Feds Pay For Study On Why Lesbians Are Fat

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

A Harvard-affiliated hospital will study why so many lesbians are overweight, thanks to a $1.5 million grant from the federal government.

The grant was recently approved by the National Institutes of Health. It will allow Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a medical center affiliated with Harvard University, to examine an issue of “high public-health significance,” in the words of researchers.

Three quarters of gay women are obese, according to the grant for the study. But gay men have much lower obesity rates than heterosexual men—a discrepancy for which there is no scientific explanation, said researchers.

An NIH spokesperson claimed that the study would be in the best interests of public health.

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Israeli Chief Of Staff: Syria ‘Could Blow Up At Any Moment’

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Photo Credit: Front Page Mag

One doesn’t know what to make of murky reports this week about the U.S., Britain, and France training a small force of purportedly moderate Syrian rebels in Jordan—especially with the Obama administration taking the official line that it does not directly aid the Syrian opposition.

If there was ever a time to build a coherent, more or less trustworthy, genuinely moderate Syrian opposition to replace the Assad regime—and it is a questionable proposition—that time would appear to have passed, as the Syrian chaos worsens and the radicals gain strength by the day.

How badly the situation has deteriorated was evident from a report in Israel Hayom on Monday that “Syrian rebels…near the border with Israel threatened…to fight to regain the Golan Heights from Israel following the toppling of Syrian President Bashar Assad.”

The report includes a video in which a “rebel fighter” in the Syrian part of the Golan—just across from the Israeli part—declares:

These lands are blessed and the despicable Assad family promised to liberate them, but for 40 years the Syrian army did not fire a single bullet. We will open a military campaign against Israel. We will fire the bullets that Assad did not and we will liberate the Golan.

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Even In Afghanistan, A Focus On Budget Battles Of Washington

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Photo Credit: Secretary of Defense

The new defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, arrived at this rugged security outpost situated along a ratline of insurgent infiltration from Pakistan to talk to American troops about the war.

Instead, the soldiers wanted to hear only about the budget battle back in Washington – in particular, how steep reductions in spending for the Pentagon would affect their careers, their salaries and their health care benefits, and their eventual retirements. Perhaps that could be viewed as a positive sign of the status of combat operations in Afghanistan.

As Afghan forces take the lead in securing their own country, members of the 101st Airborne Division’s First Brigade Combat Team were not so concerned about the quality of their body armor, or the details of counterinsurgency tactics, or whether there was a slackening of support for the war back home. Those are the sorts of things that usually come up when a defense secretary convenes a town-hall-style meeting with troops in the combat zone.

In his opening remarks delivered this weekend at the forward operating base, located in Jalalabad, a strategic crossroads in eastern Nangarhar Province, Mr. Hagel discussed the war effort, of course, and thanked the troops for their service to the nation. And he pledged to always keep at the forefront the needs of America’s service personnel and their families.

Then he opened up the dialogue to questions. Not a single one was about the war effort.

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Hamas: ‘Declaration Of War’ If Obama Visits Temple Mount

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Photo Credit: AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/Getty Images

Hamas is warning that if President Obama visits the Temple Mount it would be a “declaration of war” against the Islamic world.

Israel National News reports the terror group made the threat during a protest march at the religious site following riots on Friday. Mushir al-Masri, a Hamas spokesman, called for a third intifada if Obama visits the contested religious site in Jerusalem’s Old City between Israelis and Muslims.

Public Security Minister Yitzchak Aharonovich believes the warning will lead to violence flaring up in the region ahead of the president’s visit.

“The Palestinians have not said the final word yet and we expect that there will be attempts to take advantage of the upcomingevents, like the visit by Barack Obama, in order to continue the violence,” Aharonovich told Israel National News.

White House officials have said Obama doesn’t plan on visiting the Temple Mount during his trip.

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Republicans Want To Cut Spending, Except For Spending In Their Districts

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Photo Credit: Majordomo2012

During the 2012 campaign, while Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan were criticizing President Obama for spending too much and engaging in crony capitalism, Ryan stopped by a tank factory in Lima, Ohio, which the Army says it doesn’t need — and attacked Obama for wanting to close it.

At the time, I called this “perverse,” and suggested Republicans couldn’t effectively out-Santa-Claus Obama.

Today, Michael Scherer writes that House Speaker John Boehner is fighting to keep this tank factory open. Scherer also names other pork projects sought by Republicans who spend most of their time attacking federal overspending.

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Will Your Job Be ‘Reshored’ To A Federal Prisoner?

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Photo Credit: x1klima

Twelve million Americans are currently unemployed, according to the most recent Department of Labor statistics. Forty percent of the unemployed have been so for at least six months, and the average job seeker spends 36.9 weeks out of work.

The good news for the jobless? US industry is now in the throes of a “reshoring” trend: “Next year we’re going to bring some production to the US,” Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO Tim Cook told Bloomberg Businessweek in December. “This doesn’t mean that Apple will do it ourselves, but we’ll be working with people and we’ll be investing our money.”

The bad news? The Bureau of Prisons is angling to have as many reshored jobs as possible filled by federal prisoners.

Between 2000 and 2011, wages in Asia have nearly doubled, according to the International Labour Organization. The Chinese government is planning to increase the minimum wage by 13% annually until 2015. Labor unrest, formerly unheard of in Asia, has become more frequent, with companies routinely raising workers’ pay after strikes. At the same time, wages paid to federal inmates working in prison factories across the United States have remained flat, ranging from $0.23 to $1.15 an hour.

Federal Prison Industries — also known by the trade name UNICOR — is a self-sustaining, self-funding company within the US Bureau of Prisons. It is owned wholly by the US government and was created by an act of Congress in 1934 to function as a rehabilitative tool to teach real-world work skills to federal inmates. These inmates were historically limited to producing goods for government use, such as furniture, uniforms, even, believe it or not, components for Patriot missiles.

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Video: John Bolton – Obama Administration Is Holding Talks With Taliban In Doha And Qatar

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Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

Former UN Ambassador John Bolton was on with Greta Van Susteren tonight to discuss the situation in Afghanistan. Bolton told Greta that he believes the Obama administration has been talking to the Taliban for some time now…

Watch video here:

https://youtu.be/T71kmgUNMeA

See a related story HERE where President Karzai of Afghanistan has alleged a conspiracy between the US and the Taliban.

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NYT To Obama: Prohibit Pipeline to Choke-Off Oil Supply

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Photo Credit: AP

The New York Times published an editorial on Sunday calling on President Barack Obama to prohibit construction of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would bring oil to the United States from Canada–but not to protect a fragile landscape in Nebraska or anywhere else in the United States.

The reason Obama should prohibit the pipeline, according to the Times, is to begin choking off America’s oil supply.

The paper thinks this is a good thing.

The Times was responding to a draft environmental impact statement on the latest version of the pipeline proposal that the State Department released a week ago. A year ago, the State Department rejected an earlier proposal from TransCanada, the company seeking to build the pipeline, because the route the company proposed at that time would have traversed the Sand Hills of Nebraska. TransCanada subsequently changed the route, and the State Department is now signaling that this new route would not cause significant environmental problems.

Under executive orders issued by past administrations, the president has assumed authority to approve pipelines that cross the international borders of the United States. The State Department carries out that authority.

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Video: Dem. Rep On Candid Camera Admits ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban Just The Beginning, Handgun Ban May Be Possible

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Photo Credit: Jason Mattera/YouTube

A new video released by conservative activist Jason Mattera will surely have gun rights advocates up in arms. In an exchange with Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) that was caught on camera last month but only released Monday, the Democratic politician spoke openly about her gun control views, noting that current proposals are only the beginning…

Perhaps the most contentious portion of the dialogue, which purportedly took place at a women’s rights rally, is the section in which she seems to indicate that a much larger push against firearms could inevitably take aim at handguns.

At the beginning of the exchange, Mattera identifies himself but tells Schakowsky that he “appreciated her remarks” (he does not indicate his conservative worldview and she appears not to recognize him). Considering these tactics, his introduction potentially gained her trust, leading the congresswoman to candidly share her views. He also repeatedly addressed her using “we” and it appears as though Schakowsky doesn’t realize she’s being recorded.

Watch video here:

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State Department Will Issue ‘Female’ Passports To Anatomical Males

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Photo Credit: AP

The U.S. State Department’s policy on dealing with transgendered people will allow Americans who are anatomically male but identify themselves as female to secure U.S. passports that match their gender “identity” rather than their anatomy.

The policy also allows records for births abroad to be changed to reflect the “new” gender of an individual.

“The U.S. Department of State is pleased to use the occasion of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Month to announce its new policy guidelines regarding gender change in passports and Consular Reports of Birth Abroad,” the June 9, 2010 media note states on State’s website states.

“Beginning June 10, when a passport applicant presents a certification from an attending medical physician that the applicant has undergone appropriate clinical treatment for gender transition, the passport will reflect the new gender,” the note states. “The guidelines include detailed information about what information the certification must include.”

“It is also possible to obtain a limited-validity passport if the physician’s statement shows the applicant is in the process of gender transition,” the note states. “No additional medical records are required.”

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