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Obama faces 'very aggressive' foreign demands: Clinton Jul 10 02:15 PM US/Eastern Foreign leaders are "making very aggressive demands" of Barack Obama now that they have a US president who responds to their needs, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday. Clinton, who was taking a shot at Obama's predecessor George W. Bush, told State Department staff that the foreign service bureaucracy needs reform because the "stakes are too high" and demands are now so great. "We've seen in the last six months that the United States and particularly our new president is really expected to deliver a lot," Clinton...

One of her cases, filed against Obama as an individual for actions before he took office, is scheduled for a hearing in a California court Monday.

Ali Baba had his forty thieves. Ali Obama has at least 31 czars (reported today to be as high as 34) -- and their number is building. Whether Ali OBama's czars also qualify as "thieves" or not, I shall leave to you to determine. Reuters has a story entitled, "Obama fashions a government of many czars," that begins, "Name a top issue and President Barack Obama has probably got a "czar" responsible for tackling it." Personally, I kind of like the "czar-free" government our founding fathers fashioned for us better. Apparently I'm not alone in my preference. Even Democrat Robert...

The push for conversion to plug-in electric cars will do nothing to stop carbon emissions, a report by the GAO warns, throwing cold water on a push by Democrats to get more plug-ins on the road. In fact, the problem could be made worse as demand goes up at coal-fired electrical plants. Plus, the need for batteries may just have the US changing the dictators to which we’re chained, as IBD reports...

However, the real story was broken by Cindy Wooden of the Catholic News Service. She reported that Pope Benedict XVI gave his own gift to the U.S. President, a copy of the extraordinary document entitled “Dignitas Personae” (”The Dignity of a Person”). This instruction is a passionate defense of the dignity of every single human life from the moment of conception until natural death. ...Wooden reports that she was in the Vatican bookstore prior to the arrival of the President of the United States and, in her own words “While I was trying to pay, the cashier was interrupted by...

In the last few weeks numerous technology and mass media web-sites published hundreds of stories about Apple, its products, their availability or their issues. But does that enthusiasm towards the company have any correlation with Apple’s actual market share? It seems that not really. Apple is a company that has been extensively covered by media, especially in the USA, for many years now without an obvious reason: apart from the iPod, all the products from Apple are hardly used by a lot of people around the globe. But the latest load of rush coverage about Apple on the Internet more...

What's wrong with this picture? The federal government spends billions on homeland security, but apparently can't stop foreigners from illegally crossing the border or overstaying their visas. The Obama administration wants to bring violent terrorists captured overseas to the mainland and close the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay. Yet in the latest bizarre twist, legislation quietly making its way through Congress would give the White House power to categorize political opponents as hate groups and even send Americans to detention centers on abandoned military bases. Rep. Alcee Hastings - the impeached Florida judge Nancy Pelosi tried to install as...

If you cherish your freedom and liberties that our veterans fought and died for, you better take a moment to learn more about this bill that aims to apparently eliminate individual liberty in the United States of America.

Breaking on Fox. Looks like Pelosi has won and she is about to beat-down on Panetta and the CIA. Obama is certain to gut our INTEL capabilities.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - President Barack Obama promised Pope Benedict on Friday that he would do everything possible to reduce the number of abortions in the United States, the Vatican said. Obama and Benedict held private talks for about 40 minutes in the pope's frescoed study in the Vatican's apostolic palace and the Vatican said bioethics and life issues were a central part of the discussion. In a surprise move, the pontiff gave Obama a booklet explaining Vatican opposition to practices such as abortion and embryonic stem cell research, which Obama supports. "Obama told the pope of his commitment to...

Tenure Deconstructed by: Brittany Fortier, July 10, 2009 A system can truly be considered broken when evaluators of hiring decisions are the ones that need to be evaluated. A panel hosted by the Center for American Progress on June 25, 2009, discussed why the American educational system has struggled in keeping itself accountable to students and parents, while at the same time creating a tenure system that critics claim gives teachers jobs for life. Many critics say that evaluation systems for teachers have been a huge reason for this discrepancy. Morgaen Donaldson, Assistant Professor at the Neag School of Education...

Who knew Chaz had a hottie girlfriend? Chaz Bono, who usually keeps his personal life private, showed off gorgeous galpal Jennifer Elia Thursday night at Outfest in Los Angeles. tfest is the largest film festival for gay/lesbian/transgender-themed flicks in the country. The son of Cher and the late Sonny Bono recently revealed he is undergoing a sex change to become a man, and has changed his name from Chastity to Chaz in the process. A political and social activist, Chaz lives in West Hollywood with the brunette beauty. Bono began the sex change process in early March shortly after his...

Life has been a little too cozy for me lately. Too cozy in the sense that I have been living in about 500 square feet for the past two months. No, we're not hunkered down in a bomb shelter nor has a hurricane hit the Phoenix area recently. Rather, it's a large home improvement project that has caused me to become a refugee in my own home. Basically, I live in a bunker with windows. Trying to maintain some level of quality to our lives in spite of cramped quarters and numerous inconveniences is something many of you have experienced....

CIA Director Leon Panetta has terminated a "very serious" covert program the spy agency kept secret from Congress for eight years, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a House Intelligence subcommittee chairwoman, said Friday. Schakowsky is pressing for an immediate committee investigation of the classified program, which has not been described publicly. Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has said he is considering an investigation. "The program is a very, very serious program and certainly deserved a serious debate at the time and through the years," Schakowsky said in an interview with The Associated Press. "But now it's...

OK, so I am surfing for news that will probably just piss me off for the rest of the weekend, and I stumble across a question by some idiot who doesn't even have the guts to take credit for it. It would seem that Larry Bird and the Indiana pacers are too lilly white for this person. I guess the good thing is all but one of the seven who commented have basically called for an end of the stupid claim of racism being behind every door. I am posting the whole article because I do not see this site...

Under the country's Constitution, the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya was legal. Honduras, the tiny Central American nation, had a change of leaders on June 28. The country's military arrested President Manuel Zelaya -- in his pajamas, he says -- and put him on a plane bound for Costa Rica. A new president, Roberto Micheletti, was appointed. Led by Cuba and Venezuela (Sudan and North Korea were not immediately available), the international community swiftly condemned this "coup." Something clearly has gone awry with the rule of law in Honduras -- but it is not necessarily what you think. Begin with...

French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for a revamp of the global currency system, saying Thursday that the dollar's supremacy is outdated. "We need to ask the question: shouldn't a world that is politically multi-polar correspond to a multi-monetary world economically?" he said in a news conference during a summit of world leaders in L'Aquila, Italy. Sarkozy compared an overhaul of the global currency system to the enlargement of the Group of Eight structure to encompass fast-growing emerging economies, which were invited to join the Italian summit. He said the supremacy of the dollar belongs to the post-Second World War era...

By Megan Sweeney KPIC News Video ROSEBURG, Ore. -- In what is believed to be connected to the logging protest near Reedsport, patrol officers and detectives responded to the Home Depot in Roseburg after 40-50 protesters entered the business. According to police, the group used the store's public address system, moved displays around and put up a banner that said "Dam the Home Depot, Save Chile's Rivers." Several subjects were taken away from the property but no arrests were made. Police believe this protest is connected with the logging protest near Reedsport. Members of the groups Earth First! and Cascadia...

Presidential Succession by: Emily Kanyi, July 10, 2009 After the 9/11 terrorist attack it became clear that the U.S. was not immune to acts of violence that could infiltrate the country’s heart of business and power causing massive destruction and loss of life. It also became clear that the country needed to put into place a system that would facilitate an easy succession to the presidency in the “face of a catastrophic attack that would kill or incapacitate multiple individuals in the line of succession,” according to a June 2009 report jointly released by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and...

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