Santorum Interrupts Football in Iowa to Eat Wings for the Media

Rick Santorum visited a crowded Buffalo Wild Wings in Ames, Iowa, Friday afternoon as the Pinstripe Bowl game between Iowa State University and Rutgers played on bigscreen TVs. Most of the restaurant's patrons paid no mind to the GOP?candidate, who has shot to third place in recent caucus polls after a key endorsement from anti-gay activist Bob Vander Plaats and the implosion of rival Michele Bachmann's campaign. But his sudden relevance won him the attention of dozens of members of the press, who swarmed him as he snaked his way through the crowd to the only open tables in the room.

Between cheers from beer-guzzling football fans, Santorum slammed front-runners Mitt Romney as a liberal Republican with "better hair" and Ron Paul for being in the "Dennis Kucinich wing of the Democratic Party on national security." The family values right-winger pandered to tea partiers to safeguard his status as social conservative du jour, though members of an anti-abortion group calling itself The Iowans for Life stuck flyers denouncing Santorum as a "Pro-Life FRAUD!!"?with a "long and storied history of campaigning for radical pro-abortion candidates for political office" on every car in the lot.

"Get out of the way, there's a game on!" irritated Iowa State football fans yelled as Rick Santorum, swarmed by the media, blocked their views. Joe Scott

"[Santorum's rise in the polls] does not reflect well upon us" as a state, Anders Dovre told me as the candidate stood just a few feet away. Dovre came to watch the game and didn't know Santorum would show up, but said he follows politics closely. He voted for Barack Obama in 2008, but plans to caucus for Jon Huntsman on January 3 and said he could maybe support Romney too, but no other Republican. "We're smarter than this," he said. "We admitted the first woman to the bar. We have gay marriage in this state. But what are we portrayed as in the national media now? A bunch of bumpkins, meth addicts, and gay bashers."

But Jeff and Maureen Filmer, two of the few people not affiliated with the media who came to see Santorum, reveled in the circus atmosphere. Obama voters who have since become disillusioned with the president, the couple left their home in Tiburon, California, just before Christmas to spend six weeks on the road following the GOP race. "We don't believe there's a perfect candidate,"?Jeff said, "but we need a new paradigm." Although Maureen has an affinity for Ron Paul, both her husband and she agreed that Romney would be the most electable candidate. But they were interested in Santorum's sudden surge and wanted to hear him speak. They didn't get much of a chance Friday, with dozens of cameramen occupying the only spots close enough to hear Santorum over the commotion of ISU?football fans.

After watching cameras crowd around Santorum eating at a reserved table with his family, Buffalo Wild Wings general manager Bryant Arns remarked, "I'll take beer and wings over this any day."

Gavin Aronsen

Editorial Fellow

Gavin Aronsen is an editorial fellow at Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here. Follow him on Twitter or send an email to garonsen [at] motherjones [dot] com. |

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Motherjones/mojoblog/~3/8CBLJES4ktA/santorum-ames-iowa-state-pinstripe-bowl

koch brothers dash diet weather phoenix dippin dots triumph the insult comic dog tucson weather tucson weather

Lone gray wolf makes historic crossing into California

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A lone gray wolf has wandered across the Oregon border into California in what wildlife officials hailed Thursday as the historic return of a species not seen in the state in more than 80 years.

Biologists tracked the wolf's position to a few miles south of the state line in Siskiyou County, the California Department of Fish and Game said.

A global positioning system collar was placed on the wolf in February. Since then, the 2?-year-old male has wandered more than 300 miles from its original location. Its movement into California was widely anticipated as it approached the border just before Christmas.

"Whether one is for it or against it, the entry of this lone wolf into California is an historic event," said Department of Fish and Game Director Charlton H. Bonham, acknowledging the debate over the spread of wolves in the western U.S.

The GPS data put the wolf in California as of Wednesday. Officials said they would only provide general information about its location, since gray wolves in California are designated a federally endangered species.

The last confirmed wild gray wolf in California was killed in 1924 by a trapper protecting livestock. Conflict between wolves and ranchers across the West remains a key point of tension as reintroduction efforts in recent decades have led to the species' spread.

Biologists said they don't know if the wolf will remain in California or wander back to Oregon or

on to Nevada. They said the wide wandering from its pack in Oregon was typical behavior for a young male wolf.

The fish and game department expects other wolves to arrive in California at some point as part of a slow wolf migration linked to the 1995 introduction of a Canadian gray wolf pack to Idaho and areas around Yellowstone National Park. Wolves first re-entered Oregon in 1999.

Multiple wolves in California could lead to new packs becoming established, or they could simply wander on.

"If the gray wolf does establish a population in California, there will be much more work to do here," Bonham said.

While the wolves in California will be under federal protection, state regulators said they have no wolf management plan and no intention to actively reintroduce the animals to the state.

Source: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_19641781?source=rss_viewed

neville heavy d heavy d taser gun patriots vs jets adventureland sean hannity

Campaign ads go negative in Iowa as Romney, Gingrich, Ron Paul mix it up (VIDEO)

Campaign ads bombard Iowa, as the Republican candidates and their surrogates step up efforts to raise doubts among caucus-goers about their rivals. In some ads, that means going negative.

Mitt Romney doesn't like Newt Gingrich. Ron Paul doesn't like Mitt Romney. And Mr. Gingrich has little love for either one of them.

Skip to next paragraph

At least that's the impression coming through from TV ads and candidates' responses, as the clock ticks closer to the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses.?

Some of the ads are positive. Some go after the candidate of the opposing party, President Obama. But as the race for Iowa draws to a finish, with no clear winner in view, the campaigners have stepped up efforts to raise voter doubts about their rivals for the Republican nomination.

Some of the mud-slinging is being done by surrogates, the so-called "super PACs" (political action committees) that can draw unlimited amounts of money from donors.

A super PAC working on Mr. Romney's behalf, Restore Our Future, is airing ads that say former House Speaker Gingrich has "too much baggage" to beat Mr. Obama. Romney and his allies have oodles of money to spend on the effort.

In response, a Gingrich-supporting group is broadcasting spots that say Republicans are "attacking him with falsehoods," and Gingrich has personally urged Romney to be "man enough" to rein in his super PAC supporters.

The pro-Gingrich group, Winning Our Future, warns Iowans not to let "the liberal Republican establishment pick our candidate."

Haven't heard of the "liberal Republican establishment" before? From the context, it seems safe to say the ad means Romney backers who come from the corporate world and who aren't perceived as pure conservatives on issues such as abortion, gun rights, or a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

For his part, Romney has said campaigns are partly in the business of drawing distinctions among candidates. He has wondered aloud if Gingrich can "handle the heat in this little kitchen," which will only get hotter in a general-election campaign.

Rep. Ron Paul of Texas has mounted attacks of his own, which could grow louder on the airwaves as he sets his sights on a potential first-place finish in Iowa.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/JhNlb9zMiIY/Campaign-ads-go-negative-in-Iowa-as-Romney-Gingrich-Ron-Paul-mix-it-up-VIDEO

war in iraq barbara walters government shutdown sofia vergara jacksonville jaguars jacksonville jaguars iraq war over

DrugCite Tells You the Side Effects of Nearly Any Medicine and Provides Helpful, Relevant Statistics [Web Apps]

DrugCite is a useful database of information about the prescription and over-the-counter medication, allowing you to look up the possible side effects of specific drugs and see statistics about their reported problems.

If you were to look up the allergy medicine Allegra, you'd find that the highest number of problems with the drug were reported around 2005, and that the majority of problems were neurological. DrugCite provides simple graphs that break down the number of reported issues related to the medicine in question and cross-reference that information to provide other useful statistics. Each drug report will also tell you its age, the number of adverse reports over its lifespan, and a gender breakdown of that report. Over 40 years, Allegra only received 2,710 reports. That's only about 68 per year, and that's out of millions of people. While low numbers don't guarantee you anything, and these statistics are only related to reported issues, if you're worried about taking a specific type of medication it can help to see how rare certain problems are to make yourself a little more comfortable.

DrugCite

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/zZD8iHYmxjw/drugcite-tells-you-the-side-effects-of-nearly-any-medicine-and-provides-helpful-relevant-statistics

chris cook nest williams syndrome jay leno machine gun kelly lindsey lohan reed hastings

Not Google Plus

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.