Why dieting makes you FAT: Research shows trying to lose weight alters your brain and hormones so you're doomed to pile it on again

Michelle Underwood knows only too well the agony of failed diets. The 36-year-old mother-of-three from Woking, Surrey, has seen her weight yo-yo from 11st to 19st repeatedly over the past decade, as a succession of diets initially worked, then failed spectacularly — leaving her heavier and more desperate than ever.
Michelle blames herself for her serial dieting failures, saying she lacks willpower and has an appetite for the wrong food.
Last week saw a high-profile example of this common problem, when broadcaster Jenni Murray revealed in the Mail how she has piled back on the 5st she lost last year on the controversial Dukan diet.


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April 25, 2012 Rural kids, parents angry about Labor Dept. rule banning farm chores

    A proposal from the Obama administration to prevent children from doing farm chores has drawn plenty of criticism from rural-district members of Congress. But now it’s attracting barbs from farm kids themselves.
The Department of Labor is poised to put the finishing touches on a rule that would apply child-labor laws to children working on family farms, prohibiting them from performing a list of jobs on their own families’ land.
Under the rules, children under 18 could no longer work “in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials.”


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Mia Love: black, conservative, Mormon, GOP House candidate from Utah

 Amid the crowded field of House candidates across the country in 2012, expect to hear a lot about Mia Love, a Republican who is an African American and a Mormon and who  on Saturday defeated a handful of rivals to clinch the party nomination in the campaign for Utah's fourth congressional district. Love is preparing to face incumbent Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson. Victory in November would make her the first black Republican congresswoman in history.
A Brooklyn-born Mormon convert, Love is a marathon-running mother of three and the daughter of Haitian immigrants who came to the United States with $10 in their pockets, she says. Her mother cleaned houses and worked as a nurse at a retirement home while her father worked for a painting company, toiled as a janitor at a Catholic school and drove a school bus to support their growing family.
"I am a product of that hard work," she said in an interview with Yahoo News, "a product of the American dream."



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Democrats to intercept Supreme Court ruling on immigration

The Supreme Court hears arguments Wednesday over Arizona’s immigration-crackdown law, but Democrats are already preparing for a potential loss by saying they’ll try to pass legislation stripping states of the power to enact their own immigration rules.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said his legislation would establish federal primacy in immigration by blocking states from taking any action. That would not only preclude state law enforcement efforts like the Arizona model now before the court, but also would overturn a Supreme Court ruling last year that upheld a different Arizona law requiring businesses to verify their workers’ legal status.
“I believe it is simply too damaging to our economy and too dangerous to our democracy to have 50 states doing 50 different things with regard to immigration policy,” said Mr. Schumer, chairman of the SenateJudiciary Committee’s immigration subcommittee, as he convened a hearing on Arizona’s crackdown law, known as S.B. 1070.



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Are You a Prepper?

Okay, this is going to be a different one. I am not going to write an article this time around as much as touch upon a subject that has been stewing in my brain for the last year or two. I want and would appreciate your feedback and advice if you would be so kind. We often (gladly) veer into more ethereal realms with politics and religion but I want to just chat a bit about nitty-gritty stuff today. I am just a middle-class guy with a wife and two young kids. I work, she works. We do better than a lot of people (by no means are we the 1% but, as all Americans should, we work hard and strive to be). Pretty much, we are the standard American family.
Because I am growing older and have two young children that will have to cash the checks we have been writing, the future is becoming serious and scary. We, as a nation and world, face a multitude of horrific possible calamities in the coming days/months/years. While the Mayan calendar and the impending 12/21/12 is entertaining to discuss (and I am sure there will be Kool-Aid chugging, Nike-wearing Heaven’s Gaters out there as the days countdown), I want to stick to more likely scenarios. Off the top of my head, we could possibly face:

• World War III with China, Russia, or some other regionalized conflict snowballing (North Korea, anyone?)
• The ever-present specter of a Middle East conflict erupting in war, economic turmoil with oil and energy disruptions

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Is America Embracing the 10 Tenets of the Communist Manifesto?

  Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the purported founders of communism, established in the 19th century a government paradigm that transformed Europe and other regions in the eastern hemisphere, adding to an already expansive repertoire of political ideologies. And the seemingly farfetched assertion that communism could someday take control of America seems, quite simply, unfathomable. But is it really that improbable, or furthermore, has it already ensnared certain sectors of society?
Writing for The Blaze, Tiffany Gabbay recently produced a thoughtful exposé entitled "Are We Headed Toward the Constitution or the Communist Manifesto?" that breaks down the 10 tenets of Marx and Engels’ infamous 1848 publication and describes how those 10 steps or "planks" to establish communism are slowly being woven into American society. In prefacing her piece, which was published on Saturday, Gabbay quotes the British philosopher Anthony Flew, who exploited Marx’s blatant disregard for the truth:

… the first and only volume of Das Kapital to be published in the lifetime of Marx was, in his own words, to demonstrate that "In proportion as capital accumulates, the lot of the labourer must grow worse. Accumulation of wealth at one pole is at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation at the opposite pole." But by 1867, when that volume was first published, Marx had known for 15 or more years that this thesis was false.

In describing how the Communist Manifesto’'s key tenets stack up against the U.S. Constitution, and society as a whole, Gabbay’s argument should provoke alarm, as the republic founded centuries ago, which was built on the concept of freedom and justice, has been tainted with characteristics of an illegal and despotic political structure.

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Hacking Expert David Chalk Joins Urgent Call to Halt Smart Grid

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Apr 12, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- The vulnerability of the energy industry's new wireless smart grid will inevitably lead to lights out for everyone, according to leading cyber expert David Chalk. In an online interview for an upcoming documentary film entitled 'Take Back Your Power' ( www.ThePowerFilm.org ), Chalk says the entire power grid will be at risk to being taken down by cyber attack, and if installations continue it's only a matter of time.

“We're in a state of crisis,” said Chalk. “The front door is open and there is no lock to be had. There is not a power meter or device on the grid that is protected from hacking - if not already infected - with some sort of trojan horse that can cause the grid to be shut down or completely annihilated.”

“One of the most amazing things that has happened to mankind in the last 100 years is the Internet. It's given us possibility beyond our wildest imagination. But we also know the vulnerabilities that exist inside of it. And then we have the backbone, the power grid that powers our nations. Those two are coming together. And it's the smart meter on your home or business that's now allowing that connectivity.”

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Shredding the Constitution

The U.S. Constitution, which has guided American society for over two centuries, inspiring nations worldwide and serving as a model for governance, is under serious threat today. Ironically, that threat comes from the very individuals charged with protecting the Constitution -- federal, state, and local government officials.

All these public officials take an oath to support the Constitution and to refrain from actions or laws that interfere with individual rights and liberties specified in the Constitution. Yet President Obama and officials all along the way down to local police chiefs are today actively engaged in the daily shredding of the U.S. Constitution.

The Obama administration has expanded its executive branch powers under a comprehensive czar system and myriad executive orders. Meanwhile, Congress quietly passes questionable legislation with the potential to limit personal freedoms -- and U.S. agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), engage in activities that raise serious concerns about constitutional violations. Even local law enforcement officials have become increasingly intrusive and hostile to civil liberties.

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The Right to Bear Arms is a Human Right

At the United Nations, the governments (and the dictatorships) of the world are conspiring to deny their people a means to defend their families and their liberty.

The Small Arms Treaty and the U.N.’s project on International Small Arms Control Standards seek to impose global restrictions on gun ownership that would apply to Americans and the citizens of every country that ratified the agreements. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has pledged to support the treaty, an excuse for governments everywhere to empower themselves and limit their citizens instead of the other way around.

As long as we’re limited to fighting over the Left’s gun control agenda we’re debating on their terms. We have to go on offense.

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White House threatens to veto GOP business tax cut

The White House threatened Tuesday to veto an effort by House Republicans to cut taxes for millions of smaller businesses, calling it an unproductive giveaway to many of the country's most profitable companies.

The warning was issued two days before the GOP-run House is expected to approve the legislation, which Republicans say would kindle job creation. Even without President Barack Obama in the way, passage was expected to be little more than an election-year political statement because the measure is all but sure to die in the Democratic-led Senate.

The veto threat came on the last day for taxpayers to send their income tax returns to the Internal Revenue Service without requesting an extension.

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Why Bush Isn’t Responsible for Today’s Debt Crisis

We get it, the last thing President Obama wants is to be blamed for is the nation’s growing debt—or anything else, actually. But the statute of limitations on blaming President George W. Bush for everything—anything—must have run out by now. On the debt in particular, it’s sort of a hard thing to avoid considering President Obama is the first president in history to preside over four years of deficits in excess of $1 trillion.

But in the time honored tradition of the Obama Administration, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner took to the Sunday talk shows to wrongly lay the blame for the country’s massive debt squarely at the feet of President Bush. Geithner, however, overlooks the truth and ignores just how much deeper in debt President Obama’s failed leadership will leave America in the future.

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Reuters: Obama's 'Green Collar' Jobs Have Been a Bust

A recent lengthy report by Reuters confirms what many conservatives have long known: President Obama's promise to create millions of so-called "green jobs" has been a colossal and expensive failure.

A few highlights from the report:

• Since 2009, the wind industry has lost 10,000 jobs, even as the energy capacity of wind farms has almost doubled. By contrast, the oil and gas industry have created 75,000 jobs since Mr. Obama took office.
• "A $500 million job-training program has so far helped fewer than 20,000 people find work, far short of its goal." The program was so bad that "the Labor Department's inspector general recommended last fall that the agency should return the $327 million that remained unspent." They didn't. And now, the department "remains far short of its goal of placing 80,000 workers into green jobs by 2013."

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Media Matters’ targets revealed: business, wealth, Christianity

When David Brock applied for tax-exempt status for Media Matters for America, he told the IRS exactly who his group would be fighting against: businesses, wealthy Americans and conservative Christians.

“Media Matters for America (MMA) believes that news reporting and analysis by the American media, with its eye on profit margin and preservation of the status quo, has become biased,” read the group’s application, obtained by The Daily Caller, “It is common for news and commentary by the press to present viewpoints that tend to overly promote corporate interests, the rights of the wealthy, and a conservative, Christian-influenced ideology.”

Treasury Department documents — 88 pages that The Daily Caller obtained through a public records request to the IRS — reveal for the first time how the organization described its mission while applying for coveted 501(c)(3) non-profit status.

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‘L Prize’ winning light bulb hits store shelves Sunday

ast month we talked about the company that won the “L Prize” in the 60 watt replacement bulb category. This particular prize, awarded by the Department of Energy, is where taxpayers gave $10 million to the company that could develop a money and energy saving product that, as it turns out, is going to initially sell for around $50 per bulb. Somehow this all saves the taxpaying public money.

The winning bulb will be available on Earth Day:

How much would you pay for an amazing, state-of-the-art light bulb? Shoppers will be asking themselves that very question at Home Depot and other outlets starting Sunday — Earth Day — when the bulb that won a $10 million government contest goes on sale.

The bulb is the most energy-efficient yet, lasts about 20 years and is supposed to give off a pleasing, natural-looking light. But what separates it from the pack most is the price: $60.

That price reflects the cost of the components, especially the top-notch chips, or diodes, that give off the light, and is the price commercial customers will pay. But the manufacturer, Netherlands-based Philips, is discounting it right away to $50 for consumers, and working on deals with electric utilities to discount it even further, by as much as $20 to $30.

This means the bulb will cost anywhere from $20 to $60, depending on where it’s found. Online, consumers will be paying $50 for each bulb, because utilities don’t subsidize online sales.

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Do you pay your fair share in taxes? Even as President Barack Obama pitches the "Buffett rule" to ensure that millionaires pay at least a 30% tax rat

“I’m not gonna make any excuses.” — Barack Obama

The good folks at the RNC have released a video highlighting President Obama’s penchant for offering excuse after excuse rather take responsibility for his policy failures.

Watch the “From ‘Hope’ to Hypocrisy: Excuses, Excuses” video:

This is one more example of Obama saying one thing while doing another or trying to have things both ways. He says he is “not gonna make excuses,” but continues to do so.

As Salena Zito put it in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Obama has blamed the stagnant economy on ATMs, ditches, slurpees, corporate-jet owners, the TEA Party, Republicans, Japan’s earthquake, the Arab spring, the Arab summer, George Bush, and Wall Street (Salena Zito, “Battlegrounds Of Resentment,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review 8/28/11):

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Taxes—Who Really Is Paying Up

Do you pay your fair share in taxes?

Even as President Barack Obama pitches the "Buffett rule" to ensure that millionaires pay at least a 30% tax rate, some commentators are decrying the fact that about half of U.S. taxpayers don't pay any federal income tax.

But our tax system is more complex than any sound bite or simplistic headline can illustrate.

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Americans Making Over $50,000 a Year Paid 93.3 Percent of All Taxes in 2010

mericans making over $50,000 paid most of the federal taxes that were paid in the U.S. in 2010.

According to statistics compiled from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) by the Tax Foundation, those people making above $50,000 had an effective tax rate of 14.1 percent, and carried 93.3 percent of the total tax burden.

In contrast, Americans making less than $50,000 had an effective tax rate of 3.5 percent and their total share of the tax burden was just 6.7 percent.

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The President and His Secretary: A Study in Tax Demagoguery

Barack and Michelle Obama's 2011 federal tax returns have now been released, and, not surprisingly, the event has been utilized by the White House to put forth illogical and disingenuous positions regarding the "unfairness" of the federal income tax system. One item that garnered much press was a statement from White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage, who told ABC News that President Obama's secretary, Anita Decker Breckenridge, "pays a slightly higher rate [than the Obamas' rate] this year on her substantially lower income, which is exactly why we need to reform our tax code and ask the wealthiest to pay their fair share."

What is truly unfair is that Ms. Brundage, in verbalizing her (and the Obama administration's) desire to "reform our tax code and ask the wealthiest to pay their fair share," totally ignores the fact that nearly 50% of all federal tax return filers pay no federal income tax whatsoever. Liberals will respond that many more filers pay "payroll taxes", but in actuality "payroll taxes" is a euphemism for Social Security and Medicare taxes. These are not federal income taxes, but rather are taxing mechanisms used to fund specific entitlement programs. So, in the name of "fairness," the Obama administration wants taxpayers who already pay the vast majority of federal income taxes to pay more, while nothing is being sought from those who currently pay no federal income taxes at all. Incredible.

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Eliminating Boutique Fuel Mandates Would Lower Gas Prices

Having choices in the market is generally a good thing, but only when those choices are the result of demand from consumers. We should have choices because we want choices. When it comes to co-called “boutique fuels” (all the various blends of fuels available at our pumps), most of the choices exist because the government mandates them.

Not surprisingly, when the government tells the market what to sell, consumers end up paying higher prices. Steven Hayward points out that if we ended these mandates for boutique fuels – which are more about manufacturing demand for things like ethanol than environmentalism – we could see some significant reductions in fuel prices:

Quick: How many kinds of gasoline do we use in America? Most people would say three or six: regular unleaded, mid-grade, and premium, along with the ethanol blends of the same that have become nearly universal. The actual number is somewhere above 45, though hard to pin down exactly, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). It might even be closer to 70. Thirty-four states use specially blended gasoline, usually during the summer, which is one reason gasoline prices always rise during the “driving season.”

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Power Grab for Natural Gas – New Executive Order

It was Friday the 13. If you are superstitious, then the new Executive Order issued yesterday, “Supporting Safe and Responsible Development of Unconventional Domestic Natural Gas Resources” must give you pause.

The order states, “While natural gas production is carried out by private firms, and States are the primary regulators of onshore oil and gas activities, the Federal Government has an important role to play by regulating oil and gas activities on public and Indian trust lands, encouraging greater use of natural gas in transportation, supporting research and development aimed at improving the safety of natural gas development and transportation activities, and setting sensible, cost-effective public health and environmental standards to implement Federal law and augment State safeguards.”

Because natural gas produced 25 percent of our energy in 2011, the federal government must control this source of energy in order to deliver on the promise of making gasoline prices rise to $10 per gallon, bankrupt the coal industry, and cause energy prices to skyrocket.

An interagency working group is tasked to “facilitate coordinated Administration policy efforts to support safe and responsible unconventional domestic natural gas development.” This working group bureaucracy will be chaired by the Director of the Domestic Policy Council and has several curious members that have no direct involvement with natural gas production:

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The Real Hilary Rosen Scandal

Hilary Rosen, a Democratic lobbyist and pundit for CNN, found herself caught up in 24-hour news cycle controversy after she made some inflammatory comments about Ann Romney’s work as stay-at-home mom. Rosen has apologized for her off-the-cuff comments. But the entire story may set off a greater, more substantive inquiry about the nature of Rosen’s consulting firm, SKDKnickerbocker, an unregistered lobbying firm that has become one of the biggest names in the influence business by using its ties to President Obama and leaders in Congress.

Predictably, Republicans have noticed that Rosen is a frequent visitor to the White House. While Democrats are arguing that Rosen is not an advisor to the Democratic Party or President Obama’s reelection campaign, then what are the meetings about? Today in the Politico’s “Morning Money,” reporter Ben White flags a deeper concern:

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Mark Steyn: Buying ‘Buffett Rule' makes you a fool

In the end, free societies get the governments they deserve. So, if the American people wish to choose their chief executive on the basis of the "war on women," the Republican theocrats' confiscation of your contraceptives, or whatever other mangy and emaciated rabbit the Great Magician produces from his threadbare topper, they are free to do so, and they will live with the consequences. This week's bit of ham-handed misdirection was "the Buffett Rule," a not-so-disguised capital-gains tax hike designed to ensure that Warren Buffett pays as much tax as his secretary. If the alleged Sage of Omaha is as exercised about this as his public effusions would suggest, I'd be in favor of repealing the prohibition on Bills of Attainder, and the old boy could sleep easy at night. But instead every other American "millionaire" will be subject to the new rule – because, as President Obama said this week, it "will help us close our deficit."

Wow! Who knew it was that easy?

A-hem. According to the Congressional Budget Office (the same nonpartisan bean counters who project that on Obama's current spending proposals the entire U.S. economy will cease to exist in 2027) Obama's Buffett Rule will raise – stand well back – $3.2 billion per year. Or what the United States government currently borrows every 17 hours. So in 514 years it will have raised enough additional revenue to pay off the 2011 federal budget deficit. If you want to mark it on your calendar, 514 years is the year 2526. There's a sporting chance Joe Biden will have retired from public life by then, but other than that I'm not making any bets.

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Clueless About Job Creation

Does President Obama have the foggiest idea how jobs are created in America? There’s not much evidence he does, beyond lip service to the helpfulness of the private sector.

When the president begins a speech these days with praise for free markets, look out! What comes next are proposals for more government intervention in the economy and higher taxes. That’s the recipe, Obama says, to “encourage our long-term economic growth and stabilize our budget.”

He said so in his Republicans-are-Social-Darwinists speech in Washington two weeks ago to newspaper editors. Near the outset, Obama declared: “I know that the true engine of job creation in this country is the private sector, not Washington, which is why I’ve cut taxes for small-business owners 17 times over the last three years.”

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The ‘True’ Unemployment Rate? Try 12%

The official unemployment rate, currently at an unattractive 8.2%, understates the true weakness of the labor market, and regardless of how the government, markets and Main Street interpret the number, the weakness will, in the long run, make itself manifest.

This is the point John Shipman and I made this morning on the Markets Hub (see video below.)

The plain fact of the matter is fewer people, as a percentage of the population, are working today, and more importantly, there are more people who have left the labor force, possibly forever (whether or not it actually is forever is something being hotly contested; see: debate, structural vs. cyclical.)

That means fewer people to contribute to economic growth. Fewer people to pay taxes. Fewer people to help the U.S. earn its way out of a $15 trillion debt hole (if indeed anybody thinks that’s even possible.)

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19 Things That The Talking Heads On Television Are Being Strangely Silent About

If the talking heads on television don't tell us about something that happens, does it make that event any less real? Of course the answer to that question is quite obvious, but unfortunately way too many Americans allow their realities to be defined by what they hear from the mainstream media. Way too many people use phrases such as "if that was true I would have heard about it on television" to deflect conversations that are starting to become uncomfortable. Critical thinking is a skill that is in short supply in America today, and most Americans seem content to let their televisions do their thinking for them. Sadly, the pretty people on television do not spend a lot of time talking about the things that are truly important. Instead, they love to talk about the latest celebrity scandal and they love to divide people into groups and get them fighting with one another. In this day and age, it is absolutely critical that we all learn to think for ourselves. The talking heads on television are concerned with keeping their bosses happy and with keeping the ratings up. Most of them are not really concerned about what happens to you. They just want you to keep watching them so that they can continue to earn their inflated salaries.

Unfortunately, most Americans seem perfectly content with the "infotainment" that they are getting from the major news networks, so major changes to the mainstream media are not likely to happen any time soon.

For those wanting something different, you will have to seek out alternative sources of news (such as this website) that are willing to discuss the truly earth shattering events that are continually taking place all over the globe.

So what are some of the things that the mainstream media has been ignoring?

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39 months of Obama in 231 words

You must have health insurance to be a citizen, but you don’t need proof of citizenship to vote.

Profit is scorned, non-profit revered.

A man is innocent until proven guilty, unless his guilt suits a convenient narrative.

Arming foreign criminals with guns that kill our agents is unworthy of investigation or a staffing change.

Forty million new patients will receive health care without increasing the number of doctors, but your doctor and your health care plan won’t suffer.

The Constitution says whatever the man wearing the flag pin says it says.

We betray our friends’ secret plans, while transmitting comfort to Vladimir.

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Liberals or Conservatives: Who’s Really Close-Minded?

To be “close-minded” is, according to the dictionary, to be “intolerant of the beliefs and opinions of others; stubbornly unreceptive to new ideas.” To be conservative and close-minded, according to popular portrayal, is a redundancy—a package deal that liberals can and do take for granted.

But University of Virginia Professor Jonathan Haidt’s new book The Righteous Mind doesn’t simply suggest that conservatives may not be as close-minded as they are portrayed. It proves that the opposite is the case, that conservatives understand their ideological opposite numbers far better than do liberals.

Haidt’s research asks individuals to answer questionnaires regarding their core moral beliefs—what sorts of values they consider sacred, which they would compromise on, and how much it would take to get them to make those compromises. By themselves, these exercises are interesting. (Try them online and see where you come out.)

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What the Public Knows - In Words and Pictures

Large majorities of the public know that Afghanistan and Pakistan share a border and can identify Hillary Clinton in a photograph as the nation’s secretary of state, according to the Pew Research Center’s latest News IQ survey, which for the first time includes visual questions.

While majorities answer most of the 19 questions correctly, some prove more difficult. About four-in-ten, for example, know that Republicans now hold a majority only in the House of Representatives or can identify the crescent and star from four visual choices as the symbol associated with Islam.

The new survey includes a mixture of standard multiple-choice items as well as questions that use photographs, maps and symbols. It was conducted completely online Sept. 30-Oct. 11, 2011, among a random sample of 1,168 adults by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

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Time to Stop Being Intimidated by the Left

Over the past twenty years, the American left has been largely successful in intimidating much of the conservative movement and creating the impression that leftists are much smarter and thus able to stay one step ahead. Things have evolved to the point where every utterance or action by the current titular leader of the left, Barack Obama, is analyzed and dissected by many conservatives as if they were part and parcel of some grand strategy.

In fact, those on the left, including Barack Obama, are not as intelligent as they perceive themselves to be (and often are perceived to be by others), and oftentimes their actions and words are not part of a master plan, but rather symptomatic of either their personal failings or being mind-numbed robots promoting the left-wing agenda.

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Gas Prices Grow More Under Obama than Carter

Marking the similarities between President Barack Obama's time in office and former president Jimmy Carter's is nothing new. But as of Monday, Obama has hit one more Carter benchmark - both saw gas prices double in their first term of office. [See Where Gas Prices are Spiking the Most]

In fact, while just barely, Obama has seen an even higher gas price increase than Carter dealt with under his administration.

Under the Carter administration, gas prices increased by 103.77 percent. Gas prices since Obama took office have risen by 103.79 percent. No other presidents in recent years have struggled as much with soaring oil prices. Under the Reagan administration, gas prices actually dropped 66 percent. When Bill Clinton was president, gas prices grew by roughly 30 percent, and under both Bush presidencies, gas prices rose by 20 percent. [See pictures of Obama's re-election campaign.]

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Gov. Christie: Nation turning into 'people sitting on a couch waiting for their next government check'

NEW YORK — Gov. Chris Christie today warned an audience of national Republicans that the country is in danger of becoming a "paternalistic entitlement society" where people sit on the couch, "waiting for the next government check."

Christie spoke at a day-long conference on tax policy in New York hosted by former President George W. Bush, who nominated Christie to be U.S. Attorney in 2001.

Christie spent most of his 30-minute speech on New Jersey budget issues, but brought up national policy toward the end. He said it is the least optimistic period he’s ever seen for the nation.

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Myth-spinning greenies alienate the greatest myth-maker of our time

George Lucas is the newest victim of the green religion to recognize that there is no reasoning with religious fanatics intent on saving the world (and you), no matter what you want. The film maker has been trying to build a new movie making facility in Marin County for 25 years, bending over backward to be a good neighbor, dedicating enormous amounts of money to satisfy every demand.

But the green fanatics would have none of it, and have endlessly stymied the development, which would be invisible from the highway, and would provide many high paying jobs and substantial tax revenue. Just last week, they convinced the Marin Country Board of Supervisors to delay the project once again for even more studies.

Peter Fimrite of the San Francisco Chronicle writes:

Filmmaker George Lucas withdrew his plans Tuesday to build a giant mission-style movie-making palace in a pristine meadow in Marin County, blaming protesting neighbors for torpedoing what many believed would be an economic and environmental bonanza for the community.

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NASA rebellion on global warming

The 85th Congress and President Eisenhower set up the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to explore space. Government bureaucrat James Hansen has used his position and NASA’s reputation to advance an unscientific agenda that calls for government restrictions on all major industries and any other human activity in the bane of controlling carbon dioxide production. This junk science has made him a millionaire through income outside the government. He is a rogue government agent who no one seems able to supervise. Now 50 top former and current astronauts and NASA scientists and engineers have had enough. They want this crackpot stopped.

In a letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden that does not — repeat, does not — name James Hansen, 50 astronauts requested that NASA stop pushing global cooling/global warming/climate change. However the letter specifically names the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which James Hansen has headed for 31 years.

The body of the letter, courtesy of No Tricks Zone:

We, the undersigned, respectfully request that NASA and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) refrain from including unproven remarks in public releases and websites. We believe the claims by NASA and GISS, that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated, especially when considering thousands of years of empirical data. With hundreds of well-known climate scientists and tens of thousands of other scientists publicly declaring their disbelief in the catastrophic forecasts, coming particularly from the GISS leadership, it is clear that the science is NOT settled.

The unbridled advocacy of CO₂ being the major cause of climate change is unbecoming of NASA’s history of making an objective assessment of all available scientific data prior to making decisions or public statements.

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Mark Steyn: Wait and see how flexible Obama will be

Cigarettes from the Nile

He talks like a highbrow

But he plays Chicago style..."

I've no idea where President Barack Obama gets his shirts and smokes, but he certainly talks like a highbrow, sufficiently so to persuade presidential historian Michael Beschloss to pronounce him the day after the 2008 election "the smartest president ever." Yet, in the end, he plays Chicago style. You can take the community organizer out of Chicago, but you can't take the Chicago out of the community organizer. Or as the Agence France-Presse headline put it, "Combative Obama Warns Supreme Court On Health Law."

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GAO: Federal Spending Driving ‘Unsustainable’ Debt

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that federal spending will drive the national debt to “unsustainable” levels in the coming decades, fueled by ever-rising health care costs and federal entitlement spending.

“The growing fiscal imbalance is driven on the spending side by rising health care costs and the aging of the population,” the GAO said in its report, The Federal Government’s Long-Term Fiscal Outlook, Spring 2012 Update.

Furthermore, "[d]espite limits on discretionary spending that would bring discretionary spending to levels not seen in recent history, our simulations show total federal spending continuing to exceed revenues and feeding an unsustainable growth in debt," states the report. "The policy actions required to close the fiscal gap are significant, and changing the long-term outlook will likely require difficult decisions about both federal spending and revenue."

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The Obama Thugocracy

With his approval ratings below 50 percent as an election looms, Congress gridlocked over his economy-destroying budget proposal and the prospect that his signature piece of legislation — Obamacare — is likely to get thrown out as unConstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, President Barack Obama and his minions have ratcheted up their tried and true modus operandi: thuggery.

This has long been common practice for Obama. His career was launched from the home of a convicted terrorist. His parents, friends and key influencers were socialists and communists. It is who he is.

Obama was first elected as a U.S. Senator from Illinois only after he and chief operative David Axelrod arranged to have the sealed divorce records of Obama’s opponents unsealed: first Democrat primary opponent Blair Hull’s, then Republican Jack Ryan’s.

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Socialist Obama Envisions A Socialist America

so·cial·ism NOUN: 1. Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.

2. The stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism, in which collective ownership of the economy under the dictatorship of the proletariat has not yet been successfully achieved. (SOURCE)

The definition above clearly describes Obama's agenda for America. Socialism.

Every time those of us who clearly see America's President for what he is and dare to speak out publicly about the dangers to American freedom and liberty Mr. Obama's agenda presents -- we are attacked as ignorant boobs. The attacks themselves are a key part of the way socialism works -- silence those who would warn of the danger socialism presents.

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Islamic Indoctrination in Textbooks

Political Correctness has a double standard when it comes to teaching about religion in public schools. Drop Christianity down the Memory Hole, but give extensive and mostly favorable coverage to Islam.

Even the mainstream media have provided extensive coverage of the steady stream of court cases and ACLU threatening letters aimed at removing all signs of Judeo-Christianity from public schools. Not only must prayer be prohibited, a cross and the Ten Commandments removed or covered up, a valedictorian banned from thanking God for His help, a football coach prohibited from bowing his head during a student-led pre-game prayer, singing of Christmas carols banned, and school calendars required to recognize Winter Holiday instead of Christmas, but there is also the complete omission of the history of the Founding Fathers' public recognition of Christianity.

An organization called ACT for America conducted an analysis of 38 textbooks used in the 6th- through 12th-grades in public schools, and found that since the 1990s, discussions of Islam are taking up more and more pages, while the space devoted to Judaism and Christianity has simultaneously decreased. In 2011, NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) reported that American 12th graders scored lower in History than in any other subject, even lower than in science, math and economics.

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http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/295305

Americans are an enterprising people, and we start churches like we start businesses. (It is not always possible to tell the two apart.) There are more than twice as many distinct religious communities as McDonald’s restaurants in the United States, and eight times as many religious congregations as ZIP codes. The diversity of American creeds and the comity among their adherents is remarkable: The West Texas city in which I was raised was dominated by white Baptists and brown Catholics, but we had everything from staid Methodist congregations to foot-washing Primitive Baptists, holy-rolling Foursquare and Full Gospel churches, a tiny congregation of Latin-loving sedevacantists led by a discalced Franciscan (try that on a sidewalk in Texas in July), neo-Marcionite churches full of people who did not know what a Marcionite is, various expressions of the Seventh-Day Adventist tendency, even a few Mennonites out in the countryside. Everybody thought everybody else was going to perdition, though to the best of my recollection Janet Reno was the only one willing to dispatch anybody to hell from Texas over religious peculiarities.

But the Mormons are a tribe apart.

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Report: Marion Barry: ‘Dirty’ Asian stores

Play

Former District of Columbia mayor Marion Barry referred to “dirty” Asian-owned businesses after winning the city’s Council Ward 8 primary, demanding that “they ought to go,” according to a report.

“We got to do something about these Asians coming in and opening up businesses and dirty shops,” Barry said on Tuesday night, according to video posted by WRC-TV/NBC4. “They ought to go. I’m going to say that right now. But we need African-American businesspeople to be able to take their places, too.”

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Rep. Darrell Issa Investigating Union Political Spending

In recent weeks, Rep. Darrell Issa — chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform — has held hearings regarding unions forcing members to contribute to political causes which they do not support.

Today, Issa issued six letters — addressed to the Federal Election Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, the Alabama Education Association, the National Education Association, the Service Employees International Union, and the United Auto Workers — demanding to know why union members are denied a say in how their dues are spent on political campaigns.

In the letter to UAW, Issa recounts the story of Terry Bowman:

A “proud” UAW Local 898 member testified that he has “heard the stories of hundreds of union workers who are … tired and fed up with the political activities of their union.” Mr. Bowman is also the founder of Union Conservatives, a group that boasts over 1,000 members and exists to “provid[e] liberty to union members who have differing political views than their union leadership.” Indeed, a 2010 survey found that 69 percent of private and public union workers think that union leaders should stop spending union dues on politics, and 66 percent believe that it is unreasonable that such spending can occur without their consent.

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Speculators A Convenient Whipping Boy For Political Acts That Drive Up Oil Prices

Energy Policy: A group of liberal senators once again want to pass a law that would force the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to clamp down on oil speculators. Their ignorance of how markets work is breathtaking.

These senators, led by Vermont socialist Bernie Sanders, claim speculative evildoers control 80% of the oil market, and are to blame for rising gas prices. When lawmakers blame speculators, you can be sure they're covering for their own ineptitude.

Basically, the senators say that since supply is rising, and demand is at its lowest since 1997, the price of oil should be falling — not rising. That means speculators must be stealing billions from consumers.

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Actual Bill Ayers Rant: Why Do ‘Uniformed Military’ Get to Board Planes First?

Bill Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn paid an impromptu visit to Occupy Wall Street in New York City Friday, bestowing their advice to a gaggle of elated protesters. Ayers and Dohrn, former leaders of the violent leftist Weather Underground group, were greeted like rock stars at the camp. A reception, you'll soon hear, they wouldn't want to give the nation's military members.

The couple passed along protesting and anti-military nuggets of wisdom to the youngsters who received it in good spirits. For example, the former confidants to President Obama made sure to mention that America is "a declining power" that must depend on "a militarized 1%."

Dohrn didn't parse words:

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Beatles offspring could form next generation band

Could Beatlemania see a revival through the offspring of the Fab Four?

James McCartney, son of Beatles singer Paul McCartney, said a new generation of The Beatles could be on the horizon, in an interview with the BBC published on its website on Monday.

The 34-year-old musician, who is following his famous father's footsteps into the industry, said that forming a band with fellow Beatles children Sean Lennon (son of John Lennon), Dhani Harrison (son of George Harrison) and Zak and Jason Starkey (Ringo Starr's sons) was not out of the question.

"I don't think it's something that Zak wants to do. Maybe Jason would want to do it. I'd be up for it. Sean seemed to be into it, Dhani seemed to be into it. I'd be happy to do it," said McCartney.

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Provisional Unlawful Presence Waivers of Inadmissibility for Certain Immediate Relatives

On January 9, 2012, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced its intention to change its current process for filing and adjudication of certain applications for waivers of inadmissibility filed in connection with an immediate relative immigrant visa application. USCIS now proposes to amend its regulations to allow certain immediate relatives of U.S. citizens who are physically present in the United States to request provisional unlawful presence waivers under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, as amended (INA or Act), prior to departing from the United States for consular processing of their immigrant visa applications. Currently, such aliens must depart from the United States and request waivers of inadmissibility during the overseas immigrant visa process, often causing U.S. citizens to be separated for extended periods from their immediate relatives who are otherwise eligible for an immigrant visa and admission for lawful permanent residence. Under the proposal, USCIS would grant a provisional unlawful presence waiver that would become fully effective upon the alien's departure from the United States and the U.S. Department of State (DOS) consular officer's determination at the time of the immigrant visa interview that, in light of the approved provisional unlawful presence waiver and other evidence of record, the alien is otherwise admissible to the United States and eligible to receive an immigrant visa.

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H. R. 3590

One Hundred Eleventh Congress

of the

United States of America

A T T H E S E C O N D S E S S I O N

Begun and held at the City of Washington on Tuesday,

the fifth day of January, two thousand and ten

An Act

Entitled The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of

the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.

(a) SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’’.

(b) TABLE OF CONTENTS.—The table of contents of this Act

is as follows:

Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.

TITLE I—QUALITY, AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE FOR ALL AMERICANS

Subtitle A—Immediate Improvements in Health Care Coverage for All Americans

Sec. 1001. Amendments to the Public Health Service Act.

‘‘PART A—INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP MARKET REFORMS

‘‘SUBPART II—IMPROVING COVERAGE

Get the PDF HERE

Holder's Revenge

Reverse discrimination against whites has just begun, according to Attorney General Eric Holder. Now, the exploitation of Trayvon Martin's death has thrown the cycle of racial resentment and favoritism into overdrive.

There has been much poisonous rhetoric following Trayvon Martin's death, and more is sure to come. It is hard to imagine that any other current topic could result in racial madness exceeding that tragedy. Nonetheless, an exceptionally ominous and instructive remark was recently made by Attorney General Eric Holder -- a remark more outlandish than any heard so far in our national conversation about Martin.

Attorney General Holder recently addressed the question of affirmative action, and for how long it would be required. He answered, stunningly, that reverse discrimination has only just begun: "Affirmative action has been an issue since segregation practices," Holder said. "The question is not when does it end, but when does it begin[.] ... When do people of color truly get the benefits to which they are entitled?"

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'Massive Wealth Destruction' Is About to Hit Investors: Faber

Runaway government debts have triggered uncontrolled money printing that in turn will lead to inflation that will decimate portfolios, according to the latest forecast from "Dr. Doom" Marc Faber.

Investors, particularly those in the "well-to-do" category, could lose about half their total wealth in the next few years as the consequences pile up from global government debt problems, Faber, the author of the Gloom Boom & Doom Report, said on CNBC.

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Do you believe that preppers are a few cards short of a full deck? Do you assume that anyone that is "preparing for doomsday" does not have their elevator going all the way to the top floor? Well, you might want to read this first before you make a final decision that all preppers are crazy. The information that you are about to read shook me up a bit when I first looked it over. To be honest, I had no idea how incredibly vulnerable our economic system is to a transportation disruption. I am continually getting emails and comments on my websites asking "how to prepare" for what is coming, so when I came across this information I knew that I had to share it with all of you. Hopefully what you are about to read will motivate you to prepare like never before, and hopefully you will share this information with others.

Originally, I was going to write an article about the rising unemployment in Europe today. Did you know that unemployment in the eurozone is now at a 15 year high? It has risen for 10 months in a row with no end in sight.

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Energy: Obama's Favorite Topic of Deception

The presidency of Richard Nixon was destroyed, and that of Bill Clinton nearly ruined, by scandals that erupted over lies they told. But no president ever before has lied as frequently, as flagrantly or as foolishly as has Barack Obama.

The president was in Cushing, Okla., March 22 to pretend he was for the Keystone XL pipeline he blocked in January, and to feign support for domestic production of oil and natural gas, which his administration hinders in every way it can.

Posing in front of stacks of pipe, Mr. Obama said: "Today, I'm directing my administration to cut through the red tape, break through the bureaucratic hurdles and make this project a priority."

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The U.S. Is Now No. 1— In Corporate Tax Rates

Taxes: As the president complains once again that oil companies are getting unfair tax breaks, the U.S. passes Japan as the leader in business taxes. Workers, investors and entrepreneurs will bear the cost.

On April 1, Japan will cut its corporate tax rate to 36.8% from 39.5%. This includes a 10% surtax that will expire in 2014. As it does, the U.S. will officially have the highest corporate tax rate in the world, with average combined federal and state profit levies of 39.2%. And, no, this is not an April Fools' joke.

The news comes after President Obama once again said oil company profits justified ending $4 billion in "subsidies" and shifting the money to research on clean-energy fuels.

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Regulations Govern Our Lives - Then Send Us The Bill

Richard Terrell's cartoon (more a picture of reality) on March 25, 2012 about the maze of regulations thrown up by the Departments of Interior (DOI) and Energy (DOE), as well as by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), really describes the country in which we currently live.

Congress passes the laws that govern the U.S., but Congress has also authorized the EPA and other federal agencies to help put the laws into effect by creating and enforcing regulations. The list of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) is quite long, encompassing every subject from infants to the aged, from drug abuse to health care. In this list are DOI, DOE, and EPA regulations.

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Stunning: Obamacare creates $17 trillion in unfunded liabilities

This really is stunning, and simply more reason why Obamacare must be pulled out of ground with its roots:

On the Senate floor today, Ranking Member Sessions announced that a new Budget Committee analysis has found that the long-term, unfunded liabilities associated with President Obama’s health care law will reach $17 trillion. The Committee’s analysis is based on the Obama Administration’s own numbers as well as those from the Congressional Budget Office. It is a modest, conservative estimate and yet is still more than double that of Social Security.

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