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They had a lot to watch in 2009 -- a year marked by the media's anointed leader moving into the White House, liberals ascending to one-party control of Washington and, to hear journalists report it, an angry mob of dangerous extremists daring to reject the hope-and-change narrative.

Obama said the use of that vote-stalling tactic, which requires 60 votes to cut off debate, has been imposed in an "unheard of" routine fashion. He said it's problematic regardless of which party controls the White House and Congress, but conceded that, as president, he doesn't have much power to do anything about it.

The new movie “Avatar” is visually stunning, dramatically compelling and substantively inane. Writer-director James Cameron expresses the usual politically correct prejudices of the Hollywood establishment, treating the U.S. military as brutal and corrupt while a primitive society victimized by our soldiers, and by the greedy corporation they serve, comes across as noble, nature-loving and spiritually pure. For Cameron, the childlike, ten-feet-tall blue aliens constitute a higher form of existence; he clearly sides with them when they defend their unspoiled planet, taking on the high-tech American weaponry with arrows, spears, feathers and war paint. It’s “Dances With Wolves” in outer space, with Iraq war references like “shock and awe” in the dialogue.  As the most expensive movie ever made, and a visionary technological breakthrough, “Avatar,” like its main character, shows only contempt for the advanced, wealthy society that produced it. 

They think I shouldn’t be expressing my views on this bill until they get a chance to try to sell me the language...Well, I don’t need anyone to sell me the language. I can read it. I’ve seen it. I’ve worked with it. I know what it says. I don’t need to have a conference with the White House. I have the legislation in front of me here.

Despite the stereotype of grim conservatives and happy-go-lucky liberals, the truth is that people on the political right are nearly twice as happy as those on the left.

Marriage makes people very happy, but children have the opposite effect: The happiness of couples, and the quality of their marriage, falls after the birth of the first child.

Mr. Nelson's capitulation was not over whether to ban abortion outright. The senator sold his soul to give government the power to force millions of taxpayers to pay for a procedure they view to be murder. Activists in favor of abortion "choice" don't respect that those who oppose abortion want to be free to choose what their money should be used to support - especially when major moral issues about life and death are involved.