by Ted Lipien
Opinia.US Truckee, CA, November 29, 2010 — Leaked secret State Department cables may help to resolve the mystery as to why President Obama chose September 17, 2009 to make his announcement on canceling President Bush’s missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. The announcement pleased the Kremlin, which had been pushing […]

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Teacher of the Year: The Mystery & Legacy of Edwin Barlow is unlike any memoir you will ever read, because unlike every other memoir, Edwin Barlow’s life was an impenetrable secret that took years to uncover.

When Mr. Barlow died, there were no libraries to reveal his taste in literature, neither wife nor relatives to mourn […]

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I am bemused when the elites of both parties are horrified at a woman candidate who overturned their chosen candidate in the primaries.
No surprise about this, after all the Press promises to promote the propaganda, never mind the truth of the matter. From the Atlantic:
Chuck Todd said it first…
“There will be an all out effort […]

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In April, 2008, the press was hailing the brilliance of Barack Obama, and dissing the much more experienced Hillary Clinton for not dropping out of the race, even though the race was close and several primaries were still due to be held.
So, when in early April, stories started percolating on right wing blogs and YOUTUBE […]

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Background: According to a report in the National Review, the ACOG (American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists) originally opposed the procedure
the select ACOG panel “could identify no circumstances under which this procedure . . . would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman.”
But Kagan wrote them a memo instructing […]

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General Mc Chrystal has committed a major breech in protocol when he openly criticized the President and the President’s plans for Afghanistan in an interview in the Rolling Stone.
For the sake of our democracy, such behavior cannot be tolerated.
He needs to be relieved from duty.
Why do I say this?
No, I am not a pacifist, and […]

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In the olden days, we learned in school the folly of King Canute who sat on the seashore and ordered the tide to stop coming in, but all that happened was that he got wet.
The real story
Canute had learned that his flattering courtiers claimed he was “So great, he could command the tides […]

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There are missing folks in the culture of Hollywood and the American news media. One “missing person” are ordinary Hispanics.Another is the ordinary Asian.
Hispanics differ from one another (my Colombian born sons never ate a taco, and spoke Castilian, not Mexican dialect). But Asians differ even more, even those from the same country.
Asians are rarely […]

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One knows American nuns have lost their way when Nancy Pelosi “thanked” American sisters for backing the health care bill, despite the opposition of the American bishops, who were apolitical enough to point out that it funded abortion on demand using taxpayer money. Nancy Pelosi had told the nuns they either had to back the […]

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I almost swallowed my teeth.
The Headline states:
Earth Day Facts: When It Is, How It Began, What to Do
There it was, a large photo heading an article on the NatGeo webpage:
The caption accompanying the photo states:
Ira Einhorn—a leader of nonviolence, drug, and free-love movements in the 1960s—speaks at Philadelphia’s first Earth Day celebration […]

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The right wing is hyperventillating over “Obama’s private army” in the Health Care Bill.
Fox news video HERE.
Usually Judge Napolitano can get into the details of the legal problems, but don’t get your knickers in a knot too soon, because this idea is not new. It used to be called the “US PublicHealthService Commissioned Corps”.
I once […]

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This week’s bad science headline comes from the BBC:
Last supper ‘has been super-sized’, say obesity experts
The food portions depicted in paintings of the Last Supper have grown larger - in line with our own super-sizing of meals, say obesity experts.
Let’s scroll down the article and find where they got their data: they examined 52 paintings […]

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In Psychiatry, there used to be something called a Rorschach test.. where they show you ink blots and ask you what they look like.
The idea is that one would “project” one’s ideas and worries into the object, and you could get an idea what was on their mind.
Sort of the equivalent in religious people seeing […]

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To anyone who still has their children enrolled in public school and/or is not actively involved in what is being taught to them on a daily basis, I introduce you to the result of blindly trusting the public education system with your children for the last 20 years:Eric Greenberg is the author of this wonderful […]

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President Obama, who has overlooked various pork barrel spending projects placed into unrelated bills by the Congress, is reported to have decided to freeze the budget to NASA to prove he can cut the Federal Budget.
To put it bluntly, this means there is no money for the proposed Moon landing under his watch.
“This represents a […]

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The advertising campaigns on our local cable TV is “Malaysia, truly Asia”, suggesting that you can visit there and see all of Asia in a microcosm: The beaches of SEAsia, the foods of India, and the bargains of China, all in one.
Well, last week’s attacks on seven churches just lost them the visits of a […]

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Way back in 2001, letters containing powdered anthrax were sent to a bunch of news reporters and Congressmen, and because the powder was so fine several innocent people, mainly those who worked in the Post Office, died from the infection.
Despite initial worries that it was terrorism, later reports assured the American people that it probably […]

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Those Medieval painters were a bit less puritanical than we moderns: A common motif in paintings was the Madonna Les Latte: the Virgin Mother breastfeeding the baby Jesus.
Back in those days, if a woman didn’t breast feed her baby, it died. Yes, upper class women often would find a “wet nurse” to provide nutrition,  and […]

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I’m not sure what to make of the article in Slate that equates religiosity with niceness, and points out that the atheistic Danes and the Swedes are happier and nicer and have fewer negative social problem than the US which boasts of it’s religiosity.
In his new book, Society Without God, Phil Zuckerman looks at […]

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Sarah Palin is still making headlines, and her book “Going Rogue” is now a best seller.
Much of what I have read about her and the book seems to be viewed through the “inner beltway” mindset, by those who automatically hate those of a different political persuasion. All of these opinions try to calculate how the […]

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Mischievous conservative writer Jonah Goldberg links to a British site that keeps a list of problems caused by Global Warming.
Acne, agricultural land increase, Afghan poppies destroyed, poppies more potent, Africa devastated,  Africa in conflict, African aid threatened, African summer frost, aggressive weeds, Air France crash, air pressure changes,  airport malaria, Agulhas current, Al Qaeda and […]

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There is nothing I enjoy more than reading a book that is described by the publisher and critics as “controversial” or “provocative.”  “The Gentiles, A History of Sri Lanka 1498-1833,” a carefully researched and well written book by Agnes Padmini Thambynayagam is such a book.  As you may have guess by her name, Ms. Thambynayagam […]

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In science, there are all sorts of gossip that tweak the infallibility of scientists.
For example, the discovery of the “big bang” was postponed until they cleaned the antennae of Pigeon poop, and found it was the sky, not the poop, causing the hum of  the big bang.
And Penicillin may have been discovered because of carelessness […]

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Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — Due to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s decision to prolong her stay in the Middle East, her scheduled meeting in Washington with visiting Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski has been cancelled. The announcement of the cancellation was made Tuesday by the State Department spokesman Ian Kelly.

Tomorrow, of course, she has a meeting […]

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Ah, Halloween is here, and the TV channels are full of stories of witches and ghosts and goblins of all sorts.
Most of it is harmless fun: art and literature helps mankind be able to confront the evils around them in a way that strengthens their ability to hope that confronting the more real evils around […]

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TedLipien.com, SAN FRANCISCO — Bill Clinton might have asked what the “enhanced” definition of “to enhance” IS? The U.S. Embassy in Warsaw is busy blaming a Polish translator for mistranslating U.S. Ambassador Lee Feinstein’s TV interview answer about Polish troops in Afghanistan, which caused a diplomatic uproar in Poland. In an interview broadcast last […]

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Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — U.S. media has not yet picked up on the latest diplomatic controversy between Poland and the U.S. But the public disagreement between President Obama’s new ambassador in Warsaw Lee A. Feinstein and the Polish defense minister over plans to send additional Polish troops to Afghanistan is drawing media attention in Poland.

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Ah, a British paper just pooh poohed the British victory at the Battle of Agincourt, saying that Prince Hal was not outnumbered 4 to 1, merely outnumbered 2 to 1.
Actually, the author misses the point, which is that the elite knights of France got slowed down by the mud and were massacred by ordinary British […]

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In “Evolution’s Fatal Flaw”, a carefully researched and well written book, author Lawrence Wood sets out to validate two controversial and often debated claims:  that evolution is the proper explanation for our origins; and that evolution is all about the survival of the species, not as one might suppose, about the survival of the individual.  […]

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President Obama was brought up in Asia, yet he seems clueless about Afghanistan, and of the geopolitical problems in this area.
The press is even worse, preferring the simplistic out of date explanations of the “Afghanistan is Viet Nam” meme, or the “Stop the war” meme, or stressing civilian casualties “reported” by Taliban linked sources without […]

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