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 In February 2011, novelist and former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson embedded with the 1st Battalion, 502nd Regiment, of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division. He spent much of his time with Alpha Company, nicknamed the “Hard Rocks,” at Combat Outpost Senjaray in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province. This is an excerpt from Lost in Kandahar, his reflections on the embed, which is available from Amazon as a Kindle Single.

Soldiers from Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, Task Force Strike, patrol past a cemetery in the town of Sanjaray in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, in February 2011

Nov. 1, 2010, was the day that defined the battalion’s tour. Before then, despite all the grenades and firefights and IEDs, the Hard Rocks hadn’t lost a single soldier. But as a patrol returned to the outpost just before sunset that Monday, a young Afghan approached on a motorcycle. Spc. Felipe Pereira ordered him to stop and patted him down.

“I make him get off the bike, I get close to him,” Pereira said, speaking in the present tense, reliving the moment. He was in his hutch as he spoke, his squadmates around him. “He’s making eye contact with me. He’s absolutely smiling. Very nice.” Pereira patted the motorcyclist down, didn’t find anything. He decided the man wasn’t a threat and turned and jogged up the hill to Highway 1 and the base.

The bomb was hidden in the bike’s gas tank. Its blast threw Pereira onto the highway. As he hit the asphalt beats by dre, he thought he’d stepped on an IED, wondered if he’d lost his legs. He hadn’t. He stood monster beats, got his bearings. The motorcycle had vaporized in a cloud of gray dust and black smoke. Three men from Pereira’s squad—Sgt. Ryan “Lou” Louviere, Spc. Jonathan M. Curtis, and Pvt. 1st ClassAndrew N. Meari—lay helpless on the hill below. Pereira ran for them.

Then the ambush began in earnest, as insurgents opened up with AK-47s from a half-dozen positions inside the town of Senjaray. “You hear the big mosquitoes going by,” Pereira said of the bullets. Pereira reached Curtis, who had been standing next to the motorcycle. Curtis wasn’t moving, but Pereira hoped he might be alive. He tried to pick Curtis up, carry him to safety. But shrapnel had cut through Pereira’s right leg, sapping his strength. He couldn’t move Curtis. With his leg bleeding and numb, Pereira stumbled up the hill, looking for help.

Meanwhile, Pvt. 1st Class Philip Wysocki sprinted to cover Louviere, who was moaning in agony. Louviere had been standing behind the motorcycle when it blew. The bomb took out chunks of his legs. “Lou said, ‘Wysocki, tell it to me straight, are my legs gone?’ ” Wysocki said. But Louviere’s pants had been blown off, and Wysocki saw that despite the wounds, his legs were intact. And something else too. “I was like, ‘Sgt. Lou, nice cock.’ Everything was hanging out. 

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Then the insurgents opened up and the joking stopped. Wysocki lay atop Louviere to protect him, while another soldier fired back at two Taliban on a nearby roof, killing them. A few seconds later, Pereira returned. He hadn’t given up on Curtis or Louviere. He’d commandeered an armored truck from outpost. Now he skidded the truck toward Louviere and Wysocki as they watched in awe. Despite his wounds, Louviere hadn’t forgotten that he was the sergeant commanding the squad. He thought Pereira was purposely hotdogging down the hill. “Lou was yelling, ‘Stop fucking around, Pereira, stop fucking around,’ ” Wysocki said. In reality, Pereira was struggling to keep the heavy truck from flipping over.

The soldiers loaded Curtis and Louviere into the truck, and Pereira drove back up the hill to the outpost. As Pereira’s adrenaline faded, he realized he’d been seriously wounded. “I was actually having difficulty breathing,” he said. He would find out later that he had suffered a partially collapsed lung besides his leg wounds. Unfortunately, Curtis had already died, but Louviere was alive. He was evacuated to surgery at the hospital at Kandahar Air Field.

Back on the hill, the ambush intensified. Wysocki and the other soldiers could have retreated to the outpost. But falling back would have meant abandoning Meari’s corpse to the Taliban. Instead Wysocki led the squad into a narrow ditch, where they battled the insurgents in a pitched firefight that lasted half an hour.

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While the world waits to see whether President Barack Obama’s position will “evolve” on gay marriage before Election Day, one thing is certain: His party’s evolution has already taken place.

Obama is probably the last Democratic presidential candidate who can win the nomination without voicing full-throated support for marriage equality. For the past two presidential cycles, LGBT voters have swallowed their pride and opened their wallets while the Democratic contenders dissembled. On one hand, they claimed to be for full equality Office 2007 Key, while on the other they demeaned our relationships and damned them to second-class status.

Implicit in this humiliating deal was that the Republican challenger was so awful that gay voters had nowhere else to go. There was also the underlying fear that turning critical elections into referendums on same-sex marriage might backfire and place an ogre in the White House.

This trepidation was exacerbated by the candidacy of Ralph Nader, who elevated (with the help of the Supreme Court) George W. Bush into the Oval Office. This historic debacle underscored that elections can have severe consequences and that victory in this divided nation often comes by a razor thin margin. In truth, many LGBT voters were concerned about being cast in the role of Nader and blamed for sabotaging a close election.

In terms of Barack Obama, the activist side of me wants him to embrace marriage equality today. As someone who is legally married, I personally feel the sting of not having access to the same federal rights and benefits as my heterosexual peers. Because I travel often for my job, it seems that half of the month I’m in a recognized marriage in Vermont, while the other half I find myself in states where I am officially single and have no legal protection. Such disparate treatment is disgraceful, humiliating, and un-American.

Nevertheless, the pragmatic part of me wonders whether Obama embracing gay marriage will harm his chances in the nine swing states that will decide this election. Clearly, these states are not all bastions of tolerance: Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Florida, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

There is also concern over how embracing marriage for same sex couples would impact the four states that lean in favor of the Democrats (Minnesota, Michigan, New Mexico, and Maine) and the states that teeter towards the GOP (Arizona, Missouri Exchange Server Key, Indiana, and North Carolina).

The argument in favor of Obama evolving now is that most voters believe he already supports gay marriage and those who would vote against him because of this issue were never voting for him anyway. Meanwhile, coming out in favor of marriage equality would energize the progressive base and open the floodgates of gay volunteers and money. It would also show true leadership and restore the idea that Obama’s presidency stands for hope and change.

I wrestle mightily with the ramifications, if any, the president might face if he supports gay marriage. LGBT advocates can be mostly correct about the decision having few consequences. But a bad outcome in one or two of the seventeen swing or tilting states could still cost Obama his reelection. Thus, I remain deeply ambivalent about him coming out in favor of marriage equality prior to the election.

What I do know is that Obama being reelected is significantly more important than him supporting gay marriage today. A victory means four more years of Americans becoming comfortable with the idea of their LGBT friends and family members marrying. It means fair-minded Supreme Court justices, who may well have more impact on this issue than any president. It results in almost half a decade of unbridled and irreversible cultural change, while watching polls in support of same-sex marriage approach 60 percent.

I also know that this is the last time we will ever have this debate. Vice President Joe Biden’s comments in favor of marriage on Meet the Press, combined with Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s seal of approval Windows 7 serial key, signals that the debate is over in the upper echelons of the Democratic Party. This is even more apparent when one considers that party elders, such as Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, have endorsed gay marriage. Both are not only former presidents, but committed Christians, which essentially gives Democrats of faith permission to vote their consciences.

It is simply unfathomable that a serious Democratic candidate in 2016 would split hairs and disingenuously claim they believe in full equality, while denying loving same-sex couples the right to marry. That dismissive strategy may have worked when only candidates with little chance of winning, such as Dennis Kucinich, championed the cause. But the equation is changed when leading Democratic contenders, such as Joe Biden, have embraced genuine equality.

After November, any Democrat with presidential ambitions who claims he or she is still evolving will be an unelectable dinosaur.

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In the world of human rights, there is always a tension between those in power and the common folk. There needn’t be. In Chinese, the term Lao Mingzi means Old Hundred Names. It is an idiom that denotes the mass of society, encompassing the traditional surnames of Chinese culture. Typically Professional Tattoo Kits, those in power have the prerogative of respecting or denying the rights of the common people. Still, there are times when power reverses and the former holders of power find themselves down among the common people in terms of tenuous agency with regards to human rights.

Such is the case with former President Chen of Taiwan. Imprisoned, he is currently tossed by the rough waters of a calculated denial of medical treatment and subsequent human rights abuses. No wonder President Assad of Syria is fighting like there is no tomorrow. He might have read the details of President Chen Shui Bian’s treatment by Taiwan’s current government, even though Chen was president from 2000 to 2008.

Chen is in jail for corruption charges, some of which might are real and some are not, according to international observers and legal observers. Chen is serving a 19-year sentence for corruption charges (all charges are for nonviolent offenses). He has served over 1240 days in a cell of sixty square feet (5×12) and with a continual stream of other prisoners as fellow cellmates. Water is on for only ten minutes each day. There is no sunlight. There is no shower. There is no bed, table, or even permitted speaking with other cellmates. He is permitted 30 minutes of exercise each day. The only regular “amenity” is a squat toilet.

After complaining of not feeling well for months, he finally got a medical review on March 6, 2012, because of pressure from 13 members of his opposition party. The result of the medical review found out why he was not feeling well. It was the result of having prostate cancer and an acute coronary syndrome causing reduced blood flows. He discovered from the review that he’d been put on a benzodiazepine (a class of drugs that includes Valium and involves a high risk of dependence, as well as a host of other negative side effects). Chen rejected these drugs and, after undergoing a cardiac catheterization procedure, he was returned to the same conditions in prison within a days.

Why I am writing about President Chen is that he is at risk of dying in prison due to the Taiwanese government engaging in willful medical neglect. He is about to die imprisoned by a government he ran for years because that government will not grant him the basic human right or reasonable care. I hope the Tom Lantos Human Rights commission, which has done some fine human rights work, might be persuaded to intervene with public statements and to use their strength to help this abused prisoner, even if he is guilty of the corruption charges.

California Representative Dan Lungren has asked this committee to help. What is hard to understand is why our government as a whole is not upset about another democratic government mistreating and maybe killing its former president. Is this not a human right violation by an an enormously important trade partner and a leading light of contemporary change in the Chinese-speaking world? Why is this not covered in the press? The illness of the Ukrainian president was brought to our American attention when it was in the interest of our strategic plans for that region. Why no coverage for an important trade partner’s former leader who is affiliated with a party currently in opposition? We should stand for no less than basic human rights for all people. Nobody suggests that former political officials in the United States be denied medical treatments due to their political defeat or ending up in custody. I can only hope that we would stand up for the treatment of anyone else for the same principle of equitable treatment in custody.

These are the latest facts. And I’d like to be clear in asking you to call your congressional representatives as soon as you read this. Chen has failed lung function tests three times since his March 6 health exam. A lesion was spotted in one lung. He coughs continually. He is short of breath with a constant feeling of chest pressure. These details were leaked, not publicly released. The family, contrary to Taiwanese law, has not been given his medical records. On April 23, 2012, Chen was diagnosed with a second tumor in his prostate. On this trip to the hospital, he was allowed only a two-hour visit with his family. Taiwan’s laws require better treatment. Chen is not getting this treatment. Though all his assets are frozen, he nevertheless has to arrange for payment for his medical procedures.

All I am asking for is good medical treatment of this prisoner. That is it. Taiwan may not like this former president; they may even hate him. It does not matter. Taiwan’s people and hearts don’t need to be with this man simply because he ran the nation. People should know Tattoo Guns Kits, and believe, that any prisoner will be treated like a human being with all the attendant human rights that entails, including access to medical care. Using a prison system to kill an opponent is savage and ruthless. The present government of Taiwan must not maim and kill using the slow and painful death by neglect.

What I am asking you for a letter to the Tom Lantos Committee for Human Rights Tattoo Machine Price, to the White House and to your congressional representatives. If human rights are to mean anything, if leaders of any government of any kind are to be encouraged to respect the basic rights of reasonable care, it is imperative to not have people subjected to imprisonment and the withholding of care as a tactic of political revenge or grudge-settling.

Taiwan has come a long way to tolerate and respect human rights from its uglier past of dictatorship. It has, until recently, shown itself to be a beacon of freedom and human rights in the generally retrograde political world of Chinese politics with regard to human rights. This does not give it, nor should it give anyone, the ability to simply opt-out in the treatment of a prisoner’s basic human rights for reasonable medical care.

An email is good. A phone call is better. A follow-up with a physical letter is best. Please do what you can to safeguard the rights of prisoners of all walks of life. Nobody should die in prison for lack of access to a medical care system that can help them live. Human rights should be rights for all humans and not some humans.

You can find and contact your political representatives in the United States by looking here: www.contactingthecongress.org. You should NOT wait to do this. A human life hangs in the balance. The treatment of those who have been politically defeated must adhere to minimal standards to make it clear to despots around the world that loss of power will not lead to death by neglect. The treatment of humans should adhere to the standards of universal human rights.

Please. Take a moment to make the call and write the letters and emails. A life hangs in the balance.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The group that paid a record $2.15 billion to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team expects to boost the return on their investment by creating value with stadium improvements, aggressive investment on talent and by exploring a regional sports network after a TV contract with Fox ends.

“It’s a lot of money, but if we do our jobs right … the long-term point of view is that people will see that the value was there,” said Mark Walter, the team’s new chairman who is also chief executive officer of private equity firm Guggenheim Partners, at a news conference.

The investor group, which also includes Hall of Fame basketball player Earvin “Magic” Johnson, took control on May 1 after a 14-month drama that began with the divorce of former owners Frank and Jamie McCourt.

“Just because we paid a nice sum for the franchise What Are The Best Tattoo Machines, it doesn’t mean the fans will (have to) make that up,” said Johnson at the news conference in announcing the new owners had cut general parking fees from $15 to $10.

The Dodgers have a broadcasting agreement with News Corp’s Fox through 2013, giving owners – once the deal expires – a big opportunity to either launch a regional sports network in the country’s second largest market or to hold an auction for those future television rights, estimated to be worth $3 billion.

Hollywood producer Peter Guber, another partner in the investor group and CEO of Mandalay Entertainment Group, told Reuters the team will explore all opportunities once the Fox deal ends, when asked if it would consider launching a regional sports network.

“Every opportunity will be explored to make it the best return on our investment,” Guber said.

Teams like the New York Yankees have launched their own networks that turned out to be very lucrative because of the monthly fees they generate.

Johnson, a successful LA businessman who starred with the Los Angeles Lakers, was recruited by Guggenheim as a link to local fans. The investor group also includes Stan Kasten What Is The Best Tattoo Machine, who ran both the Atlanta Braves and Washington Nationals franchises. Kasten said the new owners would assess what was needed to bring 50-year-old Dodger Stadium “into the 21st century” and that the new owners would write more checks midyear for players if needed.

“We intend to be aggressive,” said Kasten.

The purchase was completed on May 1 after Major League Baseball unsuccessfully tried to delay it, arguing in bankruptcy court the league did not have complete details of the agreement.

Guggenheim was selected by Frank McCourt on March 27, hours before the Dodgers owner said he would conduct an auction in New York among the three remaining teams of bidders.

McCourt put the Dodgers into bankruptcy in June 2011, claiming baseball commissioner Bud Selig forced a cash crisis by rejecting a new TV contract with Fox. The Dodgers, which finished third in the National League’s west division last year Tattoo Machines Kits, currently lead the division with a 17-7 record.

(Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

Sports Deals Global Deals Review: 2011 Q3 Global Deals Review: 2011 Q2 Global Deals Review Inflows Outflows Related Quotes and News Company Price Related News

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Global stocks and the euro fell on Wednesday after data showed U.S. companies hired the fewest people in seven months in April and the euro zone’s factory sector slipped further.

The reports came a day after an index of U.S. factory activity posted its strongest growth rate in 10 months and sent the Dow Jones industrial average to its highest close in four years.

The S&P 500 and the Dow declined as investors turned cautious ahead of Friday’s U.S. nonfarm payrolls report for April Bandage dresses sale, while government debt prices advanced on safe-haven demand.

U.S. companies added only 119,000 jobs last month, well short of expectations of 177,000, a worrisome sign of a labor market that has struggled to gain traction.

“If fewer and fewer people are participating in this recovery it suggests underlying weakness that we have to address, and so far policymakers’ answers have been ‘easy credit’ – I think we need to go beyond that,” said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank in Chicago.

The ADP jobs report followed more discouraging economic news from Europe. Euro zone factories sank further into decline last month, with the downturn hitting Italy and Spain hard and appearing to take root among core members France and Germany.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI ended down 10.75 points, or 0.08 percent, at 13,268.57. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index .SPX was down 3.51 points, or 0.25 percent, at 1,402.31. The Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC added 9.41 points, or 0.31 percent, at 3,059.85.

The MSCI world equity index .MIWD00000PUS fell 0.3 percent to 328.35. European shares erased early gains, with the FTSEurofirst 300 .FTEU3 ending down 0.4 percent.

ECB MEETING

The euro fell for a third straight session against the dollar and was last down 0.6 percent at $1.3155.

A rush to safety pushed yields on German two- and five-year debt to record lows of seven basis points and 0.549 percent respectively. Ten-year yields touched a record low of 1.599 percent, according to Reuters data.

German Bund futures hit a record high of 141.83.

The ECB meets on Thursday, with pressure growing on the bank to use bond buying and other measures to shield weaker euro members from additional pain. Expectations are also growing that the ECB may soon cut borrowing costs, eroding the euro’s interest rate advantage.

“The deterioration in the euro area data will increase the focus on tomorrow’s ECB meeting as market participants focus on policymakers’ outlooks and weigh the probability of a policy response,” said Eric Theoret, currency strategist, at Scotia capital in Toronto.

Elections in Greece and France this weekend added to fears of rising political uncertainty in Europe, which could push the euro below $1.30 in coming weeks.

Against the yen, the dollar rose 0.1 percent to 80.13 yen.

Oil prices dipped Herve Leger sale, pressured by data showed rising inventories as weak economic data from the United States and Europe dampened the demand outlook. Brent crude for June slipped $1.46 to settle at $118.20 a barrel and U.S. crude for June was down 94 cents to settle at $105.22.

Gold retreated toward $1,653 an ounce but remained within its recent ranges as the mixed signals on global growth kept investors sidelined.

Benchmark 10-year Treasury notes traded up 6/32 in price to yield 1.9225 percent.

NADA Guides has released its Quarterly Car Buyers Market Report Tattoo Supplies, and six models earned the organizations Top Recommended Buys designation. The 2011 Acura TL, Dodge Challenger R/T, GMC Terrain SLE-2, Hyundai Azera Limited, Toyota Tacoma Double Cab V6 Manual and Toyota Venza I4 AWD all made the cut. While low first-year depreciation rates factor into which vehicles win out in the report, NADA Guides also evaluates vehicles based on criteria like whether or not a model is competitively priced, is available with incentives or rebates, and dealer inventory volumes.

Surprisingly enough, the 2011 Dodge Challenger R/T carried the lowest first-year depreciation rate of all the vehicles on the list. With a rate of just 8 percent, the Mopar muscle car beat out the vehicle with the next-lowest rate – the Toyota Tacoma Double Cab V6 Manual – by two percentage points. Meanwhile Tattoo Supplies, the Hyundai Azera limited packed the highest depreciation rate among the vehicles on the list at 21 percent, followed by the Acura TL at 19 percent. You can check out the full report after the break.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger Discount Hale Bob Dresses, before becoming Pope Benedict XVI, was informed of a decision to send a pedophile priest back to work only days after beginning therapy Buy Christian Audigier Clothes, according to a memo reported on in Wednesday’s New York Times. How do doctors treat pedophiles?

Hormone suppressors, group therapy, and sometimes castration. Doctors do not attempt to permanently rid pedophiles of their fantasies, which are remarkably persistent. Instead, they use techniques to decrease the likelihood that the patient will act on his urges. Studies have suggested that testosterone-reducing drugs, called anti-androgens, are the most reliable option. Patients receive a monthly shot, and doctors monitor their testosterone levels to make sure the drug is working. Prozac, which is known to decrease libido as a side effect of its intended anti-depressant use Replica Herve Leger gown, is a somewhat common but less effective alternative.

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Group therapy is a part of almost all treatment regimens. Participants discuss the nature and frequency of their sexual fantasies, as well as everyday life stresses that increase their chances of falling off the wagon. They are taught to empathize with past and potential victims. In cases where a pedophile abused his own children, doctors ask the patient’s wife—and his judge—to weigh in on whether a reunion may be possible in the future. If so, doctors often recommend family therapy as a prelude to heavily supervised father-child visits. Some patients eventually get to see their children alone.

Most patients attend 90-minute, 10-member group sessions every week for a couple of years before treatment tapers off. Still Herve Leger v neck sale, doctors usually require pedophiles to check back in every few months for the rest of their lives. Patients who suffer from overwhelming cravings or demonstrate particularly poor self-control are occasionally hospitalized during periods of acute urges or high stress, when the chances of recidivism are highest.

Castration remains a controversial option. Many state justice systems view it as the ultimate cure—Texas pays for castration of criminal pedophiles but will not spring for anti-androgen therapy. Yet even castrated men are often still able to maintain an erection, and some castrated men have managed to reoffend. For this reason Buy DKNY Clothes, most doctors prefer medical hormone suppression, since they can monitor this treatment over time.

Treatment for pedophilia has changed dramatically since the disorder began appearing in American diagnostic manuals in the 1950s. Early treatment regimes Buy Emilio Pucci Dresses, based on Freud-inspired psychoanalysis, emphasized seeking out the traumatic event that occurred during the patient’s sexual maturation and resolving it. Midcentury psychoanalysts often claimed to have succeeded in curing their patients of urges altogether. Beginning in the 1960s, the Catholic Church itself treated pedophiles at a facility in Jemez Springs, N.M. Afflicted clergy engaged in role-playing and were asked to dramatize their own emotions. At the time, doctors likely told church officials that they had “cured” certain priests and that the offenders could safely return to work. (Of course, it’s unlikely that a doctor would have declared a patient completely healed only a few days after treatment began.)

Other old-fashioned treatments with limited evidence of effectiveness are still hanging around. A few therapists use covert sensitization, in which a patient is shown a picture of a nude child, then asked to imagine a traumatic event such as being humiliated in front of his family or getting his penis caught in a zipper. Aversive conditioning involves the use of actual, rather than imagined, negative stimuli. While showing the pedophile pictures of a nude child, doctors pump stinky ammonia into a room or apply an electrical shock to the patient. Laboratory studies, in which the doctor places a ring around the patient’s penis to measure arousal subsequent to the therapy, initially provided evidence in support of these practices. But large-scale studies of recidivism suggest that they have little effect on a pedophile’s behavior in the real world.

Got a question about today’s news? Ask the Explainer.

Explainer thanks Fred Berlin of Johns Hopkins and Richard Krueger of the Columbia University School of Medicine.

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Bloggers have a field day with Prince Harry’s deployment to Afghanistan. They also weigh in on new incarceration statistics, and pooh-pooh Hillary Clinton’s latest ad.

Royal mess: The Drudge Report on Thursday trumpeted the news that Britain’s Prince Harry has been serving in Helmand province, Afghanistan, since December. Although the British media had unanimously agreed not to publicize the story until Harry’s return, British journalists broke their silence upon Drudge’s discolsure Buy Marc Jacobs Dresses, and Harry was rushed home.

Bloggers are split about the decision to pull Harry out. “I am very happy for Prince Harry that he has been able to do what he has always wanted to do. And happier still that he is safe. I’m looking forward to news of his safe return to Britain,” gushes House of Wales-friendly Maricarat Merry Royals. “Pulling him out is a form of retreat and hands the Taliban a propaganda victory. I reckon we should keep Harry out there for as long as it takes,” snarksStephen Newton, who advocates sending Prince William, as well.

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“The positive publicity for the mission in Afghanistan will do no harm at all. After Iraq, nation-building is very definitely out of fashion among the European public,” writes Scotsman Mr. Eugenides at Pajamas Media, noting that British troops are feeling forgotten as the war drags on. He adds: “Harry didn’t have to spend his Christmas on his belly in the dirt and dogshit of Afghanistan; he volunteered for the army, as his forebears have for hundreds of years, at least partly out of a sense of duty and an awareness of his place in public life.”

Should the media have agreed to the blackout? “It would be almost unheard of, in this day and age Chloe Dresses sale, to have the child of the leader of the United States to go into harms way as did Prince Harry. Instead, our press has to report the deployment and put him and his unit in harms way,” points out BizGrrl on the progressive TennViews. “In truth, the surprise is that the agreement lasted so long,” discloses Jon Williams Buy BCBG Dresses, a contributor to BBC’s Editors blog. Williams, who was in on the secret, assures, “We don’t do this stuff lightly – there are no other ‘voluntary agreements’ in place at the moment, there’s nothing else we’re not telling you.” On the Guardian’s Comment Is Free, George Galloway (yes, that George Galloway) fulminates, “Out with the images of partying in a Nazi uniform, in with the young warrior who lost his mother when young but who has now grown up. So the greatest collusion of all by the media is in perpetuating the myths of this war and in helping to craft the perfect recruitment poster.”

Drudge has come under fire from several quarters. Crooks and Liars’ Logan Murphy notes, “Apparently, Matt Drudge thought he had an exclusive on Prince Harry’s whereabouts serving in the military in Afghanistan. It turns out that he didn’t get the exclusive, but as Keith Olbermann points out on Thursday’s Countdown, he does get all the blame.” But media snark-blog Gawker salutes Drudge: “British tabloids are usually much more ruthless than American ones. But ultimately the British really do care about the royals. There’s no ironic distance there. And between an asshole in fedora and believing in the Divine Rights of Kings, Matt Drudge wins any day.”

Read more about Harry in Afghanistan.

One in 100: Bloggers ponder a study claiming that the U.S. prison population is at an unprecedented high. The study reports that “more than one in 100 adults is in jail or prison Discount DKNY Clothes,” and that the U.S. incarcerates more people than even China Karen Millen Dresses sale, which has 1 billion more people.

“America’s disproportionate investment in corrections rather than prevention maintains what the Children’s Defense Fund aptly calls the ‘Cradle to Prison Pipeline.’ This system is a terrible short-term and long-term investment, both fiscally and in lives,” suggests the Huffington Post’s Dan Brown, author of a memoir of teaching in the Bronx, N.Y.

On Reason’s Hit & Run, Jacob Sullum quarrels with the Pew Center’s stats claiming that the United States incarcerates more people than China: “[I]n the process of criticizing the U.S. criminal justice system, whose numbers are pretty reliable, let’s be careful not to minimize the oppressive policies of countries like China and Cuba, whose numbers may be fictitious.” Law professor Eugene Volokh points to a graph  suggesting a strong relationship between the decrease in mental institutions and the increased prison population. And at the progressive American Prospect’s Tapped, Kate Sheppard finds a connection with a new Eisenhower Foundation report that documents disadvantages in the African-American community. She writes Herve Leger sale, “American society doesn’t provide the same economic and social opportunities to its black members as it does whites, thereby increasing the rate at which black Americans to wind up in jail because of drugs and other non-violent crimes.”

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Anyone who opted for the BMW X6 Active Hybrid couldn’t claim they wanted a more efficient ride. The hybrid version is barely more efficient around town when compared to both the non-hybrid six-cylinder and V8 versions. So could the Active Hybrid owner claim they wanted the extra performance? Nope. The X6 Active Hybrid starts at $89 Buy DKNY Clothing,775 Cheap Chloe Dresses, which puts it a hair ahead of the 555-horsepower X6M.

There will be no weeping over the loss of this awkward attempt at sporty efficiency.

Remember when Sarah Palin was the most outlandish potential GOP candidate who had significant support among voters? A headline on the blog Conservatives 4 Palin sums up the rapidly shifting campaign landscape: “CNN Poll Shows that Governor Palin Probably Leads If You Take Huckabee, Trump Buy Cheap Replica Zenith Watches, and Bachmann Out of the Poll.” A potential Palin candidacy looks more deflated than ever now that Donald Trump and Michele Bachmann are grabbing all the headlines. They’re making Palin look like she’s desperate to insert herself into the conversation: She’d largely distanced herself from birtherism until Trump took up the cause, but this week told a Fox News interviewer that while she believes Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, she applauds Trump’s newly announced investigation into the whereabouts of the presidential birth certificate.

Meanwhile, from the left, the Palin-isn’t-Trig’s-mom conspiracy theory has clawed back into the news again. It’s probably not going to hurt Palin in the eyes of her base—maybe the opposite, if they see her as unfairly under attack—but it’s also an unwelcome distraction from her recent efforts to focus on policy. (She’ll attend a Tea Party rally in Madison, Wis., this weekend.) But all around her, rivals are declaring their intentions to run—Rick Santorum’s just created a fundraising committee, for instance—and playing coy is beginning to look more like it’s coming from a place of uncertainty than from supreme confidence.  Even Glenn Beck doesn’t think she’s going to run anymore, and he knows something about flameouts. The Palin meter limbos lower, to 39 percent.

Previous Palin Meter Readings

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