FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog

There's been a lot of outrage from the No on Proposition 8 camp since California voters approved a ban on gay marriage. But until now, there has been less soul searching about what went wrong. But Terry Leftgoff, founder of the Gay and Lesbian Business Assn. of Santa Barbara, has a thoughtful piece on WeHo News looking at how the opposition to Proposition 8 fell short. It did, he says, on several levels: A mixed message, failing to respond to attacks from Yes on 8 forces, little black and Latino outreach.
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Duh
The Yes on 8 campaign had one of the best campaigns Flap has ever seen.

Antiwar groups and other liberal activists are increasingly concerned at signs that Barack Obama's national security team will be dominated by appointees who favored the Iraq invasion and hold hawkish views on other important foreign policy issues.

The activists are uneasy not only about signs that both Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates could be in the Obama Cabinet, but at reports suggesting that several other short-list candidates for top security posts backed the decision to go to war.
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Obama moved to the center to win the election against McCain and if he wants to win re-election he will have to continue in that direction. Obama is no fool.

The Associated Press plans to cut up to 10 percent of its workforce in 2009, according to sources at the news service, as it copes with tough financial times and ailing member newspapers.

The AP has one of the world's largest news-gathering teams, employing about 3,000 journalists, and a total of about 4,100 people worldwide. The cuts could amount to about 400 employees.

AP Chief Executive Tom Curley delivered the news as part of a "town hall" meeting with employees.

"All areas and ways of doing business are being reviewed," said an AP statement provided to Reuters. "The AP, which recently instituted a strategic hiring freeze, may need to reduce staff over the next year. If so, it hopes to achieve much of the reduction through attrition."

The job cuts come as the AP restructures its operations in the United States in a bid to provide what it said would be deeper, more relevant coverage for its member newspapers.
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AP with citizen journalism is becoming less of a source

Even as President-elect Barack Obama continues to rapidly fill out his White House staff and Cabinet picks, the buzz around whether he will spend some of his prized political capital on behalf of former state Rep. Jim Martin (D) in Georgia continues to grow.

Martin is taking on Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R) in a Dec. 2 runoff occasioned by the fact that the GOP incumbent was unable to win 50 plus one percent of the vote on Nov. 4.

Martin clearly benefited from Obama's presence at the top of the ticket — particularly in the black community — and Democrats eyeing a 60-seat filibuster proof majority believe an Obama appearance may be the only way Martin can come close to re-creating the sort of base turnout he needs to beat Chambliss next month.
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It may be a risk of political capital that Obama does not wish to make.

The Democrats have lost their best candidate in Arizona. Napolitano was a canny politician who knew how to outflank the GOP. I think going to Washington and taking up Homeland security will not be a boon to her future political career. Several Republicans were lining up to run for governor in 2010. With Jan Brewer as an incumbent, they may modify their plans.

The top of the Arizona GOP ticket in 2010 (Brewer and McCain) should help down ticket.

In the meantime, I just glad we are getting her out of the state. Who said that the Obama Presidency would be all bad?
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Anything that helps the GOP at this point.

How NOT to win hearts and minds about gay marriage

The interesting political question is why she'd take this job. She's been considering running for McCain's seat in 2010 or Kyl's in 2012 — I can't see how she could go to Washington and start running for Senate in less than two years, so maybe she has 2012 in mind instead. But even so, as DHS secretary, she is now going to be answerable for every illegal alien crossing the border and every snafu at ICE or USCIS — like the revelations from Houston that immigration authorities allowed back into the community violent criminals who admitted they were illegal aliens.
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I thinks she viewed her prospects better in the Obama Administration rather than Arizona agaisnt entrenched GOP Senators - plain and simple.

So, this is “progress?” eHarmony, a Christian-targeted dating website, gets sued by a gay man demanding that the business match him up with a same-sex partner. The New Jersey Attorney General intervenes on behalf of the gay plaintiff and forces eHarmony to change its entire business model. To be clear: The company never refused to do business with anyone. Their great “sin” was not providing a specialized service that litigious gay people demanded they provide. This case is akin to a meat-eater suing a vegetarian restaurant for not offering him a ribeye or a female patient suing a vasectomy doctor for not providing her hysterectomy services. Sadly, eHarmony has settled . I wish they hadn’t, but I understand the decision given the chilling antics of the anti-Prop. 8 mob. The company agreed not only to offer same-sex dating services on a new site, but also to offer six-month subscriptions for free to 10,000 gay users.
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Alot of whining going on in the homosexual community.

As Dan reported a few days ago, Log Cabin Republican President Patrick Sammon has announced he is leaving his post at the national gay Republican organization after two years.

It seems there is more going on behind the scenes as well. One of my very reliable LCR Board insiders tells me a shocking fact: “Log Cabin is over $150,000 in debt.”

And nearly the only source of income to Log Cabin lately is from none other than the Gay Left’s version of George Soros: the infamous Tim Gill. We have tracked Gill’s ties to Soros and Log Cabin extensively over the years here at GayPatriot.

The Legislative Analyst's Office will release a new report today analyzing the woeful state of California's finances. It will flesh out last week's estimate that the state faces a $27.8 billion deficit over the next 19 months.

But a new report from Beacon Economics predicts things will look even glummer in the future:

* Labor markets are showing increased signs of stress.
* There is little sign of a recovery in housing, and foreclosure rates are growing worse by the day.
* Consumer markets have fallen off a cliff.
* Corporate profits are taking a serious beating.

The report commissioned by California Forward, the nonpartisan government reform group, describes itself as "decidedly more pessimistic" than the LAO or Schwarzenegger administration projections, largely due to lower projections for corporate taxes.

The report also predicts the first year-over-year decline in statewide property taxes "since the Great Depression," according to Fred Silva
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Calif meltdown

Second is New York’s gubernatorial race, where incumbent David Paterson is also expected to seek his first full term (he came in power after Elliot Spitzer was forced to resign last spring). It is hard to see the GOP mount a strong challenge given their dismal state after the 2006 and 2008 elections, but one Republican could make the race interesting: Rudy Giuliani.

Siena came out with a poll testing the match-up yesterday. It found Paterson narrowly leading, 49% to 43%, suggesting that Rudy could at the very least make things competitive. When paired up against Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Giuliani takes a 46% to 44% lead. However much Cuomo wants to move to the gubernatorial mansion, however, it looks like challenging Paterson in a primary would be a bad idea: the incumbent crushes him 53% to 25%.

But the realities of politics today are such that the GOP cannot win national elections without the enthusiastic support of white evangelical Christians. They can try; it won't happen. That depresses moderates in the party, it depresses atheists and agnostics in the party, but it's the reality. The results of 2004 showed that, given certain conditions and issue sets, winning coalitions can be formed. Maybe the Bush-Iraq-Terrorism-Economy-Katrina event chain has changed all of that forever; maybe not.

To throw this out there: it will be easier for a conservative Catholic nominee, like, say, Bobby Jindal, to expand the Republican coalition rather than a white evangelical protestant like Mike Huckabee.
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Mick Huckabee will stay at Fox News

Maybe there is some significant overlap with the so-called “oogedy-boogedy” set, but then the problem with them wouldn’t be their religiosity or their social conservatism or any of the cultural markers that freaked out every pundit east of the Appalachians when Mike Huckabee would start to speak. Instead, the problem is that they were too wedded to the Bush administration and its failed record, and they were too dependent on reciting the trite slogans they heard on the radio and read in syndicated conservative columns.

Of course, the war was a major reason why the GOP fell into disrepute, and Parker notably still has nothing to say about that. I am going to go out on a limb and guess that she has rarely, if ever, written a single word of serious criticism of the administration regarding the war. You cannot diagnose what ails Republicans if you have no credibility on this most basic of policy questions, and there is no reason to think that Parker has any.

Iran is forging ahead with its nuclear programme, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog reported on Wednesday, deepening the dilemma facing US president-elect Barack Obama over his campaign promise to engage with Tehran.

The latest report by the International Atomic Energy Agency reveals that Iran is rapidly increasing its stockpile of enriched uranium, which could be rendered into weapons-grade material should Tehran decide to develop a nuclear device.
The agency says that, as of this month, Tehran had amassed 630kg of low enriched uranium hexafluoride, up from 480kg in late August. Analysts say Iran is enriching uranium at such a pace that, by early next year, it could reach break-out capacity – one step away from producing enough fissile material for a crude nuclear bomb.
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Israel must be getting nervous. What will Obama do?

Criticize me all you want. But why is this fourth grade homophobic crap the first thing that always comes into their minds?

As we observed throughout the campaign, Barack Obama gave indications that his election would mean a return to the September 10 mentality, a national-security outlook marked prominently by its lack of seriousness about the terrorist threat. In choosing Eric Holder to be his attorney general, President-Elect Obama has taken a step toward confirming those misgivings.

Holder was the Clinton administration’s last deputy attorney general, succeeding Jamie Gorelick in 1997 under Janet Reno. That appointment marked the final elevation in a series of Clinton-era promotions that punctuate his résumé. Holder’s rise, like Obama’s own, is of symbolic significance, as he now has been nominated to be the nation’s first black attorney general. Symbolism, however, cannot camouflage the fact that Holder is a conventional, check-the-boxes creature of the Left.

Since the potential for additional Republican gains among married white Christians appears to be limited, Republican leaders will need to find ways to reduce the Democratic advantage among voters who are not married white Christians in order to maintain the party's competitive position. However, given the generally liberal views of this group, this will not be easy. In 2006, according to data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, 57 percent of these voters supported a woman's right to choose an abortion under any circumstances, 66 percent opposed a constitutional amendment to prohibit gay marriage, and 71 percent favored a single-payer health care system. Any attempt by Republican leaders to significantly increase their party's support among voters who are not married white Christians would therefore require changes in some of the party's longstanding policy commitments — changes that would clearly upset a large segment of the current Republican base.

Gay rights groups clearly hope the Supreme Court will take an opportunity to issue another decision that tilts their way, but to do so, Chief Justice Ron George and his colleagues would have to make quite a legal stretch, and if they did so, they'd be accused a second time of substituting their personal philosophies for the will of voters. Their first decision earlier this year overturned a statutory ballot measure that only marriages between men and women would be recognized, even as gay marriage opponents were offering it to voters again as a constitutional amendment.
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The stage for recall of the California Supreme Court has been set.

Readers already concerned about what they perceive as liberal bias in the media will probably look with skepticism on coverage financed, even indirectly, by foundations that generally support more activist government. At the same time, though, conservative activists are lapping up the unique coverage offered by Flashreport.org, which features a network of Republican activists and consultants who participate in politics and write about it in real time.

If nothing else, all of these projects seem to show that as long as the public has a hunger for information, someone will try to feed it. Still to be determined is a new economic model that allows those who do the work of gathering and distributing the information to make a living at it over the long term.
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Although Jon is a friend of mine, the Right has a long way to go to support the new media. There are those of us who would wish to do more with the right financing.

It's ironic, isn't it? The Catholic Church has crushed dissension over Proposition 8 within its ranks. And now, the gay community has crushed dissension as well.

It proves again that in the city of Sacramento, coming out against gay marriage is dangerous politically. Gay leaders have the clout to strike back.

Still, the question remains: Is this the best way to persuade a majority of voters to support gay marriage?

Potential votes can be lost when beliefs – and hearts – harden like stone.
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Indeed - not the best approach

"This push-back in the last two weeks has actually mobilized the Yes on 8 people," said the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. If the California Supreme Court were to overturn Proposition 8, "you will see a mobilized group like you have never seen in the state of California."

Recall talks

Rodriguez said in an interview Tuesday that some religious leaders are discussing a potential recall of Supreme Court justices. He expects the Supreme Court to overturn Proposition 8, and if that happens, "there are grounds for a recall. We saw that with Gray Davis," he said. "We have an oligarchy, an oligarchy in judges' role in the state of California."
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A recall of the Justices in 2010 would be easily accomplished.

You’d think that Floyd Norris would know something about securities regulation, since he is the chief financial correspondent for the NY Times and the International Herald Tribune. If his story/blog port today on the Mark Cuban SEC case is anything to go by, however, the guy’s a typical MSM idiot.
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Well, the New York Times, Professor. What do you expect?

Unless you’re Andrew Sullivan, who takes as true any development unfavorable to Republicans, no matter how freaking wild it sounds.

This is why people mock you, Sullivan. Because you’re a shrieking, hysterical, gullible moron.

And that’s me pulling my punches.
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Pulling?

Eric Holder, Rahm Emanuel, Hillary and Bill Clinton, Greg Craig, Ron Klain, maybe Larry Summers…

I feel like I should grow a goatee, smoke an American Spirit and crank up some Smashing Pumpkins.

Gotta go, "X-Files" is on.
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Obama is lost in a time warp…..

TIME Inc. today becomes not a publisher of magazines but of pink slips instead.
The magazine giant is expected to cut more than 250 from the payroll as part of an overall plan by Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore and Editor-in-Chief John Huey to slash 600 jobs from its overall work force of 10,200 employees worldwide.
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More collapse of the MSM

"We are ready to do whatever is demanded of us" in order to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, IAF commander Maj. -Gen. Ido Nehushtan told German magazine Der Spiegel in an interview published Tuesday.
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Israel will not wait for "The One."

At the risk of overstating my case — the quotes in themselves are ridiculously damning — we should recall that John McCain stated, truthfully, in January, that the lost jobs were not coming back and that Michigan would need to innovate to find new jobs. Romney disagreed, saying that McCain was being a cranky pessimist and that he would “fight for every single job” while offering a $20 billion aid package. Now Romney is saying that we need to let the auto industry cut “excess labor” and not be given any checks from Washington. I can’t properly convey the frustration, the mental thrashing that’s occurring in my head right now. Perhaps it’s best to say it succinctly: at long last, has he no shame?
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But, Romney is Right on Detroit in his latest piece.

IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.

Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.
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Mitt Romney certainly knows more about economic matters than McCain.

Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaeda's No. 2, calls President-elect Barack Obama a "house negro" in a new audio message, the Associated Press reports. He also says Obama is "the direct opposite of honorable black Americans."
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Wondering how Farrakhan will respond?
Just wondering?

So Joe Lieberman is keeping his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee on the say so of 42 Senate Democrats AND President Obama; his Secretary of State might be Iraq War supporter and preconditionless-summit opponent Hillary Clinton; no one will be prosecuted for waterboarding, Bush's guy John Brennan may take over at CIA and Bush's man Robert Gates may stay on as Defense Secretary.

I don't know how the liberals feel, but so far the Obama administration rocks.
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And, KOS hates Harry Reid.
Perfect……

Seeking a way out of the polarizing debate now occurring, several local people have written to the Sentinel urging the state to move toward granting "civil unions" for both heterosexual and homosexual couples - without using the word "marriage," which would be associated with religious traditions. In such unions, gays would have all the rights and equal treatment under the law that heterosexual couples enjoy. Still, they have fought hard for the right to legal "marriage," and changing the wording might feel like a defeat many would be unwilling to accept.

Religious communities, in turn, would have to give up their battle over "legal marriage."
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No way.There are already civil unions for homosexuals and what benefit does it give society to change the traditional definition of marriage?
None.

I've written about my problem with conservative identity politics more than a few times, but let me just expand on this point in regards to my Sarah Palin post below. Yes, it's true part of her appeal is that she speaks to a demographic category — though it isn't quite ethnic nor purely religious or regional. And absolutely, the fact that she's a woman was a factor as well, a sort of trump card for leftwing identity politics. But it's no coincidence that John McCain needed help with precisely these constituencies and demographic groups. Those overly vexed by her selection seem to forget that John McCain was actually trying to win the election. And all due respect to the potential electoral juggernaut that would have been McCain-Pawlenty '08, I just don't see a lot of merit to the effort to depict Palin into some grand symbol of conservative decay.
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Conservative identity politics not = Sarah Palin but horsetrading demographically

A group dedicated to pushing Sarah Palin into the 2012 presidential race was formed last week and is already emailing Iowa Republicans.

The "2012 Draft Sarah Committee" has a rudimentary website up showing the Alaska governor dishing out moose chili and appears to be composed of rank-and-file conservative activists.

They've already found their way into the in-boxes of some of the opinion-makers in early primary and caucus states.

David L. Kelly, apparently the group's Treasurer and Colorado coordinator, sent a mass email today that hit at least one Iowa GOP vet.
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Premature…..

Sarah Palin's position on illegal immigration

“A lot of the speculation and reporting is out ahead of the facts here,” said the person, who requested anonymity. “She is still weighing this, independent of President Clinton's work.”

Clinton, the person said, remains deeply “torn” between the possibility of serving in Obama’s cabinet and remaining in the Senate to “help pass health care and work on a broad range of domestic issues.”
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Chances are it is a No go…..

Newsweek, quoting unidentified legal sources close to the presidential transition team, reported Tuesday that Obama offered Holder the job and he accepted. Newsweek said Holder still has to undergo a formal "vetting" review by the Obama transition team before the selection is final.
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Another Clinton retread and with Marc Rich's pardon - priceless

A dentist found guilty of urinating in a surgery sink and other unhygienic practices has started a High Court appeal to save his career.
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If true, this is really gross…..

But how conservatives resolve their differences will also matter to Obama's success. For now, the right is divided into ideological conservatives and dispositional conservatives.

There's that. But there's also disdain for the American electorate that voted in overwhelming numbers for change from the discredited Bush/McCain/Lieberman policies. But in a city known for tone-deafness, there clearly isn't a more tone-deaf group than the Senate Dems.

I'm done with Reid as Senate leader.

Add Mitt Romney to the list of big name Republicans who are lending a hand to Sen. Saxby Chambliss, as he fights for his political life.

Chambliss is the freshman Republican senator from Georgia who will face off against his Democratic opponent, former state lawmaker Jim Martin, in a runoff election on Tuesday December 2.

What will really drive them bonkers — well, more bonkers — is that the vote within the caucus was apparently 43-12 in favor of keeping Lieberman as chairman.

The Republican Jewish Coalition should close its doors. Its budget, and anything else the GOP spends on wooing Jewish voters, should be equally divided between building more Orthodox Jewish day schools (thereby encouraging the Orthodox to have more children) and transporting evangelical Christians to the polls on Election Day.

That would do more to help Israel and to assure Jewish survival than the money wasted quadrennially on trying to bring a message of reason to the mega-meshugeneh.

We start this week with a lead of 622 votes out of 339,292 total cast, or 0.18 percent. The good news is that there are less than 1,500 ballots to tally in the only county that Brown won and over 25,000 ballots to process in the counties that I carried.

We expect final Nevada County numbers to come in by the middle of this week. Once they have been reported, our lead should steadily grow as the remaining ballots from Placer, Sacramento, Butte and El Dorado counties are tallied.

Law professor Brian Gray argues in this morning’s L.A. Times that California’s Proposition 8 may violate the federal Constitution — and that we could see a ruling to that effect some day, written by one Anthony Kennedy.

Is he right? The answer depends on whether you believe Justices Kennedy and O’Connor, on one hand — or Justice Scalia, on the other.

If you’re inclined to believe Justice Scalia, then Professor Gray may well be right: the U.S. Supreme Court might one day mandate gay marriage.

I’m not sure why Gray relies on the old case of Romer v. Evans, which declined to overrule Bowers v. Hardwick, rather than Lawrence v. Texas, which did. I think Gray is drawing a parallel between Proposition 8 and the measure invalidated in Romer, because each involved a statewide ballot measure to place in a state’s constitution a provision disfavoring gays. But whether Proposition 8 would be struck down depends much more on Lawrence than on Romer, because Lawrence went much further to defend

"HARDBALL" host Chris Matthews and the other "castratos" at MSNBC shouldn't hold their breath waiting for a Hillary Clinton interview.

Matthews, who once opined that men who supported Clinton were "castratos in the eunuch chorus," forgot the cardinal rule for those who are often mentioned on Page Six - he didn't take a good look around on the Acela train from Philadelphia to Washington Saturday before he started bad-mouthing the New York senator.
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Chris Matthews is a moron and to think he may run for the US Senate.

And the clearest opposition to the Clinton appointment comes from Obama's backers on the left of his own party, whose initial support for him was motivated in part by a distaste for the Clinton dynasty, and who now view her reemergence with some dismay.

"There's always a risk of a Cabinet member freelancing and that risk is enhanced by the fact that Hillary has her own public and her own celebrity and that she comes attached to Bill," said Robert Kuttner, a Clinton critic and co-editor of the American Prospect whose new book, Obama's Challenge, implores the president-elect to adopt an expansive liberal agenda. "The other question is the old rule – never hire somebody you can't fire. What happens if her views and his views don't mesh?"

"The silver lining, for those of us who are skeptical, is that it drastically limits the number of other Clinton administration alums that he can appoint, and that's a blessing," Kuttner said.

"Gay is the new black" is one of the mottos of the movement to redefine marriage to include two people of the same sex.

The likening of the movement for same-sex marriage to the black civil rights struggle is a primary argument of pro same-sex marriage groups. This comparison is a major part of the moral appeal of redefining marriage: Just as there were those who once believed that blacks and whites should not be allowed to be married, the argument goes, there are today equally bigoted individuals who believe that men should not be allowed to marry men and women should not be allowed to marry women.

To help promote its ideas, CAP employs 11 full-time bloggers who contribute to two Web sites, ThinkProgress and the Wonk Room; others prepare daily feeds for radio stations. The center's policy briefings are standing-room only, packed with lobbyists, advocacy-group representatives and reporters looking for insights on where the Obama administration is headed.
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The RIGHT needs to step it up ……

Many gay-rights activists are wary of the current Supreme Court, but five of the justices who formed the majority in Romer vs. Evans remain on the bench. As with so many cases, a ruling likely would hinge on the views of Kennedy, and there is no reason to believe that his judicial opinion has changed in any fundamental way. Besides, any constitutional challenge will take years to make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. By that time, the broader political change that swept over the nation Nov. 4 may have reached the Supreme Court as well.

But even if it hasn't, this 12-year-old precedent from a conservative high court could be the key to reaffirming that fundamental civil rights must be available to all citizens, regardless of race, sexual orientation or other intrinsic human qualities.
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Then, the federal constitution will be amended. 30 states have already signed onto a ban. Need just a few more.
And….the two issues as presented here are quite different

Now David Frum, a prominent conservative writer who enmeshed himself in a minor dustup during the campaign by turning negative on Governor Palin, is leaving, too. In an interview, he said he planned to leave the magazine, where he writes a popular blog, to strike out on his own on the Web.

“The answers to the Republican dilemma are not obvious and we need a vibrant discussion,” he said. “I think a little more distance can help everybody do a better job of keeping their temper.”
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Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, Frum.

Had the protesters organized a march and sought the proper permits, Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, LAPD chief William Bratton, the city council, the police commission, indeed the entire municipal apparatus, nearly all of whose members are left-leaning and sympathetic to the same-sex marriage cause, would have moved heaven and earth to accommodate them, bringing large sections of the city to a halt if necessary, just as they have done to facilitate large-scale marches on behalf of another politically favored group, illegal aliens.

PROPOSED INTERVENOR CAMPAIGN FOR CALIFORNIA
FAMILIES’ PRELIMINARY OPPOSITION TO PETITION FOR
EXTRAORDINARY RELIEF

San Francisco, CA – Today Liberty Counsel filed its preliminary opposition summarizing its position regarding why the California Supreme Court should not consider petitions seeking to overturn the California Marriage Protection Act (Proposition 8). The Court has asked each party to provide these today. Liberty Counsel previously filed a motion to intervene on behalf of Campaign for California Families, and Liberty Counsel is submitting its preliminary opposition proposed by interveners.
For the second time in eight years, more than 50 percent of California voters have confirmed that what has been true for thousands of years still remains true today: Marriage is the union of one man and one woman. And, for the second time in eight years, same-sex marriage advocates are seeking to thwart the will of the people by asking the California Supreme Court to overturn Proposition 8.
Liberty Counsel argues that the Court should dismiss the petitions, because Proposition 8 is an amendment

You've gone to the dentist for some needed oral maintenance. But after the drill's whirrrrr has quieted and you're out the door, the anesthetic lingers on in your unfeeling cotton mouth.

Talking is very difficult while the mouth is anesthetized. Safety is also a concern —- without the warning sense of pain, some patients are prone to bite their tongues.

A new drug from Novalar, a Carmel Valley-based dental pharmaceutical company, solves this familiar problem. Called OraVerse, it's due to reach the market in October, coinciding with the American Dental Association's annual meeting in San Antonio.

OraVerse speeds the time for recovering normal sensation by more than 80 minutes, as measured in human clinical trials, reducing the recovery time by about half. The drug was approved for sale in the United States in May.
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Routinely used - probably not…..

Let's see if I got this straight: Hundreds of supporters of gay marriage, opponents of California Proposition 8, have picketed a Mexican restaurant in L.A. and shouted vulgarities at innocent customers just because one employee - a daughter of the owner - gave a modest $100 donation in support of the measure protecting traditional marriage. Opponents of Proposition 8 have threatened and harassed several other businesses - including a radio station, a theatre, and a chain of health food stores - because employees gave money in support of Prop 8. Opponents of Prop 8 have knocked a cross from the hands of an elderly woman and stomped on it during a demonstration in Palm Springs. Suspicious white powder has been sent in an envelope to a Mormon temple in Westwood. (Mormons were big supporters of Prop 8.)
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And, the Yes on 8 folks won an election.

Everybody, all together now: "All statements from Barack Obama come with an expiration date. All of them."
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Bet so…..

The official proponents of Proposition 8 and the campaign committee responsible for its enactment by voters today urged the California Supreme Court to accept original jurisdiction of three cases challenging the measure's validity and have petitioned the Supreme Court to intervene in the cases as Real Parties in Interest. Expressing confidence that the Supreme Court will uphold the validity of Proposition 8, the authors of the measure urged the Supreme Court to deny requests to stay implementation of Proposition 8 pending resolution of the legal issues.

1. The Republican Party suffered a death blow.
2. A wave of black voters and young people was the key to Obama's victory.
3. Now that they control the White House and Congress, Democrats will usher in a new progressive era.
4. A Republican candidate could have won the presidency this year.
5. McCain made a huge mistake in picking Sarah Palin.

You may remember the document widely circulated during the weeks leading up to November 4th entitled, “The Six Consequences if Proposition 8 Fails”. It was used by Prop 8 supporters to remind voters that changing the definition of marriage would have far-reaching consequences. It wasn’t a simple vote about giving a group equal rights. Well, look where we are now! Twelve days after the election (Can you believe it’s only been twelve days?) and even though Proposition 8 passed, it feels like we’re in worse shape than before. Let’s review “The Six Consequences” in light of recent events:
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And Proposition 8 passed!

An unreleased, experimental track by The Beatles could be made public 41 years after it was recorded at Abbey Road studios, ex-member Paul McCartney has said.

McCartney, one of two surviving members of arguably the most successful pop band in history, told BBC Radio that "Carnival of Light" was The Beatles at their most free, "going off piste."

"I said it would be great to put this on because it would show we were working with really avant-garde stuff," McCartney told Radio 4's Front Row culture show in an interview to be broadcast on Thursday.

That’s what happens when a depression begins on your watch and when you can’t offer a coherent explanation of how and why it occurred and what you are going to do differently. That’s what happens when instead of having such an explanation, you spend decades in quarrels between pragmatic but unimaginative moderates who seek to be better tax collectors for the liberal welfare state, and principled but fanciful conservatives who hope for a wholesale rejection of that welfare state. And the fact that there were many successful Republican governors in those years didn’t much change the party’s status nationally.
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The GOP needs to find a coherent economic message and deliver it quickly

"It used to be that a handful of editors could decide what was news-and what was not. They acted as sort of demigods. If they ran a story, it became news. If they ignored an event, it never happened. Today editors are losing this power. The Internet, for example, provides access to thousands of new sources that cover things an editor might ignore. And if you aren't satisfied with that, you can start up your own blog and cover and comment on the news yourself. Journalists like to think of themselves as watchdogs, but they haven't always responded well when the public calls them to account."

The speakers and panels are of course the principal attraction. Moderated by NR regulars such as K-Lo and John Miller, who asked good questions and got out of the way, the panels were outstanding. One of the best was the final panel on assessing the Bush administration, featuring John O'Sullivan, Bill McGurn, Shannen Coffin, Senator Thompson, Pat Toomey, Mona Charen, Ed Whelan, and Deroy Murdock. As you might expect, the assessment was mixed.
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Now the onetime front-runner for the Republican nomination is schmoozing influential party insiders on the National Review's annual cruise — a gathering of 700 conservative activists and the same forum where Palin wowed the movement's media elite last year, beginning her meteoric rise from obscure governor to vice presidential nominee.

But even as Romney publicly declares he has no intentions to run again, several former aides said they believe he will, and this week's get-together with leading conservatives is only the latest sign the man who spent more than $50 million of his own money to vie for the party's nomination last year is itching to do it again.
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California Governor in 2010 first? Or the US Senate?

Obama's days of walking on water won't last indefinitely. His chroniclers will need a new story line. And sometime after Jan. 20, they will wade back into reality.
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And, the harder the fall when the media realizes he is not the second coming.

But Gingrich on Sunday sought to divert some media attention away from Palin and to other governors such as Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) and Utah Gov. John Huntsman (R).

“She’s going to be a much bigger story in the short run,” said Gingrich, explaining Palin’s higher media profile compared to other GOP governors. “But, I think, as she goes back to being governor and as she works in Alaska, you’re going to see a group of governors emerge, not just Sarah Palin.”

Gingrich said Huntsman and Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) may emerge as political leaders on the economy while Jindal could claim the mantel on healthcare reform.

“I would say, for example, to Republicans who are about to face this question of how do you get the economy growing again, bring in Gov. Daniels and bring in Gov. Huntsman….”
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The next generation of GOP leaders has a deep bench inclduing Sarah Palin.

As I travel across California and the country making the case for Proposition 8, I'm often asked, "Why do you care about restoring marriage?"
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Why be for traditional marriage, indeed

It's a good question, and not just for me. Why are so many Californians rushing to street corners to hold up "Yes on 8" signs, enduring petty vandalism, and even pettier insults, to make the case for voting yes on Proposition 8?

So Poizner is the early favorite among Republicans and he knows it, even if polls don't yet reflect this very strongly. The geekish-looking billionaire put himself in that position by spending many millions of the dollars he acquired when selling off two high tech companies.
All that, plus a host of speeches before local Republican fund-raising dinners and a firm no-new-taxes pledge, has made him popular among the GOP faithful, even though he differs with most of them by taking a pro-choice stance on abortion.

But it's his conduct as insurance commissioner that makes him a threat to Democrats. No commissioner since the office became elective in 1990 has done more for consumers. That's normally a Democratic distinction.
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California does not need another squishy RINO like Arnold.

Rudy Giuliani told CNN Sunday the failure of his presidential bid this year didn’t mark the end of his political career — and that his future could include another White House run.

The former New York City mayor said that the economic environment this year may have presented too big an obstacle for any Republican presidential hopeful to overcome.

"If you had told me a year ago we would have a major economic crisis, I would've told you it would be very hard for any Republican," he said.

He wouldn’t rule out another run for the top spot. "No one knows whether you'll do something again until you come to the point of: 'Is it possible to do it again? Would you have a chance of winning?’ I mean, those are just things you can't evaluate right now," Giuliani said during a question-and-answer session with CNN International’s Hala Gourani.
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Next stop for Rudy will be for the Governor of New York unless Hillary Clinton goes to State and then he could run and win her Senate seat.

On Friday, leaders representing California’s Proposition 8, called on Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Senator Diane Feinstein and leaders of the ‘No on Proposition 8’ campaign to denounce attacks against citizens who support the constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

Leaders of the ProtectMarriage.com coalition and approximately 500 supporters of “Yes on Proposition 8” gathered in Santa Ana to voice their opposition to the increasing attacks and harassment against supporters of traditional marriage.

"Amidst all this lawlessness, harassment, trampling of civil rights and now domestic terrorism, one thing stands out: the deafening silence of our elected officials. Not a single elected leader has spoken out against what is happening,” noted the campaign co-manager, Frank Schubert.
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Where is Arnold? He told gay marriage supporters not to give up and says nothing about domestic terrorism directed at churches.
Shame on him

First approached by the Roman Catholic archbishop of San Francisco a few weeks after the California Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in May, the Mormons were the last major religious group to join the campaign, and the final spice in an unusual stew that included Catholics, evangelical Christians, conservative black and Latino pastors, and myriad smaller ethnic groups with strong religious ties.

Shortly after receiving the invitation from the San Francisco Archdiocese, the Mormon leadership in Salt Lake City issued a four-paragraph decree to be read to congregations, saying “the formation of families is central to the Creator’s plan,” and urging members to become involved with the cause.
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The Mormons have proven themselves a major player in the arena of social conservatives. Will this benefit Mormon GOP candidates in the future?
You betcha. Watch Mitt Romney and John Huntsman.