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A NASA employee has been suspended for soliciting donations and writing politically partisan blog posts and sending e-mail messages while at work, violations of the Hatch Act. Office of the Special Counsel officials said a Johnson Space Center employee promoted local and state political candidates in 2006 and 2007 through his Internet writings. The officials also found the employee solicited small campaign donations two times in 2006 through blogs. The employee has been suspended for 180 days without pay. The suspension started March 30. Special Counsel Scott Bloch said the suspension is part of an effort to crack down on...

On accepting Scott McClellan's resignation as his press secretary two years ago, President Bush predicted that he and the outgoing aide some day would be "rocking in chairs in Texas and talking about the good old days." But maybe their days in the White House together weren't so happy after all. Next week will bring the publication of McClellan's 341-page tome, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception." It is described by Politico's Mike Allen as "surprisingly scathing."

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Jane Novak, a 46-year-old stay-at-home mother of two in New Jersey, has never been to Yemen. She speaks no Arabic, and freely admits that until a few years ago, she knew nothing about that strife-torn south Arabian country. And yet Ms. Novak has become so well known in Yemen that newspaper editors say they sell more copies if her photograph — blond and smiling — is on the cover. Her blog, an outspoken news bulletin on Yemeni affairs, is banned there. The government’s allies routinely vilify her in print as an American agent, a Shiite monarchist, a...

Liveblogging Wright at the National Press Club: The "black church" is under "attack;" "I am open to being vice president;" defends his AIDS conspiracy-theorizing, "God damns," "Louis Farrakhan is not my enemy;" don't be dissin' my mama or my faith

Good morning, people. I'll be on Fox and Friends at around 8:15am to talk politics. Today's engine-starter is The American Digest's post on Jeremiah Wright's racial brain theories. Do you remember nutball racialist professor Leonard (Blacks are "sun people," whites are "ice people.") Jeffries? Jeremiah Wright is the Leonard Jeffries of 2008. First, watch this:

Another ethnic slur has reared its ugly head from the golf world, and once again, it's from a golf announcer. Bobby Clampett, a former pro and CBS announcer, referred to Chinese golfer Wen-Chong Liang as "the Chinaman," on the air on Friday. Clampett issued an apology, albeit a rather weak one, on the air: "It has been a privilege to be here with you the last two days describing action of the players. In describing the Asian player Wen-Chong Liang if I offended anybody please accept my sincere apolgies." These are sensitive times in the golf world. Golf is trying...

I have a blog, lets call it "myblog," and it's at blogger.com. I'd like to move to my own web site, www.me.com, and have it within a folder, www.me.com/blog. The instructions that blogger.com gives are really unclear. I know I can republish, but I'm unclear of the directory settings. Thanks for any help.

Today I read on Shanghai Daily that the picture that the Dalai Llama has been showing to prove that Chinese soldiers dressed as priest to start the violence in Tibet is not real. According to this report is is an old photo. I am not going to post the two contrasting photos on the site. Please click the Shanghai Daily link to see them. However, I am going to comment on them. In the first photo you see many Chinese soldiers with no hats on but in uniform. Most of them are holding monk style clothes. In the second photo...

Looks like the folks in Minnesota are trying to have a little fun. So many of you responded to our video requesting help to name our blog, we here in Minneapolis-Saint Paul figured we're in March, the local college is trying to get into the post-season basketball tournament, that tournament has a catchy nickname, so why don’t we *ahem* "leverage" that into creating our own contest: Blog Madness?

The New York Times started a community in Russian part of LiveJournal. Some of NYT articles will be translated to Russian and published there, collecting comments from Russian readers. These comments then will be translated into English and published at nytimes.com. Here you can find comments of Russian readers for NYT article "Putin’s Iron Grip on Russia Suffocates Opponents".

Thanks Doug for the great Image. I asked the Freepers for help and it took about 2 hours to get what I needed. You guys rock or as they say in China "Lock." Please come on over to the site and see the new logo.

May as well pimp my blog too, it's a good place to avoid politics for a while.

Just to let you all know, in case you are interested. I help run/manage/contribute to www.American-Infidels.com as WOLKING'S WORLD, which is all dedicated to defeating radical Islam and its leftist allies while defending Western civilization. I also just started a live political blog recently, www.WolkingsWorld.com Check them out and let me know what you think.

Scratch one terrorist from the FBI's Most Wanted list. An explosion killed Hezbollah leader Imad Mughniyeh, one of the planners of the 1983 bombings in Beirut that killed 241 Marines and another 63 people at our embassy in Lebanon. He also took part in the 1985 TWA hijacking that resulted in the beating death of Navy diver Robert Stethem: A senior Hezbollah commander implicated in some of the most high-profile international terrorist attacks of the last 25 years has died in an explosion in Syria, Hezbollah TV said Wednesday. Imad Mughniyeh was suspected by Western intelligence agencies in the 1983...

And Obama Wept February 07, 2008 9:43 AM Inspiration is nice. But some folks seem to be getting out of hand. It's as if Tom Daschle descended from on high saying, "Be not afraid; for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people: for there is born to you this day in the city of Chicago a Savior, who is Barack the Democrat." Obama supporter Kathleen Geier writes that she's "getting increasingly weirded out by some of Obama's supporters. On listservs I'm on, some people who should know better – hard-bitten, not-so-young...

Can Mitt still win? Frankly, no – the arithmetic makes it all but impossible The Republicans have already chosen most of their delegates, and Romney has won only 256 of the 1,417 chosen so far—some 18%. To get the delegates he needs to lock up the nomination, Romney would not only have to improve his performance, he’d have to become virtually perfect – winning 934 of the 963 delegates who haven’t yet been chosen. Unless all other candidates dropped out of the race, there’s no way anyone will scoop up more than 97% of the delegates remaining. Even if Mitt...

Are immigrant Muslim taxi drivers heroically selfless “family men” or are they soldiers in an advancing jihadic Army? As a New Yorker, I have been driven by very friendly and exceptionally courteous male Muslim taxi drivers from Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, and Somalia, and once, by an enchanting woman driver from Afhganistan—but I have also held on for dear life as ill-tempered, mentally unbalanced, unbelivably misogynistic male Muslim drivers have indulged in full-blown rage attacks as they careened in traffic. Of course, I have also experienced similarly bad behavior at the hands of home-grown taxi drivers as well. Maybe long...

Before leaving the Middle East, Bush is reported to have promised Benjamin Netanyahu that the US would join Israel in a nuclear strike on Iran. In Israel, there is talk of a "...a rain of missiles" for which Israelis must prepare now. Speaking on radio as part of a military propaganda offensive, retired general Udi Shani said: "The next war will see a massive use of ballistic weapons against the whole of Israeli territory." Shani was tasked recently with drawing up a report on the way the military authorities operated during Israel's summer war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. During that...

“We can achieve much more in peace than we can ever achieve in these needless, unconstitutional, undeclared wars.” “Don’t we know if we sacrifice security for liberty we lose both, that’s what is happening in this country today!”“If you look at every problem we’re facing today its because for the lack of rule of law and the constitution.”“We live way beyond our means, with a foreign policy we can’t afford and an entitlement system that we have encouraged.”“With politicians like these, who needs terrorists?”“NO! I’m saying that we should take our marching orders from our Constitution!”“…[the neo-cons] said we’d be...

Oro Valley Scores another Dubious First: Town threatened blogger's First Amendment rights by Clint Bolick The town of Oro Valley, whose local government does not mirror its idyllic surroundings, was Arizona's retail development subsidy capital until its town council declared a moratorium on the practice last year. Now it is distinguishing itself in another way: as the state's leading suppressor of political expression. The town's policies have inspired a remarkable degree of civic activism, including a blog called Let Oro Valley Excel, operated by retired executive Art Segal. Segal is an irritant in the body of the beast, regularly subjecting...