BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

A former attorney to President George W. Bush was arrested Wednesday at his Connecticut home and accused of trying to kill his wife, according to the New Canaan Police Department. Police said they were responding to a “panic alarm activation” at the home of John Farren, 57, when they were redirected to another house nearby. A resident there had placed a 911 call saying an injured woman was at her home after being “involved in a domestic dispute with her husband” at the couple’s residence. Police said they found the woman “bleeding about her head, face and body.” Farren was arrested at the couple’s home a short time later, police said. His lawyer had no comment when contacted Thursday by CNN. Farren was “charged with Criminal Attempt at Murder and Strangulation 1st degree,” according to a police statement. He was arraigned Thursday in Norwalk Superior Court and is being held on a $2 million bond. Sgt. Carol Ogrinc, a New Canaan Police spokeswoman, confirmed that the 43-year-old woman w...

2009 may well be re­mem­bered for its scandal-ridden head­lines, from ad­mis­sions of ex­tra­mar­i­tal af­fairs by gov­er­nors and sen­a­tors, to cor­po­rate ex­ec­u­tives fly­ing pri­vate jets while cut­ting em­ploy­ee ben­e­fits, and most re­cent­ly, to a mys­te­ri­ous early morn­ing car crash in Flor­i­da. The past year has been marked by a se­ries of mor­al trans­gres­sions by pow­er­ful fig­ures in po­lit­i­cal, busi­ness and celebr­ity cir­cles. A new study ex­plores why pow­er­ful peo­ple – many of whom take a mor­al high ground – don’t prac­tice what they preach. Above, a ses­sion of U.S. Con­gress pre­pares to lis­ten to the pre­si­dent's State of the Union Speech in a 2003 White House photo. A new study ex­plores why pow­er­ful peo­ple – many of whom take a mor­al high ground – don’t prac­tice what they preach. Re­search­ers sought to de­ter­mine wheth­er pow­er in­spires hy­poc­ri­sy, the ten­den­cy to hold high stan­dards for oth­ers while per­form­ing mor­ally sus­pect...

By Laurent Belsi CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE VIDEO IF YOU'RE ON AN AGGREGATOR Mad about the bank bailouts? Had enough of huge bonuses and too-big-to-fail apologies? Here's one way to do something about it. Take your money out. That's right. Take your checking and savings account out of that big money-center financial institution and move it to a community bank or credit union. There's even a movement afoot to help consumers make the switch, called Move Your Money , with a well-timed message and a good video (see below). The website offers search tools so consumers thinking about switching can type in their zip codes to find a credit union or a strong community bank nearby. Do big banks really care if a few thousand depositors pull out their money? Here's why they do. Banks' business foundation rests on core deposits, including the savings and checking accounts of consumers and businesses, says Dennis Santiago, CEO of Institutional Risk Analytics (IRA), a bank-rating ...

More Afghan women are choosing suicide to escape the violence and brutality of their daily lives, says a new human-rights report prepared by Canada's Foreign Affairs Department. The 2008 annual assessment paints a grim picture of a country where violence against women and girls is common, despite rising public awareness among Afghans and international condemnation. "Self-immolation is being used by increasing numbers of Afghan women to escape their dire circumstances and women constitute the majority of Afghan suicides," said the report, completed in November 2009. The document was obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act. The director of a burn unit at a hospital in the relatively peaceful province of Herat reported that in 2008 more than 80 women tried to kill themselves by setting themselves on fire, many of them in the early 20s. Many of those women died, the report said. The frank evaluation of the plight of women was written against the bac...

Major H/T - UppityWoman Joan Rivers is many things: Funny lady. Jewelry mogul. Red carpet mercenary. But a terrorist? Can we talk? Rivers, 76, was deemed a danger to national security and booted from a Newark-bound flight in Costa Rica on Sunday by a jittery Continental Airlines gate agent who found the two names on her passport fishy. Her passport reads: Joan Rosenberg AKA Joan Rivers. Rosenberg was her late husband's last name. The "nasty and cruel" Continental gate agent bumped Rivers from the last flight out Sunday and the comedian found herself alone (her daughter, Melissa, flew out to Los Angeles earlier in the day) and with no ATM card and just $100 cash, she said. Rivers' tale of woe put a famous face on travel's new reality - one that leaves many feeling like common criminals. "If I were going to make up an alias, I wouldn't pick Rosenberg. I'd pick Jolie or Pitt," said Rivers, back home Monday in New York with her sense of humor intact....

I tell this to every net-user I know. 6 years ago I watched an NYPD forensic assistant click up someone's real identity, address and phone number using no special software, in just two clicks - using a free site. And with commercially available software - they found everything this person had written online since 1998. As well supposedly "private" stuff they'd used their credit card for, going right back to their IP! Please people, be more careful out there. You are not as anonymous as you think. How a dirty SMS can come back to haunt you. By Jacob Leibenluft On Tuesday, a Michigan court released yet another batch of romantic text messages sent between Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his former chief of staff Christine Beatty in 2002 and 2003. In the messages, Kilpatrick and Beatty — who are charged with perjury for denying their affair in court — professed their love to one another and graphically described their sexual encounters. If you delete an old text mess...

For years I would say to people, "I can't sit/ be near you. You're giving me a headache." They'd get mad - then later I'd find out they had some horrible illness. They'd make me think I was crazy... but I'm not! If you've ever thought that you literally feel other people's pain, you may be right. A brain-imaging study suggests that some people have true physical reactions to others' injuries. Using an imaging technique called functional MRI, UK researchers found evidence that people who say they feel vicarious pain do, in fact, have heightened activity in pain-sensing brain regions upon witnessing another person being hurt. The findings, published in the journal Pain, could have implications for understanding, and possibly treating, cases of unexplained "functional" pain. "Patients with functional pain experience pain in the absence of an obvious disease or injury to explain their pain," explained Dr. Stuart W. G. Derb...

by Gene Messick On 11 December I wrote an Article for OEN about this: Opportunities to deal with sociopaths in American politics. Since then, I've been collecting examples to prove my point. Just recently I discovered one of the most egregious examples to date, described in a recent Mother Jones blog by Jonathan Stine in which he wrote this: "Alberto Gonzales: Pathetic? Deluded? Crazy? Short fiction writer Alberto Gonzales is confused, asking in a recent interview, "What is it that I did that is so fundamentally wrong, that deserves this kind of response to my service?" If Gonzales is trying this unctuous nonsense in an attempt at image-rehabilitation, he needs to hire a professional PR company. If he's asking this question in earnest, he is demonstrably insane. As Think Progress points out, the answer to Gonzales' question includes: corrupting the DOJ by insiting on ideological purity tests in hiring; firing US Attorneys that refused to toe the Bu...

by Aaron Klein Weatherman terrorist Bill Ayers, a close associate for years of President Obama, is one of 431 academics to sign a petition calling for divestment, boycott and sanctions against Israel. "As educators and scholars of conscience in the United States, we fully support this call," reads the online petition by an organization calling itself the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel . "We urge our colleagues, nationally, regionally, and internationally, to stand up against Israel's ongoing scholasticide and to support the non-violent call for academic boycott, disinvestment, and sanctions," states the petition. The petition claims Israel persistently violates international law and carries out "illegal" discriminatory policies comparable to apartheid in South Africa. The text fails to note that about 20 percent of Israel's population consists of Arabs who have democratic rights as citizens, including full representat...

Ron Reagan recaps the year in right wing buffoonery, highlghting such buffoons as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Michael Savage. Listen below: (AUDIO) - The Ron Reagan Show - Air America

In 1776, patriotism meant a lot more than waving a flag. It still does. A look at local patriots, and readers' suggestions of ways to support America's ideals. By Fiona Morgan These are the times that try men's souls," wrote Thomas Paine in The Crisis, a pamphlet that stirred the withering revolutionary army to victory in the winter of 1776. In Paine's day, support for American freedom was an act of dissent. Fearing the same excesses of centralized government that they had experienced under British rule, the newly independent Americans created a Bill of Rights. Those 10 amendments to the Constitution guaranteed that the federal government would not do things as the English had done--there would be no secret detentions, no imprisonment without a fair public trial, no unfair searches and seizures of property, and no squelching of peaceful expression. Today, patriotism often feels to some of us like an odd and uncomfortable thing to embrace. Actions that draw the outr...

by GARY L. KRUPP A recent papal decree moved Pope Pius XII, among others, closer to sainthood -- returning to the forefront the controversy over his role in World War II and the Holocaust. Growing up Jewish in Queens, I never dreamt I would be defending the man I once believed to be a Nazi sympathizer and an anti-Semite. But my work since 2002 with my wife, Meredith, and the Pave the Way Foundation has led me to this point. We founded Pave the Way to identify and eliminate nontheological obstacles between religions. Thus, despite our early prejudices, we decided to investigate the papacy of Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli), one of today's greatest sources of hurt between Jews and Catholics. After years of research in documentary evidence and eyewitness testimony, what we found shocked us. We found nothing but praise and positive news articles concerning Pius' actions from every Jewish, Israeli and political leader of the era who lived through the war. A few articles in the postwar er...

by Andy Borowitz Responding to the botched terrorism attempt on board Delta flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit, the Department of Homeland Security announced today that it was considering a new rule that would force passengers to fly naked. "They won't be able to hide any powders or liquids, and they'll speed right through security," said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. "This is a win-win." Anticipating complaints from chilly travelers, she said that the Homeland Security Dept. would force the airlines to institute a " Snugglies for Purchase " plan once the aircraft doors are closed. Ms. Napolitano expressed no embarrassment at having ignored a warning from the Delta terror suspect's dad made weeks before the terror attempt: "Our official policy is that we have to be warned by both the mom and dad before taking it seriously." SOURCE

Using Sex for Political Messaging by Thia Lawson For me, this video reaches new heights in the creepy use of women’s sexuality. IF YOU ARE ON AN AGGREGATOR - CLICK HERE TO VIEW THIS VIDEO Huh? Could this be any creepier? Does this remind anyone else of the recent creepy Reebok ad ? I know I keep using creepy as a descriptor, but until the hair on the back of my neck goes down, that’s the best I can do. CREEPY! This video is degrading to both women and men. The implication is that women are too stupid, lazy, or uninformed to argue issues and explain their position - better they just show their cleavage and threaten to withhold sex. In turn, Rock The Vote thinks men are so shallow and desperate for sex that they not only have no interest in what a woman has to say, but will change their most deeply held beliefs if you dazzle them with cleavage and the possibility of a little girl on girl action. Is there any place in the political debate where women aren’t either used as mindless sexua...

by Janet Conner I've been a bit of a Scrooge this year. I announced to my family and friends that I was bowing out of the whole present obligation thing. One brother said, "Tough, I'm sending you a present anyway." The other said, "Thank God, I'm not doing presents either." If it weren't for credit card miles, my son wouldn't even be getting a present. I've planned no humongous dinners, no holiday get-togethers, no eggnog, no Christmas cookies, no red and green candles. But I did do one thing: I got a tree. It killed me to drop $70, but I had to have it. I can't explain it, but I love a real Christmas tree. I love the little white lights — the more, the merrier. I love the glass icicles I carefully position in front of the lights. They remind me of the beauty of the real thing back in Wisconsin. Most of all, I love reliving the history — my history — as I take out each ornament: the hand-painted porcelain German bell my acting friend A...

ObamaCare: NO EXIT by SCOTT GOTTLIEB Perhaps the most common question I'm asked about ObamaCare is: "Will I be able to buy my way out of it?" The answer is: "Not unless you're very rich." The plan before the Senate creates a set of 50 state-based insurance "exchanges" that are established as markets for health plans. Consumers must buy policies from their employers or through the exchanges — but, either way, their choice of coverage is limited to one of four basic insurance plans that the government sanctions. Private insurers will still compete to offer policies but must model their coverage on one of these four templates. In short, the Senate bill explicitly standardizes health benefits and then establishes elaborate mechanisms (including subsidies and penalties) to pay for them. Here's the rub: While these four plans vary from low- to high-cost options, the benefits offered under them are pretty much the same. The difference between the chea...