WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 29: Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney (L) refuses to answer press questions as he leaves the Senate Republican policy luncheon with Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) (3rd L) at the U.S. Captiol November 29, 2011 in Washington, DC. The Senate Democratic and Republican caucuses met separately behind closed doors to discuss the annual $226 billion Defense Authorization legislation. The White House has threatened to veto the military spending bill over parts of the bill requiring that al-Qaeda members captured on US soil be held by the military and not civilian authorties. Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said there was a robust debate on the detainee issue during the GOP luncheon, but Cheney did not join the discussion.













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Rick Perry Gets Voting Age Wrong In New Hampshire
By STEVE PEOPLES 11/29/11 02:30 PM ET

Manchester, N.H. -- You might say Rick Perry courted the youth, but not the whole youth, in a campaign appearance at a New Hampshire college.

Speaking at Saint Anselm on Tuesday, he appealed to students who will be at least 21 before Election Day to vote for him.

As for those younger than 21, he merely asked them to work hard on his behalf. Doesn't he want their votes, too?

It turns out Perry didn't know or had forgotten that the voting age in America is 18.

The flub caused some whispers in the crowd.

more...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/29/r...

Republican candidate for U.S. president and former Gov. Mitt Romney listens as he is introduced at a campaign appearance at Conchita Foods Inc. in Miami, Florida November 29, 2011. Romney received endorsements from three influential Cuban-American Republicans in a move aimed at boosting his support among conservatives and Hispanic voters.

Rick Santorum: Newt Gingrich Is 'Inconsistent' On Abortion, Stem Cell Research

Posted: 11/29/11 09:48 AM ET


Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said rival Newt Gingrich is "inconsistent" when it comes to issues social conservatives care about.

Santorum said the former House speaker could be in trouble with Christian conservatives in Iowa for relaxing his stance on the goals of the Susan B. Anthony List pledge, the Des Moines Register reports. The pledge asks candidates to "advance pro-life legislation to permanently end all taxpayer funding of abortion in all domestic and international spending programs," a mission Gingrich seems to have wavered from, based on his recent comments on abortion and embryonic stem cell research.

Despite Santorum's strict conservative views on these issues, Iowa voters haven't rallied around him yet, instead throwing their support to Gingrich. Santorum said he feels his moment will come when voters in the key primary state become more aware of Gingrich's record, nothing that they "may try to look for another candidate."

"I may not be the guy that the girls are initially attracted to when they walk into the dance hall, but ultimately once you get to know all the folks, I'm the one you want to take home to Mom," Santorum said.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/29/r...

A newborn, endangered Eld's deer fawn stands with its surrogate mother at Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Chonburi province, east of Bangkok November 28, 2011. A group of Thai veterinarians from the Zoological Park Organization announced the success of the world's first test tube Eld's deer, which are extinct in the wild and only 38 are currently existing in captivity around the world. The fawn was born on October 17.





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First Eld’s Deer Born from In Vitro Fertilization with Help of Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute Scientists

November 28, 2011

Nearly 20 years after the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute became the first to produce an Eld’s deer fawn through artificial insemination, SCBI scientists have now contributed to the birth of the first Eld’s deer via in vitro fertilization. The researchers collected eggs, inseminated them in vitro with thawed semen to produce embryos and transferred the embryos to a surrogate mother. A resulting fawn was born Oct. 17 at the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand.

more...
http://newsdesk.si.edu/releases/first-eld-...

Charlotte Church: I Sang At Murdoch Wedding For 'Good Press' (VIDEO)
First Posted: 11/28/11 12:01 PM ET Updated: 11/28/11 01:18 PM ET

Singer Charlotte Church gave damning testimony against the British press at the Leveson Inquiry into press ethics on Monday. In it, she claimed that she sang for free at Rupert Murdoch's wedding in exchange for favorable press coverage.

Church said that Murdoch gave her a choice: either she could take £100,000 for the job, or she could waive the fee in exchange for positive coverage from Murdoch's outlets.

"I remember being told that Rupert Murdoch had asked me to sing at his wedding to Wendi Deng and it would take place on his yacht in New York," Church told the inquiry. "I remember being told that the offer of money or the offer of the favor, in order to basically get good press, to be looked upon favorably."

The singer, who is now 25, recalled, "And I also remember being 13 and thinking, 'Why on earth would anybody take a favor over £100,000?'" She said that she and her mother wanted to accept the fee, but managers convinced them that Church could use a favor from such a powerful man.

more...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/28/c...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - NOVEMBER 23: A group of Ring Tailed Lemurs eat from a Thanksgiving spread at the San Francisco Zoo on November 23, 2011 in San Francisco, California. Fifteen lemurs at the San Francisco Zoo were treated to a Thanksgiving feast of green beans, a fruit salad made up of apples, bananas, grapes sweet potatoes and a turkey made out of monkey chow.




In this photo released by the San Francisco Zoo, a ring-tailed lemur enjoys a Thanksgiving feast at the San Francisco Zoo, Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2011, in San Francisco. The feast consisted of green beans, a fruit salad of apples, bananas, and grapes, sweet potatoes, a turkey made out of monkey chow and apple juice with grapes in champagne flutes.


SAN FRANCISCO, CA - NOVEMBER 23: A Red Ruff Lemur enjoys a Thanksgiving meal at the San Francisco Zoo on November 23, 2011 in San Francisco, California. Fifteen lemurs at the San Francisco Zoo were treated to a Thanksgiving feast of green beans, a fruit salad made up of apples, bananas, grapes sweet potatoes and a turkey made out of monkey chow.




















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LAPD gives Occupy L.A. protesters Thanksgiving turkeys
November 25, 2011 | 12:30 am

Thankgiving Day at the Occupy L.A. camp at City Hall was greeted with a mixture of reflection and resolve. "We are calling it International Giving Thanks Day," Regina Quetzal-Quinones said. "It's a day of sovereignty and healing."

For much of Thanksgiving Day, demonstrators did exactly what they've been doing for so many weeks: occupy the once lush Civic Center park. One bearded man twisted into yoga positions as another danced to rancheras and another drowsily yelled out from his tent, "Dude, where's the pot?"

But they also celebrated the holiday. Throughout the morning, donations poured into the tented kitchen: ham and biscuits, pumpkin pie and chicken, gravy and cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes.

Two stuffed turkeys also arrived from the Police Department.

"Gifts from one of the commanders," one volunteer said.

more...
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011...

Thanksgiving Reunion Brings Holocaust Survivor Together With Her Rescuers After 66 Years
First Posted: 11/23/11 05:00 PM ET Updated: 11/23/11 05:13 PM ET




NEW YORK -- It's been 66 years since Mary Katz Erlich last saw the boy and girl who saved her life.

Egle and Aurimas Ruzgys were teens in Lithuania when Nazis began to hunt Jews to send to concentration camps. As Catholics, they were safe, except for a big secret they kept for three years: their Jewish friends, Erlich and her parents, were hidden inside their home in a small space accessed through a hole in a kitchen cabinet.

The three friends last saw each other in 1945, after the liberation of Nazi-ruled lands at the end of World War II. Erlich's parents soon moved to the United States as part of a wave of Holocaust survivors who immigrated. But Erlich, who is now 83 and lives in suburban Boston, quickly lost touch with her friends. It did not help that what she gained in fluent English, she lost in her native language, the only language that those who saved her spoke.

Each went on to have lives full of happiness and families of their own, but each also felt a longing for the past friendships that had gone missing -- until now.

more...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/23/t...

Megyn Kelly Pepper Spray Thanksgiving
Megyn Kelly essentially compared pepper spray to food in the case of the UC Davis student protestors being pepper sprayed in the face by Lieutentant Pike.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/dc5e05e8f...

WKRP in Cincinnati

Turkeys Away

http://www.hulu.com/watch/322/wkrp-in-cinc...


Happy Thanksgiving!

Former House speaker and GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich gestures to CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer at the conclusion of the Republican presidential debate on national security November 22, 2011 at the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Constitution Hall in Washington, DC. The debate is being hosted by CNN in partnership with the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute.

Pepper Spray’s Fallout, From Crowd Control to Mocking Images
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
Published: November 22, 2011


snip...
“The courts have made it very clear that these type of devices can’t be used indiscriminately and should be used only when the target poses a physical threat to someone,” said Michael Risher, staff attorney for the A.C.L.U. of Northern California.

To Kamran Loghman, who helped develop pepper spray into a weapons-grade material with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the 1980s, the incident at Davis violated his original intent.

“I have never seen such an inappropriate and improper use of chemical agents,” Mr. Loghman said in an interview.

Mr. Loghman, who also helped develop guidelines for police departments using the spray, said that use-of-force manuals generally advise that pepper spray is appropriate only if a person is physically threatening a police officer or another person.

more...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/us/peppe...

‘It’s a Food Product, Essentially’: Fox News Starts Spinning Pepper Spray Cops
BY MAX READ NOV 21, 2011 9:21 PM

"I don't think we have the right to Monday-morning quarterback the police," Bill O'Reilly said tonight, discussing the appalling use of pepper spray by UC Davis police on Friday. No, God forbid we Monday-morning quarterback the police, especially, as O'Reilly continued, "at a place like UC Davis, which is a fairly liberal campus."

Indeed: what right do we have to think that Lt. John Pike should probably not have indifferently dusted peacefully sitting protesters with pepper spray from only a few feet away? And, gosh, even if we were going to Monday-morning quarterback the police, shouldn't we remember, as Megyn Kelly tells O'Reilly, that pepper spray is "a food product, essentially"? I mean, Kelly and O'Reilly aren't saying the cops did the right thing! God, no! They're just saying, hey, what right do we have to judge a cop for spraying a simple food product on a bunch of liberal college kids' faces?

video at link...

http://gawker.com/5861688/its-a-food-produ...


There are some great responses to the article at the link.

For instance...

Megyn Kelly on nightsticks: "It's an olive branch, essentially!"

UC Davis students protest at an "Occupy UCD" rally on campus in Davis, California November 21, 2011. More than 1,000 demonstrators rallied on Monday at the University of California at Davis to protest the pepper-praying of student protesters by police, a clash captured in video footage circulated widely on television and the Internet.



















DAVIS, CA - NOVEMBER 21: An Occupy protester sets up a tent during a demonstration at the UC Davis campus on November 21, 2011 in Davis, California. Thousands of Occupy protesters staged a demonstration on the UC Davis campus to protest the campus police who pepper sprayed students sitting passively with their arms locked during an Occupy Wall Street demonstration on November 18.


Tents made out of wire mark the spot where non-violent protestors were pepper-sprayed by police at an "Occupy UCD" rally on campus in Davis, California November 21, 2011. More than 1,000 demonstrators rallied on Monday at the University of California at Davis to protest the pepper-praying of student protesters by police, a clash captured in video footage circulated widely on television and the Internet.




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thread #1 here...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...

a few more pics here...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...