Montreal man uses scanned image of passport to cross US border

All that money spent on fighting terror and this is what we get for our money:

Martin Reisch is certain that if Steve Jobs was alive, the tech innovator would have something to say about him.

The Montreal-based photographer made world headlines after he managed to cross the U.S. border with a scanned image of his passport on his iPad.

“He’d probably say: ‘Here’s something to work on for the future.’ Maybe have some kind of digital certification or encryption to let people travel like this,” Reisch said.

Although he’s sure the U.S. border guard made an exception for him, Reisch is glad his story is being repeated by the likes of the BBC, the Washington Post and the Huffington Post.

“I hope the biggest thing to come out of this is that it becomes a catalyst to change the rules,” he said.

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U.S. Reverses Policy in Reaching Out to Muslim Brotherhood

This is the right thing to do. Won't go over too well with the neocons and pro-Israel lobby. If you would listen to them the Muslim Brotherhood are the same as al Qaeda:

With the Muslim Brotherhood pulling within reach of an outright majority in Egypt’s new Parliament, the Obama administration has begun to reverse decades of mistrust and hostility as it seeks to forge closer ties with an organization once viewed as irreconcilably opposed to United States interests.

The administration’s overtures — including high-level meetings in recent weeks — constitute a historic shift in a foreign policy held by successive American administrations that steadfastly supported the autocratic government of President Hosni Mubarak in part out of concern for the Brotherhood’s Islamist ideology and historic ties to militants.

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130 Doctors Without Borders staff disappear in Sudan

These people are heroic and should get a nobel peace prize:

Doctors Without Borders goes where others don't. And that often gets its staff in trouble.

The doctors and medics of the group, also known by their French name, Medecins Sans Frontieres, go to centers of conflict where most other medical teams do not. And that means they are often in danger.

On December 29, two staff members were killed in Somalia.

The latest news from South Sudan is especially worrying. Some 130 staff at the Doctors Without Borders clinic in Pibor, South Sudan, are missing, according to a statement from the group.

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New Hampshire Republicans again Challenge Obama’s Citizenship

This garbage should be denounced by the Republican Presidential candidates. All it does is make the Republicans look like racists. And if they don't denounce the 'birther' nonsense then I'm calling them racists until you prove otherwise. Who's with me?

The made-up scandal that just won’t quit is back, with a vengeance.

A group of Republican lawmakers in New Hampshire asked the state’s attorney general on Tuesday to launch an investigation into President Barack Obama’s citizenship, The Associated Press reported.

The effort was being staged in hopes that they may be able to knock Obama’s name off the New Hampshire primary ballot.

The group, led by state Rep. Laurence Rappaport (R), has not been told whether the investigation will proceed. Rappaport has long been attached to the so-called “birthers” in New Hampshire, and he helped former dentist Orly Taitz pursue a “birther” complaint with the state’s Ballot Law Commission in November.

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Rick Santorum: States Should Have Power To Ban Birth Control, Sodomy

Rick Santorum: States Should Have Power To Ban Birth Control, Sodomy - The Huffington Post -

House of wealth: Congress is removed from middle-class concerns

House of wealth: Congress is removed from middle-class concerns

Rick Santorum Dials Up Racism In Final Push For Iowa’s Bigot Vote

Rick Santorum Dials Up Racism In Final Push For Iowa’s Bigot Vote


-Related:
MSNBC contributor: ‘Rick Santorum is a homophobe and a bigot’

Audit Finds That Prisoners and Felons Granted Permission To Prepare Returns

Audit Finds That Prisoners and Felons Granted Permission To Prepare Returns - Forbes

Americans Elect: Obama's Third-Party Tar Pit

We need an alternative to the failed two-party system. Unless have choice this country is headed for ruin. Let's debate who that alternative is. But whatever we do let's not waste our votes our same failed choices:

The real action that may well decide our next president is quietly going on elsewhere, in the state offices that qualify candidates and parties for the November 2012 presidential ballot.  You may not have heard much about a shadowy group called "Americans Elect" (it does not disclose its contributors because of alleged concerns that they might suffer loss of business or social contacts, and because it fancifully but only occasionally declares itself to be a 501[c] [4] tax-exempt organization [though it has qualified as a political party for ballot position in multiple states including Ohio, California, Nevada, and Arizona, which should deprive it of tax-exempt status]).  But if you haven't heard of Americans Elect, you soon will.

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Mayan 'Doomsday' in 2012? New Assurances

There are some people who really believe in stuff like this. And particular, those who want to make a buck from it:

"There's no real prophesy that says this is going to be the end of the world," said Christopher Powell, an archeologist who studies Mayan culture, "not from the Mayan ruins, anyway."

At Yahoo News, writer Lisa Hix quoted Bruce Love of the Archaeological Institute of America: "Whatever the significance of the date is, it is significance we are putting on it; it's not the significance the Maya are putting on it. It's not coming from anywhere in the literature or in the Mayan hieroglyphic writing."

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Newt's slide is not about attack ads

The pundits automatically assume that negative ads brought down Gingrich. Gingrich suffered the same fate that all the other frontrunners that went down: press scrutiny. Gingrich's baggage led to his fall, as much as the negative ads:

Consider, in early December, Gingrich was at 37 percent nationally in the Gallup Tracking Poll. The latest Gallup numbers at the end of December have him at 24 percent — a drop of 13 percentage points.

His declining support nationally is similar to his dive in Iowa. Yet the negative ads aired only in Iowa. This raises serious doubts that they caused Gingrich’s fall from grace in the Gallup Tracking Poll.

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Ron Paul Doesn't Envision Himself in the White House

Bombshell. How does this impact the race? Maybe Santorum gets second place--or first. In any case, Romney will be the nominee:

Republican Ron Paul, a leading contender in Iowa's presidential caucuses, said Monday on the eve of the leadoff 2012 vote that he does not envision himself in the White House.

The Texas congressman, near the top of the polls in Iowa, said the odds of him winning are slim and admitted that the path to the nomination was unclear without a strong performance in Iowa and the New Hampshire primary next week.

When asked Monday during an ABC News interview in Des Moines whether he sees himself in the Oval Office, Paul replied: "Not really, but I think it's a possibility."

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