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I don’t get the fantasy subgenre of paranormal/supernatural fiction’s obsession with vampires and werewolves. It’s always been around, but has exploded in recent years and now commands whole sections of bookstores. Then, I guess, there are people who don’t get people like me who like epic fantasy like Tolkien, Lewis or Terry Brooks. Nonetheless. So here comes Bruce Hennigan’s The 12th Demon: Mark of the Wolf Dragon, which is a pleasant departure from high school age vampires who are all starting to look and act a lot alike.

For years I had intended on reading the classic fantasies of J.R.R. Tolkien, but never did until a few months before the films were released. Then I was hooked. I had been a long-time sci-fi fan, but I still wondered how did I miss this genre? So I began seeking out more. Of late, however, I have had a tougher time finding new fantasy authors that I enjoy. A couple of times I have, in the middle of a series, given up and moved on. These authors have created detailed worlds and epic adventures for sure. Yet they are afraid...

<p>Dennis Avner, a 54 years old man who spent years trying hard to make his body look like a tiger, has committed suicide. According to DailyMail of November 13, his body was found November 5. He lived alone.</p> <p>The problem of Avner began when a Native chief, guided by spirits, said that Avner should “follow the ways of the tiger.”</p>

... Obama is having Mitt Romney over for lunch on Thursday and their meeting is already generating a lot of buzz. Here are five theories about the White House’s motives.... 1. Obama is extending a common courtesy... 2. Obama will offer Romney a Cabinet job... 3. Obama will enlist Romney in the fiscal cliff debate... 4. Obama wants Romney’s advice on business issues... 5. Obama wants closure on the 2012 presidential election, or something else?....

"...We are calling on you, our Senators, to request our electors not cast their vote! Then the House of Representatives CAN choose the next President (and Republicans still have the majority - 233 (R) to 195 (D) - in the House of Representatives)!!!..."

David Parker in his article, “The Rise and Fall of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a ‘Parable on Populism” looks closer at the many interpretations of the Wizard of Oz and gives us his opinion that sometimes a book is just a book and that interpretations pulled out of thin air are often just as ephemeral.  I have always been very interested in what adults think about children’s literature. More often than not they read into the stories political, religious, and even topical themes of their own time or the time in which the story was written.

By any honest measurement Barack Hussein Obama has been a dismal failure as a President. Few if any Presidents have been given as much power in their first term as Obama and done so little. In fact for two years he had an unassailable super majority in congress and still his administration has been unable to do something as simple as craft a budget much less control runaway unemployment, a crippling deficit, and the terrorist overthrow of the middle east. While contemplating how anyone could do much worse than Obama, it came to me: Obama is such a failure that...

This week we are proud to bring you an interview with Daniel Knauf. You may remember Daniel as the creator of the hit HBO show Carnivàle. He is currently working to recreate the story telling genre with his Bxx internet format. Bxx presents a non-linear method of telling a story in which the viewer can follow the story from multiple angles, out of sequence, or even follow specific characters through the story.

As Democrats gather in this Southern city on the eve of the convention, we look at the changing political landscape of the South with Democratic Senator Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Kareem Crayton. He's a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law, and he studies race in politics. And we thank you both for being with us...

Actually, I would appreciate if people didn’t remake anything. Some originality would be nice.  While, I would appreciate no remakes, this goes double for ones with Arnold Schwarzenegger.It as actually quite interesting how many of Arnold’s films were science fiction or fantasy based.  It is also interesting how every remake of one of them is a complete flop.  The latest edition of Total Recall going to the remake scrap-heap is prime example.  Great CGI, No originality and No Arnold equals epic fail.  It seems the original which was recently called ‘cheesy’ by some critic did far better at the box office than the new one which...

It was widely reported back in June that the producers of the HBO series “Game of Thrones” deliberately used a gruesome image of former president George W. Bush’s head impaled on a stake during the drama’s season one finale. The backlash was so great that DVD shipments were halted, digital copies were edited, and an apology was issued via press release. Now the author of the books, George R.R. Martin has shown his true colors, blaming conservatives in swing states for what he called “voter suppression”.In a recent blog post titled “Show Us Your Papers”, the avowed Democrat from New Jersey who thinks...

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President Obama's agenda for a second term includes bringing peace to the Middle East. "I have not been able to move the peace process forward in the Middle East the way I wanted," he said in an interview with WJLA, the ABC affiliate in Washington, D.C. "It's something we focused on very early. But the truth of the matter is, that the parties, they've got to want it as well."

After a monumental 2010 midterm election that saw them swept from power, Congressional Democrats are fantasizing again about holding the levers of the House of Representatives. Politico's Arena has a discussion among both Democrat and Republican legislators that sees a surprising optimism for Democrats. This comes in the wake of John Boehner putting Dems' chances at about one-in-three. Democrat Congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio thinks the Ryan budget will be the GOP's millstone, claiming they want to "dismantle" Medicare. (If only, right?) The hat-loving Rep. Frederica Wilson dips into delusion, saying that Republicans "are intentionally starving efforts to jump start...

wrote my first commentary for BizPac Review a year ago out of a sense of frustration with the TV media. I awoke last May 2 to the news that Osama bin Laden was killed by a U.S. Navy SEAL team. The details were scant but nonetheless fascinating. He was killed on May 1 at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. This area is the home of the country’s equivalent to our U.S. Military Academy at West Point. His body was removed and his wives were taken in, along with his papers and records. Fox News finally reported that our intelligence agencies...

TODAY’S POST IS BROUGHT TO YOU (UNOFICIALLY) BY THE “MAKE A WISH” FOUNDATION "It is hard to sneak around and do what you want," Michelle Obama said today. "I have done it a couple of times. But you know one fantasy I have, and the Secret Service they keep looking at me because they think I might actually do it, is to walk right out the front door and just keep walking." Yes; her fantasy. That’s what Lady M chose to share with the kids who attended an Executive Office “Take your children to work day” function. Coincidentally, that’s the...

Liberalism is a mental psychosis where the inflicted cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality. This is evidenced by the Obama supporter in Arizona who threatened to kill Sheriff Arpiao and his family because the Arizona Sheriff's "cold case" team discovered fraud associated with Obama's birth certificate. Further evidence of this liberal psychosis is Bill Mauer calling Mrs. Palin a "-unt" and the liberal left celebrated this name calling.

"I am staggered at how easily the concepts of Democracy and the Rule of Law – two of the pillars of the modern world – have been brushed aside in the interests of political expediency." SNIP---- I am not well equipped to navigate bubbles where tactical views and secular views are all thrown into the melting pot together, where there is no visibility, where – as one client put it to me recently – we have Monetary Anarchy running riot, where the elastic band between the ‘real’ economy and the current liquidity-fuelled markets is stretched further and further beyond credulity,...

Gingrich says Pelosi is living in a fantasy worldBy Alicia M. Cohn - 01/25/12 09:32 AM ET Newt Gingrich said Nancy Pelosi is living in a fantasy world if she thinks she has dirt on him. "She lives in a San Francisco environment of very strange fantasies and very strange understandings of reality," Gingrich said Wednesday as he laughed off the notion that the House minority leader could derail his bid for the GOP presidential nomination. "I have no idea what's in Nancy Pelosi's head," Gingrich said on NBC's "Today" show. "If she knows something, I have a simple challenge:...

Anne McCaffrey wasn't just the inventor of Pern, the world where a whole society is based on dragon-riding. She was also an incredibly influential author who helped transform the way science fiction and fantasy authors wrote about women, and the way all of us thought about bodies and selfhood. She was the first woman to win a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award, as well as a Grand Master of science fiction.