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If the year's first four months defied all expectations for what Hollywood could do in a recession, this summer delivered some sobering reality. Through the end of April, domestic box-office receipts leaped 17% while admissions surged nearly 16% from the previous year, according to Hollywood.com. But as the weather turned hot, business cooled: From May 1 through Aug. 31, attendance was down 2.4% from 2008 and 6% from 2007. Summer box-office revenues rose 1.3%, not even enough to account for ticket price inflation, let alone the premiums charged in a growing number of 3-D theaters. In the midst of the...

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FORCE September 2009 A Step Before the Leap Putting India’s ATV project in perspective By Admiral Arun Prakash (retd) Following close in the wake of India’s nuclear submarine launch, former Navy Chief Sureesh Mehta’s observations about the yawning gap between the militaries of China and India created a minor flutter in the media. But his candid admission revealed no secrets. In fact, his remarks should serve to focus attention on the contrasting approaches of the two nations. We seem to have pinned all our hopes on high GDP growth triggering a Biblical ‘loaves and fish’ miracle in India. The Chinese,...

Political survival will top the agenda for many lawmakers when the U.S. Congress returns to work on Tuesday, amid widespread voter discontent over its recent performance. While the debates over healthcare reform, global warming and banking legislation and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will dominate the airwaves, the central issue for many in Congress will be how to keep their seats. Polls show only about one-third of Americans approve of how lawmakers are doing, less than a year after President Barack Obama led Democrats to big gains in Congress. Republicans now have an opportunity to strike back in the...

The middle-of-the-night resignation Sunday of longtime Bay Area activist Van Jones as a White House environmental adviser left many progressives angry at the Obama administration for buckling to conservative criticism of Jones' controversial past comments and actions. The administration is losing not only one of the nation's leading environmentalists, progressives say, but one of the few liberal voices with President Obama's ear. Jones resigned amid a furor over his signature on a 2004 petition questioning the government's actions around the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Supporters say the administration surely knew his background when they appointed Jones, the first African American...

The Jones departure recalls another Democratic surrender: The indicated willingness to abandon a plan to fund voluntary end-of-life consultations after they were miscast by Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as “death panels.” "As we've seen before, succumbing to these types of propaganda attacks from the right wing only emboldens the aggressors. This controversy will go away and they will trump up another one tomorrow,” said David Brock, founder and chairman of Media Matters for America, a group that has taken on conservative commentators. “No good comes from appeasing a lunatic bully like Glenn Beck." "If Jones left under pressure from the...

In one of the biggest but least talked about challenges to President Jacob Zuma’s new government, schools have descended into a spiral of crime that has seen murder and rape in playgrounds and classrooms. As terrified teachers leave the profession in large numbers, security in schools is being beefed up to include police sniffer dog patrols and hand-held metal detectors. Psychologists are being drafted in to help staff to cope with trauma. A recent survey in KwaZulu-Natal, Zuma’s home province, revealed there were 11 murders, 280 rapes and more than 2,500 violent assaults in its schools last year. A further...

(CNN) – Minnesota’s Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who was a contender for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, said Sunday that he does not view himself as being in competition with his party’s most recent vice presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Asked about his own 2012 plans, Pawlenty was coy and judicious, suggesting that his recent travels to many states likely to be important in the next White House race were because of his duties as the vice chair of the Republican Governors Association.

Are American children to learn basic education or an agenda of education-as-'social justice'? They think we’re crazy. “They” are the sneering defenders of President Barack Obama who can’t fathom the backlash against his nationwide speech to schoolchildren Tuesday. “We” are parents with eyes wide open to the potential for politicized abuse in America’s classrooms. Ask moms and dads in Farmington, Utah, who discovered last week that their children sat through a Hollywood propaganda video promoting the cult of Obama. In the clip, a parade of entertainers vow to flush their toilets less, buy hybrid vehicles, end poverty and world hunger,...

Washington, D.C. - On September 25th there will be a national prayer gathering of Muslims on the west front of the U.S. Capitol Building. They are expecting at least 50,000 to attend from mosques all across America. They will gather to pray from 4:00 AM until 7:00 PM. The gathering will take place by the site where U.S. Presidents have been inaugurated since 1981. The organizers say that it was Obama's inauguration speech in January and his speech broadcast from Egypt in June that gave them the idea for this prayer gathering on Capitol Hill.

An aircraft belonging to the United Arab Emirates Air Force was found carrying a large cache of arms and ammunition and detained along with its nine crew members here last night. ( Watch Video ) The plane, bound for Hanyang in China from Abu Dhabi, landed at the NSC Bose International airport here for refuelling last night. Airport sources said that while customary checking of the plane by customs officials it was found that a large cache of arms and ammunition were stockpiled inside the flight. The airport authority of India was informed and as the plane's crew did not...

The Region: America's obsession with dialogue Sep. 6, 2009 Barry Rubin , THE JERUSALEM POST On August 26, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly was asked what the US thought about the dispute between Iraq and Syria. His answer shockingly recalls the last time a US government made that mistake. First, some background. Iraqi leader Nuri al-Maliki visited Syria on August 18 to discuss the two countries' relationship. He offered Syrian President Bashar Assad a lot of economic goodies in exchange for expelling 271 Iraqi exiles involved in organizing terrorist attacks against their country. Assad refused. Maliki left. The next day,...

It has come to my attention that there was a peaceful display of opinion here recently in Sumter in which someone held a sign stating that a village in Kenya is missing a idiot. Well, seems as if people have a lot of time on their hands to sit in analysis of this when what they should be doing is simply work and get something done. It's really getting tiring to hear that if the organization of the NAACP doesn't like one little thing, all of the sudden the race card comes out over anything they see fit. Free speech,...

Labor Day has changed dramatically. Massive marches in Detroit, Pittsburgh and New York City on this day once marked the power of organized labor. This year, union members will be marching in much smaller parades and enjoying slimmed- down picnics. Some parades and picnics have been canceled. Those are signs of the times. Here are a few more: More than 9.1 million Americans — union and nonunion alike — are categorized by the Labor Department as involuntary part-time workers. They're the lucky ones. They still have a job but are working fewer hours each week. Their reduced paychecks reflect that...

UK sources: Obama knew about the Lockerbie bomber every step of the wayObama seems to have screwed up really big (Again!) British officials claim Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton were kept informed at all stages of discussions concerning Megrahi’s return. The officials say the Americans spoke out because they were taken aback by the row over Megrahi’s release, not because they did not know it was about to happen.

TeleSUR, Venezuela From 15 hours ago. (Van) Jones, special advisor for Green Jobs and Environment Innovation of the White House, submitted his resignation early Sunday, as the product of a great scandal generated when ventilating himself in support of an organization that offered that ex-President George Bush was complicit in the attacks on September 11th. This is an adviser of the current president of the United States, Barack Obama, and that worked in the Council of Environmental Quality office, had to apologize already in public, after the existence was known a recording in which he made offensive signallings against...

Picture Linky

Ninety people have been arrested after fighting erupted at a right-wing protest in a busy shopping street. A planned demonstration in Birmingham against Islamic fundamentalism, by The English Defence League, resulted in angry clashes with anti-fascist campaigners. Gangs of men and youths hurled bottles at one another and pelted riot police with bricks as trouble erupted in the New Street area of the city, close to the main train station. The disorder, which involved around 250 people, spilled onto the adjoining Bennetts Hill - a street lined with a number of pubs popular with shoppers.

Each time Olbermann exhales, a few more of his brain cells are killed off from hyperventilating that poisonous C02. It's called "eco-huffing" and its use is prevalent with the left. Too bad for Olbermann that he has become the Pied Piper (we have proof here in Alaska, ask Shannyn Moore a regular guest on his show) of Trig Troofers and 9/11 truthers. And this makes his advertisers look like fruitloop followers that endorse such nonsense. In his latest screed, the Pied Pier Olbermann wants to get everything he can get on Glenn Beck.. I don't know why I've got this...

This was uploaded on the whitehouse.gov blog showing what appears to be a photoshopped picture of President Obama speaking to a crowd....Could some Freeper photographers weigh in on this?....