(ScienceDaily) Voters’ choices are heavily influenced by superficial, nonverbal cues, such as politicians’ appearance, according to Christopher Olivola from University College London in the UK and Alexander Todorov from Princeton University in the US. According to their findings, voters make judgments about politicians’ competence based on their facial appearance and these appearance-based competence judgments...
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Celebrities
Voters choose candidates for looks more than ideas
Bush wipes hand on Clinton’s shirt after shaking hands with Haitians
Did that really happen the way it looks as if it happened?
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An antidote to the deification: Joyce Maynard’s account of her affair at 18 with J. D. Salinger showed a sad, angry, predatory man
In one scene she writes: "He takes hold of my head, then, with surprising firmness, and guides me under the covers. Under the sheets with their smell of laundry detergent, I close my eyes. Tears are streaming down my cheeks. Still, I don't stop. So long as I keep doing this, I know he...
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A shaken nation is soothed; ‘Lost’ won’t be pre-empted
By Jeff Thomas (Mercury News) The first episode of the final season of “Lost” will spew forth new layers of confusion and complexity (It was all a dream!) right on time after all, with the White House seeking to calm a jittery nation by announcing that the president will not interrupt the long-awaited episode...
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Dave Barry on the money, madness and misery of 2009
By Dave Barry (Washington Post) To be sure, it was a year that saw plenty of bad news. But in almost every instance, there was offsetting good news: Bad news: The economy remained critically weak, with rising unemployment, a severely depressed real-estate market, the near-collapse of the domestic automobile industry and the steep decline of...
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Orly Taitz, birther-in-chief, says it could be time to bare arms
“Seeing targeted destruction of our economy, our security, dissipation of American jobs, massive corruption in the Government, Congress Department of Justice and Judiciary, it might be time to start rallies and protests using our second amendment right to bare arms and organise in militia.” –Orly Taitz
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Vic Chesnutt, who was being sued for $35,000 hospital bills — although insured — has died
By Benjy Eisen (Spinner.com) In tragic news, the New York Times has reported that singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt is in a coma. While the cause is technically unconfirmed, it is widely believed to be the result of a suicide attempt. Chesnutt, 45, was a paraplegic since the age of 18 and struggled with unending health...
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Angelina Jolie says fidelity is not essential for relationships
(Telegraph UK) Angelina Jolie told Das Neue magazine: “I doubt that fidelity is absolutely essential for a relationship. It’ worse to leave your partner and talk badly about him afterwards. “Neither Brad nor I have ever claimed that living together means to be chained together. We make sure that we never restrict each other.” Read...
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Glenn Beck says Palin’s place is ‘yapping’ in the kitchen
GLENN BECK: A Palin-Beck ticket — I’m absolutely ruling out. CO-HOST: Oh God, not this again. Please can we not? BECK: Please can we not? (CROSSTALK) No, no I’m just saying — Beck-Palin, I’ll consider. But Palin-Beck — can you imagine, can you imagine what an administration with the two of us would be like? What?...
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Actor claims new evidence proves that Shakespeare’s plays were written by De Vere
(Press Release) The De Vere Code, is a new book written by Shakespearean actor Jonathan Bond that conclusively proves that the author of Shakespeare’s Sonnets was the Elizabethan nobleman, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford and not William Shakespeare and proves the identity of the so-called Fair Youth to whom the poems where...
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