. I've said all of this before, right? And the First Lady is cut from the exact same cloth. And so they take this weak man, who has been told what to say and think all of his life, and they continue to do just that — tell him what to think and say.

Maybe I missed something, but wasn't that The Constitution of the United States of America that we just laid to rest this weekend? It was buried in a private ceremony by Mr. Barack Obama of Chicago as he silently signed America on to the One World Government some of us have been worried about for decades. Look at it this way: Where did Mr. Obama get the authority to commit United States forces to war in Libya? There was no declaration of war. There was no authorizing resolution by Congress allowing money to be spent on a war against Col. Gaddafi. As far as I know, there was no meeting of Mr. Obama and top leaders of Congress to discuss the subject in even rough form, let alone detail. There was no lengthy buildup in which the Congress was "allowed" to express the people's opinion on whether we want to be in a third concurrent war. There was just a vote by the United Nations Security Council, a very far from unanimous vote, and suddenly, the President's Secretary of State, Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton, solemnly announced that we were at war.

JEFFREY R. IMMELT - CEO, GENERAL ELECTRIC ARIS CANDRIS - CEO, WESTINGHOUSE JAMES T. HACKETT - CEO, ANADARKO PETROLEUM CORP [et al.]

"Did you lefties believe ANY of the crap you were spewing about the war on terrorism before Obama got into office?"

The Obama administration reportedly is considering former Clinton administration official Jamie Gorelick, among others, to become the next director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).... served as vice chairman of the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) when the government-sponsored enterprise began bundling subprime loans into securitized financial instruments... best known for her 1995 memo, written when she was deputy attorney general, that later became known as "Gorelick's Wall," a policy prescription limiting the flow of information between intelligence gatherers and criminal investigators that some believe helped allow the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center to go unchallenged....

The president eliminated a visit to Mayan ruins from his itinerary Wednesday, permitting him to leave a few hours earlier. Aides have taken pains to portray Obama as fully engaged in the deployment of missiles and warplanes in North Africa even as he devoted his public time to bridge-building with Latin American leaders.

"President Obama moved forward without Congress approving," the liberal Ohio Democrat told Raw Story. "He didn't have congressional authorization, he has gone against the Constitution, and that's got to be said."

About 2,200 Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit will take part in support operations based aboard USS Kearsarge at sea. Those support operations have thus far included air strikes and one rescue operation. The overall mission is to help end the violence directed at the Libyan people.

Police Insp.-Gen. David Cohen said that the Israel Police and Jerusalem Police were as prepared for Wednesday's Jerusalem terror attack as they could be. Cohen said that he did not believe that the attack represented a move backwards towards the years of terror attacks, but said that the Israel and Jerusalem Police are fully prepared for any situation.

The U.S. Air Force F-15E Eagle came down near Benghazi with suspected mechanical failure during the third night of air strikes on Colonel Gaddafi's positions.

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul told an administration official at a recent hearing that it's "insulting" for the government to tell consumers what light bulbs they can buy, because the government believes it "know[s] what's best for me." South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint said in a statement that, "Americans are fully capable of choosing the best way to light their own homes and what best fits the needs and budget of their families ... it's clear the 'nanny state' mentality has gotten out of control in Washington."

First to reach 11-year-old Yoav Fogel's blood-soaked bedside saw a prayer hanging over his pillow:

Kevin Harpham (HAR'-pum) ... from Addy, a town north of Spokane, and has extensive ties to white supremacist groups.

Egypt Air, the largest airline in Egypt, has removed Israel from the map — literally. On its website, Ynet has learned, Jordan's land reaches the Mediterranean Sea. The airline's subsidiary, Air Sinai, flies to Israel regularly, but customers seeking flights to Ben Gurion National Airport will have a hard time finding them. On the map are the names of the Mideast capitals — Amman, Beirut, and Damascus — but Israel is nowhere to be found.

March 19th, 2011, Portland Oregon: Calls for "militant direct action" are heard from the speakers at a Portland "Peace Protest." Unions are well represented. "Astroturfing" is clearly shown. The "9/11 Truthers" are present. Anti-Israel signs abound and support for Palestine including a bloody fist through a flag are shown. Numerous Socialists and Communists are present with their literature and interviewed. A Supreme Court mockery is incomplete, because their "black guy had to drop out." Calls for the single payer system are heard. Calls for having the Multnomah County not work together with ICE are heard. Calls for Obama to legalize illegal immigrants are heard. A sign identifies Sarah Palin as a "whore."

The Blaze has obtained an exclusive letter sent from Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) to Attorney General Eric Holder regarding shocking video uncovered by The Blaze on Tuesday. (Watch the original video.) In the letter, Chaffetz references video, posted yesterday on this site, showing a one-time SEIU official, Stephen Lerner, outlining a plan to collapse the American economy — including crashing the stock market — so that unions can become more powerful. The sinister plan is set to take place in May and includes mass homeowner mortgage strikes.

A 35-year-old San Bernardino man has been arrested on suspicion of murder for the death of his 16-year-old son and the attempted murder and torture of his children and wife, a San Bernardino County Sheriff's spokeswoman said.

Decades of census data, alongside a mathematical model, suggest religion in nine secular countries is being driven to extinction…. The team took census data stretching back as far as a century from countries in which the census queried religious affiliation: Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland. Nonlinear dynamics is invoked to explain a wide range of physical phenomena in which a number of factors play a part….

As a result of the disaster at Fukushima, I am no longer nuclear-neutral. I now support the technology. A crappy old plant with inadequate safety features was hit by a monster earthquake and a vast tsunami. The electricity supply failed, knocking out the cooling system. The reactors began to explode and melt down. The disaster exposed a familiar legacy of poor design and corner-cutting. Yet, as far as we know, no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation. Some greens have wildly exaggerated the dangers of radioactive pollution. For a clearer view, look at the graphic published by xkcd.com

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Wednesday it has observed a neutron beam, a kind of radioactive ray, 13 times on the premises of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant after it was crippled by the massive March 11 quake-tsunami disaster. TEPCO, the operator of the nuclear plant, said the neutron beam measured about 1.5 kilometers southwest of the plant's No. 1 and 2 reactors over three days from March 13 and is equivalent to 0.01 to 0.02 microsieverts per hour and that this is not a dangerous level.

The government said Wednesday that it estimates the damage to houses, roads, utilities and businesses could range from at least $198 billion to the $309 billion figure. Either total would easily top the cost of the previous worst disaster, the vast destruction Hurricane Katrina wreaked on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region of the United States in 2005. The insurance industry estimates Katrina caused $125 billion worth of damage. The Japan damage total could go higher because the government's estimate did not include possible wider effects on the country's economy, such as reduced factory production caused by planned power outages, or the effect of nuclear radiation leaks on the nation's food and water supply. One financial analyst, Bank of Japan board member Ryuzo Miyao, said the stress on the world's third largest economy "could linger for some time" and that the short-term effects "are not insignificant."

Fire destroyed 24-year-old Terisa Acevedo's apartment nearly one month ago. She was told that everything was gone, including her 2-year-old Dachshund named Lola.

"I have always said, heard, that it would not be strange that there had been civilization on Mars, but maybe capitalism arrived there, imperialism arrived and finished off the planet," Chavez said in speech to mark World Water Day.

Steyn replied. "I think John Boehner has been an incredible disappointment. I think John Boehner has basically climbed into the Bob Dole suit, and I think they misunderstand the lessons of the 2010 election, which is that the tea party chose to work within the diseased husk of the Republican Party it loathes. And it still hasn't forgiven for 2006 and 2008. So for the Republicans to demonstrate that 'hey, we're back to 2006 again,' except on Obama-level spending, is not a good idea."

She played hurt in that final game, nursing an undiagnosed stress fracture in her ankle. She was not willing to sit on the sidelines at a critical moment for her team. At crunch time, her team was able to count on her to do whatever it took to win, something to consider now as many on our side are worried Palin won't run for president.

Full text of speech of former Governor of Alaska and 2008 Republican Vice-President nominee Sarah Palin at India Today Conclave 2011. "America and India are a testament to the positive force of human aspirations."

Time Magazine cover fake-up: Palin wins Prez [graphic]

Governor Palin will join Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for dinner in Jerusalem on Monday evening; The Purim dinner!

I love Sarah Palin. There, I've said it. While I've never met her, that is beside the point. What is right on point however is why I love her. Sarah Palin bleeds American. She is not American simply because of an accident of birth. Rather, she understands what makes America different; she believes that America is exceptional and knows what makes it so; she is passionately pro-American without being jingoistic; she is willing to fight for what she believes regardless of who's lined up against her; she is willing to put her credibility and reputation on the line to help others who share her views. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, she is a normal, average, regular person.

That reputable scientist, Ann Coulter, recently wrote a genuinely irresponsible and dishonest column on radiation hormesis. She claims we shouldn't worry about the damaged Japanese reactors because they'll make the locals healthier! With the terrible earthquake and resulting tsunami that...

How and when does a restaurant management learn that FLOTUS and/or POTUS are coming? ["squares of suckling pig"?... guess they aren't all that Muslim!]

Life changed suddenly and permanently for David Tallman in 1992. At age 48, after 26 years at Phillips Petroleum in Bartlesville, he was laid off. "I was naive; I was unsuspecting. I thought as a loyal, faithful employee, I was safe," said Tallman, who will be signing his book at a booth next week at the Tulsa Workshop, an annual conference sponsored by the Memorial Drive Church of Christ.

The father of a Lawton soldier killed in Afghanistan told his Facebook friends to "remember the good times." Staff Sgt. Travis M. Tompkins, 31, died Wednesday after insurgents attacked his unit with a rocket-propelled grenade. Tompkins was serving as a military policeman with the 10th Mountain Division. "I am numb, as hours ago we got word our wonderful son, Travis, was killed in action on his first mission upon returning from leave here with his wife and family," Leland Tompkins wrote. "I am glad to hear that no others of his platoon died with him. Thank you for all thoughts, and those that knew Trav, remember the good times."

Commenter Sam St.Croix: The Obama's are self-absorbed bigots. The chip on their shoulders is their badge of pride. They are an evil pair who hate mainstream American values and are determined to destroy America's economic superiority. A more ignorant couple has never resided in the White House. They are having a great time shamelessly flaunting the spending of taxpayer money on vacations and diversions during the current recession, while most of the rest of the citizenry are forced to cut back and make do with less.

Blogger, lawyer Ann Althouse, who has been covering the Wisconsin labor dispute, received what can only be called a declaration of war on her from someone - or, more likely, some people - who don't like her anti-union sentiments.

With sharia heads roll literally and figuratively. Start with gay folks. Not only will they be forced back into the closet, they will come into the closet and drag you out for your head; the big one. Then there is the women. Muzzies have serious issues with women. No more abortion, no more driving, no more education, a paradigm shift in the way you dress. By age 8 they start eyeing your girls for marriage. Then there is this pesky thing about the actual Sharia law. Hell, people in the ghetto will be missing hands, arms, eyes. No more pig, the other white meat. These stupid libs don't understand this is one snake you don't want to screw with.

According to the unnamed senior official, US support was based on dismantling the troubled reactors run by Tokyo Electric Power

Like it or not unless we dump the current crop of the establishment cocktail party we are looking at a 2nd Obama term (hard to believe I know) and a third party — the Tea Party. This will be the fault of Boehner and crew -not us. They join a voting block with Dems to pass another Dem continuing resolution while claiming their hands are tied by the procedural rules. WTF? Here is one that that gets it — Allen West I hope it catches on with the cocktail party.

Why Obama's gone from 'Yes we can' to 'Er, maybe we shouldn't'... What is President Obama doing about anything? The most alarming answer — your guess is as good as mine — is also, frankly, the most accurate one. What the President is not doing is being clear, resolute and pro-active....

Obama closed Friday's remarks by saying, "I've taken this decision with the confidence that action is necessary, and that we will not be acting alone. Our goal is focused. Our cause is just. And our coalition is strong." Nearly a decade earlier, when President George W. Bush announced that U.S. forces were launching military strikes in Afghanistan, Bush said: "To all the men and women in our military ... I say this: Your mission is defined. Your objectives are clear. Your goal is just." Bush used similar wording in other remarks at the time. Also on Friday, Obama said, "The United States did not seek this outcome. Our decisions have been driven by Qaddafi's refusal to respect the rights of his people and the potential for mass murder of innocent civilians." On Oct. 7, 2001, Bush said of operations in Afghanistan, "We did not ask for this mission, but we will fulfill it. ... We defend not only our precious freedoms, but also the freedom of people everywhere to live and raise their children free from fear." The senior White House official said "any similarity is coincidence," adding that neither Obama nor his speechwriters reviewed Bush's remarks from Oct. 7, 2001.

A new assessment of President Barack Obama's budget released Friday says the White House underestimates future budget deficits by more than $2 trillion over the upcoming decade.

President Barack Obama has cancelled a public speech he was scheduled to deliver Sunday in a Rio square during his upcoming visit to Brazil, the US embassy in Brasilia said. [I am SO not surprised!]

global financial crisis,greek financial crisis,european debt crisis,european financial crisis,europe crisis,euro crisis,euro debt,european debt,financial contagion,contagion effect,u.s. europe economy,global economy

TEHRAN - Iran's second biggest city has massively increased the amount it fines for women who fail to observe the Islamic dress code and don't cover their hair properly, media reported.

Dora Alicia Tejada Pleitez is accused of killing her three-year-old daughter, Nicole, by stuffing roses down her throat in an exorcism to remove the demons inside the girl, according to court documents.

A Delaware County man has been arrested and charged with murder in the beating death of an elderly Landsdowne man who had befriended him and made him executor and sole beneficiary of his will. John Joe Thomas, 28, of the first block of Sunshine Road in Upper Darby, allegedly told police he killed Murray Joseph Seidman, 70, because the older man had made sexual advances and that the Old Testament spelled out stoning as the punishment for homosexuality. "I stoned Murray with a rock in a sock...."

The same guy who founded Bartlesville, J.H. Bartles, also established the town of Dewey because it was a railroad stop. Bartles was a pioneer shop keeper and in his desire to grow his business, he loaded his store onto large log rollers, hitched it up to a team of oxen, and over the next five months, moved his store from Bartles to Dewey, remaining open for business all the while.

the last time Cascadia let go? Just 311 years ago. We know the time and date precisely, thanks to records kept by diligent Japanese officials on the far side of the Pacific. On January 26th 1700, between nine and ten o'clock at night, the Cascadia fault ruptured along its length, unleashing a megaquake of magnitude 9.0 or more. While the shaking was not felt across the Pacific, the Japanese were alarmed enough by the "orphan tsunami" that inundated their coastal villages to record the details. Knowing the distance and the speed such long waves travel at (around 750 kilometres per hour), the Japanese records allow the time the megaquake struck to be known to within an hour. Numerical models suggest that a seismic event that size would have made the seafloor bounce six metres or more, causing tsunami waves to rise as high as 30 metres along the nearby coasts of Oregon and Washington. This past week Sendai looked devastated enough. Imagine how much worse Portland and Seattle would fare if hit by a tidal surge three times bigger.

The first life form created entirely with man-made DNA opens the door to manufacturing new drugs and fuels, while raising the possibility that mail-order germs may one-day be available for bioterrorists.

NASA's Messenger probe is set to make history tomorrow night (March 17) when it becomes the first spacecraft ever to enter into orbit around the planet Mercury. …will map Mercury's surface in detail, as well as investigate the planet's composition, magnetic environment and tenuous atmosphere, among other features.

This past weekend the world darkened with the loss of one of its brightest lights: Martin Gardner, polymath extraordinaire, founding father of the modern skeptical movement, and a friend. R.I.P. Martin. We will miss you terribly. How does one capture in a few paragraphs the life of one of the most [...]

For 25 years, he wrote Scientific American 's Mathematical Games column, educating and entertaining minds and launching the careers of generations of mathematicians

Martin Gardner, who celebrated his 95th birthday last October has passed away yesterday. Matt Blum wrote about his Birthday and new book in his post

The call by the Arab League for Western military intervention in an Arab state — in this case asking that a UN "no-fly zone" be imposed over Libya — is not only without precedent but it puts in formal terms what Governor Palin stated three weeks ago should have been America's response to the political and humanitarian crisis now unfolding there.

The notion that Rand Paul is a libertarian babe in Kentucky's political woods is false. He long ago got help from Republican professionals—and is getting more as he tries to recover from his disastrous national debut.

Writing about the Senate candidate from Kentucky, The Star's Jason Whitlock says: "Paul did not let it slip accidentally that he opposed aspects of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. Paul knew what he was doing. He executed a calculated, bold, political-branding move."

Fed up with a president "who can't make his mind up" as Libyan rebels are on the brink of defeat, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is looking to the exits.

That's one of the reasons I will travel to Latin America this week — to strengthen our economic relationship with neighbors who are playing a growing role in our economic future. [Taking Michelle and the girls to Rio at Carneval? Just a happy coincidence!]

From the diaries by Erick Jared Lee Loughner was Barack Obama's perfect gun purchaser -— right up until the moment when he started killing

Impeached? -Expletive- no. That's too good for him. President Obama should be arrested. What's that word you used a while back — sedition? Well there you go — that pretty much sums up this whole stinking cesspool of a White House right there.

Despite the President's strange assertions in his press conference last week, his Administration is not a passive observer to the trends that have inflated oil prices to dangerous levels. His war on domestic oil and gas exploration and production has caused us pain at the pump, endangered our already sluggish economic recovery, and threatened our national security. The evidence of the President's anti-drilling mentality and his culpability in the high gas prices hurting Americans is there for all to see. The following is not even an exhaustive list

The White House today proposed sweeping revisions to U.S. copyright law, including making "illegal streaming" of audio or video a federal felony and allowing FBI agents to wiretap suspected infringers.

President Barack Obama will take his first official trip to Brazil this weekend where he will speak in the popular Cinelandia Square in downtown Rio de Janeiro. Access, of course, will be tightly restricted and security measures so secretive that not even the Embassy or US Consulate in Rio know exactly how it's all going to go down. Obama's speech will be free and open to the public

Amid signs of deepening war weariness among Americans, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said Tuesday he will soon recommend a plan for beginning troop reductions, while embracing President Barack Obama's goal of pursuing a long-term military partnership with the Afghan government. In a four-hour Senate hearing that was his first since taking command in Kabul last summer, Army Gen. David Petraeus said the tide is turning in the war despite persistent questions about the durability of the Afghan government led by Hamid Karzai and the commitment of neighboring Pakistan to keep militants at bay

Of 240 suspects identified in Britain, 121 were arrested, with 30 convictions. Some 60 children were "safeguarded" from abusers. Globally 670 suspects were identified and there were 184 arrests and 230 children rescued after internet servers were seized from Amir I, a Dutchman, who ran the website. He is currently on trial accused of abusing a 14-year old Brazilian boy.

A U.S. House committee approved a bill Tuesday to block a federal agency from regulating greenhouse gases, but the real drama broke out in the Senate, where Oklahoma Republican Jim Inhofe is pushing the measure. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., introduced Inhofe's bill as an amendment to a small-business measure. McConnell said the time had come for the Senate to take a stand on the legislation, which is designed to strip the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of its authority to regulate greenhouse gases in response to climate change. But following hours of strongly worded debate, an attempt to reach an agreement on holding floor votes Tuesday evening apparently failed.

Pious legend credits St. Patrick with banishing snakes from the island,[53] however all evidence suggests that post-glacial Ireland never had snakes.[54] However, one suggestion is that snakes referred to the serpent symbolism of the Druids[55] during that time and place, as exampled on coins minted in Gaul (see Carnutes). Legend also credits St. Patrick with teaching the Irish about the concept of the Holy Trinity by showing people the shamrock, a three-leaved clover, using it to highlight the Christian belief of 'three divine persons in the one God.'[56]

"We're very close now to the point of no return," Dr. Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist, said. "It's gotten worse. We're talking about workers coming into the reactor perhaps as a suicide mission and we may have to abandon ship." A group of 180 workers rotate shifts working at the plant in teams of 50 men. The men have been nicknamed the "Fukushima Fifty."

More U.S. military crews were exposed to radiation Tuesday as the Pentagon ramped up relief flights over a Japan reeling from an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis. The Defense Department said the Navy started giving anti-radiation pills to some of those exposed, and Americans on two military bases south of Tokyo were advised to stay indoors as much as possible. With more aid for victims on the way, the U.S. Navy said it was redirecting three ships to work in the Sea of Japan on the country's west coast rather than risk the hazards of radiation and the debris field in the waters off the east coast.

Congressmen Dan Boren (D-OK) and Mike Rogers (R-MI) have introduced a bill that would expand the waiver process in the new health care law to all Americans and employers.

President Obama's conference on bullying Thursday was deeply ironic to some in the White House press corps. That's because every reporter who regularly covers the place knows that President Obama's staff has a policy — an actual, pre-conceived policy — of bullying. It's a tactic that amount to no less than suppression of speech. By the "openness" administration. The White House bullies reporters to try to ensure favorable coverage. When White House officials, particularly members of the press office, see a story they don't like, they often call and verbally abuse the reporter who wrote the piece. In diatribes often peppered with obscenities, they complain of profound injustice, bias, lack of relevance — anything they can think of to get reporters to back off their story. It's not just a series of uncontrolled outbursts. It is a planned, methodical, and highly artificial effort to either squash a story or get inside a reporter's head so they think twice about doing a piece next time that negatively impacts Obama.

The Obama administration told the Supreme Court on Monday night it should stay away from a high-profile challenge to the 2010 health care law until after a lower court has had a chance to review the case... Team Obama has said they're absolutely convinced of the health care law's constitutionality, so with that in mind wouldn't you think they'd welcome a fast-track opinion on the law and ultimate thumbs-up from the Supreme Court?...

Obama has clearly signaled that he is content to leave America's fate in the hands of the United Nations. He seems to believe that a global consensus should trump American sovereignty. For Obama, this relieves him of the need to make the tough decisions usually required by American presidents. For the rest of the world, Obama's actions and lack of actions signal weakness. And Obama has never learned the basic lesson that weakness does not appease, it emboldens.

The Obama administration is holding meetings on new gun laws, but they will be missing a key political player: The National Rifle Association. Wayne LaPierre, the organization's chief executive, told The New York Times, "why should I or the NRA go sit down with a group of people that have spent a lifetime trying to destroy the Second Amendment in the United States?"

Disney's planned remake of The Beatles' Yellow Submarine has been shelved. Oscar-winning director Robert Zemeckis had been planning a 3D performance-capture remake of the band's 1968 psychedelic classic. Hollywoodreporter.com has quoted sources as saying that the decision to pull the project is the result of the disastrous opening of the Zemeckis-produced Mars Needs Moms film. [Well, at least SOME good can come out of Mars Needs Moms bombing!]

Anyone 18 or older could openly carry a firearm in Oklahoma without a gun license under a bill overwhelmingly approved in the state Senate.

A fire broke out at a nuclear reactor again Wednesday, a day after the power plant emitted a burst of radiation that panicked an already edgy Japan and left the government struggling to contain a spiraling crisis caused by last week's earthquake and tsunami.

U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin is in the Bay Area touring a peninsula hospital. NBC Bay Area reporter Damian Trujillo asked her about the run on tablets and Dr. Benjamin said although she wasn't aware of people stocking up, she did not think that would be an overreaction. She said it was right to be prepared. On the other side of the issue is Kelly Huston of the California Emergency Management Agency. Huston said state officials, along with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the California Energy Commission, were monitoring the situation and said people don't need to buy the pills.

SEATTLE - Fears of transpacific nuclear fallout from Japan's reactor crisis have sent consumers scrambling for radiation antidotes across the ocean on the west coast of the United States and

Thirty-five years ago, Dale G. Bridenbaugh and two of his colleagues at General Electric resigned from their jobs after becoming increasingly convinced that the nuclear reactor design they were reviewing -- the Mark 1 -- was so flawed it could lead to a devastating accident.

Amid scenes of unimaginable carnage, desperate survivors were today battling for survival as the official death toll soared above 3,300.

Aerial photos taken over Japan have revealed the scale of devastation across dozens of suburbs and tens of thousands of homes and businesses. Hover over each satellite photo to view the devastation caused by the earthquake and tsunami.

Owsley Stanley, an icon of Bay Area counterculture in the 1960s and a longtime associate of the Grateful Dead, died Sunday in a car accident in his adopted home of Queensland, Australia, according to family spokesperson Sam Cutler. He was 76. Mr. Stanley had been driving to his home near the city of Cairns during a storm and lost control of the car, Cutler said. He died instantly. His wife, Sheila, suffered a broken collarbone.

No one did more to alter the consciousness of the generation that came of age in the 1960s than Augustus Owsley Stanley (who passed away March 13, 2011). Long before the Summer of Love drew thousands of hippies to Haight-Ashbury, Owsley was already an authentic underground folk hero, revered throughout the counterculture for making the purest form of LSD ever to hit the street. Yet today, at seventy-two, he is all but forgotten.

The researchers found that owning and walking the dogs, increased the chances of meeting federal benchmarks on physical activity by 34%, for the dog owners. However, less than half the number of Americans are able to meet the recommended levels of physical exercise.

Dog owners who walk their dogs are 34 percent more likely than others to meet federal physical activity benchmarks, according to new research.

I have this fear that if Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and Sharron Angle ever got together in the same room, it would create a Black Hole, and the universe would be sucked into the vortex vacuum. [and further meaningless screed. I only turned to this on the recommendation of Mark Evanier. Learned my lesson.]

Read Hayward's entire piece here. As usual, he nails it. This LaBash is clearly an idiot but, beyond him, I continue to be amazed by the propensity of some self-described conservatives to be used by liberals to attack actual conservatives. While real conservatives, like Governor Palin, are giving their all fighting Obama's ruinous "Transformation of America" in the trenches, these weenies provide aid and comfort to the enemy. Indeed, despite their elite credentials, or perhaps because of them, I'm not sure they're even bright enough to know who the enemy is (hint: it's not Governor Palin).

In an op-ed essay in The Arizona Daily Star, Obama said legislation to bolster criminal background checks for gun buyers hasn't been properly implemented, with too many states providing "incomplete and inadequate" information. He suggested rewarding states that provide the most comprehensive information to the criminal background database. [I'll just bet he did!]

Dick Biedermann is an 88-year-old who refuses to let age get the best of him. A World War II Navy veteran, Biedermann is on a mission to spread the word that more donations are needed to carry on the Honor Flights program in Oklahoma. The national program provides World War II veterans with an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C., so they can visit the nation's memorial that honors their generation's fight against tyranny. Also included in the daylong trip are visits to the Iwo Jima Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery. Oklahoma joined the program last year, with two flights out of Oklahoma City to the National World War II Memorial. Each flight held 110 veterans, along with about 60 chaperones.

A Corsicana man accused in the abduction and torture of a Parker County woman is under investigation in the disappearance of two other North Texas women, one of them his ex-wife whose family has not heard from her since 1992, the Parker County sheriff s...

Viral hoax in waiting or brilliant marketing display of the iPhone's hidden capabilities?... claims to have added a transmitter to his iPhone that allows him to take over any video screen....

Call it the Nanny State run amok. By hosting an all-day White House conference on adolescent bullying last week, President Obama elevated a schoolyard issue to the level of public enemy No. 1... [h/t Cuz BD]

Pilots on an Alaska Airlines flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles locked down the cockpit and alerted authorities Sunday when a flight crew grew alarmed at the behavior of three men who turned out to be conducting an elaborate orthodox Jewish prayer ritual, officials said.

confirmed that the video clip viewed by the Frankfurt Airport shooter Arid Uka — and that allegedly provoked him to kill American soldiers — was indeed the rape scene from Brian De Palma's fictional anti-Iraq War movie Redacted. Attorney General spokesperson Frank Wallenta confirmed the identity of the clip to the German television news magazine Spiegel TV. Uka viewed the De Palma clip as part of a four-and-a-half minute propaganda video that was posted on a German-language YouTube page under the title "American Soldiers Rape our Sisters! Awake Oh Ummah."

told police she got up about 5 a.m. Thursday to mix formula with water for her 2-month-old son, according to the report. She said she fed the baby and went back to sleep, and smelled alcohol when she woke up about 10 a.m. Poole told police she had friends over a few days earlier, and they brought gin in a water bottle that resembled the container she used to mix formula for the baby's bottles. Poole, who described the incident as an accident, had a strong odor of marijuana about her when police arrived

Investigators found photos of police Sgt. Maurice Martinez's foster children in various stages of undress, a video of a foster child describing sex acts performed with another child, hundreds of photos of homosexual pornography and a surveillance camera in a child's room when searching the arrested officer's home in January, according to an affidavit.

According to the box office tracking site, Box Office Mojo, that ranks among the top ten worst openings ever for a film distributed that broadly.

E.C. Segar, creator of the iconic comic strip character, was suffering a bad cold but decided to head to his Santa Monica studio anyway. On Jan. 17, 1929, readers were introduced to the pipe-smoking sailor with the huge forearms.

Until we see whether they get the pumps running again, or emergency power becomes available, lets not panic about this. It sounds like they are doing all the right things I would expect in such an emergency. The situation is serious. But so is a tsunami that wipes out a couple of towns with over 77,000 people gone in just one of those towns. The radiation isn't a problem in this yet. Let the Japanese military and civil defense folks do their jobs, and help them out wherever we can. That is all we can hope to do anyway.

A tide of bodies washed up along Japan's coastline Monday, overwhelming crematoriums, exhausting supplies of body bags and adding to the spiraling humanitarian, economic and nuclear crisis after the massive earthquake and tsunami. Millions of people faced a fourth night without water, food or heating in near-freezing temperatures along the northeast coast devastated by Friday's disasters. Meanwhile, a third reactor at a nuclear power plant lost its cooling capacity and its fuel rods were fully exposed, raising fears of a meltdown. The stock market plunged over the likelihood of huge losses by Japanese industries including big names such as Toyota and Honda.

The following reactions are not ones we'd characterize as "appropriate."

Rescuers spot 60-year-old from Fukushima prefecture clinging to the roof of his home two days after the tsunami struck Live coverage of Japan earthquake and tsunami

Government officials revealed the fate of 9,500 people in the north eastern port of Minamisanriku was still unknown more than 24 hours after the double disaster hit. [Several horribly impressive pictures.]

The director, Kevin McCue, said there had been more than 100 smaller quakes since Friday, but a larger aftershock was likely. ''Normally they happen within days,'' he said. ''The rule of thumb is that you would expect the main aftershock to be one magnitude smaller than the main shock, so you would be expecting a 7.9. Advertisement: Story continues below ''That's a monster again in its own right that is capable of producing a tsunami and more damage.''

The Daley's of Chicago, always a family of ignorant, power hungry thugs, appear to have added murder to the list of their timeless contributions to the Windy City way of life.

The Earth has stored a tremendous amount of internal energy within its thin outer shell or crust, and the small differences in the tidal forces exerted by the moon (and sun) are not enough to fundamentally overcome the much larger forces within the planet due to convection (and other aspects of the internal energy balance that drives plate tectonics). [B.. b.. but those other seismic experts said...]

It was not immediately clear if the eruption was a direct result of the massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake that rocked northern areas Friday... The 1,421-metre (4,689-feet) Shinmoedake volcano in the Kirishima range saw its first major eruption for 52 years in January. There had not been any major activity at the site since March 1....

Hoyt Hughes, 79, of Indianola, died Sunday at his residence. On May 26, 1978, Hughes was among several troopers involved in a gunbattle with several escapees from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, known as the Caddo-Kenific Incident. OHP Lt. Pat Grimes and troopers Pappy Summers and Billy Young were shot and killed in the shootout, while Hughes was wounded. He survived the injuries, and continued to serve in the OHP until his retirement as a lieutenant/troop commander in 1987. "Lieutenant Hughes and the men that died and responded to Caddo-Kenefic in 1978 will always be remembered by the men and women of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol as the standard for courage" OHP Chief Kerry Pettingill said in a statement. "It is a sad day anytime we lose a member of the OHP family."

The Military Leadership Diversity Commission's (MLDC) conclusion this week that there are too many white men in senior positions in the military "is a slap in the face" to those minorities who have achieved seniority, according to retired Lt. Colonel and Florida Republican Rep. Allen West.

Please choose which American politician is responsible for each quote…

Operating from a remote patrol base in Helmand, two British snipers were responsible for killing 75 Taliban fighters in just 40 days. In one remarkable feat of marksmanship, two insurgents were dispatched with a single bullet.

But what was the comment? As Jazz Shaw wrote a week ago, even FireDogLake managed to be honest about it: In response to PFC Manning's question, he was told that there was nothing he could do to downgrade his detainee status and that the Brig simply considered him a risk of self-harm. PFC Manning then remarked that the POI restrictions were "absurd" and sarcastically stated that if he wanted to harm himself, he could conceivably do so with the elastic waistband of his underwear or with his flip-flops. "Joking" about suicide while in a brig is akin to joking about having a bomb when going through airport security. The authorities won't just assume you're stupid enough to joke about it and will take it seriously, because if they don't and the suspect was serious, they will get the blame for what follows.

The Obama administration is still playing games, but hopefully the courts are on to their game. The reason for the administration's slow-down strategy is two-fold. First it is much easier for governments to build bureaucratic systems than tear them down. The longer it takes for a final decision on Obamcare, the more developed the supporting systems and the harder it will be to tear them down. The hope here is the same, the arrogant stance that those stupid common people who don't understand their bill, will finally appreciate that government knows best, the closer to final implementation the plan gets.

Hussain Hashem al-HUSSAINI, Hussain Hashem al-HUSSAINI, Oklahoma City, Third Suspect, John Doe 2, Homeless Man Hussain Hashem al-Hussaini is

The death toll in Japan's earthquake and tsunami will likely exceed 10,000 in one state alone, an official said Sunday, as millions of survivors were left without drinking water, electricity and proper food along the pulverized northeastern coast. "This is Japan's most severe crisis since the war ended 65 years ago...."

appears to have moved the main island of Japan by 8 feet (2.4 meters) and shifted the Earth on its axis.

According to officials, at least 1,000 people were killed - including 200 bodies found Sunday along the coast - and 678 were missing in the earthquake and the ensuing tsunami that hit with breathtaking force and speed, sweeping away everything in its path.

"If this accident stops right now it will already be one of the three worst accidents we have ever had at a nuclear power plant in the history of nuclear power,"

NOAA energy map shows the intensity of the tsunami caused by Japan's magnitude 8.9 earthquake.

"We had an earthquake caused by the Pacific Ocean plate sliding under the Asian plate and as it slides under the Asian plate is pushed up...any time you move the ocean floor up or down you induce a tsunami in the ocean. "Tsunamis travel fast when the ocean is deep they travel slowly when the ocean is shallow. When the ocean is deep, the wave spreads out so you have maybe a foot high wave that's spread out hundreds of miles and it's traveling at literally 500 miles an hour."

Crude prices fell slightly on predictions Japan's energy use would drop in the wake of the disaster, though some analysts said the period could be followed quickly by a rebuilding phase in which the country's energy demand could surge.

The emergency cooling system at a second nuclear reactor at the Fukushima power plant has failed, raising fears of serious accident but officials have said the low radiation levels pose no risk to human health

French green groups renewed a call on Saturday for France to end its dependence on nuclear power, saying a radiation leak at a Japanese atomic power plant showed there were no safety guarantees in the industry. [Oooof course they do....]

Army Secretary John McHugh has initiated "adverse administrative action" against the officers, according to an Army statement released Thursday on the results of an accountability review to determine if Hasan's superior officers were negligent. "Although no single event directly led to the tragedy at Fort Hood, certain officers clearly failed to meet the high standards expected of their profession," the Army statement said.

Before 39-million viewers, Palin was the first public figure to openly and successfully ridicule the hitherto untouchable Barack Obama. She also was the first American woman to campaign for high office by paying homage, but no ideological dues, to the Sisterhood. This Alaskan small-town huntin', fishin' God-fearin,' abortion-hatin' mom of five showed that a woman can break through any glass ceiling she wants without the imprimatur of the feminist politburo. Richard Johnson/National Post Feminists watching Palin's stunning performance knew a stake was being driven through their movement's heart. They went ballistic.

President Barack Obama said Friday that the Pentagon has assured him that the Army private who is believed responsible for the largest leak of classified American documents ever is being held under appropriate conditions.

A bus crash in the Bronx killed at least 14 people on its way back from a casino.

The man who sketched a penguin to fame heads to the cinema with 'Mars Needs Moms'

Cartoonist Jimmy Johnson says he's always a little nervous about the Sunday installations of his comic strip 'Arlo & Janis.'

BARTLESVILLE — The sandstone walls of the building at 113 SW Second have been standing since Bartlesville's oil boomtown days. Considered possibly the oldest building in the historic downtown district, the structure will start a new chapter this week. On Sunday, Keller Williams Realty and Auctions By Mary are selling the building to the highest bidder.

A municipal official of the town of Futaba in Fukushima prefecture said: ''More than 90% of the houses in three coastal communities have been washed away by tsunami. Looking from the fourth floor of the town hall, I see no houses standing.'' In one of the worst-hit areas of Fukushima prefecture, people buried under rubble could be heard calling out for help, the Kyodo news agency reported. Four trains running in a coastal area of Miyagi and Iwate prefectures are still unaccounted for. In Ibaraki prefecture, north-east of Tokyo, many homes are still without power and there are queues at the few petrol stations that are open, says the BBC's Chris Hogg.

According to the study, 5,500 women want sperm from complete strangers, but only about 60 men are willing to donate their sperm without recompense. Now who would have seen that coming? Dr. Edward Hughes, the study's main author, is deeply concerned about this situation, and he has a solution: Government action!

In his Friday press conference to discuss gas prices, President Obama was rather defensive, straining to counter the notion that his administration has been unfriendly to oil drilling, something most people would like to see a lot more of these days. Where do people get that notion?

"Mr. Obama has told people that it would be so much easier to be the president of China. As one official put it, 'No one is scrutinizing Hu Jintao's words in Tahrir Square.'" ... Unfortunately for him and us, Barack Obama is president of the United States. That job brings with it certain special responsibilities. It's a tough job—maybe tougher than being president of China. But Barack Obama ran for president of the United States. Maybe he should start behaving as one.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier had said that U.S. Air Force "assets" had delivered "some really important coolant" to a Japanese nuclear power plant. One U.S. official said he believed Clinton was told Japan had requested the material, that the United States had agreed to provide it, and that an operation to do so was under way.

Most of what a modern university teaches is untrue, but not every university is so cruel to its fellow citizens.

Obama eligibility researcher and genealogist discusses his research on Obama's purported newspaper birth announcements.

By Deconstructing Obama page by page -- and piece by piece -- Cashill brings the reader to understand that in 2008 "Barak Obama" wasn't a candidate but a carefully created myth. The leftist mainstream media bought that myth, which is why they blew off Cashill and his overwhelming amount of evidence that so much about Obama was fraudulent.

A year-long Department of Homeland Security undercover operation targeting prospective "sex tourists" was torpedoed last month after a blogger unwittingly stumbled upon a sleazy web site set up by federal agents and engineered a reverse sting on investigators she mistook for pedophiles

The author of a book on the Oklahoma City bombing says a man arrested in Quincy after a street fight is the same man she wrote about in her book, "The Third Terrorist: The Middle East Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing."

The House overwhelmingly approved a bill Wednesday that would ban abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy.If the law wins approval in the Senate and is signed into law — both of which appear likely — Oklahoma would be the second state to restrict abortions on the basis of fetal pain.

Japanese officials may only have hours to cool reactors that have been disabled by Friday's massive earthquake and tsunami or face a nuclear meltdown....

A dam in Japan's northeast Fukushima prefecture broke and homes were washed away, Kyodo news reported on Saturday, after the biggest earthquake in the nation's history wreaked death and havoc.

Two seismologists quoted in an article on the website Life's Little Mysteries (a sister site of Space.com) said that just as the moon's gravity has an effect on Earth tides, it can also have a minimal effect on the land in what is known as "land tides" or "solid Earth tides." Ultimately, ocean tides and land tides can have an effect upon seismic activity. [Wow, gravity of a body in close proximity and 1/6th the size of our planet might tug on the delicate, cracked, plates and sub-plates floating on the core of our world, which might even trigger some event that was about to pop anyway? WHAT A SURPRISE!]

TV weatherman John Kettley said: "A moon can't cause a geological event like an earthquake, but it will cause a difference to the tide. If that combines with certain weather conditions then that could cause a few problems for coastal areas." [WHAT? NO EFFECT? WADR, you asked a WEATHERMAN? Let's ask some seismic specialists instead!]

largest in the country's recorded history - and the fifth-largest to hit the world since 1900. It triggered a giant tsunami in the Pacific Ocean, sweeping away boats, cars, homes and people. At least 60 people have been confirmed dead as of Friday morning, and the entire U.S. West Coast braces for the aftershocks of the disaster.

Most astonishing was footage of a tsunami rolling in, swamping the land and causing boats to smack into an overpass. ... a wall of water put at 10 to 13 feet high, rushing in... death toll in one village alone was 300... boat with 100 aboard had been reported swept away.... scenes of refinery fires, shaken offices, shattered glass, cracked walls and stranded passengers... another disaster could be looming because the area around a nuclear power plant had been evacuated and that a leak was possible... "Most nuclear power plants in Japan … are able to withstand an earthquake of about 7 or 7.2," she said. "Something this big, an 8.9, even an 8.9 offshore, that certainly is going to raise some alarms." She said that was the "gray zone" of what a nuclear plant could withstand. ... the rate of earthquakes around the world could increase because such a large quake causes distress in the Earth's crust. ...Japan will feel earthquakes for years and decades to come because the fault line could be 400 miles long.

* One train is derailed and another missing in Miyagi prefecture, Kyodo says. - Up to 300 bodies found in Sendai city, domestic news agency Jiji says. - Some 3,000 residents living near a nuclear plant in Fukushima prefecture, north of Tokyo, have been told to evacuate the area, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano tells reporters. - Government says no radiation leaking; evacuation is precaution after reactor cooling malfunction. - Bank of Japan to hold policy meeting on Monday, will announce decision same day, cutting short scheduled Monday-Tuesday meeting. - First signs of tsunami begin to appear on shores of Hawaii.

Japanese refiners Cosmo Oil and JX Nippon Oil and Energy shut their refineries in the eastern part of the country following a massive earthquake that struck the area on Friday afternoon. Several power plants and ports in the Tokyo Bay area were also closed... Japan's Tohoku Electric Power Company shut its three nuclear reactors at its Onagawa power plant while a Tokyo Electric Power Company spokesman said it had shut seven units at two of its nuclear power plants in Fukushima prefecture... Key ports in the Tokyo Bay area also suspended operations... The quake unleashed a 10 meter-high tsunami that tossed ships inland and sparked fears that destructive waves could hit across the Pacific Ocean...

The quake that hit Japan was a magnitude 8.9, the biggest earthquake to hit the country since officials began keeping records in the late 1800s, and one of the biggest ever recorded in the world, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The quake struck at a depth of six miles, about 80 miles off the eastern coast, the agency said. The area is 240 miles northeast of Tokyo. A tsunami warning was extended to a number of Pacific, Southeast Asian and Latin American nations, including Japan, Russia, Indonesia, New Zealand and Chile. In the Philippines, authorities ordered an evacuation of coastal communities.

One of Indonesia's most active volcanos has erupted, sending lava and searing gas clouds tumbling down its slopes... hours after a massive earthquake in Japan that triggered a Pacific-wide tsunami... 5,853-foot (1,784-meter) mountain is located on Siau, part of the Sulawesi island chain. It last erupted in August, killing four people...

Thousands of protesters pushed past security, climbed through windows and flooded the Wisconsin Capitol on Wednesday night after Senate Republicans pushed through a plan to strip most public workers of their collective bargaining rights. [We've gone to mob action. Yup, that's how I learned in grade school that American politics is supposed to work. Now LET'S GET A ROPE!... oh, wait...]

PolitiFact Wisconsin has compiled promises that Scott Walker made during the 2010 campaign and is tracking their progress on our Walk-O-Meter.

France is the first country to formally recognise the legitimacy of Libya's rebel National Transitional Council and will open an embassy in Benghazi, the government announced after meeting with NTC representatives in Paris Thursday.

The top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee says Thursday's hearing on Islamic radicalism could be used by terrorists to inspire a new generation of suicide bombers. [PC has reached its zenith! Now we can't speak of opposing murderers lest we inspire murder! OH boy!]

Three Oklahoma lawmakers who advocate stricter immigration controls are among a dozen U.S. legislators targeted by the Southern Poverty Law Center for their "radical" beliefs. Republican state Reps. Sally Kern and Charles Key of Oklahoma City and Randy Terrill of Moore are highlighted in the "Attacking the Constitution: State Legislators for Legal Immigration & the Anti-Immigrant Movement" report. "It's astounding how far outside the mainstream they are," Heidi Beirich, research director for the center, said of the legislators. "These folks are flat-out extremists."

In the middle of a grueling campaign during World War II, the young soldier from Tulsa, desperate for food, had been searching a dead German's body in a foxhole he'd discovered. But when he heard it - the voice like his father's that he swore had called his name - Bell froze. Dropping an unopened can of rations, he quickly climbed out of the hole. Before he could ascertain what he'd heard, though, a deafening explosion knocked Bell off his feet.

It remains unclear why it took 10 years for authorities to discover that the children were missing.

The keys were left with the teens so they could listen to the radio, he said. One girl went to the casino while the daughter stayed behind and began huffing compressed air from a can, O'Mara said. The girl told deputies she was circling the parking lot in the van when she blacked out. The van jumped three curbs, hit a security car and then hit the casino building about 3 p.m., O'Mara said. No one was injured, he said. The girl who drove the van told deputies that she had taken an unknown number of prescription pills, not knowing what effect the pills would have

Inhofe called the administration's $556 billion proposal for the next rewrite of the nation's massive transportation bill the most unusual budget request for highways he has seen in his 20-plus years in Congress. "What is unusual is that it ignores the fact that there is no money to fund it," the Oklahoma Republican said.

Marlboro & Campbell's mashup

Ronald Searle has sold 2,000 sketches, 50 books of drawings and lithographs — the bulk of his original artwork — to a German museum who paid 1 million Euros ($1.4 million). The work spans six decades.

The Oklahoma House has approved a measure barring abortions on fetuses more than 20 weeks after conception... Its author, Rep. Pam Peterson of Tulsa, said research indicates pain receptors exist in a fetus that is 16 weeks old, and nerves linking the receptors to the brain exist by 20 weeks. ... The bill exempts pregnant women whose life or health is threatened. The measure makes it a felony to perform an abortion in violation of the act....

Graham Waspe's guide dog is not just aiding his owner to carry out everyday tasks, but also helping his previous one to get around in Stowmarket, Suffolk.

Two teenage girls were arrested Wednesday after crashing a van into the Will Rogers Casino near Claremore... Deputies said the girls, both 15, had been huffing compressed air....

The West is now home to the four fastest-growing states - Nevada, Arizona, Utah and Idaho - and has surpassed the Midwest in population, according to 2010 figures. California and Texas added to the southwestern population tilt, making up more than one-fourth of the nation's total gains since 2000.

While mothers and fathers are away, serving in the military, some children are finding comfort in pillowlike dolls decorated with their photos. Operation Hug-A-Hero has provided thousands of the dolls to families of soldiers.

While mothers and fathers are away, serving in the military, some children are finding comfort in pillowlike dolls decorated with their photos. Operation Hug-A-Hero has provided thousands of the dolls to families of soldiers.

The bigotry in the video directed towards Jews seemed to alarm Williams the most. "...he is sitting there... buying into libel against Jewish people who have had success in the newspaper business but nothing illegitimate, nothing wrong about it, and he buys into the stereotyping and bigotry and then points the finger at others to say people like me are bigots. This is unbelievable." http://dailycaller.com/2011/03/08/fired-npr-analyst-juan-williams-respon... Good ear for the worst hypocrisy.

The highest-graded copy of Amazing Fantasy #15, featuring the debut of Spider-Man from Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, has sold in a private transaction for $1.1 million. This is by far the highest price paid for a Silver Age comic book, and is an almost one billion percent increase from the 12¢ cover price.

Oklahoma, with the 28th-largest population and the 29th-largest economy among the 50 states, accounts for more gambling revenue than all but three. An explosion of Indian casino gaming in the state has brought transformational opportunities for the tribes but hasn't been without social costs for everyone.

"The student found some information on the Internet on a person he thought was her, including photos, and printed it out at home and brought it in.... He asked her, 'Is this you?' And she said yes. Of course, she immediately realized this could have some implications...." [Well, I should say!]

Mr. Witzel was born at Wann, Oklahoma on May 18, 1924 the son of Laverne and Lena Witzel. He grew up and received his education in Bartlesville until entering the United States Navy at the age of 16 in 1941. He was a Pearl Harbor survivor who was a Gunner's Mate, shooting down two Japanese planes during the Pearl Harbor attack. He served continuously in the Navy until his Honorable Discharge on July 31, 1961. Mr. Witzel was married to Anna Lee Brunsteter on September 9, 1944 in Bartlesville. They made their home at various locations during Mr. Witzel's military career. Following his military discharge as a Chief Petty Officer, they came to Bartlesville to make their home in 1961 where he was Vice President of Home and Peoples Savings & Loan Association from 1961 until 1979.

Students at Jenks East Intermediate will observe a naturalization ceremony this morning... Thirty-six participants from 20 different countries will take the Oath of Allegiance to become new U.S. citizens...

The Justice Department on Tuesday filed its expected appeal of a federal judge's ruling that the sweeping health care reform law championed by President Barack Obama is unconstitutional. With the appeal, the case now goes to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for consideration, and could eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

The White House is ramping up an effort to promote a nationwide competition to decide which high school wins a commencement speech by President Obama. An internal White House memo indicates that the White House is facing a shortage of applications less than a week before the deadline.

Obama winced at the mention of vegemite, an Australian food paste made from yeast extract, when a student asked about it during a classroom visit the two leaders conducted. "It's horrible!" the president declared. Gillard displayed some diplomacy befitting a world leader on her first Washington tour, calling the issue "a little bit of a division between the president and I. I love vegemite." [MR DIPLOMAT, THAT OBAMA!]

General, Eric Holder has come forward, finally, to identify who he will and will not defend. Remember, this is the man who called us cowards on race. Now, two years after making that statement, Eric has grown a few. He says he isn't going after the New Black Panthers because he wouldn't want to "demean his people." One can assume that since Obama hasn't fired his AG by this point, these are his peeps, too... Shovel the below on the stinking pile AG Holder and the President have been adding to the last two years...

On the tapes, Schiller wastes little time before attacking conservatives. The Republican Party, Schiller says, has been "hijacked by this group." The man posing as Malik finishes the sentence by adding, "the radical, racist, Islamaphobic, Tea Party people." Schiller agrees and intensifies the criticism, saying that the Tea Party people aren't "just Islamaphobic, but really xenophobic, I mean basically they are, they believe in sort of white, middle-America gun-toting. I mean, it's scary. They're seriously racist, racist people."

On the videotape, Mr. Schiller tells people posing as Muslim philanthropists that the Republican party has been "hijacked" by the Tea Party and that Tea Party supporters are "seriously racist, racist people." Mr. Schiller indicates that he is sharing his personal point of view, not NPR's. Dana Davis Rehm, a spokeswoman for NPR, said in a statement Tuesday, "We are appalled by the comments made by Ron Schiller in the video, which are contrary to what NPR stands for." [What's that SMELL? Eue de irony?]

U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe expressed confidence Monday in the military leadership now in control of Egypt and credited its allegiance to the United States with a decades-long program to train young officers. Days after leading a congressional delegation to Israel, Turkey, Germany and several African nations, the Oklahoma Republican conceded that it is not possible to predict whether countries experiencing dramatic political changes will end up taking tougher stands against Israel.

March 6, 2011: The rebellion against the Kadaffi dictatorship in Libya has not produced any official outside help, but Egypt has apparently sent some of its commandos in to help out the largely amateur rebel force. Wearing civilian clothes, the hundred or so Egyptian commandos

Spokesperson dies at age 29 related to obesity. Should restaurant be shut? [No. Why even ask. Let Darwin take its course. Nobody's forcing them to eat there are they?]

The Oklahoma House has killed legislation authorizing the Board of Health to develop rules for altering the gender on the birth certificates of people who have sex change operations.... voted 71-23 to defeat...

the NPR guy is talking to emissaries of the (fake) Muslim Brotherhood outfit who espouse a mission to impose sharia around the world, and he's complaining about how the GOP and the tea parties are "fanatically involved in peoples' personal lives." Because, as we all know, sharia is nothing if it is not a libertarian credo that boils down to "live and let live."

An Old Saybrook woman is accused of making her son sleep in a locked dog crate because he was acting out and soiling his bed.... Police started investigating Kathlyn Anthony, 54, after the boy's sister said at school that she was tired because she kept getting up at night to let her brother out of his "sleep locker."...

OKLAHOMA CITY - The Oklahoma Department of Human Services received five abuse or neglect complaints against a Del City couple in the years leading up to the deaths of their three children in a Jan. 4 motor home fire but found no cause to remove the children from the home.

In China today, according to American Enterprise Institute demographer Nicholas Eberstadt, there are about 123 male children for every 100 females up to the age of 4, a far higher imbalance than 50 years ago, when the figure was 106. In Jiangxi, Guangdong, Hainan, and Anhui provinces, baby boys outnumber baby girls by 30 percent or more. This means that by the time today's Chinese newborns reach adulthood, there will be a chronic shortage of potential spouses. According to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, one in five young men will be brideless. Within the age group 20 to 39, there will be 22 million more men than women. Imagine 10 cities the size of Houston populated exclusively by young males. The question left open by economists is what the consequences will be of such a large surplus of young men. History offers a disquieting answer.

A Brooklyn judge ordered a teen to live with his homeless dad -- in a shelter -- after the boy's mom, a $90,000-a-year court worker, was critical of the legal process, court papers reveal.

The gaps and stringy fibers in these space rocks sure look like bacteria, and a NASA researcher has caused a stir with claims that they're fossils of alien life. But as NASA found 15 years ago, looks can be deceiving.

Weeze's Cafe owner Louise Smith entered a plea of "no contest" to two charges of violating the tax code in municipal court today after making an agreement with the Oklahoma Tax Commission last week for the repayment of delinquent sales taxes.

Using tissue from a patient's damaged urethra, researchers can grow an entirely new section of urethra and then transplant it into the patient, according to a surgeon who employed the technique on five boys.

The last two years have seen unprecedented attempts by Washington to socially engineer people away from the lifestyles that modern conditions make necessary. One such effort was to attract people away from cars to intercity rail services and transit instead. Never mind that there is no U.S. evidence that material diversion is possible (at any expense), and never mind that such programs would make travel more expensive and usually slower. The Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) has been a willing participant in these efforts [h/t Cuz BD]

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military is too white and too male at the top and needs to change recruiting and promotion policies and lift its ban on women in combat, an independent report for Congress said Monday. [This... I... urk...]

Two sailors were killed and a third was injured during a training exercise at Camp Pendleton on Monday morning... the three sailors were in a 7-ton water truck that rolled over on a road on the base...

there are a number of rules, tips, and tricks that anyone - with a bit of logic and a calculator - can use to draw meaningful conclusions from flawed polls and incomplete information.

Jerry in Fl comments on arloandjanis.com: I've had my eyes open for old Mark Twain books for years and last week, after looking at so many old books that I was getting dizzy and had to sit down, I found two 1897, excellent condition (and signed by the way) books. I had never known that he wrote a fictional book about Joan of Arc. I'm almost afraid to handle them....

America's 50 states are free to decide their own penal codes, which vary widely and change as facts and public values evolve. Europe won't allow such a debate at home but feels the moral afflatus to tax its own citizens to promote one side of the argument in America. Europe can't find the money to pay for its fair share of NATO but it can spare a dime to hector its main defense benefactor on criminal law. This is why fewer and fewer Americans take Europe seriously.

women still earn less, on average, than men and are more likely to live in poverty. They are also at much greater risk of sexual assault and of violence at the hands of an intimate partner than men. To be sure, the report shows that there is still plenty of progress to be made. But it is Women's History Month, and a good time to pause for perspective.... [Yeah, let's not dwell on what the next paragraph calls ASTONISHING IMPROVEMENTS in the headline or lead paragraphs!]

[Robbers 1993, 1 dead, 2 caught. Robbers 2005 sentenced to 25 years and 10 years. Robber 2011 caught within hours.]

32-year-old Missouri man who had been living at a Bartlesville homeless shelter... lost money at the casino Thursday night... commented at breakfast "he was going to have to rob a bank...." called the witness Friday afternoon to say he "did it" and he "can't believe it was so easy...." Police Chief Holland: "From the moment the suspect entered Arvest Bank with the intent to commit a robbery until he was in a set of Bartlesville Police handcuffs some 60 miles from the scene was less than four hours."

The Münchhausen Trilemma (after Baron Münchhausen, who allegedly pulled himself (and the horse he was sitting on) out of a swamp by his own hair), also called Agrippa's Trilemma (after Agrippa the Skeptic), is a philosophical term coined to stress the purported impossibility to prove any truth even in the fields of logic and mathematics. It is the name of an argument in the theory of knowledge going back to the German philosopher Hans Albert, and more traditionally, in the name of Agrippa.

"Turtles all the way down" is a jocular expression of the infinite regress problem in cosmology posed by the Unmoved mover paradox. The phrase was popularized by Stephen Hawking in 1988. The "turtle" metaphor in the anecdote represents a popular notion of a "primitive cosmological myth", viz. the flat earth supported on the back of a World Turtle. A comparable metaphor describing the circular cause and consequence for the same problem is the "chicken and egg problem". Another metaphor addressing the problem of infinite regression, albeit not in a cosmological context, is Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? The same problem in epistemology is known as the Münchhausen Trilemma.

Discovery's astronauts got a special greeting in advance of their space station departure. Actor William Shatner, who played Capt. James T. Kirk on the original "Star Trek" television series and movies, paid tribute to Discovery's voyages over the decades. "Space, the final frontier," Shatner said in a prerecorded message. "These have been the voyages of the space shuttle Discovery. Her 30-year mission: to seek out new science, to build new outposts, to bring nations together on the final frontier, to boldly go and do what no spacecraft has done before." Shatner's words were followed by Monday morning's wake-up music, "Theme from Star Trek."

foot and a half of animal feces... took officials more than two hours to wade through the muck in the living room and upstairs before they could say they'd found all the living animals --- more than 18 mixed-breed dogs... freezer full of about 15 carcasses... Neighbors have watched for years as the homeowner lived out of her car instead of her home.... [How do YEARS go by with "smell is unbearable in the summer"??]

Inhofe viewed the move as over-reaching by a federal government.

responsible for the importation of large amounts of marijuana from sources in Phoenix into the Detroit area between November 2008 and December 2009, the release states. Drug couriers, often called "mules," reportedly transported marijuana and large amounts of cash in rental vehicles, commercial buses and airlines...

Speeding, driving erratically, smelled of booze, open container, and possibly getting BJ while driving. YOU BE THE JUDGE! [Thx2 News of the Weird and Weird Universe]

I swear, that's the ultimate goal, for teachers to get paid without having to teach kids at school. Teaching is a great profession, it's just that it's really hard to do when there are kids around. [With all due respect to the many frustrated teachers trying to actually teach, despite system and society's children both.]

During the first twenty-six months of President Bush's first term in office, the price of gasoline increased by 7%. At the end of his second term, the price had decreased by 9% from the time he took office (adjusted for inflation). During the first twenty-six months of Obama's term in office, the price of gasoline has spiked over 67% with no relief in site.

the real numbers are Democrats: $10.5 billion; Republicans: $61.5 billion. So Democrats are meeting them one-sixth of the way... even the $10.5 billion in cuts from Democrats is illusory...

Obama mulls Islam's post-revolt role in Mideast CBS Revolts in N. Africa, Mideast could bring regimes rooted more in Muslim tradition than democracy (Washington Post) The Obama administration is preparing for the prospect that Islamist governments will take hold in North Africa and the Middle East, acknowledging that the popular revolutions there will bring a more religious cast to the region's politics. The administration is already taking steps to distinguish between various movements in the region that promote Islamic law in government. An internal assessment, ordered by the White House last month, identified large ideological differences between such movements as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and al-Qaeda that will guide the U.S. approach to the region. The Obama administration is not only preparing but is working to make this happen. What kind of statecraft is at play here? Name one Muslim country living under the sharia that is humane or free. The United States is sanctioning a global caliphate. Gd forgive us. U.S. troops are gunned down by a shooter who screams "Allahu akbar!" before opening fire. Official statements are rushed out by Obama's State department -- the jihadi was a "lone wolf " -- not so. He was a member of any number of jihadi groups. "His motive was unclear" -- he was screaming the Islamic war chant right before he fired. "There are no links to terrorism" -- it was jihad. That is terror. And yet the Obama Administration refuses to call the jihad attack in Germany an act of terrorism, and instead compares it to Giffords shooting. Washington Times here: Sound familiar? It should, because when Islam is the cause of American tragedy, President Obama hides his head in the sand. On Wednesday, a young Kosovar named Arif Uka opened fire on a bus load of U.S. Air Force personnel in Frankfurt, Germany, killing two and wounding two more. Witnesses say he repeatedly shouted the jihadist battle cry, "Allahu akbar" as he emptied his weapon and screamed "Jihad! Jihad!" when tackled by German police. Uka's victims had been heading to the fight in Afghanistan but because the jihadists have a global battlespace, the war came to them instead. Mr. Obama made a typical noncommittal statement shortly after the shooting, saying it was a "stark reminder of the extraordinary sacrifices that our men and women in uniform are making all around the world to keep us safe, and the dangers that they face all around the globe." He made no mention of the nature of the threat or the reason for the sacrifices. In this respect, he was behaving true to form. The Frankfurt shooting is the latest in a troubling series of jihadist terror attacks in which the Obama administration refuses to face reality. Among the first was the June 1, 2009, shooting at a recruiting station in Little Rock. Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, a Muslim convert who had recently travelled to Yemen, killed one U.S. Army recruiter and wounded another. Muhammad told police if other troops...

ObamaCare continues to unravel, both in the courtroom and in its rollout. The Department of Health and Human Services added another 126 waivers on Friday for health plans that don’t meet the new federal requirements, bringing the total number of waivers to over 1,000….

Army medic Gene Day found himself crossing a bridge deep into the heartland of Germany in early March 1945, unaware which river he was crossing in the nighttime darkness. It was only after he got to the other side that he learned he had just crossed the Rhine River.

...[Survey] discovered that two-thirds are losing sleep to devices like computers, televisions and cell phones... poll shows that the most sleep deprived age group are those ages 13 to 18, who stay up late at night texting before falling asleep....

At first look, the February 14th story posted online for the Columbia Journalism Review titled, 'Premiere Plants' might lead the casual reader to believe that Talk Radio stars like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh are stacking their popular programs with staged segments featuring callers who are not listeners, but paid performers reading from prepared scripts. This wild and reckless conjecture is simply not true and a little basic investigation reveals that and the fact these false attacks have been funded by the billionaire and currency manipulator George Soros.

Tulsa police arrested a man after a domestic dispute led officers into the man's house where they allegedly found a meth lab and three children hiding with their mother in a bedroom Sunday, officials said.

For more than half-a-century, the race for the Republican presidential nomination has always featured a clear front runner at this point in the campaign, according to a Gallup analysis out Monday. Not this time. Continue Reading Those early Republican front-runners in past contests have had good odds, and have gone on to win the nomination in 8 out of 10 competitive Republican races since 1952.

Interesting how the death threats agaisnt the Palins are not plastered all over the American media, how there is no outrage, and how the threats are not imputed to the entire Democratic Party and left-wing blogosphere, as was done with the ridiculous claims that Sarah Palin's electoral map had some connection to the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords.

Sarah Palin's father says that Palin and her family have been threatened:

Bachmann, weighing a 2012 presidential run, also did not back off previous statements that the president holds "anti-American views" and the administration is a "gangster government." "I do believe that actions that have been taken by this White House -- I don't take back my statements on gangster government," she said. "I think that there have been actions taken by the government that are corrupt."

Muslim Americans are not part of the terrorism problem facing the U.S. - they are part of the solution, a top White House official said Sunday at a Washington-area mosque. Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough set the Obama administration's tone for discussions as tensions escalate before the first in a series of congressional hearings on Islamic radicalization.

Some 300 people gathered in Times Square on Sunday to speak out against a planned congressional hearing on Muslim terrorism, criticizing it as xenophobic and saying that singling out Muslims, rather than extremists, is unfair. Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and the imam who had led an effort to build an Islamic center near the World Trade Center site were among those who addressed the crowd.

Muslims in the America aren't cooperating enough with law enforcement to counter the radicalization of young followers by al-Qaeda-linked groups, said a House leader on terrorism issues, renewing debate about religion's role in motivating extremists and what the United States can do without alienating the Islamic world.

Young mother dies protecting her child from tornado's winds... The 21-year-old mother perished while sheltering her child and a tree fell on their home. The daughter escaped injuries....

A growing number of teens and young adults say they've never had sexual contact with another person, according to the largest and most in-depth federal report to date on sexual behavior, sexual attraction and sexual identity.

CherryBerry Yogurt Bar, located at 1902 S.E. Washington Boulevard in Bartlesville, is now open. The 14-flavor frozen yogurt bar offers more than 50 toppings in self-serve dispensaries.

Ice sheets in Antarctica don't just grow on top when snow falls, they also grow from the bottom up

Sarah Palin is not the dominant force on Fox. The former Alaska governor places third in a new Gallup poll out Friday of regular Fox News viewers' choice for president.

Former Alaska governor and Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, along with her daughter Bristol, will be featured speakers at two metro-area events hosted by faith-based organizations.

Newsnight's Jackie Long meets former Alaskan governor and potential 2012 presidential contender Sarah Palin at the Iron Dog, a gruelling off-road snow mobile race across Alaska.

Well played by Palin. Griffin, like so many others on the left, relentlessly bully conservatives like Sarah Palin and even target her helpless children while simultaneously decrying other bullies. The hypocrisy is so painstakingly obvious it could only be overlooked by people incapable of thinking clearly. But Griffin, like so many others on the left, falls squarely into the "incapable of thinking clearly" category.

Federal agents are barely able to slow the river of U.S. guns flowing into Mexico. In two years, a new effort to increase inspections of travelers crossing the border has netted just 386 guns - an almost infinitesimal amount given that an estimated 2,000 slip across each day.

In the flurry of state legislation proposed to discourage illegal immigration, one appears to have momentum for becoming law, which has drawn concerns from advocates for immigrants. Rep. George Faught, R-Muskogee, proposed House Bill 1446 with language pulled from previously filed bills and from legislation passed in Arizona.

Vinson granted a stay on the condition that the White House file an expedited appeal with either the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court by next Thursday, March 10. In other words, Vinson is allowing the administration to continue implementing the law in the near term in exchange for accelerating the final resolution of the case by the appeals court and eventually the Supreme Court. Vinson's new ruling can justly be described as a smack-down of the administration.

Opponents of Obamacare say that if it's blessed by the courts, there will no longer be any limiting principle on federal regulatory power. If that seems far-fetched, behold the mental activities of one Judge Gladys Kessler.

The presence of the Chinese People's Liberation Army [PLA] in the contested Gilgit-Baltistan region, where a nascent revolt against the Pakistani rule is taking place, constitutes the direct involvement of Beijing in the dispute over Kashmir, making any future understanding between Pakistan and India more difficult, and can only arouse a new and serious rift between New Delhi and Beijing.

A Virginia middle school student has been suspended for . . . opening the door for a woman whose hands were full.... You can't be too careful. Your average middle school, high school, or college can expect to see an on-campus shooting about once every 12,000 years....

The growing controversy over Grandy's departure has resulted in some Grandy supporters charging the station with being "Sharia-compliant," a reference to Islamic law, and with bending under pressure from the Council on American Islamic-Relations (CAIR), a Muslim lobbying organization that combats what it calls "Islamophobia" in the media. Grandy, a former actor and Republican member of Congress, told AIM, "My wife and I have used our program over the last several months to warn about the spread of radical Islam at home and abroad. Last week, Catherine (known on the show as Mrs. Fred) delivered a very tough indictment against stealth jihad, and for her efforts she was told she was off the show. I then told management without Mrs. Fred at the microphone, I could not remain either and have resigned effective this morning." [Via HillBuzz http://hillbuzz.org/2011/03/05/misunderstood-cair-bears-of-islam-threate...

California police said Jessie's stepfather, Mohammad Khan - who is from Pakistan - and her American mother, Melissa, were planning an arranged marriage for the teen

There are so many of these "lone wolves" and "isolated extremists" you may occasionally wonder whether they've all gotten together and joined Local 473 of the Amalgamated Union of Lone Wolves and Isolated Extremists, but don't worry about it: As any Homeland Security official can tell you, "Allahu akbar" is Arabic for "Nothing to see here."

$424 million... "It's more than embarrassing," said Syracuse University public policy professor Henry Lambright. "Something was missed in the first investigation and the work that went on afterward."

Iranian officials, Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists and other Iranian agents have played pivotal roles in the anti-regime movements in Yemen and Bahrain. Their operations are the product of Iran's long-running policy of developing close ties to opposition figures in these countries as well as in Egypt, Kuwait, Oman and Morocco. These long-developed ties are reaping great rewards for Iran today. Not only do these connections give the Iranians the ability to influence the policies of post-revolutionary allied regimes. They give the mullahs and their allies the ability to intimidate the likes of the Saudi and Bahraini royals and force them to appease Iran's allies. THIS MEANS that Iran's mullahs win no matter how the revolts pan out.

We shall see that George Soros, as he grew to maturity, would likewise reject the founders' premise. Indeed Soros would harbor great disdain for modern-day American political figures who displayed unshakable confidence in their own culture's nobility, and who embraced the tenets of the Declaration and the U.S. Constitution as timeless, immutable truths. To Soros, "Popper's greatest contribution to philosophy" was his teaching that "the ultimate truth remains permanently beyond our reach." [Well, his, anyway, apparently.]

Police say two of the five kids living in Beauchamp's home were Jermaine McNeil, 10, and Ju'Tyra Allen, 6, likely the biological children of Brown. Their bodies were recovered in the C-15 canal Wednesday by police divers, and their identities have been confirmed in the last two days through dental records. Authorities have not released a cause of death. Brown's relatives say she and her children began living with Beauchamp in 2007, but Brown disappeared last summer. They say Beauchamp was vague on her whereabouts.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., are seeking Pentagon permission for holding ceremonies in the amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery, where Buckles will be buried. Talks were still going on in the Senate about a resolution, offered by West Virginia's two Democratic senators, to approve use of the Rotunda to honor Buckles, but the indecision was frustrating Buckles' family. "The leadership of Congress is standing in the way" of a Rotunda ceremony, said David DeJonge, Buckles' biographer and the family spokesman. "We want the highest level of respect for all that Frank Buckles stands for," he said. "It's not about Frank, it is about the passing of a generation." Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., the author of a House resolution approving a Rotunda ceremony, still would have that as her first choice, said her spokeswoman.

"But we had sex," the woman said. "Can you do that?" That question goes to the heart of a discrimination lawsuit that was recently filed against the Sandy Springs Police Department by the detective involved in the prostitution sting. [Via Weird Universe http://www.weirduniverse.net/blog/comments/4734/]

A new study showed that fecal bacteria could be found on a majority of shopping carts. [Courtesy of Brandon Dutcher tweet. Uh.. urk.. thanks...]

Gov. Mary Fallin visited nearby Camp Gruber on Thursday and expressed confidence in the training of Oklahoma Army National Guard troops as they prepared for an upcoming mission to Afghanistan.

Internationally acclaimed Himalayan poet and writer Yuyutsu RD Sharma will offer a reading of some of his work from 7 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at The Center for Inner Peace, 740 W. 15th St. ... Yuyutsu's reading has been arranged by members of Urantia Book Study Groups of Pueblo.

The liberal media have dropped the mask and have gone all in for Romney.The L.A. Times has a major feature up on him and Politico,as per the link above has 4 ! front page articles on his New Hampshire speech today as if it was a descent from Olympus.

Not only was it all Palin's fault, the left declared; she should do the only honorable thing and commit political seppuku. This even after Loughner was revealed to be a heavy-metal, pot-smoking, Satan-worshipping psycho who'd been stalking Giffords since 2007 — long before anyone in the lower 49 had heard of Palin. After a week of nonstop, unrestrained Palin-hatin', Palin had the temerity to release a video statement — America's Enduring Strength — and guess what? The most-maligned woman in America was roundly condemned for "making it all about her." Say what?

A compelling argument for rebuilding came in the three weekends after the fire, when Smith and co-owner Steve Peace and their employees spent time at the drive-in cleaning up - and visiting with members of the public who stopped by, looking to reminisce about 60 years of outdoor cinema. "People just kept coming by, telling us about coming out here, and their parents and their grandparents coming out here," Smith said. "They bought out the rest of our sodas and chips and candy, and they told us their stories, and we told them our stories. "Before the fire, we didn't know what people thought about the Admiral Twin," he said, "but I have been absolutely humbled by the warmth and generosity of the people of Tulsa."

Four years after a retired FBI agent mysteriously vanished inside Iran, U.S. officials have received irrefutable proof that he is alive, a dramatic development that has sharply intensified diplomatic efforts to bring him home

The homeowner told police someone had rung the doorbell several times before walking around the house and prying a back window open to enter the home, police said. The suspect then began rummaging through items in the home apparently looking for narcotics before the homeowner approached the suspect with a gun.

President Obama on Thursday appeared to reject the idea of arming U.S. agents in Mexico, saying after a meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon that the two governments will look at other ways to protect American officials in the wake of a fatal shooting last month. "There are laws in place in Mexico that say that our agents should not be armed," Obama said, describing the U.S. role south of the border as an "advisory" one. "We do not carry out law enforcement activities inside of Mexico."

A judge put on hold his ruling that President Barack Obama's sweeping healthcare law was unconstitutional pending appeal, allowing the White House to continue implementing the reforms aimed at lowering soaring healthcare costs. But U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson ordered the administration to seek within the next week an expedited appellate review of his January 31 ruling, which favored arguments by 26 states that requiring Americans to buy health insurance starting in 2014 or pay a penalty was unconstitutional.

Just think about that as a 30 second commercial next election year: Obama: "Mubarak must resign. Now means Now!" Map of the Middle East with fires exploding in a series from Tunisia to Bahrain, to the sound of breaking glassware. Over and over again.

So how does brokeass, dumbass, redneck Texas stack up against progressive unionized Wisconsin?... To recap: white students in Texas perform better than white students in Wisconsin, black students in Texas perform better than black students in Wisconsin, Hispanic students in Texas perform better than Hispanic students in Wisconsin. In 18 separate ethnicity-controlled comparisons, the only one where Wisconsin students performed better than their peers in Texas was 4th grade science for Hispanic students (statistically insignificant), and this was reversed by 8th grade. ...

A Marion County judge has ruled, for the first time in Indiana, that news media outlets can be ordered by the court to reveal identifying information about posters to their online forums.

The boy's mother told police she'd left the boy and a 4-month-old girl in the care of two others while she attended parenting classes. She is not charged but police say endangerment charges are pending against her boyfriend's father and sister.

The bill, which would require only that the notices appear on newspaper websites, is similar to a Senate bill that would demand only that the notices appear on county-controlled websites.

CHANDLER, Ariz. — Authorities have determined a man who was stabbed and beheaded in a suburban Phoenix apartment was killed for stealing drugs from a Mexican cartel, in a gruesome example of drug cartel violence spilling over the border.

The U.S. military's super-secret X-37B space plane is all set to launch on its second mission Friday, though what it will be doing on orbit remains a mystery. The X-37B will launch from Cape Canaveral on an Atlas 5 rocket.

President Obama made an unscheduled appearance to say, "I am saddened and I am outraged by this attack" and U.S. investigators would work with German authorities and "spare no effort" to ensure that "all of the perpetrators are brought to justice." He added that the killings were a "stark reminder of the extraordinary sacrifices" of American servicemembers.... When he opened fire, the gunman shouted "Allah Akbar," according to sources. He fired nine times, killling two and critically wounding two others before the gun jammed and he was subdued by other passengers....

You need to watch only a few minutes of cable news analysis to realize just how ludicrous our national energy policies have become. As escalating tensions and chaos unfold in Egypt, Libya and other Middle Eastern nations, one energy analyst suggested that if Libyan oil supplies were to fail, the United States would rely on Saudi Arabia for its oil needs. If that statement alone doesn't put U.S. leaders on red alert, the looming national energy crisis may soon become reality.

According to the State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB), the Wisconsin Retirement System owns $5.5 million in Georgia Pacific corporate bonds. (Georgia Pacific is owned by Koch Industries.) This is the retirement system in which the overwhelming majority of state and local employees participate. These are the pension benefits that public employees are trying so hard to protect. So here's the challenge: Explain to a Wisconsin state worker that they are the ones helping fund the Koch brothers. Then sit back and watch the fun.

GOP Sen. Glenn Grothman was locked out of the building and was eventually surrounded by hundreds of angry protesters, according to the Cap Times. The paper reports that State Rep. Brett Hulsey, a Democrat from Madison, intervened and tried to calm the crowd. The incident lasted 5 to 10 minutes and firefighters eventually cleared a path for Grothman and Hulsey to make their way to a side entrance to the building. "This guy and I disagree on everything, but we're friends," the Cap Times quotes Hulsey as telling the demonstrators. "This is a peaceful protest. You need to back away." [THIS IS A PEACEFUL PROTEST. YOU NEED TO BACK AWAY. PEACEABLE LIKE. UM...]

But despite those historic Republican gains, the early signs suggest that even as the more mainstream political right strengthens, the radical right has remained highly energized. In an 11-day period this January, a neo-Nazi was arrested headed for the Arizona border with a dozen homemade grenades; a terrorist bomb attack on a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade in Spokane, Wash., was averted after police dismantled a sophisticated anti-personnel weapon; and a man who officials said had a long history of antigovernment activities was arrested outside a packed mosque in Dearborn, Mich., and charged with possessing explosives with unlawful intent. That's in addition, the same month, to the shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, an attack that left six dead and may have had a political dimension. [I thought I had the SPLC's number but even I was stunned by the depth of the meadow muffins in the paragraph beginning "But despite those historic Republican gains...." Dumbfounding as the first three perverted examples were, they outdid themselves and 'most everybody else with their weasel-worded insinuated reinforcement of the Sarah Shot Gabby meme!]

Crony capitalism is much easier than competing in an open market. But it erodes our overall standard of living and stifles entrepreneurs by rewarding the politically favored rather than those who provide what consumers want. The purpose of business is to efficiently convert resources into products and services that make people's lives better. [hattip to http://twitter.com/brandondutcher/statuses/42771751410741248]

Nine Afghan boys were killed while collecting firewood on Tuesday in what has been described as one of the worst cases of mistaken identity by the International Security Assistance Force. NATO issued a statement Wednesday apologizing for the killings in Darah-Ye Pech district in Afghanistan's Kunar province. The victims were aged nine to 15 and included two sets of brothers. A tenth boy was injured but survived the aerial attack by helicopter gunners. The boys had apparently been collecting wood to heat their mountain homes

For months now, radical leaders have been urging followers to opt for simple shootings over complex attacks. The shooting Wednesday took place outside a busy terminal at Frankfurt Airport.

The Libyans watched from an open window of the immigration post, leaning out to see the 20,000 fleeing Egyptian, Bangladeshi, Chinese and Iranian workers heaped up against the border wall. They seemed quite unconcerned, shirt-sleeves rolled up, moving to a window closer to this crowd. Already up to 75,000 have struggled into Tunisia, but yesterday the crossing system collapsed as thousands of men, almost all Arabs desperate to escape Muammar Gaddafi's state, fought with local Tunisians who — under the eyes of the army — attacked them with stakes and iron bars.

A passenger managed to waltz past JFK's ramped-up security gantlet with three boxcutters in his carry-on luggage -- easily boarding an international flight while carrying the weapon of choice of the 9/11 hijackers... Once aboard Santiago-bound Flight 837, flight attendant Fausto Penaloda, 40, asked him to stow his luggage in the overhead storage bin. As Peraltalajara's shoved it into the compartment, Penaloda saw the boxcutters fall out of the bag, according to a police report. He grabbed the boxcutters and alerted the captain and first officer.... told authorities that he used the boxcutters for work at a Secaucus manufacturing plant and simply forgot that they were in his luggage. He was not charged..

He said he assumed Via had moved away when he began to pull the car, but the woman's husband approached him and said his wife was trapped under the Buick.

His wife clung to the minivan's windshield wiper and side mirror as the vehicle accelerated to more than 100 MPH. Carroll allegedly didn't slow down until he reached Pleasanton, more than 40 miles away, according to witness reports to police "There's a purpose that I'm still alive, because it was a miracle," the victim said. The woman was able to roll off the hood safely when Carroll finally pulled over, and due to the 45 degree temperatures and high speeds, she was suffering from hypothermia when emergency crews found her.

The Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum announced Tuesday... Barbara Pierce Bush and Jenna Bush Hager [will] be in Oklahoma City on April 20 to receive the [2011 Reflections of Hope Award] on behalf of their family at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum... George W. Bush, then-governor of Texas, and Laura Bush came to Oklahoma City for the memorial service the Sunday following the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, which killed 168 people. On Feb. 19, 2001, Bush, then president, and Laura Bush, came for the dedication of the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum....

Lyndsey Dawn Fiddler... now being charged with first degree murder... in the death of her 10-day-old infant in November 2010....

When asked how he felt as his children were taken from him by U.S. website, Radaronline, the 45-year-old Two And A Half Men star said bizarrely: ' My fangs are dripping tiger blood.' [Uh, yeahhhh... they just might've made the right decision....]

Republican state Sen. Josh Brecheen is sponsoring a bill to prohibit protests for two hours before and after a funeral and to no closer than 1,000 feet of the service. Current law prohibits protests within 500 feet and an hour before and after a funeral.... he doesn't think a U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing a fundamentalist church to protest outside military funerals will affect his bill....

"Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and - as it did here - inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker," Roberts said. "As a nation we have chosen a different course - to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate."

Is a greener future just around the corner for the automobile? Or is it last call — and while you're pouring, let's make it a double — at the horsepower party?

Sen. Tom Adelson offered an amendment to abolish the state's personal and corporate income tax.... Senate Minority Leader Rice said he expects the amendment abolishing the state's income tax to be removed by the House.... "All we are doing is forcing them to keep their word," Adelson said. "What is wrong with that?"

A laptop that will recognize your eyes and the movement you make with them, to open emails, browse online, scroll through websites, among other small tasks. There is also a green feature built in that would brighten the screen once the user looks at it.

On Sunday morning, an animal control officer looked into the bin and discovered that the one pup somehow survived. "He was just as healthy as could be...."

Two people were shot and killed Wednesday in an incident involving a U.S. military bus at Frankfurt Airport in Germany.... troops killed and injured are U.S. Air Force airmen from Lakenheath base in the United Kingdom, the U.S. official said, emphasizing that the information was only preliminary.... It's believed the German police have a young Kosovo national in custody

And I'm like, 'You're barking up the wrong tree. I already know I could win.' That's not the issue."

Jennifer Haberkorn reports that President Obama's move to allow states flexibility in spending health care funds is the "most significant change" since the law was enacted, and a potential gesture toward critics. But a source on a White House conference call with liberal allies this morning says the Administration is presenting it to Democrats as an opportunity to offer more expansive health care plans than the one Congress passed.

Anxious to ease deepening political tensions with the states, President Barack Obama on Monday told governors he wants to speed up their ability to enforce his signature health care law on their own terms. But his concession goes only so far: He warned he won't allow states to weaken the law. [Never mind that it's been declared UNCONSTITUTIONAL!!!]

"I don't think it does anybody any good when public employees are denigrated or vilified, or their rights are infringed upon."

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin expressed doubt Monday concerning President Barack Obama's announcement on moving up the date for giving states the right to design their own health-care programs. "I'd like to opt out totally,'' Fallin said

It was the best fake Twitter account ever, deftly satirizing Rahm Emanuel, and elevating the Tweet and the f-word to the level of literature. But the mystery writer was never revealed - until now.

Evidence outlined in a Pentagon contractor report suggests that financial subversion carried out by unknown parties, such as terrorists or hostile nations, contributed to the 2008 economic crash by covertly using vulnerabilities in the U.S. financial system.... "There is sufficient justification to question whether outside forces triggered, capitalized upon or magnified the economic difficulties of 2008," the report says, explaining that those domestic economic factors would have caused a "normal downturn" but not the "near collapse" of the global economic system that took place. Suspects include financial enemies in Middle Eastern states, Islamic terrorists, hostile members of the Chinese military, or government and organized crime groups in Russia, Venezuela or Iran. Chinese military officials publicly have suggested using economic warfare against the U.S....

In a speech to religious broadcasters that received a sustained ovation at his conclusion, he said free expression is under attack by a power structure in Washington populated with regulators who have never set foot inside a radio station or a television studio. "We see this threat in how the FCC is creeping further into the free market by trying to regulate the Internet," Mr. Boehner said. "The last thing we need, in my view, is the FCC serving as Internet traffic controller, and potentially running roughshod over local broadcasters who have been serving their communities with free content for decades...."

A woman who is set to become Britain's youngest grandmother at 29 said it was 'her worst nightmare' when she discovered her 14-year-old daughter was pregnant. Kelly John said she always hoped Tia would not repeat her mistake and become pregnant at 14.

Some surprised drivers were unable to avoid the nearly 200 goats that walked onto the southbound lanes of traffic near the Twin Cities Road off-ramp, causing several accidents and inflicting non-life threatening injuries to one driver.

The irony was that her public image as a sassy sex symbol was belied in real life by Right-wing Christian beliefs and staunch affiliation to the Republican Party.

[Album cover image]

Suze Rotolo was an early girlfriend of Dylan's during his first days in New York. On Thursday, she died in her Manhattan home from lung cancer. But the 67-year-old artist has been immortalized on the cover of the 1963 album A Freewheelin' Bob Dylan as the girl clutching to the singer as they walked through a dreary, wintry Greenwich Village.

publicity shots posing her in a low-cut blouse while reclined on a stack of hay bales

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a victim's statement to the police at a crime scene can be used in court, even if the victim later dies and cannot testify at a trial.

the incredible story of 11-year-old Shaunice Smith, who is thought to be the only person in the world whose heart is both on the wrong side and the wrong way round

"I'm guessing that he hit his head near the top of the well," he said in reference to an injury the child had. "If he would have hit it further down, he probably wouldn't have survived." Luton said a key factor in the rescue was the presence of a wrecker. An Alert Wrecker Service driver was in the area when the call came out and responded to the scene. "When we arrived, he was already there," Luton said. "He backed up and extended the boom over the hole, which gave us a good connection point for our ropes and rigging."

Chitwood said that two of his officers, Eric Colella and Ryan Wiseley, were eating lunch at Verona's Pizza, 8917 West Chester Pike when they saw Galiatsatos walk in carrying a bag. Galiatsatos went into the restroom and left a short time later, without the bag, Chitwood said. The bag was found in the restroom ceiling and contained three white mice, Chitwood said. The officers also watched Galiatsatos walk in and quickly out of Uncle Nick's Pizza, at 9000 West Chester Pike. A bag of containing six mice was found in a trash can in the pizzeria,

They'll be no more milk from mommy for customers of The Icecreamists, after local government officials confiscated ice cream made from human breast milk. The action came on Monday, when representatives of Westminster City Council removed the offending dairy products from the central London store. The infamous "Baby Gaga" ice cream was launched last week amid a flurry of press attention.

Certain types of "fake pot" that can provide marijuana-like highs will be banned under U.S. rules that take effect tomorrow...

A legislative proposal to allow the sale of strong beer and wine in [Oklahoma] state grocery and convenience stores has been put off until next year.

...stuck with an 800-pound pump in his hands for nearly a half-hour... Good thing it was weightless.... "I'm fine as long as it's not too much longer," Bowen radioed. "How much longer?"... perched on a small platform at the end of the 58-foot robotic arm... [All part of the job....]

A lawyer for Sirhan Sirhan, the confessed assassin of Robert F. Kennedy, plans to present new evidence at a parole board hearing tomorrow, suggesting that the Palestinian did not act alone, was potentially brain washed and cannot remember anything about the 40-year-old shooting

Pointing to the growing number of connected devices, from PCs to mobile phones to TVs to medical devices, the two companies have said that today's approach to security isn't enough. And with the mounting threat of cyberattacks, a new security framework that combines hardware, software, and services is needed. [Or, maybe, they just got bought out.]

"When you are looking at purely dollars and cents, it doesn't really make a lot of sense. The Volt isn't particularly efficient as an electric vehicle and it's not particularly good as a gas vehicle either in terms of fuel economy," said David Champion, the senior director of Consumer Reports auto testing center at a meeting with reporters here. "This is going to be a tough sell to the average consumer."

"There is no doubt he does not remember the critical events," said William F. Pepper, the attorney who will argue for Sirhan's parole Wednesday. "He is not feigning it. It's not an act. He does not remember it." Sirhan may not remember much about the night of June 4, 1968, but the world remembers. They have heard how Sirhan was grabbed as he emptied a pistol in the crowded kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel here where Kennedy stood moments after claiming victory in the California presidential primary. They heard how he kept firing even as his hand was pinned to a table. They heard how Kennedy, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, was shot and died, changing the course of American history. Parole Board members are bound to review those facts, but they won't consider the many conspiracy theories floated over the years.

OKLAHOMA CITY — An Oklahoma House committee has approved anti-illegal immigrant legislation that would give Oklahoma law enforcement officials new authority to assess the immigration status of motorists.

You may live and work in the cloud, but your data needs protection. We show you how to easily backup your vital information from Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, and other cloud-based services.

A nationwide crackdown targeting gangs affiliated with Mexican drug traffickers has resulted in the arrests of 678 gang members and associates, including 14 in the Chicago area.... The gang members have affiliations with 133 different gangs....

An Oklahoma House committee has approved anti-illegal immigrant legislation that would give Oklahoma law enforcement officials new authority to assess the immigration status of motorists.

A House committee approved a bill Monday that would give law enforcement officials more authority to check the immigration status of motorists. The measure's author said it mirrors some parts of Arizona's anti-illegal immigrant law passed last year.

The capture of a Somali pirate 'mother ship' north of Madagascar, some 2,500 miles from Somalia, has highlighted this impoverished island nation's outdated piracy laws.