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Faced with the high cost of caring for smokers and overeaters, experts say society must grapple with a blunt question: Instead of trying to penalize them and change their ways, why not just let these health sinners die prematurely from their unhealthy habits? Annual health care costs are roughly $96 billion for smokers and $147 billion for the obese, the government says. These costs accompany sometimes heroic attempts to prolong lives, including surgery, chemotherapy and other measures.

Our new Sen. Ted Cruz, of the great state of Texas, has a knack for making himself heard, and I look forward to a tenure filled with such press statements. Dear Rahm, this is what a little state-to-state competition looks like. Companies bullied by Mayor Pottymouth aren’t obligated to stay in the cold, bankrupt, and increasingly inhospitable state of Illinois. And, Cruz is proactive in his pitch to Rahm-targeted Bank of America, TD Bank, Sturm & Ruger, and Smith & Wesson (though not proactive in the subsidies arms race we too often see in state competition over sports teams and...

THE sleep has been long and deep. In 2005 Harvard University produced more scientific papers than 17 Arabic-speaking countries combined. The world’s 1.6 billion Muslims have produced only two Nobel laureates in chemistry and physics. Both moved to the West: the only living one, the chemist Ahmed Hassan Zewail, is at the California Institute of Technology. By contrast Jews, outnumbered 100 to one by Muslims, have won 79. The 57 countries in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference spend a puny 0.81% of GDP on research and development, about a third of the world average. America, which has the world’s...

"Voting against Kerry were three Republicans — Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma and John Cornyn and Ted Cruz of Texas"

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, announced last week that the Pentagon was lifting the policy that had barred women from specific combat roles. But Marines who have served in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan – myself included – worry that the decision did not take the opinions of infantrymen into account. Being an infantryman isn’t just about uncomfortable living situations. It’s kill or be killed, blood, entrails and fear. We are a brotherhood; a collection of ragtag men who hunt and kill the enemy and travel to...

The American Academy of Pediatrics has issued the first-ever guidelines for the management of type 2 diabetes in children and teens. Type 2 diabetes is rising rapidly among children and teens because of soaring obesity rates. It now accounts for up to 1 in 3 new cases of diabetes in those younger than 18. These guidelines are for children between the ages of 10 and 18. "Few providers have been trained in managing type 2 diabetes in children and, to date, few medications have been evaluated for safety and [effectiveness] in children," says co-author Janet Silverstein, MD, professor of pediatrics...

Russia says it "never supported" the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters Monday in Moscow that Russia does not support one side in the Syrian conflict over another, and criticized what he said were other countries misrepresenting Russia's policies. "We were never enchanted with this regime. And we never supported it," he said. "And all of our actions, aimed at helping to fulfill the Geneva agreement to form the transitional body, only confirm that we want the situation to stabilize, and the creation of the conditions that Syrians can themselves decide their fate --...

The Environmental Law Center of the American Tradition InstitutePRESS RELEASEWashington, D.C. Contact: Chris HornerJanuary 28, 2013 info@atinstitute.orgToday, the Environmental Law Center filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on behalf of the American Tradition Institute (ATI) in federal district court in Washington, DC. ATI seeks to compel EPA to end its eight-month stonewall of two requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) regarding EPA’s close working relationship with two pressure groups with which EPA has uncomfortably close ties, at great taxpayer expense.The complaint cited to journal papers and media reports in supporting its description that: “These two...

Sarah Palin leaves Fox News and media liberals and moderate republicans rejoice. With knee-jerk hatred they say "she's done, dead, over." How many times have Palin supporters heard this song? I review some distorted reports about Palin's so called demise. Hey haters, did you hear Sloppy Joe McGinniss the lying plagiarist has terminal cancer? Yeah, karma's a ____. If the media types want to see something truly "dead, done, over or irrelevant" they should look in a mirror. Does Palin's decline to continue her contract with Fox News point to 2016? To Palin haters in the media and blogosphere: please...

A mother says her 5-year-old boy was threatened with suspension after he made a gun out of Legos during an after school program. Sheila Cruz received a written warning recently about her son from the after school staff at the Hyannis West Elementary School because he had been using toys inappropriately. “She (the principal) said, ‘it’s a threat to other children and other children could have been scared.’” School officials say little Joe made the toy gun, then ran around the classroom, pointing it at other kids, and making shooting sounds. Cruz says while she and her husband thought about...

A series of Occupy twitter accounts as well as the Occupy Sandy Facebook account were hacked Tuesday evening, with the hackers tweeting out messages like “OCCUPY IS OVER. IT WAS FUN. #SORRY” and “OCCUPY IS OVER.” The affected twitter accounts included @OccupyWallSTNYC, @OccupyTogether, @OccupyChicago, and more. Followers responded with confusion, anger (and more than a few retweets). Here’s some examples of what the hackers tweeted:

EPA Region 8 Administrator violates e-mail rule, uses private e-mail accounts to conduct official business(Washington, D.C.) – In a joint letter sent today, Senator David Vitter (R-La.), the top Republican of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and Congressman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, questioned James Martin, Region 8 Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), regarding his use of a non-official e-mail account to conduct official business, potentially violating federal transparency laws.In documents obtained by Senate EPW and House OGR committees, Administrator Martin used a non-official, me.com, e-mail...

(CBS News) What does war look like from a soldier's point of view? Tens of millions of YouTube viewers now know, thanks to a video taken in Afghanistan that's gone viral. CBS News spoke with the man who shot the helmet cam video -- and got shot himself in the process. The video has become one of the most viewed three minutes of war video ever, with 23 million hits on YouTube. It's video of a battle with Taliban forces in Afghanistan, as seen through the helmet camera of Pfc. Ted Daniels. It started when he purposely moved into the...

1/29/2013 - AVIANO AIR BASE, Italy -- U.S. and Italian search teams are continuing efforts in the Adriatic Sea to find and rescue a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot who was declared missing during a nighttime training mission Jan. 28. Capt. Lucas Gruenther, 31st Fighter Wing chief of flight safety, was conducting a training sortie in an F-16 Fighting Falcon when contact was lost with his aircraft at approximately 8 p.m. Italian aircraft and ships were quickly dispatched to the jet's last known location, 10 to 15 nautical miles east of Cervia, Italy. Italian search teams recovered debris in the...

Today in Nevada, President Obama laid out his plan for comprehensive immigration reform, and right now, he needs to know who's ready to help get this done. Add your name in support of the President's plan for immigration reform today. Ask pretty much anyone, and they'll agree: Our nation's immigration system is broken. But working together, we can fix it so everyone plays by the same rules. To that end, the President has proposed the following steps: - Continue to strengthen and secure our borders; - Crack down on companies that hire undocumented workers; - Establish a legal path to...

Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions on Tuesday demanded the resignation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director John Morton. “Last year, I joined with my colleagues at a press conference with the top representatives of the nation’s rank-and-file immigration law enforcement officers,” Sessions said on Tuesday. “The president with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office and the Border Patrol. Those associations or unions elected to serve as the voice of their fellow officers gave a chilling report at that press conference right over in the Senate building with several other senators. They gave a chilling report about the administration’s systemic...

As champions of both rear-wheel drive and the hand brake, we completely understand the compulsion to get sideways on occasion. Hell, there was a time when no vacant parking lot was safe from our hellion ways – but there's a difference between harming nothing but your own rear tires and putting an entire highway's worth of commuters in danger. That's exactly what a set of Orange County kids managed to do when they shut down what looks to be a six-lane interstate for the soul purpose of doing some donuts.

Ex-SEIU Local Exec Convicted of Stealing From Low-Income Members Paul Pringle and Hailey Branson-Potts January 28 A onetime rising star in national labor circles who headed California's biggest union local was convicted Monday on federal charges that he stole tens of thousands of dollars from his low-income members. Tyrone Freeman, who represented about 190,000 homecare workers as a leader of the Service Employees International Union, was found guilty on 14 counts after a 10-day trial... Jurors deliberated two and a half days before returning their verdict. The trial followed a nearly four-year investigation triggered by a series of Times reports...

**SNIP** The president says that he is "under no illusions" about the situation in Syria, where government forces and rebel groups have clashed for two years. But he says Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime continues to weaken and will eventually come to an end.

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