BRUCE BARTLETT WONDERS WHY TEA-PARTIERS ARE PROTESTING, as the United States remains a comparatively low-tax country. I think the protest isn’t about the present, but about where people fear the country is heading. And, once again, it’s time for this graphic. In addition, there’s the question of where the tax money is going. . . .

To protest the allegedly high level of taxation in the United States, various right-wing groups are organizing tea parties around the country [for April 15] in the spirit of the Boston Tea Party of 1773.

The irony of these protests is that federal revenues as a share of the gross domestic product will be lower this year than any year since 1950. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the federal government will take only 15.5% of GDP in taxes this year, compared to 17.7% last year, 18.8% in 2007 and 20.9% in 2000.

The truth is that the U.S. is a relatively low-tax country no matter how you slice the data. The following tables illustrate this fact by comparing the U.S. to other members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based research organization.

President Shimon Peres had some unusually aggressive words for Iran Sunday, seemingly threatening military action if US President Barack Obama's overtures to the Islamic republic fail to bear fruit.
In an interview with Kol Hai Radio, Peres also said that the arrest before the weekend of a Hizbullah terror cell in Egypt was a blow to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's power.

"Ahmadinejad recruits forces against us, but there are also forces against him," Peres said. "What happened in Egypt created a fierce opposition and we must unify all his opponents – the Sunnis and the Europeans, as well as those afraid of nuclear weapons and terror."

The Washington Post reported in its online editions Saturday night that Obama's daughters chose the name Bo for the pup because first lady Michelle Obama's father was nicknamed Diddley. The name for the dog was an apparent reference to the singer "Bo" Diddley.

White House aides told the AP that the office of the first lady arranged an exclusive deal on the dog story with the Post. The officials, who demanded anonymity because of the deal with the Post on exclusive details, said the dog was not in the White House as of Saturday evening.

Throughout the day Saturday, celebrity Web sites and bloggers were abuzz with rumors of the first family's selection of a Portuguese water dog; one site even claimed it had pictures of the future first pet.

* Dentists on Facebook – How to Social Network

First of all, if you are unfamiliar with Facebook, join up for free at www.facebook.com, if for no other reason than to say you did! Facebook is a social networking website where people across the globe post profiles and connect with other folks. Facebook is a form of “social networking” for individuals and businesses. Do dentists do social networking?

* Farrah Fawcett's Anal Cancer–Can You Prevent Yours?

This isn't a topic on the top of every one's blog list but WHY NOT? Cancer is cancer, whether it occurs in the jaw, breast, kidney, or anus. Former "Charlie's Angels" actress Farrah Fawcett, 62, is back in the hospital this week reportedly with metastases from her anal carcinoma, diagnosed in 2006. Last September, P.J. O'Rourke was diagnosed with anal cancer. According to CNN: "The numbers of anal cancer cases are rising, although experts haven't been able to pinpoint why."

Iran now controls the entire cycle for producing nuclear fuel with the opening of a new facility to produce uranium fuel pellets, the Iranian president said Saturday.
Production of nuclear fuel pellets is the final step in the long, complicated chain of nuclear fuel cycle. The U.S. and its allies have expressed concern over Iran's developing nuclear program for fear it masks a nuclear weapons program—a charge Iran denies.

Heavy-water reactors use a different process than light-water ones, but have their own nuclear proliferation concerns. The West fears Iran could eventually reprocess spent fuel from the heavy-water reactor to produce plutonium for a warhead.

"Today, with the grace of God, Iran is a country controlling the entire nuclear fuel cycle," Ahmadinejad said on state television.

America's religious Right has conceded that the election of US President Barack Obama has sealed its defeat in the cultural war with permissiveness and secularism.
Leading evangelicals have admitted that their association with George W. Bush has not only hurt the cause of social conservatives but contributed to the failure of the key objectives of their 30-year struggle.

James Dobson, 72, who resigned recently as head of Focus on the Family – one of the largest Christian groups in the country – and once denounced the Harry Potter books as witchcraft, acknowledged the dramatic reverse for the religious Right in a farewell speech to staff.

An American ship captain was freed unharmed Sunday in a U.S. Navy operation that killed three of the four Somali pirates who had been holding him for days in a lifeboat off the coast of Africa, a senior U.S. intelligence official said.

One of the pirates was wounded and in custody after a swift firefight, the official said.

Capt. Richard Phillips, 53, of Underhill, Vermont, was safely transported to a Navy warship nearby.

President Barack Obama twice authorized the military to rescue a U.S. captain who was being held by Somali pirates and whose life appeared to be at risk, administration officials said after Sunday's rescue.

The Defense Department twice asked Obama for permission to use military force to rescue Capt. Richard Phillips from a lifeboat off the Somali coast. Obama first gave permission around 8 p.m. Friday, and upgraded it at 9:20 a.m. Saturday. Officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations said the second order was to encompass more military personnel and equipment that arrived in the Indian Ocean to engage the pirates.