In this week’s Rasmussen Reports national poll of likely Democratic voters, Sen. Hillary Clinton maintains her double digit lead over her top two rivals for the 2008 Democratic nomination.

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In midwife and author Carol Falaki’s own words “It’s amazing to be able to support the woman in labour and words can’t describe the first time you feel the warm head of a living infant as he emerges into the world the moment before birth.” In her aptly titled new novel, A Modern Birth, Falaki takes her best shot [...]

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I understand Nightline is having a program on Vaccines causing autism. Well, label me skeptical. Mercury in vaccines has been around a long time, yet the “autism” epidemic is much more recent. S The problem with “autism” is that it is a wastebucket diagnosis, covering a syndrome that has become elastic. If you include “Asberger’s [...]

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Yesterday, the BBC showed rioting at gas lines in Iran.    Yes, Iran. One of the major oil producing nations in the world has had to institute gasoline rationing. Why? Two reasons. One, the price of gasoline is artificially kept low by the government. Two: They pump crude oil, but lack refineries to process it [...]

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First of all, Dennis Prager is right that the justice system did terrible things to the Duke lacrosse players. But he goes way too far with rhetoric like this: The rape of a name can be as vicious a crime and as destructive an act as the rape of a body. Sometimes the rape of [...]

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With the Memorial day weekend coming up, there will be picnics galore, and lots of gatherings with traditional sports like three legged races and hot dog eating contests. Ironically, the champion of hot dog eating contests is not a huge American, but a 160 pound Japanese named Takeru Kobayashi . Last year, the 165-pound Kobayashi [...]

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The bipartisan immigration reform bill is so far, surviving a mine field of both Democratic and Republican amendments today, and it looks like the bill will move on to a critical procedure vote on Thursday. The procedural vote requires 60 votes to pass, and if the bill falls short of this number, it will probably be [...]

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Are your professors making you fat? Well, some people believe that overweight professors are poor role models for their students, and are offering a way to fix that. The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center for sports medicine is teaming up with the Point Park University Summer in the City program to offer a class on [...]

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Those who saw the videos of Paris Hilton leaving jail this week may have noticed some peculiarities. After carefully observing her mannerisms as she stepped out into the crowd, one might have asked themselves the question, “Is Paris really 26 years old?!?” And isn’t this a question we too often find ourselves asking of adults [...]

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— OffStumped For All Things Right of Center, Bringing a Right of Centre Reality Check to Indian Politics, News Media Reporting and Opinion now in Hindi अब आप के लिये हिंदी मे. —    Sometimes we read about 12 planets instead of nine earlier The mounting smear campaign against the UPA-Left presidential candidate Pratibha Patil is [...]

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— OffStumped For All Things Right of Center, Bringing a Right of Centre Reality Check to Indian Politics, News Media Reporting and Opinion now in Hindi अब आप के लिये हिंदी मे. —    Maoist insurgents blew up a railway station and disrupted public transport across several Indian states on Wednesday, on the second day of [...]

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Nope, not a new Disney blockbuster, this actually happened. Sky News reports that a 45 year old Florida man went to the emergency room (I wonder how he actually got seen) complaining of a headache so severe that he thought he was having an aneurism only to find out that his wife had shot him. [...]

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Slings & Arrows, a title taken from the infamous Hamlet speech – but I didn’t have to tell you that did I? –  returns to the screen (and now to DVD) with a third season. Like the theatre world that the show is based around, Slings & Arrows intertwines equal parts comedy and tragedy to create [...]

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I know the libbies are making political hay, but I expect the “evil emperor” puppet master to operate with a little more finesse, even if he’s neither evil nor imperial.

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From The Gathering Storm Blog With apologies to Simon & Garfunkel. “Where have you gone, Winston Churchill? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you. Boo Hoo Hoo! What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson? WC has left and gone away.” Winston Churchill was a leading member of what is known today as ‘The Greatest generation’. [...]

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Tom Cruise is currently producing and starring in “Valkyrie,” a film about a 1944 failed plot to kill Adolf Hitler. However, shooting in Germany is being made difficult because of the country’s disapproval of the star’s religious affiliations with the Church of Scientology which is not recognized as an official church there. Because of this, [...]

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After the demise of hand-drawn, animated Disney movies, and the reign of Pixar, the only place you could find non-CGI Disney animated movies was the video store in the release of direct-to-DVD sequels. Original films such as “Cinderella,” “The Little Mermaid,” and “The Lion King” were recycled into inferior continuations of the original films. Still, [...]

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At 2:30 on Monday afternoon, authorities found the bodies of professional wrestler Chris Benoit and his family inside their Fayette County home in Atlanta. Investigators are calling the scene a murder-suicide with Benoit, 40, killing his 43-year- old wife Nancy and seven-year-old son Daniel over the weekend before taking his own life on Monday. No [...]

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[Unhappily there is a good deal of sense to what Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is telling Iraq's visiting president here.  I haven't seen this visit reported in our media, incidentally.  It is covered by the BBC and others: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4457568.stm  Ed Kent] P.S. There is CNN coverage: http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/11/28/iraq.iran/index.html And it looks as though Iran, Syria, and Iraq [...]

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A Reuters report today says that tires made by the Chinese company Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber Co. may not meet US safety specifications and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is forcing a New Jersey importer to recall more than 450,000 tires. The manufacturer denies allegations of defective manufacturing or changes in specifications, although several deaths [...]

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According to a controversial media report, the German Defense Ministry has admitted having accidentally destroyed crucial intelligence service data gathered between the years 1999 and 2003, some of it directly concerning the ongoing Murat Kurnaz case. Additionally, hardworking Bundeswehr IT personnel have also somehow managed to delete all data having the slightest bit to do [...]

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The article below is a typical rant about racism from a Left-leaning Australian newspaper. Typically, it makes no distinction between opinions about race and racism. To do so would deprive the author of much of the warm inner glow of righteousness she got from writing it. But, as any psychologist can tell you, attitudes are [...]

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My Drill Sergeant was taller than my daddy and the blackest person I’d ever met. He spoke with a slight stutter and called everyone “Son.” Although he kicked the crap out of me on a daily basis, Drill Sergeant Dudley saved my life and taught me how to soldier. In the continued tradition of excellence, [...]

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Despicable acts of police brutality appear to have been committed on Go Skateboarding Day by the Hot Springs, Arkansas Police Department. Young skateboarders were choked and knocked around for skateboarding. Video of the incident here. After you watch it, help flood their phone lines and email their police chief with complaints regarding the main policeman [...]

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Dark Reading wrote about a pretty scary flaw in RFID technology this week. Apparently, it’s now possible for corporate spies and even organized retail criminal types to “sniff” RFID chips in a cargo container and use the information to commit a dastardly deed. Apparently, truckers will be particularly vulnerable to being “sniffed” (compromised). Of course, [...]

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I happened to catch a C-Span interview this morning with Irshad Manji: http://www.muslim-refusenik.com/ who has done a book, The Trouble with Islam Today, which recommends a number of reforms (supported with texts from the Koran) in more humane directions, particularly Islam’s treatment of women.  She is a sparky and attractive young woman, columnist for the [...]

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