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Vandals set fire to a life-size statue of Ronald Reagan at a Southern California sports park that bears the name of the 40th president, authorities reported Monday.

With his missteps on Syria, Obama has alienated just about everyone -- friends and frenemies alike.It's not easy to get yourself into the kind of predicament that the president of the United States finds himself in today. To one substantial group of Americans, he is too hawkish, recklessly pushing America into another Middle East war. To another group, he is too dovish, committing to such limitations on intervention that any military action to come will almost certainly be nothing more than an empty gesture, advancing no vital U.S. interest. To some, he is acting too rashly, not allowing enough time...

Old and busted, John Kerry edition: Protecting America against terrorism requires us to pass a “global test” to prove that the threat really exists: "No president, though all of American history, has ever ceded, and nor would I, the right to preempt in any way necessary to protect the United States of America. But if and when you do it, Jim, you have to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you’re doing what you’re doing and you can prove to the world that you...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration said Wednesday it would take action against the Syrian government even without the backing of allies or the United Nations because diplomatic paralysis must not prevent a response to the alleged chemical weapons attack outside the Syrian capital last week. New requests for the United Nations to authorize military action in Syria may have complicated the Obama administration's plan to take retaliatory action on the purported poison gas attack east of Damascus that U.S. officials claim was carried out by President Bashar Assad's forces. But a State Department spokeswoman said possible U.N. rejection of...

US President Barack Obama has the authority to launch air strikes against Syria. But he has to notify lawmakers in Congress -- a process which has begun, according to both sides. "The administration is actively consulting with members of Congress, and we will continue to have these conversations in the days ahead," Kerry said Monday in a strongly-worded statement on Syria.

Good words from William Finlay a/k/a Wild Bill for America about liberals' hatred for another American institution, i.e., the cowboy hat.

What Is the National Day of the American Cowboy? The National Day of the American Cowboy campaign was founded by American Cowboy magazine in 2004 to preserve, protect and promote our cowboy and Western heritage and lobby for the passage of a national resolution designating the fourth Saturday of every July a permanent celebration on the national calendar honoring cowboys and cowgirls for their enduring contribution to the courageous, pioneering spirit of America.

The Old West: When men were men and women knew their place How many times have we heard men declare of the days of the old West, ‘men were men and women stayed at home and knew their place’? This is a common refrain after folks watch a movie based on the period. A peek behind the myths reveals difficult and trying lifestyle most modern men would never concede to and when a seeming minor health issue that would be easily cured today would take lives by the thousands. The ‘cool’ concept of a man that stands tall for all...

Obama's brothers in Egypt: "Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Party Member Mahmoud Khalil: Americans Are Cows, Not Cowboys; 'America Will Disintegrate' Jews Control World’s Gold" MEMRI Following are excerpts from an interview with Mahmoud Khalil, a member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, which aired on Al-Nas TV on September 11, 2012. Click here to view this clip on MEMRI TV. Mahmoud Khalil: "Your regular American is not such a great intellectual as we imagine him to be." Interviewer: "He is not interested in politics..." Mahmoud Khalil: He has a huge body. Eats like a pig. He is like...

One of the best of the Anthony Mann-directed Jimmy Stewart westerns of the 1950s. Love the scene at the beginning when Stewart tosses the guns to the two cowboys. It's definitely one of his grittier roles.

Breath-taking photographs have captured America's last cowboys, as the age-old profession, or art-form, all but dies out. A national icon, and an integral part of the country's story, the cowboy is a romantic, rugged metaphor for America's frontier past -- and one that has captivated Hollywood for decades. For years, photographer Adam Jahiel has been taking pictures of the cowboys of Nevada's Great Basin, perhaps one of the most inhospitable regions of the already harsh West.

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in Montana when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced toward him out of a cloud of dust. The driver, a young man in a Brioni® suit, Gucci® shoes, RayBan® sunglasses and YSL® tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?" Bud looks at the man, who obviously is a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, why not?" The yuppie parks...

'Cowboy cop' who planted crack under couple's car seat to boost arrest quotas escapes jail after SOBBING in court. A veteran NYPD detective framed an innocent couple by planting crack in their car during a search. Arbeeny was convicted of ‘flaking,’ the practice of planting drugs on blameless people to reach their quota of felony collars and claim overtime, the New York Daily News reported. He was found guilty of putting a twist of crack under a car seat in Yvelisse DeLeon and Juan Figueroa’s car during a January 2007 bust in Coney Island, New York. The trial which ended...

There was a time when the saying “a man without a horse” was widely understood.  Its meaning may not be as quickly grasped as it once was.  However, the phrase certainly is applicable even in this age where many folks do not or have never owned a horse.  “A man without a horse” is one who is incomplete.  He is lacking.  Perhaps, a similar situation today would be a man without a car, a job, or his spouse.  Figuratively a man’s horse is that which gives him the desire to go forward and conquer in life and when it is...

O'Connor pleased with exhibit of her lifeIt's been 30 years since Sandra Day O'Connor became the first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. An exhibit about her life opens this week at the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth. O'Connor is an El Paso native who spent summers on her family's Arizona ranch that initially didn't have electricity or water. She said Wednesday she was pleased with the exhibit. She said her time on the ranch taught her responsibility and how to solve problems on her

Trying to host a live thread for our "Smart Phones".

Feb. 9, 1957:  Television’s Wyatt Earp, actor Hugh O’Brian, on left, and Al Jennings, onetime western bad man, draw guns for Los Angeles Times staff photographer Al Markado. O’Brian won, but Jennings, at 93, had the experience to make the shot count – if he needed too. Times staff writer Norman Dash reported:TARZANA–A 93-year-old “bad man.” who was once allegedly the fastest man with a gun in the West, met up with television’s Wyatt Earp and immediately went for his clippings, memories and tales of the Old West at his modern-day hide-out in Tarzana.Al Jennings, last of the real...

Unlike politicians, a cowboy still makes a deal with a handshake and his word is his bond. .....A cowboy lives by a set of unwritten principles hard wired into his DNA. It is instinctive because it is the example set by those that surround him. Cowboys don't whine and stomp their feet like spoiled children and politicians often do when things don't go their way. They know that whining and wringing your hands don't get the job done. In my interaction with cowboy and ranching community up in Idaho, I have learned it is very close knit and neighbors and...

There was something quite Roman in the killing of Osama bin Laden, something reminiscent of the manner in which the Romans eventually dealt with a rogue’s gallery of charismatic tribal enemies—Spartacus, Vercingetorix, Jugurtha, Mithridates, Boudica, and others—all of whom claimed victory over the Romans and invulnerability from their global reach, only to be eventually defeated, forced to kill themselves, executed, or killed in battle. The killing reminds us that there are official rules we cite and unofficial ones that, thankfully, we actually follow. Pakistan is to be praised publicly as a partner, even as privately it is recognized as the...