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President Lyndon B. Johnson orders trousers, uses the word "bunghole"

[Video Link] Proud moments in internet history: today’s episode of “Put This On,” a haberdashtastic podcast by Jesse Thorn and friends about dressing like an adult, in which a former United States president is heard using the word “bunghole.”… Broadcasting platform : Vimeo Source : Boing Boing Discovery Date : 17/01/2011 18:57 Number of articles : 7

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LG Optimus 2X 1080p video surfaces, captures a slow day at the docks

Since we reported that the Tegra 2-based LG Optimus 2X was slated to hit Korea and Europe this month, we’ve been dying to check out its 1080p video recording capability. Lucky for us, someone in Greece has uploaded a video to YouTube that was apparently recorded on the smartphone, and the results, well, decide for yourself. While we’re impressed by the video quality (digital zoom excepted) the subject matter leaves something to be desired: a shaky camera slowly pans a port full of docked fishing boats. Sure, we’d like to see some more action, but this sample still has us excited about getting our hands on our very own Optimus 2X. HD video after the jump. Continue reading LG Optimus 2X 1080p video surfaces, captures a slow day at the docks LG Optimus 2X 1080p video surfaces, captures a slow day at the docks originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Jan 2011 13:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

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It’s time for the media to end its Palin infatuation—and for Sarah Palin to end her media obsession. The need for a divorce was never more clear than last week, when controversy bubbled up over Palin’s “crosshairs” map and her subsequent “blood libel” speech, writes Ross Douthat for the…

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Canada Restricts Phthalates in Kids’ Toys

Sam Suds- the Movie Phthalates are a plasticizer for vinyl or PVC; it is not chemically bound but mixed in, so it can leach out easily. It has been linked to hormonal changes, genital abnormalities, early puberty and even claims of reduced penis size. It has been banned for teethers and pacifiers for years in Canada, and President Bush ordered controls on it in the States (over the objections of Exxon and the American Chemistry Council, of course.) Now Canada has extended the ban, to any … Read the full story on TreeHugger

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On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, it’s fitting to announce that the civil rights leader himself was voted the most influential black American leader. TheGrio asked 25 academics, artists, and activists to rank a list of 170 black leaders, and the website calculated the top 25: Martin Luther King, Jr….

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Watch Natalie Portman’s Golden Globes Giggle on Loop

The “Hey, I Got Laid” laugh will surely be referenced a few times between now and the Oscars, so best to familiarize yourself. Just to be informed, of course. [ Best Week Ever ] Read more posts by Amanda Dobbins Filed Under: clickables , golden globes , laughing , natalie portman , tv Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : Vulture Discovery Date : 17/01/2011 18:24 Number of articles : 7

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CBS’s Erica Hill on Reagan: ‘Could He Have Had Dementia’ While in Office?

On Monday's CBS Early Show, after reporting claims from Ron Reagan Jr. that President Ronald Reagan may have had Alzheimer's Disease while in office, co-host Erica Hill asked other son Michael Reagan about those accusations: “And your brother has said this is just his own feeling…. Could it be possible there may have been something else? Could he [President Reagan] have had dementia?” Michael rejected the notion: “No, he didn't have dementia. Look what he accomplished in the last four years of his presidency. Reykjavik, START agreements, all the things he accomplished. The speech at the Berlin Wall in 1987 on June 12th. Look what he accomplished in those last four years. Someone with dementia does not accomplish all of those things.” He went on to say of his brother: “…we don't even know in the family if Ron voted for his father back in 1981 or in 1984 when he ran for President.” Hill began the exclusive interview with Michael by quoting a statement he made in response to Ron Jr.: “…you responded on Twitter saying – or tweeting, I should say, 'My brother was an embarrassment to his father – [coughs] pardon me – when he was alive, and today he became an embarrassment to his mother.'” She then observed: “There's no love lost between the two of you. Pretty strong statement, though.” Reagan replied: Well, it needed to be a strong statement because the reality is, all these years I've listened to people like Bill Maher an other people on the Left who have inferred that my father had Alzheimer's when he was President of the United States to somehow discount the great job my father did as president. So now, for one of his sons to come out and, in fact, say, 'Yeah, he might have had Alzheimer's or he had Alzheimer's during that time,' just gives credence to people like Bill Maher and others. And it absolutely offends me that somebody would say that when there's no evidence anywhere on the planet to back it up. Despite that response, Hill went on to tout how Jon Jr. “doesn't think that it would take away from your father's legacy at all if, in fact, that had been the case. You seem to differ on that. You feel that it would have an effect on his legacy.” She then played doctor and asked if President Reagan could have at least had “dementia” while in the White House. Michael reacted to a particular comment from his brother, who claimed their father's performance in a 1984 debate with Walter Mondale was evidence of Alzheimer's: “This is the first time I've heard he [Ron Jr.] even watched the debate with Mondale…. He might have voted for Mondale….my father did not have dementia. The fact is he was overloaded with facts and figures, everybody said that at the time. The next debate, he took Mondale to the cleaners on that one. And the rest is history. He ran – he won the biggest election in the history of mankind, when he won in 1984.” In her last question to Michael, Hill questioned current political figures quoting President Reagan: “He is quoted liberally at this point by people, Sarah Palin, just most recently as part of her statement in response to the Arizona shootings, brought up some of his words. When you hear other people quoting your dad, do you think – how do you think he would feel about it? And do you think that he would always agree with the context in which he's being used?” Here is a full transcript of the January 17 segment: 7:00AM ET TEASE: ERICA HILL: Reagan family feud. In a controversial new book, Ron Reagan claims his father had Alzheimer's while still in the Oval Office. His brother Michael, though, says that's nonsense and calls him an embarrassment to the family. We'll speak with Michael Reagan in an exclusive live studio interview. 7:09AM ET SEGMENT: ERICA HILL: A feud has broken out among the family of former President Ronald Reagan, who would have turned 100 next month. To mark that occasion, both his sons, Ron Jr. and Michael have written books. But each has a very different take on their father's legacy, and also on his health while still in office. CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante has more. BILL PLANTE: In his new book, 'My Father at 100,' Ron Reagan, the youngest son of former President Ronald Reagan, claims his father exhibited signs of Alzheimer's three years into his first term. Long before doctors diagnosed Mr. Reagan with the memory-robbing disease, 5 years after he left office. [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Reagan Family Feud; Ron Jr. Claims Dad Had Alzheimer's In Office] RON REAGAN: Knowing what we know now about the nature of Alzheimer's disease, we know that decades ahead of, you know, symptoms arriving, changes are happening in the brain. RONALD REAGAN: But in this great society of ours- PLANTE: Ron Reagan says he was alarmed by his father's performance in the 1984 presidential debate with Democratic challenger Walter Mondale. RONALD REAGAN: The system is still where it was with regard to – the- PLANTE: Reagan writes of that day, 'My heart sank as he floundered his way through his responses, fumbling with his notes, uncharacteristically lost for words.' Nancy Reagan has not publicly commented on the claim made by her son. But the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, which has ties to the former First Lady, issued a statement saying, 'Alzheimer's did not appear until well after President Reagan left the White House.' Bill Plante, CBS News, the White House. HILL: And joining us now exclusively in the studio this morning is President Reagan's elder son Michael, who's author of 'The New Reagan Revolution: How Ronald Reagan's Principles Can Restore America's Greatness.' That book will be released tomorrow. Good to have you with us this morning. MICHAEL REAGAN: Good to be here, thank you. HILL: So we just heard in Bill's piece, we heard what your brother Ron is claiming. And I know as soon as you heard that you responded on Twitter saying – or tweeting, I should say, 'My brother was an embarrassment to his father – [coughs] pardon me – when he was alive, and today he became an embarrassment to his mother.' There's no love lost between the two of you. Pretty strong statement, though. [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Reagan Family Feud; Michael Reagan Calls Ron Jr. An 'Embarrassment'] REAGAN: Well, it needed to be a strong statement because the reality is, all these years I've listened to people like Bill Maher an other people on the Left who have inferred that my father had Alzheimer's when he was President of the United States to somehow discount the great job my father did as president. So now, for one of his sons to come out and, in fact, say, 'Yeah, he might have had Alzheimer's or he had Alzheimer's during that time,' just gives credence to people like Bill Maher and others. And it absolutely offends me that somebody would say that when there's no evidence anywhere on the planet to back it up. HILL: And your brother has said this is just his own feeling. You know, no one else is saying it to him. He also doesn't think that it would take away from your father's legacy at all if, in fact, that had been the case. You seem to differ on that. You feel that it would have an effect on his legacy. Could it be possible there may have been something else? Could he have had dementia? REAGAN: No, he didn't have dementia. Look what he accomplished in the last four years of his presidency. Reykjavik, START agreements, all the things he accomplished. The speech at the Berlin Wall in 1987 on June 12th. Look what he accomplished in those last four years. Someone with dementia does not accomplish all of those things. And it's interesting that Ron says this because we don't even know in the family if Ron voted for his father back in 1981 or in 1984 when he ran for President of the United States of America. This is the first time I've heard he even watched the debate with Mondale. HILL: Well, and you were sort of shaking your head during that, as he referenced that debate, saying – because he talks about- REAGAN: He might have voted for Mondale. HILL: But would that have any effect on whether or not your father- REAGAN: I don't know. I have no idea. But my father did not have dementia. The fact is he was overloaded with facts and figures, everybody said that at the time. The next debate, he took Mondale to the cleaners on that one. And the rest is history. He ran – he won the biggest election in the history of mankind, when he won in 1984. HILL: Your father comes up so often in American politics. He is quoted liberally at this point by people, Sarah Palin, just most recently as part of her statement in response to the Arizona shootings, brought up some of his words. When you hear other people quoting your dad, do you think – how do you think he would feel about it? And do you think that he would always agree with the context in which he's being used? REAGAN: My father was always amazed that people would bring up his name. You know, He was the boy scout in the family. I write in my own book, 'The New Reagan Revolution,' the fact that my father thought, or we thought in the family that he was going for his eagle scout badge running for President of the United States of America. But it's not only Sarah Palin. Alec Baldwin, who I work out in the gym with when we're in California – and I write this in the book – I walk out of the gym one day, I say, 'Alec – Mr. Baldwin, my name is Mike Reagan, Jane Wyman's my mother.' And he looks at me, and I say, 'Well, I felt if I said Ronald Reagan was my dad you may deck me.' And he says 'Oh, you're the only one who can say that. I said, 'You're absolutely right.' And I said, 'I just want to tell you how much I enjoy 30 Rock and all the things you do, I enjoy your acting.' And he says, 'Let me tell you something and I want you to tell your family.' I said 'What's that?' 'I miss your father.' I said, 'You miss my father?' He says, 'Yes. You know, I bleed liberal blue, but the reality of it is, I just realized lately how much I miss him. And I miss him because your father had a good soul. And what the world is missing is that good soul.' So it's not just Sarah Palin, as I write in my book. People like Alec Baldwin, who never liked my father, who understood the great soul my father had. HILL: And there are some more of those stories in your book. REAGAN: Absolutely. HILL: Michael Reagan, thanks for being with us this morning. REAGAN: Thank you. — Kyle Drennen is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here.

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More details emerge on Apple’s A5 chip for upcoming iPad 2 and iPhone 5

So, AppleInsider has some new info on Apple’s successor to the A4, which we were talking up last week , and our sources say it’s spot on. Specifically, AI claims that Apple is moving to dual-core SGX543 graphics, up from the A4′s single SGX535 GPU (also known as the PowerVR 535 ). What’s particularly great about this move is that the graphical power improvement is rated at around 4X the current generation — which makes a true 4X resolution iPad “Retina Display” upgrade seem much more of a possibility. We’re also starting to see 1080p HDMI video output as a “default” spec in this year’s generation of devices, so there’s no reason Apple will want to be left out — particularly in the Apple TV — and these dual graphics cores could handle that easily. The same cast of A4 characters are to credit for this new A5 generation, including the Apple-owned Intrinsity and PA Semi , while Samsung will again do the production duties. But details aside, we’re just excited to play around with all this new horsepower when it hits — apparently the PSP 2 is rumored to use the same graphics architecture with even more cores. Isn’t Moore’s law a grand thing? More details emerge on Apple’s A5 chip for upcoming iPad 2 and iPhone 5 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Jan 2011 13:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

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Click here for Part 2. Yes, Martin Luther King Jr. saw war as the enemy of the poor . Yet this military attorney has convinced himself that Dr. King would have approved of our invasions and wars against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan: An Obama administration official said that nonviolent icon Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would “understand” and “recognize” the need for the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan if he were alive today. In a speech commemorating the late hero days before Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Monday, the Department of Defense’s general counsel Jeh C. Johnson imputed highly questionable views to the civil rights leader. “I believe that if Dr. King were alive today, he would recognize that we live in a complicated world, and that our nation’s military should not and cannot lay down its arms and leave the American people vulnerable to terrorist attack, ” Johnson said. Yes, this Dr. King. From April 4th, 1967, his famous “Beyond Vietnam” speech: Since I am a preacher by trade, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor — both black and white — through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such. Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would never live on the same block in Detroit. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor. My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettoes of the North over the last three years — especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked — and rightly so — what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent. For those who ask the question, “Aren’t you a civil rights leader?” and thereby mean to exclude me from the movement for peace, I have this further answer. In 1957 when a group of us formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, we chose as our motto: “To save the soul of America.” We were convinced that we could not limit our vision to certain rights for black people, but instead affirmed the conviction that America would never be free or saved from itself unless the descendants of its slaves were loosed completely from the shackles they still wear. In a way we were agreeing with Langston Hughes, that black bard of Harlem, who had written earlier: O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath– America will be !

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Oprah Winfrey has always been a sort of contradiction: A person who touts “the betterment of the species,” yet frequently features guests like, well, Jenny McCarthy; a person who is interested in “spirituality and personal growth,” yet connects with her audience through very, very expensive gifts. Never has this inconsistency…

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