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We eat a lot of rice and I've decided a rice dispenser would be a nice present for Christmas

Oprah Winfrey says she wishes people wouldn't rush to judge private conversations between Sony executives that were revealed in a recent hack. I would hope that we would not stand in judgement--in such harsh judgement--of a moment in time where somebody was hacked and their private conversations were put before the world. Because if we were to look at your computer and everybody else's computer...I try to write everything as though it's going to show up in the New York Times. But there are things that you say in your private conversations with your friends and your colleagues that you...

Recently Iranian Army General Hossein Salami claimed that Iran had infiltrated the United States with orders to attack America from within should the U.S. or Israel attack Iranian territory.A clear reference to our concerns about Iran’s nuclear research facilities, which are widely suspected of conducting research into the development of nuclear weapons. It certainly is plausible, considering our porous borders, that Iranian agents may well have entered the United States with instructions to wreak havoc in America.But when I hear boasting and threats such as this coming from the Islamic Republic of Iran, I think back to an exchange that...

Nope. Not their war against Christmas; but their war against our military: The Obama administration is withholding hundreds, perhaps even thousands of photographs showing the U.S. government’s brutal treatment of detainees, meaning that revelations about detainee abuse could well continue, possibly compounding the outrage generated by the Senate “torture report” now in the public eye. Some photos show American troops posing with corpses; others depict U.S. forces holding guns to people’s heads or simulating forced sodomization. All of them could be released to the public, depending on how a federal judge in New York rules—and how hard the government fights...

A Chinese teenager executed after being convicted of murder and rape 18 years ago was declared innocent by a court Monday, in a rare overturning of a wrongful conviction. The 18-year-old, named Hugjiltu and also known as Qoysiletu, was found guilty and put to death in Inner Mongolia in 1996, but doubt was cast on the verdict when another man confessed to the crime in 2005."The Inner Mongolia Higher People's Court finds Hugjiltu's original guilty verdict... is not consistent with the facts and there is insufficient evidence," the court in Hohhot said in a statement. "Hugjiltu is found not guilty."...

Having almost touched $59 overnight, WTI crude has collapsed back to a $55 handle, smashing the Ruble lower and high-yield credit spreads higher. US financial stocks are starting to weaken back towards the credit market's warnings as counterparty risk concerns spread...

On her last Sunday as host of CNN's State of the Union, Candy Crowley received a fist bump from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) who thanked her for a "job well done." "I just want to congratulate you," Schumer told Crowley. It's been an amazing 27 years. You're the best of the old-school journalism. You study it thoroughly. You ask the hard questions. You get the answers. And there's no gimmicks or anything else."

In the United States—as in all of the world’s wealthier nations—ending poverty is not a matter of resources. Many economists, including Timothy Smeeding of the University of Wisconsin (and former director of the Institute for Research on Poverty) have argued that every developed nation has the financial wherewithal to eradicate poverty. In large part this is because post-industrial productivity has reached the point where to suggest a deficit in resources is laughably disingenuous. And despite the occasional political grandstanding against welfare, there is no policy, ideology or political party that is on the books as pro-starvation, pro-homelessness, pro-death or anti-dignity....

The Hacktivist group known as Anonymous has recently come out in support of the Jessica Chambers murder case. The young girl was found burned alive near her vehicle in rural Mississippi. Anonymous claims that the police were ill-prepared to handle such a high-profile case; therefore, the group decided to take the case into their own hands. After hacking into several social media accounts of local known gang members, the group was able to uncover some startling new evidence. The Anonymous Jessica Chambers campaign is being sourced to Twitter via the user @0Hour1, which is labeled as OperationJessicaC. The first tweet...

The first family is returning to Hawaii for their seventh straight Christmas vacation, a 17-day break President Obama is “eagerly looking forward to.” The White House has announced that the president and his family with depart Washington on Friday and is expected to return Jan. 4. “On Friday, the first family will depart the White House en route to Honolulu, Hawaii — a flight that I know the president himself is eagerly looking forward to,” said spokesman Josh Earnest.

Melbourne's world champion pizza maker Johnny Di Francesco has made a pizza with 99 cheeses. It's the stuff of bratty eight-year-old Kevin McCallister's dreams - a beautiful cheese pizza complete with 99 cheeses. Unlike the Home Alone character, the latest pizza wonder is expected to feed more than one when Melbourne pizza supremo Johnny Di Francesco puts his creative talents to the fore. The super chef has blended 94 cheeses and cooked them off to create one flavoursome super cheese, then adds another five fresh cheeses to his new pizza before and after it is wood-fired.

Obama addresses the troops at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst - On Air Now

Rumor has it that Draghi is so fed up with German opposition to everything he wants to do with stimulus and sovereign debt bond buying that he is about to leave the ECB. The Fiscal Times asks Why the Hell Does Mario Draghi Want to Leave the ECB Now!? What would happen to EuropeÂ’s prospects for recovery if Mario Draghi left his job as president of the European Central Bank? Would DraghiÂ’s plans to implement an ambitious policy of monetary stimulus get bulldozed by German inflation hawks and others favoring continued austerity across the Continent? Even a week ago there...

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New .50-caliber bullets that can change direction after they have been fired could soon make U.S. military snipers more deadly. The EXACTO program — or Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance — is being developed by California's Teledyne Scientific & Imaging, LLC at the behest of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, according to a DARPA video posted on Youtube. "The objective of the EXACTO program is to revolutionize rifle accuracy and range by developing the first ever guided small-caliber bullet," DARPA officials said in a July statement accompanying the video. "The EXACTO .50-caliber round and optical sighting technology expects to greatly...

For two decades Atlanta restaurant owner Jim Dunn offered a group health plan to his managers and helped pay for it. That ended Dec. 1, after the Affordable Care Act made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Health-law subsidies for workers to buy their own coverage combined with years of rising costs in the company plan made dropping the plan an obvious – though not easy – choice. Companies like Dunn’s — those with fewer than 50 workers — provide medical coverage to roughly 20 million people. Unlike larger employers, they have no obligation under the health law to offer...

Critics and defenders of the harsh interrogation methods applied to captured terrorists can argue forever over whether those methods were "torture." But any serious discussion of a serious issue — and surely terrorism qualifies as serious — has to move beyond semantics and confront the ultimate question: "Compared to what alternative?" If you knew that there was a hidden nuclear time bomb planted somewhere in New York City — set to go off today — and you had a captured terrorist who knew where and when, would you not do anything whatever to make him tell you where and when?...

Dorian Johnson is making headlines yet again. For those who aren’t familiar with Johnson, he was the key witness in the controversial Ferguson case. He actually witnessed the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown on Aug. 9. But, that’s not all. His claims also sparked the national protesting mantra, “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” since Johnson stated Brown had his hands up and asked Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson not to shoot him. However, details about Johnson’s claims later proved that the unarmed teen did not have his hands up. Now, another report has revealed more flaws in Johnson’s claims, reports...

I donÂ’t know if this is a good personality trait or a character flaw, but it always brings a big smile to my face when a leftist tries to argue for bigger government but inadvertently makes an argument in favor of smaller government. Sort of like scoring a goal against your own team in soccer. It seems to happens quite a bit at the New York Times.ANew York Times columnist, for instance, pushed for a tax-hiking fiscal agreement back in 2011 based on a chart showing that the only successful budget deal was the one that cut taxes.The following year,...

<p>Demonstrators protesting killings by police in New York and Missouri were arrested Monday after they chained themselves to doors and a flagpole at the Oakland Police Department headquarters.</p> <p>A live-stream video via Blackout Collective shows demonstrators blocking a doorway outside the headquarters and singing, “Calling out the violence of the racist police” as they were taken into custody by officers.</p>