As scornful as the media were of conservatives last year, they were just as adoring of top liberals, as documented by the MRC's Best Notable Quotables of 2010 . Topping the MRC's annual ” Media Hero Award ,” ABC's World News anchor Diane Sawyer fawned over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after the passage of ObamaCare in March: “All agree she gets credit for locking up this vote, one of the biggest since Medicare in the 1960s. And she’s said to have done it with an epic blend of persuasion, muscle and will, even when half the town said it couldn’t be done….Their indefatigable, unwavering almost 70-year-old Speaker, mother of five, grandmother of seven….[to Pelosi] What do you think your dad and your mom would have said about this moment?” read more
Continue reading …Jawaher Abu-Rahma whose brother also killed during non-violent protests against Bilin separation fence laid to rest day after inhaling tear gas
Continue reading …Queen Elizabeth II Becomes A Great-grandmother- Buckingham Palace said on Thursday that Queen Elizabeth became a great-grandmother for the first time when her grandson Peter Phillips gave birth to a baby girl. Peter Phillips is the only son of the Princess Royal, Princess Anne, and her first husband Mark Phillips. Peter Phillips is married to Queen Elizabeth II Becomes A Great-grandmother is a post from: Daily World Buzz
Continue reading …Would you buy someone's memoir all because you hated the person? That's the reason a Salon political writer gave MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell Friday for why George W. Bush's book is selling better than Bill Clinton's (video follows with transcript and commentary): read more
Continue reading …Spokesman says WikiLeaks report saying Revolutionary Guards chief slapped president during argument over freedom of the press meant to divert attention from ‘kidnapping of General Reza Asghari’
Continue reading …Senator-elect Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire delivered the Republican weekly address, and said the next Congress marks a new chapter for the country and the GOP. (Jan. 1)
Continue reading …You have to watch this video to see how insidiously the Villagers are spreading the narrative: Those Baby Boomers are sucking all the money out of the Treasury because they’re just so damned selfish! And only some of them served in Viet Nam! Watch as Diane Sawyer puts on her Very Serious Face and says the deficit is a big problem. Pay attention to the lies scattered throughout. Dear God, it’s going to be another one of those years: The first baby boomers will turn 65 Jan. 1, beginning a flood of applications for Medicare benefits that experts fear could drain the economy and hold political repercussions for President Obama. The baby boomer generation marked a huge reproductive uptick between 1946 and 1964, when 76 million children were born, creating a higher demand across the nation for schools and consumer products, and an upheaval in popular culture. But this post-World War II generation’s overwhelming demand on the Medicare system could possibly leave future generations with a bigger bill. Medicare currently covers 46 million people, costing the government about $500 billion a year. But when the last of the iconic generation reaches 65 in about 20 years, more than 80 million people will be eligible for Medicare coverage, although the number of working people paying into the program will have decreased from 3.5 per person receiving benefits to 2.3. The increase in the number of people eligible for benefits paired with the rising costs of health care and longer life spans threatens the program’s sustainability. It could force the administration and Congress to come up with a plan to reduce costs, either by cutting benefits or raising taxes. A recent Associated Press-GfK poll found that 61 percent of Americans favored raising taxes in lieu of slashing benefits. The poll included adults in their 20s, who potentially could end up paying more into the system. Fifty-one percent opposed the idea of giving older Americans a fixed payment to use against the cost of private insurance, an option made popular by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. Sixty-three percent opposed raising the age of eligibility.
Continue reading …A team of researchers at the Human Connectome Project (HCP) have been carving up mice brains like Christmas hams to find out how we store memories, personality traits, and skills — the slices they’re making, though, are 29.4 nanometers thick. The end goal is to run these tiny slices under a microscope, create detailed images of the brain, and then stitch them back together, eventually creating a complete map of the mind, or connectome. The team, comprised of scientists at Harvard, UCLA, University of Minnesota, and Washington University, is still a long way from cutting up a human brain, partially due to storage limitations — a picture of a one-millimeter cube of mouse brain uses about a petabyte of memory. A human brain would require millions of petabytes, and an indefinite number of years, causing speculation that the payoff isn’t worth the effort — although, we’re convinced the HCP wallpaper possibilities are totally worth it. Human Connectome Project maps brain’s circuitry, produces super trippy graphics originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 Jan 2011 10:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Photo: Natalie Maynor More and more of us have committed to hitting the farmers’ market each and every week to pick up produce, dairy, bread, meats, etc. But once the farmers’ market ends for the year, then what? Do we switch back over to the grocery store and settle for perfectly round albeit tasteless produce? Not so fast. It seems farmers’ markets across the country are going year round. … Read the full story on TreeHugger
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