Saudi Arabia Said to Have Bought Nukes from Pakistan

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Photo Credit: Youtube/Al Jazeera EnglishSaudi Arabia may be prepared to field nuclear bombs it has purchased from Pakistan in response to Iran’s alleged military nuclear program, and may already have deployed missile systems capable of delivering the bombs, the BBC reported on Wednesday.

According to Mark Urban, diplomatic and defense editor for the BBC’s Newsnight, there are suggestions that the Saudis have paid for a number of nuclear weapons that are ready and waiting in Pakistan. If the reports are accurate, the kingdom could have atomic weapons on its missiles even before Iran has that capability.

Urban said it was an assessment shared by the former head of the IDF’s head of intelligence, Amos Yadlin, and cited comments Yadlin made to that effect at a conference in Sweden last month.

“The Saudis will not wait one month,” Yadlin reportedly said. “They already paid for the bomb, they will go to Pakistan and bring what they need to bring.”

Another source, described as “a senior NATO decision maker,” told Urban earlier this year of an intelligence report about Pakistani-made nuclear weapons ready for delivery to the kingdom.

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Massive Great White Shark Returns to Dixie

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Photo Credit: ocearch.orgAround this time last year, one of the Atlantic’s most famous great white sharks entered Southern waters for the first time since the crew at the non-profit OCEARCH tagged her.

Mary Lee, as the 16-foot, 3,500-lb shark is known, has since shown a clear affection for the South. Though she spent the early part of the year exploring the waters off New England, then circling Bermuda and the mid-Atlantic, she has spent the summer and fall off the coasts of the Carolinas. According to the most recent pings from her tracking device, she spent last night nestled in the shallow waters of St. Helena Sound, just south of Charleston, South Carolina, and has now moved back offshore.

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Trans Fat Fallout: Will Food Taste Worse?

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Photo Credit: ReutersIt’s no secret trans fats are unhealthy. But now that the Food and Drug Administration is pushing to remove them from the food supply, there may be some unintended consequences: America’s favorite snacks won’t last as long on grocery store shelves, they could be more expensive, and they might not taste as good.

The fact that FDA said Thursday a widely used ingredient should no longer be considered safe represents one of the most sweeping actions the agency has taken in recent years.

And American consumers could very well see — and taste — a difference.

Take Pop Secret popcorn. Partially hydrogenated oils is on the list of ingredients and the nutrition facts show there are 5 grams of trans fat per serving.

But that’s just one of many popular products that likely would have to undergo a reformulation. Other products with labels that show they possess trans fats, according to a recent article in Health Magazine, include: Duncan Hines buttercream frosting, Bisquick’s original pancake mix, Kid Cuisine All American Fried Chicken meal and Häagen-Dazs caramel cone ice cream.

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Don’t Pull that Plug: New Technology Shows that Many in Vegetative State are NOT Brain Dead

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Photo Credit: theverge.comFor a patient who sustains devastating brain damage, the outcome is often exceedingly grim: if they don’t show signs of improvement within a few weeks, they’ll be diagnosed as vegetative — unaware of themselves or their environment, and unlikely to ever be again. To their loved ones, these patients are essentially lost, as is the prospect of ever communicating with them again.

Unless, that is, the diagnosis is wrong.

That’s the startling possibility raised by a series of recent studies, which used neuroimaging techniques to evaluate awareness levels among patients diagnosed as being in persistent vegetative states (VS) or in minimally conscious states (wherein patients exhibit fleeting, inconsistent awareness). A small number of patients, these studies found, exhibited brain activity that indicates they were able to focus on a given word, answer a question, or complete a task. “We don’t yet have a full picture of the abilities of these patients,” says Srivas Chennu, PhD, an expert in cognitive and behavioral neuroscience at the University of Cambridge. “And what this research suggests is that there’s much more nuance here than anybody thought.”

Patients in vegetative states can often breathe autonomously, open their eyes, and blink. But despite those abilities, they tend to suffer brain damage so severe that they won’t respond to cues, acknowledge a family member, or react to their own name. For decades, those attributes (combined with extensive bedside tests) led doctors to conclude that the inner workings of these patient’s brains lacked any and all higher function. Patients were awake, in other words, but they weren’t aware.

Several studies in the past decade have questioned that line of reasoning. In 2009, a study on 103 patients found that some of those diagnosed as VS were, in fact, minimally conscious. The research also concluded that some patients diagnosed as minimally conscious actually showed signs of emerging from that state. Other studies, using both EEG and fMRI brain scans, noted that the brains of some vegetative patients engaged with commands similarly to those of healthy control participants.

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Senate Approved Legislation Banning Workplace Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

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Photo Credit: AP/J. Scott ApplewhiteReflecting Americans’ increasing acceptance of gays, the Senate on Thursday approved legislation that would bar workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Gay rights advocates hailed the bipartisan, 64-32 vote as a historic step although it could prove short-lived. A foe of the bill, Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has signaled that the Republican-led House is unlikely to even vote. Senate proponents were looking for a way around that obstacle.

Seventeen years after a similar anti-discrimination measure failed by one vote, 54 members of the Senate Democratic majority and 10 Republicans voted for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. It is the first major gay rights bill since Congress repealed the ban on gays serving openly in the military three years ago.

“All Americans deserve a fair opportunity to pursue the American dream,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a chief sponsor of the bill.

Proponents cast the effort as Congress following the lead of business and localities as some 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies and 22 states have outlawed employment discrimination against gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.

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Women Dressed as Bombed Twin Towers, Win Halloween Costume Contest

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Photo Credit: SWNS/Chester A nightclub has come under criticism by giving top prize in a Halloween fancy dress contest to two women dressed as the blazing Twin Towers.

Amber Langford and Annie Collinge, both 19, dressed up as the buildings involved in the 9/11 terror attacks, where more than 2,700 people lost their lives.

Their outfits – marked North Tower and South Tower – included models of the two hijacked planes crashing into the New York skyscrapers.

The costumes also had tiny models of people falling to their deaths and were topped off with the women wearing smouldering Stars and Stripes flags on their heads.

The pair won £150 between them after being voted best fancy dress by a DJ at the huge Rosies club in Chester.

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Botched NC DOT Traffic Alert Warns Of ‘Women Drivers, Rain, ObamaCare’

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Photo Credit: David McNew/Getty ImagesThe North Carolina Department of Transportation sent out a traffic alert, warning people of female drivers, rain and Obamacare.

The North Carolina DOT sends out routine alerts to drivers about accidents and road work using email and Twitter messages.

On Wednesday, the NCDOT sent out an alert which reads: “A High severity incident has been Added for I-40 Eastbound in Wake County in Raleigh,” before going on to list the incident as “Vehicle Accident: Women Drivers, Rain, Obama Care.”

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Look to Cruz, Not Christie

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Photo Credit: spectator.orgArnold Schwarzenegger won re-election handily in 2006, defeating his hapless opponent Phil Angelides by a 56% to 38.9% margin. Yet this sizable win was a meaningless victory for the GOP. Similarly, Chris Christie’s thumping victory on Tuesday night over an equally forgettable candidate contains almost no national meaning, save that Chris Christie is good for Chris Christie. Like Schwarzenegger, Christie cruised to re-election not as a real Republican but as a preening non-partisan moderate. Like Schwarzenegger, Christie’s popularity hasn’t translated into any support for Republicans in his own legislature.

Which raises the question: How could Christie turn blue states red nationwide if he can’t turn his own legislature red?

The breathless burbling about how Chris Christie’s victory “shows the path forward for the GOP” conveniently ignores his inability to turn New Jersey red for anyone but himself. Before election day, the New Jersey media didn’t see any reason for the Dems to worry about a Christie victory, as they enjoy a 48-32 majority in the Assembly and a 24-16 lead in the state Senate. While these numbers may change, early reports indicate most incumbents will be reelected. The New Jersey media reported that most polls indicate support for Christie won’t help any down-ballot Republicans. In 2009, Christie’s coat-tail effect was negligible too, resulting in only one new Assembly seat for the Republicans.

Like Schwarzenegger, Christie is a useful idiot for the Democrats—a needy, politically correct, ruling-class Republican who is trending liberal on everything from “climate change” to gay marriage to size-of-government issues. Christie loves the liberal limelight—a trait that will only intensify over time. The Democrats know a Trojan Horse when they see one.

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Health Care Law Allows Hiring Convicted Felons as Obamacare Navigators

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Photo Credit: Graeme Jennings/Washington ExaminerBy Susan Ferrechio

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a Senate panel Wednesday that there are no safeguards in place that would prevent convicted felons from becoming “navigators” for the new health care law implementation.

“That is possible,” Sebelius told Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who asked her about felons being hired for the job.

Health care navigators are certified counselors hired to help consumers and small businesses with the application process for healthcare.gov, the health insurance exchange website.

Navigators, according to healthcare.gov, are trained to help consumers complete eligibility and enrollment forms, which include sensitive personal information including Social Security and financial information.

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Photo Credit: Evan VucciSebelius: Sorry, but we won’t delay Obamacare

By Tom Howell Jr.

President Obama’s top health official said Wednesday that early Obamacare enrollment numbers will be “very low” but rejected any talk of delaying the reforms, even as Senate Democrats pressured the White House to correct the law’s failures.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius made her second apology on Capitol Hill in the span of one week for the persistent glitches that have made it difficult for people from 36 states to enroll for coverage on HealthCare.gov.

“It’s unacceptable. I am focused on fixing it, and I’m accountable,” Mrs. Sebelius testified before the Senate Finance Committee.

But putting off the Affordable Care Act, she said, “wouldn’t delay people’s cancer or diabetes or Parkinson’s” disease.

“People’s lives depend on this,” she told lawmakers on the Democrat-led panel.

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Tom Graves: The Man Behind the Campaign to Defund Obamacare

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Photo Credit: Alex Wong/Getty ImagesTom Graves was a man ahead of his time.

Long before Ted Cruz was orchestrating 21-hour homilies on the Senate floor, Graves, a Republican congressman from Georgia, was waging a lonely—and largely anonymous—campaign to defund the Affordable Care Act.

Graves won a June 2010 special election that brought him to Washington amid a dead legislative summer leading up to midterm elections. It was then that the former Georgia state representative saw an opportunity to influence the debate over President Obama’s recently passed health care law. And those efforts forever changed his path in Congress.

Having run in the months immediately following Obamacare’s passage, Graves felt a unique connection to the electorate and its disapproval of the new law. But he saw no Republican proposal to stop the government from paying for it. Intent on filling this legislative “vacuum,” Graves in July 2010 introduced the Defund Obamacare Act—the very first bill he authored in Congress, and one he would introduce in each new session.

Three years later, as Republicans grappled with a stalled appropriations process and ongoing anxiety over financing the law, the phone rang in Graves’s congressional office. It was a staffer in Cruz’s office. Cruz wanted to become the Senate cosponsor of Graves’s defund bill, the staffer said. Would the Georgia congressman be interested in teaming with the senator from Texas?

The rest, as they say, is history.

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