More than nine out of 10 Americans celebrate Christmas – even atheists, agnostics or believers in other faiths, according to surveys by LifeWay Research and USA TODAY/Gallup. They might be roasting chestnuts over an open fire, decking the halls with boughs of holly or trying to get the Chipmunks Christmas song out of their heads, but they are celebrating. The problem is, what are they celebrating? (more)
QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa on Tuesday dismissed an offer of residency that a lower level official made to the embattled founder of the online whistle-blower WikiLeaks. (more)
Prominent Jewish voices are speaking out against the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s (ADC) decision to honor former White House reporter and harsh critic of Israel, Helen Thomas, with their Mehdi Courage in Journalism award. (more)
Amid growing dissatisfaction with federal employees, a group of younger, web-savvy feds are planning to march on Saturday in defense of their coworkers on the sidelines of Jon Stewart’s “Rally to Restore Sanity.” (more)
Douglas Schoen and Scott Rasmussen are the authors of the new book, “Mad As Hell: How the Tea Party Movement Is Fundamentally Remaking Our-Two-Party System.” Rasmussen is an independent pollster and founder of Rasmussen Reports while Schoen co-founded the polling firm Penn, Schoen, and Berland and is a Fox News contributor. (more)
A grassroots coalition of groups opposing the Cordoba House Islamic center and mosque’s placement at Ground Zero will protest its construction Sunday at 11:00 a.m. in front of the Park 51 site, on the northeast corner of West Broadway. (more)
Nearly 70 percent of Americans oppose building an Islamic house of worship near the site of one of the worst attacks on America — perpetrated in the name of Islam. Some moderate Muslims agree that the proposed location of the Cordoba Mosque near Ground Zero in lower Manhattan should be reconsidered. (more)
This past year, Bravo has brought us some memorable and often terrifying Real Housewives moments: Kelly Kiloren Bensimons’s descent into madness, Countess LuAnn de Lesseps’ hit song (the word “song” used loosely), “Money Can’t Buy You Class,” Danielle Staub’s repeated verbal, physical, and mental confrontations with the Manzo clan of Jersey mobsters, and SO much more. (more)
Hugh Hefner isn’t too old to play the stocks. The 84-year-old founder of Playboy Enterprises has announced that he’s willing to buy the $122 million worth of shares of the company that he doesn’t currently own in order to make the company private. Hefner hopes to buy the rest of the stock before rival company Penthouse Magazine has a chance to buy into the enterprise. (more)
William F. Buckley Jr.: The Maker of a Movement (more)
The United States has serious problems at home and around the world. The problems and predicaments we face as a nation—and as citizens—grow in number and severity. (more)
It may seem that Steve Jobs is on a lonely crusade against Adobe’s Flash format with the rest of the industry simply waiting who this battle will turn out. While Adobe is rallying support for Flash, Apple receives support from a rather unexpected ally, the adult film industry. The founder of Digital Playground, one of the porn heavyweights in the U.S., told ConceivablyTech that it will abandon Flash as soon as the desktop browsers fully support HTML 5. We also learned that 3D is just not there yet and that online movie streaming is unlikely to replace Blu-ray discs anytime soon. (more)
It’s now Day 66 and counting since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig suddenly exploded and burned on April 20. (more)
“Character is what you do when nobody’s watching.” (more)
“Lead, follow or get out of the way.” This quote by Thomas Paine is unfortunately starting to fit our current president and his administration all too well. Mr. Paine was an author, revolutionary and one of the Founding Fathers. The president might consider this famous quote in the coming weeks and months when it comes to the BP spill and how to handle the results and the future oil drilling in America in the aftermath of the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig. (more)
On Tuesday, President Obama promised in his Oval Office address that the US could end our addiction to imported oil through technological innovation and sheer gumption: (more)
If the recently leaked BP e-mails about taking shortcuts to save a few million dollars are in context, the oil giant has just leaped to the top of the slime pile of greed. That the company will have to be broken up is a given. (more)
Summer begins June 21; for our nation, the long hot summer has already begun. (more)
It should come as no surprise that Comedy Central is developing a show practically designed to offend Christians. It isn’t surprising, but it is ironic considering Comedy Central’s refusal to even depict – much less attack – the Muslim prophet Muhammad. (more)
As most political junkies waited last week to hear what “job” the Administration offered Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) in exchange for him not running against Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) in the Keystone State’s Senate primary, most if not all of us believed the job would be just that, an actually job. Instead, the White House office of legal counsel issued a statement on Friday saying the job that was offered Rep. Sestak was actually not a job but a non-paying position on a presidential board. I don’t know about you but I remember writing my résumé for possible job opportunities “back in the day” and learning that in constructing an impressive résumé, it was clear that the category under “previous or current employment,” the résumé reader should expect to read about a job or employment where you received funds to do the task. Further, when constructing a résumé, there was a specific category where the résumé writer should tout their service on boards or commissions. I guess readers can assume since Rep. Sestak is almost 60 years old, that it has been some time since he constructed a résumé and thus forgot this basic rule in résumé writing. (more)
