Another person plunging into the debate was radio shock jock Howard Stern who said he was "in the camp that, based on the photos I've seen, Sarah Palin has definitely got titty implants which is so funny, cause like, you know, she wants to be [taken seriously]. Her cups runneth over for sure. Like she's just, major, two sizes bigger."

Others, however, have countered the claim by arguing that the truth behind Palin's new embonpoint is down to clothing.

As Gawker's Maureen O'Connor put it: "Sarah usually favours structured, bust-hiding jackets (probably to avoid this very situation) so it's possible that we're just not used to seeing her clingy shirts."

Jezebel executive editor Jessica Coen agreed, saying: "Goofy/immature euphemisms aside, whether or not Palin gave herself a new set of breasts isn't really our concern - and even if it were, we couldn't definitively make a call on the matter, given the everyday miracles performed by push-up and T-shirt bras."

Read more: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/64435,people,news,belmont-or-bust-palin-sparks-boob-job-rumour-white-tshirt-breast-implants#ixzz0qji4rJ00

America, armed and dangerous

By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, January 11, 2011;

I had a teacher in college who used to ask, Who discovered America? He would offer some choices. They were Amerigo Vespucci, Christopher Columbus or the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. The answer he wanted was the three ships with which eventually someone would have discovered the New World and without which everyone would have remained in Spain. It is no different with the tragedy in Tucson. Hate speech and madness were part of the mix, but it was the gun and our insane gun laws that resulted in six deaths. Until we come to grips with that, as a nation, we remain armed and dangerous.

The American culture, the American gun culture, insists on a constitutional right to bear arms - even concealed weapons such as a Glock 19 semiautomatic handgun capable of doing immense damage. A 22-year-old man, already hallucinating on the Internet, making no sense in his classes and booted from school for his strange ways, can buy such a killing device almost on the spot. If he is crazy, then so are we.

No real questions are asked of him. Do you think the government controls grammar and grammar controls the universe? Have you been babbling in class and can you hold a job? Why do you want this gun? Do you, perhaps, want to kill someone? Do you want a Glock 19 because it was one of two handguns used in the Virginia Tech massacre (32 killed, one suicide), and would you please state the name of your intended victim on the form provided? Thanks. This will just take a moment to process.

In the immediate wake of the Tucson shooting, America rounded up the usual TV posse and went in search of a reason. By mysterious consensus of the talk show zeitgeist, the supposedly rancorous political environment and Sarah Palin's use of cross hairs on her Facebook page were blamed for the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. I am usually in favor of blaming Palin for almost anything, but this time she is not at fault. The use of cross hairs is no more menacing than the use of the word "targeted." Besides, we have no idea whether the alleged shooter, the quite addled Jared L. Loughner, even saw that posting.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/10/AR2011011004358_pf.html

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MEANWHILE AT THE MAMA BEAR HQ...

The conservative Tea Party movement in the United States is rejecting any link to the gunman responsible for the weekend shooting of a Democratic congresswoman.

It has been suggested the intense rhetoric that has characterised political debate in the US could have played a part in inciting the attack on congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

Some of the fiercest recent comments and metaphors of armed insurrection have been associated with the grassroots Tea Party movement.

But the chief strategist for the Tea Party Express, Sal Russo, says it is an irresponsible insult to suggest there is a link between the Tea Party and an isolated instance of violence by an unhinged individual.

"But what it does show is really how revolting and disgusting the left is for trying to associate the Tea Party with violence like this," he said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/01/11/3110128.htm

Note: many cartoonists around the world push the teapot with a gun gag.

see toon at top...

It’s not only Ricky Gervais who apparently needs to be more careful about whom he offends with his comedy: on Wednesday Joan Rivers said that a joke she made about Sarah Palin, captured by the cameras of TMZ.com, had cost her a booking on “Fox and Friends,” the morning program of the Fox News Channel.

Ms. Rivers said that she and her daughter, Melissa, were scheduled to appear on “Fox and Friends” on Thursday morning to promote their new reality series, “Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best?”, which will make its debut on the WE TV channel on Tuesday. But on Wednesday afternoon Ms. Rivers and her publicist, Judy Katz, said they had been told by a producer at “Fox and Friends” that the appearance had been canceled because of remarks she made about Ms. Palin, who is a paid contributor to Fox News.

In a video posted Monday on TMZ.com, Ms. Rivers is seen at a party for the Critics’ Choice Awards, where a videographer asks her about Ms. Palin. Ms. Rivers responds: “I think Sarah Palin is an amazing woman. I think she represents everything a strong woman should be and she should go someplace, like to another planet, and show them and get out of our faces.”

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/joan-rivers-says-palin-joke-cost-her-fox-news-booking/?hp

Makes you wonder about the stuff they breathe at fox... see toon at top