The sad truth is Obama doesn't have the character of President Bush.
=== Bible Quote ===
“God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”- John 4:24
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A United Nations report on climate change that has been lambasted for its faulty research is under new attack for rainforest claims that critics say is sloppy science.
Senate Lifts Debt Ceiling
Dem-controlled Senate muscles through plan to allow government to go whopping $1.9 trillion deeper in debt
Report Details Afghan Sex Crisis
Study details rampant homosexual behavior in large Afghan ethnic group — though they seem to be in denial
'Catcher' Author J.D. Salinger Dead
J.D. Salinger dies at 91 in his New Hampshire home, where he lived in self-imposed isolation for decades
Archaeologists Find 1,100-Year-Old Maya Tomb
Mexican archaeologists have found an 1,100-year-old tomb from the twilight of the Maya civilization that they hope may shed light on what happened to the once-glorious culture. Archaeologist Juan Yadeun said the tomb, and ceramics from another culture found in it, may reveal who occupied the Maya site of Tonina in southern Chiapas state after the culture's Classic period began fading. Many experts have pointed to internal warfare between Mayan city states, or environmental degradation, as possible causes of the Maya's downfall starting around A.D. 820.
America's First Spaceport Grows in the Desert
New Mexico's Spaceport America is no longer the stuff of fancy graphics. The scene is now one of bulldozers and other heavy equipment. Loads of asphalt and concrete are being spread. The initial phase of building the rambling complex within remote desert scenery is quickening. One could easily call it "hard hat heaven" for those that have pushed for Spaceport America's development over many years. Spaceport America, billed as the world's first purpose-built commercial spaceport, is taking shape some 30 miles east of Truth or Consequences and 45 miles north of Las Cruces, New Mexico. A critical centerpiece of Spaceport America is putting in place a runway to space. Measuring 10,000 feet long by 200 feet wide that stretch of tarmac is designed to handle horizontal launch space and air operations at the spaceport.
Protesters march to the Australian High Commission in New Delhi chanting anti-Australian slogans and wanting UN help
Missing man now likely homicide
POLICE have just revealed Herman Rockefeller's case is being treated as a homicide.
Pre-teens targeted on new sexy website
A GAME where girls wear lingerie, take the pill and buy orphans has horrified children's groups.
My School website comparisons don't add up
DARGO Primary School is less a school than an abandoned building. Last year it had one student. This year it has none. Yet according to My School, it is statistically similar to privately operated Camberwell Grammar, with 12,055 enrolments in Melbourne's inner east.
Doherty filmmaker dies of overdose
ONE of UK's richest dynasty members has died after being close to rock star Pete Doherty.
Boy, 13, causes retirement home terror
A YOUTH who scared and robbed retirement home residents in a crime spree has been locked up.
Australians are world's worst sinners
AUSTRALIANS are the worst sinners in the world, British researchers have decided.
Hunger-striking man arrested at shops
A HUNGER-striking citizen battling immigration authorities to stay in Australia has been arrested at a local shopping centre.
Man doing dishes struck by lightning
A MAN has been spectacularly struck by a bolt of lightning that came through a kitchen window to hit him as he washed dishes.
Tourists bribe their way out of floods
ABOUT 1500 tourists have fled Peru's Ancient Inca site of Machu Picchu, cut off by floods and landslides since the weekend.
The waste accelerates with Desalinated Water
The controversial Kurnell desalination plant was officially opened yesterday, with Premier Kristina Keneally taking the first sip after pressing the go button. "It's beautiful," Ms Keneally said. "They won't taste the difference. A very refreshing drop." - the difference is in the cost, with a dam less than 1 cent a litre and the desalination plant more than 100 times more expensive .. more than an equivalent bottle of Coke Cola -ed.
=== Journalists Corner ===
Education, Taxes, & Jobs
What Obama's agenda really means for America!
First, Rudy Giuliani reacts to the president's plan on "Hannity"!
Then, powerful insight from Sarah Palin "On the Record"!
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Guest: Mitt Romney
Obama calls for a new jobs bill, but will his strategy to spend billions really pay off?
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Commercial Controversy
Should Tim Tebow's anti-abortion ad be tossed from the Super Bowl? The culture warriors respond!
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Tonight on FBN: Food Police
New restrictions, strict regulations ... even removing your food! John uncovers why they're after what we eat ... and why you should worry!
=== Comments ===
Shades of Hitler in Mahathir’s call for a ‘final victory;’over Jews
Piers Akerman
MALAYSIA’S former premier Mahathir Mohamad has joined those in the tinfoil-hat brigade who believe the US faked the September 11 terrorist attacks as an excuse to wage war on Muslims. His proof? Hollywood’s ability to make films such as the box-office record smasher Avatar. - Yesterday the Australian government released a small amount of information to parents regarding their children’s progress in schools. The Education departments know lots more information they are not releasing to parents. For example, they can profile the performance of classroom teachers to see what they have failed to teach kids. That is quite a useful tool which Gillard won’t let parents have. Even so the education unions do not seem to want even this small amount of information to dribble out. They would prefer it that parents operated solely on rumor.
There is a good reason why Gillard is working to prevent parents from working with schools to improve their children’s education. The reason is related to Mahathir’s ravings. Teachers in NSW teach students that such ravings are true. Some students don’t accept these beliefs, but many are of the disposition of feeling that the issue is too complicated for them.
I raised this issue on several occasions with several officers of the Education Department and have consistently received the same advice. It is valid for students to argue this way and wrong for a teachers to contradict it. So that students may proselytize on the issue and students who don’t share these beliefs are not allowed to say so, or put of competing theory. Some militant teachers agree with the students, and as with Fort Hood, those who know better are helpless.
Soon, the issue of Hamidur Rahman will explode, but that is one issue, and it is related to this issue, and many others. The ALP make for bad teacher supervisors.
While teachers can tell students in NSW that Jews demolished the world trade centre on 9/11, and that they provoked Hitler in WW2, teachers do not have to tell students that why such beliefs are insane. But there is more. In order to justify their existence each year, some teacher support units in the poorest schools work very hard to make sure that year 7 results are poor in literacy and numeracy so as to register higher results down the track. The bonus being they can justify the work achievement of the support unit by showing the support unit’s work has effected positive change in the results of the students, and so justify the continued existence of the unit. Gillard’s school watch will not reveal this, but will celebrate it.
But it gets better. In some of the poorest schools in the state, English teachers do not have to teach English. Anything part of the literacy program is not taught so as to avoid the perception that teachers teach to a test. The result being that matching the results of high achieving numeracy students shows little correlation with their literacy scores. Gillard’s watch hides this from parents, but the education authorities can clearly see this.
Mahathir is not just a Malaysian tragedy, he is a tragedy of the NSW Education Department.
Cynical repliedDD Ball replied
You’re clutching at straws today. This whole school comparison thing is ludicrous and unnecessary. It fails to take into account the IQ levels of students which are the biggest factor. Comparing Hurlstone Agricultural to Ingleburn is daft yet you will be able to do it Statistics can make anything seem good.
Oh and I’m a nationals supporter.
Cynical, the data collected is not mere statistics. Everything I wrote I know to be true as I’m involved with that kind of work. Students at Hurlstone do not collectively have superior IQ to Ingleburn, a person with IQ 130 at Hurlstone and a student with IQ 130 at Ingleburne have similar IQ. The Hurlstone student will have to negotiate different issues in their learning, but also face common prejudice. The curriculum is the same, as is access to drugs and alcohol. Parental neglect is similar. The staff at Hurlstone are no smarter, but they are probably better conditioned at having extra work prepared.
It is easy to infer what has and has not been taught when kids get things right or wrong. At one school I worked at recently I correlated the numeracy with the literacy and found a low correlation, which is outrageous when it is considered that the English faculty took pride in not teaching for the NAPLAN test. Their best students in Math struggled with reading, and that was going to limit their achievement in later years .. even in Math. They did not have a mature reading and writing age and the English faculty wasn’t interested in increasing that age. The alleged aim being to teach higher order thinking skills, not basic skills. But basic skills allow the higher order ones. Seriosuly, the idea of teaching critical thinking is absurd when separated from basic skills. It is like teaching flying aircraft without showing the controls. You clearly do not understand the issues you are wishing to comment on. Keep voting National, Hurlstone needs the help. The ALP will probably use Hamidur Rahman’s issue to close the school after the issue escapes their enclosure.
Carl replied===
Gillard’s strategy is to put State Education under Leftard Federal Control so they can screw with it to effect the policy, that State Labor messed up already. No Credibility for the ALP either State or Federal.
Do we need any more Federal Labor nonsense controlled by the ALP drafting the national curriculum?
Obama's Sorry State of the Union Speech
By Kevin McCullough
President Obama's State of the Union address was an incoherent, disorganized, and most regrettably defiant, mess of a speech.
At roughly 9:48pm EST, in the midst of President Obama's first State of the Union address he begged us to "let him know!"
The president was defending his push for his vision of universal health care when he threw down the challenge in a speech that seemed strangely and wholly disconnected from the experience of the average American family.
As far as expectations for the State of the Union the president's speech was a sizable failure.
By my count President Obama made several significant policy pivots -- for the first time he advocated the use of nuclear power, domestic drilling, clean coal, capital gains tax cuts, spending freezes, and called on Congress to "tighten their belts" just as American families are being forced to do.
Acting on previously published advice from Democratic strategist James Carville, President Obama took the opportunity, by my count at least eight times, to mention Bush administration. He did this not to give President Bush and his team credit for the low unemployment we enjoyed during his eight years in office, or the national security they provided. Instead, he brought up the Bush administration to place blame for the problems that have only grown since President Obama entered the White House.
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The Media Revolution in America
By Bill O'Reilly
Things are changing quickly in the USA. The country is moving to the right, and President Obama may reflect that in his State of the Union address.
Simply put: The president's liberal policies have hurt him.
As "Talking Points" predicted, there will be no public option in any health care reform bill. There will be no cap-and-trade legislation, and the president's War on Terror strategy is now under fire by big-time Democrats.
Senators Jim Webb from Virginia and Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas have sent scorching letters to Attorney General Holder telling him to move Khalid Sheikh Mohammed back to military supervision.
If you still don't believe the country is moving away from liberalism, listen to this.
Last week, the Fox News Channel was the highest-rated cable network in America, beating all the entertainment channels. Sorry SpongeBob; sorry Hannah Montana.
For a news channel to beat entertainment channels is extraordinary. Millions of Americans turned to our Haitian coverage and relied on us to provide an accurate picture of the Massachusetts vote count because they know we will report honestly without titling to the left.
In addition, the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling is out with a brand-new study that asked Americans which TV news organizations they trust.
Ready?
Forty-nine percent of Americans, half the country, trust the Fox News Channel. Just 31 percent of Americans trust ABC News, 35 percent trust NBC News and 32 percent trust CBS News.
That's a rout. By a huge majority, Americans now believe the Fox News Channel is the most honest purveyor of information in the country.
Want more?
The Gallup people say 64 percent of Americans believe the press is doing a fair or poor job of watching the Obama administration. Again, that goes to liberal bias.
It's not that FNC's hard news coverage is unfair to President Obama. It isn't. We report accurately what the president says and does.
On this opinion program, we try to give the president a fair shake and back up our criticisms with facts, but we are in the tank for no one.
Last week while CNN and MSNBC cut short Senator-elect Scott Brown's remarks in Massachusetts, we ran the speeches by Brown and Martha Coakley in their entirety, another example of fairness.
So it is all over. Fox News is the most trusted TV news brand in America by far.
On the political front, the folks gave President Obama and his liberal policies a chance, but now some frustration has set in with the huge spending, a confusing health care bill and chaotic terror policies.
There are big changes going on in the USA, and as the country moves to the right, the president should take notice.
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Lying about Abbott
Andrew Bolt
THE first thing to be said about Tony Abbott’s critics this week is that they are liars.
Take Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
Gillard’s eager ears pricked up when she learnt that Women’s Weekly, in a long profile this week on Abbott, asked the Opposition Leader what he thought of sex before marriage.
Hello, hello, hello.
You see, the Rudd Government has been desperate to exploit anti-Catholic bigotry in this country and paint Abbott as a papist who’d ban abortions if he could and force children to study Bibles. Yes, really - that’s how dishonest and vile its attacks have been.
But Gillard must have been disappointed by what Abbott actually told Women’s Weekly, because I doubt there’s a good father who’d have said much different to his own daughters.
Check for yourself. Here is every last word that Abbott, himself the father of three girls, said: “It (sex before marriage) happens ... I think I would say to my daughters if they were to ask me this question ... it is the greatest gift that you can give someone, the ultimate gift of giving, and don’t give it to someone lightly, that is what I would say.”
Full stop. Read anything to object to?
No. And that’s precisely why Gillard had to lie. (I am of course presuming she actually checked what Abbott said.)
Here now is what Gillard said: “These comments will confirm the worst fears of Australian women about Tony Abbott. Australian women don’t want to be told what to do by Tony Abbott.
“Australian women want to make their own choices and they don’t want to be lectured to by Mr Abbott.”
You see immediately Gillard’s big lie - albeit one of deliberate inference, rather than bald statement.
Abbott had not lectured Australian women generally. As he’d made clear, his was advice he would give only to his own daughters, and only if they asked.
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McGorry praises Rudd for what he deplores
Andrew Bolt
THEY should name an Australian of the Year every month, for all the fun Prof Patrick McGorry is giving.
And not just fun. There’s plenty to learn from his playing of politics this week - not least of which is that an expert isn’t an expert the second he talks about things he’s not expert in.
And here’s another lesson: judge politicians by what they do, not how they seem.
But let’s go back to Australia Day, when McGorry, a Victorian who has undoubtedly done great work in mental health, was named top Australian.
It’s an honour that usually goes to one of four choices: a sportsman, a medical specialist, an Aboriginal or some other hero of the Left, such as climate alarmist Tim Flannery.
McGorry, director of Headspace, Australia’s National Youth Mental Health Foundation, was meant to be this year’s non-controversial medico, but no sooner had he been crowned than he started to play at politics, too, of the fashionable kind.
Our immigration detention centres had to be closed, he declared, because “you could almost describe them as factories for producing mental illness and mental disorders”.
Boat people should live in the community instead, and not - he reportedly added - be kept in detention on Christmas Island.
Left unexamined was just how many thousands more boat people we’d get the second we announced we’d never lock them up. Details, details.
But then came the entertainment. Within 24 hours McGorry rushed back in front of the cameras to offer a grovelling apology.
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Save the planet! Store your garbage in your fridge
Andrew Bolt
Penrith’s green fascists are slashing bin collections to force residents to go green, and suggest a solution to complaints they’ll just stink up houses and spread gastro:
Residents outraged at Penrith Council’s change from weekly to fortnightly collections have been told they can fix the stench, rat and maggot infestations by filling their fridges and freezers with garbage until collection day.===
It’s racist to explain we’re not racist
Andrew Bolt
KEVIN Rudd’s nephew proved my point when he stood outside the Rod Laver Area on Australia Day in his badly sewn Ku Klux Klan outfit.
I mean, if we weren’t so desperate not to seem racist, we might not seem so very ... racist.
That’s not the point Van Thanh Rudd was actually trying to make, of course.
He’s an artist and Marxist activist, and went to the tennis in his KKK outfit - with a “No racist attacks on Indians” sign - to announce that what was really behind all these bashings and killings of Indians was white redneck racism. The legendary Australian sort.
But here’s where he made my point instead. The very day before, two more Indians were bashed in Swanston St.
Their attackers? Once more it was - allegedly - an ethnic gang. An Asian one, in fact, or so police allege.
For Thanh Rudd to protest that such a bashing, of Indians by Asians, is proof of white racism shows exactly the dangerous dishonesty there has been here in discussing race and crime.
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Another Rudd conviction killed off by the polls
Andrew Bolt
Has there been a more poll-driven prime minister? Watch Kevin Rudd’s latest enthusiasm suddenly vanish:
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s enthusiasm for a “big Australia’’ of 35 million people appears to have cooled somewhat …But only three months agao he most certainly did have a view
When asked whether he supported the 35 million forecast, he said: ”I don’t have a view on that to be quite honest‘’.
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Bothered Obama
Andrew Bolt
So how was the State of the Union speech of the embattled Barack Obama received?
Well, one of the Supreme Court justices there, Samuel Alito, shook his head and mouthed “not true”:
Senate majority leader Harry Reid yawns:
Charles Krauthammer scoffs:
And Leftist Chris Matthews says he for once stopped obsessing about Obama’s color, proving, of course, that he didn’t:
So I really don’t think this was a hit.
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Will Rudd bribe the Taliban, too?
Andrew Bolt
Excuse me, but is Kevin Rudd also bribing the Taliban to stop shooting at us? And if so, how much is he promising:
Britain is ready to contribute millions of pounds to a fund to buy off Taleban gunmen who are fighting British troops in southern Afghanistan.Rudyard Kipling described the folly of Danegeld beautifully.
More than 60 delegations, from Colombia to Australia, will gather in Lancaster House this morning to draw up an exit strategy from Afghanistan. Much of it is based on reintegrating the Taleban rank and file, wooing the Taleban leadership and gradually handing security to the Afghan Army and police.
The conference is expected to agree a $500 million (£310 million), five-year fund for President Karzai to “buy off” insurgents who are not ideologically committed to destroying the West.
It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,(Thanks to reader Paul.)
To puff and look important and to say:
“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray,
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say:
“We never pay any one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost,
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!”
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Meteorologists agree: man-made warming isn’t real
Andrew Bolt
What would 121 meteorologists know about the weather, anyway?
Only one in four American Meteorological Society broadcast meteorologists agrees with United Nations claims that humans are primarily responsible for recent global warming, a survey published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society reports.(Thanks to reader Owen.)
The survey results contradict the oft-repeated assertion that a consensus of scientists believes humans are causing a global warming crisis…
The American Meteorological Society (AMS) survey was limited to television weather forecasters who are also meteorologists. A prior survey of all television weather forecasters--including ones without meteorological training--produced a heavy percentage of skeptics. The new survey was designed to determine whether the meteorologists held the same opinion as the broader group of all television weather forecasters.
The survey was conducted by the congressionally funded National Environmental Education Foundation and vetted by an advisory board of climate experts from groups such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Weather Service, and Pew Center for Global Climate Change.
The AMS study found:Only 24 percent of the survey respondents agree with United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assertion, Most of the warming since 1950 is very likely human-induced.
Only 19 percent agree with the claim, Global climate models are reliable in their projection for a warming of the planet.
Only 19 percent agree with the assertion, Global climate models are reliable in their projections for precipitation and drought.
Only 45 percent disagree with Weather Channel cofounder John Colemans strongly worded statement, Global warming is a scam.
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Save the planet! Stink out the homes and spread the gastro
Andrew Bolt
The extremists who now infest local government would rather give you the trots if that’s what it takes to turn you green:
Residents in Penrith are furious after their council cut rubbish collections to once a fortnight. And to make matters worse they have cut the size of their bins at the same time.Why are our green fuhrers so happy to hurt humans to “save” an inanimate planet? Or is it just the power to bully that gives them their kicks? Cutting the sizes of people’s bins is just the kind of vindictiveness that appeals to the inner totalitarian.
Mothers with babies have been forced to store 14 days worth of dirty nappies, while residents have found maggots and some have complained to the local health service…
Penrith took action after the NSW Department of Environment began supporting the cut from weekly to fortnightly services two years ago in a bid to force more people to recycle. So far four councils across NSW have reduced collections and others are set to follow.
But a leading public health expert said thousands of residents were at risk of salmonella and gastro.
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Monckton feels warmth
Andrew Bolt
Reader Ken reports:
Thought you might like to know how Lord Monckton‘s event went in Sydney last night.===
I had a meeting at 3.30pm yesterday, but fortunately my two staffers arrived at the Sheraton on the Park just after 4.00 and bought me a ticket and saved a seat.When I arrived at the hotel about 5.20 there were about 200-300 people outside the hotel. Staff had locked the doors. I was able to get in because my ticket had been left with the concierge.
Another 100 or so people were lined up to buy tickets outside the Grand Ballroom. Inside, the room was full (800 seat capacity) and another 200-300 were standing at the back.
Ian Plimer was the warm up speaker and Alan Jones chaired the event. Lord Monckton was erudite, witty and charismatic. He got a standing ovation.
Odd the media didn’t cover the event.
MAGGOTS FOR GAIA
Tim Blair
Our clean, green future:
Western Sydney residents are being ordered to freeze their garbage for two weeks and store meat and vegetable scraps in “slop buckets” in homes …All of this is due to environmentalist demands that we increase recycling. Meanwhile:
Residents outraged at Penrith Council’s change from weekly to fortnightly collections have been told they can fix the stench, rat and maggot infestations by filling their fridges and freezers with garbage until collection day.
The council is now also threatening that if wrong items are placed in organic and recycling bins three times then people’s bins will be left in the gutter uncollected.
The council which imposed the squalid conditions on residents is having its rubbish collected twice a week from the council chambersSomeone who doesn’t live in the blighted area thinks that reduced rubbish collection is a great idea.
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HONEST KEV’S 35,000,000 QUESTION
Tim Blair
October 2009:
The Federal Government is under pressure to spell out how it plans for Australia to sustain more than 35 million people by 2050 …January 2010:
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says he believes in a “big Australia” and that the population forecast is good news for the country … “I actually believe in a big Australia. I make no apology for that. I actually think it’s good news that our population is growing,” he said.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s enthusiasm for a “big Australia’’ of 35 million people appears to have cooled somewhat …(Via CL, who emails: “Looks like that one didn’t play well in the focus groups.")
When asked whether he supported the 35 million forecast, he said: “I don’t have a view on that to be quite honest‘’.
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LAW BROKEN
Tim Blair
Warmies applaud the breaking of laws for the purpose of highlighting their doomed mission, but suddenly became obsessed over legality following Climategate. They may be interested in the following:
The university at the centre of the climate change row over stolen e-mails broke the law by refusing to hand over its raw data for public scrutiny.They’ll dodge prosecution due to expiry of a six-month time limit. Dodging broader issues isn’t proving so easy.
The University of East Anglia breached the Freedom of Information Act by refusing to comply with requests for data concerning claims by its scientists that man-made emissions were causing global warming.
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HE’LL NEVER GO HUNGRY
Tim Blair
“As Islamists love death and Americans love Coca Cola,” writes James Delingpole, “so I thrive on the hatred of Guardian readers.”
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SILKY PONY UNSPANKED
Tim Blair
While the mother of the boyfriend of former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s daughter is subject to mainstream media scrutiny, a certain other former vice presidential candidate’s far more intriguing activities remain largely unexamined.
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SCHTATE OF THE UNION
Tim Blair
Is anyone in the US sober following Obama’s State of the Union speech? Not if Stephen Green and Jim Treacher had anything to do with it.
UPDATE. President Obama is awesome.
UPDATE II. The silent judgment of Samuel Alito: “Not true.”
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