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Do not fear the bombastic speeches of the evil anti-Semites, for though they stand as giants before you, their voices will soon fade

A dog that is said to have a face that looks like a human’s has narrowly avoided being put down and is now looking for a new home. Tonik, a poodle-Shih Tzu cross, was destined for the scrap heap after spending time in a kill shelter in Indiana, USA. But the odd looking mutt was saved at the last moment and is now available for adoption for a fee of £160 ($250). The pooch is described by the Mishawaka rescue centre as a ‘very sweet boy who is trying to figure things out and enjoy people’. The sad looking animal...

The Pledge of Allegiance has taken it on the chin over the years. Everything from the clause "one nation under God" to its recitation in public schools and public meetings has been challenged. This week, El Cerrito City Councilman Mark Friedman proposed eliminating the custom from the start of each council meeting. "I've always had problems with the Pledge of Allegiance," said Friedman, whose politics were shaped in the fiery days of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in his hometown, Chicago. In his argument to end the custom, Friedman said that in a world without "liberty and justice for all,"...

Truman Capote's masterwork of murder, "In Cold Blood," cemented two reputations when first published almost five decades ago: his own, as a literary innovator, and detective Alvin Dewey Jr.'s as the most famous Kansas lawman since Wyatt Earp. But new evidence undermines Mr. Capote's claim that his best seller was an "immaculately factual" recounting of the bloody slaughter of the Clutter family in their Kansas farmhouse. It also calls into question the image of Mr. Dewey as the brilliant, haunted hero. A long-forgotten cache of Kansas Bureau of Investigation documents from the investigation into the deaths suggests that the events...

Long-term shifts in the U.S. economy coupled with the recent recession means Americans are more likely to pack up and move for employment-related reasons. Although the total number of residential moves is down, new data shows a clear pattern of the states that people are fleeing the fastest.

A realist foreign-policy vision that is neither imperialistic nor isolationist.The following is text of a speech delivered by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) at the Heritage Foundation on February 6, 2013.Foreign policy is uniquely an arena where we should base decisions on the landscape of the world as it is . . . not as we wish it to be. I see the world as it is. I am a realist, not a neoconservative, nor an isolationist. When candidate John McCain argued in 2007 that we should remain in Iraq for 100 years, I blanched and wondered what the unintended consequences of...

GOP mayoral candidate John Catsimatidis today blasted the MTA of being insensitive to the city’s Asian community by suspending No. 7 weekend train service during Lunar New Year festivities—the most significant Asian holiday of the year. The 7 train runs from Times Square in Manhattan to Flushing in Queens, home of the city’s largest ethnic Chinese and Korean communities. The track work suspends service in Manhattan. “The MTA has no respect for the Asian people. It’s terrible,” Catsimatides said. …

Conservatives leave out part of the Christopher Dorner story.Remember when liberal journalists and politicians tried to incite a moral panic by blaming a series of violent crimes on the Tea Party, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and assorted other bugbears? If you don't, Michelle Malkin has a refresher: The 2009 massacre of three Pittsburgh police officers (which lib journos falsely blamed on Fox News, Glenn Beck, and the "heated, apocalyptic rhetoric of the anti-Obama forces"); the 2009 suicide insurance scam/murder hoax of Kentucky census worker Bill Sparkman (which New York magazine falsely blamed on Rush Limbaugh, "conservative media personalities, websites and...

Two members of a Compton street gang have been indicted on federal hate crime charges in connection with an attack on four juveniles on New Year’s Eve. Named in the indictment are 19-year-old Jeffrey Aguilar and 21-year-old Efren Marquez, Jr., both alleged members of the Compton 155 street gang, which prosecutors say uses violence and threats to try to drive black residents out of its territory. The attack last December 31st was racially motivated, says U.S. Attorney Andre Birrote, Jr. “The evidence in this investigation has led us to believe that they have a racial animus toward African Americans," Birrote...

A Double-Double, fries and shake is about as L.A. as it gets. You order that classic combo at any In-N-Out burger and you'll get a fast-food meal that's a favorite of celebrity chefs like Gordon Ramsey and Anthony Bourdain. Sure, it's small as far as chains go with fewer than 300 location in just five states, but the private Irvine-based company has a devoted following, and it's estimated to be worth more than $1 billion. "It is an extreme oddity considering they started in 1948, about the same time as McDonald's, Jack In The Box, Carl's Jr., all of which...

There are all sorts of ways for companies to go green these days: Solar panels, eco-friendly packaging, biofuels, and now, beer. One Alaskan brewery is using the extra grain left over after it brews its beer to create energy. The Alaskan Brewing Company built a special steam boiler that uses the soggy spent grain to power their brewhouse. The company says its new "beer-powered beer" will cut oil use by more than half. Brandon Smith, the company's brewing operations and engineering manager, joins us from Juneau to talk about

Euro MPs prompted uproar last night by plotting to try to block the budget deal using a secret ballot so voters cannot hold them to account. It emerged that they are planning to use a little-understood procedure to allow them to vote in private and defy the 27 EU leaders. Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament and former leader of its socialist group, suggested a vote on the budget should be conducted in secret to allow MEPs to break away from prime ministers and party leaders and maximize the chances of it being rejected. A vote behind closed doors...

Recent testimony at the Senate Armed Services Committee by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey disclosed that President Obama showed little interest in the September 11, 2012 attack on the US Consulate. “Some 90 minutes into the seven-hour siege I briefed the president with what I felt we knew at the time,” Panetta said. “He didn’t react. He asked no questions. He gave no instructions.” How this sworn testimony should be interpreted in light of Obama’s unsworn assertion that he gave clear directives to “secure our personnel” posed a challenge for Press Secretary...

A Welsh family said their parrot "died a hero" when he alerted a showering teenager to a fire in the home. Vicky Rees, 48, of Llanelli, Wales, said her son, Ben, 17, was home alone and taking a shower when the family's parrot, Cookie, began squawking and repeatedly diving at his head, The Sun reported Friday. The teenager investigated the cause of the parrot's distress and discovered the home was on fire. Ben was able to get out of the house but Cookie did not survive. "He was Ben's guardian angel and died a hero. If Cookie hadn't squawked like...

Researchers at Oregon State University report their studies suggest salmon use magnetism to find their way to their home rivers during spawning migrations. Sockeye salmon typically swim as much as 4,000 miles into the ocean and then, years later, can navigate back to the upstream reaches of the river in which they were born to spawn their young, they said. Writing in the journal Current Biology, the researchers suggest salmon find those home rivers by sensing the river's unique magnetic signature. They studied the routes salmon had taken from their ocean destinations, mostly near Alaska or the Aleutian Islands in...

I have long considered it ridiculous to report the political/social ravings of deranged murderers like Jared Loughner, the Tucson shooter. The salient point about these people is their derangement, not its ideological manifestation (ideology actually being too serious a word in these cases). And publicizing the ideological manifestation gives the lunatic a forum he doesn’t deserve. I’ve also believed that the publication by journalists of the political ravings of murderers is opportunistic. That is, biased journalists seek political advantage by trying (often in the most attenuated way) to connect the ravings with right-wing thinking. Confirmation of my latter thesis can...

February 9, 2013 Saturday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time   Reading 1 Heb 13:15-17, 20-21 Brothers and sisters:Through Jesus, let us continually offer God a sacrifice of praise,that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name.Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have;God is pleased by sacrifices of that kind. Obey your leaders and defer to them,for they keep watch over you and will have to give an account,that they may fulfill their task with joy and not with sorrow,for that would be of no advantage to you. May the God of peace,...

A rapid increase in nursery places has led to a generation of violent “little savages”, psychologist Oliver James has warned. James, the best-selling author of books on child-rearing, said ministerial proposals to allow child carers to look after more youngsters would fuel aggression in the under-threes, which would have lasting effects. Shoving youngsters in to nurseries was simply “warehousing” them so that the government could push mothers back to work to reap income for the Exchequer, he argued. … James pointed to a study in America, which tracked youngsters for 15 years. It showed a correlation between the hours placed...

Influential jazz icon Donald Byrd (pictured) died Monday at the age of 80. The trumpeter’s passing was confirmed by his nephew, Alex Bugnon, and the cause of death is undisclosed, reports U.K.’s The Guardian. Reportedly, Byrd’s family had been trying to keep the entertainer’s death private, but Bugnon blew the lid off, and according to Billboard, publicly announced the passing, ”I have no more patience for this unnecessary shroud of secrecy placed over his death by certain members of his immediate family,” he wrote via Facebook and e-mails. He also revealed that Byrd lived in Delaware but that his funeral...

California would significantly restrict gun use and ownership, including major new bans on ammunition magazines, under dozens of new proposed regulations that would cement the state's status of having the strictest gun-control laws in the United States. The magnitude of restrictions introduced by Democrats is greater than gun-rights advocates say they have ever seen at one time and puts the debate in California in the forefront, even as Congress considers a number of gun laws. The drive for tougher regulations in California also highlights the relative weakness of the gun lobby and gun manufacturers in the state. Restrictions would include...