The father of a Marine whose funeral was picketed by the Westboro Baptist Church says an order to pay the protesters’ legal costs in a civil claim is nothing less than a “slap in the face.”

“By the court making this decision, they’re not only telling me that they’re taking their side, but I have to pay them money to do this to more soldiers and their families,” said Albert Snyder, whose son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, was killed in action in Iraq in 2006.

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ordered that Snyder pay more than $16,000 in costs requested by Westboro for copies of motions, briefs and appendices, according to court documents.

Mr. Snyder claims he is unable to pay any legal costs in the case and is attempting to raise funds on his son’s site, http://www.matthewsnyder.org/.

CNN

“In my opinion, any person who thinks that the members of the Westboro Baptist Church are Christian is completely ignorant in the teachings of Jesus Christ.”

Update
Cable news host Bill O’Reilly said that he will personally write a check to cover $16,500 in legal costs for the father of a fallen U.S. Marine who sued the members of a church who picketed his son’s funeral.

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Scientists have finally confirmed what the rest of us have suspected for years: Bacon, cheesecake, and other delicious yet fattening foods may be addictive.

A new study in rats suggests that high-fat, high-calorie foods affect the brain in much the same way as cocaine and heroin. When rats consume these foods in great enough quantities, it leads to compulsive eating habits that resemble drug addiction, the study found.

Doing drugs such as cocaine and eating too much junk food both gradually overload the so-called pleasure centers in the brain, according to Paul J. Kenny, Ph.D., an associate professor of molecular therapeutics at the Scripps Research Institute, in Jupiter, Florida. Eventually the pleasure centers “crash,” and achieving the same pleasure–or even just feeling normal–requires increasing amounts of the drug or food, says Kenny, the lead author of the study.

“People know intuitively that there’s more to [overeating] than just willpower,” he says. “There’s a system in the brain that’s been turned on or over-activated, and that’s driving [overeating] at some subconscious level.”

CNN

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Spread this video by posting on your blog, send the link by email…anyway that you can get this video to everyone you know will make a difference.

Like National Socialists and Soviet Socialists of old, the only thing that concerns Democrats and Republicans today is who is in power. Both are equally willing to destroy the freedoms and liberties of people without conscience or regret as long as their party remains in control.

This video confirms my positive outlook for the future. We are past the tipping point. The future will bear the burden of freedom, not the burden of slavery. A tidal wave of liberty is colliding with the tidal wave of tyranny.

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Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut declared emergencies, closing roads and sandbagging low-lying areas as storms pounded the U.S. Northeast for a second day today.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick mobilized about 1,000 National Guard troops. The storm, which set a daily rainfall record in Boston, is expected to bring “beach erosion, major flooding and widespread road closures,” he said on his Web site yesterday.

Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell said in a statement the weather had created “extremely dangerous situations” in the eastern part of the state. In Rhode Island, where officials warned of “historic flooding,” Governor Donald Carcieri urged residents to leave work early and head home, said a spokeswoman, Amy Kempe.

“In some cases there has been two months of rain in the matter of a few days,” Tom Kines, a senior meteorologist for AccuWeather Inc., said in a telephone interview. “When you get that much rain over a few-day period, that spells trouble.”

Read more – Bloomberg

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An award-winning Iranian nuclear scientist, who disappeared last year under mysterious circumstances, has defected to the CIA and been resettled in the United States, according to people briefed on the operation by intelligence officials.

The officials were said to have termed the defection of the scientist, Shahram Amiri, “an intelligence coup” in the continuing CIA operation to spy on and undermine Iran’s nuclear program.

A spokesperson for the CIA declined to comment. In its declassified annual report to Congress, the CIA said, “Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons though we do not know whether Tehran eventually will decide to produce nuclear weapons.”

Full report – ABC News

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