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A provocative documentary about media ownership in the US, featuring input from Julian Assange, will have its Australian premiere today at the Canberra International Film Festival. Director and producer Jean-Philippe Tremblay, who spoke to The Canberra Times from Cuba on Friday, said the film aimed to raise questions about media ownership in every democratic country, but focused on stories from the US media landscape. ''We have really focused on the media monopolies held by five media conglomerates - News Corp, Time-Warner, Disney, Viacom and General Electric - and they dominate most of the media in the US and a lot...

A provocative documentary about media ownership in the US, featuring input from Julian Assange, will have its Australian premiere today at the Canberra International Film Festival. Director and producer Jean-Philippe Tremblay, who spoke to The Canberra Times from Cuba on Friday, said the film aimed to raise questions about media ownership in every democratic country, but focused on stories from the US media landscape. ''We have really focused on the media monopolies held by five media conglomerates - News Corp, Time-Warner, Disney, Viacom and General Electric - and they dominate most of the media in the US and a lot...

The University of Michigan Survey of Consumer Sentiment rose to its highest point since the beginning of Q4 2007. But bear in mind that Q4 2007 is where the housing market fell off a cliff. So, I wouldn’t place too much confidence in this index. After all, US recession probability (blue line) is up. Still, declining mortgage rates, declining gas prices, 171,000 jobs created and a stabilizing housing market led to rising consumer confidence. And the government’s food stamp program (SNAP) rose to 47,102,780 persons as of the end of August, an all-time high! And the increase from July to...

Just had a rather strong and lengthy earthquake here in East Tennessee. The event started with a sudden shake, then a pause, then a lengthy quake of significant magnitude, I would estimate to be in the range of 3 to 4. Is this event connected to shaking in other areas? How is that mountain side in the Azores(?) which is capable of sending a massive tsunami toward the East Coast fairing? Ant word from other freepers out there?

The Washington Post did a terrible job if it was attempting to hide its joy over Four More Years for their superstars the Obamas. "The Reliable Source" gossip column on Thursday repeated its usual pitter-patter love for "style superstar" Michelle and her stylist Meredith Koop: "Four more years! . . . of exquisitely coordinated Obama family fashion. The president’s first term made a style superstar out of Michelle Obama, but have you noticed? The entire first family has a way of turning out in the same palette almost every time they’re photographed. It’s a subtle color-coordination that manages not to...

U.S. President Barack Obama (silhouetted in car window) and his family return after his re-election, to the White House in Washington, November 7, 2012. MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin has invited newly re-elected U.S. President Barack Obama to visit Moscow next year.​​Mr. Putin’s outstretched hand contrasts to the cold shoulder offered President Obama four years ago, at the time of the American’s first election. At that time, Europe was swept with Obama-mania. But the Kremlin responded to Barack Obama’s election by announcing that Russia would install missiles in Kaliningrad, Russia’s westernmost territory. Alexander Romanovich, a Duma deputy who is...

Biden: 'We've got to get this economy working' before considering 2016 By Justin Sink - 11/09/12 05:26 PM ET Vice President Biden said Friday that his focus was on helping President Obama to improve the economy, not the potential 2016 run he hinted at on the campaign trail earlier this month. “There’s plenty of time to think about 2016,” Biden told the Wilmington News-Journal. “We’ve got to get this economy working. If three years from now the economy is not working, it’s not going to be worth doing much. This is all about making Barack an incredibly successful second-term president....

Estimated Unprocessed Ballots for November 6, 2012, General Election STATEWIDE: Vote-By-Mail: 2,314,609 Provisionals: 922,446 Other*: 97,440 Estimated Total Remaining: 3,334,495 Updated: 11/9/2012 5:00 p.m.

Did the cuckolded husband of Paula Broadwell send a letter to a New York Times advice column back in July that revealed he knew of her affair with David Petraeus? That intriguing possibility has been raised after canny observers dug out the July 13th edition of Chuck Klosterman's 'The Ethicist' and pointed to extraordinary coincidences between one readers letter and the now scandalous love tryst. Writing about a deepening relationship he knew his wife was having with a 'government executive' whose job 'is seen worldwide as a demonstration of American leadership' the anonymous man offers up what could be considered...

The most anti-Catholic American president ever scooped up the Catholic vote again, winning half of all Catholics. This is down four points from 2008, but it is still an impressive feat after four years of persecuting the Church.Historians will no doubt record the grim irony of his achievement with some wonder. He has now won the Catholic vote twice and boasts an honorary degree in law from one of the Church's most prestigious universities, all while breaking her. Saul Alinsky, who pioneered the technique of bamboozling and exploiting the Church, would be proud.Obama also won the religious vote in general...

 Though many of the state margins were narrow President Obama ran the table winning every swing or battleground state with the possible exception of Florida where votes are still being counted as of 5:30 this morning.President Obama also won the popular vote by 2 million votes.  The President won 303 electoral votes to 206 for Romney. We knew about 11 pm that the President had won when Ohio was called for him.Democrats also held the Senate.  Elizabeth Warren won with a good margin in Massachusetts. Claire McKaskill won in Missouri beating Akin-he of the legitimate rape comment. Joe Donnelly...

It's been almost a week since the de-lection, and various posts have popped up showing unrealistic numbers for NObama in Virginia, Florida and Ohio. We all know massive voter fraud was in play in this election - the Chicago way. Question: Can Romney pull his concession speech based on the data from polling centers? Can he ask for a recount? And if he could...would he?

The attorney general’s job or a seat on the Supreme Court wasn’t officially on the menu last night as Gov. Deval Patrick had dinner at the White House with President Obama. Or so Patrick says. “In a different time and place and under different circumstances, I’d like to work in the administration, but that’s not this time,” Patrick said yesterday while at the ground-breaking for the new $244 million rebuild of the Fore River Bridge on the Quincy-Weymouth line.

The "fiscal cliff" crisis is here. Wouldn't it be great if the White House and Congress could solve this crisis together, without having to compromise the principles of either side? Sound impossible? Not really; engineers achieve such magic all the time. Here's how.

Weekend Edition Why I don't vote… and you shouldn't either Saturday, November 10, 2012 My good friend and intellectual mentor, Doug Casey, recently shared the five reasons why he doesn't vote. He typically re-publishes these thoughts every four years. Perhaps you've seen them before. While I agree with Doug in principle… I have a wholly different rationale for not voting. Given this week's election, I thought I'd tell you about it. The reason I don't vote (and you shouldn't either) is… Our current system of governance is nothing more than tyranny, and it's on track to destroy our country. Like...

I reached out to a senior military source who has worked with Petraeus, (P4) as he's referred to within the service, and who helped provide background information for Broadwell's book. I'll call the officer "James Downing"). A transcript of our conversation follows: BI: Did anyone know about the affair before today? James: I'm not sure anyone really "knew", per se. But it's one of those things that, as soon as the announcement was made, I knew in an instant who it was. Everything made sense. Who had exclusive access to him? Who wrote the hagiography on his life? Who framed...

The Congressional District 2 showdown between Republican Martha McSally and Democrat Ron Barber has gone into overtime - and it could come down to instant replay. McSally holds a minuscule lead of less than two-tenths of a percentage point over Barber - a 400-vote difference in a race in which more 228,000 votes have been tabulated, with several days of additional vote counting to go. What remains are an estimated 70,000 votes in Pima County, about 27,000 of them provisional ballots that need to be verified and the rest early ballots that were dropped off at polling places or delivered...

WASHINGTON — President Bush signed the biggest rewrite of U.S. bankruptcy law in a quarter century on Wednesday, making it harder for debt-ridden Americans to wipe out their obligations. “Bankruptcy should always be a last resort in our legal system,” Bush said. “If someone does not pay his or her debts the rest of society ends up paying them.” Many debtors will have to work out repayment plans instead of having their obligations erased in bankruptcy court under the law, which will go into effect in six months. The 500-page legislation won final congressional approval last week after being pushed...

An article in Foreign Policy magazine a couple of weeks ago caught my eye: Terry Anderson explained why the world still needed war correspondents. Anderson was writing about Austin Tice, the freelance journalist recently kidnapped in Syria, and the dangers of the trade in general when going to a war zone. Terry Anderson? A familiar figure among historians of the Lebanese civil war; a journalist most famous for a long period when he didn't write a single word. Terry Anderson had been the AP's Beirut bureau chief for two years when he was abducted by armed militias in Ain al-Mreisseh,...

"When I remember thee upon my bed, [and] meditate on thee in the [night] watches.....I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways...My hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments, which I have loved; and I will meditate in thy statutes....Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all"----Meditate is to ponder. It also means to mutter, ie say to your self, speak softly again and again. Not as the heathen do thinking their many words impresses God but to repeat to yourself to anchor it in your...