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...So let’s set aside for a moment the fact that the website does not work, a whole month after Obamacare launched. Here’s the breakdown on what Vermont was given to create its exchange: $270 per man, woman and child. $654 per household. $3,928 per uninsured Vermonter. $177,000 per newly insured person so far. $284,000 per person enrolled in exchange plans so far....

November 1, 2013 Sebelius Explains How Obamacare Isn't Like Tickle-Me Elmo Andy Meek MEMPHIS -- Kathleen Sebelius brushed off questions Friday about reports saying only six people signed up for coverage on the first day of Obamacare website's operation. Speaking at a library in Memphis as part of an effort to encourage healthcare sign ups in the city, Sebelius said she didn't know where that figure came from and that the government doesn't have "reliable enrollment figures yet." "I don't pay a lot of attention to these early reports, because the system was flawed," she said, adding that the flaws...

Explanation: NGC 7841 is probably known as the Smoke Nebula, found in the modern constellation of Frustriaus, the frustrated astrophotographer. Only a few light-nanoseconds from planet Earth, The Smoke Nebula is not an expanding supernova remnant along the plane of our Milky Way galaxy, though it does look a lot like one. Instead it was created by flash photography of rising smoke. The apparently rich starfield is actually composed of water droplets sprayed from a plant mister by an astrophotographer grown restless during a recent stretch of cloudy weather in Sweden. A single exposure and three external flashes were triggered...

The Georgia National Guard this afternoon indicated it intends to ignore a directive from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and will continue to send same-sex spouses of National Guard personnel elsewhere for benefits guaranteed by the Pentagon. Here's the statement received late Friday from Joseph Quimby, deputy director of public affairs for the state Department of Defense: “The State of Georgia does not recognize same sex marriages and is not authorizing the Georgia National Guard to process the applications for same-sex married benefits at state facilities. Any personnel seeking to apply for same-sex married benefits will be referred to federal facilities.”...

Over the past several days the Sun has unleashed more than half a dozen major flares including four X-class events. The resulting aurora in some parts of the world have been beautiful. Here’s a collection of recent images taken by Jason Arhns in Alaska. It seems the aurora is just blanketing not only the sky, but the landscape as well! See more below, as well as a video showing 23 of the 26 M- and X-class flares on the sun between Oct. 23 and Oct. 28, 2013, as captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. It also shows the coronal mass...

Yas Marina Race Date: 03 Nov 2013 First Grand Prix: 2009 Number of Laps: 55 Circuit Length: 5.554 km Race Distance: 305.355 km Lap Record: 1:40.279 - S Vettel (2009) Friday Sunny 35C Saturday Sunny 35C Sunday Sunny 34C

"Suffer for About the First Six Months After Leaving Home"I found the printing and bookbinding overpowered with hands in New York. I remained idle for twelve days in consequence; when finding there was many out of employment like myself. I determined to turn myself to something else, seeing that there was nothing to be got by idleness. The trifle which I had saved was going from me fast. I drove about accordingly and was engaged by a bookseller to hawk maps for him at 7 dollars a week. This I done much to his satisfaction but when the town was...

Today, “extremist” has replaced “bitter” as the label that Washington pundits and politicians use to describe these people. It was a word used often during the latest government shutdown, when U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, insisted he had the Senate votes to defund ObamaCare. “We need a vigorous, fighting opposition. ... I just want them to show more discerning judgment when picking their hills to fight on,” he added. Tea party conservatives should have seen all of that coming, said Baylor University professor Curt Nichols. “Ultimately, they lost the recent tussle with President Obama because they failed to consider what...

Moved perhaps by the melancholic sight of the sun setting against the tombs in Rome's Verano Cemetery, the final resting place of so many great Italians, or stirred perhaps by the memory of all the victims of persecution, to whom he referred a few hours earlier during the Angelus, Pope Francis put aside his written homily and spoke ad lib during the Mass he celebrated this afternoon. In his meditation, the words that prevailed were 'hope', 'anchor', and 'Jesus', as if he were proclaiming the power of Christian hope in a place that speaks about everyone's end and death.Surrounded by...

President Obama often blames Republicans for taking America from crisis to crisis. Fiscal cliff! Government shutdown! Near default! But self-inflicted wounds can be the most painful of all. And in the spirit of President Harry “Buck Stops Here” Truman, Mr. Obama may have no one but himself to blame for the botched rollout of HealthCare.gov, the website whose proper functioning is key to the success of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the signature initiative of Obama’s presidency. Presidential scholars are baffled that someone whose legacy rests on the success of the ACA – reinforced by a nickname, "Obamacare," that includes...

Towards the end of his life St Paul of the Cross, founder of the Passionists, was saying Mass and suddenly he stopped, his eyes filled with tears, and he remained motionless, weeping, for a few moments. Afterwards, he explained that he had seen, in something like a vision, “my children in England”. By this he meant he had seen the Passionists in England. That was not to happen until Fr Dominic Barberi and his three companions arrived in 1841, the following century.Blessed Dominic is remembered by many Catholics simply as the priest who received Blessed John Henry Newman into the...

The unraveling of the Barack Obama's dysfunctional presidency started when it became clear his policies were not improving a jobless economy that is still on the Fed's temporary life- support system. Things went from bad to worse when he won a second term without offering a new agenda. The government was on auto-pilot and remains so today. It is still sinking deeper into debt (two-thirds of a trillion dollars this year), jobs are in short-supply, we've lost the respect of our allies, global terrorism is spreading, but at long last the national news media seems to be turning on him....

A time lapse shot of the USS Zumwalt being moved from the pier to the drydock, and then to the water.

Many believe that the current administration – or perhaps more broadly, the current Democratic regime, by the triumvirate Obama, Pelosi, and Reid since the 2006 elections – will be remembered and condemned for its “unforced errors”… that is, for the unnecessary mistakes it has made, through mishandling programs and clumsily creating needless trouble by misreading economic cause-and-effect or societal trends. But were they truly errors at all? Were they mistakes? Much of the damage done by this administration has in fact been intentional – either out of some arrogant belief that “we elites know better than you do” or out...

A former top general and current executive at the Family Research Council says members of the military have considered staging a coup d'état against President, but will not because of civilian control of the military. "People I've spoken to would like to see the military 'fulfill their constitutional duty and take out the president,' " retired Army Lt. Gen. William Boykin told World Net Daily, a website best known for pushing Obama "birther" conspiracy theories. "Our Constitution puts a civilian in charge of the military and as a result a coup would not be constitutional. You're not going to see...

The US will fast-track delivery of six V-22 Osprey helicopter-plane aircraft to Israel, US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said Thursday in his address to the Anti-Defamation League's centennial conference in New York. NBC News reported that the Pentagon agreed to send Israel the next batch of Ospreys to come off the production line after Israel requested this week that the delivery of the aircraft be expedited amid threats from Iran and Syria. The next group of Ospreys had originally been slated for assignation to the US Marines, a Pentagon official told NBC. "Israel will get six V-22s out of...

DURHAM, N.C. (WTVD) -- A single mother wrote to ABC11 to share a story of what happened to her family at a Pizza Hut in Durham. The Raleigh woman said the past few years have been very trying for her family. She is going through a messy divorce, has had to move several times, and had to take a year off from attending college. She said recently she found out that her 4-year-old daughter has bullying tendencies, and her 6-year-old son is living with Asperger's and ADHD. Every Friday night, the woman takes her family on a dinner tour where...

It was a health care shocker for college students in New Jersey who found out that they can’t buy low-cost health insurance at their schools because of the Affordable Care Act. Now, they are at the risk of being without insurance, CBS 2′s Christine Sloan reported. Alex McTaggert is majoring in Computer Science but even he is having trouble signing up for health insurance on the Federal website. “It said, ‘info you entered is not valid’ so I have to call this number,” McTaggart said. For Carolina Mendonca it was easier to put together a creative Halloween costume than it...

Colonel James Irwin: Creationist Astronaut by Jerry Bergman, Ph.D. * James Benson Irwin (March 17, 1930–August 8, 1991), an American astronaut and scientist, was lunar module pilot for Apollo 15 on the fourth human lunar landing and was the eighth person to walk on the moon.1 From childhood, Irwin dreamed of going to the moon.2 After receiving a B.S. in naval science from the United States Naval Academy and a M.S. in aeronautical engineering from the University of Michigan, Irwin graduated from the Air Force Experimental Test Pilot School and the Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School. In preparation for...

On a conference call with reporters Friday afternoon, Republican Ken Cuccinelli said his campaign was closing aggressively and was "positioned to shock the political world" in Tuesday's Virginia election. Cuccinelli, who trails Democrat Terry McAuliffe in polling, said his campaign was beating their turnout and grass roots goals. Cuccinelli stressed repeatedly that President Obama's decision to campaign on Sunday with McAuliffe was a "great opportunity" for the Republican's campaign. "[The Democrats] are having a rally to celebrate ObamaCare," Cuccinelli said. He noted that he was the "first person in the country" to fight ObamaCare, referencing the fact that he was...