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These are my links for October 22nd through October 23rd:

• Rick Perry Comments Raise ‘Birther’ Flap Again – New comments by Rick Perry in Parade magazine have revived the issue of whether the Texas governor believes that President Obama was born in the United States.

  In the interview, Mr. Perry was asked if Mr. Obama was born in the United States, and he replied, “I have no reason to think otherwise.” When pressed, he said, “Well, I don’t have a definitive answer.”

  Mr. Perry noted that he recently had dinner with Donald Trump, who has cast doubt on the authenticity of Mr. Obama’s citizenship. Noting that they had discussed the issue of Mr. Obama’s birth certificate and that Mr. Trump does not think “it’s real,” the candidate, when pressed if he agreed, said: “I don’t have any idea. It doesn’t matter. He’s the president of the United States. He’s elected. It’s a distractive issue.”

  Mr. Obama’s birth certificate is posted on the White House Web site, and it shows that Mr. Obama was born in Honolulu. The document is signed by state officials and his mother.

  Still, a theory has gained currency among some conservatives that Mr. Obama was not born in the United States and therefore is not qualified to be president, assertions that have been widely discredited.

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  Good Grief…..

• Libya’s liberation: interim ruler unveils more radical than expected plans for Islamic law – Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the chairman of the National Transitional Council and de fact president, had already declared that Libyan laws in future would have Sharia, the Islamic code, as its "basic source".

  But that formulation can be interpreted in many ways – it was also the basis of Egypt's largely secular constitution under President Hosni Mubarak, and remains so after his fall.

  Mr Abdul-Jalil went further, specifically lifting immediately, by decree, one law from Col. Gaddafi's era that he said was in conflict with Sharia – that banning polygamy.

  In a blow to those who hoped to see Libya's economy integrate further into the western world, he announced that in future bank regulations would ban the charging of interest, in line with Sharia. "Interest creates disease and hatred among people," he said.

  Gulf states like the United Arab Emirates, and other Muslim countries, have pioneered the development of Sharia-compliant banks which charge fees rather than interest for loans but they normally run alongside western-style banks.

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  Unintended consequences may be worse than the old tyrant….. It remains to be seen.

• Day By Day October 23, 2011 – Caveats | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Day By Day October 23, 2011 – Caveats #tcot #catcot
• Update: Chris Schauble Now a News Anchor at KTLA: WTF Happened to KNBC News Anchor Chris Schauble? | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – RE: Chris Schauble is now an anchor at KTLA Channel 5 and Elita Loresca is on maternity leave. Jennifer is a regular …
• Untitled (http://www.sacbee.com/2011/10/23/3998013/dentists-patients-feel-economys.html#mi_rss=Medical%20News?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter) – Dentists, patients feel economy's bite in Sacramento area: Douglas Lott sees it in the faces of many young peopl…
• Healthy Halloween Advice for Children With Diabetes – Yahoo! News – Healthy Halloween Advice for Children With Diabetes: While there are challenges, Halloween can still be fun for …
• Young vegetarians: Getting the nutrition they need – CNN.com – Young vegetarians: Getting the nutrition they need: Niki Gianni was 11 or 12 when she found a video on YouTube c…
• Flap’s Dentistry and Health Links and Comments for October 23rd on 22:36 | Smiles For A Lifetime – Temporary (Locum Tenens) Dentistry – Flap’s Dentistry and Health Links and Comments for October 23rd on 22:36
• Flap’s California Blog Links and Comments for October 23rd on 18:18 » Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Blog Links and Comments for October 23rd on 18:18
• Tony Strickland’s party favors – 95 percent accurate – Tony Strickland's party favors
• Untitled (http://www.sacbee.com/2011/10/23/3999692/dan-walters-with-its-high-unemployment.html#mi_rss=Dan%20Walters?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter) – Dan Walters: With its high unemployment, California can't afford to be choosy
• 2012 Proposition voting will require a college degree; long ballot good for Republicans historically. | FlashReport – 2012 Proposition voting will require a college degree; long ballot good for Republicans historically.
• Two efforts launched to repeal Calif. DREAM Act – Total Buzz : The Orange County Register – Two efforts launched to repeal Calif. DREAM Act
• Untitled (http://www.sacbee.com/2011/10/23/3998082/dan-morain-big-changes-are-coming.html#mi_rss=Opinion) – Big changes are coming to the Capitol #fb
• (404) http://www.sacbee.com/2011/10/23/3998082 – Big changes are coming to the Capitol #fb
• @Flap Twitter Updates for 2011-10-23 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2011-10-23 #tcot #catcot
• Medical News: IDSA: Oral Bacteria May Signal Pneumonia Risk – in Meeting Coverage, IDSA from MedPage Today – Oral Bacteria May Signal Pneumonia Risk: Oral bacteria may signal which patients are likely to develop healthcar…
• Flap’s Links and Comments for October 23rd | Smiles For A Lifetime – Temporary (Locum Tenens) Dentistry – Flap’s Links and Comments for October 23rd
• Dental News, Dental education, Dental Social networking – Botox, dermal fillers can enhance implant outcomes: When placing dental implants, practitioners should consider …
• Flap’s Links and Comments for October 20th through October 22nd | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Flap’s Links and Comments for October 20th through October 22nd #tcot #catcot

These are my links for March 31st from 18:52 to 18:55:

• Rudy Giuliani Blasts Obama on Libya Action – Rudy Giuliani told Laura Ingraham that "since this whole thing in the Middle East began," the Obama administration "doesn't know what it's doing."

  "This is probably the worst handled national security military action I have ever seen. From announcing — when he didn't know what to do — that Gadhafi must go to then making that speech the other night, which was internally contradictory. You cannot say we're there to protect the Libyan people, but we're not going to be for regime change with Gadhafi because the reason we are there to protect the Libyan people is because of Gadhafi."

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  Obama does not understand foreign policy and has no experience in it.

• President 2102: Can Obama Lose? – Perhaps – So what combination of factors in this complex system of politics must come together to cause a catastrophe for Obama politically that would result in his defeat?

  Only one Democratic president has lost a reelection bid.

  I see three, and all have to be in place and reinforce each other for Obama to lose. First, the economy in 2012 has to be either stagnant or in decline in the 10 or so key electoral states (especially the ones in the Midwest) as he heads into the election. This would mean that the economy is creating very few net jobs in 2012 and that prices (including food and gas) are still rising.
  Second, no new major international crisis arises that causes people to rally behind Obama because of his competent handling of it. And I emphasize the words “new,” “major,” and “competent.” Afghanistan and Iraq devolving again into a problem will not help Obama, and actually may hurt him because our country has basically moved on from the situation in both places.
  Third, a Republican nominee has to emerge who is charismatic; is a very good communicator; is in touch with the country’s economic and social needs; and is a new brand of GOP leader whom many younger voters can connect with. Think of what it took in 1980 to defeat the Democratic incumbent—Ronald Reagan and crises galore.
  All three factors must converge for Obama to lose, and two of them are needed to drive his job approval down to a place, as I have written before, that makes it difficult for him to win. As one can see, these three elements don’t include how much money the Democratic National Committee and Obama have at their disposal; how much cash the Republican National Committee or the Republican nominee raises; the quality of each campaign staff; the legislative machinations of Congress; or the use of modern technology in the campaigns (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.). Those are all tactical factors that, ultimately, will have little influence on whether Obama wins or loses.

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  It will have to be a new GOP candidate like Mitch Daniels or Chris Christie – not a retread like Huckabee or Romney.

These are my links for March 31st from 15:41 to 16:09:

• Union Leader Says a Boycott of Koch Industries Georgia Pacific is a Bad Idea | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Union Leader Says a Boycott of Koch Industries Georgia Pacific is a Bad Idea #tcot #catcot
• Senator Dianne Feinstein: Missiles won’t do it so … it’s time we arrest Gaddafi | Radio Vice Online – Senator Dianne Feinstein: Missiles won’t do it so … it’s time we arrest Gaddafi | Radio Vice Online
• Senator Dianne Feinstein: Missiles won’t do it so … it’s time we arrest Gaddafi | Radio Vice Online – I wish I were kidding with this headline, but I am not. The Senator from California knows air raids won’t cut it. So far so good. So she believes it’s time we … arrest him?

  My guess is if we could we would. And to be fair she does offer two more options. But it is interesting this is the first option that comes to her mind. Lefties stil think war is a police action but you can’t bring down a tyrant like Gadaffi by wishing and hoping, or by arresting,….

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  Senile and she is chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee – replace her before she spills defense secrets

These are my links for March 31st from 09:42 to 10:37:

• Sen. Marco Rubio Takes the Lead on Libya – THE WEEKLY STANDARD has obtained the text of a letter freshman senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) sent tonight to the Senate majority and minority leaders. In it, Rubio proposes that the Senate authorize the president’s use of force in Libya, and that the authorization state that the aim of the use of force should be the removal of the Qaddafi regime. (The full text of the letter is below.)

  This is by far the boldest move Rubio has made—it’s perhaps the boldest move any freshman senator has made—in the three months since the beginning of the 112th Congress. Rubio is taking on those in his own party who wish to distance themselves from what they consider Obama’s war in Libya. He is answering critics of the war who have tried to cast a vague sense of illegitimacy over the action because Congress hasn’t explicitly authorized it. And Rubio is trying to push the administration into fully embracing regime change as an explicit goal, thus providing a compelling clarity for American military action—a clarity that he thinks will increase support for the effort at home and the chances of success on the ground.

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  Ill-advised political move giving President Obama political cover.

• Poll Watch: What’s behind Tea Party approval numbers – But let’s unpack all that. First, the poll is of all Americans (generally a sign of a leftward-tilt in results), not registered or likely voters. Second, while the poll asserts that half of all American households make under $50,000, the electorate is very different. In the 2010 exit polls, only 36 percent of voters had household incomes less than $50,000. These people voted Democratic (54 percent), while the electorate as a whole voted for Republicans over Democrats by a wide margin. And for non-white voters with incomes under $50,000 the Democratic tilt was even more dramatic (80 percent voted Democratic). Among those who voted for Democrats, 86 percent had a negative view of the Tea Party.

  CNN hasn’t released the underlying data, so we don’t know if the drop in support among low-income respondents is simply a reflection of increased animosity by Democrats or a rally-’round- Obama phenomenon by minority voters who still favor the president to a greater degree than the electorate as a whole. Moreover, we don’t know whether the poll over-sampled the very groups most likely to have negative views of the Tea Party.

  But if the Tea Party’s favorable rating dropped only 5 percentage points since December — nearly within the poll’s margin of error — then the grass-roots movement must be doing pretty darn well with the rest of the respondents (that is, those with incomes over $50,000 who made up 64 percent of the 2010 electorate).

  It’s hard to figure why the results reflect “a reaction to the tea party’s push for large cuts in government programs that help lower-income Americans.” Was that question asked? Or is that pure speculation? That assertion is even more odd in that the cuts the Tea Party generally embraces — e.g. means-testing Social Security — AREN’T aimed at the poor.

  What we do know is that the electorate as a whole and the Congress including Senate Democrats have accepted the Tea Party’s core message of deficit reduction and spending restraint. But if liberals want to keep on discounting the importance of the Tea Party, and more important, the message of the Tea Party, I am sure fiscal conservatives would be delighted.

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  Read it all.

  Without the underlying data, the CNN poll on the Tea party looks like an outlier at best and a fraud at worst.

These are my links for March 30th from 18:06 to 18:20:

• Budget Negotiators Reach Tentative Deal To Avert Government Shutdown – Sources tell me that  budget negotiators on Capitol Hill have tentatively agreed on a deal that would involve at least $33 billion in spending cuts from this year’s budget.  That’s $23 billion dollars more than Democrats have previously agreed to in short-term continuing resolutions, and $28 billion less than Republicans previously passed in the House.

  Members of the House Appropriations Committee will begin discussing how to hit that number with their Senate counterparts as soon as tonight, and Vice President Biden is heading to Capitol Hill for a 6pm meeting with the Senate Democratic leadership.

  The deal could still fall apart over the composition of the cuts, or policy “riders” previously passed by the House. These include issues like de-funding Planned Parenthood and President Obama’s health care legislation.  It’s also not clear that this compromise will fly with rank-and-file House Republicans, which means that the $33 billion goal could still climb by a few billion.  But this is most significant progress since the beginning of negotiations.

  Update: Kevin Smith, a spokesman for the Speaker of the House, tells me "“There is no agreement on a number for the spending cuts. Nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to.”

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  OK for this year but only with a balance budget amendment.

• Arnold Schwarzenegger is back as ‘The Governator’ – He’s been a famous body builder. He’s been a killer cyborg from the future. He’s been Governor of California. And now, in this week’s exclusive cover scoop, Arnold Schwarzenegger reveals his plans for the next phase of his extraordinary career: He’s going be a cartoon superhero, known as The Governator. “When I ran for governor back in 2003 and I started hearing people talking about ‘the Governator,’ I thought the word was so cool,” Schwarzenegger, 63, tells EW in his first press interview since leaving office last January. (Watch an EW-exclusive video of Schwarzenegger talking about the project.) “The word Governator combined two worlds: the world of politics and the movie world. And [this cartoon] brings everything together. It combines the governor, the Terminator, the bodybuilding world, the True Lies…” 
  The animated TV show and comic book, being co-developed by no less a superhero authority than Spider-Man co-creator Stan Lee (pictured, right), won’t be out until next year,…

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  Hope the cartoon ends up better than his Governorship which was horrible.

• Barack Obama authorizes secret help for Libya rebels – President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing covert U.S. government support for rebel forces seeking to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, government officials told Reuters on Wednesday.

  Obama signed the order, known as a presidential "finding", within the last two or three weeks, according to government sources familiar with the matter.

  Such findings are a principal form of presidential directive used to authorize secret operations by the Central Intelligence Agency. This is a necessary legal step before such action can take place but does not mean that it will.

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  Read it all.

• Barack Obama’s jaw-dropping hypocrisy on energy – McConnell gave a speech on the Senate floor this morning that including these zingers:

  Over the past two years, the administration has undertaken what can only be described as a war on American energy. It’s cancelled dozens of drilling leases. It’s declared a moratorium on drilling off the Gulf Coast. It’s increased permit fees. It has prolonged public comment periods. In short, it’s done just about everything it can to keep our own energy sector from growing. As a result, thousands of U.S. workers have lost their jobs, as companies have been forced to look elsewhere for a better business climate.

  Consider this: just three of the areas we could tap in Alaska are thought to hold enough oil to replace our crude imports from the Persian Gulf for nearly 65 years. So the problem isn’t that we need to look elsewhere for our energy. The problem is that Democrats don’t want us to use the energy we have. It’s enough to make you wonder whether anybody in the White House has driven by a gas station lately.

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  Well, at least he made a speech on energy – finally.

  The Democrats will do nothing to end American dependence on foreign oil by domestic exploration and drilling.

These are my links for March 25th from 20:01 to 20:09:

• The Speech Obama Hasn’t Given – What are we doing in Libya? Americans deserve an explanation. – It all seems rather mad, doesn't it? The decision to become involved militarily in the Libyan civil war couldn't take place within a less hospitable context. The U.S. is reeling from spending and deficits, we're already in two wars, our military has been stretched to the limit, we're restive at home, and no one, really, sees President Obama as the kind of leader you'd follow over the top. "This way, men!" "No, I think I'll stay in my trench." People didn't hire him to start battles but to end them. They didn't expect him to open new fronts. Did he not know this?

  He has no happy experience as a rallier of public opinion and a leader of great endeavors; the central initiative of his presidency, the one that gave shape to his leadership, health care, is still unpopular and the cause of continued agitation. When he devoted his entire first year to it, he seemed off point and out of touch.

  This was followed by the BP oil spill, which made him look snakebit. Now he seems incompetent and out of his depth in foreign and military affairs. He is more observed than followed, or perhaps I should say you follow him with your eyes and not your heart. So it's funny he'd feel free to launch and lead a war, which is what this confused and uncertain military action may become.

  What was he thinking? What is he thinking?

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  Read it all.

  The White House announced late Friday afternoon, that the President will address the american people about Libya on Monday night.

• Antiwar Senator, War-Powers President – President Barack Obama has again flip-flopped on national security—and we can all be grateful. Having kept Guantanamo Bay open, resumed military commission trials for terrorists, and expanded the use of drones, the president has now ordered the U.S. military into action without Congress's blessing.

  Imagine the uproar if President Bush had unilaterally launched air attacks against Libya's Moammar Gadhafi. But since it's Mr. Obama's finger on the trigger, Democratic leaders in Congress have kept quiet—demonstrating that their opposition to presidential power during the Bush years was political, not principled.

  Mr. Obama's exercise of war powers in Libya is firmly in the tradition of American foreign policy. Throughout our history, neither presidents nor Congress have acted under the belief that the Constitution requires a declaration of war before the U.S. can conduct military hostilities abroad. We have used force abroad more than 100 times but declared war in only five cases: the War of 1812, the Mexican-American and Spanish-American Wars, and World Wars I and II.

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  Read it all