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Since when is Meghan McCain an expert?

SAINT-DENIS, Reunion -- Sixteen-year-old sailor Abby Sunderland is homeward bound - though her plane flight back to California isn't the homecoming she originally imagined when she set off in hopes of sailing around the world. About two weeks after her rescue at sea, Sunderland departed Sunday from the French island of Reunion, off the southeastern coast of Africa, en route to France, then on to California.

President Obama went to Las Vegas today. (How many people do you think have already made the joke ‘a little less conversation, a little more action please’?) While out there Obama managed to smooth over the recent rough relations with the city and held a town hall where he discussed, among other things, the recent extreme weather conditions across the country. No matter what some parts of the conservative party would have you believe, says Obama, climate change is real. His remarks and video below. When the Conservatives have their conventions (ahem) and they yell at me and say how...

Operator Vows To Replace Equipment & Resume Broadcasts Ottawa ON Industry Canada and the RCMP forced Ottawa's infamous pirate radio station off the air today, showing up at the broadcast location and removing all broadcast equipment. More (including photos) from the Ottawa Sun and the Ottawa Citizen. The 14 year old station operator's father told media that he was assured that no charges would be filed. UPDATE: Sunday Jan 17, 2010 During a very angry on-line broadcast via his website on Saturday, which MMU began recording after hearing him yelling "kill, kill, kill, kill you" over the song that was...

Barack Obama, a reputed master of the persuasive art, has settled on his central argument for the stimulus bill: I won. That Obama is reduced to this crude appeal is a symptom of the intellectual collapse of the case for his stimulus bill, a congressional spendfest untethered from its stated goal of providing a rapid “jolt” to the economy. As far as political arguments go, “I won” has its power—provided it’s made on behalf of an agenda ratified by the American electorate. But Obama didn’t campaign on a sprawling, nearly $1 trillion new spending plan. If he had pledged in...

He's only been in office for three days, and President Obama is already behaving like Veruca Salt in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. About all that's left is for him to sing “Don't Care How, I Want It Now” and then plummet down the bad egg chute to the furnace. He apparently thinks that both Republicans and the media should both unquestioningly bend over and kiss his behind, unaware that the latter already has been doing so for over two years. As the cameraman in the first quote shows, a good many of the mainstream media still have their...

First, let's dispense with the thundering denial that just came rolling down from Mount St. Miley: The rumor that Hannah Montana is considering legal emancipation from her parents is, in the words of a Cyrus publicist responding to my inquiry, "completely false." However, if Miley Cyrus did want legal sundering from Billy Ray and What's Her Name—essentially freeing herself from her parents and achieving an early adulthood—the teen sensation would be the latest in a long line of famous child performers to do so. In fact there are plenty of names you probably know very well ...

Christopher Buckley - whose famous parents, William F. and Pat Buckley, died within months of each other after 57 years of marriage - is coming out with a book about them, "Losing Mom and Pop," in May - and it isn't going to be all sweetness and light. "Writing this book may have been simply a way of spending more time with my parents before finally letting them go," Buckley, 56, tells Vanity Fair's Bob Colacello in the magazine's January issue. "I honestly had no intention of writing about them. But I'm a writer, and when the universe hands you...

<p>MSNBC blowhard Keith Olbermann couldn't even control his temper at a memorial reception for beloved Tim Russert.</p> <p>Network sources told Page Six Olbermann was furious last week when MSNBC didn't get him a first-class ticket to Washington, DC, for a private service honoring the "Meet the Press" anchor's passing.</p>

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Paris Hilton says she is locking up her "dumb" act and throwing away the key. Hilton revealed her new outlook in a weekend phone call to Barbara Walters from a county jail medical ward where she is serving out a 45- day sentence for violating probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case. "I used to act dumb. It was an act. I am 26 years old, and that act is no longer cute," Hilton said during the call, according to an account posted by Walters on ABC's Web site. "It is not who I am, nor...

The following release was posted Tuesday night to the web log of Senator James Inhofe: From behind the scenes on Capitol Hill: Former Vice President Al Gore, despite being given major preferential treatment, has violated the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee?s (EPW) hearing rules. Gore first demanded to be granted an unprecedented 30 minute opening statement to the Senate EPW Committee for Wednesday?s (March 21) global warming hearing scheduled for 2:30 pm ET. The GOP minority on the EPW committee agreed to the 30 minute opening statement. But then Gore demanded a waiver of the EPW committee?s 48 hour...

She was relaxing in the Dazzle beauty salon awaiting a hot stone body scrub when she got the call. It was obviously something important or her personal assistant would not have risked invoking her volcanic temper by passing her the mobile phone mid-treatment. Indeed it was. On the end of the line was a lawyer telling her that Saddam Hussein had lost his appeal and would hang by the end of the week. And the tall, slim woman who paled as she received this news was the tyrant's redoubtable eldest daughter Raghad. There was much arm-waving, cursing and shrieking. But...

What's The Scoop: Wide receiver Terrell Owens rested his sore left hamstring again Friday morning after missing his first practice of training camp Thursday. Dressed in sweats and a baseball cap, Owens watched while the Cowboys practiced for two hours on a soggy River Ridge Complex field. Cowboys head coach Bill Parcells said he didn't know when Owens would return to practice, but he wasn't concerned about his star receiver's hamstring. And Owens said Thursday he and the team are simply being cautious. "I don't know that he has an injury," Parcells said. "I think he's worried about it. That's...

Poor Patrick. It's not what people would be expected to say about a rich kid who sailed into a House seat on the strength of his family name. But in Washington, where politics is both profession and blood sport, Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) has long been seen as a figure of sadness. "Most people feel sorry for him because he's obviously troubled," said a veteran Democratic consultant after the 38-year-old Kennedy announced his return to drug rehab after crashing his car on Capitol Hill. "He walks around as though he has the weight of the world on his shoulders," the...

Marry a Chinese woman for song and dance Thu Mar 16, 7:43 AM ET In a case of life imitating reality television, a 20-year-old woman in China has launched a national song-and-dance competition for top prize -- her hand in marriage. Not only will the twinkle-toed bachelor get to marry the woman, he will also receive 100,000 yuan (12,300 dollars), a diamond ring and a chance to sign a contract with a record company, the Beijing Daily Messenger said Thursday. Tryouts begin next month in five Chinese cities with the winner to be selected by professional dancers and an audience...

S14240 December 21, 2005 Did you see that? Did you see how it devastated the land, and all the plant life is now dying because it was inundated in saltwater? The earthquake in my State did that. I saw one town disappear. I saw a third of my city, Anchorage, disappear. You have to have had that experience to understand how I felt when I went to New Orleans. You people didn’t believe it. Many of you said I did this for political reasons, just a crass thing, pick up some money and give it away for votes. I never...

By Ann Givens The day after Maria Guevara turned 18, she packed her bags and moved out of her mother’s Floral Park home. She had a strained relationship with her father, who she said physically abused her when she was younger — a charge he denies — and she said her mother was too strict, setting an early curfew and denying her money for restaurants and fashionable clothes. But after she moved into a friend’s basement in Bellerose Terrace in March, Guevara did something her mother didn’t see coming: She sued her parents for child support in Nassau Family Court....

CARRBORO -- Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink and a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, will be the featured speaker at a fundraising event for the NC Peace & Justice Coalition at the ArtsCenter Sept. 16. The event, titled, "Send the Youth to DC, Not Iraq," begins at 8 p.m. It's designed to raise money to help send 2000 North Carolinians to an anti-war march in Washington. The performance lineup of musicians, dancers and poets includes MC Pandemonium, Boxcar Bertha and The Fruit of Labor Singing Ensemble Tickets are $12 for adults, $5 for students, and are on sale mow at...

Wilbanks vigil: Congregation prayed and shared families' emotions throughout ordealWhen Jennifer Wilbanks was first reported missing last week, the congregation at Peachtree Corners Baptist Church gave support to both her family and her fiancé's. Church members raised thankful prayers when she turned up safe in New Mexico on Saturday, and they shared the two families' shock upon discovering that Wilbanks had fled town voluntarily just days before her wedding. On Sunday, Peachtree Corners Pastor Bob Horner tried to make sense of his congregation's weekend roller coaster of emotion. Horner briefly mentioned Wilbanks' saga during his sermon Sunday. He said Wilbanks'...

Shortly before the plane touched down at 9 p.m. in Atlanta, a flight attendant handed out a written statement from the Wilbanks family to the media that said: "She has spoken to her fiance. He cannot wait to see her. She says the wedding is not called off, just postponed."