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<p>At first the move to America from the former USSR made me feel as though I had made a jump in time, from the stagnant depraved past into a distant dynamic future.</p> <p>There was an abundance of commonly available futuristic contraptions, machines, and appliances that made everyday existence easier and more enjoyable. Less obvious but just as exciting was the media's openness: I no longer needed to read between the lines to know what was happening.</p>

The George Zimmerman defense team has filed a motion to compel Benjamin Crump, the Trayvon Martin family attorney, to produce the original recording of his telephone interview with Trayvon's girlfriend "Dee Dee". Summary in Comments.

Parts of a tunnel collapsed Sunday on a highway west of Tokyo, trapping an unknown number of vehicles as smoke from a fire inside initially prevented rescuers from approaching. Video footage from cameras inside the tunnel, after the fire was apparently extinguished, showed firefighters picking their way through cement roof panels that collapsed onto vehicles inside the Sasago Tunnel, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) outside the city. About 25 vehicles were inside the (2.5 mile) 4.3 kilometer-long tunnel, some of them trucks stopped by the tunnel's collapse.

Explanation: Is the night sky darkest in the direction opposite the Sun? No. In fact, a rarely discernable faint glow known as the gegenschein (German for "counter glow") can be seen 180 degrees around from the Sun in an extremely dark sky. The gegenschein is sunlight back-scattered off small interplanetary dust particles. These dust particles are millimeter sized splinters from asteroids and orbit in the ecliptic plane of the planets. Pictured above from 2008 October is one of the more spectacular pictures of the gegenschein yet taken. Here a deep exposure of an extremely dark sky over Paranal Observatory in...

Sheriff says she crushed drugs into his sandwichThe man deputies say was poisoned by his own wife says he still loves her, but says she's never welcomed back to their Lake Wales home. The Polk County Sheriff's Office says on Thursday, Beth Richards secretly slid crushed up anti-depressants into a tuna fish sandwich that she made for her husband, Greg. "I think she went over the edge maybe," he said outside of his home on Friday. "I don't know." Authorities are calling it attempted murder. "It shocks us that this is cold, calculated, and premeditated," said Polk County Sheriff Grady...

Photographer Fubirai has spent the last five years documenting the lives of the semi-wild cats that roam the island in Fukuoka, Japan. The cats are fed by local fishermen and wander freely through the streets, boatyards, porches, and houses of the city. Heaven.

Snakeheads are hardy, fast-growing, voracious and prolificThe northern snakehead is known as "Frankenfish" and "rattlesnakes with fins," and some chefs say one way to stop the predatory, fast-spreading fish is obvious - with a fork. With a reputation as fearsome as its name, the voracious snakehead fish has intruded throughout much of the Potomac River basin in Virginia and Maryland in the last decade, snapping up anything that gets in front of it. Putting the torpedo-shaped snakehead on the menu is Washington-area restaurants' way of helping to control the Asian newcomer. Chefs said they have a key weapon on their...

December 2, 2012   First Sunday of Advent   Reading 1 Jer 33:14-16 The days are coming, says the LORD,when I will fulfill the promiseI made to the house of Israel and Judah.In those days, in that time,I will raise up for David a just shoot ;he shall do what is right and just in the land.In those days Judah shall be safeand Jerusalem shall dwell secure;this is what they shall call her:"The LORD our justice." Responsorial Psalm Ps 25:4-5, 8-9, 10, 14 R. (1b) To you, O Lord, I lift my soul.Your ways, O LORD, make known to me;teach me...

Howie thread for the week starting with his Sunday Boston Herald column

Anwar al-Awlaki, the US-born Islamic cleric killed in a US drone attack in Yemen last year, had been in American custody at least twice but was released, according to a human rights group. Judicial Watch, an accountability watchdog group, said it had learned this through Freedom of Information lawsuits it filed with the US government. It said documents from the US embassy in Yemen indicate Awlaki was held for at least eight months between late 2006 and mid 2007. But the documents do not say how long he was held or why he was he was freed. Back in October...

The new political divide is a stark division between cities and what remains of the countryside. Not just some cities and some rural areas, either -- virtually every major city (100,000-plus population) in the United States of America has a different outlook from the less populous areas that are closest to it. The difference is no longer about where people live, it's about how people live: in spread-out, open, low-density privacy -- or amid rough-and-tumble, in-your-face population density and diverse communities that enforce a lower-common denominator of tolerance among inhabitants. The only major cities that voted Republican in the 2012...

When Joe Courtney's home was burglarized, the thieves took priceless things: videos and photos of his 22-year-old son, Greg, a Camp Pendleton Marine who died in a car crash in September 2011. Courtney said the burglars stole cameras that contained these images of his late son, and he's now begging their return. NBC 7's Mark Mullen reports.

Full Zero Hedge Article At This LinkIn the recent past we noted [6] the somewhat startling reality that "the single mom is better off earning gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income & benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income and benefits of $57,045." While mathematics is our tool - as opposed to the mathemagics of some of the more politically biased media who did not like our message - the painful reality in America is that: for increasingly more Americans it is now more lucrative - in the form of actual disposable income...

On the surface, green energy sounds like a great idea. Unfortunately, it is extremely costly and requires heavy government subsidies.Last year, the epic downfall of Solyndra — the former solar cell manufacturer backed by the Obama administration — was one of the most notorious blows to the industry.As with most young industries, experts argue that green energy just needs time before it can reach economies of scale and become cost effective.But lately, those time frames have become extended.  Meanwhile, fossil fuels like coal and natural gas continue to be devastatingly cheap.We pulled together key charts from the studies that...

“The King Who Comes in the Name of the Lord” (Luke 19:28-40)Today is the first day in a brand-new church year. That’s because today is the First Sunday in Advent. The church year begins with the season of Advent, the four Sundays leading up to Christmas, along with their weekdays. Of course, for the world--that is, for the secularized pop culture around us--there is no Advent. For them, there is only Christmas, and their Christmas started way back around--oh, I think it now starts around the day after Halloween. And the world’s version of Christmas has very little to do...

There is an antique saying -- no less true for its antiquity -- that you need to be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it. This came to mind when I read a recent report about what is happening at a Pennsylvania college. One of President Obama's most loyal -- not to say fawning -- constituencies clearly is academia. His rate of support among collegiate faculty and administrators surely approaches near-unanimity on the typical campus. This is why the news about the Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC) is so richly ironic. CCAC has just announced...

California was once the envy of everyone. But this promised land is now being controlled by a super-majority of leftists, and the liberal, pro-union Democrats have only one answer to California's woes: to raise taxes. With that in mind, American Thinker asked California representatives if, after the 2012 election, Republicans become an archaic party in this state. There are many reasons why California Republicans took such a shellacking. Congressman Tom McClintock (R-CA) emphasizes the key word: "communication. The Democrats had monopoly control over the message. Republicans need to pull up their socks and wipe their noses to get back into...

(Reuters) - Two explosions and shooting were heard at a U.S. base in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad on Sunday, a Reuters witness said. The Taliban said they carried out an attack on the compound and inflicted casualties. NATO officials were not immediately available for comment. Security forces surrounded the area. "We can confirm there have been multiple explosions in the vicinity of the Jalalabad airfield," the U.S.-led coalition said in a statemen. "Currently, ISAF officials are on the scene gathering facts, and as more information becomes available, we will release it as appropriate."

Jobless Americans have collected more than half a trillion dollars in benefits over the past five years. State and federal unemployment insurance programs have cost roughly $520 billion, according to a Congressional Budget Office report released Wednesday. The price of continuing this safety net will be the subject of intense debate in Congress as lawmakers decide whether to extend the deadline to file for federal benefits beyond year's end as part of the fiscal cliff negotiations. Extending federal jobless insurance next year could cost as much as $30 billion, according to the CBO analysis. The federal government has spent far...

For the last two years, Spain has been in the thick of a massive housing crisis. There are somewhere between 700,000 and a million new, unsold homes in the country. (The U.S., by contrast, with five times the population of Spain, has only 145,000 new unsold homes.) Spanish banks hold nearly 200 billion euros worth of bad mortgage loans. So Spain is offering a deal. Buy a house worth more than the mean home price and receive something that had been, until now, priceless: Spanish residency papers. Spain isn't the first European country that's tried to stimulate the housing market...