White House Adviser Briefed in October on Underwear Bomb Technique  —  White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan was briefed in October on an assassination attempt by Al Qaeda that investigators now believe used the same underwear bombing technique as the Nigerian suspect who tried …

Flashback: GOP blamed Clinton for 9/11 - Obama got regularly scheduled Dec. 22 briefing on holiday threats, but there was no warning of an attack — Tebow: ‘redemption instead of perfection’  —  Mayor Bloomberg yesterday, in his third inaugural address: “We have adopted bold education reforms …

Charles Johnson Denounces the “Right-Wing Racism” of a Picture Forwarded by . . . a Democrat  —  Charles Johnson denounces the “right-wing racism” of the photo.  —  Just one problem: the worker is a registered Democrat: … Reacting to the news of the woman's party affiliation, Johnson says in comments:

Why the Health-Care Bills Are Unconstitutional  —  If the government can mandate the purchase of insurance, it can do anything.  —  Printer  —  Friendly  —  President Obama's health-care bill is now moving toward final passage.  The policy issues may be coming to an end …

Limbaugh: “Based On What Happened To Me I Don't Think There's One Thing Wrong With The American Health Care System”  —  First, let's be clear that I'm personally happy that Rush Limbaugh is in good condition and came through his scare beautifully.  Let's also be clear: Limbaugh is touting …

Charges for cartoonist ‘attacker’  —  The 28-year-old Somali was carried into court on a stretcher  —  A Somali man has been charged with trying to kill a Danish artist whose drawing of the Prophet Mohammed sparked riots around the world.  —  The suspect, who was shot …

U.S. Sees Window to Pressure Iran on Nuclear Fuel  —  WASHINGTON — As President Obama faces pressure to back up his year-end ultimatum for diplomatic progress with Iran, the administration says that domestic unrest and signs of unexpected trouble in Tehran's nuclear program …

For Some in Japan, Home Is a Tiny Plastic Bunk  —  TOKYO — For Atsushi Nakanishi, jobless since Christmas, home is a cubicle barely bigger than a coffin — one of dozens of berths stacked two units high in one of central Tokyo's decrepit “capsule” hotels.  —  “It's just a place to crawl …

Why the Budget Will Never Be Balanced  —  To review some recent political history, after Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, conservatives enacted budgetary measures that led to large and growing deficits.  These were scaled back to some extent on a bipartisan basis in the late 1980s and during …

Massive Volcanic Eruption in the National Park this morning  —  At 03.45 this morning, we all woke to a massive eruption on Mt Nyamulagira, a volcano just across from our headquarters at Rumangabo station, about 15 kilometres to the west.  The eruption is from quite high up on the volcano, and it looks like it's a big one.

Nelson to McMaster: ‘Call off the dogs’  —  Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) reached out Thursday evening to South Carolina GOP Attorney General Henry McMaster, the leader of a group of 13 Republican state attorneys general who are threatening to file suit against the Senate health care bill …

Aughts were a lost decade for U.S. economy, workers  —  For most of the past 70 years, the U.S. economy has grown at a steady clip, generating perpetually higher incomes and wealth for American households.  But since 2000, the story is starkly different.  —  The past decade was the worst …

Peak Oil Refuses to Rise to the Occasion  —  You don't have to be a global-warming alarmist to wonder just when the world's oil reserves are finally going to dry up and drive the price of oil through the roof, thereby ushering in a glorious age of energy created by hamsters on exercise wheels or some other renewable source.

U.S. Loan Effort Is Seen as Adding to Housing Woes  —  The Obama administration's $75 billion program to protect homeowners from foreclosure has been widely pronounced a disappointment, and some economists and real estate experts now contend it has done more harm than good.