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Aspiring iPad Killers Crash CES

The iPad was the little tablet that could. Now the rush to crash Apple’s party is on. Here’s a look at some of the upstarts turning heads at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show. Related Entries December 28, 2010 Save Us From Our Devices December 24, 2010 Happy Holidays

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Israel’s Lieberman Says Peace Will Have to Wait

Avigdor Lieberman says it will be “at least a decade” before peace can be negotiated with the Palestinians. Israel’s extremist foreign minister calls for “less international involvement and over-doing and over-speaking” in this interview . Related Entries December 28, 2010 Save Us From Our Devices December 24, 2010 Happy Holidays

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By Ruth Marcus Liberal activists are demanding filibuster reform—now. They should be careful what they wish for. Related Entries January 4, 2011 GOP Gears Up to Take Down Health Care Reform January 4, 2011 Wrong Again, Sen. Graham

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January 4, 1989 – The Gulf Of Sidra And Other Adventures.

enlarge Things were looking up – but not the way he imagined. Click here to view this media On this morning in 1989, news broke of a dogfight over the Gulf of Sidra off the Libyan coast overnight. Two Libyan MIG’s were shot down in what was described by the Defense Department as an “act of self-defense”. Libya was becoming a hot-button topic in recent weeks, between fingers being pointed for complicity in the Lockerbee disaster and reports filtering in of a chemical weapons plant being constructed in the Libyan desert. Gaddafi made furious denials and even the German Chemical manufacturer claimed no knowledge what was going on. All elements George Bush Sr. was going to have to look forward to when he took office in a few days. Other pertinent topics regarded outgoing President Reagan and the incoming Congress, meeting first to confirm Bush’s election and then quietly forgetting about the deficit, putting it off until after the Inauguration. Some mummies were just best left in the closet for now. And so went the news of this particular January 4th day in 1989.

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Lanny Davis Puts Dems to Shame

By Robert Scheer The value of the Davis example, as with the parade of Wall Street hustlers so prominent among the Clintonistas, is that his greed has broken his cover. Related Entries January 4, 2011 GOP Gears Up to Take Down Health Care Reform January 4, 2011 Wrong Again, Sen. Graham

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Anderson Cooper Brings on ‘Left Behind’ Actor Cameron to Discuss Bird and Fish Deaths in Arkansas — Seriously?

Click here to view this media Okay, can anyone explain to me why Anderson Cooper felt the need to bring on actor and Christian evangelist Kirk Cameron who starred in the Left Behind series to discuss the mysterious bird and fish deaths in Arkansas? I mean seriously Anderson… WTF? I’d like to know what the hell happened there as well, but the last person in the world I can think of that I would hope to get some answers from is this guy . I guess someone at CNN thinks we haven’t quite Jesus’d up our “news” enough already with right wing evangelicals getting some face time on their airways. More than 1,000 dead birds fall from sky in Arkansas : BEEBE, Ark. — The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission says more than 1,000 dead black birds have fallen from the sky in Beebe. The agency says its enforcement officers began receiving reports about the dead birds about 11:30 p.m. Friday. Officials say the birds fell over a one-mile area of the city and that no other birds were found outside of that area. Some of the dead birds will be sent for testing to the state Livestock and Poultry Commission lab and the National Wildlife Health Center lab in Madison, Wisconsin. Commission ornithologist Karen Rowe says that similar events have occurred elsewhere. In other cases, she says test results “usually were inconclusive,” although the birds showed physical trauma. She says the flock could have been hit by lightning or high-altitude hail. Transcript via CNN below the fold. COOPER: That’s really terrible. And as if the Arkansas bird drop weren’t freakish enough, it came on the heels of a massive fish kill 125 miles away. Tens of thousands of dead fish washed up on the shores of the Arkansas River near Ozark last Thursday. While wildlife experts say the two events are almost certainly unrelated, it’s certainly an odd coincidence. The Internet, of course, is now buzzing with other theories. Some people are even saying this is — these mass deaths are a sign that the end times are near. Some have cited the “Left Behind” series of books. So we thought we’d talk to actor Kirk Cameron. He’s a born-again Christian. He’s written a lot about his faith. He also starred in the “Left Behind” series of films. I spoke to him earlier. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) COOPER: Kirk, there’s a lot of chatter out there on the Internet about these thousands of birds and fish dying. Some people saying this is a sign of the end of days. You obviously starred in a series of films based on the idea of the “Left Behind” series. When you hear that, what do you think? KIRK CAMERON, ACTOR: Well, I first think that they ought to call a veterinarian, not me. You know, I’m not the religious conspiracy theorist go-to guy particularly. But I think it’s — it’s really kind of silly to try to equate birds falling out of the sky with some time — some kind of an end-times theory. COOPER: But it is interesting the whole notion of end of times and the whole “Left Behind” series which deals with Jesus coming back to take his people to heaven, the believers and nonbelievers. Why do you think there’s such fascination in that and when something like this happens, people kind of turn to those thoughts? CAMERON: Well, it seems to be that people have a real fascination with the mystery of end-time predictions. Of course, people get all excited about Nostradamus prophecies, 2012, and, of course, biblical prophecy has really been a topic of fascination for thousands of years. So I think people are trying to — they love to define codes and signs of future events and see if they can decipher them before anybody else. But birds falling from the sky? That has more to do, I think, with pagan mythology and the way that — and the directions that the birds flew told some of the followers of those legends that the gods were either pleased or displaced with them. But I think people just have a fascination with the religiously mysterious. COOPER: Doing the series which are hugely popular, did it change your faith at all? Did it change the way you thought about the idea of the end times or your reading of the Bible in any way? CAMERON: Well, I’ve been a Christian for about 20 years. And certainly, there are fascinating passages in the Bible talking about the return of Christ. And people are trying to pinpoint those on a — in a chronology of events. But you know what it made me think about, was just the fact that I’m probably going to die of some other cause before this happens. A friend of mine just died yesterday. And what I thought about mostly was the fact that life is short. And I need to be ready whenever it is that God decides to end my life here on earth. And to me, that’s — that’s the key. COOPER: You have a new movie called “Monumental” which is going to be coming out later this year. And it’s interesting because it’s very — it seems very timely. I mean, it’s very concerned about where America is right now and what you see as a problem in America. CAMERON; Well, you know, I have six kids, Anderson, and I am very concerned about their future in our country. And I look at it and I think, man, if America is a ship, it looks a lot like it’s sinking, financially, morally, spiritually. It’s frightening. And it seems that everyone, religiously, in business and in politics, is playing the blame game. And I want answers. So I decided to go on a journey and retrace the escape route of the pilgrims. They left us clues to get us back to the real treasure of America and get the ship righted again. And I’m very excited about what I’ve discovered and I want to unveil it in a documentary this fall called “Monumental.” COOPER: I look forward to it, Kirk. I appreciate you being on. Thank you. CAMERON: Thank you. Great talking with you.

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Schultz’s Hysterical Math: Corporations Donate 1000x More Than Unions To Campaigns

Here at NewsBusters, we've documented Ed Schultz's heroic if unsuccessful struggles with the English language.

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House Democrats Call GOP Health Reform Repeal Vote Sham Theater

Click here to view this media In a press conference earlier today, House Democratic leaders unloaded on House Republicans for their hypocrisy on their effort to repeal health care reform. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) was almost sneering when she made her remarks : Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, addressing reporters at a news conference with other House Democratic leaders Tuesday, called the GOP move “disingenuous” and “nothing but political theater.” “It is a Kabuki dance,” she said. “The fact of the matter is we’re not going to repeal health care. It is not going to happen.” Outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, cited projections from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office noting that the Democrats’ overhaul will lower the federal deficit over the long term. As a result, she argued, a GOP-led health care reform repeal would “do very serious violence to the national debt” — undermining a central Republican pledge of fiscal responsibility. The Republicans “will employ budget gimmicks” and “Enron-type accounting” to make the claim that a repeal of health care reform won’t increase the debt, predicted Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland. “That kind of flim-flam” is what people came to expect of Republicans the last time they ran Congress, he said. Of course it’s theater. They’ve got to play to the base, after all and hold a symbolic vote on a symbolic bill which will never go anywhere. The repeal bill uses the term “job-killing” at least 5 times according to Dave Weigel, and of course, it’s named the “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act”, after all. That title and this little act of foot-stomping on the part of Republicans makes me want to tell them all that it’s nap time in Washington, hand out their pacifiers and blankies and turn out the lights. Who will win the framing war on this one? Will it be the GOP, with their “job-killing” frame, or the Dems with their “Enron-type accounting” frame? GOP has long held that the health reform law is a ‘job-killing’ bill, but never put any statistics up to support that. Also, as DeLauro notes, somewhere between the campaign and the draft of this bill, the word “replace” was forgotten. Repeal, yes. Replace? Not so much.

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By Amy Goodman When it comes to food safety, as with airline safety, mine safety, pick an industry: Regulations save lives. Related Entries January 4, 2011 Obama Signs Big, Pricey Food Bill January 4, 2011 GOP Gears Up to Take Down Health Care Reform

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CNN’s Spitzer: Mitt Romney is ‘Very Conservative’?

CNN's Eliot Spitzer on Monday's Parker-Spitzer bizarrely labeled former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney “very conservative” on Monday's Parker-Spitzer as he cited the prominent Republican's support for legislation similar to ObamaCare: “I think it was interesting…that Governor Romney, a very conservative Republican , embraced the notion of the individual mandate as a governor” (audio available here ). Spitzer and co-host Kathleen Parker brought on Congressman-Elect David Schweikert just before the bottom of the 8 pm Eastern hour to discuss congressional Republicans' aim to pass a repeal of ObamaCare during the upcoming session. During most of the interview, the former Democratic governor of New York pressed the Arizona Republican about the individual mandate. Midway through the segment, the CNN host asked, “But wasn't the idea behind the individual mandate basically saying to people who do not buy insurance, since you're going to get the care, we're going to charge you something so that when you get it…you've paid for it. Isn't- is that a notion you think is fair at its root?” [ Video embedded below the page break ] read more

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