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Americans’ views of President Barack Obama have improved slightly in the past two months, and opinions are more positive about the direction of the country and the health of the economy, an Associated Press-GfK poll finds. A slim majority now approves of the way Obama is handling unemployment, according to the poll, conducted before Friday’s release of a surprisingly strong jobs report. Forty-seven percent of those surveyed approve of how Obama is doing his job, compared with 41 percent in December, and 51 percent approve of his handling of unemployment, compared with 44 percent before. Nearly half say the economy...

The horror...the horror... As some of you might be aware, actor Randy Quaid seems to have taken a long mental trip up the river into his personal Heart of Darkness. The viral video he has just posted from there is at the same time fascinating, repulsive, scary, profane, and definitely quite disturbing so a warning  about the strong language along with images hard to remove from memory before watching it. An edited cleaned up version of the previous video is below followed by a description of the original video from USA Today:

(Reuters) - China will ban from March 1 internet accounts that impersonate people or organizations, and enforce the requirement that people use real names when registering accounts online, its internet watchdog said on Wednesday.

When they moved into the house in November 2005, Kofi was earning $82,740 as an IT consultant for a government contractor, and Comfort, then 43, was making $30,000 as an administrative assistant. But in the overheated mortgage market of the time, they said everyone told them that they could buy a $600,000 house. They made a $60,000 down payment and all their mortgage payments for more than 2½ years — through September 2008. But the house was financed with subprime loans, which reset to higher rates after short time periods, creating what are known as “shock payments.” The Boatengs said...

The couple thought that they finally had everything lined up: Their paperwork for a marriage license, their attendance to mandatory counseling, and — just to be safe — an order from Mexico's Supreme Court to honor their request to complete the first same-sex union in the state of Baja California. But on January 11, in their fourth attempt at marriage since June 2013 in Mexicali, Baja's desert capital, Victor Manuel Aguirre and Victor Fernando Urias were met with closed doors and once more couldn't get married. Instead, religious conservatives picketed the municipal registrar offices (along with alleged non-interested parties meant...

In response to the whitest Oscar nominations in 17 years, Al Sharpton has issued a statement expressing his disappointment in the nominations and calling for a meeting to address the lack of diversity in Hollywood. “The lack of diversity in today’s Oscar nominations is appalling, and while it is good that Selma was nominated for ‘Best Picture,’ it’s ironic that they nominated a story about the racial shutout around voting while there is a racial shutout around the Oscar nominations,” Sharpton said in a statement. “With all of the talent in Selma and other Black movies this year, it is...

Hashim Hanif Ibn Abdul-Rasheed shot dead outside Ohio airport after ‘attempting to stab’ police officer: cops The 41-year-old Columbus-area man was armed with several knives when he used a woman's ID to try and buy a plane ticket Wednesday afternoon, police said. When he returned to his illegally parked car, Abdul-Rasheed lunged at cops with a knife before being shot several times, officials said.

First Lady Michelle Obama named the new Executive Director of Let’s Move on Thursday, Debra Eschmeyer, a self-described “food justice” activist who believes that all aspects of food production and consumption should be “shared fairly.” Eschmeyer, who grew up on a dairy farm in Ohio and is now an organic vegetable farmer, previously campaigned for “school lunch reform” and has been involved in anti-obesity and school gardening initiatives.

It used to strike me as impossible for global warming to cause cold weather. Then I realized that I could chill a soft drink in the oven if there were no room left in the refrigerator to bake a cake. Up until then I did not know that the same cause can have opposite effects. In my unenlightened state, it never occurred to me that carbon dioxide could cause both excessive heat and excessive cold, both drought and flood. I should have known. After all, we calm hyperactive children with stimulants and cure addiction to drugs with addicting drugs. When...

It’s only a trickle, not yet a trend, but it is out there, and it has a name: sologamy. Sologamy is the marriage of someone to one’s own self—the his- or herness of it is not relevant, although it seems to be mostly women who are doing it. Apparently Linda Baker was the first person to marry herself back in December 1993. Others have followed suit, including Sara Sharpe, who wrote about her self-marriage in A Dress, A Ring, Promises to Self. And there’s Nadine Schweigert, a thirty-six-year-old-woman from Fargo, North Dakota, who was interviewed by Anderson Cooper after marrying...

The Missouri church attended by Michael Brown’s father and his family was one of a dozen or so buildings burned to the ground during Monday night’s protests in the wake of a grand jury’s decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson. While the majority of the buildings destroyed on Monday were in downtown Ferguson, the Flood Christian Church is located some three miles away from the protests in a remote section of Country Club Hills. Pastor Carlton Lee, who has been a vocal advocate for the Browns since their son was shot in August, has said he believes that white...

A Milford parent is questioning the two-day suspension of his 10-year-old son from Stacy Middle School. Nickolas Taylor, a fifth-grader, was suspended after pointing an imaginary ray gun - his finger - and mouthing laser sounds in the school’s cafeteria last Friday, said Brian Taylor, Nickolas' father. “I think this is very slanderous toward Nickolas and his character,” said Taylor. “It was non-threatening. He’s just a typical boy with an imagination.” A conduct slip, written by Assistant Principal Noah Collins, lists the offense as a threat. Collins could not be reached for comment despite numerous phone calls and emails seeking...

“The countries that are most efficient in energy use, not only do they not subsidize energy — in fact, they tax energy use,” Obama said. “So you look like — in a country like Norway, which produces a lot of oil, but gasoline there is still $6 or $7 a gallon, which in liters — who wants to do a liter conversion for me?” “Anyway, it’s very expensive,” Obama added. “And we’ve doubled fuel-efficiency standards on cars,” he continued. “So in a few years, by the middle of the next century, by 2025, you won’t be able to sell a...

Democrats are doubling down on their attacks against the Koch brothers. Prompted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrats spent millions of dollars spotlighting Republican ties to the billionaire conservative megadonors Charles and David Koch. But despite Republicans — and some Democrats — publicly decrying the strategy after Tuesday’s GOP wave as an ineffective waste of money, Reid told allies on election night that he planned to continue hammering the brothers, according to an operative close to him. Continue Reading Text Size And big-money liberal groups ranging from the Democrats’ Senate campaign arm and House super PAC to the outfits...

While the bipartisan voice grows to ban Ebola victims from entering the United States, a new report claims that President Obama is considering a plan to bring the world’s Ebola patients to the United States to be treated.

I’m not a psychiatrist, I haven’t sat down and interviewed George Zimmerman or the cop who shot Michael Brown, I don’t know what their motives are, I don’t know what kind of people they are, what kind of childhood traumas they have experienced. But I don’t think it’s nuts that in a certain way, when that cop killed Michael Brown, and when George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin, they were killing Barack Obama.

Madison Police Chief Mike Koval endorsed the legalization of marijuana last week, saying the drug should be regulated and taxed, with revenues used to fund treatment programs for harder drugs. The comments came during an interview with the State Journal Wednesday about data showing African-Americans in Madison were arrested or cited for marijuana offenses at about 12 times the rate of whites in the city. Koval called efforts to enforce laws against marijuana an “abject failure,” and said the same about the broader war on drugs. “We’ve done such an abysmal job using marijuana as a centerpiece of drug enforcement,...

Toward the end of the romantic comedy film The American President, Michael Douglas’s President Shepherd tells the assembled press corps, “Being president of this country is entirely about character.” This 1995 movie was made as a way of rescuing the scurrilous character of Bill Clinton from accusations of womanizing. It’s a pleasant and entertaining film but this line of dialogue, like just about everything else in the picture, is untrue. Being president of this country is somewhat about character — everything in life is — but it is also, very much, about ideas. There have been times over this past...

The US military has yet to offer Pte First Class Chelsea Manning sex change treatment despite medical recommendations, her lawyer has said. Defence secretary Chuck Hagel approved treatment for a condition known as gender dysphoria in July. But lawyer David Coombs says her requests for hormone therapy and other accommodations have been "ignored". The soldier formerly known as Bradley Manning is serving a 35-year sentence for leaking secret files to Wikileaks. "This time last year I publicly asked that I be provided with a treatment plan, to bring my body more in line with my gender identity," Pte Manning said...

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing, expecting different results. Zo says, that if the GOP re-nominates Romney, they should be put in an asylum.