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Up for discussion.

President Barack Obama on Thursday called on Israel to open its borders with Gaza, in a powerful sign of his new administration’s break with Bush-era policy on the Middle East and the world as a whole. Speaking on a day when both he and Hillary Clinton, secretary of state, were welcomed by hundreds of enthusiastic US diplomats at the State Department, Mr Obama proclaimed that his administration would “actively and aggressively seek a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians” in the wake of the recent conflict in Gaza.

he is amazing today!!!! says obama has skinny legs!!!!!!

The proposed immigration deal will throw open our doors to increased immigration from Muslim lands, not just Mexico. From the US State Department website: "The fourth and most recent wave of Muslim immigration (into the US) has come after 1965, the year President Lyndon Johnson sponsored an immigration bill that repealed the longstanding system of quotas by national origin. Under the new system, preferences went to relatives of U.S. residents and those with special occupational skills needed in the United States. The new law was a signal act in American history, making it possible for the first time since the...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - California would become the first state to impose a limit on all greenhouse gas emissions, including those from industrial plants, under a landmark deal reached Wednesday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative Democrats. The agreement marks a clear break with the Bush administration and puts California on a path to reducing its emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by an estimated 25 percent by 2020. The bill still needs lawmakers' approval, but that appears likely, given that Democrats control the Legislature. The deal gives Schwarzenegger a key environmental victory as he seeks re-election this fall....

Buchanan defends foreign aid – for Hamas-------------------------------------------------------- Posted: February 1, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2006 Creators Syndicate Inc. Ever since President Bush, sometime after 9-11, converted to neoconservatism, his Middle East policy has suffered from the triple defects of that subspecies of the Right: hubris, ideology and immaturity. Neoconservatives see the world as they wish it to be, not as it is. Like teenagers, they act on impulse and rail against the counsel of experience. "Often clever, never wise," Russell Kirk said of the breed. Repeatedly, Bush was warned by traditional conservatives that to send a U.S. army to...

MONTCLAIR – In a scene more reminiscent of the Wild West than modern railways, police shot and wounded a man who allegedly took over a freight train with a bow and arrow. Juventino Vallejo-Camerena boarded the Union Pacific train at about 10:40 p.m. Sunday as it was stopped for a signal and threatened the engineer and conductor, the only people on board, police Capt. Keith Jones said. The crew members escaped and called police, Jones said. The man was aboard the train when officers arrived at the scene in western San Bernardino County. The man cocked the bow and pointed...

See link for graph: Looking at the "RealClear Politics" plot of the presidential polls, I see two long term trendlines, punctuated by a hell of a lot of what I would refer to as "experimental error": I don't believe that public opinion has been changing as much as these polls seem to suggest. The variation we see up through July looks like what engineers call "sample aliasing" or "jitter". Note that it falls well within the oft-claimed ±4 points of error. This is typical for data taken in noisy sampling environments; I've seen this kind of thing many times. August...

What has happened to FoxNews? In the last three weeks Foxnews has been a chill for the Democrats and is being as anti-Bush as any other liberal news organization. The most disappointing one on Foxnews is Birt Hume their main anchor. This guy has changed very badly in the last few weeks and he just being very easy on the flip floper and very tough on President Bush. In fact his analysis in the second debate was a shoker for most of us and this was a further indication on the bad turn that Brit Hume has taken recently. Please...

-- CNN. Back from an ad break at 8:55pm EDT, Wolf Blitzer went right to Candy Crowley on the floor with delegate. As she held up the woman's arm to show the purple heart on a band-aid on the woman's arm, Crowley explained: "This is Donna Cain, she's a delegate from Oregon wearing a, as you can see, a band-aid with a purple heart on it which begs the question, we know this is about John Kerry. Any hesitation about putting this on?" Cain said "none at all," leading Crowley to demand: "And where did you get it?" Cain simply...

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is offering an array of perks, discounts and other enticements to hundreds of thousands of anti-Bush protesters in a bid to stave off riots when the GOP convention begins in Manhattan in 12 days. If they accept the terms of Bloomberg's offer, demonstrators must promise to obey city laws and regulations and pick up a powder-blue button that labels them "Peaceful Political Activists." Bloomberg's rewards program for well-behaved convention disrupters includes, according to Newsday, "a unique package" of discounts on hotels, restaurants, plays — even cut-rate entry to the Museum of Sex -...

<p>There is a pic of Evita and Lurch under the headline, which currently is unclickable. More news to follow, I would gather.</p>

SEPARATE HOTEL ROOMS AFTER SHOUTING MATCH