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I’m going to miss our old friend Alan Grayson who apparently isn’t going to leave the House quietly. Grayson took to the House floor to point out just how much some of the talking heads over at Fox are going to benefit from an extension of the Bush tax cuts. You could say the same thing about the lot of the cable “news” hosts and I’m sure it’s not just going to be some of the ones at Fox that are happy to see their tax rates stay low if those extensions get passed, but I don’t think it ever hurts to have a reminder just how much these bloviators are over-paid to come on the air and pretend that they’ve actually got anything in common with the working people they claim to be in touch with. There are plenty of rich people who care about the working class and our interests, but this group is definitely not among them. The prime time serial liars on Fox and the hate talkers like Limbaugh are definitely in a class of their own with the damage they’ve inflicted on America. Colby Hall at Mediaite took the time to transcribe Grayson’s statements which I’ll share here. Stay away from that site’s comments section unless you want to take a trip into Freeperville. Madam Speaker, we’ve heard endless braying from the Republicans, time after time, demanding an extension of tax cuts for the rich in this country. They tell us that somehow extending tax cuts for the rich will somehow create jobs. When we’ve had tax cuts for the rich for nine years and I haven’t noticed a lot of jobs being created in nine years. They tell us it will boost the economy well I haven’t noticed that happening for nine years either. So you have to wonder why they persist in this mania, this obsession of theirs that we need to have tax cuts for the rich when the economy is flat on its back and unemployment is almost 10%. I think I have the answer. The answer turns out to be very simple. They want tax cuts for the rich because they want a tax cut for themselves. What do I mean by that? Let’s take a look at the people who are really in charge, the ones who actually run the Republican party. Let’s start with this gentleman here, the man with the cigar, Rush Limbaugh. Doesn’t he look happy? According according to Newsweek, he makes $58.7 million a year, and extending the tax cuts means he’ll have another $2.7 million. Mega dittos, Rush, and mega money. Let’s look at the next one. Here’s Glenn Beck, according to Newsweek Glenn Beck makes $33 million a year as a pundit and extending the Bush Tax Cuts means a cool $1.5 million for Glenn bBeck’s ongoing imitation of Howard Beale from Network. Now let’s look at the next one. Sean Hannity. Newsweek says that Sean Hannity, this man of the people makes $22 million a year from his act on Fox. And that means the Bush Tax cuts mean an extra $1 million. $1 million for Sean Hannity. Maybe he can afford some anger management classes. Let’s take a look at the next one. Bill O’Reilly. He makes a modest $20 million a year from his gig on Fox. That means that the Bush tax cuts give him not quite seven figures, nearly $914,000 of extra cash. It’s easy to see why Bill O’Reilly wants to see the Bush tax cuts extended. And I have to say, he’s no pinhead when it comes to that. And Now, Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin has made $14 million this year from cashing in on her fame. In fact, she’s done a better job of turning fame into cash than anyone in American history. $14 million. So she wants the Bush tax cuts extended so she can make an extra cool $638,000. As she was — as she would gesture (shoulder shrug.) And now on to Newt Gingrich, the man who did such a great job of running America in the 1990’s, he wants a second chance in this decade. Newt if you do to us now what you did to us then, we’ll be in trouble. But Newt Gingrich makes $5 million a year from his punditry, he’ll get an extra quarter million dollars a year. An extra quarter million dollars a year from the Bush tax cuts being extended. Now let’s go on to the big cheese. George W. Bush himself. The man who got us into two endless war. The man who brought us to the brink of national bankruptcy. The man who gave us $4 a gallon gasoline. George W. Bush makes a cull $4.2 million a year, according to Newsweek. That means that extending the bush tax cuts for George Bush means an extra $187,000 in his pockets every single year. I have a better idea. Instead of placating these people and letting them spew out onto the airwaves their lies about the Bush tax cut ever revealing the fact that they stand to gain millions, millions of dollars each year from their selfish desire to take advantage of the rest of America, let’s do this. Let’s take that money and create jobs. All that money that the Bush tax cuts are charging us that can create jobs for three million Americans a year. $30,000 job a fair wage for fair work, a dignified wage for dignified work and a way to — a dignified wage for dignified work and a way to help our economy, a better idea than putting money in the pocks of the rich. The problem is not that the poor have too much money, that’s not the problem at all, it’s that they need jobs. Thank you.

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Motorola planning 4G devices for Verizon, 7- and 10-inch tablets early next year

It looks like this CES could be a hot one for Motorola. Can you believe it was only a bit more than a year ago that Motorola introduced the Droid? Now it has a whole lineup of incredibly hot phones, and CES seems like a perfect time for the beating of chests in front of an industry. Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha just went on record during a keynote at the Credit Suisse 2010 Technology Conference, saying Motorola will be entering the tablet space ‘in the near future.’ He also said that he sees both 7-inch and 10-inch tablets as viable sizes — something that seems perfectly logical to us, and might jibe with how we initially heard of Motorola’s “Stingray” tablet as a smaller device , but later heard it was a full 10-incher upgradeable to LTE . This all follow’s on Sanjay’s statement in September that Motorola wouldn’t be joining in on the tablet space until next year, a year which is rapidly approaching. Meanwhile, Sanjay also confirmed that Motorola would have 4G devices “early” next year, which also sounds like a CES hint to us, though it might just be 4G modems and hotspots at the outset. Still, bring it on. Motorola planning 4G devices for Verizon, 7- and 10-inch tablets early next year originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Dec 2010 20:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

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Bone Drug May Help Treat Multiple Myeloma

Adding the intravenous bone drug Zometa to chemotherapy improves survival in patients with the blood cancer multiple myeloma, new research from the U.K. shows.

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What Does a Cookie Cost?

enlarge In this season of peace on earth, goodwill towards men, Santa Claus and other myths, House Republicans are once again showing they’re not only the party protecting the interests of the Have Mores, they’re aggressively the party who would literally take food out of a poor child’s mouth, brazenly blocking legislation to fund school meals for tens of thousands of hungry American kids. The increase would add up to a grand total of six cents per kid. That’s all… six whole cents. And to add insult to injury, Sarah Palin brought cookies to a Pennsylvania school to protest what she was spinning as a nanny state edict banning cookies from school lunches. You can’t even buy a cookie for six cents. Hell, you can’t even make them yourself for that little . So while it doesn’t surprise or even shock me that Republicans could be so clueless and so heartless as to actually deny children food, some of whom are the children of the more than 15 million unemployed Americans and who only ever see a square meal at a school lunch, it does shock and sadden me that there’s not more Democrats pointing out how little money it costs to feed a child. By my calculation, and I’m no math wizard here, just one single Bush tax cut giving one single Republican fat cat a $80,000 bonus would buy… (clicketyclicketyclick on my calculator)… one million children a school lunch, and still have $20,000 left over to buy the human skull off the Skull and Bones Society. Now imagine how many school lunches $700 billion could pay for. The House of Representatives just voted 234 to 188 to permanently extend the Bush tax cuts on incomes up to $250,000, after having blocked an earlier attempt by GOP members from offering their own bill to make the tax cuts permanent for all Americans, including the highest earners, which angered the Speaker-in-waiting John Boehner, who called it ‘ chicken crap .’ Or, to paraphrase Marie Antoinette, if there’s not enough money to feed our kids a cookie, let them eat chicken crap.

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Is this the Google Chrome OS netbook’s keyboard?

It’s just a Chrome OS sorta day, isn’t it? To catch you up here, we told you earlier that Google is planning to announce its own Chrome OS netbook this coming Tuesday, and well, now we’re peering at a supposed picture of that very machine’s keyboard. We don’t know all that much about the rest of the netbook — we’ve heard from multiple sources that it’s powered by an Intel Atom processor — but the image above was taken from an Inventec (as in, the ODM making the netbook) presentation. We’ll call a spade a spade here and say it looks like your average chiclet keyboard, but there are obviously some interesting differences. Over on the left side of the panel you’ll see a “search” key subbing for a Caps Lock key, and up above, the function row has forward / back keys as well as Window, full screen, and “configuration” keys. Wait, but couldn’t this be any old netbook keyboard? Sure it could, we’ve got an exclusive photo of Acer’s Chrome netbook ( that “ZGA” model ) which happens to have the same exact keyboard layout. You can check out the picture of that one after the break, and you’ll see it looks extremely similar to this shot. We should also mention that the tipster that sent this in claims the Google-branded Chrome OS netbook will be announced next Tuesday, but won’t be on sale until December 14. Looks like it’s going to be a very interesting Tuesday morning! Continue reading Is this the Google Chrome OS netbook’s keyboard? Is this the Google Chrome OS netbook’s keyboard? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Dec 2010 19:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

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Turkey: Israel aid no sign of improved ties

Turkey downplays fire aid: Israel must still apologize for flotilla raid, Erdogan says

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The Pope’s Progress

By The Rev. Madison Shockley Now, can millions of Catholics around the world be free to use condoms and worship God? Can thousands of priests and others free their tongues and hands to help fight the scourge of AIDS and not worry about the “evil” of condom use? Related Entries November 22, 2010 Pope Knows Condoms November 19, 2010 Spanish Vote Ad Steamy, ‘Misleading’

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Legal Analyst: The Future for WikiLeaks Founder

Legal pressure increased on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Swedish authorities revised a warrant for his arrest in response to procedural questions from British officials. His lawyer says Assange is in Britain, but hasn’t received a warrant. (Dec. 3)

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PlayStation Phone ‘Zeus Z1′ caught on video again, this time you can actually see it

Wow guys, we just spotted a new video of the PlayStation Phone , codenamed Zeus Z1, and this time we get a long, loving look at the entire device — a refreshing contrast to last time’s blurry tease . In addition to appreciating just how fat this phone is, and just how real it is, you can clearly see a “PlayStation” icon, which should hopefully put to rest any doubts that this phone will actually play PlayStation games. Check out a close-up of the icon after the break. Oh, and by the way, there’s no audio on the video, your computer is not broken. [Thanks, Sha] Continue reading PlayStation Phone ‘Zeus Z1′ caught on video again, this time you can actually see it PlayStation Phone ‘Zeus Z1′ caught on video again, this time you can actually see it originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Dec 2010 18:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

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Fla. Town Disney Built Has Another Violent Death

The owner of a failed security business barricaded himself in his soon-to-be foreclosed home, shot at deputies and then killed himself in a town built by Disney. The standoff came just after the town’s first-ever homicide. (Dec. 3)

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