http://www.skewz.com/link/rss Latest upcoming stories from Skewz.com en-us Other The largest homeowners insurer in Florida is canceling the policies of 125,000 of its most vulnerable customers beginning Aug. 1, halfway through the 2010 hurricane season. The company, State Farm Florida, began sending out cancellation notices this week to nearly a fifth of its 714,000 customers, most of them in the state’s hurricane-prone coastal regions. A spokesman for State Farm said the decision was the direct result of its failure to win a 47.1 percent rate increase from state regulators. State Farm stopped writing new policies and sought the increase a year ago, saying severe losses from a series of devastating hurricanes in recent years had rendered its business model unworkable. It said that without the large increase, it would be insolvent by the end of 2011. The losses for St Thu, 04 Feb 2010 06:56:31 -0500 http://www.skewz.com/link/link_details/state-farm-cancels-thousands-of-fla-policies-personal-finance-msnbc-com http://www.skewz.com/link/link_details/state-farm-cancels-thousands-of-fla-policies-personal-finance-msnbc-com Culture/ Society/ Morality Andrew Sullivan called for Barack Obama to release Obama's full birth certificate: It is not my job as a journalist or yours as a citizen to take public officials on trust. They are not to be trusted, whoever they are. It is our job to demand all the evidence we want or need. I know the electronic record is legit. I have no doubt that Obama has every constitutional right to be president. I think the Birthers are nuts. But there is no reason on earth that the original cannot be retrieved and shown.... Obama promised total transparency. Where is it? Sarah Palin, in response to a question during an interview, said it was alright for people like Sullivan to ask such questions, even though she was not and had not questioned Obama's citizenship herself. Strange thing, this int Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:59:08 -0500 http://www.skewz.com/link/link_details/le-183-gal-in-183-sur-183-rec-183-tion-birth-certificate-controversy-just-what-the-doctor-ordered-for-dems http://www.skewz.com/link/link_details/le-183-gal-in-183-sur-183-rec-183-tion-birth-certificate-controversy-just-what-the-doctor-ordered-for-dems Environment A computer hacker in England has done the world a service by making available a huge quantity of evidence for the way in which "human-induced global warming" claims have been advanced over the years. By releasing into the Internet about a thousand internal e-mails from the servers of the Climate Research Unit in the University of East Anglia -- in some respects the international clearing house for climate change "science" -- he has (or they have) put observers in a position to see that claims of conspiracy and fraud were not unreasonable. More generally, we have been given the materials with which to obtain an insight into how all modern science works when vast amounts of public funding is at stake and when the vested interests associated with various "progressive" causes require a particu Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:50:32 -0500 http://www.skewz.com/link/link_details/realclearpolitics-the-skeptics-are-vindicated-fraud-exposed http://www.skewz.com/link/link_details/realclearpolitics-the-skeptics-are-vindicated-fraud-exposed War on Terror/ism Washington (CNN) -- At least one -- and possibly all five -- of the detainees with alleged ties to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, will plead not guilty in a "justification defense," arguing the attacks were responses to American foreign policy, according to a lawyer who met with one of the defendants. Attorney Scott Fenstermaker said he met with defendant Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility last week, and that when Ali and four other men face trial in New York, they likely will plead not guilty and then argue that the attacks were justified. Fenstermaker, who is representing Ali in a procedural matter at Guantanamo, said he expects Ali will acknowledge a role in the 9/11 attacks, and believes Ali's goal in pleading not guilty would not necessar Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:20:23 -0500 http://www.skewz.com/link/link_details/lawyer-9-11-suspect-to-plead-not-guilty-argue-attacks-justified-cnn-com http://www.skewz.com/link/link_details/lawyer-9-11-suspect-to-plead-not-guilty-argue-attacks-justified-cnn-com Culture/ Society/ Morality SEOUL -- President Barack Obama will not announce his decision on sending more troops to Afghanistan before the Thanksgiving holiday, senior aides said on Thursday. The news came as the president greeted 1,500 troops at Osan Air Base in South Korea , just before boarding Air Force One and heading back to Washington after an eight-day Asia trip. Obama and his top military and diplomatic aides have been deliberating for months over how to proceed in Afghanistan, where the United States and its partners have sought for eight years to defeat the Taliban and deny al-Qaeda a safe haven from which it can plan and launch attacks. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, has stated that without the deployment of up to 40,000 additional of troops within the next ye Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:04:55 -0500 http://www.skewz.com/link/link_details/president-prissy-to-u-s-troops-you-guys-make-a-pretty-good-photo-op http://www.skewz.com/link/link_details/president-prissy-to-u-s-troops-you-guys-make-a-pretty-good-photo-op Media/ Journalism To read Sarah Palin's shockingly shallow Going Rogue , one is immediately struck by how nasty and vindictive Palin is, and that her book is little more than a veiled mechanism for settling scores with old foes who have triumphed over her throughout Palin's lifetime. Is Palin really going rogue ? Hardly. Getting even is more like it. Palin's biggest score to settle is with those senior advisers-- Republicans all--in the John McCain campaign, on whose shoulders Palin lays the blame for her failed and tortured debut on the American political stage last fall. Most notable among them, of course, is "The Bullet," Steve Schmidt, who took over McCain's teetering campaign in July of 2008 and was a staunch advocate of Palin's selection as McCain's running mate. He has told the Huffington Post that P Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:10:24 -0500 http://www.skewz.com/link/link_details/geoffrey-dunn-schmidt-calls-palin-s-memoirs-total-fiction http://www.skewz.com/link/link_details/geoffrey-dunn-schmidt-calls-palin-s-memoirs-total-fiction War on Terror/ism As he flew to Asia on Saturday, President Obama told the media in Alaska that he opposes a congressional investigation into the Fort Hood massacre, saying that we must "resist the temptation to turn this tragic event into political theater." Yet, even as he was posturing against political theatrics, he had just decided that the prosecution of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would proceed on the greatest of public stages -- New York City. That's exactly right. Obama has made scores of mistakes since taking office, but the decision to try Mohammed in New York City has struck a particular chord. For the first time we can truly say, and prove, that the president of the United States is placing American civilians at risk. And for what? To show off our justice system to the world? Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:45:46 -0500 http://www.skewz.com/link/link_details/urgent-agenda-quote-of-the-day-0 http://www.skewz.com/link/link_details/urgent-agenda-quote-of-the-day-0 War on Terror/ism WASHINGTON ? Morale has fallen among soldiers in Afghanistan , where troops are seeing record violence in the 8-year-old war, while those in Iraq show much improved mental health amid much lower violence, the Army said Friday. Soldier suicides in Iraq did not increase for the first time since 2004, according to a new study. Though findings of two new battlefield surveys are similar in several ways to the last ones taken in 2007, they come at a time of intense scrutiny on Afghanistan as President Barack Obama struggles to come up with a new war strategy and planned troop buildup. There is also perhaps equal new attention focused on the mental health of the force since a shooting rampage at Fort Hood last week in which an Army psychiatrist is charged. Both surveys showed that soldiers on the Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:04:31 -0500 http://www.skewz.com/link/link_details/army-says-morale-down-among-troops-in-afghanistan-yahoo-news http://www.skewz.com/link/link_details/army-says-morale-down-among-troops-in-afghanistan-yahoo-news Culture/ Society/ Morality We are fortunate to have some gutsy legislators, and some journalists who still seek the truth. They will not let the forces of political correctness, including some in the Army and the FBI, to bury the Fort Hood incident with its victims. There are truths coming out, and we hope they will wake up this nation. From tomorrow's Washington Post: FORT HOOD, TEX. -- Maj. Nidal M. Hasan exchanged e-mails late last year and this year with a radical cleric in Yemen, but the contact did not lead to an investigation, federal law enforcement officials said Monday. Can you imagine if, during World War II, an Army officer had contact with Nazi groups, and no one saw fit to investigate? Hasan, an Army psychiatrist suspected of killing 12 soldiers and a civilian here last week, will b Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:57:49 -0500 http://www.skewz.com/link/link_details/urgent-agenda-fort-hood-probe-growing-as-is-anger http://www.skewz.com/link/link_details/urgent-agenda-fort-hood-probe-growing-as-is-anger Culture/ Society/ Morality President Obama didn't wait long after Tuesday's devastating elections to give critics another reason to question his leadership, but this time the subject matter was more grim than a pair of governorships. After news broke out of the shooting at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas, the nation watched in horror as the toll of dead and injured climbed. The White House was notified immediately and by late afternoon, word went out that the president would speak about the?incident prior to a previously scheduled?appearance.?At about 5 p.m.,?cable stations went to the president. The situation called for not only his trademark eloquence, but also grace and perspective. But instead of a somber chief executive?offering reassuring words?and expressions of sympathy and compassion, viewers saw a wildly Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:54:07 -0500 http://www.skewz.com/link/link_details/obama-s-frightening-insensitivity-following-shooting----nbc-chicago http://www.skewz.com/link/link_details/obama-s-frightening-insensitivity-following-shooting----nbc-chicago