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Two Los Angeles high school students were wounded when a gun accidentally discharged in their classroom today, say police. A female student was shot in the head (she’s in critical condition) and a male student was hit in the shoulder. Witnesses and authorities say a 15-year-old student had a gun…

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Mark Levin Rips Bill Maher for Saying Founding Fathers Would Have Hated Tea Partiers

Bill Maher on Friday made the indefensible claim that the Founding Fathers if they were alive today would hate members of the Tea Party. On Monday, conservative talk radio host Mark Levin responded to the “stupid, little, white, comedian guy” (partial transcript and commentary follows, audio available here courtesy Right Scoop): (BEGIN AUDIOTAPE) BILL MAHER, HOST HBO'S “REAL TIME”: Now, I want you teabaggers out there to understand one thing: while you idolize the Founding Fathers and dress up like them, and smell like them, I think it’s pretty clear that the Founding Fathers would have hated your guts. And what’s more, you would’ve hated them. They were everything you despise. They studied science, read Plato, hung out in Paris, and thought the Bible was mostly bulls–t. (END AUDIOTAPE) MARK LEVIN: Well, there we have another dumb, short, white guy. “Hung out in Paris.” Well, they hung out in Paris, some of them did. Most of them were farmers and merchants who hung out in the colonies. He’s talking about Jefferson and Franklin and so forth. But what does that have to do with anything? “They read Plato.” Well, actually, they read Plato, but they also read John Locke. How about you, short, stupid, white guy? They read John Locke. They were also influenced by a contemporary, Edmund Burke. They were influenced by the Scottish Enlightenment, that would be Adam Smith among others. What exactly is it about Plato that you like short, stupid, white, comedian Bill Maher? You like “The Republic?” I bet you do. Do you know what’s in “The Republic” short, stupid, white, comedian guy? I don’t think you do. I don’t think you’ve ever read it. I don’t think you’ve ever studied it. All kinds of stuff in “The Republic.” And what did the Founders learn from it? To reject it, because “The Republic” wasn’t a republic at all. It was an incredibly sick society. But why should I go on and on and explain it to you stupid, little, white, comedian guy? Yes, they studied science, but they didn’t worship science. If you read the Declaration if Independence stupid, little, white, comedian guy, you would know that they talk about the divine, and they talk about providence, they talk about the Creator several times. Fact, that’s where they say “unalienable rights” come from, not from some mad scientist in a dark laboratory, but from God. You don’t believe in God, I believe stupid, short, comedian, white guy. And most of them did believe in the Bible. In fact, all of them. Not a single one of them was an atheist. A few were deists, Franklin and Jefferson, but do you know what a deist is stupid, white, little, comedian dope? I don’t think you do. No, I don't think he does either, as NewsBusters has demonstrated over the years how clearly uninformed Maher is on a variety of subjects. Here are some of our favorite examples: George Clooney Exposes Bill Maher’s Ignorant Hatred For Conservatives Andrew Breitbart Nails Bill Maher: You're Not a Libertarian, You're a Socialist Fareed Zakaria Exposes Bill Maher's Complete Ignorance of Politics Bill Maher Says 'F–k You' To Guests Disagreeing With His Religious Views George Will Smacks Down Bill Maher On This Week: Brazil Doesn't Use Oil? Bill Maher Strikes Back at George Will Armed With Falsehoods and Bill Clinton As you can see, Maher is quite used to putting his foot in his mouth only to get corrected by a more knowledgeable individual. The folks at HBO must be so proud.

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With Support from Bill McKibben and Michael Pollan, Campus Food Co-op Project Set to Launch Nationwide

Image: cofed.org Thursday marks a big day for the future of food on college campuses around the country. Bill McKibben , Michael Pollan , and Slow Food USA president Josh Viertel are part of the launch committee that will help the Cooperative Food Empowerment Directive, or CoFed, empower students to establish co-ops stocked with ethically-sourced an… Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Russian Oil Platform Plans Threaten Already Critically Endangered Gray Whales (Again)

An update on the months-old story of oil exploration off the coast of Russia’s Sakhalin Island near feeding grounds of critically endangered Western North Pacific Gray Whales : Sakhalin Energy Investment Company , part owned by Shell, has announced plans to build a major new oil platform in these waters. WWF explains that the construction and operation of the oil platform could potentially disrupt the feeding behavior of these whales and increase the… Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Steve Jobs may be stepping back , but that’s no reason to stop being jazzed about all things Apple: The company snagged a whopping 563 patents last year, some of which are sure to eventually see the light of day. Mashable reports on 10 you should be particularly excited about: iBike…

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Florida county commission says MagicJack skipped out on 911 fees

MagicJack has found itself in more than a few contentious confrontations before, and it looks like it’s now landed in another with the Kanawha County Commission in Florida, where its parent company YMAX Communications is based. It’s alleging that MagicJack has failed to collect 911 fees and in turn pay the funds to the county, which relies on the fees to fund its 911 emergency center — or, as Kanawha County Commission President Kent Carper succintly puts it, “there’s nothing ‘magic’ about Magic Jack.” For it’s part, the MagicJack insists that it is not a “voice-over-Internet” provider and therefore isn’t required to pay 911 fees, and it further adds that it isn’t even able to collect the fees due to the way its product is sold. We’ll just have to wait and see how well that argument holds up when MagicJack faces the state’s Public Service Commission on March 1st — which, incidentally, has already denied MagicJack’s request to dismiss the case. Florida county commission says MagicJack skipped out on 911 fees originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Jan 2011 15:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

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The FCC is giving Comcast, the country’s largest cable company, the green light to take over NBC Universal, home of the NBC television network. The deal is still awaiting Justice Department approval, which is expected later today. With the deal certain to transform the entertainment industry landscape, regulators are attaching…

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Determined to stay in power despite the international sanctions pressing down on him, Laurent Gbagbo is pressuring banks to continue lending to him, and cocoa farmers to pay their export taxes in advance. “He’s looking for $90 million, from here to the end of the month,” said one cocoa businessman….

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FCC Approves Comcast/NBC Universal Merger

enlarge This is really a disaster. The FCC approved the merger of Comcast and NBC on Tuesday. The vote was 4 to 1, with Democratic commissioner Michael Copps casting the dissenting vote. The New York Times reports that the Justice Department, which also has to approve the deal, is expected to do so later on Tuesday. The Wrap quoting the sole dissenter, Michael Copps : The merger passed with votes from two the Democrats and two Republicans on the commission. The sole dissenter was Democratic Commissioner Michael J. Copps, who said in a statement that the transaction was “like no other that has come before this Commission—ever.” “It reaches into virtually every corner of our media and digital landscapes and will affect every citizen in the land,” he said. “It is new media as well as old; it is news and information as well as sports and entertainment; it is distribution as well as content. And it confers too much power in one company’s hands.” Specific conditions of the merger are here . They’re just a drop in the bucket, a nominal fee to pay for 7 years to own all of it, start to finish.

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Raw Video: Protests Ahead of China’s State Visit

Demonstrators demanding freedom for Tibet, protested the arrival of Chinese President Hu Jintao, who is arriving in the US for a state visit beginning on Tuesday. (Jan. 18)

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