AP Graphics
Lawmakers are on high alert as the Federal Communications Commission prepares to vote on a plan to regulate the Internet despite warnings that it could choke industry investment and hurt the economy as a whole.
AP
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) responds to an investigation proposed by Rep. Peter King (R-NY) to investigate radical Muslims in America. "To vilify this group, is scary," Rep. Ellison said.
WASHINGTON – The federal agency that monitors gun sales wants weapons dealers near the Mexican border to start reporting multiple sales of high-powered rifles, according to a notice published in the Federal Register.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has asked the White House budget office to approve an emergency request requiring border-area gun dealers to report the sales of two or more rifles to the same customer within a five-day period.
ScienceDaily (Dec. 20, 2010) — It sounds like science fiction – Dr. Siegfried Hekimi and his student Dr Wen Yang, researchers at McGill’s Department of Biology, tested the current “free radical theory of aging” by creating mutant worms that had increased production of free radicals, predicting they would be short-lived. But they lived even longer than regular worms! Moreover, their enhanced longevity was abolished when they were treated with antioxidants such as vitamin C.
To evaluate the performance of Obama's Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings, let's circumvent the establishment media's and listen to what the British media has to say:
Convicted paedophiles are finding it easy to get jobs in schools because teachers are failing to stop them and hushing up cases of abuse, an official report has found.
In nearly three-quarters of school abuse cases the offender already had a criminal record for paedophilia but was allowed to work there anyway.
Worryingly, more than half of the offenders went on to use their new positions to claim more victims than they had done before. …
The study was carried out by the General Accountability Office, which examines how effectively public funds are being used.
Its researchers looked into 15 sample cases of abuse in public and private schools between 2007 and 2009 where the offenders works as teachers, support staff, volunteers or contractors.
Of the 15, at least 11 were convicted sex offenders who had previously targeted children. …
In one instance an offender in Arizona was hired even though he answered 'yes' on a job application when asked if he had been convicted of a 'dangerous crime against children'.
Flying colors for the NAMBLA-associated Jennings, a militant pervert who has personally covered up sexual abuse of children. Schools are safe, all right: for pedophiles.
Compliments of Walter.
C.S. Lewis told his attorney he needn't bother bequeathing his literary earnings in his will, because "After I've been dead five years, nobody will read anything I've written." Instead, he's become the "Elvis Presley of Christian publishing," says CNN.
According to CNN's Belief Blog, Lewis remains one of Christian publishing's top selling authors:
More than 40 years after his death, the former medieval literature professor has become the Elvis Presley of Christian publishing: His legacy is lucrative and still growing, scholars and book editors say.
The third film adaptation of Lewis' "Narnia" series, "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader," was released in theaters worldwide this month. HarperOne publishers also just released "The C.S. Lewis Bible," a book pairing 600 selections of Lewis' writings with matching scriptural passages.
Among other reasons, Lewis' sharp, clear writing style and his eagerness to relate his beliefs to ordinary people in a non-sectarian fashion are responsible for much of his popularity around the world. (The latest Narnia movie, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, has done pretty badly in the U.S. but is a huge hit overseas, where it's made three times as much as its Stateside earnings.)
AP
Charles Blow made some political observations in his New York Times column Saturday that are destined to anger many of his left-leaning readers.
Just imagine how the average New York Democrat is going to respond to being told the future of his Party is being jeopardized by the fact that "Too many liberals just want to whine."
AP
Neighbours of a mother arrested after her four-year-old daughter was killed as an apparent religious offering told how they heard screams from the family's flat.
Nusayba Bharuchi's corpse was found stabbed to death in the kitchen with her heart and other organs cut out and strewn around her flat and lying next to her mother, Shayna.
The 35-year-old woman was allegedly chanting verses of the Koran as her daughter's disembowelled corpse lay next to her in the home in Clapton, East London.
AP
A diversity plan from a group of journalists says reporters should not be using the term "illegal aliens" because it is not constitutional.
APYou know when the Department of Homeland Security has its priorities straight when Secretary Napolitano is creating a task force to battle climate change.
Something to note: Napolitano was at this conference just two days after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered in the Arizona desert by bandits.
Saudi tycoon Prince AlWaleed bin Talal speaking. Source: AFP/Getty Images
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal was ranked the richest Arab businessman by Arabian Business magazine for the seventh year after adding more than $2 billion to his wealth this year.
Alwaleed’s assets were valued at $20.4 billion, the Dubai- based magazine said today in its 2010 Arab Rich List, adding that the figure was confirmed by the Saudi prince’s office in Riyadh. It compares with Alwaleed’s wealth of $18 billion reported last year by Arabian Business.
Alwaleed, 55, has restructured Kingdom Holding Co. and invested $500 million in General Motors Co.’s initial public offering in November to drive investment growth as the global financial crisis unwinds. Riyadh-based Kingdom Holding, 95 percent owned by Prince Alwaleed, announced yesterday that it will pay its first annual dividend in 2011 since listing on the Saudi stock exchange more than three years ago.
Saudi businesses represented six of the 10 richest Arabs this year on the Arabian Business list. The wealth of the top 10 Arabs climbed 16 percent from last year to $100 billion, the magazine said.
Saudi Arabian businessman Sheikh Mohamed Bin Issa Al-Jaber was ranked the second richest Arab with $12 billion, up from $9.7 billion in 2009. He is the founder of MBI International.
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Yeah, sure, you probably know a lot. But there's always that movie or star constellation or post-graduate vocabulary word or Wikipedia fact that you can dig into. Here are the six best apps that'll satisfy your insatiable thirst for knowledge.Wolfram Alpha 
This is an app that transformed itself from joke to recommended download in record time. All it took, in the end, was a price change: Wolfram Alpha's app, now that it costs $2 instead of $50, is a steal. For those of you who aren't familiar with the Wolfram Alpha website, it's what its creators call a "computational knowledge engine." It's part graphing calculator, part trivia repository, and part search engine—albeit for a select set of databases, most of which are academically oriented. Ask it who Justin Bieber is, and it won't know. Ask it to divide the population of Waco, Texas by the number of stars in the observable universe, and it'll give you this admittedly meaningless number in seconds. 2$, iPhone.
Wikipanion 
Wikipedia's creators insist that their project is one with lofty intentions; first and foremost, though, it's a site that lets any jerk become an instant expert on anything. Wikipanion makes the process of Knowing It All a good deal faster than it would otherwise be, with a predictive search interface, in-page searching, bookmarking and the like. Its main appeal, though, is that the time from app-tap to answer is extremely short, and its just nicer to look at than the ‘Pedia's mobile interface. Free version is fine, unless you really want to queue materials for reading offline. Free, iPhone.
Wordbook Dictionary 
Every iPhone needs a dictionary, and this one is the best (affordable) app on the platform. Lookup is fast and easy, but depth is what makes Wordbook valuable. You get smart spelling suggestions, full pronunciations, etymologies, a thesaurus with added semantic links, a word of the day feature and even a crossword and anagram solver. Start gratuitously (word choice?) and obnoxiously correcting your friends and passing acquaintances, today! $2, iPhone
