A logic-defying corporate decision in sleepy Monterey, California last week has turned into a headache for one of America’s biggest supermarket chains.

Ryan Young, a meat clerk at the Del Rey Oaks Safeway, was minding his own business and doing his job, right up until Quyen van Tran, a customer, decided to beat his pregnant girlfriend in the store, in full view of other customers, and Young himself.

Young was not prepared to stand for this:

“Every few seconds he would turn around and push her and then he actually kicked her,” Young said. “I told him to calm down and he was just irate.”

Young said Tran refused to stop and jumped in to stop the assault.

Ryan Young

“I saw no one was intervening in the situation and I just became afraid for her safety and also other customers safety,” Young said. “The guy was out of control and pretty much lost it in there.”

Chief Ron Langford of the Del Ray Oaks Police said if Ryan did not intervene, things could have become much worse for the victim.

So Young came out of the whole affair a hero, even according to police. Surely Safeway gave him a pay raise for getting involved, right?

Just the opposite. Safeway has suspended Young without pay for violating company policy. What company police, exactly? This video from CBS 5 San Francisco explains:

 

That’s right. Apparently employees are supposed to just call security and not intervene in situations like this. Young broke this policy, apparently ruining Safeway’s attempt to cultivate a reputation for tolerating domestic abuse, so he was suspended.

As of yesterday, if public pressure still has any power, that suspension looks increasingly in doubt. Central Coast KSBW Action News 8 reports that a group of protesters has descended on Young’s old place of employment and begun actively picketing the store:

Safeway has reportedly issued a public statement about the event, claiming Young was not fired for the confrontation, but for other actions “prior to the confrontation.” What actions they mean have not been disclosed.

Safeway is, however, currently reviewing surveillance tapes regarding Young’s incident, and union representatives have been reportedly offering financial assistance to Young as the ordeal goes on. Local authorities have also been given surveillance tapes, though they have not yet been released to the press.

Still, the story has gone viral nationwide at this point. Everyone from the Washington Examiner to Slate has either covered the story or expressed outrage. Whatever happens, Safeway is likely to lose a lot of customers.

“Do you realize that people were arrested for saying things bad about Bush?”

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We missed this yesterday as it went viral, but maybe that’s for the best since now I can bring you the exciting conclusion: She’s been suspended (with pay). An employee at the Rowan-Salisbury School System said they have been flooded with calls from around the country on Monday… The district released a statement on Monday. [...]

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Organic Pastures, a dairy farm run by the McAfee family near Fresno, is California’s first raw milk dairy farm that has certified organic land as pasture for its herd. Earlier this month, though, the farm was placed under quarantine due to reports of harmful bacteria found in samples of some dairy products and cow manure.

The California Department of Food and Agriculture cleared the farm on Friday after eight days of quarantine as now meeting all food safety and sanitation standards. What some found unusual, however, is how individual customers of the dairy products were contacted, some even saying officials tried to “confiscate” their legally-purchased milk.

Natural News reports the founder of Organic Pastures Mark McAfee said he was told by one of his customers during the quarantine time frame that she was called repeatedly by the health department and told to give up her raw milk. Here’s more of McAfee‘s account of the events as told to him by one of his customers that has milk dropped off at her home from the dairy farm via UPS:

She refused, then they showed up at her house and demanded that she give her raw milk to them. She was getting ready to call 911 for the Sheriff’s department and have them removed from her front doorstep, and she was threatening to use her camera to take a picture of them and post it on Facebook for harassing her over her raw milk… The investigators left after she told them she was not going to give them the raw milk and to get the Hell off her property.

This is what’s going on, it’s like food Nazis, it’s incredible what these people are doing, trying to collect food from people’s houses, that have not made them ill!

McAfee stated that a secretary had mistakenly given out his customer’s contact information. Later, he said, the San Diego health department contacted him to for names and addresses, but he refused to provide them.

The Blaze contacted the California Department of Food and Agriculture, which gave the farm the green light to start distributing its products again on Friday. It said it was standard protocol for customers to be contacted during a time of contamination. A spokesperson for the CDFA wrote in an email, “Generally, during a recall, it is standard practice for health officials to use a dairy’s distribution list (usually retail outlets, but may include individuals) to verify that the producer has notified its customers in compliance with the provisions of the recall.”

The Blaze reached out to the California Department of Public Health for a comment on its protocol. They have not yet responded, but we will update this post should we receive more information.

Raw milk, according to the Real Milk campaign that is run by the Weston A. Price Foundation, is unpasteurized, unprocessed, straight-from-the-cow dairy. Advocates of raw milk say it tastes better and preserves more of the health benefits than the average gallon jug consumers can get from the grocery store. The group states that  concerns about contamination over milk not being pasturized — a process that heats the milk for a length of time to kill pathogens — are exaggerated.

The U.S. Center for Disease Control maintains that pasteurization is necessary to make milk safe and states that studies have shown it does not degrade the product’s nutritional value. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also debunks what it considers “myths” about pasteurization’s effect on dairy and also believes milk products should be pasteurized.

Legality of raw milk sales in the United States varies. Most recently, raw milk dairy farmers in Minnesota — a state that allows for raw milk sales at the farm where it is produced, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune — are in a legal battle where a 2-year-old got seriously ill from a bacterium he obtained after drinking the milk given to him from his parents. The parents are seeking damages for medical expenses associated with the incident, which happened two years ago. The Star Tribune reports a judge recently said the parents should have been aware of the risks associated with raw milk but still ruled that the farmer had been negligent. It is expected the case will be heard by a jury.

Although law varies by state, in California where raw milk sales are legal, those cartons must contain the following warning: “Warning – raw (unpasteurized) milk and raw milk dairy products may contain disease-causing micro-organisms. Persons at highest risk of disease from these organisms include newborns and infants; the elderly; pregnant women; those taking corticosteroids, antibiotics or antacids; and those having chronic illnesses or other conditions that weaken their immunity.”

Natural News considers the recent events in California as “food police” reaching “right into your refrigerator.” In a separate case, a Wisconsin judge ruled in Oct. 2011 that individual families owning their own cow are subject to the rules and regulations of the state. If the milk was not pasteurized, they couldn’t drink it:

“It’s always a surprise when a judge says you don’t have the fundamental right to consume the foods of your choice,” said [Pete] Kennedy [with the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund].

Oregon is going through its own legal issues over raw milk due to a recent E.Coli outbreak that sickened 20, including four children. The Oregon Dairy Farmer’s Association is pushing for a crackdown on unpasteurized milk, according to the Oregonian. Only small farms can sell the raw milk within the state.

Watch this video profile from The Oregonian of a mother telling why she and her children are fans of raw milk:

What are your thoughts on the raw milk debate?

During a C-SPAN interview on Sunday, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) told reporters Major Garrrett, of the National Journal, and Binyamin Appelbaum, of the New York Times, that the recent EU elections “signal that voters across the Atlantic want to see President Obama’s economic policies in their own countries,” the Washington Examiner’s Joel Gehrke writes.

“I think they have been overdoing the austerity,” Rep. Frank said.

“There’s been a real political upheaval there: in the elections in Greece; in the election of Francois Hollande; in what happened in the Netherlands, in the recent election in the largest state in Germany. I think you’re going to see, in Germany, which is the key there — and then Europe as a whole — a move more in the policy direction that we’ve been taking,” he added.

The “direction” Rep. Frank is referring to is, of course, the policy of addressing increasing debts and deficits with government stimulus (as opposed to slashing budgets).

“Our policy of some short-term concern for stimulus within the longer-term context of debt reduction is working much better than [austerity] and I think that [with] an awful lot of political pressure, Europe’s going to move,” the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee added.

Watch Rep. Frank’s interview (via C-SPAN):

Despite what it could do for the EU’s fiscal stability, workers in several of the cash-strapped eurozone countries have opposed (oftentimes violently) the austerity measures championed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Greece has fought especially hard against proposal to cut entitlement spending.

“The [fiscal] war that we are experiencing is not between nations and peoples…It’s a war between peoples and capitalism, and Greece is on the frontline of that war,” Greece’s radical leftist Alexis Tsipas said.

In France, they ousted the pro-austerity Nikolas Sarkozy in place of the hard-line Socialist Francois Hollande whose aids, according to Gehrke, are in total awe of the U.S. president.

“For all of these men, seeing Barack Obama was an important moment in their lives,” the pool reporter said after cabinet heads in Hollande’s administration met Obama Saturday, according to the Examiner.

“As an Elysee correspondent, Valerie Nataf, pointed out to your pooler, ‘Barack Obama is an important reference for the left side. His values are important for the President’s men,’” the report adds.

Light footprint.

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Emphasis on “as we understand it.” Afghan forces will start to take the lead on security next summer, confirming the rumors back in February that some sort of accelerated shift in responsibility was in the offing, but the target date for substantial withdrawal remains the end of 2014 — and beyond that, diplomatically and financially, [...]

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The Blaze’s Erica Ritz contributed to this report.

According to National Field Marshal for the New Black Panthers King Samir Shabazz:

• “I love white-on white-crime, because that is the best crime.”
• “I hate the g*ddamn white man, woman, and child, grandma, aunt, uncle, Pappa Billy Bob, and whoever else.”
• “You should be thankful we’re not running around here hanging crackers by nooses and all that kind of stuff — yet, yet, yet”
• He has a “wet dream about killing the g*ddamn cracker.”
• “We don’t allow faggots and lesbians” in the New Black Panther Army
• Envisions a world where every black person is “ready to bang on this cracker”
• Wants to take over neighborhoods “block by block” so “crackers…or even the developer” would be scared to come into them
• “We’re taught to send this cracker to the cemetery… so kiss ‘em goodbye”

The National Field Marshal for the New Black Panther Party (NBPP), King Samir Shabazz, engaged in multiple vicious tirades on his national radio show this weekend, calling for broad violence against whites.

Shabazz, you may remember, made national news in 2008 when the Department of Justice brought a voter intimidation suit against him and a NBPP accomplice. They got in trouble for wearing Black Panther uniforms and brandishing a police-style baton outside a Philadelphia precinct during the Presidential election. Shabazz was charged on the grounds of violations to the Voting Rights Act.

But on May 29, 2009, against the advice of prosecutors who had worked on the case, the Department of Justice ordered the suit dropped, even though Shabazz and the other defendants in the case refused to appear in federal court.

Hear what DOJ-protected Shabazz now has to say:

Key Shabazz Quotes:

• “[Discussing the movie 'Quilombo'] Any movie that starts off with the killing of peckerwood, I’m locked in and loaded. As I told you, I love white-on white-crime, because that is the best crime, and we‘re going say ’black power’ to that. You understand what I mean?”

• “I love black people, and I hate the g*ddamn white man, woman, and child, grandma, aunt, uncle, Pappa Billy Bob, and whoever else. Redneck Tom and Blueneck Robert, and whoever else you wanna name. I hate the white man. I hate the very look of white people. I hate the sound of white people. G*ddamnit, I hate the smell of white people. I hate the oppression of white people, I hate the murder and the rape and the torture and the taking away of our names, our culture, our God, our music and damn, I hate this cracker for everything he has done to us.”

• “You should be thankful we’re not running around here hanging crackers by nooses and all that kind of stuff, yet, yet, yet.”

• “Some of us, some of y’all – are even scared to have a wet dream about killing the g*ddamn cracker.”

• “We’re raising men and women in this army, we don’t have time for punks. We don’t allow fa*gots and lesbians in this army– sorry, wrong army. This is for black liberation, not rainbow liberation.”

• “Just imagine everybody listening right now, you walk outside on your block in your hood, and everybody on your block is now revolutionary. Everybody on your block is ready to bang on this cracker. Can you imagine what kind of community that would be? … That is the kind of community our ancestors would be proud of.”

• “And we‘ll really show this cracker a project that’s behind never wish he would have started. Turn them projects out, because a black power project and no crackers allowed up in here. So much to the point that then their developer will be scared to come in here; we’re taking it. Just like we took our land for our garden, G*damnit, the projects is next. We’re taking it back, block by block, house by house, street by street, hood by hood, town by town, city by city, state by state.”

• “You can fight this white man– and I’m not telling you to go out there and attack nobody– but in self-defense it’s okay to fight back.  We’re taught to send this cracker to the cemetery; when he put his hand on us, we send him to the cemetery in self defense.  Again, I’m not telling you to attack anyone, but if they put their hands on you and if you are a [unintelligble], and in the name of your creator, and the name of our ancestors, we’re to kiss them goodbye, kiss ‘em goodbye, kiss ‘em goodbye.”

Penn Jillette, tell us how you really feel.

During a recent episode of “Penn’s Sunday School” (posted on YouTube on Saturday), the popular entertainer and Libertarian unloaded on the Obama administration over its drug policy.

“Now, he has not left this to states’ rights,” Jillette said. “As you know, medical marijuana you can get in California, and the feds are coming in to try to stop this. States‘ rights don’t mean jack s**t to the Obama administration on anything except gay marriage.”

He then posited that Obama’s recent appearance on Jimmy Fallon — where Obama addressed legalizing drugs — was an attempt to make himself look cool and appeal to college kids. He also noted that Obama would not be president if he had been caught and charged for his admitted drug use:

What troubles me about this… I think it’s beyond hypocrisy. I think it’s something to do with class. A lot of people have accused Obama of class warfare, but in the wrong direction. I believe this is Obama chortling with Jimmy Fallon about lower class people. Do we believe, even for a second, that if Obama had been busted for marijuana — under the laws that he condones — would his life have been better? If Obama had been caught with the marijuana that he says he uses, and ‘maybe a little blow’… . This casual attitude towards drugs … that makes him really cool on Jimmy Fallon. Makes him the hip president. … And if he had been busted under his laws, he would have done hard f*cking time. And if he had done time in prison, time in federal prison, time for his ‘weed’ and ‘a little blow,’ he would not be president of the United States of America. And he would not have gone to his fancy-a** college; he would not have sold books that sold millions and millions of copies and made millions and millions of dollars; he would not have a beautiful, smart wife; he would not have a great job! He would have been in f*cking prison, and it’s not a god damn joke! People who smoke marijuana must be set free! It is insane to lock people up.

Jillette went on to say that he’s never done any drugs or even had any alcohol, but that doesn’t stop him from being an advocate for legalizing marijuana.

You can watch the epic, but profanity-laced, rant below (content warning):

(H/T: Fox Nation)

 

Least suspenseful whodunit evah?

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CBS News presents readers with a mystery today: what happened to the Internet cable partnership between Venezuela and Cuba?  More than a year ago, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez publicized their partnership, with Castro asserting that “Secrets are over,” and that Cuba would have “the most powerful weapon that has ever existed, which is communication.”  [...]

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**Written by Doug Powers

Throw in the Angry Office Clown and this thing sounds like a GSA junket with robes.

From The Hill:

Two senior Senate Republicans on Monday blasted plans by judges in the 9th Circuit to hold a conference in Hawaii this August that they said could run up a tab of $1 million or more, and includes a schedule of sport fishing, yoga, surfing lessons and Zumba dancing lessons.

Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) last week wrote to 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Alex Kozinski to warn that the Hawaii meeting does not appear to fit with the 9th Circuit’s own opinion that the federal budget is tight. The letter was sent just weeks after Republicans took the General Services Administration (GSA) to task for a notorious $800,000 conference that led several GSA officials to resign.

“We are concerned about the overall cost of this conference and do not believe that discussions about the administration of justice would be less successful were they held somewhere other than a spa and resort in Hawaii,” the senators wrote. The letter adds that while conference organizers note that government funds are not to be used for recreation, the conference program “reads more like a vacation than a business trip to discuss the means of improving the administration of justice.”

Recently the courts have purportedly been focused on cost containment measures. Maybe they’ll discuss saving money during ashwini mudra exercises in yoga class.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Fuel efficiency combined with speed and sport will cost you a pretty penny if you’re looking forward to the new Porsche 918 Spyder.

(Related: Take a look: Ferrari unveils its most powerful car earlier than expected)

The prototype model, which is expected to become available to the public by September 2013, can reach top speeds of 201 miles per hour but also gets about 94 miles per gallon. Just to put things into perspective, one of the most well-known hybrid vehicles — the Toyota Prius — gets 74 mpg.

Considered a supercar for its specs, Auto Evolution reports that it boasts more than 570 horsepower thanks to one electric unit delivering power to its front wheels while another supplies the rear axle. The car’s lithium-ion battery can be fully recharged in two hours.

Here are some other features and accomplishments for the prototype thus far:

• It can reach 0-62 mph in less than three seconds.
• It lapped Nurburgring in under 7:22.
• It’s all-electric mode will provide a top speed of 94 mph.
• It features a carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) monocoque with unit carrier.

Even with these impressive stats Auto Evolution believes the car will “deliver even more [of a] serious performance“ but ”the Germans just don’t want us to know about it yet.” But you’ll have to pay for it. It is expected the vehicle will run for around $1.5 million.

“What we are doing with the 918 Spyder is redefining driving fun, efficiency and performance,” Wolfgang Hatz, Member of the Executive Board Research and Development of Porsche AG, said in a statement last week.

(H/T: Daily Mail)

Accuracy in Media‘s investigative video team put together a fascinating video discussion with Reggie Littlejohn, president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers (WRWF). The non-partisan, international coalition works to prevent forced abortion and human trafficking in China.

During her sit-down interview, Littlejohn discussed China’s infamous one-child policy, sterilizations, forced abortion and infanticide. While these elements are troubling, they are a part of daily life for Chinese men and women forced to live under sometimes brutal circumstances.

Littlejohn described the startling 13 million abortions that allegedly occur in China each year. This shocking number ends up being 35,000 babies aborted per day (nearly 1,500 procedures being conducted each hour). She also described the horrific mandate that women face to undergo forced abortions — sometimes up to the ninth month of their pregnancies.

When women decide to run away in an attempt to save the life of their unborn children, government officials sometimes turn to violence against loved ones to convince the women who are hiding out to follow through with their abortions. In one particularly gruesome example, Littlejohn provides a story that seems practically incomprehensible in an modern-day society.

Listen to the lawyer and human rights expert discuss these tragic details, below: (caution: graphic images and content):

During her discussion, Littlejohn mentions a document that purportedly comes from a web site discussion portal designed for Chinese gynecologists and obstetricians. Under a thread called, “What if the infant is still alive after induced labor?,” these medical professionals share a disturbing dialogue.

The discussions, which apparently occurred between April 13 and April 28, 2009, shed light on the tragic situation families face in the Asian nation. Here are just a few snapshots from the translated discussions that unfolded between health officials:

You can see the rest of the comments in the aforementioned document, here. While some professionals weren‘t willing to compromise values on infants’ lives, others clearly were. In the end, China’s troublesome policies, especially in light of anti-abortion advocate Chen Guangcheng‘s arrival in the U.S., are certainly a noteworthy subject deserving of increased exploration.

(H/T: Accuracy in Media)

Unity.

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How’s this for unity?  Conservatives have had varying levels of enthusiasm and reluctance in embracing Mitt Romney as the Republican nominee for President.  When former Vice President and conservative favorite Dick Cheney opens up his home for a Romney fundraiser, will it help open conservative wallets as well? Former Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne, will [...]

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It has become something of a recognized double standard that many in the media media will go to extraordinary lengths to bring out the worst in Republicans, while Democratic indiscretions are often overlooked or disproportionately covered.

For instance, the news that Mitt Romney allegedly gave a haircut to someone who may have been homosexual nearly fifty years ago recently swept the airwaves, though the same pundits showed little interest in the new Jeremiah Wright tapes that indicate he may have been offered a bribe to stay quiet until after the 2008 election.

However, the Washington Post is seemingly not content reaching back 50 years to find “dirt” on Romney — this time, it’s not stopping until it reaches 1857. 

In an article titled “Mitt Romney’s Faith Tangles With a Quirk of Arkansas History,” the Post writes:

On the wildflower-studded slopes of the Ozarks, where memories run long and family ties run thick, a little-known and long-ago chapter of history still simmers.

On Sept. 11, 1857, a wagon train from this part of Arkansas met with a gruesome fate in Utah, where most of the travelers were slaughtered by a Mormon militia in an episode known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Hundreds of the victims’ descendants still populate these hills and commemorate the killings, which they have come to call “the first 9/11.”

Many of the locals grew up hearing denunciations of Mormonism from the pulpit on Sundays, and tales of the massacre from older relatives who considered Mormons “evil.”

“There have been Fancher family reunions for 150 years, and the massacre comes up at every one of them,” said Scott Fancher, 58, who traces his lineage back to 26 members of the wagon train…“The more whiskey we drunk, the more resentful we got.”  [Emphasis added]

The Post then concedes that, when polled, the majority of Republicans say Mitt Romney’s faith is not a reason either to either support or oppose him, before continuing:

In northwestern Arkansas, at least two monuments commemorate the massacre, including a towering wooden cross erected just six years ago. On it is carved a biblical saying: “Vengeance is mine; I will repay saith the Lord.”

[...]

“It’s an emotional thing for us,” said Phil Bolinger, president of the Mountain Meadows Monument Foundation. “When you come of age, when you mature, things to do with your own blood kin becomes more important and you become passionate about it.”

In conclusion, to draw as much of a distinction between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama as possible, presumably, the Post writes:

In another quirk of history, both of the main presidential candidates have ties to this region. Parley Pratt, an ancestor of Romney’s and an esteemed figure in the Mormon Church, was murdered in Arkansas shortly before the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Historians have speculated that anger over this killing may have played a part in the massacre.

And in a cemetery nearby is buried Nathaniel Bunch, an ancestor of Obama’s, according to local genealogists, who say Bunch was a contemporary of the wagon train emigrants. [Emphasis added]

So essentially, while Barack Obama is “the first gay president“ because he endorsed gay marriage and ”the first Amish president” because he doesn’t like Twitter, Mitt Romney is to be associated with murderers (even terrorists, if you caught the “first 9/11″ reference), who lived roughly two hundred years ago.

The Washington Post, it seems, just can‘t get enough of Romney’s “past.”

3 pm ET!

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The Ed Morrissey Show returns today at 3 pm ET!  As of post time, I’m not sure whether we’ll do a Face the Chat or have a guest or two, but be sure to join us for a great discussion of today’s top stories. Update: We’ve confirmed that Kevin McCullough joins us again to discuss [...]

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"Shut up," they explained.

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Imagine, the Wall Street Journal implores, what the federal government would do if a whistleblower had tipped off JP Morgan chief Jamie Dimon about the risky maneuvers that ended up as a $2 billion loss earlier this month — and had gotten fired or discredited in an attempt to shut him up.  The Obama administration [...]

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It’s finally here: the teaser-trailer for the new, highly-anticipated James Bond movie, “Skyfall.”

We have no idea what “Skyfall” means and we have no clue what’s going on in the video. But it doesn’t matter: it’s Daniel Craig looking über-serious and playing some sort of word association game with a psychologist/interrogator/pediatrician while things blow up — lots of things.

If the “Skyfall” trailer is any indication of what we can expect from the latest installment in the Bond franchise reboot, it’ll be two solid hours of non-stop, gritty, British spy stuff.

And we don’t mean that in a bad way.

Another thing that may make “Skyfall” a good time is its cast. Although they’re not in the trailer, both Ralph Fiennes and Javier Bardem have been brought on to play two key, albeit secret, roles.

Bardem (left) & Fiennes (right)

The trailer promises that the new Bond film will be exceptionally grim, which makes us hope that the scriptwriters won’t make us revisit that material about love stripping Bond of his armor.

(H/T: The Atlantic Wire)

“Women, do the dishes. Men, eat more meat.” This was a common phrase in my family’s household when it was time to clean up and yet there were still piles of leftovers after a holiday dinner. Men and meat have long been coupled terms. Some men even exaggerate that they would like to renounce their omnivorous design and go straight-up carnivore.

So, researchers set out to test whether men actually preferred red meat or if they more simply held a subconscious “macho” status that compelled them to eat steaks and hamburgers over salads with salmon.

Live Science reports that the researchers wrote, “To the strong, traditional, macho, bicep-flexing, all-American male, red meat is a strong, traditional, macho, bicep-flexing, all-American food.” The study is published in the Journal of Consumer Research.

As part of the research, nearly 4,000 university students were asked to rate 23 foods as masculine or feminine on a scale from 0 to 10. The most masculine foods, Life Science notes, were medium-rare steak, hamburger, well-done steak, beef chili and chicken. The top feminine foods it reports were chocolate, peach, chicken salad, sushi and chicken.

Here’s more from Live Science on the study:

If meat represents masculinity, it would seem men would be more likely than women to prefer meat to other foods — a means of reinforcing gender. To test this idea, the researchers analyzed data of more than 2,000 university students who indicated how much they liked or disliked various foods. Male students were significantly more likely than female students to like beef, meat and orange juice; and the women were significantly more likely than guys to like salad and vegetables.

This “masculine meat” phenomenon seems to hold in other countries as well. In one study of 23 languages with gendered pronouns, the researchers found “that the vast majority of these gendered words and these languages associate meat with the masculine pronoun,” [Brian Wansink] from Cornell University told LiveScience.

With this in mind, ABC News points out the increasing evidence linking red meat consumption to heart disease and other health issues:

One study found that eating a single serving of red meat every day was linked to an increased risk of early death.

Dr. Ulka Agarwal, chief medical officer for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a non-profit group that promotes preventive medicine, animal rights and plant-based diets, said the “meat is macho, veggies are lame” mindset is really an outdated way of thinking about eating.

“The face of plant-based diets is changing as they become more mainstream,” Agarwal said. “It’s not just hippies, but also professional athletes who are following plant-based diets now.”

So how do you get men to eat more vegetables? Wansink said make it look more like meat. This can be as simple as putting grill marks on a veggie burger.

[H/T NeatORama]

Remember in 2007 when then-Sen. Barack Obama vowed to crack down on lobbyist influences in Washington, D.C.?

“I have done more to take on lobbyists than any other candidate in this race,” Obama said. “I don’t take a dime of their money, and when I am president, they won’t find a job in my White House.”

As reported by other media outlets, and already noted by the left-leaning Politifact, the president broke his lobbyist rule a long time ago. However, thanks to a recent report from the Washington Post, we now have a better understanding of just how much the president has failed to curb lobbyist influences in the nation’s capital.

The most transparent and ethical administration…

“The Post matched visits with lobbying registrations and connected records in the visitor database to show who participated in the meetings, information now available in a search engine on the Post’s web site,” T.W. Farnam writes.

“The visitor logs for Jan. 17 — one of the most recent days available — show that the lobbying industry Obama has vowed to constrain is a regular presence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave [emphasis added],” the report adds.

But more than the fact that lobbyists are a common presence in the White House (and nearby executive buildings) is the fact that those with personal connections inside the Obama administration — and there are many — enjoy easy, anytime access.

Again, we cannot stress enough that this is the same president who, more than any candidate before him, vowed to change the politics of D.C. with all that “Hopey-Changey” stuff.

“A lot of folks,” President Obama said in April, “see the amounts of money that are being spent and the special interests that dominate and the lobbyists that always have access, and they say to themselves, maybe I don’t count.”

But if the president believes this is what the people think, then why does it seem like lobbyists are a permanent fixture in his administration?

“The White House visitor records make it clear that Obama’s senior officials are granting…access to some of K Street’s most influential representatives,” Farnam writes.

“In many cases, those lobbyists have long-standing connections to the president or his aides. Republican lobbyists coming to visit are rare, while Democratic lobbyists are common, whether they are representing corporate clients or liberal causes,” the Post report adds.

Here are just a few of the lobbyists who’ve had frequent access to the White House:

Marshal Matz: A lobbyists whose clients include “the general counsel for the Biotechnology Industry Organization, the chief executive of cereal maker General Mills and pro bono clients, including advocates for farmers in Africa,” according to the Post. This former unpaid adviser to Obama’s 2008 campaign is reported to have visited the White House almost two dozen times in the past two-and-a-half years.

Bill Samuel: As a lobbyist for the AFL-CIO, Samuel has visited the White House at least 50 times since the president’s inauguration. He met four times with former White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley and three times with Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council, according to the Post.

Nancy Zirkin: Works as a lobbyist for the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Laura Murphy: Murphy lobbies for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Tony Podesta: Brother to a former aide to the president, Podesta has visited the White House 27 times.

Robert Raben: This lobbyist who “represents many liberal causes” has visited the White House 47 times.

Tim Hannegan: Like Matz, Hannegan was also an “informal adviser” to the president’s 2008 campaign. His clients include Comcast and Taser International. He has logged in approximately 30 visits to the White House.

Tom Downey (former New York congressman): the spouse of President Obama’s  former energy czar, Carol Browner, Downey lobbies for clients including Time Warner Cable and Herbalife. White House records show that he has visited at least 31 times.

And despite what appears to be a broken promise, the White House defends its admittance of lobbyists.

White House spokesman Eric Schultz praised the president’s “unparalleled commitment to reforming Washington,” adding that this is the first administration to release the visitor records. Of course, it needs to be pointed out that the White House did this “to settle a lawsuit seeking the records,” Farnam notes.

“Our goal has been to reduce the influence of special interests in Washington — which we’ve done more than any Administration in history,” Schultz added.

And to be fair, because previous administrations didn’t make their lists available, it’s impossible to tell whether the number of lobbyists allowed admittance to the White House has gone up or down since President Obama took office.

Still, if we recall correctly, the president during his 2008 presidential campaign didn’t promise to “dial back” or “moderate” lobbyist influences in Washington — he promised to put an end it. That clearly has not happened.

“The whole process was interesting for me. It’s a little scary,” said Andrew Menter, an executive who was able to score a White House meeting through Downey.

“You need a lobbyist to get a meeting,” Menter added.

Read the full Washington Post report here.

“I would not have backed off the comments if I were Mayor Booker."

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Cory Booker giveth, Cory Booker taketh away … and Harold Ford giveth back again. Telling the Morning Joe crew that Booker’s “clarification” of the Newark mayor’s criticism of the Obama campaign’s attacks on private equity was understandable and perhaps inevitable, the former Congressman said that he would not have retreated one step from the criticism: [...]

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Editor’s note: the following post contains graphic material. Discretion is advised.

Have you heard Anthony Bourdain’s sick joke about Dick Cheney from over the weekend? Get ready.

The popular chef and TV host — who famously feuds with fellow chef Paula Dean — was at The Great GoogaMooga Festival in Brooklyn, NY, over the weekend and made quite the confession: not only would he totally try cannibalism, but he would most like to deep fry Dick Cheney after doing something quite sexual with him.

The Huffington Post (HuffPo) explains:

When someone later asked Bourdain which person he would most like to deep fry, he had a detailed idea. First, he would waterboard Dick Cheney. Then he would deep fry his head, f*ck him up the ass and then he’d cook him. Whoa.

Wow. While HuffPo didn’t use quotes in the paraphrase, other outlets have. Take, for instance, Gothamist’s retelling;

But Bourdain wasn’t finished. When someone asked who he would most like to deep fry, he said it’d be Dick Cheney. First, he’d waterboard him, then “deep fry his head,“ then ”[fu**] him up the ass.” Uhh, we didn’t see any Family Mooga tent yesterday that helped you explain to your children what “[fu**] him up the ass” means. [Redacted]

It should be noted that Bourdain’s comments seem to have been said with plenty of sarcasm. For example, the only video of his talk so far features him blasting arch rival Dean. In that video — which includes a profanity-laced tirade about Dean once criticizing him — his remarks include plenty of snark (note also what looks like a cup of beer):

[content warning for graphic language]

And just in case things weren’t weird enough, Bourdain also included instructions on cooking unicorn:

Perhaps the strangest — and cutest — part of the session was when a little girl asked Bourdain how he would cook a unicorn. He would roast the loin, grill the legs, braise the forequarter and use the horn to pick your teeth with after the meal. For the record, unicorn marrow is delicious, he says.

Yeah, there was plenty of sarcasm from the Libertarian-leaning host. But you know what they say: there’s truth in jest.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (The Blaze/AP) — In the latest flap surrounding a contentious mandate, the University of Notre Dame is joining dioceses, among other institutions, in suing Obama administration officials over the requirement that most employers cover birth control.

This is the second major development to occur surrounding the mandate in recent days. Last Wednesday, Franciscan University, a Catholic institution in Steubensville, Ohio, claimed that Obamacare has forced the school to end its student heath insurance program. The massive health care overhaul, the university says, has led to cost increases that no longer make offering the program a viable possibility.

(Related: Catholic University Drops Student Health Care Plan Over Contraceptive Mandate)

On Monday, Notre Dame, equally disenchanted with the plan, said that the mandate violates religious freedom by requiring many religiously affiliated hospitals, schools and charities to comply. President Barack Obama offered to soften the mandate to accommodate religious groups, but U.S. Roman Catholic bishops say the change doesn’t go far enough.

Other religious colleges are already suing the Health and Human Service agency and administration officials over the mandate. Still, observers had been closely watching for Notre Dame’s next step. The Washington Times has a fuller assessment of the latest legal battles that the federal govenment faces as a result of the mandate:

The archdioceses of New York, Washington, D.C. and St. Louis and the University of Notre Dame filed lawsuits over President Obama’s contraception mandate Monday, along with dozens of other Catholic dioceses, schools and charities in a major legal challenge to a key part of Mr. Obama’s health care overhaul law.

Seeking to overturn the administration’s requirement for employers to include contraception in employee health insurance plans, 42 groups filed suit in a dozen federal courts around the country, including the dioceses of Dallas, Fort Worth, Rockville Centre, Pittsburgh and the Michigan Catholic Conference.

The lawsuits come a week after the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops rejected the administration’s revised final version of the mandate, saying that the administration’s various exceptions for religious groups didn’t go nearly far enough to protect religious freedom. The administration’s final rule allowed faith-affiliated institutions such as hospitals and universities to opt out of providing coverage for certain contraception and sterilization procedures, though employees could still get such coverage from the insurance companies themselves.

Notre Dame is the most prominent Roman Catholic school in the country. The university came under then unprecedented criticism from U.S. bishops and others in 2009 for inviting Obama as commencement speaker. Obama supports abortion rights.

**Written by Doug Powers

The “Photo of the Day” on the White House website features President Obama at Soldier Field in Chicago throwing a football following a NATO event. This could be some sort of “Hail Mary” campaign metaphor:

The photo is of course more carefully staged than a U2 concert, because Obama is clearly looking upward as he throws.

However, it’s possible there was somebody on the receiving end who is very tall. Where was John Kerry over the weekend?

More than likely Obama was looking up because he was mesmerized by an awesome sight on the Soldier Field Jumbotron:

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

K Street bonanza.

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Remember when Barack Obama pledged to keep lobbyists from dictating outcomes in his administration?  Good times, good times.  It only took a fortnight for Obama’s promise to become a joke when Jake Tapper asked Robert Gibbs to produce the “waivers” for lobbyist appointees to Obama’s administration, which numbered in the dozens by early March.  The [...]

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The pro-Obama’s Super Pac Priorities USA raised a pitiful $1.6 million in April, bringing in some $3 million less than the pro-Romney Restore Our Future, Politico reports.

The group stumbled even after the White House dropped its abhorrence of PACs and started prodding Democrats to contribute to it.

Priorities USA has $4.7 million on hand, less than Restore Our Future. Another major GOP PAC, American crossroads, the Karl Rove-backed venture, had some $24 million amassed at the end of March.

The poor performance of Priorities USA comes as Mitt Romney is drawing nearly even in his personal fundraising effort to President Obama. If Obama wins this year, it won’t be because he can wildly outspend is GOP rival, like he did in 2008.

If you happened to be watching the 5 pm newscast on NBC 5 in Chicago yesterday, you might have been taken aback. That’s because a shocking, and threatening t-shirt seems to have flashed across the screen during coverage of the NATO summit protests. The shirt? “Kill Glenn Beck.”

A Beck listener alerted us to the incident after seeing it live, and so we checked. Here’s what we found:

While the screen shots aren’t definitive, if you look closely, it seems you can make out the words. Still, we wanted more. And wouldn’t you know it, we found that a “Kill Glenn Beck” shirt does exist. A Tumblr account featuring someone called “protesthour” features the piece of clothing:

According to the caption, the man pictured got the shirt at a concert for the ironically-named band, “Hate.” Just in case that band isn’t in your regular music rotation, Hate is a Polish heavy metal group know for such work as “The Litanies of Satan.” They completed a North American tour last year but cancelled a European one recently.

It’s unclear if the man purchased the shirt directly from the band (the band’s merchandise section does not have the shirt) or from another vendor at the concert  — or if he was simply given the shirt while at the concert.

But here’s what we do know: a Glenn Beck fan spotted a t-shirt that the fan thought said “Kill Glenn Beck;” we found some screen shots that seem to show that; and we found a website with a guy wearing such a shirt, so we know it exists.

It would certainly not be surprising if a protester was, in fact, wearing such an abhorrent article of clothing. Remember, chants of,  “What do we want? Dead cops!” rang out across the Windy City on Sunday.

Gregory B. Jaczko, who was designated Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) by Barack Obama in May, 2009, has resigned after a series of what Politico is describing as “personality conflicts” — incidents that seemingly interfered with his work.

Though his term runs through June 2013, Jaczko said this morning that he would be quitting upon confirmation of his successor, and denies any charges of wrongdoing.

Politico explains:

An NRC inspector general report last year referenced several accounts from current and former NRC staff members who said Jaczko’s aggressive behavior created “an intimidating work environment,” in part because he often yelled at his colleagues…

His abrupt announcement comes as another NRC IG report is expected soon to delve into those personnel issues. Last month, Jaczko “categorically” denied that he had specifically focused his aggression against women.

R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, recently shared his belief that Christians have been guilty of condemnation and their “own form of homophobia.” Despite his open discussion about the mishandling of gay issues in Christian circles, Mohler is doubling down on the Bible’s stance on homosexuality.

(Related: Baptist Leader Delivers Stinging Rebuke to Fellow Christians: ‘We Are Guilty of Our Own Form of Homophobia’)

In a CNN Belief Blog article published on Monday, Mohler attempts to explain the Bible’s stance on homosexuality, while answering critics’ commonly held objections. He begins by bringing up one of the arguments that gay rights leaders and their adherents regularly raise. The central question posed is: ”If the Bible instructs readers not to eat shellfish or wear mixed fabrics, among other rules and believers no longer comply with these requirements, then why should individuals continue to oppose homosexuality?”

While Mohler contends that, on the surface this is a fair question, he attempts to frame the difference between Old Testament rules that were set for Israel and those moral codes that are more universal.

“An honest consideration of the Bible reveals that most of the Biblical laws people point to in asking this question, such as laws against eating shellfish or wearing mixed fabrics, are part of the holiness code assigned to Israel in the Old Testament,” Mohler explains. “That code was to set Israel, God’s covenant people, apart from all other nations on everything from morality to diet.”

Mohler goes on to explain that the Book of Acts makes it clear that Christians are not commanded to follow this same code (Acts 10:15). The verse (speaking about Peter), reads, “The voice spoke to him a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’” This is taken to mean that the kosher code is not pertinent for Christians and, thus, is no longer binding.

However, when it comes to sexual behavior, the faith leader maintains that the rules are clear and consistent. He writes:

The Bible’s commands on sexual behavior, on the other hand, are continued in the New Testament. When it comes to homosexuality, the Bible’s teaching is consistent, pervasive, uniform and set within a larger context of law and Gospel.

The Old Testament clearly condemns male homosexuality along with adultery, bestiality, incest and any sex outside the covenant of marriage. The New Testament does not lessen this concern but amplifies it.

The New Testament condemns both male and female homosexual behavior. The Apostle Paul, for example, points specifically to homosexuality as evidence of human sinfulness. His point is not merely that homosexuals are sinners but that all humanity has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

The seminary leader went on to call homosexuality “the most pressing moral question of our times.” That being said, as he has in the past, Mohler said that adultery, pornography, dishonesty, injustice and other Biblical sins should also be important to Christians. He also maintains that Christian love calls believers to teach what the Bible proclaims, even on complex issues like homosexuality.

“The Bible names sins specifically so that each of us will recognize our own sinfulness and look to Christ for salvation and the forgiveness of our sins,” Mohler continues.

Considering the high divorce rate, Mohler highlights that hypocrisy can be dangerous. While the church has failed in this regard, he calls for honest discussion and correction. This failure, though, should serve as a reminder, he contends, of what it is that the Bible teaches about all issues, from marriage to homosexuality.

(H/T: CNN’s Belief Blog)

A come-to-Jesus moment?

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Today’s Roman Catholic calendar lists May 21st as the feast day of St. Christopher Magallanes, a martyr killed for celebrating Mass during the Cristero War in Mexico. Perhaps Catholics today may want to recall St. Thomas More — the patron saint of lawyers, who was executed for refusing to agree to a mandate that gave [...]

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The recent passage of a $642 billion defense bill by the U.S. House of Representatives, even under the threat of a White House veto, carries weighty provisions such as a ban of same-sex marriage on military bases and continued allowance of indefinite detention of terrorist suspects. But a little reported-on amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act is beginning to get more attention. It is a measure that some are calling “creeping fascism” and others “a bit unsettling.”

The amendment has bipartisan sponsorship by Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) and Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash) and would essentially legalize propaganda by the government within the United States. Buzzfeed reports it is an amendment that would “strike the current ban on domestic dissemination,” meaning both the the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 and Foreign Relations Authorization Act in 1987 would be overturned.

A Tuesday press release announced the “The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012“ explaining that it would ”[modify] a Cold War-era law that hampers diplomatic, defense, and other agencies’ ability to communicate in the 21st century.”

“We continue to face a multitude of threats and we need to be able to counter them in a multitude of ways. Communication is among the most important,” Rep. Thornberry said in a statement. “This outdated law ties the hands of America’s diplomatic officials, military, and others by inhibiting our ability to effectively communicate in a credible and transparent way. Congress has a responsibility to fix the situation.”

“While the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 was developed to counter communism during the Cold War, it is outdated for the conflicts of today,” said Congressman Adam Smith. “Effective strategic communication and public diplomacy should be front-and-center as we work to roll back al-Qaeda’s and other violent extremists’ influence among disaffected populations. An essential part of our efforts must be a coordinated, comprehensive, adequately resourced plan to counter their radical messages and undermine their recruitment abilities. To do this, Smith-Mundt must be updated to bolster our strategic communications and public diplomacy capacity on all fronts and mediums – especially online.”

Buzzfeed goes on to state critics of the bill see it as an overreach to give the State Department and the Pentagon this ability:

“Clearly there are ways to modernize for the information age without wiping out the distinction between domestic and foreign audiences,” says Michael Shank, Vice President at the Institute for Economics and Peace in Washington D.C. “That Reps Adam Smith and Mac Thornberry want to roll back protections put in place by previously-serving Senators – who, in their wisdom, ensured limits to taxpayer–funded propaganda promulgated by the US government – is disconcerting and dangerous.”

“I just don’t want to see something this significant – whatever the pros and cons – go through without anyone noticing,” says one source on the Hill, who is disturbed by the law. According to this source, the law would allow “U.S. propaganda intended to influence foreign audiences to be used on the domestic population.”

[...]

“It removes the protection for Americans,” says a Pentagon official who is concerned about the law. “It removes oversight from the people who want to put out this information. There are no checks and balances. No one knows if the information is accurate, partially accurate, or entirely false.”

Juan Cole, a history professor at the University of Michigan, wrote on his blog Informed Comment (via Reader Supported News) that “nothing speaks more urgently to the creeping fascism of American politics” than this act:

I love our guys and gals in uniform, but they can be extremely obnoxious in any discussion about US government policy that ‘gets off point’ or ‘doesn’t serve the mission.’ At Washington think tank events, I’ve seen them repeatedly close down discussions among e.g. State Department foreign service officers. You don’t want most of the DoD types providing information to us, because it won’t be in any way balanced.

Buzzfeed notes that it sees this amendment as part of a larger plan by the government to control a certain message. It cites the government’s increased use of social media monitoring technology as part of plan.

(Related: Which keywords on Twitter get the government’s attention?)

The Associated Press reports that although the bill passed in the Republican-controlled House, the Democratic-controlled Senate is “likely to scrap many of them and stick to the spending level in the deficit-cutting agreement.”

What are your thoughts on the proposed act? Let us know in the comments.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Goal.

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Just in case anyone doubts the intentions of the Iranian mullahcracy if they start producing nuclear weapons, the top-ranking military officer in the regime made it clear yesterday: Iran is dedicated to annihilating Israel, the Islamic regime’s military chief of staff declared Sunday. “The Iranian nation is standing for its cause and that is the full [...]

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KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Three climbers who scaled Mount Everest died on their descent and two went missing during a crowded weekend on the Himalayan peak, raising concerns Monday about congested trails and poor conditions near the summit.

An estimated 150 climbers tried to reach the top Friday and Saturday as they rushed to use a brief window of good weather in what has otherwise been a troubled season for climbing. Many of the climbers had been waiting at a staging camp for several days for their chance.

The three climbers who died Saturday were believed to have suffered exhaustion and altitude sickness, Nepali mountaineering official Gyanendra Shrestha told The Associated Press. Officials were still gathering details from descending climbers, he said.

The victims were identified as German doctor Eberhard Schaaf, Nepal-born Canadian Shriya Shah, and South Korean mountaineer Song Won-bin. The missing climbers are a Chinese national and his Nepalese Sherpa guide.

“There was a traffic jam on the mountain on Saturday. Climbers were still heading to the summit as late as 2:30 p.m. which is quite dangerous,” Shrestha said.

Climbers normally are advised not to try for the summit after 11 a.m. The area above the last camp at South Col is nicknamed the “death zone” because of the steep icy slope, treacherous conditions and low oxygen level.

“With the traffic jam, climbers had a longer wait for their chance to go up the trail and spent too much time at higher altitude. Many of them are believed to be carrying a limited amount of oxygen, not anticipating the extra time spent,” Shrestha said.

The climbing season normally runs from late March to the first week in June, and the Nepalese government places no limits on how many climbers can be on 8,850-meter (29,035-foot) mountain, the world’s highest. The season’s first clear conditions were on Friday and Saturday, but that window already was closing by Saturday afternoon with a windstorm at higher altitudes, Shrestha said.

Ang Tshering, an Everest expert and former president of Nepal Mountaineering Association, said the government should impose a system of climbing schedules so that scores of climbers are not trying to summit on the same day.

Tshering said the race to the summit on Saturday meant that climbers likely expended all their energy on the way up and had little in reserve for the way back down.

“That is one reason that some climbers collapse after they reach summit. The other thing is when they put too much efforts, when they are very tired it also causes the altitude sickness,” he said.

The deadliest day on Everest was May 10, 1996, when eight people were killed. The main reason was said to be that climbers who started their ascents late in the day were caught in a snow storm that swept the mountain in the afternoon.

Some climbers and environmentalists have expressed concerns that climbing conditions on Everest are worsening each year, possibly due to climate change.

An unusually light snowfall this year has added to this season’s danger, renowned Everest climber Conrad Anker said.

“Because there is little fresh snow, icy surfaces on the slopes make climbing more difficult and dangerous,” Anker said, adding that “the snow acts as glue stopping rocks from falling on the climbers.”

Well-known expedition organizer Russell Brice cited the mountain‘s precarious condition in his decision in early May to cancel this year’s climb for more than 60 clients.

Color me completely unsurprised.

House Minority Leader Tom Cross responded to a post published Friday on National Review online which alleges Cross is on the verge of cutting a Medicaid deal with Governor Quinn and Illinois Democrats that could involve a cigarette tax hike. Joshua Culling writes about Quinn’s plan:

It’s another piece of tax-and-spend legislation to add to Quinn’s failed legacy. But at least in the past, Illinois’s Republican leadership avoided the political disaster of putting their fingerprints on legislation such as Quinn’s $7 billion income-tax increase. This time, Tom Cross seems content to cut a deal that will further imperil Illinois’s economic outlook while simultaneously eroding the national party’s messaging on the toxicity of Obamacare.

If it happens, these Republican regressive tax hikers will be following in the footsteps not only of tax-happy Democrats, but also in the shadow of their Beltway GOP counterparts who voted to raise tobacco taxes to fund the massive S-CHIP expansion.

And hey, you know who the original champion of tobacco taxes-for-federal healthcare mandates is, don’t you?

That’s right: Beltway barnacle Orrin Hatch, who is supported by his Beltway barnacle pal Arlen Specter.

Famed evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins is turning some heads after writing an op-ed on Saturday, endorsing a plan by England’s education secretary Michael Gove to provide every school in the nation with a copy of the Bible. On the grounds that the holy book is a wonderful literary work, the famed atheist believes that it should be read by all students. But his reasons extend far beyond this justification, as Dawkins seems to have more sinister intentions.

Gove, who believes the Bible is a viable moral tool, decided to send King James Bibles, written in 17th-century English, to all primary and secondary schools to mark the 400th anniversary of the book’s completion. While this plan has caused a great deal of angst between church-state separatists, the project was funded with private money.

While on the surface Dawkins supports the initiative, his reasons for supporting the Bible handouts, when examined closely, are more rooted in hopes of painting the book as a moral disaster than in supporting it.

The scientist begins his article by claiming that, had his organization, the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, been approached, he would have considered donating to the Bible effort. While one finds themselves scratching his or her head while reading Dawkins’ words, it doesn’t take much time to realize that there are ulterior motives driving his urge to put Bibles in schoolchildren’s hands. He writes:

A native speaker of English who has never read a word of the King James Bible is verging on the barbarian. In the week after the 2011 census, my UK Foundation commissioned Ipsos MORI to poll those who had ticked the Christian box. Among other things, we asked them to identify the first book of the New Testament from a choice of Matthew, Genesis, Acts of the Apostles, Psalms, “Don’t know“ and ”Prefer not to say”. Only 35% chose Matthew and 39% chose “Don’t know” (and 1%, mysteriously, chose “Prefer not to say”). These figures, to repeat, don’t refer to British people at large but only to those who self-identified, in the census, as Christians.

European history, too, is incomprehensible without an understanding of the warring factions of Christianity and the book over whose subtleties of interpretation they were so ready to slaughter and torture each other. Does the eucharistic bread merely symbolise the body of Jesus or does it become his body, in true “substance” if not “accidental” DNA? Prolonged wars have been fought over how we should interpret the words allegedly uttered at the Last Supper. Three bishops were burned alive just outside my bedroom window in my old Oxford college for giving the unapproved answer.

It seems Dawkins wants children to see what he perceives as immoral lessons in the Bible for what they are — a purported travesty. If, indeed, more people read the Bible, he contends that they will be turned off to the Christian faith. Considering Dawkins’ mass efforts to progress atheism across the globe, such a prospect would be welcomed. While Gove sees the Bible as a morally-sound document that can build students up, Dawkins sees it as a corrupt manual that will do just the opposite.

“I have an ulterior motive for wishing to contribute to Gove’s scheme. People who do not know the Bible well have been gulled into thinking it is a good guide to morality,” Dawkins admits. This mistaken view may have motivated the “millionaire Conservative party donors”. I have even heard the cynically misanthropic opinion that, without the Bible as a moral compass, people would have no restraint against murder, theft and mayhem. The surest way to disabuse yourself of this pernicious falsehood is to read the Bible itself.

Throughout his Guardian op-ed, the famed scientist attempts to poke ethical holes in the Bible, citing examples of alleged Old Testament moral infractions and attempting to diminish the story of Christ’s death. He even refers to the lessons and stories attached to the Ten Commandments as “horrors.”

“Whatever else the Bible might be – and it really is a great work of literature – it is not a moral book and young people need to learn that important fact because they are very frequently told the opposite,” he wrote in the final paragraph of his article. “The examples I have quoted are the tip of a very large and very nasty iceberg. Not a bad way to find out what’s in a book is to read it, so I say go to it. But does anybody, even Gove, seriously think they will?”

"I'm not familiar, precisely, with exactly what I said, but I stand by what I said, whatever it was."   Candidate Romney might have finished this perceptive remark with"... unless I don’t. Or can't. Whatever." Who's his speech writer? George Orwell? His words display a confused mind and an intellectual compass that has sprung its springs, so confused, meaningless and representative of a position-less aspirant for leadership. Whoosh! I’ll say whatever it takes, whatever it means.

Bubble popped?

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Last week, the buzz on Wall Street was about how rich Facebook’s initial investors would be by the weekend. Today, it’s about how much investors might lose in the IPO — and whether NASDAQ and Morgan Stanley have some explaining to do. As prices dropped well below the IPO initial bid on trading this morning, [...]

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By Tom Purcell Ah, to be French. In the face of high taxes, high unemployment, poor economic growth, massive government spending and powerful public-sector unions that are gobbling up tax dough, the French people just voted against austerity measures to … Continue reading →

By Floyd and Mary Beth Brown Sitting on the floor of the Arizona Republican convention, we have a sick feeling in our stomachs. Everyone in this room wants to defeat Barack Obama, but divisions are deep, and much work needs … Continue reading →

Making Sense, by Michael Reagan Sheep and chickens. That’s what America’s greatest corporations have become. Whether it’s in California or nationally, it’s the same sad story. America’s best and biggest companies — the banks, the energy corporations, the computer giants … Continue reading →

If President Obama cared about government fairness rather than the mysterious decisions of providence, if he actually cared about equal protection under the law rather than under God, he would support a flat tax, like Steve Forbes and Gov. Rick Perry. This is not a difficult concept to understand: Everyone should play by the same rules and pay the same rate. Ah, but here comes the objection to the heavens: But it’s not fair that certain people have and make more money than others! Well, they pay from a higher principal, for one thing, and for another, how exactly does one decide what is a “fair” rate? Why does the Buffett Rule push for 30 percent? Where did they get this number? Are only Harvard Law graduates qualified to make this judgment, or is the Oracle from Omaha a real oracle?

With less than six months to go before Election Day, the Obama-loving media’s advocacy has passed shameful and is now approaching downright unimaginable. On Saturday, the Associated Press actually published a piece with the headline, “Is GOP Trying to Sabotage … Continue reading →

We’ll have a debate over the Obama and Romney record on jobs and their ideas to get the country back on track. Republican House Budget Chair Paul Ryan faces off against Austan Goolsbee, former head of the president’s Council of … Continue reading →

The non-governmental group B’Tselem released footage Sunday of a seemingly deadly stand-off that occurred Saturday between Israeli settlers and Palestinian men near the settlement of Yitzhar and the town of Asira al-Qibliya.

In the video, a group of presumed Palestinians is throwing rocks at what appear to be the settlers, who are armed with rifles.  Less than a minute into the video, a man named as 24-year-old Fathi Asayira is seemingly shot in retaliation by a settler armed with a rifle.

As the man who was allegedly shot is carried away by his companions, the settlers and what appears to be Israeli soldiers on the scene back away into the distance.

Watch the footage below (Warning, both are graphic):

Angle 2:

“The video footage raises grave suspicions that the soldiers present did not act to prevent the settlers from throwing stones and firing live ammunition at the Palestinians,” said B’Tselem. “The soldiers did not try to remove the settlers and in fact are seen standing by settlers while they are shooting and stone throwing.”

A statement from the Palestinian Prime Minister’s office reads: “The gravity of the footage lies not only in the settlers’ provocations and shooting live ammunition towards unarmed residents, but also in the irresponsibility of the Israeli soldiers who stood watching the events.”

However, Yitzhar spokesman Avraham Binyamin told the Jerusalem Post that the men with guns were security personnel who were trying to protect settlers and put out a fire (which he says was started by the Palestinians), adding that the settlement had been on the receiving end of many attacks from local Palestinians.

The IDF maintains: “There was a shooting during the incident and the matter is being investigated‚ but on the surface, the video that was released does not seem to represent the whole incident.”

(H/T: Business Insider)

Philip Klein is one of the best young conservative journalists in Washington, D.C. — prolific, incisive, and always refreshingly candid and consistent in holding politicians in both parties accountable for their big-government proclivities.

Many of you read his work regularly at The Examiner, and if you don’t, you should be. His health care policy analysis in particular is always must-read.

Today, Klein released a concise e-book titled “Conservative Survival in the Romney Era.” For those of us who have always stressed the importance of distinguishing between the Republican Party and the conservative movement (and long before the Tea Party movement came into being), Klein’s thoughts are just what the public discourse needs right now. It’s exactly the right message and the right time for it.

Here’s an excerpt:

Now that Romney is the nominee, it’s perfectly understandable – and rational – that conservatives would want to get behind him to defeat the far worse Obama. This work isn’t an attempt to argue otherwise. However, there’s a difference between supporting somebody for pragmatic reasons and deluding oneself into believing that he’s somebody he isn’t. It’s one thing to vote for Romney, but it’s another thing to let people convince you that you have to refrain from criticizing him when he does violence to conservative principles, because of the idea that it will help Obama.

Conservatives shouldn’t confuse being the leader of the Republican Party with being the head of the conservative movement. Conservatism, while often allied with the Republican Party, is an entirely separate thing. One is a long intellectual tradition and the other is a political vessel for those seeking power. Conservatives must avoid mixing up the two to prevent the philosophy from being corrupted, or redefined, by whomever happens to be at the helm of the GOP. Furthermore, if Republicans assume that conservatives will enthusiastically support them no matter what, they’re much less likely to govern as conservatives.

This is crucial to keep in mind whether the “Romney era” of Republicanism merely lasts through this election or if it translates into a long presidency. During the election, conservatives will need to exert pressure from the right so that Romney will run as a conservative. If he’s elected, they must do so to ensure that he governs as one.

There’s always some argument partisans will make to discourage conservatives from criticizing Republicans. In the coming months, those of us who criticize Romney from the right will be told we should save it until after November, or else we’re just helping Obama. When we do so after the election – should he win – we’ll be told he deserves a honeymoon period and needs to rack up a few accomplishments first before moving to items on the conservative agenda. Eventually, it will be that we can’t weaken him before the midterm elections, and then later, that we have to loudly support him, or else he’ll lose reelection to an even worse liberal boogeyman (or boogeywoman) in 2016.

Whatever the practical reasons for supporting Romney’s election over Obama – and believe me, I understand them – conservatives shouldn’t allow themselves to simply become an extension of the Republican Party. Romney should get conservatives’ support when he earns it, and criticism when he deserves it.

Now is a time for caution and sober reflection both for committed conservatives ready to throw up their hands in despair over the Romney nomination and for those eager to embrace Romney without reservations. America is facing a pivotal time in its history with challenges on multiple fronts. Though conservatives have an array of hopes and expectations for a Republican president – on national security, economic and social issues – my emphasis will be on the urgent need for a leader who will pursue a limited government agenda….

Even if conservatives would have preferred a different Republican nominee, there are still plenty of ways for them to advance their ideals by pressuring Romney into behaving more like the conservative for whom they had longed.

Indeed there are. Buy the book — just $2.99 for your Kindle! — and gird your loins.

Americans are facing an unprecedented $494 billion tax hike on Jan. 1, 2013. It’s been dubbed “Taxmageddon” given the economic devastation it would cause. Conventional wisdom suggests lawmakers in Washington will wait until the 11th hour to come up with … Continue reading →

Elizabeth Warren might be excused for wanting to be Native American. She can claim an old American soul, going back generations in Oklahoma. In the heartland it is almost universal for those who have been there for a few generations to claim Indian blood; that is, to wish it were there even if it isn't. It is not so much a lie as it is the acculturation of personal and regional American myth; the fabric of old-soul American consciousness. "Our spirit will walk among you," said Chief Joseph. Indeed it does.

Ever feel judged when you bring some non-organic, foreign-grown, out-of-season melon to a potluck, or forget your reusable bag? Msnbc has this funny anecdote from a woman trying to buy a fruit platter from a snobby organic produce guy in … Continue reading →

If you have any doubts that Obama will be sent packing from the White House in November, then cast your eyes at this list of reasons Barack Obama will be a one-term president. 1. Jobs, jobs, jobs While the official … Continue reading →

Dave Betras is known in “The Valley” for his colorful language and his political antics and drama. Last Wednesday, however, when Vice President Joe Biden visited a local industrial park, Betras was all about numbers. “Oh, ‘The Valley’ is going … Continue reading →

Cornel West criticized President Barack Obama, saying he’s “obsessed with being on Mount Rushmore” and is focusing too much on his “legacy.” “I think at this point he’s obsessed with being on Mount Rushmore, he wants to be a great … Continue reading →

It's never too late.

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Elizabeth Warren may be providing an embarrassing sideshow to the national Democratic effort, but in Massachusetts, she’s the main event.  Warren’s use of unsubstantiated claims to slight Cherokee heritage during her career damaged her credibility, but accusations of plagiarism may end up derailing Warren’s career.  Is it too late for Democrats in Massachusetts to find [...]

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After reviewing a video in which a North Rowan High School teacher tells a student he can be arrested for speaking ill of President Barack Obama, the Rowan-Salisbury School System said it can be a learning experience. Meanwhile, an expert … Continue reading →

LONDON (AP) — Organizers say the Olympic torch was briefly snuffed out during the relay leading up to the London 2012 Games.

The torch was attached Monday morning to the side of Para-badminton player David Follett’s wheelchair in the western England town of Great Torrington when the flame went out.

The London Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games said the flame went out due to a malfunctioning burner.

Such occurrences are fairly common and organizers keep a “mother flame” in a protective lantern just in case.

Follet, who uses a wheelchair after being injured in a car accident at 19, was given a replacement torch and the relay continued.

It is traveling 8,000 miles (12,875 kilometers) around the U.K., with a stopover in Ireland.

I have learned that Florida election officials are set to announce that the secretary of state has discovered and purged up to 53,000 dead voters from the voter rolls in Florida. How could 53,000 dead voters have sat on the … Continue reading →

Karzai, who aims to secure billions of dollars in long-term aid for his country’s military and economy, said he looked forward to a day when “Afghanistan is no longer a burden on the shoulders of of our friends in the … Continue reading →

A new piece in the Washington Post shreds to shards President Obama’s claim to run an administration devoted to reining in lobbyists. The article makes clear that the Obama White House is in fact crawling with lobbyists trying to win friends and influence powerful people for their clients.

From the piece:

It was an unremarkable January day, with a steady stream of lobbyists among the thousands of daily visitors to the White House and the surrounding executive office buildings, according to a Washington Post analysis of visitor logs released by the administration . . .

The visitor logs for Jan. 17 — one of the most recent days available — show that the lobbying industry Obama has vowed to constrain is a regular presence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. The records also suggest that lobbyists with personal connections to the White House enjoy the easiest access.

The White House visitor records make it clear that Obama’s senior officials are granting that access to some of K Street’s most influential representatives. In many cases, those lobbyists have long-standing connections to the president or his aides. Republican lobbyists coming to visit are rare, while Democratic lobbyists are common, whether they are representing corporate clients or liberal causes.

The Obama claim on the lobbying issue is that he has halted the “revolving door” by not hiring lobbyists. This is mostly true, though he’s brought in a couple, and some lobbyists have de-registered in order to “get clean” so they could eventually come work for Obama.

But the Can’t-Work-Here policy has done deceptively little to “clean up” Washington.

My experience with lobbyists – and I got to know  a lot of them during my work as a mainstream reporter – is that they become creatures of whoever they work for. Like all of us. Trade a Washington Redskin to the Dallas Cowboys, and he becomes a Dallas Cowboy.

So while bad things sometimes happen, most lobbyists that go to work in an administration put the administration first, not their once or future clients.

What’s more, by keeping lobbyists out of the administration, Obama has lost one of the best sources of knowledge he could have about Washington’s issues and processes.

The main thing Obama would need to do to keep lobbyists from “tainting” his precious policymaking is to put a lobbyist mosquito net around the White House to keep them out. And that, the Post makes clear, he has not done.

It’s also worth noting that a White House supposedly devoted to openness and bipartisanship is open only to Democratic points of view on legislation and issues. Republican lobbyists are pretty much barred.

One special moment in the piece was the spin the offered by a White House aide attempting to beat down the story:

“The people selected for this article are registered lobbyists, but this article excludes the thousands of people who visit the White House every week for meetings and events who are not,” he said.

This is exactly like if a suspect admitted to investigators, “Sure, I murdered him, but there are thousands of people I didn’t murder. Let’s focus on that.”

Gosh, they could really do a little better than this in the West Wing spin room.

Here’s what’s important in the business world this morning:

Trial: The July 29, 2008, phone call between two titans of Wall Street began with the old friends exchanging mild pleasantries, but then quickly turned serious and – by the government’s account – criminal.

Hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam asked about a rumor that Goldman Sachs “might look to buy a commercial bank.” On the other end of the phone, then-widely respected Goldman board member Rajat Gupta confided there was a “big discussion” on the subject at a recent meeting.

Prosecutors will try to convince a jury that the intercepted call shows Gupta was providing inside tips that gave Rajaratnam an illegal edge in massive stock maneuvers. Defense lawyers say they’ll argue Gupta was a straight-shooter who only shared public information with the billionaire hedge fund boss, as devoted to raising money for charity as to Goldman’s bottom line.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday in federal court in Manhattan. The trial is scheduled to last up to four weeks.

EU Stocks: European stocks inched up Monday morning in spite of investors’ lingering concerns that the G-8 leaders had failed to provide a concrete plan to solve the European debt crisis.

Traders both in Europe and Asia were kept on edge by worries about the economic future of Greece and whether it would exit the 17-country euro currency union.

Anti-bailout political parties made gains in general elections in Greece earlier this month, but the ballot proved to be inconclusive. A new vote is scheduled for June 17, and the radical left party Syriza is expected to make gains. Without the rescue package, Greece will likely default and leave the eurozone. That would mean a financial disaster for Greece, but it will also send shockwaves throughout Europe.

At stake is a multibillion-euro bailout that Greece urgently needs to stay solvent. International lenders have threatened to cancel the package if Greece fails to follow through on its austerity plans.

China Movie Chain: A Chinese conglomerate announced Monday it will buy a major U.S. cinema chain, AMC Entertainment Holdings, for $2.6 billion in China’s biggest takeover of an American company to date.

Dalian Wanda Group Co.’s purchase reflects the global ambitions of a wave of cash-rich Chinese companies that are using acquisitions to speed their expansion by obtaining foreign skills and brand names.

Wanda said the deal will create the world’s biggest movie theater operator. The Beijing-based company said it will invest an additional $500 million to fund AMC’s development. AMC operates 346 cinemas, mostly in the United States and Canada, and says it has 23 of the 50 highest-grossing U.S. outlets.

Yahoo!: Struggling Internet company Yahoo! Inc. has secured a lifeline after agreeing to sell half of its prized stake in Chinese e-commerce group Alibaba for about $7.1 billion, with most of the cash going to shareholders.

The deal, announced Sunday in the U.S., will see Alibaba Group buying back half of its 40 percent stake from Yahoo Inc. for $6.3 billion cash and up to $800 million of Alibaba preferred shares.

The announcement caps at least a year of rocky on-and-off talks as Yahoo tried to sell the stake as part of efforts to turnaround its business. Money from the sale will give Yahoo the financial firepower to return cash to disgruntled shareholders, many of whom are still upset after it squandered an opportunity to sell itself to Microsoft Corp. in May 2008 for $33 per share, or $47.5 billion. Yahoo’s stock has sagged since then, trading at $15.42 on Friday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Thank you all for your kind comments about my mom’s visit. They were so nice – I read a bunch of them to her and she was delighted. As if I needed more proof that I’ve got the best readers around – good hearted, clever – and cantankerous when you need to be!

And now back to work. And you all will get back to making this website great by giving your unvarnished views, which influence my unvarnished views that I give you here and provide lots of great reading for everyone.

I gain strength from your support when you agree and the strength of greater understanding when you disagree. I live in the Washington area, but because of you I get to hear so much more than the Beltway echo, which makes me a lot smarter. And even most of those who don’t comment read the comments, so you help make the website so much more interesting and entertaining.

Thanks for what you do to make this blog a success.

Keith

"Gentlemen, we are finished."

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This may end up being the political quote of the year, uttered by the president of Greece after talks aimed at forming an emergency government collapsed last week: “Gentlemen, we are finished,” said the patrician President, calling an abrupt halt to two hours of baiting and cat-calling between furious Greek politicians. “I’m starting to get [...]

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On Friday, Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett threatened to keep President Obama‘s name off the Arizona ballot if he didn’t get verification regarding Obama’s Hawaiian birth certificate. And now Hawaii has responded.

“I’m not a birther, I believe the president was born in Hawaii — or at least I hope he was,” Bennett told KFYI-RADIO’s Mike Broomhead last week. “My responsibility as secretary of state is to make sure the ballots in Arizona are correct and that those people whose names are on the ballot have met the qualifications for the office they are seeking.”

Hawaii’s attorney general has apparently given a response, according to KTVK-TV:

The Hawaii attorney general’s office has reportedly told Bennett that there are steps he needs to take in order to confirm President Obama’s birth records.

Those steps include Bennett proving that he legitimately needs confirmation in order to update the records at his office.

(H/T: Drudge)

Like many a proud mother, Heather Walker posted a photo of her newborn on Facebook. Soon thereafter though, her photo was taken down and her account blocked for 24 hours. Now, Facebook is apologizing for taking down a family photo that never should have been considered in violation of its policies.

(Related: Facebook bans mother for posting photos of baby born with severe birth defect)

Grayson James Walker was born the morning of Feb. 15, 2012, with a rare disorder that caused him to be born without a large part of his brain. By evening of the same day he had passed away. His mother has been mourning his death and keeping up her thoughts on a blog describing the family’s journey with anencephaly.

The Memphis mom of three actually waited until just this month to post her first photo of Grayson on the social networking site. On her blog, she explains she was ”tired of trying to hide my son, the way he was, just to make others feel comfortable.“ She at first felt ”people would be scared or offended“ by his appearance but in a ”sudden impulse” of being a proud mother, she posted the photo.

The next time she logged onto Facebook, her initial fears were confirmed as she found a message saying content on her page had been blocked. Heather was offended, hurt and angry. That’s when she decided to post a comment about her frustration and it snowballed from there. Heather was interviewed by local media and the story spread. Watch this local Fox report:

“Not long after, Facebook deleted them because of the content,” she told WMC-TV at the time.  “They allow people to post almost nude pictures of themselves, profanity, and so many other things but I‘m not allowed to share a picture of God’s beautiful creation.”

This isn‘t the first time Facebook has accidentally blocked content that didn’t in fact violate its extensive photo policies. Earlier this year, the Blaze reported on a leaked guidance document for third-parties that Facebook hires to review content for potential violations. Many bodily substances are considered “abuse standards violations” and some injuries, if insides are showing, are banned as well. Many of these third-party moderators, Gawker originally reported, are working for companies overseas.

(Related: Why was one mom‘s Facebook account disabled after posting pics of her son with Down’s syndrome?)

But Facebook has now had a change of heart and Heather and her husband Patrick received what they were looking for: an apology and condolences from the Facebook team. Heather wrote, “It made mine and Patrick’s day and took the burden of offense off our shoulders. That was never our intention in the first place.”

In a statement, Facebook acknowledged that in reviewing more than 300 million photos uploaded to the site a day,moderators occasionally make a mistake.

[H/T Radar Online]

The stories of children — sometimes even toddlers — proclaiming that they are transgender seem to be on the rise. Over the weekend, The Washington Post featured a profile about a young girl named Kathryn who, at the age of two, began telling her parents that she was a boy. The child was inevitably diagnosed with gender identity disorder.

“Transitioning” during the childhood and teen years is a relatively new phenomenon in America. While it has not been uncommon for adults to change genders, it is extremely controversial to encourage — and to allow — children to act upon these feelings. The Post has more:

In the United States, children have been openly transitioning genders for probably less than a decade, said Jack Drescher, a New York psychiatrist who is a leader in the field of gender orientation. There is very little to go on, scientifically, to support that approach, and the very idea of labeling young children as transgender is shocking to many people.

But to others, it makes perfect sense.

“In children, gender solidifies at about 3 to 6,” explained Patrick Kelly, a psychiatrist with the division of child and adolescent psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. [...]

The American Psychiatric Association has an official diagnosis for this: gender identity disorder in children.

Those who have it, according to the association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, experience “a persistent and intense distress about assigned sex, together with a desire to be (or insistence that one is) of the other sex. There is a persistent preoccupation with the dress and activities of the opposite sex and repudiation of the individual’s own sex.”

For Tyler, playing with normal toys that appeal to girls wasn’t really an option. As time went on, the child began to request trucks, swords and other related items. Additionally, she wanted short hair and petitioned to wear pants instead of dresses. Initially, her parents battled with the young child and attempted to explain her true gender.

When Kathryn’s mother, Jean, tried to sit down with her daughter to explain her anatomy, the child, then three, rejected the notion and reportedly asked her mother, “When did you change me?” So Jean began soaking up information about transgendered issues, as her battle to get Kathryn to wear girl’s clothing and to accept her female nature seemed fruitless.

But before telling her husband, Stephen, her suspicions about their daughter, Jean wanted to be 100 percent sure that what the couple was facing was a child with gender issues. Inevitably, she became convinced that this was, indeed, the reality. After spending a great deal of time researching the subject, the inquisitive mother finally approached Stephen and voiced her concerns.

Initially, her husband rejected her claims that it might be beneficial to allow Kathryn to call herself a boy. But after hearing his young daughter explain how unhappy she was dressing and acting like a female, he agreed to take her to a psychologist.

The doctor, to Stephen’s horror, diagnosed the child with gender dysphoria and recommended that Kathryn live her life out as a boy. While her father struggled with the notion, the child was apparently elated. For the purposes of the article — and the protect the identity of the family — the child, who now lives as a boy, is called Tyler (the name his parents would have given him had he originally been born a male).

While his parents claim that they will allow him to return to Kathryn if he ever chooses to do so, for now, Tyler is extremely content in his male role. In fact, the five-year-old is so insistent that he‘s a boy that he flatly rejects the notion that he’s transgendered.

“I’m not transgender,” he explains when he hears his mother use the word. “I. Am. A. Boy.”

Jean and Stephen aren’t alone in dealing with these issues. As the Post notes, ignoring these symptoms when they arise is apparently common and, some experts say, dangerous. Some children are so impacted by these issues that they end up depressed, suicidal or emotionally disenchanted.

But while some experts recommend allowing children to live out whichever gender they claim to be more in-tune with, others, like Kenneth Zucker, a child psychologist in Toronto, Canada, believe that it’s better not to categorize children. Rather than giving them a label when gender identity disorder arises, he recommends taking a neutral approach.

While research is still sparse, some experts maintain that the majority of children who face these issues actually return to their original gender; they essentially outgrow the problem. The Post continues:

In the U.S., it’s impossible to know how many children have gender identity problems because the condition usually goes unacknowledged by parents and pediatricians, said Edgardo Menvielle, who counsels transgender kids at Children’s National Medical Center in the District. About a dozen children from the area belong to his support group, and hundreds of families around the country are part of his online support network.

In the decade that Menvielle has been counseling such children, he estimates that about 80 percent end up switching back to what their biology tells them. The other 20 percent remain transgender into adulthood.

To read more about Tyler and other individuals who face similar challenges, click here.

Billion-dollar bust.

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Cue the sharp, staccato violin music, the wail of ghostly sopranos, and M. Night Shyamalan.  Is it possible that the vaunted billion-dollar campaign of Barack Obama might stumble into second place to Mitt Romney on fundraising?  Chris Cillizza writes at the Washington Post that the scenario of an incumbent falling short in official fundraising to [...]

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The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is the largest newspaper in Wisconsin and has a decidedly liberal tilt. The paper opposed Governor Scott Walker’s collective bargaining reform and takes a dim view of Republicans in general.

But to their credit, they see no reason to recall the Republican governor:

No governor in recent memory has been so controversial. No governor in America is so polarizing. Everyone has an opinion about Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin.

Here’s ours: We see no reason to remove Walker from office. We recommend him in the June 5 recall election.

Walker’s rematch with Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett was prompted by one issue: Walker’s tough stance with the state’s public-employee unions. It’s inconceivable that the recall election would be occurring absent that. And a disagreement over a single policy is simply not enough to justify a vote against the governor.

On Sunday, Newark, NJ, Mayor Cory Booker grabbed headlines by criticizing the Obama camp for its attacks on Mitt Romney’s time at Bain Capital.

“To me, we’re just getting to a ridiculous point in America,” he said on “Meet the Press” Sunday morning.

“Especially, I know, I live in a state where pension funds, unions and other people are investing in companies like Bain Capital. If you look at the totality of Bain Capital’s record — they’ve done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses and this to me, I’m very uncomfortable.”

But that criticism was short-lived. By Sunday night, Booker had released a YouTube video backtracking and saying such an examination of Romney’s business record is “reasonable” and the he “encourages” it. He also made it clear that Obama “more then deserves reelection”:

The quick about face led the crew of “Fox & Friends” to speculate if the White House called Booker and pressured him to clarify.

The First Amendment was a freedom breakthrough, but you would never know that if you were a student in one North Carolina classroom.

A student stood firm in his beliefs about President Obama and challenged his teacher on the claim that Mitt Romney was a bully in high school. The student pointed out that President Obama admitted shoving a girl to the ground in his book Dreams from My Father. The teacher screamed the following in disapproval: “Stop, no, because there is no comparison. [Romney is] running for president. Obama is the president.” It’s obvious that the the teacher is an Obama zombie.

The teacher then goes into intimidation mode by telling the student that it is wrong to “disrespect the president of the United States in this classroom.” He points out that what President Obama wrote in his own book is not being disrespectful; it’s being factual. He could have also pointed out that the President was a drug user.

The teacher then tells the student – wrongly – that it is a criminal offense to say bad things about a president. “Do you realize that people were arrested for saying things bad about Bush? Do you realize you are not supposed to slander the president?”

War on wimminses backfire.

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As a general in the War on Women, Barack Obama might be best compared to one who inadvertently fires on his own positions.  Team Obama has tried to exploit the usual gender gap in national elections by claiming to fight on behalf of women.  Earlier this month the campaign rolled out the creepy “Life of [...]

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For those who got a “thrill” seeing MSNBC’s Chris Matthews bomb at “Jeopardy,” you’re in luck. On Friday, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman took his turn appearing on the game show along with CNN‘s Anderson Cooper and NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell. Rather than wowing the audience with his intellect, the three-time Pulitzer Prize winner ended up coming in last place — even falling short of the $2,300 Matthews was able to win just days before.

(Related: See MSNBC‘s Chris Matthews Bomb at ‘Jeopardy’)

Newsbusters‘ Noel Sheppard provides a recap of Friedman’s first two answers, which were less than successful:

With the category “21st Century Lingo,” the answer was, “In 2011, BusinessWeek said European government bonds were this ‘poisonous’ kind of debt.”

Friedman responded, “Sub-prime.” I guess he missed the clue in quotation marks “poisonous.”

The correct response of course was “toxic.”

In the same category moments later, the answer was, “It’s the ‘tiny’ term for a person who writes short posts about one’s personal life on Tumblr or Twitter.”

Once again, the word in quotations marks was the clue, and once again Friedman missed it.

“What is a tweeter?” he replied.

Of course, the answer was “micro-blogger.”

Then, came Double Jeopardy. Going into it, Cooper, who was in first place, had a sum of $15,600. Friedman was at $8,400 and O’Donnell was in third place with only $2,000. Interestingly, Friedman wagered a whopping $7,400, O’Donnell put up $500 and Cooper only placed $1,201 on the line.

When all was said and done, none of the three answered the Double Jeopardy question correctly, thus — Friedman was left with only $1,000 (and for those inquisitive minds, the question was: “The National Inventors Hall of Fame said his work ‘brought the south prosperity,’ but he was out of business within 5 years.” The answer? Eli Whitney).

Watch the spectacle, below:

(H/T: Weasel Zippers)

CHICAGO (The Blaze/AP) — Chicago braced for more demonstrations Monday, with protesters vowing to march to the Boeing Corp. headquarters a day after police clashed with a group of demonstrators at the end of a march protesting the NATO summit. And that comes after at least 45 protesters have already been arrested and four officers reportedly injured.

Many downtown businesses have told their employees to stay home during the second and final day of the summit – where world leaders are discussing the war in Afghanistan, European missile defense and other security issues – because of traffic snarls and the possibility of more protests.

More than two dozen Metra rail stations along a line that carries around 14,000 riders in from the southern suburbs on most weekdays will be closed and stations and platforms patrolled by a larger contingent of law enforcement personnel and K-9 units. The Chicago Transit Authority will have to reroute 24 buses through the summit zone.

Sunday was an active day for the protests. NBCChicago.com posted video of police clashing with violent “Black Bloc” protesters:

In addition, one man was arrested over the weekend after police found shotgun shells, “extended clips,” and anarchy flags in his car:

But that might not have been the worst of it. NBCChicago.com reports police arrested seven after officers caught them with water bottles filled with urine and feces:

One CNN reporter on the scene said he was getting “smashed” in a “chaotic” scene as police tried to push protesters back:

And things weren’t as peaceful as some would have you believe. At about the four-minute mark below, CNN anchor Don Lemon voices his displeasure with police who were beating back a crowd of protesters — despite those protesters throwing objects at the police and one officer leaving the crowd visibly shaken and possibly injured:

Organizers with the Occupy Chicago movement planned to gather at a West Side park at 9 a.m., and an hour later march toward the Boeing building along the Chicago River in the city‘s business district to protest the company’s role in building airplanes for the U.S. military.

Later, immigration rights activists will gather at the same park before boarding a bus to travel to the small village of Crete, about 35 miles south of Chicago, where federal officials are considering building a nearly 800-bed detention facility for illegal immigrants slated for deportation.

Andy Thayer, one of the main anti-NATO protest organizers, said he expected many demonstrators from out of town to leave Sunday night. But he said a strong contingent of protesters still will show up for the Boeing protest Monday morning and decried how city leaders and police officials have handled the protests.

“I am disgusted, particularly, with the upper echelon of our city,” Thayer said.

On Sunday, several thousand protesters marched through downtown in one of Chicago’s largest demonstrations in years, airing grievances about war, climate change and a wide range of other complaints as world leaders assembled for a NATO summit.

The protests drew together a broad assortment of participants, including peace activists joining with war veterans and people more focused on economic inequality. But the diversity of opinions also sowed doubts about whether there were too many messages to be effective.

And some of the most enduring images of the event were likely to be from the end – when a small group of demonstrators clashed with a thick line of police who tried to keep them from the lakeside convention center where President Barack Obama is hosting the gathering.

The protesters tried to move east toward McCormick Place, with some hurling sticks and bottles at police. Officers responded by swinging their batons. After nearly two hours, the two sides were still locked in a standoff, with police blocking the protesters’ path and the crowd refusing to leave. Some protesters appeared to have blood streaming down their faces.

Following the main skirmish, Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said 45 protesters were arrested. Police said four officers were hurt, including one stabbed in the leg. Those numbers seemed certain to rise as new clashes erupted later.

Hundreds of protesters gathered late Sunday night near the Art Institute of Chicago as first lady Michelle Obama hosted a dinner for spouses of NATO leaders inside. At least 100 Chicago police officers in riot gear were also at the scene.

The protests lacked the size and single message that shaped the last major protest moment in Chicago, when nearly half a million people filled the city’s downtown in 2006 to protest making it a felony to be an illegal immigrant.

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Associated Press writers Don Babwin, Ryan J. Foley, Carla K. Johnson, Robert Ray, Jim Suhr, Nomaan Merchant and Michael Tarm contributed to this report.

Planned Parenthood is an intricate organization that often finds itself in the cross-hairs of controversy. If not for its abortion services, the group sometimes catches fire for the bizarre activities and marketing techniques it uses. Consider the Six Rivers Planned Parenthood of Eureka, California, and its pro-abortion prayer campaign — an initiative we covered last month. Now, Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida is apparently launching a new celebratory campaign – Masturbation Month.

(Related: CA Planned Parenthood Joins Pro-Choice Clergy to Launch ‘40 Days of Prayer’ In Support of Abortion)

On Friday, the local affiliate tweeted, “Happy Masturbation Month! We’ve got lots of info on masturbation here,“ with a link to a web page chock full of information detailing the ”harmful myths about masturbation.”

The Planned Parenthood web site claims that there are heath benefits to masturbation and that “it’s…common for children and teens to masturbate.” In a FAQ section, the organization takes on a number of questions surrounding masturbation and shares some somewhat graphic details regarding how the process is undertaken.

Also on Friday, the main Planned Parenthood Twitter account shared the same message (i.e. re-tweeted) on its feed.

On the aforementioned web site, the organization does claim that masturbation is a safe way to steer clear of sexually-transmitted diseases. In the end, though, much like the prayer campaign, this is an odd initiative of sorts, especially considering that the site seems to be encouraging individuals of all ages to participate.

(H/T: Weasel Zippers)

After attacking Mitt Romney and Bain Capital last week for their dealings with a Missouri steel company, the Obama campaign today is turning to the tale of a closed Indiana office supply company that then-Senator Edward M. Kennedy used to repel Romney in their 1994 race.

The saga of SCM Office Supplies Inc. in Marion, Ind., was used by Kennedy in television ads and campaign trail appearances by SCM workers to undercut Romney as he mounted the most serious reelection challenge of Kennedy’s career.

Bain-owned American Pad & Paper bought SCM in 1994, only to cut wages and benefits before closing the Marion plant a year later. Over 200 workers lost their job.

(The Blaze/AP) — Gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns early Monday in intense street battles in the Lebanese capital, wounding six people as fears mounted that the conflict in neighboring Syria was bleeding across the border.

The fighting appeared to be among the worst clashes in Beirut since 2008, erupting hours after an anti-Syrian cleric and his bodyguard were shot dead in northern Lebanon.

Lebanon and Syria share a complex web of political and sectarian ties and rivalries, which are easily enflamed. Last week, clashes sparked by the Syrian crisis killed at least eight people and wounded dozens in the northern city of Tripoli.

The revolt in Syria began 15 months ago, and there are fears the unrest will lead to a regional conflagration that could draw in neighboring countries. The U.N. estimates the conflict has killed more than 9,000 people since March 2011.

Sunday’s fighting in Beirut pitted pro- and anti-Syrian Sunni groups against one another, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene in the Mazraa district.  Gunmen were roaming the streets and several roads were blocked.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said gunmen were using “bombs and machine guns” and that six people were wounded.

The apparent trigger for the fighting was the shooting death of Sunni cleric Sheik Ahmed Abdul-Wahid and his bodyguard in northern Lebanon. The circumstances surrounding their deaths remain unclear but the NNA said they appeared to have been killed by soldiers after their convoy failed to stop at an army checkpoint.

The Lebanese army issued a statement, saying it deeply regretted the incident and that a committee will investigate.

The fighting underscores how the bloodshed in Syria, where President Bashar Assad’s regime is cracking down on an uprising against his rule, is enflaming emotions in its tiny neighbor Lebanon. Lebanon has a fragile political faultline precisely over the issue of Syria.

There is an array of diehard pro-Syrian Lebanese parties and politicians, as well as support for the regime on the street level. There is an equally deep hatred of Assad among other Lebanese who fear Damascus is still calling the shots here. The two sides are the legacy of Syria’s virtual rule over Lebanon from 1976 to 2005 and its continued influence since.

The fighting was the among the most intense fighting in Beirut since May 2008, when gunmen from the Shiite Hezbollah militant group swept through Sunni neighborhoods after the pro-Western government tried to dismantle the group’s telecommunications network.

More than 80 people were killed in the 2008 violence, pushing the country to the brink of civil war.  Since then, Beirut in particular has endeavored to rebuild, and re-establish its reputation as the “Paris of the Middle East.”

It looks like they have quite an effort before them.

(The Blaze/AP) — Tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men attended a rally Sunday at the New York Mets’ stadium on the dangers of the Internet and how to use modern technology in a religiously responsible way.

Women were not permitted to attend the meeting at Citi Field in Queens. However, it was broadcast live to audiences of women in schools and event halls in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods. The event garnered so much interest that organizers rented the nearby Arthur Ashe Stadium for the overflow crowd.

It was deemed the “hottest ticket in town” by the Huffington Post, after the 40,000 seat stadium rapidly sold out.

Eytan Kobre, a lawyer who is the spokesman for the event’s organizers, explained that the rally’s purpose was not to ban the Internet, but to learn how to harness it.

“There is a very significant downside to the Internet,” he said. “It does pose a challenge to us in various aspects of our lives.”

He cited online pornography and gambling as well as the risk of social media undermining “our ability to pray uninterruptedly, to focus and to concentrate.”

Television is banned or discouraged, but Kobre said many ultra-Orthodox Jews use the Internet either on computers or smartphones. “There‘s a spectrum of usage and there’s a spectrum of how people are dealing with it,” he said.

Shlomo Cohen of Toronto told The New York Times that he uses the Internet for shopping, business and staying in touch with friends, but that “desires are out there.”

“We have to learn how to control ourselves,” Cohen said.

The rally was organized by a rabbinical group called Ichud Hakehillos Letohar Hamachane, which means Union of Communities for the Purity of the Camp. Published reports have put the cost at $1.5 million.

The organizers are leaders of ultra-Orthodox sects that reject many aspects of modern life. Women dress modestly and wear wigs after marriage, while men wear black hats and long beards. Children are educated in Jewish schools, and Yiddish is the first language for many.

Epitomizing some of the tension between ultra-Orthodox and secular Jews in Israel, a writer for the Israeli site Haaretz sarcastically lamented her inability to attend.

“I guess I’ll have to wallow in the Sodom and Gomorrah of Facebook and Twitter, until I can figure out some way to obtain the message…so that I can see the light and pull the plug on my computer and trade in my iPhone for a more kosher model.  I’m really hoping that somebody will write about it on their blog.”

The most damning part of the 183-page document dump released by the prosecution yesterday in the second-degree murder trial of George Zimmerman for the shooting death of Trayvon Martin is the eyewitness the media would rather you never hear from.

The eyewitness did not see the beginning of the fight, but had a clear view of it when he heard George Zimmerman crying for help and went to his door. He saw George Zimmerman on his back on the ground. Trayvon Martin, according to the eyewitness, was sitting on Zimmerman’s chest, raining down blows from a mount position, “MMA style.” From the investigator’s description of a witness statement on page 38 of the discovery documentation, we learn:

When he investigated, he witnessed a black male, wearing a dark-colored “hoodie” on top of a white or Hispanic male and throwing punches “MMA (mixed martial arts) style.” He stated that he yelled out to the two individuals that he was going to call the police. He then heard a “pop.” He stated that after hearing the “pop,” he observed the person he had previously observed on top of the other person (the black male wearing the “hoodie”) laid out on the grass.

A rare solar eclipse swept the Earth Sunday, starting in Asia and making its way across the Pacific to the United States.

According to NASA, it’s the first to be visible in the States in nearly 18 years– and it’ll be ten more years before we see another one.

But on a more personal level, Fox reports:

For one night, millions of eyes look up to the ‘Ring of Fire.’ Millions around the world are set to watch the annular solar eclipse, in which the moon passes in front of the sun leaving only a golden ring around its edges, which will be visible to wide areas across Asia Monday morning, parts of the western United States and even some parts of Mexico will catch a glimpse.[...]Scientists cautioned would-be viewers everywhere to be very careful because the sun’s damaging rays will remain powerful even during the annular solar eclipse. The advice: Either wear specially designed protective eyewear or attend a viewing event — at a planetarium or amateur astronomy club, for example — to avoid risk of serious eye injury.

 

The event is so popular, apparently, that cable cars ran people up to the mountains extra early for an unobstructed view in Japan, while Taiwan’s astrological museum opened at dawn.

 

I’m sure he’ll be back to race-baiting soon enough, though. Don’t you?

Click here for the Twitchy.com story of his supposed change of heart.

This island off the course of northwest Europe is turning out to be an excellent viewing platform for three blockbuster shows this summer: Queen Elizabeth’s 60th anniversary Jubilee, the London Olympics and the implosion of Europe.

The group of countries using the euro as a joint currency is “a burning building with no exits,” says Britain’s foreign minister William Hague. The Europeans with flames lapping around their ankles are the Greeks, but the whole continent is about to feel the burn.

Yoking most of Europe together with a single currency has proved as unstable as Napoleon or Hitler trying to lasso it with a single army. The euro project was doomed from the start, when the expert economists and Ph.D.s and we-are-the-world Eurocrats almost unanimously agreed that pushing through monetary union without fiscal union was a sound idea. It turned out to be like giving alcoholics the keys to the liquor store.

Though the article passed relatively unnoticed after its original publication on Tuesday, ABC is rhetorically asking on its Facebook page today whether Barack Obama is the country’s first– you’ll never guess it– Amish president.

Why?  Apparently, because his daughters are only allowed to use their cell phones on weekends, are banned from Facebook, can’t watch TV, and are only allowed to use the computer during the week when they have to do homework.  Obama also said he is “too long-winded“ to use Twitter and likes to ”tape“ things on ”this—what’s it called, DVR.”

Clearly a play on being named America’s “first gay president” by Newsweek, ABC has seemingly only forgotten that a) the Amish live nothing like Obama, and b) the administration has actually caused some problems for the Amish in America.

This past June, for instance, a group of Amish men were sent to jail after refusing to mark their buggies with reflective triangles, and last April the Feds concluded a year-long sting operation against an Amish man who had the audacity to sell his unpasteurized milk locally.

Newsbusters’ Tim Graham aptly concluded, “Earth to ABC: the Amish generally prohibit power-line electricity — all the time, not just on the weekends.”

Not to mention, “Can you imagine Michelle Obama churning butter in a frock and a bonnet?”

(H/T: Newsbusters)

Fair game.

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The early border skirmishes of Campaign 2012 are reviving questions about one candidate’s former pastor and shining a spotlight on the other’s high school hijinks. Can a fresh round of questions about President Barack Obama’s birth certificate be far behind? In a campaign year when voters have declared the economy their top concern, Obama and [...]

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9:00 am CT || Participates in an International Security Assistance Force meeting on Afghanistan; McCormick Place, Chicago, Illinois 1:20 pm CT || Meets with NATO Secretary General; McCormick Place, Chicago 3:30 pm CT || Holds a press conference; McCormick Place, Chicago 5:05 pm CT || Departs Chicago 6:30 pm CT || Arrives Joplin, Missouri 8:15 pm CT || Delivers remarks at the Joplin High School Commencement Ceremony; Missouri Southern State University 9:20 pm CT || Departs Joplin, Missouri 12:50 am ET || Arrives White House

While hockey fights– particularly those involving toothless Canadians– are renowned world-over for inimitable their vim and vigor, Canada’s “lacrosse fights” may soon usurp that legacy.

Buzzfeed is reporting on one of the more ridiculous sports fights to be captured on video:

This might be bad

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Voters this year will be treated to a pair of mutually exclusive pictures when it comes to the economy. What’s going to happen in the short term? What is coming our way further down the road? Obama will tell you that Bush wrecked the economy, but we are slowly but surely climbing back out of [...]

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One of the most well-known and beloved pop trios in history is down to a single member after Robin Gibb died of colorectal cancer on Sunday at the age of 62.  His brother, another member of the band, died in 2003.

CNN memorializes:

The Brothers Gibb — calling themselves the Bee Gees — soared to renown after the 1977 film “Saturday Night Fever” starring John Travolta was built around the group’s falsetto voices and disco songs.

In the latter part of the 1970s, the British-born Bee Gees “dominated dance floors and airwaves. With their matching white suits, soaring high harmonies and polished, radio-friendly records, they remain one of the essential touchstones to that ultra-commercial era,” the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame says on its website.

They continue:

“Saturday Night Fever” and the group’s 1979 album “Spirits Having Flown” yielded six No. 1 hits, “making the Bee Gees the only group in pop history to write, produce and record that many consecutive chart-topping singles,” according to the Hall of Fame.

While often more in the background, Robin Gibb was the lead singer on several of the Bee Gees’ top tunes including “I Started a Joke” and “I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You.” He also recorded several solo albums during his career.

Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997, the Bee Gees sold more than 200 million albums, and their soundtrack album to “Saturday Night Fever” was the top-selling album until Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” claimed that distinction in the 1980s.

“The family of Robin Gibb, of the Bee Gees, announce with great sadness that Robin passed away today following his long battle with cancer and intestinal surgery. The family have asked that their privacy is respected at this very difficult time,” the brief statement on his website read.

In a 2001 interview with USA Today, Robin Gibb reportedly quipped: “We’re comforted by the fact that most of our critics are dead. … We’ve outlived them.”

In the words of the paper, “Certainly, the music will continue to do so.”

Jim Cramer, a former hedge fund manager and the host of CNBC’s Mad Money was on Meet the Press with David Gregory this morning, where the two discussed Europe’s economic woes and the worldwide ramifications of the disaster.

“I’m predicting bank runs [in] Spain and Italy within the next few weeks.  Without a coordinated policy, there is going to be financial anarchy in Europe and [it's] going to cause a slowdown worldwide, China and here.”

Watch the interaction, below:

Just a few days ago, Cramer was discussing the run on Greek banks and how it would become a “slippery slope.”

“This is not Argentina and Brazil in the 80′s,” he said, “these are big countries.”

The Street TV, which conducted the interview, summarized: “Our Banks Can’t Outrun European Banks.”

(H/T: Business Insider)

Where money goes to die

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It’s been a while since we checked in on one of Ed’s favorite subjects, that being California’s high speed rail project. The proposed service hopes to whisk commuters from San Francisco to Los Angeles in a matter of hours without all that bother of using the existing regional air service to do the same thing [...]

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LONDON (The Blaze/AP) — British officials have given their word: “We won’t read your emails.”

But experts say that its proposed new surveillance program, unveiled last week as part of the government’s annual legislative program, will gather so much data that spooks won‘t have to read your messages to guess what you’re up to.

The U.K. Home Office stresses that it is not seeking to read the content of every Britons’ communications, saying the data it was seeking “is NOT the content of any communication.” It is, however, seeking information on who’s sending the message, whom it’s sent to, where it’s sent from, and potentially other details including a message’s length and its format.

The government’s proposal is just a draft bill, so it could be modified or scrapped. But if passed in its current form, it would put a huge amount of personal data at the government’s disposal, which it could potentially use to deduce a startling amount about Britons’ private life — from sleep patterns to driving habits or even infidelity.

“We’re really entering a whole new phase of analysis based on the data that we can collect,” said Gerald Kane, an information systems expert at Boston College. “There is quite a lot you can learn.”

The U.K. government began preparing these proposals in April and an anonymous Home Office official told Britain’s The Sunday Times, “It’s not about the content. It’s about the who, what, where and when.”

This same official said it was important for law enforcement to be able to be able to obtain such data in investigations.

The ocean of information is hard to fathom. Britons generate 4 billion hours of voice calls and 130 billion text messages annually, according to industry figures. In 2008 the BBC put the annual number of U.K.-linked emails at around 1 trillion. Then there are instant messaging services run by companies such as BlackBerry, Internet telephony services such as Skype, chat rooms, and in-game services liked those used by World of Warcraft.

Communications service providers, who would log the details of all that back-and-forth, believe that the government’s program would force them to process petabytes (1 quadrillion bytes) of information every day. It’s a mind-bogglingly large amount of data on the scale of every book, every movie, and every piece of music ever released.

So even without opening emails, how much can British spooks learn about who’s sending them?

They’ll see the red flags

Do you know how fast you were going?

Your phone does.

If you sent a first text from London before stepping behind the wheel, and a second one from a service station outside Manchester only three hours later, authorities could infer that you broke the speed limit to cover the roughly 200 miles which separate the two.

Crunching location data and communications patterns gives a remarkable rich view of a person’s lives — and their misadventures.

Ken Altshuler, of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, raves about the benefits which smartphones and social media have brought to savvy divorce attorneys. Lawyers don’t need sophisticated data mining software to spot evidence of infidelity or hints of hidden wealth when they review phone records or text traffic, he said.

“One name, one phone number that‘s not on our client’s radar, and our curiosity is piqued,” he said. The more the communication — a late-night text sent to a work colleague, an unexplained international phone call — is out of character, “the more of a red flag we see.”

They‘ll know when you’re sleeping

The ebb and flow of electronic communication —that call to your mother just before bed, that early-morning email to your boss saying you’ll be late — frames our waking lives.

“You can figure somebody’s sleep patterns, their weekly pattern of work,” said Tony Jebara, a Columbia University machine learning expert. In 2006, he helped found New York-based Sense Networks, which crunches phone data to do just that.

Jebara said that calls made from the same location between 9 and 5 are a good indication of where a person works; the frequency of email traffic to or from a person’s work account is a good hint of his or her work ethic; dramatic changes to a person’s electronic routine might suggest a promotion — or a redundancy.

“You can quickly figure out when somebody lost their job,” Jebara said, adding: “Credit card companies have been interested in that for a while.”

They‘ll know who’s the boss

Drill down, and communication can reveal remarkably rich information. For example, does office worker A answer office worker B’s missives within minutes of the message being sent? Does B often leave colleagues’ emails unanswered for hours on end? If so, B probably stands for “boss.”

That‘s an example of what Jebara’s Columbia colleagues described as “automated social hierarchy detection,” a technique which can infer who gives the orders, who’s respected, and who’s ignored based purely on whose emails get answered and how quickly. In 2007 four of them analyzed traffic taken from the Enron Corporation’s email archive to correctly guess the seniority of several top-level managers.

Intelligence agencies may not need such tools to untangle corporate flowcharts, but identifying ringleaders becomes more important when tracking a suspected terrorist cell.

“If you piece together the chain of influence, then you can find the central authority,” he said. “You can figure that out without looking at the content.”

They‘ll know who you’re talking to

Seeing how networks of people communicate isn’t just about finding your boss, it’s about figuring out who are your friends.

Programs already exist to determine the density of communications — something that can identify close groups of friends or family without even knowing who’s who. If one user is identified as suspicious, then the users closest to him or her might get a second look as well.

“Let’s say we find out somebody in the U.K. is a terrorist,” said Kane. “You know exactly who he talks to on almost every channel, so BOOM you know his 10 closest contacts. Knowing that information not only allows you to go to his house, but allows you to go to their houses as well.”

A snooper’s charter?

Detective work at the stroke of a key is clearly attractive to spy agencies. British officialdom has been pushing for the mass surveillance program for years, but civil libertarians are perturbed, branding the proposal a “snooper’s charter.”

Kane said that the surveillance regime had to be seen in the context of social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn, where hundreds of millions of people were constantly volunteering information about themselves, their friends, their family and their colleagues.

“There’s no sense in getting all Big Brother-ish that there are legitimate safeguards in place,” he said. “The bottom line is that we’re all leaving digital trails, everywhere, all the time. The whole concept of privacy is shifting daily.”

According to the New York Times, president Obama has “significantly lowered” the bar on how success in Afghanistan is defined.

In four years Obama has gone from ”we must never forget, this is not a war of choice, this is a war of necessity” and “this is a war that we have to win” to “Afghan good enough.” According to the Times, Obama’s new definition of victory in his war of necessity that must be won is Afghan stability and no unimpeded Al Qaeda safe havens:

“The goal is to have an Afghanistan again that has a degree of stability such that forces like Al Qaeda and associated groups cannot have safe haven unimpeded, which could threaten the region and threaten U.S. and other interests in the world.”

In today’s New York Times, David E. Sanger reports that Obama will announce at the NATO summit that “all combat operations led by American forces will cease in summer 2013, when the United States and other NATO forces move to a ‘support role’ whether the Afghan military can secure the country or not.” Worse, Obama planned this retreat without the benefit of military advice:

“When the president and a half-dozen White House aides began to plan for the withdrawal, the generals were cut out entirely. There was no debate, and there were no leaks.”

If Obama doesn’t care “whether the Afghan military can secure the country or not,” why wait until 2013? Is it because of the presidential election? Perhaps Obama doesn’t want to run for reelection in the middle of his Afghan retreat. As Obama explained to the Russians at the UN he’ll have more flexibility after the election.

Obama’s position on Afghanistan changes, or evolves, even more quickly than his position on gay marriage.

In 2008, Presidential candidate Obama said “This is a war that we have to win.” (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: A New Strategy for a New World, Washington, D.C., 7/15/08).

In 2009, President Obama told the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention that the Afghan war was a war of necessity:

“As I said when I announced this strategy, there will be more difficult days ahead. The insurgency in Afghanistan didn’t just happen overnight, and we won’t defeat it overnight. This will not be quick, nor easy.

But we must never forget: This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which Al Qaida would plot to kill more Americans.

So this is not only a war worth fighting; this is a — this is fundamental to the defense of our people.”

And while President Obama ignored military commanders in planning his Afghan retreat, presidential candidate Obama promised to act with “proper regard” to the advice of military commanders.

Nevertheless, Obama has decided to declare victory and retreat from Afghanistan regardless of whether the Afghan military can secure the country or not.

Republican strategist Karl Rove appeared on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace today, where he said that bringing up Barack Obama’s former pastor at this point is “stupid.”

(Related: Book: Obama Team Tried to Pay Rev. Wright $150K to Keep Quiet Until After 2008 Election)

“Speaking from the perspective of the Super PAC you want to try to do things that you think will be helpful to the candidate and not things that will be hurtful,” Rove said, “and frankly, trying to dredge up Jeremiah Wright– right or wrong– after this issue was litigated four years ago by John McCain deciding not to litigate it, was stupid…”

He continued: “I thought it was very smart for the Romney campaign immediately to  go out and denounce the tactic.  It certainly sent a message to everybody in America what they want the campaign to be about, and it certainly sent a message to people involved the Super PACs: Don’t be doing stupid things like this.”

Watch the video, below:

However, when the issue was previously discussed, it was largely in the context of evaluating Wright’s character and how much Obama sympathized with his views, seeing as he sat in the man’s church for twenty years and had him baptize his children.  How can a man of God say “G-d damn America,“ and see the world in terms of ”collective salvation?” have been the primary questions.

Now, however, after the release of Ed Klein’s book “The Amateur” and the associated Jeremiah Wright interview tapes, the questions have changed significantly.

According to Wright, an individual from the Obama camp offered him $150,000 to stay quiet until after the 2008 election.  This becomes an issue of potential bribery and gross media oversight– especially in light of the fact that the world knows about an alleged “haircut” given by Mitt Romney roughly fifty years ago.

While it is justified for the Romney campaign to stay “on message” and hammer home the disgraceful state of the U.S. economy, is it impossible to also point out the new connections and reports regarding Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama?

Regardless, David Axelrod is still slamming Romney for his “treatment” of Wright: “We’ve said [Romney's faith is] not fair game, and we wish that Governor Romney would stand up as strongly and as resolutely, consistently, to refute these kinds of things on his side. Instead, he’s amplified them in the past and he’s put logs on that fire and that’s not leadership.”

(H/T: Gateway Pundit)

You probably did not know Thomas Fuentes. I did.

He sat on the board of Eagle Publishing, Inc., our parent company. Today comes word that the Lord has finally called him home after a long battle with cancer.

Tom Fuentes was a grand man. He was a conservative fighter. He will be missed.

Over at Human Events John Gizzi notes

Fuentes is best known as the longest-serving (1984-2004) chairman of the Republican Party of Orange County, California. As the GOP leader of what until very recently was considered the most populous Republican county in the U.S., Fuentes built a vigorous, well-financed party organization that consistently captured most of the legislative and U.S. House districts as well as most of the county offices. Fuentes never backed away from being a conservative voice as well as party leader. Conservative leaders in the Golden State such as Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, former Rep. Christopher Cox considered him one of their closest allies as well as a friend.

Our owner, Thomas L. Phillips, asked invited his friend Mr. Fuentes onto the board of Eagle Publishing. He has a particularly good remembrance of his friend.

Thomas A. Fuentes was a sixth-generation Californian whose great-great-great grandfather emigrated from Mexico to what is now San Diego in 1834, when California was still a Mexican province.

From 1984 to 2004, Tom was Chairman of the Orange County Republican Party. In that role, he was one of the most influential party leaders both in California and the country. He grew the Orange County GOP into a bastion of Republican strength in the state. He stood firm for conservative principles and resisted attempts to water down Republican ideals.

He was a founding director of the National Conservative Campaign Fund, a political action committee I helped launch in 1999. His insight and sage political advice were invaluable in shaping NCCF into an effective source of help for bona fide conservatives running for the U.S. House and Senate.

I enjoyed getting to know Tom Fuentes and appreciated those times he gave me advice based on his experience. He’ll be sorely missed and our prayers are with his family.

"We see no reason to remove Walker from office."

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Same two candidates.  Same newspaper.  Same outcome.  In the 2010 gubernatorial election in Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel endorsed Scott Walker over the mayor of the city the newspaper serves, Tom Barrett.  Yesterday, the paper praised and scolded both candidates, but wrote that nothing over the last two years gives the editors any reason to [...]

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Chicago officials say a violent melee in a suburban restaurant Saturday afternoon appears to have been the work of radical protesters targeting suspected white supremacists, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Witnesses said up to 18 young people wearing hooded black jackets wielded metal bats and hammers against a group of 12 to 20 diners at the Ashford House Restaurant in Tinley Park, Ill. Ten people were injured, three of whom were hospitalized.

Police had said Saturday the attack did not appear to be a random act of violence or related to the ongoing NATO summit protests in Chicago. Instead, law enforcement said the assailants seemed to target the group, all of whom were visiting from out of town.

On Sunday, Mayor Ed Zabrocki told the Tribune that police believe the attackers were from a group called the Anti-Racist Action, which describes itself as being “on the front lines of the struggle against fascism and oppression.”

The group took credit for the attack in a posting on its website, claiming it had disrupted a white nationalist meeting:

On Saturday, May 19th a group of 30 anti-fascists descended upon Ashford House restaurant in the Chicago suburb of Tinley Park where the 5th annual White Nationalist Economic Summit and Illinois White Nationalist Meet-and-Greet was taking place. The White Nationalists were targeted inside the restaurant and physically attacked, causing several injuries and completely shutting down their meeting. The anti-fascist group was privy to anonymous inside information. This fascist event had been in secret planning for six months. The attendees have attempted to cover up the true intent of the event with mainstream media reports initially reporting the white nationalist conference as a wedding party and then as an Irish heritage meeting. The event was advertised on www.stormfront.org, an established white nationalist fascist internet forum.

 

A law enforcement source told the Tribune several of the victims did have ties to a white supremacist group; Zabrocki said police were still trying to sort out the exact links.

Five people were arrested in connection with the attack, WMAQ-TV reported.

Witness Lauryn Drozd told the station she was attending a wedding shower when the assailants rushed in and started attacking people.

“They had their hoods up, long sweatshirts on. I mean, you didn’t see any — I didn’t see hair color or anything,” she said. “Everybody was just screaming. They weren’t saying certain things or anything like that. There was so much going on you couldn’t hear everybody talking.”

A long-time waitress, who declined to give her name, described the incident to the Tribune as “the scariest frickin’ day of my life.”

Restaurant owner Mike Winston told the newspaper the victim group had made a reservation for an Irish heritage group, but the waitress said she thought it was odd that none of them seemed to know each other or speak with an Irish accent.

One employee of the restaurant told the Tinley Park Patch “tables were being thrown and chairs were broken.”

“Then they were gone. They flashed in and out. They had people waiting for them outside,” the employee said.

Breitbart’s Dan Riehl reported Sunday that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the federal district and bankruptcy courts in nine Western states and two Pacific island territories, and associated lawyers and court staff are due to gather at the luxurious Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa between August 13 – 16, 2012 for an annual judicial conference to the tune of approximately one million taxpayer dollars.

(Related: A Mind Reader, a Clown, and a $75,000 ‘Team Building’ Exercise: Federal Agency Head Steps Down After Lavish Training Conference)

Riehl explains:

From tennis courts to the caddy shack and luau experience, justice will be served in a manner many Americans never get to experience. Breitbart News has reviewed a letter from the offices of the Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, Senator Jeff Sessions, and the offices of Senator Chuck Grassley, the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, with several detailed questions they want answered by the Ninth District.

The letter cites the 2010 version of the Ninth Circuit’s annual judicial conference that cost taxpayers over $657,000 in travel costs alone, along with $860,000 in combined travel costs for the Ninth Circuit’s 2008 and 2009 annual conferences in Monterey, California and Sun Valley, Idaho, respectively.  It also provides evidence of the Ninth Circuit’s awareness of the Government’s budget challenges in the face of a still suffering Obama economy, going on to challenge why the Ninth Circuit seems determined to go on spending large amounts of money on plush conferences, when a more prudent approach could provide the same value for professional purposes. [Emphasis added]

He continues:

The Ninth District is considered by many to be the most liberal of all U.S. Court Districts, with 64% of sitting judges having been appointed by Democrats–the highest of all the districts. Many also consider the district as having the highest rate of being overturned by the Supreme Court. Research by Breitbart News suggests other districts are making efforts to cut back, while the Ninth District appears to have maintained a Party on, dude! attitude when it comes to putting on its judicial conferences.

As in past years, the Ninth District seems content to leave taxpayers on the hook for whisking many judges and aligned judicial professionals off to an exclusive destination, so that they might also enjoy “yoga, surfing lessons, stand up paddle board lessons, Zumba (a Latin-inspired dance program), a tennis tournament, a day trip and tour of Upcountry Maui, a Gemini Catamaran snorkle trip, and an activity called ‘The Aloha Experience.’” [Emphasis added]

The website for the conference assures taxpayers that their funds are not being used for “recreational or sporting” activities, but what of everything else?  Round-trip airfare to Hawaii, luxury hotels, or (maybe) wine in a jacuzzi bathtub?

The Eighth Circuit, meanwhile, is reportedly meeting in Kansas City for their conference, while the Seventh Circuit has teamed up with the District’s Bar Association to hold their event in Chicago.

Riehl summarizes:

They may not always get the law right, given what many view as the Ninth Circuit’s high rate of being overturned, but it appears as though they can do a mean “Zumba” and have some darned good tans, while not exactly starving themselves as many Americans continue to look for work in President Obama’s down economy.

Getting the job done

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In the past, we’ve talked about a lot of the hysteria and hype among environmentalists when it comes to regulation of natural gas drilling in general and fracking in particular. Many of the scientific studies we have cited in response to their claims were commissioned by people with an interest in the industry, such as [...]

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Today is May 20th. On this date in 1873, Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis received a patent for using copper rivets to reinforce blue jeans. Over 100 years later, Tony Stark cited their innovation as a “personal inspiration”. Also on this date in 1899, Jacob German, a cab driver, became the first person in the United States to get a speeding ticket. He was going 12mph, the maniac. The officer who stopped him was almost out of breath when he caught up. On this date in 1993, the final episode of Cheers aired, marking the last time there was a place in America where everybody knows your name. Today is also the birthday of philosopher John Stuart Mill. During his life, he celebrated the occasion by drinking half a pint of shandy of his own free will, usually ending up particularly ill. And finally, today is “Be A Millionaire Day”. You can celebrate by sending me money through Paypal so I can fulfill the day’s purpose. Consider this an Open Thread.

Lockerbie bomber died today | Hot Air “The Lockerbie bomber died in his bed this weekend of cancer almost three years after a sleazy deal with the British government sent him back to Libya”

Who Is Barack Obama? The Question that Won’t Go Away | PJM “It’s a question that has recurred as more and more pieces of the Obama jigsaw puzzle have worked their way loose and exposed little gaps or fissures in the story.”

Obama: Stop Condescending to Women | Campbell Brown “The women I know who are struggling in this economy couldn’t be further from the fictional character of Julia, presented in Mr. Obama’s Web ad, “The Life of Julia,” a silly and embarrassing caricature based on the assumption that women look to government at every meaningful phase of their lives for help.”

NC Teacher Screams At Student: It’S Criminal To Criticize Obama | Big Government “A YouTube video uploaded on Monday afternoon apparently shows a schoolteacher from the Rowan-Salisbury school district in North Carolina informing a student that failing to be respectful of President Obama is a criminal offense.” … this was immediately after she was trashing Romney. – c

#DNC2012 caught breaking “we won’t take corporate donations” pledge | Sister Toldjah “The Democratic Party vowed not to take any corporate donations for this year’s convention in Charlotte, but a special fundraising group is taking corporate dollars for the DNC.”

The Case Against 434 Main Street, Tewksbury, Ma from lineholder.

hypnagogic (hip-nuh-GAH-jik): adjective of, relating to, or occurring in the period of drowsiness immediately preceding sleep. (via Merriam-Webster.com)

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An effort funded by a major left-wing environmentalist group is looking to appeal to conservative and libertarian thinkers through an initiative that proposes center-right solutions to environmental problems. The Meridian Institute’s “Twelve Big Ideas for 2012″ is funded by the … Continue reading →

It seems that the old military song “The Army Goes Rolling Along” may need some revisions. Especially where it says, “We’ll fight with all our might, as the Army keeps rolling along.” That’s because of the military’s new move to … Continue reading →