President Obama defies liberals, defends tax-cut compromise and lashes out at left

President Obama blasted his own party for choosing ideological purity over results Tuesday as he sought to defend the tax-cut deal he negotiated with Republicans.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/132453-obama-defends-tax-cut-compromise-while-lashing-out-at-left

How funny is this? - U.S. to Host World Press Freedom Day in 2011

The United States is pleased to announce that it will host UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Day event in 2011, from May 1 - May 3 in Washington, D.C. UNESCO is the only UN agency with the mandate to promote freedom of expression and its corollary, freedom of the press.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/12/152465.htm

Elizabeth Edwards Dies

Elizabeth Edwards succumbs to cancer, former Presidential candidate, John Edwards, at her side.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/07/elizabeth-edwards-dies-aged-61

Julian Assange: Don't Shoot Messenger for Revealing Uncomfortable Truths

Democratic societies need a strong media and WikiLeaks is part of that media. The media helps keep government honest. WikiLeaks has revealed some hard truths about the Iraq and Afghan wars, and broken stories about corporate corruption.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/wikileaks/dont-shoot-messenger-for-revealing-uncomfortable-truths/story-fn775xjq-1225967241332

YouTube - Worst police dog in the world

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQpu9UoXCeM&feature=related

Euro Collapse 'Possible' Amid Deepening Divisions Over Bail-Out

It is feasible that the euro will not survive the current sovereign debt crisis sweeping Europe, one of the Treasury's leading independent forecasters has said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/8185225/Euro-collapse-possible-amid-deepening-divisions-over-bail-out.html

Obama Makes Deal with Republicans: Will dems follow?

Post mid-term Obama, in a Clintonesque gesture of compromise, sets the tone for the second half. At least the halftime show was Wikileaks.


http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/132309-obama-gop-strike-deal-on-taxes-unemployment

Cosmology: Going Round in Circles

What happened before the beginning of time is—by definition, it might be thought—metaphysics. At least one physicist, though, thinks there is nothing meta about the question at all. Roger Penrose, of Oxford University, believes that the Big Bang in which the visible universe began was not actually the beginning of everything. It was merely the latest example of a series of such bangs that renew reality when it is getting tired out. More importantly, he thinks that the pre-Big Bang past has left an imprint on the present that can be detected and analysed, and that he and a colleague in Armenia have found it.

http://www.economist.com/node/17626874

How to Photograph Models Professionally

http://www.visualnews.com/2010/11/28/how-to-photograph-models

7 Famous Albino Animals

Albino animals face almost insurmountable odds when they're born in the wild. Baby albinos are seen as an oddity within their own species and are more visible to predators. These animals may also be cursed with imperfect vision or other health problems.

 

http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/pets-animals/photos/7-famous-albino-animals/not-like-the-others

Pssst. I heard there were WMD's in Sweden...just in case we need an excuse.

Do governments own the Internet now? Governments across the globe hound Assange for wikileaks. Assange turns to Swiss. The president of the Swiss Pirate Party, which controls the wikileaks.ch Web address, said he was in the process of pointing that domain name to a different server, apparently based in Sweden. The site also was still reachable through the numerical address of its Swedish server.nge.


http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/12/05-3

Bill Maher on President Obama

Bill Maher expressed disappointment and frustration with President Obama. Maher claims Democrats and Obama too weak against Republican unity.

http://newsone.com/nation/newsonestaff2/bill-maher-calls-obama-wussy-wimpy/

2012 Olympics: Alien plot to take over the world?

We knew someone was trying to take over, but we thought it was the Tea Party. Which is more credible?



http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/dec/05/olympic-games-2012-alien-conspiracy-theory

Responsible Representatives or Democratic Dogooders?

Democrats choose for the people not for the politics.
Retiring Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) said that Democrats wisely passed the 2008 financial rescue bill, but it cost them politically.


http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/132021-dem-we-could-have-let-economy-collapse-and-been-in-majority-for-40-years

Nashville Billboards Claim Jesus Will Return May 21, 2011

That's the message on 40 billboards around Nashville, proclaiming May 21, 2011, as the date of the Rapture. Billboards are up in eight other U.S. cities, too.

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20101201/NEWS06/12010350/Nashville-billboards-claim-Jesus-will-return-May-21-2011

Swastika Case Another Race Issue for NM Town

Three friends had just finished their shifts at a McDonald's when prosecutors say they carried out a gruesome attack on a customer: They allegedly shaped a coat hanger into a swastika, placed it on a heated stove and branded the symbol on the arm of the mentally disabled Navajo man.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-29/swastika-case-another-race-issue-for-nm-town.html

Republican Opposition to Extending Unemployment Benefits Makes No Sense

In economic terms, the loss of benefits is not good. There is a cost to having generous or long unemployment benefits: They do not come cheap to the government and do tend to lengthen the time it takes for a worker to find a new job. But given the way the jobs crisis is weighing on the recovery, most economists, save for the most conservative, say the benefits outweigh the costs.

http://www.slate.com/id/2276473

Republicans Block Child Nutrition Bill

Republicans say the nutrition bill is too costly and an example of government overreach.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101201/ap_on_bi_ge/us_congress_school_nutrition

National Portrait Gallery Bows to Censors, Withdraws Wojnarowicz Video on Gay Love

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/30/AR2010113006911.html

Wikileaks Kicked Out of Amazon's Cloud

The Wikileaks website migrated to Amazon's cloud hosting service yesterday after being hit by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. Amazon decided to discontinue serving the controversial website this morning in response to pressure from critics, including prominent members of Congress.

Wikileaks has received significant attention over the past week after publishing thousands of confidential diplomatic cables between the US State Department and embassies around the world. The documents, a portion of which are classified, expose US intelligence gathering efforts and details about sensitive foreign policy issues. The response from various US government officials has ranged from panic to outrage.

http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2010/12/wikileaks-kicked-out-of-amazons-cloud.ars