The Tea Party might have a quasi-​​mainstream offi­cial plat­form, but it also seems to be a mag­net for far right loonies, angry racists, bor­der­line psy­chotics and those that are sim­ply grossly mis­in­formed. These shirts are for those fringe nutjobs that make the Tea Party ral­lies so much fun to read about. via I’m Vot­ing Tea...
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(CNN) An armed Chris­t­ian orga­ni­za­tion that had pledged to pro­tect the Dove World Out­reach Cen­ter with­drew its sup­port from the Quran-​​burning last week, stat­ing the event “may dimin­ish the work of the Holy Spirit to wit­ness to Muslims.” That group’s founder, Shan­non Car­son, said he agrees with the church’s stance on Islam, which he...
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“He trusts God to keep him safe,” says RP2 Chute. “And I’m here just in case that doesn’t work out.”By Michael M. Phillips (WSJ) SANGIN, Afghanistan — Navy Chap­lain Terry Moran is steeped in the Bible and believes all of it. His assis­tant, Reli­gious Pro­grams Spe­cial­ist 2nd Class Philip Chute, is steeped in the Bible...
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By Julian E. Barnes and Matthew Rosen­berg (WSJ) KABUL—The top U.S. com­man­der in Afghanistan said the planned burn­ing of Qurans on Sept. 11 by a Florida church could put the lives of Amer­i­can troops in dan­ger and dam­age the war effort. Gen. David Petraeus said the Tal­iban would exploit the demon­stra­tion for pro­pa­ganda pur­poses,...
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By Jim Dou­glas (AvStop) A Com­pass Air­lines flight atten­dant, rep­re­sented by the Asso­ci­a­tion of Flight Attendants-​​CWA (AFA-​​CWA), was ter­mi­nated on Thurs­day after pub­licly reveal­ing she qual­i­fied for foods stamps. Despite a full-​​time sched­ule, flight atten­dant Kirsten Ari­ane­jad was recently fea­tured in a local tele­vi­sion inter­view announc­ing that she had been approved for food stamps...
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By Jes­sica Shep­pard (The Guardian UK) Girls think they are clev­erer, more suc­cess­ful and harder work­ing than boys from as young as four, a study has found. Boys come round to this view by the age of seven or eight and assume that girls will out­per­form them at school and behave bet­ter in lessons, research...
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By Steven Hill (LA Pro­gres­sive) Dur­ing and before the cur­rent eco­nomic cri­sis, few coun­tries have been vil­i­fied as an eco­nomic bas­ket case so much as Japan: it’s been hard to find any ref­er­ence to the coun­try with­out some men­tion of its allegedly scle­rotic econ­omy, its zom­bie banks, its defla­tion and slow eco­nomic growth. This...
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By Eliz­a­beth Weise (USA Today) Last week in a series of morn­ing TV inter­views, Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion Com­mis­sioner Mar­garet Ham­burg told con­sumers that they should reject over-​​easy eggs and avoid “runny egg yolks for mop­ping up with toast.” Carol Tucker-​​Foreman, an assis­tant sec­re­tary of agri­cul­ture under Pres­i­dent Carter who’s worked on food pol­icy at...
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By Dex­ter Filkins and Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) One of the country’s most senior pros­e­cu­tors said Sat­ur­day that Pres­i­dent Hamid Karzai fired him last week after he repeat­edly refused to block cor­rup­tion inves­ti­ga­tions at the high­est lev­els of Mr. Karzai’s government. West­ern offi­cials con­firm reports that Pres­i­dent Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and...
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By Vivek Wad­hwa (TechCrunch) This is not some­thing that tech exec­u­tives pub­licly admit, because they fear being sued for age dis­crim­i­na­tion, but every­one knows that this is the way things are. Why would any com­pany hire a com­puter pro­gram­mer with the wrong skills for a salary of $150,000, when it can hire a fresh...
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