MONROE — It's 5 a.m. at the Werkhoven Dairy — happy hour for Holsteins.

From a 5,000-gallon black tank containing beer and wine, Andy Werkhoven adds two pounds of alcohol to the feed of each of the 1,000 milking cows.

"Cow-bernet," he jokes. Not to mention a little Bud Light, Coors and any other out-of-date alcohol stores can't sell.

Old MacDonald's Farm this isn't.

Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in December suggests that the economy has been expanding moderately, notwithstanding some slowing in global growth. While indicators point to some further improvement in overall labor market conditions, the unemployment rate remains elevated.
Household spending has continued to advance, but growth in business fixed investment has slowed, and the housing sector remains depressed. Inflation has been subdued in recent months, and longer-term inflation expectations have remained stable.

If you walk away from holiday dinners fuming that conservative Uncle Morton just can't see your point of view, or that liberal Aunt Betty just doesn't get it, a new finding may make it easier to cool your jets. According to the study, conservatives and liberals pay attention to their environments differently, meaning the two sides of the political spectrum quite literally don't see eye-to-eye.

Hmmm... Ya think?!!

"Barefoot Bandit" Colton Harris-Moore ridiculed police and prosecutors in emails and phone calls from prison recently, undercutting his claims that he's sorry for his two-year crime spree, the U.S. attorney's office said in court documents filed Tuesday.

From football thugs clashing on the terraces to soldiers killing each other on the front line, most conflict can be blamed on the male sex drive, a study suggests.The review of psychological research concludes that men evolved to be aggressive towards ‘outsiders’, a tendency at the root of inter-tribal violence.It emerged through natural selection as a result of competition for mates, territory and status, and is seen in conflicts between nations as well as clashes involving rival gangs, football fans or religious groups, say the researchers.

Flash back to 4 a.m. Thursday morning, when things were looking relatively good. Though 160,000 customers had been out of power after the first heavy punch, crews had managed to whittle that down to just 15,000 customers.

Then the ice storm hit.

By late Thursday, that 15,000 had ballooned to 280,000 without power. PSE called in crews from seven states and British Columbia. With the ice storm causing more outages, some crews stayed in the field for 40 hours before taking a mandatory break.

Enlarged prostate problems affect more than half of men between 40 and 59 according to statistics. And this figure continues to climb as men grow older. Beyond age 60, prostate problems affect up to 80% of men.

The Greek government has resumed talks with its private creditors in Athens in the hope of sealing a debt relief deal needed to avoid a disastrous default.

Islamic extremism remains Norway's biggest terror threat, but the danger of lone wolf attacks has also increased in the aftermath of a massacre by a homegrown anti-Muslim extremist, Norwegian security service PST said Tuesday

WASHINGTON—U.S. defense leaders are increasingly concerned that Israel is preparing to take military action against Iran, over U.S. objections, and have stepped up contingency planning to safeguard U.S. facilities in the region in case of a conflict.

Reading the just-released transcript of the Fed Open Market Committee meeting on December 12, 2006 reminds me of the 9/11 Commission Report. The Fed vaguely identified some of the dots, but not one committee member raised the possibility of a housing collapse.
The Fed’s “intelligence failure” serves as a lesson for those calling for government to foresee systemic risk. It is not that the Fed did not have the expertise. Although only one agency, Fed economists cover all the areas – housing, financial markets, derivatives, risk management, and international finance — that later became part of the crisis.

Attention trendwatchers: There’s a new hipster icon in town. They wear black and white, eschew buttons, rarely wear accessories, and mostly only hang out with one another. Their elusive hipster enclave isn’t in Williamsburg, Brooklyn or Silver Lake in Los Angeles — or even in “Portlandia.” For the latest trend in oblique hipness, head to Pennsylvania Dutch country and the homes of the Amish.

To ring in the New Year, CNN's Belief Blog asked experts in religion, faith leaders, and a secular humanist about how the forces of faith and faithlessness will shape the world in 2012.

Rebuilding our economy and restoring trust in our government will require a leader with the independence to implement bold reforms that take on the establishment, from Washington to Wall Street.

Thus far, however, we are the only campaign willing to confront honestly and directly one of the greatest threats to our long-term economic prosperity: Too-Big-To-Fail Wall Street banks.

In 2008, with the nation’s economy in crisis, Washington and Wall Street offered American taxpayers a Sophie’s Choice: spend hundreds of billions of dollars to save big banks from failure, or witness the collapse of our financial system and irreparable economic harm.

This was not only a betrayal of the public’s trust; it was also a betrayal of our free market system, which only works when every business plays by the same rules.

Based on recent history, the party of electability will eventually prevail. Activists rooting for the new (and more extreme) Barry Goldwater will need to explain how he avoids the political fate of the first one.

We are ruined by our own biases. When making decisions, we see what we want, ignore probabilities, and minimize risks that uproot our hopes.

When did the switcheroo happen? Why did it happen? When did the republicans become the party of whiteys and the dems become the party of the rest of us? When did republicans say "@!$%# the Union!" and start hollering "states' rights!" everytime something didn't go their ideological way? I know that George "segregation foe-evah!" Wallace was a republican; my parents hated that guy! But when did that switch happen?

FOR many observers, 2011 was a terrible year in American political discourse, with the summer's standoff over the debt ceiling representing a new low for partisanship and obstructionism. In a very interesting essay in the New York Review of Books, Mark Lilla argues that what's happened over the past few years is nothing less than "the mainstreaming of political apocalypticism", with grave consequences for the country.

The world’s most widely followed faith is gathering persecutors. Even non-Christians should worry about that

If it didn’t Bring you Joy,
Just Leave it Behind.
Let’s Ring in the New Year
With Good Things in Mind.
Let Every Bad Memory Go
That Brought Heartache and Pain.
And let’s Turn a New Leaf
With the Smell of New Rain.
Let’s Forget Past Mistakes
Making Amends for This Year.
Sending You These Greetings
To Bring you Hope and Cheer
Happy New Year!
Author Unknown

WASHINGTON — When Representative Ed Pastor was first elected to Congress two decades ago, he was comfortably ensconced in the middle class. Mr. Pastor, a Democrat from Arizona, held $100,000 or so in savings accounts in the mid-1990s and had a retirement pension, but like many Americans, he also owed the banks nearly as much in loans.

Let’s sum up: The Federal Reserve consists of 12 regional banks, the stock of which is owned and the Boards controlled by the member banks, which are privately owned bank corporations. These institutions receive 6% profit on their funds paid into the Fed, rain or shine, peace or war (sometimes more).
The Federal Reserve Board of Governors is an independent (its own word) entity “within” the government (i.e., something much like an independent, internal parasite in a host organism), with 14 year, reform-proof terms (i.e., only one of 7 can be replaced every two years).
The Fed was deliberately designed to appear as a sort of government body to hide the fact that it is a private banking cartel whose member banks share in the vast profits of seigniorage (i.e., the difference between the cost of printing/minting or otherwise creating money [a few cents per $100], and its face value). Yes, the Department of the Treasury does still mint our coins (at the US mint) but that represents under 1% of the US money supply, the great bulk of which is simply bankbook entries – electronic keyboard impulses in computer memories – created by banks on-the-spot to fund loans they make in response to loans applications their “customers” submit (hence the competition by banks for your loan applications and credit card borrowing).
Wouldn’t you love to have that exclusive ability – simply to type numbers on your keyboard creating bank accounts, and then write checks or charge purchases to those accounts (actually, no – it is gravely unjust to everyone else and is impoverishing the world for that power to be in private hands).
The Federal Reserve Notes we all accept as currency (there are no U.S. Notes printed since passage of the ill-advised, 1994 Reigle Act abolished Lincoln’s greenbacks) are actually sold to the Fed at the cost of printing – a few cents per sheet – by the Treasury Department Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Seignior age is properly a benefit solely to government (and indirectly then to the people) – not to private bankers – that the Federal Reserve Act, passed by misrepresentation and deception, transferred to the bankers. Thus, rather than the government receiving the vast benefits of creating all of our money, private banks create over 98% of our money supply – literally billions of dollars annually – and pocket the interest charged on loaning that new money, as their private profit. Our

The prosecution accuses Afghan-born Shafia, his wife, and their 20-year-old son of killing the daughters because they dishonored the family by defying its disciplinarian rules on dress, dating, socializing and going online. The older victim was Shafia's first wife, Rona Amir Mohammad, who was living with him and his second wife, Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 41, in Montreal. It was a polygamous relationship, the court has been told, and if revealed, could have resulted in their deportation.
The parents and son, Hamed, have pleaded not guilty to four counts of murder.
The family had left Afghanistan in 1992 and lived in Pakistan, Australia and Dubai before settling in Canada in 2007. Shafia, a wealthy businessman, married Yahya because his first wife could not have children. The second marriage produced seven children.

According to the Introduction to what you are about to read:
“This information came from Alberto Rivera, former Jesuit priest, after his conversion to Protestant Christianity. It is excerpted from The Prophet, published by Chick Publications, P.O. Box 662, Chino CA 91708. Since its publication, after several unsuccessful attempts on his life, he died suddenly from food poisoning. His testimony should not be silenced. Dr. Rivera speaks to us still.”