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Cocktail Daiquiri Watercolor Art Print
Cheers with this Daiquiri!
This print is a 9"x12" digital reproduction of an original watercolor + pen and ink illustration. It is printed on 100 lb EcoSilk Paper with soy-based inks and individually signed by the artist.
It ships flat with white acid-free board in a plastic sleeve and arrives frame-ready. Or purchase this print along with a frame, also available for sale on this site here: https://marcellakriebel.com/collections/frames
Art is packed safely, and ships first class with priority mail 1-3 day upgrade available.
Want to see the latest art projects and a sneak peak of what's in progress? Check out the INSTAGRAM feed @marcellakriebel
Marcella Kriebel Art + Illustration © all rights reserved copyright non-transferable.
After several months of my retail portion of the studio being closed due to Covid-19, we are now opening up the roll top door on Saturdays from 9-2pm in front for people to shop while remaining outside on the Arts Walk.
This open time is during the Monroe Street Market Farmers Market, so stop by get produce, too!
We will be taking strict health precautions while welcoming open air door-front shopping to customers, and will have hand sanitizer on hand for all.
Stay healthy,


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Kemp, Dodgers drub Nats, get taste of first place
Seven-run second backs Kershaw; LA ties Arizona before D-backs win
WASHINGTON -- Everything went perfectly for the Dodgers on Sunday, until one hiccup in the ninth inning of their series finale against the Nationals put a slight damper on the festivities.
Matt Kemp came off the disabled list to go 3-for-4 with a home run and three RBIs, Carl Crawford broke out of a slump with three hits, Hanley Ramirez slammed a three-run homer and Clayton Kershaw dominated for seven innings in a 9-2 victory. That gave the Dodgers a three-game sweep coming out the All-Star break, improved them to 20-5 since June 22, and pulled them into a tie with the D-backs atop the NL West, although Arizona later beat San Francisco to move back ahead by a half-game.
The day's only negative occurred in the ninth, when Kemp suffered a left ankle injury while sliding into home plate on a force play. He left the game with what is believed to be a sprain, although no X-rays were taken and he is not expected to need a return trip to the DL. The Dodgers will reevaluate him before Monday's series opener in Toronto.
"It's just a little swollen. It's not that bad," Kemp said. "I started walking around a little bit and it started feeling a little better, so tomorrow we'll see what it feels like."
Other than that, it was smooth sailing for the Dodgers, who began the series with a pair of close, low-scoring wins. They played with Kemp, Crawford and Ramirez in the same lineup for the first time this season and reaped the rewards, pounding Nationals All-Star right-hander Jordan Zimmermann for seven runs during a decisive second inning.
A team that faced a 9 1/2-game division deficit a month ago gave itself an opportunity to move into sole possession of first place for the first time all season.
"That's not really what we're worried about right now," Kemp said. "We can't worry about what Arizona's doing. We've got to take care of our business. If we continue to play the way we've been playing, we'll be a tough team to beat. We all want to get in first place, and when we do get in first place, we don't want to lose that spot. We just want to keep rolling."
Kershaw (9-6), making his first appearance since the All-Star Game, struck out nine and walked none while twirling a two-hitter over seven innings. He gave up only a pair of home runs to Jayson Werth, in the second and the seventh. Kershaw's Major League-leading ERA climbed slightly, to 2.01.
"Yeah, he's one of the best guys in the game," Werth said. "I was lucky enough to get some pitches I could handle. I'm sure he would tell you he missed his spot. I think both of them were pretty much right down the middle. When you get a guy like that that leaves balls in the middle of the plate, you have to capitalize on it, and luckily I was able to do that."
The left-hander had a 7-0 lead to work with after the Dodgers sent 11 men to the plate against Zimmermann in the top of the second. Kemp, who missed the previous 11 games with a left shoulder injury, led off by blasting a hanging slider well up into the left-field bleachers. Kershaw drove in a run with a groundout, and Crawford hit an RBI single before Ramirez launched a towering three-run shot into the Dodgers' bullpen behind left field. Kemp capped the scoring with an RBI double down the left-field line, as L.A. matched its highest-scoring inning of the season.
That outburst chased Zimmermann (12-5), who came in with a 2.58 ERA this year and a 22-start unbeaten streak at home. He gave up eight hits and two walks over two innings.
After an Andre Ethier RBI groundout against Ross Ohlendorf in the fourth, Kemp struck again with an RBI single to left, making the score 9-1 and pulling him within a triple of the cycle. He lined out to the left-field warning track in the sixth and walked in the ninth.
"He's a great hitter. We all know it," first baseman Adrian Gonzalez said. "MVP-type player, and we know he's capable of doing that every time he's out there."
The Dodgers also got a big day from Crawford, who entered play 3-for-32 since coming off the DL on July 5. He matched that hit total in one afternoon, going 3-for-5 with a double and a walk, losing a fourth hit when Kemp didn't hustle home on the ninth-inning forceout.
"We thought yesterday that his [batting practice] was better than we'd seen in a long time," manager Don Mattingly said. "Then yesterday he gets a hit in the game, swung the bat good today, I thought. Hopefully, he's on the road."
The Dodgers now head to Toronto firing on all cylinders after facing three All-Star-caliber starting pitchers in three days and sweeping a team that made the postseason a year ago.
"This was a good sign," Kershaw said. "That's a great team over there. We have a lot of respect for those guys. They did it last year and they pretty much have the same team back. So for us to come in here and play like we did, get some wins against some upper-echelon pitchers like we did, it's a good sign for us, for sure."

subset: commoncrawl


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Cheese and mushroom casserole with chicken
This casserole is simple and delicious, and makes a perfect snack during a picnic (bento anyone?)—you should use it as a basic idea for a casserole, since the pasta sauce is the stable and the most important piece of the meal. It's also a very tweak-able recipe! :-)
Golden syrup chocolate cupcakes
These cupcakes have an amazing consistency all-over: the cupcake is moist and rich, and the icing is delicious, smooth and creamy. I used the swiss-meringue buttercream for the icing, and it was a hit! :-)
Baked cake doughnuts
Traditional-made doughnuts are made with yeast dough, and deep-fried to make a fluffy, delicious spongy cake. It requires a lot of work to cook them, though, but for quick snacks (Sunday breakfast maybe?) the easier way are the baked cake doughnuts—which are spongy, fluffy and delicious too! You can enjoy them bare (like cakes), or glazed (like traditional yeast doughnuts), or stuffed if you overfill the form by any chance! :-)
Whole-grain bread rolls
There are not many things that can beat the whole grain bread, unless it's 8 delicious little whole grain breadrolls ;-) These are perfect for breakfast, and you can easily prepare and bake them in one evening, for e.g. Sunday breakfast! :-)
My fool-proof recipe will be a great fun, and a good addition to your baking arsenal.
German Zimtsterne (cinnamon almond cookies)
I always wanted to make these, and finally got the guts — oh boy, I wasn't really prepared for the amount of nitty-gritty with making these. I started with original German recipe that called for 500g of almonds, but that ended up being 2 full baking sheets and lots of sneaky snacking between steps ;-) But the result is good, and these cookies are worth the effort.


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In this article we will discuss one of the things that makes web design pretty — images. At the end of this tutorial you'll know how to add imagery to web documents in an accessible way (so that people with visual impairments can still use the information on your site) and how and when to use inline images for delivering information or background images for page layout. You can download the example files used in this article here — we'll look at these files over the course of the tutorial.
A picture says more than a thousand words — or does it?
It is very tempting to use a lot of imagery on your web sites. Images are a great way to set the mood for the visitor and illustrations are a nice way to make complex information easier to take in for visual learners.
The drawback of images on the web is that not everybody who surfs the web can see them. Back in the days when images were first supported by browsers, many site visitors had images turned off to save on download costs and get a faster surfing experience — web connections used to be very slow, and you'd pay a lot of money for each minute you were online. While this is not very common these days, there are still other problems to consider:
- People surfing on mobile devices might still have images turned off because of small screens and the cost of downloading data.
- Visitors of your site might be blind or visually impaired to such a degree that they cannot see your images properly or at all.
- Other visitors might be from a different culture and not understand the icons or diagrams you use.
- Search engines only index text — they don't analyze images (yet), which means that information stored in images cannot be found and indexed.
It is therefore very important to choose images wisely and only use them when appropriate. It is even more important to make sure you always offer a fallback for those who cannot see your images. There is more on the problems of wrongly used icons and images in the Creating multiple pages with navigation menus tutorial later on in the series. For now, let's see what technologies are available to add images to an HTML document.
Different types of images on the web — content and background images
There are two main ways to add images to a document: content images using the  element and background images applied to elements using CSS. When to use what is dependent on what you want to do:
- If the image is crucial to the content of the document, for example a photo of the author or a graph showing some data, it should be added as an  element with proper alternative text.
- If the image is there as "eye candy" you should use CSS background images. These images should not have any alternative text (what use is "round green corner with a twinkle" to a blind person?) and you have a lot more options to deal with image styling in CSS than in HTML.
The img element and its attributes
Adding an image to an HTML document is very easy using the  element: you include the location of the image you want to display inside a src (source) attribute, and away you go. The following HTML document (inlineimageexample.html in the zip file) displays the photo balconyview.jpg in a browser (provided that you have the image in the same folder as the HTML file.)
<!DOCTYPE html>

<meta charset="utf-8″>
<title>Example of an inline image</title>

If you run this code in a browser, you'll get an output as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: The image as it is shown in a browser.
Providing a text alternative with the alt attribute
This displays the image fine, however, it is invalid HTML because the  element needs an alt attribute. This attribute contains text that is displayed if the image is not available for some reason. The image may not be available because it could not be found, loaded or because the user agent (normally a browser) does not support images. In addition, people with visual impairments use assistive technologies to read web pages to them. These technologies will read the contents of the alt attribute of  elements out to their users. It is therefore important to write good alternative text to describe the contents of the image and put it in the alt attribute.
You'll find a lot of texts on the web talking about "alt tags". This is factually wrong as there is no tag (or element) with that name. It is an attribute of the  element and amazingly important both for accessibility and search engine optimization.
In order to make the image understandable for everybody you need to add a proper alternative text, for example in this case "View from my balcony, showing a row of houses, trees and a castle" (inlineimageexamplealt.html):
<!DOCTYPE html>

<meta charset="utf-8″>
<title>Example of an inline image</title>

The alt attribute contains the text that should be displayed when the image is not available. The information in the alt attribute should not be displayed when the image was successfully loaded and shown; Internet Explorer gets this wrong, and shows it as a tooltip when you hover your mouse pointer over the image for a while. This is a mistake, as it leads a lot of people to add additional information about the image into the alt attribute. If you wanted to add additional information, you should use the title attribute instead, which I'll get on to in the next section.
Adding nice-to-have information using the title attribute
Most browsers will display the value of an  element's title attribute as a tool-tip when you hover your mouse cursor over it (see Figure 2.) This can help a visitor learn more about the image, but you cannot rely on each visitor to have a mouse. The title attribute can be very useful, but it is not a safe way of providing crucial information. Instead it offers a good way to provide non-essential information, for example the mood of the image, or what it means in context (inlineimagewithtitle.html):
<!DOCTYPE html>

<meta charset="utf-8″>
<title>Example of an inline image with alternative text and title</title>

If you load this code in your browser, you will see the display shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: title attributes are shown as tool tips in a lot of browsers.
Using longdesc to provide an alternative for complex images
If the image is a very complex image, like for example a chart, you can offer a more lengthy description of it using the longdesc attribute, so that people using screen readers or browsing with images turned off can still access the information conveyed by the image.
This attribute contains a URL that points to a document containing the same information. For example, if you have a chart showing a set of data, you can link it to a data table with the same information using <longdesc> (inlineimagelongdesc.html):
<!DOCTYPE html>

<meta charset="utf-8″>
<title>Example of an inline image with longdesc</title>

The data file fruitconsumption.html contains a very simple data table that represents the same data:
<!DOCTYPE html>

<meta charset="utf-8″>
<title>Fruit consumption</title>

Fruit Consumption

Fruit	Amount

Back to article

The two different data representations side by side look like that seen in Figure 3.
Figure 3: You can link a document with complex data to an image by using the longdesc attribute.
Note that there is no visual clue that there is a long description file connected with this image. Assistive technologies however will let their users know there is an alternative available. Some people think that longdesc is pointless, and that you should just provide an alternative linked via a normal link. This may be appropriate sometimes, as it is often useful to give all users a choice of how they consume your information. There are situations however where you'll want to not show the text link by default.
Faster image display by defining the dimensions using width and height
When the user agent finds an  element in the HTML, it starts loading the image the src attribute points to. By default, it doesn't know the image's dimensions, so it'll just display all the text lumped together, then shift the rest of the document around when the images finally load and appear. This can slow down page loading and looks a bit confusing and unsightly to page visitors that see it happening. To stop this you can tell the browser to allocate the right amount of space for the images before they load by giving it the image's dimensions using the width and height attributes (inlineimagewithdimensions.html):
<!DOCTYPE html>

<meta charset="utf-8″>
<title>Example of an inline image with dimensions</title>

This will display a placeholder the same size as the image until the image loads and takes up its place, therefore avoiding the unsightly page shift. You can also resize images using these attributes (try halving the attribute values in the above example, saving it, and then reloading the page), but this is not a good idea as the quality of resizing is not smooth in all browsers. It is especially bad to resize images to become thumbnails, as the idea of thumbnails is that you not only have a smaller image in physical size, but also in file size. Nobody wants to load a 300KB photo just to see a small image that could be 5KB.
Containing images properly using HTML5

One problem that has always existed with HTML images is the choice of what container element to put them in. After all, images are inline elements by default: they won't force line breaks between the content before and after them. This is fine for cases where you, say, want to put a small icon next to a piece of text, but you'll more commonly want an image to sit on its own line in its containing column, for example in a blog post or image gallery. You could describe this as making the image into a separate Figure.
In HTML4, the most common thing to do to achieve this is put the image inside a
 or
, but neither of these is ideal – an image isn't a paragraph, and a division is semantically anonymous. Taking this on board, the creators of HTML5 introduced a special element to take care of this:
. This element is designed to contain a figure, which could be an image, two images, or a combination of several multimedia elements, text, or other stuff. Let's look at an example:

<meta charset="utf-8″>
<title>Figure element with figcaption example</title>
figure,figcaption {
display: block;

The view from outside my window.

Proper captions using HTML5

Another new addition to HTML5 is an element for containing figure captions. Previously this was done using
, or some other not wholly appropriate element, but now we have the
 element. Nested inside a
, it says "this is the caption to go along with the contents of this figure." For example:

The view from outside my window.

Note that the contents of the figure caption do not necessarily act as a replacement for the contents of the alt attribute or the title attribute: it depends on whether the caption accurately describes everything in the image or not, or provides the same supplementary information that the title attribute does. In this case, we need an alt attribute as well, as sighted users can see what is in the image by looking at it. The alt attribute says exactly what the image contains for the benefit of people who can't see it, while the caption gives some more context.
Background images with CSS
It is pretty safe to say that web design became a lot more fun when browsers started supporting CSS. Instead of hacking around in the HTML using table cells for positioning items on the page, non-breaking-spaces ( ) to preserve spacing, and spacer GIFs (transparent 1×1 pixel GIF images that were resized to create margins) we can now use padding, margin, dimensions and positioning in CSS and leave the HTML free to just worry about the content structure.
CSS also means you can use background images in a very versatile way — you can position them behind and around your text any way you want, and also repeat images in regular patterns to create backgrounds. We'll only cover CSS images briefly here, as a proper treatment is provided by CSS background images.
How to apply backgrounds with CSS
The CSS to apply images as backgrounds is pretty easy. Before you look at the CSS code below, load the imagesandcss.html example file in your browser, or look at Figure 4 to get an idea of all the different things that are possible with background images in CSS.
Figure 4: Backgrounds with CSS.
The different boxes are actually styled
 heading elements with some padding and borders applied through CSS to give us enough space to show the background image. If you check out the HTML file, you'll see that each
 element has a unique <id> so each one can have a different CSS rule applied to it. The CSS for the first example is the following:
background-image:url (ball.gif);
You add the image with the <background-image> property and give it a URL in parenthesis to specify the image to be included. By default, background images will be repeated both horizontally and vertically to fill up the whole element space. You can however define a different repetition with the <background-repeat> property:
- Don't repeat the image at all: <background-repeat:no-repeat;>
- Just repeat the image horizontally: <background-repeat:repeat-x; >
- Just repeat the image vertically: <background-repeat:repeat-y; >
By default the background image (if not repeated) will be positioned at the top and left corner of the element. You can however use <background-position> to move the background image around. The easiest values to choose are <top>, , and <bottom> for the vertical alignment and <left>, , and <right> for the horizontal alignment. For example, to position the image on the bottom right you need to use <background-position:bottom-right; >, while to centre the image vertically and apply it to the right you would use <background-position:center-right;>.
By controlling the repetition and the position of background images and using clever images you can create a lot of stunning effects that were not possible before CSS, and by keeping the background definitions in a separate CSS file you make it very easy to change the look and feel of a whole site by changing some lines of code. This will all be covered later on.
That's all you need to know to get you going when it comes to adding images to HTML. There are a lot more tricks available using images and CSS, but for now have a go with what you learnt here and concentrate on best-practice application of images.
Exercise Questions
- Why is it important to add good text to an image in an alt attribute? Are there any situations in which you don't need to?
- If you have an image that is 1280×786 pixels large and you want to display it as a 40×30 pixel thumbnail, can you do that in HTML and is it wise to do so?
- What does the longdesc attribute do, and how do browsers show it?
- What do the valign and the align attributes do and why weren't they covered here?
- Where are CSS background images positioned inside an element by default, and how do they get repeated by default?


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Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Thursday the Obama administration is rethinking its policy of opposing providing weapons to the Syrian rebels.
Hagel's acknowledgment - after weeks of the U.S. resisting arming the opposition, for fear the weapons could end up in the wrong hands - comes days after the White House sent a letter to two U.S. senators saying the intelligence community assessed "with varying degrees of confidence" that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government had used the chemical agent sarin on a "small scale."
President Obama, asked about Hagel's remarks, said he was only reiterating a position the administration has held for months. "We are continually evaluating the situation on the ground working with our international partners to find the best way to move a political transition that has Assad leaving, stabilizes the country, ends the killing and allows the Syrian people to determine their own destiny, " the president said during a press conference in Mexico.
"As we've seen evidence of further bloodshed, potential use of chemical weapons inside of Syria, what I've said is that we're gonna look at all options," Obama said.
But for months the administration has resisted calls by some members of Congress and U.S. allies to send lethal aid to the Syrian opposition.
Hagel and other officials stress that no decision has been made to send such assistance.
Hagel's remarks Thursday were prompted by questions from CNN's Barbara Starr.
Those stupid dumocrudes are so tangled in their own web of lies that they are now falling all over themselves. What a bunch of dimwits.
Can't wait to hear from the State Dept officials this week on how Clinton (and Obama) tried to cover up their incompetence in the Benghazi thing. Imagine – here we have liars covering up their incompetence – so typical of an administration without a leader.
Reuters May 5, Carla del Ponte Representative of the UN investigating the use of chemical weapons in Syria declared in the Italian TV today that Sarin gas was used by the Rebels, not the Syrian government. See attached link.
As you can see our "friends" want us to do the dirty job for them and pay for it with our own pockets.
Israel supplied the gas to the rebels and told the world Syria used it and when that plan didn't work, they illegally attacked Syria. Nothing new here. Sanctions against Israel will be ignored as usual.
It was clear that only Syrian opposition could use Weapon of Mass Destruction to let the US troops invade Syria and today it was prooved by UNO that it had been the opposition (i.e. terrorists, not rebels) that used zarin gas.
I really don't see how arming rebels contributes to peace and stability in the region. This is alarming considering Al-Qaeda affiliation.. Do the rebels have a shared political goal to stabilizing the country after or they're just mindlessly grouping and hoping for something better? There is no paradise in earth but feeding wars is only making it closer to hell.
Here's an idea. Pick three people in Syria, a prominent military leader,a major politician and a major businessman who supports the government, Add three cruise missiles, one per target. Lather, rinse and repeat until domestic support for Assad's regime falls apart.
Is the enemy of my enemy my friend? Nope. Just let them fight it out. I'd rather have Assad in than another Muslim loony anyway. Lets arm Islamists, and take away American's guns. I'm not too concerned about gun rights but that is funny. In fact we should arm them with the confiscated weapons, save us some money.
the guns that we give them are made in china - no worries
if obama dont help the opposition to get red of the shiia killers and thugs of bashar al kalb , the democrats will not win again......so USA MUST ATTACK SYRIA NOW AND HEZBOLLAH THEY ARE TERRORISTS AND USA SHOULD START GET RED OF IRAN NUCS AT ONCE ATTACK THEM NOW BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE......,,,,,
There has always been war in this region of the world. There will always be war. I don't know how much you were paid to make this comment but it wasn't enough to sacrifice your soul. Fool. War is never the answer. Let them kill each other off. We are no one's lap dog.
Are you a secretary for a loony name John McCain?
if obama dont help the opposition to get red of the shiia killers and thugs of bashar al kalb , the democrats will not win again......so USA MUST ATTACK SYRIA NOW AND HEZBOLLAH THEY ARE TERRORISTS AND USA SHOULD START GET RED OF IRAN NUCS AT ONCE ATTACK THEM NOW BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE......
I guess those checks from Israel are clearing your bank acct rather rapidly. Good luck with this propaganda.
Whoaa!!! Easy there chief!! First of, take your finger off that CAPS key. Why don't we think this through with a clear head. Let's all take a deep breath now...
Probably if we can all get along, killings in one's country's history would be non existent. Respect life, fear God and give peace a chance.
so obama is going to arm his muslim brothers..... nice, one country at a time, obama is making middle east as islam extremists heaven
Oh, give me a break. All this birther and muslim crap is just that...crap. President Obama is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't with regard to Syria. Those who are looking for ways to criticize will no doubt capitalize on the situation in Syria. At the moment it seems as though the Israelis are willing to do the dirty work so leave them to it. Enough people have died for Assad. In spite of the fact that these people are more than willing to sacrifice their women and children to their cause, Americans grieve for them and some trolls politicize it. President Obama has realized that we can't be the 911 number for the world but the McCain crowd will crucify him for not acting and everyone else for not acting. Whatever saves American lives I support.
You are spot on! There was an absurd parody made a few years ago "Team America, World Police" that pretty much sums it up.
I sense another Red Line coming.
just nuke all of middle east, and china and north korea. and get it over with. and then steal all their resources for ourselves
once you start nuking china, then the human civilization will be ended, there'll be no one left to "steal" any resources, no chinese or american.....
Oh please, stop looking for excuse. Unless US is thinking of "nation building" which I don't think American has the stomach for it. otherwise, STAY out of Syria. There is no one there worthy of our help in terms of money, resources, or life.
Is that code for no oil?
In Rwanda the USA did nothing and 800000 people died. Syria could be the next Rwanda. With 70000 people dead in Syria the time to act is now. No one is suggesting that America send troops but plenty could be be done to help the non al quaeda forces. Mr Oboma won a nobel prize for peace. It is now time for him to act and supply weapons before it's to late.
Let the Middle East police up their own problems! All that oil money and no ethics.
Haven't We been down this road before? Vietnam, El Salvadore (and all throughout Central & South America), Afghanistan with the Taliban (Under Reagan, to Fight the Soviet Union), Columbia with the "War on Drugs", the
Philippines fighting "Islamic Terrorists" (Going on Right Now!!!), and so, so many others. No, no, no...in to many of these places American troops get drawn in and get killed fighting other peoples wars as former "friends" turn on us. I've held too many friends in my arms as they bled out after being killed by our "friends" - No...No More. No More American dead. I don't want any other Mother, Father, Brother, Sister, Husband or Wife to have to bury someone close to them.
I have an 8-year old daughter and a 5-year old son - If we don't stop this insanity now, they will be going "Somewhere" some time in the future to fight somebody else's war when they turn 18. Stop fighting the Politicrats Wars!!!
~ Fred
The only way I can accept another war is for the president (whoever it happens to be) to utter the phrase "follow me" when proposing the agenda.
Amen! We cannot afford to do so, even if we did feel the "moral imperative".
We are not the world police, when will those in Washington understand this and start worrying about those at home????
I don't know why we're even considering giving them weapons. It seems extremely stupid to me. The rebels are just a ruthless and destructive as the government is. If we are going to help a side fight for survival, I say we help the innocent citizens and children caught in the cross fire. They are the ones getting torn apart by both the rebels and the gov. Each side is slaughtering the citizens, so why would we give weapons to one of them? If the U.S. really wants to help, then we should be sending food, water, and make-shift hospitals with medicine and helpers there to assist the ones that actually need and deserve our help. Wasting money on weapons will accomplish nothing. For once, I agree with Russia's initial response to just stay out of it.
being a bit naive. Who do you think will end up with the supplies we send? It won't be the innocent it will be either of the sides you don't want to support. We could have stayed out of it but once our President makes a statement as he did about crossing the line with chemical warfare we need to respond. The weaker you look to the world and terrorists the more they will act without fear of retribution. I don't claim to have the answers as to what to do but we have to at least physically respond. It seems to me a simple strike on an
important target might be enough to make Assad think twice about doing it again.
Obama will backpeddle, draw another "Red Line" and pray nothing else occurs that would cause him to make the decision to draw another Red Line.
Its not like the U.S will give them an endless amount of weapons. Maybe enough to last the war til its over. By the time its over their weapons will be destroyed and lacking anyways.
Don't give them weapons. They wont be grateful at all when this is over, and the weapons will eventually be used to kill Americans.
You are absolutely right!
better believe is arming the muslins is completely wrong, but the politics have to be pleasing the jews, they love see how the fanatics muslins killed themselves
If we, and Russia, quit supplying weapons to terrorist they would eventually be throwing camel pies at each other.
Should not give a Muslim nothing in arms, or attiboys. They will eventually turn all of it upon us.
You are so correct but remember the religion of the president and then you realize that he is supporting the Muslim
Brotherhood and Al Qaeda...and his Atty Gen is no better
What an ignorant piece of uninfomred crap you are. Please kill yourself ok?
Hey Brenda baby,,,
READ HIS BOOK !!!!!! Try to learn something. Hope it is not to difficult for you but hey, you are a Liberal so who knows???
When somebody cannot make a valid point in a debate, the name calling begins.
Where's Cincy Shehan or Pat Tilman's mother? AWOL when it comes to the LEFTIES!
Will the U.S. never learn?
After the disasters in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan you would think the U.S. would realize that we are lousy at imposing capitalism/democracy at the point of a gun for people who are not interested and can't handle it.
In case it escaped everyone's attention, these wars of choice have killed millions, bankrupted the country, and only result in communist or anti-U.S. islamic countries.
Use the U.N. for these little adventures. That is what it is for and why we are paying billions every year.
We will win no wars by starting them ,and fighting them ,with humanity and slingshots.
What are they talking about we're already providing weapons to the "Freedom Fighters" and the rest of the thugs and murderers who are waging this murder campaign. This isn't a fight for freedom it's a murder campaign. Who killed that foreign reporter? The Freedom fighters of course. Who is committing these mass killings? The freedom fighters of course. Don't worry though people it's all in the name of freedom
The situation in Syria is sad and Assad is a heartless dictator. In spite of that, the USA should not directly get involved militarily; get into another endless war where we do not know who our friends within that country are. The resources required , economically and militarily will be immense. We have clearly stated that we are not the keepers or the redemeers of the musllmi nations. Help the rebels from outside, Yes, work with international community yest. But dirct engagement no no no!.We have to stop being so moralist and righteous or we will ruin our own socity.
Mmm, the terrorists...they're AL QAEDA!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The same poeple that murdered over 3,000 Americans on 9/11...remember that?
Chuch hagel just received money from Hamas...a sponsored organization of Iran.
It seems that Obama and the other Democrats have sold out to communists and terrorists. http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2013/02/reports-chuck-hagel-received-funds-from.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DougRossJournal+%28Doug+Ross+%40+Journal%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
Communists had some standards and they did not play with terrorists like US administration did: go check recent US history! So Obama has not "sold to communists and terrorists" : he is simply doing what US government does the best: spreads death and misery around the Globe!
What unadulterated bull excrement. It appears that you are naive enough to believe every right wing blogger without question.
1) American weapons in the hands or terrorists rebels will end up killing Americans abroad, our diplomats, and our soldiers in some foreign battle ground.
3) The day that a story comes out that an American has been killed by these weapons we'll give to these Al-Qaeda rebels, I hope they h@ng Obama for it.
Right now an Iranian militia is operating in Syria. They are pressuring Assad to let the Iranians transfer weapons to the Hizballa. that's why they are getting visits from their neighbors from the south.
Syrians in the United States for the most part are keeping quiet for fear of reprisals from both government and so called freedom fighters. Are we that naive to think that once Assad is gone Syria is going to be ok? Once Assad is gone than fighting will escalate to epic proportions over Sunni and Shia. Let's all recognize that Saudi Arabia and Qatar are backing all Sunni freedom fighters including Al Qaeda in Syria. I'm sure those two countries budget in helping the Sunni's are greater than any amount the USA will budget. The USA left Iraq yet still the fighting, killing and terrorist bombings goes on between Sunni and Shia. You can ask the question is Iraq better off since the overthrow of Saddam? Is it? Why are Sunni Islamic fighters kidnapping reporters, two Christian Orthodox priests and killing Syrians simply because they're not Sunni? President Obama needs to stay out of this conflict. Let the European and Asian neighbors help out. It's obvious they want the USA to do the dirty work so they can criticize us later. There is no doubt in my mind that the Freedom Fighter would resort to using WMD's supplied by the lovely Sunni countries to further Wahhabi beliefs. I'm glad that Russia, China and Iran are helping Assad. I believe this region will get worse and breed more worldwide Sunni Jihadists (It seems they're all Sunni including the Boston bombings & Osama BinLaden).
An Iranian Militia has entered Syria, they help Assad fight the rebels and make balagan (a hebrew word for mess) in the region. The Iranians are pressuring Assad to help them arm the Hizballa. This is why Israel is bombing them now. I read this on the Israeli Debka files. I can't wait for the Saudis to run out of oil, so they won't go around supporting extremist groups. I feel bad for the Syrian civilians and for the Israelis in North Israel.
you are one hundred percent right american stay away
Coming to you NEXT...extremist Nusrah Front will secretly develop a chemical weapon/s similar to those possessed by the Syrian regime, then Nusrah will secretly attack Free Syrian Army, Syrian National Congress targets in Turkey, blaming it on the Syrian regime. IMMEDIATELY the naive Americans and Western Allies, including Turkey, will pile on weapons support to the foreign Nusrah Front fighters in Syria, helping them to overthrow the Syrian regime (and establish the takfiri sunni extremist caliphate).
wow!! THIS IS A VERY INTERESTING PREDICTION! really nusra islamists have nothing to lose if they use chem weapons agains the FSA cause they are not so "allies" after all. if asad falls they will fight among themselves to ipose sharia over secular government...
All of us expect to see a stable Syria in the region after Assad and its regime convinced everybody across world of its incompetence of handling its country and the region in peace. Now that Assad has been asked to leave, whether people have seen the opportunities which have been run enough or not? Whether or not the opportunities have provided the possibilities of ousting Assad and ending the conflict in Syria as quickly as possible? No matter what Syrian people's destiny is, they're living on Earth. And they're one of the contributors to human evolution.
Natural selection is running it's course there. The Syrian Armenian Christians, all 2.2 million, have either bailed to Armenia and beyond, or were murdered by the takfiri sunni Nusrah foreign fighters invading Syria. Helen, this was a massive "brain-hear-drain" from Syria, and completely removed any remaining "spirit" of goodness, mercy, love, or peace, from the entire country. What is left in Syria, is the takfiri and regime with darkness of eventual death and the fiery abyss. The Syrian popular dream of Kauthar on earth, with liberty, pluralism, and individuality attained, is gone, usurped by foreign takfiri extremist goal of a sunni salafist caliphate.
The CIA should first stop using chemical weapons against American Whistle-Blowers.
What the derp are you talking about?
Israel will dictate US policy with respect to Syria....the Israeli PM is the functional US Commander-In-Chief.
That would make him the only functioning Commander-in Chief that the US has.
Did they not learn anything from arming the "rebels" in Afghanistan during OP Cyclone. The weapons were eventually used to kill their own troops by the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Why relive this exact scenario? It will only hurt us down the road. Just my 2 cents.
furthermore, why is the US being dragged into this, and why has the UN done nothing? we do what the UN does. NOTHING!!!
unless you're going to enlist or send your OWN children, shut up and stay out of it.
Contrary to some security hawks in Congress and neo cons' special interests' calls for U. S. intervention in Syria at this time ! The President should not listen to Sen. McCain Sen. Graham and other likes of them . Rather should focus on iron clad intelligence , if and when obtained , and opinion polls . On these accounts for now , there is an advice of caution ! An over 62 percent of people in polls are against any armed intervention in Syria . The civil war in Syria should not be our concern : a) The U. S. can not afford another War . b ) The U . S. does not have any threat and /or strategic interest per se in Syria at this time . The huge hurtful losses of 4, 500 U. S. security forces' personnel , thousands of returned war veterans with life long and debilitating injures , and $ 2 trillion of borrowed funds was invested in War efforts . The out comes thus far of both unnecessary Iraq War ( 2003 – 2011) and War on Terror in Afghanistan ( 2001 – to date ) should become a serious deterrent too for intervention in Syria . This was a terrible end game of neo cons initiated adventures of Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan . Besides the huge negative impacts , the two wars had on economy, and if could be estimated for future of U. S. economy . Should these not serve as strong deterrents , for not intervening in armed conflicts at this time in Syria , Iran and another Middle East countries .
Our legacy of these wars, to our children, grand-children, great-grand-children, is DEBT incurred by the public, to shift $trillions into the pockets of rich stockholders in multi-national defense-related industries. Few of these industries pay US taxes, and probably most of these rich international stockholders don't either, preferring off-shore, foreign tax-free accounts.
Must be fun being President. Half the country insisting on helping the rebels, the other half (or so) saying don't go near either side in Syria. Well, I'm putting my voice on the "stay away" side. I don't know what to do about the chemical weapons. I deplore their use, but what can be done?
What can you do when the people you want to help lie about the weapons? When they gas themselves to draw others into their fight it takes all the validation out of their cause.
And you know this to be true how? Are you there? Do you know somebody there or is that just your best guess? Maybe you saw it on the Internet and everything on the Internet is true of course.
More like 85% of the country saying stay away from Syria and 15% saying intervene!
Republicans are saying intervene, but that's only a trick to get Obama to commit so they can attack him for intervening.
Air campaign only, the way it was done against Milosevic in former Yugoslavia, comes to mind. There are more choices than just go-all-in-with-boots-on-the-ground and do-nothing.
I would like for someone to tell me if you put a rebel and a bad guy in the same pot who would you prefer? How would you tell them apart.We found the other day The CIA had been taking cash that could have been distributed to welfare recipients here and hauling it to Karzai in Afghanistan.What is the difference,how do you decide which gets the handouts?
Drop a bunker buster on Assad and be done with it.
Say no to the war. We need the money to be spent in the US where is is badly needed. No more borrowing money to pay for a war that is not in our interest. I do not know why some one would think changing the regime in Syria works for the US interests.
Are you trying to help the fanatic Muslims who are fighting Assad? They would love to see him gone so they would take over. Those are the real threat to the US and Israel. Did you see the flag they carried? the same black flag that the Boston bomber had around in his pictures in Chechnya. Those "so called Muslims" are more fanatics than Taliban and Bin Laden followers. let us think before acting.
That has Iran's name o it.
Excuse me! It's not the "U.S." that is re-thinking its stand on Syria. It's OBAMA who, as usual, has no courage to back up his rhetoric. What a disaster for a president.
I agree, Carl. Barack Obama has been a true disaster as President! He never closed Gitmo, slipped some 3,500 troops back into Iraq, if not more, kept us in Afghanistan, killed thousands of people who didn't deserve to die with those obscene drones and now he wants to drag this country into Syria's civil war where it has no business! This man needs to be prosecuted at the I.C.C. and that's all there is to it!
We can prosecute Obama after we get Bush II for his lies for those who died for them.
He didn't close Gitmo? I thought Republicans were mad at him for wanting to close Gitmo. Now that he doesn't close Gitmo you are mad at him for not closing Gitmo. If he did close Gitmo would you be happy? No, you would call him names for closing it. In other words it doesn't matter that he does, you are going to whine about it.
His drone strikes killed thousands that didn't deserve it? The US is conducting drone strikes against terrorists. You guys used to be against terrorists, but now all terrorists are innocent. bush lied and fabricated evidence to go to war and killed hundreds of thousands and you couldn't possibly care any less about them.
So you say. You are attacking him for not attacking Syria like all Republicans are, but the moment he does you will say it was the dumbest thing he could have ever done. You are going to say whatever he does was the wrong thing because you,are a Republican and you are required to be against any and everything he does.
If you asked Republicans what they think Obama should do, plan A or plan B and they all picked plan B, I can guarantee if Obama decided to go with plan B, every Republican would change their stance to be opposite of Obama out of spite.
Carl, you are right. But Obama is big talk as long as he doesn't have to commit. Sorry excuse for a man., sorry excuse for president (with a small p).
Do it like you used to do in Nicaragua – just have heavily equipped training exercises there, and quietly leave all the equipment behind when you depart a day or two later. Wink, Wink.
They can rethink the matter all they want but just don't send our soldiers over there. Have they learned nothing since the Korean War? Sixty years this nation has been at war in various places around the world and they need to rethink entering the Syrian war! Isn't the blood shed in all these conflicts enough for them?
Petrodollar,Petrodollar,Petrodollar... The United States economy cannot survive without it, and the Arab States in the Middle East are trying to sell their oil in other forms of currency besides the U.S. dollar, this is why we are there.
There is not enough oil in Syria that would represent interest to the US. Not important.
Since the largest oil deposits in the world are in the US guess you have no argument.
@100%American,like usmc1371 said we as a country hold more crude than all the middle east put together just recently updated by the US geological surveyors ..They recently did a survey and came back saying their initial estimates was way smaller than what it is now..In 2008 we were estimated to have in the Bakken formations around 3.6 billion barrels of crude but now a new formation called Three forks has now merged giving us a combined total of over 7.3 billion barrels plus triple the amount figured in natural gas as well!!That was read from Bloomberg.com/energy..And up to this year we've only refined around 466 million barrels since 2008,nice ha!!And remember we have another crude foundation right in Texas as well!!
@100%American,guess who found that crude big guy the US oil industry when all the middle east was good for than was rugs ,dates and camels,just see how we got screwed out of our find too by these same middle easterners as well!We even designed their oil rigs as well for them thanks Bechtel,Halliburton and KBR for all you did to make them wealthy at again our expense...
NO,NO, NO, keep our a s s e s OUT of that d a m n e d place!
But were not going in!
As if we had a choice in the matter.
We're not going in you say? Yeah. That's what they said about Vietnam. "It's just a few advisors. Nothing to see here folks. Don't worry. We know what's best." Kinda getting tired of our government spending time, money, and blood on problems abroad when we've not got enough resources at home.
Meanwhile, congress will cut benefits and services to Americans. I wish they would be as focused on the US as they seem to be on the middle east.
I agree, allenwoll!!!!!!
US State Dept. bringing you the Taliban of tomorrow.
A proud tradition of funding Islamic thugs that come back to bite us in 10-15 years.
Rethinking? I assumed we had been arming them for months. Did Kerry think they were going to spend the $23M on gumdrops and lolly pops?
Syria is a horrible mess. Nothing is going to happen there that anyone is going to like. The rebels will wipe out the Christians who back Assad for protection and Assad's goons will use chemical weapons on the rebels. The best plan is to stay the hell out of it so they can't blame the Charlie Foxtrot on US.
Regardless of whether it is right or wrong to arm the rebels, why can't other nations pay for weapons and send them? Why does it have to be the U.S. taxpayer all the time? I think we're being played for suckers when it comes to the cash side of a lot of these things. We're basically giving welfare to all the Western countries that can afford to do more - and no I am not saying that no other Western country tries.
It absolutely HAS to be the American taxpayer footing the bill. How else will congress get their kickback from the arms industry?
If the taxpayer dollar is not enough, they will just put the printing pre$$es into the next higher gear, and ship pallets of fresh currency so we can build something to have it blown up by us or whoever. What a mad world will be left for our kids!!
It is a fair suggestion, but unfortunately nobody else is willing to supply weapons to al-Qaeda for of fear of reprisals from US: so it falls to you again!
Regardless of whether it is right or wrong to arm the rebels, why can't other nations pay for weapons and send them? Why does it have to be the U.S. taxpayer all the time? I think we're being played for suckers when it comes to the cash side of a lot of these things. We're basically giving welfare to all these Western countries that can afford to do more.
Maybe because we are the leaders of the Free World???
"Varying degrees of confidence." Seems we have gone down this path before. Our present support for the rebels whether by encouraging local actors or providing "non-lethal" aid has played a major role in the horrors of this civil war. Before, Syria was a known factor and its actions also. Fear of negative affects on its neighbors, the concern for chemical weapons, the resurgence of religious radicalism, etc. were not concerns–now these are just the start of worries that al-Asad's fall brings in his wake.
The arming is already taking place. McCain , Graham and the folks who make all those weapons are calling the shots.
And are going to make lots of money out of this. This is just another example of failed policy abroad. We should keep our noses out of this completely.
Chucky Hagel, Rent Paki army for dirty work. After all why are we paying billions of $$ to Paki. Put so called American aid to work
You are paying billions to Pakistan is because it is fighting your war and also to use the roads and bases there. So it is no favor or free money.
I never really believe the hoopla about Obama being a Muslim in disguise and supporting the terrorists but this does make you scratch your head. Still seems far fetched but just saying...
So who is going to pay for these weapons as the US Treasury does not have the money.
Why would the US DOD consider arming the terrorists!? The rebels have allied themselves with Al Qaeda. I perfectly understand that Assad isn't exactly on the up and up either and he's a dictator – so we should not support him. But we have no business arming rebels who have pledged their allegiance to terrorists. We dont know who the good guys are here, if there are any. If there's anyone who understands Syria, its Russia. Let Russia spend their tax money funding/arming whomever they wish. This is not America's fight.
So US government considers giving weapons to al-Qaeda? Because they look like "good guys" again? I think I have seen it before!
So who is the Evil Empire now! I hate terrorists: but I think I am going to actually enjoy this new feat of hypocrisy demonstrated by Washington! So go Obama, go: show your true guts!
It is going to SO blow in their stupid liberal face! Please do it!
They have already started. Don't believe their lies.
While Mr. Hagel and Obama claim that they have only been giving non-lethal aid to the Syrian rebels, this is a bunch of BS. I think everyone would agree that the CIA is an agency of the United States, and according to this march 24th New York Times article, they have been arming the rebels ever since Obama won re-election.
So anyone interested check this out, because no matter what you think, we are committed to Syria. Like it or not, history tells us that we will have troops in Syria. I personally believe we will have troops there by summer, and right around the 100 year anniversary of WWI, WWIII will begin.
America is the root of all terror. America has invaded sixty countries since world war 2.
In 1953 America overthrow Iran's democratic government Mohammad Mosaddegh and installed a brutal dictator Shah. America helped Shah of Iran to establish secret police and killed thousands of Iranian people.
During Iran-Iraq war evil America supported Suddam Hossain and killed millions of Iranian people. In 1989, America, is the only country ever, shot down Iran's civilian air plane, killing 290 people.
In 2003,America invaded Iraq and killed 1,000,000+ innocent Iraqi people and 4,000,000+ Iraqi people were displaced.
Now America is a failed state with huge debt. Its debt will be 22 trillion by 2015.
Well then Mr. John Smith, why don 't u move out of the USA and see how u like it,
Where to go outside of ruins America has created and it's military doesn't have base? Pray tell me.
And yet when there's indiscriminate killing, genocide, and brutality going on ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, its always the fault of evil America for not going in and stopping it. Ironic, isn't it.
Yo num nut go to national debt time clock and try to update your garbage.Just change one line please.I remember Mat Maupin you piece of camel turd.He lived down the road from me.
I also hope that everyone at guantomino whos on a food strike succeeds you piece of crap.
Its the garbage you say that makes me want to go back there.Maybe that's wrong ,probably is , Im not afraid of no terrorist and theres nothing that any of you pukes can make me think different.You messed with a REDNECK been there done that and would go back again!
I tell my friends to kiss my ass.Butt every terrorist can slurp my butt and take that to the bank.!!!!!!!!!!!!
You Sir, Are an As*Hole!
How about a little history.In dessert storm we had to soften up the target and herd the Saudies in to make them take out the enemy.90% of you middle easterners cant do a stand up fight.If you want your freedom from assad you better stand up and spit in the face of the grim reaper.Freedom isn't cheap and it will cost you.There is no way that one American should fight for you because you will turn around and blame us for your short comings.Im also sure you will blame us for not doing anything.Thats something that the middle east taught me.All you other people you use flowery words about liberals and crap,Obama this ,Bush that.The president, congress and senate is the government ,blame one you best blame them all for not doing their job.Heck The Russians are stand up and stubborn and don't budge on their terrorist policies. I have no love of communism at all.Russians have a Navel Base there and they just put mega bucks into it and they wont leave.I say to Americans and Russians let them fight give them nothing.I also say America get tough on terrorist policies and don't budge an inch for no reason.I hate to say it but American policy is bad sometimes.john smith your a camel turd.
one last thing and I will never be on this blog or what ever it is again.What have we all accomplished here, not a thing.What someone out worded somebody.
Gargle some buckshot!
Someone needs to tell this know nothing know it all to go read a history book before giving anything to any of these people! Seems like those in power trade common sense for political bravado, and quick to repeat the mistakes of the past. Next thing you know, we will be sent to invade Russia over the alps during winter.
Thank you J.R., I couldn't have said it better!
Alps? I think they had to cross the Ural mountains.
Remember when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor???
You mean Tibet mountains, right?
Let the Syrians fight their own battle; do not interfere and do not waste human lives and or money on it.
Well said. When will we ever learn that we can't fix the problems of other countries?
You cant fix nothing over there.Alot of the population isn't to bright and they are like cattle.The only way I can describe it is a bunch of mean 3rd graders with guns.Borders mean nothing it should be marked different sects of religion.The religion has no structure, its just chaos.Ive met good muslims and bad they all use their belief for what they do and just twist words to their own means.Thats what I saw over there.When I was over there I met a Muslim and we was friends ,he was educated in the west.The others didn't like it an shut him out so he went back to America.Over a damn pizza we had together!
When our leaders stop investing in their oil?
Yes! Totally agree. How about we worry about the issues we are having in this country...
The people that fight in the war aren"t even Syrian.
The ones that are begging the West for arms are the ones that used the chemical weapons.
Just give them all more guns, let the Islamofacists grind each other into hamburger.
You are a POS
Are we EVER going to learn from our mistakes? What possible good could it do to throw more weapons at middle-eastern factions who are constantly at each others' throats in religious conflicts? The weapons are guaranteed to be misused, if not during the conflict then afterwards, and possibly even used against us at some point. All that we'll achieve is to give one brutal faction a winning advantage over another brutal faction.
If we're going to help out over there, we should be encouraging and funding effective, liberal-minded NGOs (human rights groups, pro-secular democracy groups, etc.) who would then have an organizational advantage over the warring factions after the fighting resolves itself and it's time for a new government.
And most likely the rebels have access to the chemical weapons.
Makes total sense to give weapons to Al-nursra, Islamic state of Iraq, Al-Sham, Chechen mujihadeen, Banner of Islam, and all the other Al-queda affiliates in Syria- so they can set up sharia law! These are the same terrorists we fought in the neighboring country (IRAQ), but now they are freedom fighters.
Better tell McCain and Graham. They're the ones calling for Obama to arm the rebels.
Dear, President Obama
Here is a idea why don't we stay out of it in every way, shape, and form? If you want to give more weapons to your friends in the Muslim Brotherhoood like you did in Egypt and Lybia at least have the guts to just say so.
He'll never list, he has never served in the military. When this weapons are used on the US or turn against our allied I wonder what he'll say?
It's Republicans like McCain and Graham who are demanding that Obama arm the rebels – not the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Republican war machine at work.
@usmc1371,why not supply them with serin gas as Reagan did to Kadafi ,Hussein to use on his own people.Or give weapons illegally against congress in the Iran Contra deal using CIA operatives as delivery couriers until being caught..Supply weapons to afghan rebels against Russia in the 80s against Russia and now being used against us..And do you or anyone seem to think these Syrians like their American friends across the pond,I think not ..We are only being used here as we've in many a previous conflicts eventually leading to war in Korea,Vietnam,Iraq and now Afghanistan and does anyone feel the need to send love ones to fight for Syria,I don't because as usual all its going to do is blowup in our faces and that's been our history with wars hasn't it!!We as Americans always get stuck holding the bag so to speak and paying for it ourselves as usual!!
A little re-write on history, here, don't ya think?
@ Pete – you fail to see the role the Izraelis are playing here. Chances are good that Izrael used the chemical weapons to get more US military into the region instead of less. Israel frames Syria to get a new world war cooking in the middle east to meet its own goals of nuking Iran. Its all Kabuki theatre for sheeple that watch CNN and think they are getting real news.
@Anti-Izrael man,I understand your thinking as its been used times before playing the innocent as bait to bring America and their superior military to the region as big brother always..Not this time brother stand back and let Netanyahus Isreal get their lumps if its coming to them,its well over due by me..Let America see someone else's blood shed and we'll keep our money to use on better things stateside don't you think than war this time!!


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Studying Water at Kanuti Refuge Is an Icy Proposition
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From the Director Bringing the Wilderness Magic to Everyone
Chiefs Corner Urban Initiative Is Vital to Conservation
Hatching Fish in the Desert
Yuen Honored as Refuge Manager of the Year
Nature + Technology = Connection at Kenai Refuge
As Climate Changes, So Do Fire Strategies
Hagerman Refuge, USGS Lead the Way on Dust Suppression
Designated Wilderness Is a Remarkable Concept
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A Look Back . . . George Mushbach
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My friend Lena who contributed the Stone Soup post to our blog, recently started her own blog called A Happier Meal. First of all, what a great name for a food blog. (I love it) Secondly, she has already got some pretty yummy food up on her blog which is worth checking out. Lena hopes you will enjoy the glimpse into her family's cooking life, meant to inspire simple, sustainable, delicious home cooking that makes for a happier meal every time.
Her children are adventurous eaters and she is clearly doing something right. I look forward to more of her recipes and trying some of them out for our family (I could use a culinary point of view shake-up). Whole-wheat chocolate chip cookies, here I come!
Do check out her blog, sign up to receive updates or follow her on Facebook, you won't regret it. 🙂 While you are at it, do follow A Little Yumminess on Facebook as well.
Her's a recent post from A Happier Meal that got my attention and Lena kindly allowed me to replicate it here. I hope you find her cooking shortcuts as helpful as I did.
My Cooking Shortcuts by Lena Brook
Getting a good dinner on the table by 6PM or so every night sometimes feels like an Iron Chef – level challenge. Most days, I rise to the occasion without breaking too much of sweat. And then there are those moments when 5PM hits and the kids are begging me for appetizers when I desperately need to be making dinner and I have NO idea what to cook. That is exactly when my patience runs thin and everything breaks down.
So over time, I've come up with a small arsenal of shortcuts to make my cooking life more enjoyable, and I thought I'd share. PLEASE feel free to add yours to the list – I can't wait to see what great ideas you have up your sleeve!
The Top Five
1. Plan meals ahead. This is not a radical concept and has been recommended by countless others, but you see, I loathe to plan meals, I much prefer to fly by the seat of my pants so to speak. Yet time and time again, the failure of my spontaneity has won me over to the more organized approach. Take a few minutes to poll the family about their dinner preferences for the upcoming week on Saturday morning, when everyone is in a happy, beginning-of-the-weekend mood. Or take it upon yourself. Either way, if you have a general plan you'll feel much better equipped – actually buying necessary ingredients in advance is a bonus but not crucial. Its the ideas that count in my book!
2) Deal with garlic in advance. It always seems to take forever to peel and chop garlic when you can least afford to spend the time yet I love love love cooking with it and seem to need it frequently. Now, admittedly, I'm not a garlic press person and if you are, ignore this. But the rest of us, here's my tip: peel and store cloves from 1-2 heads of garlic (however you are likely to use in 5-7 days time) and store in a glass or stainless steel container in the refrigerator. Chopping will seem like a breeze when you eliminate the peeling step.
3) Prep your "mirepoix." Mirepoix is French for the crucial combination of diced carrots, celery and onions that form the basis for so many soups, stews, braises, etc. Store 1-2 cups of diced celery and carrots in one bag, and the same of onion in a glass container – they will be on hand for whatever you are cooking in the next 3-4 days.
4) The frozen food section. I do occasionally rely on store-bought frozen food items (see below for a case in point). But I prefer to create our own frozen food section in the fridge. I'll freeze pizza dough, leftover soups and stews, ground beef and small steaks, sausages, fruit, butter, etc. Our freezer is unimpressive in size yet when I properly use the space, I'm always impressed with what I've got on hand. Ice cream is also a very important addition to this list, by the way.
5) Trader Joe's potstickers. When in doubt, I bust these out. Pan-fried with sticky brown rice and green vegetables for a quick dinner, potsticker soup if you have chicken broth around, these work great for lunch or dinner (or breakfast, if you are Talia). I'm pretty sure I've been eating these on a regular basis since my early college years. And they still manage to satisfy.


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The 41-year-old has been appointed to officiate Sunday's Premier League clash, seven weeks after taking charge of the FA Cup quarter-final between the two sides
Howard Webb has been appointed as referee for the Premier League tie between Manchester United and Chelsea at Old Trafford on Sunday.
The 41-year-old, who took charge of the 2010 World Cup final, is no stranger to controversial games between the two English giants with both clubs vocal critics of decisions from the official during past encounters.
Former Liverpool player Ryan Babel infamously tweeted a mocked-up photo of Webb wearing a United shirt following a 1-0 defeat in January 2011, with the message: "And they call him one of the best referees? That's a joke."
Babel subsequently became the first footballer to be disciplined by the Football Association as a result of a social media post.
Webb also clashed with former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho following a disallowed Salomon Kalou's goal against Blackburn in September 2007, resulting in the Portuguese demanding an apology from the referee.
The last time Webb took charge of a game involving both United and Chelsea was March's FA Cup quarter-final, which ended 2-2.
Manchester United have won 13 and lost just one out of the 15 Premier League games that Webb has officiated at Old Trafford.
Webb has also been called up to officiate Tuesday's Champions League semi-final second leg between Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund at Santiago Bernabeu.


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ATVs are dangerous. Especially if you're not wearing a helmet and seatbelt while operating them. A bunch of people weren't smart enough to figure that out and sued Yamaha for negligence. Yamaha just won the first case.
The first of hundreds of similar suits, the jury in Johnny Ray vs. Yamaha Motor Co. just found in favor of Yamaha, decided that it wasn't negligent in the death of 13-year old Forest Ray. Ray was killed over two years ago when his Yamaha Rhino rolled while driving off grass and onto pavement. Yamaha places prominent warnings on all its ATVS that they shouldn't be used on-road and Ray wasn't wearing his seatbelt or helmet at the time of the accident.
Ray's family argued the lack of rear differential gears on the Rhino would have prevented the rollover, but Yamaha countered by saying that the Rhino is only designed for off-road travel, where a rear differential is more of a safety "demerit." The Rhino is fitted with both seatbelts and a strong roll cage.
It's expected that this ruling in Texas will influence the outcome of similar litigation across the country. [via Southeast Texas Record]


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SINGAPORE: According to a study by the Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore, solar energy could possibly meet as much as a quarter of Singapore's energy needs in 2025, said Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean at the Singapore International Energy Week (SIEW) last week.
However, to reach this figure, solar energy generation would have to double every two years, from generating 140 MWp today to 2 GWp in 2025.
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In a few days, the bi-annual OPEC meeting will take place on November 30, leading into a wider OPEC+ meeting on December 30. This is what all the political jostling and negotiations currently taking place is leading up to, as the coalition of major oil producers under the OPEC+ banner decide on the next step of its historic and ambitious supply control plan. Designed to prop up global oil prices by managing supply, a postponement of the next phase in the supply deal is widely expected. But there are many cracks appearing beneath the headline.
A quick recap. After Saudi Arabia and Russia triggered a price war in March 2020 that led to a collapse in oil prices (with US crude prices briefly falling into negative territory due to the technical quirk), OPEC and its non-OPEC allies (known collectively as OPEC+) agreed to a massive supply quota deal that would throttle their production for 2 years. The initial figure was 10 mmb/d, until Mexico's reticence brought that down to 9.7 mmb/d. This was due to fall to 7.7 mmb/d by July 2020, but soft demand forced a delay, while Saudi Arabia led the charge to ensure full compliance from laggards, which included Iraq, Nigeria and (unusually) the UAE. The next tranche will bring the supply control ceiling down to 5.7 mmb/d. But given that Covid-19 is still raging globally (despite promising vaccine results), this might be too much too soon. Yes, prices have recovered, but at US$40/b crude, this is still not sufficient to cover the oil-dependent budgets of many OPEC+ nations. So a delay is very likely.
But for how long? The OPEC+ Joint Technical Committee panel has suggested that the next step of the plan (which will effectively boost global supply by 2 mmb/d) be postponed by 3-6 months. This move, if adopted, will have been presaged by several public statements by OPEC+ leaders, including a pointed comment from OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo that producers must be ready to respond to 'shifts in market fundamentals'.
On the surface, this is a necessary move. Crude prices have rallied recently – to as high as US$45/b – on positive news of Covid-19 vaccines. Treatments from Pfizer, Moderna and the Oxford University/AstraZeneca have touted 90%+ effectiveness in various forms, with countries such as the US, Germany and the UK ordering billions of doses and setting the stage for mass vaccinations beginning December. Life returning to a semblance of normality would lift demand, particularly in key products such as gasoline (as driving rates increase) and jet fuel (allowing a crippled aviation sector to return to life). Underpinning the rally is the understanding that OPEC+ will always act in the market's favour, carefully supporting the price recovery. But there are already grouses among OPEC members that they are doing 'too much'. Led by Saudi Arabia, the draconian dictates of meeting full compliance to previous quotas have ruffled feathers, although most members have reluctantly attempt to abide by them. But there is a wider existential issue that OPEC+ is merely allowing its rivals to resuscitate and leapfrog them once again; the US active oil rig count by Baker Hughes has reversed a chronic decline trend, as WTI prices are at levels above breakeven for US shale.
Complaints from Iran, Iraq and Nigeria are to be expected, as is from Libya as it seeks continued exemption from quotas due to the legacy of civil war even though it has recently returned to almost full production following a truce. But grievance is also coming from an unexpected quarter: the UAE. A major supporter in the Saudi Arabia faction of OPEC, reports suggest that the UAE (led by the largest emirate, Abu Dhabi) are privately questioning the benefit of remaining in OPEC. Beset by shrivelling oil revenue, the Emiratis have been grumbling about the fairness of their allocated quota as they seek to rebuild their trade-dependent economy. There has been suggestion that the Emiratis could even leave OPEC if decisions led to a net negative outcome for them. Unlike the Qatar exit, this will not just be a blow to OPEC as a whole, questioning its market relevance but to Saudi Arabia's lead position, as it loses one of its main allies, reducing its negotiation power. And if the UAE leaves, Kuwait could follow, which would leave the Saudis even more isolated.
This could be a tactic to increase the volume of the UAE's voice in OPEC+, which has been dominated by Saudi Arabia and Russia. But it could also be a genuine policy shift. Either way, it throws even more conundrums onto a delicate situation that could undermine an already fragile market. Despite the positive market news led by Covid-19 vaccines and demand recovery in Asia, American crude oil inventories in Cushing are now approaching similar high levels last seen in April (just before the WTI crash) while OPEC itself has lowered its global demand forecast for 2020 by 300,000 b/d. That's dangerous territory to be treading in, especially if members of the OPEC+ club are threatening to exit and undermine the pack. A postponement of the plan seems inevitable on December 1 at this point, but it is what lies beyond the immediate horizon that is the true threat to OPEC+.
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In the U.S. Energy Information Administration's (EIA) November Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), EIA forecasts that U.S. crude oil production will remain near its current level through the end of 2021.
A record 12.9 million barrels per day (b/d) of crude oil was produced in the United States in November 2019 and was at 12.7 million b/d in March 2020, when the President declared a national emergency concerning the COVID-19 outbreak. Crude oil production then fell to 10.0 million b/d in May 2020, the lowest level since January 2018.
By August, the latest monthly data available in EIA's series, production of crude oil had risen to 10.6 million b/d in the United States, and the U.S. benchmark price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil had increased from a monthly average of $17 per barrel (b) in April to $42/b in August. EIA forecasts that the WTI price will average $43/b in the first half of 2021, up from our forecast of $40/b during the second half of 2020.
The U.S. crude oil production forecast reflects EIA's expectations that annual global petroleum demand will not recover to pre-pandemic levels (101.5 million b/d in 2019) through at least 2021. EIA forecasts that global consumption of petroleum will average 92.9 million b/d in 2020 and 98.8 million b/d in 2021.
The gradual recovery in global demand for petroleum contributes to EIA's forecast of higher crude oil prices in 2021. EIA expects that the Brent crude oil price will increase from its 2020 average of $41/b to $47/b in 2021.
EIA's crude oil price forecast depends on many factors, especially changes in global production of crude oil. As of early November, members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and partner countries (OPEC+) were considering plans to keep production at current levels, which could result in higher crude oil prices. OPEC+ had previously planned to ease production cuts in January 2021.
Other factors could result in lower-than-forecast prices, especially a slower recovery in global petroleum demand. As COVID-19 cases continue to increase, some parts of the United States are adding restrictions such as curfews and limitations on gatherings and some European countries are re-instituting lockdown measures.
EIA recently published a more detailed discussion of U.S. crude oil production in This Week in Petroleum.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasts that members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will earn about $323 billion in net oil export revenues in 2020. If realized, this forecast revenue would be the lowest in 18 years. Lower crude oil prices and lower export volumes drive this expected decrease in export revenues.
Crude oil prices have fallen as a result of lower global demand for petroleum products because of responses to COVID-19. Export volumes have also decreased under OPEC agreements limiting crude oil output that were made in response to low crude oil prices and record-high production disruptions in Libya, Iran, and to a lesser extent, Venezuela.
OPEC earned an estimated $595 billion in net oil export revenues in 2019, less than half of the estimated record high of $1.2 trillion, which was earned in 2012. Continued declines in revenue in 2020 could be detrimental to member countries' fiscal budgets, which rely heavily on revenues from oil sales to import goods, fund social programs, and support public services. EIA expects a decline in net oil export revenue for OPEC in 2020 because of continued voluntary curtailments and low crude oil prices.
The benchmark Brent crude oil spot price fell from an annual average of $71 per barrel (b) in 2018 to $64/b in 2019. EIA expects Brent to average $41/b in 2020, based on forecasts in EIA's October 2020 Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO). OPEC petroleum production averaged 36.6 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2018 and fell to 34.5 million b/d in 2019; EIA expects OPEC production to decline a further 3.9 million b/d to average 30.7 million b/d in 2020.
EIA based its OPEC revenues estimate on forecast petroleum liquids production—including crude oil, condensate, and natural gas plant liquids—and forecast values of OPEC petroleum consumption and crude oil prices.
EIA recently published a more detailed discussion of OPEC revenue in This Week in Petroleum.


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Hearst CEO Addresses the Troops
Steven Swartz, CEO of Hearst, has sent out a letter to staffers explaining what was successful in 2013, and how the company will navigate 2014. It's the typical "state of the union" note that every CEO pens, filled with phrases like "growth strategy" and "core portfolio." Still, it's worth a read.
One section we found interesting is how Hearst is growing in the healthcare sector:
In December, we announced the acquisition of 85 percent of Homecare Homebase, a leader in the field of providing software, data and analytics to the fast-growing homecare and hospice industries. Homecare Homebase, founded and led by CEO April Anthony, becomes the fourth significant company in the Hearst healthcare portfolio, along with First Databank, Zynx Health and MCG. In its first full year under our ownership, MCG, led by President and CEO Jon Shreve, outperformed our optimistic expectations and finished the year with profits up more than 25 percent.
See below for Swartz's full note.
Dear Colleagues,
I want to begin by thanking each of you for your contributions to our many accomplishments over this past year. Hearst achieved record revenue and profit in 2013, and recorded its fourth consecutive year of revenue and profit growth since the recession of 2008–2009.
Strong year-over-year performances came from our cable networks, A+E Networks and ESPN; Fitch Ratings; healthcare businesses First Databank and MCG, formerly Milliman Care Guidelines, acquired last December; and the newspaper group. Our U.S. magazines grew profit in 2013, and our television stations exceeded expectations and are poised for a strong 2014 with the return of the Olympics and congressional and gubernatorial elections. Our ventures team scored a very strong return on its investment in digital marketing company HootSuite.
Hearst's outstanding performance reflects the quality of what our talented colleagues create every day for the screen and the page, and the strong and innovative partnerships we forge with our clients around the world. Our profit achievement also reflects the hard work of so many who constantly look for more efficient ways to do business without compromising the quality of what we offer customers.
Our business mix continues to evolve. Today, roughly 60 percent of our revenue comes from sources other than advertising revenue, including carriage fees for our cable networks and television stations, business-to-business and consumer subscription revenues, and marketing services fees. More than 20 percent of our revenue is derived from outside the U.S.
On June 1, our executive vice chairman, Frank Bennack, ended his second tour of duty as our chief executive. A few weeks later, he and I spoke with our chairman, Will Hearst, and the rest of our board members about the fundamental principles of Frank's highly successful 30-year run and how they form the basis of the company's future growth strategy.
We boiled them down to four, not necessarily in order of importance:
I. Continue Remaking Our Business Mix for Growth
II. Strengthen Our Core Portfolio
III. Become a More Digital Company
IV. Secure and Retain Top Talent
I'm going to discuss each of these in the context of what we accomplished in 2013 and what we will continue to do in the years ahead.
I. Continue Remaking Our Business Mix for Growth
A hallmark of Frank's tenure has been the continued allocation of capital to the sectors of the media and information landscape that have offered the best prospects for growth. While this is of course harder than it sounds, we are confident that there are two areas where we have shown particular skill and where the underlying growth prospects are quite strong: business media and entertainment.
Hearst Business Media, led by Rich Malloch, was active in 2013. In December, we announced the acquisition of 85 percent of Homecare Homebase, a leader in the field of providing software, data and analytics to the fast-growing homecare and hospice industries. Homecare Homebase, founded and led by CEO April Anthony, becomes the fourth significant company in the Hearst healthcare portfolio, along with First Databank, Zynx Health and MCG. In its first full year under our ownership, MCG, led by President and CEO Jon Shreve, outperformed our optimistic expectations and finished the year with profits up more than 25 percent. First Databank acquired Design Clinicals, a company that helps hospitals reconcile the drugs a new patient is already taking with those the hospital seeks to prescribe. Under President and CEO Paul Taylor, our 50 percent–owned Fitch Ratings business acquired 7city Learning, a financial services industry training company based in London that we've renamed Fitch Learning. Meanwhile, our two principal automotive businesses kept their amazing profit-growth streaks alive: For National Auto Research/Black Book, headed by Tom Cross, it was its 22nd straight year of profit growth and for Motor Information Systems, under Kevin Carr, its 20t straight year.
At our cable networks, A+E Networks announced that it will turn its BIO channel into a new lifestyle channel called FYI, bringing A+E's singular reputation for creativity to such lifestyle subjects as food, home and travel. ESPN, led by President John Skipper, announced the creation of a new cable channel with the hugely successful SEC sports conference, featuring such powerhouse college sports teams as Alabama, Auburn and Missouri. And ESPN has secured exclusive coverage of the US Open starting in 2015, further enhancing its continuing coverage of the four major professional tennis tournaments.
Our partnership with prolific television producer Mark Burnett, ONE THREE MEDIA, also had a great 2013 on the strength of its productions The Voice on NBC and Shark Tank on ABC, as well as the success of VIMBY, a 50 percent–owned ONE THREE venture that makes commercial video for key partner companies such as Wal-Mart. Mark and his wife, Roma Downey, also partnered with us to produce HISTORY's hugely successful series The Bible.
II. Strengthen Our Core Portfolio
We continue to invest in our longtime franchise businesses of local television, magazines and newspapers. We supported our highly successful Omaha television station KETV by acquiring the iconic downtown train station in Omaha and beginning the process of turning it into KETV's new home. We also became the first TV station group to partner with its network to launch TV Everywhere streaming applications when we announced our partnership with Disney's ABC network in May.
Our magazine group under David Carey launched an ambitious upgrade of all our Web and mobile products, beginning with leaders Cosmopolitan.com and ELLE.com, that will be fully unveiled in early 2014. Cosmopolitan continued to develop its branded products with the announcement of a conference business in partnership with the William Morris Endeavor agency. And Seventeen announced an exciting partnership in the fast growing world of streaming video by teaming with Dreamworks' AwesomenessTV venture on a new streaming network for the teen market.
And Hearst Newspapers President Mark Aldam's investment in the group's LocalEdge suite of digital marketing services products for small business customers around the country continues to bear fruit as the initiative turned solidly profitable in 2013 with revenue more than doubling. More than 40 other media entities have also signed on to sell the LocalEdge product suite in their markets, including the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Dallas Morning News, New York Daily News and Newsday. And LocalEdge just signed its first international customer, Australia's Fairfax newspaper group.
III. Become a More Digital Company
To truly succeed we can't just offer our customers digital products; we have to become a more digital company in the way we operate our businesses every day. Under the leadership of Chief Technology Officer Phil Wiser, we launched an audience exchange to connect, for the first time, our clients to the more than 100 million unique users who visit Hearst digital products every month. We created Digital Studios to allow for fast prototyping, building and testing of new digital products. We introduced a new video platform that allows any of our journalists around the world to shoot and edit on their mobile phones. And we convened hackathons in our New York headquarters for our fashion magazine brands and on the campus of the University of Michigan for our automotive brands.
IV. Secure and Retain Top Talent
We are dedicated to developing and promoting our key talent from within the organization wherever possible. But as the world changes at such a rapid pace, it is also incumbent upon us to reach out to new sources of talent to gain new perspectives and new skills. We executed on both of those efforts in 2013.
Beginning with internal promotions, David Barrett completed at year-end an outstanding 15-year run as CEO of Hearst Television and handed over leadership to his deputy, Jordan Wertlieb, president, and himself a 20-year veteran of the group. David will remain very active as a Hearst trustee and board member. Mike Hayes, general manager at our Pittsburgh station, WTAE-TV, came to New York as an SVP and group head.
At our A+E Networks, CEO Abbe Raven became chairman after eight incredibly strong years as CEO and having run the A&E, HISTORY and BIO channels prior to becoming CEO in 2005. Nancy Dubuc, a 15-year veteran of A+E, became CEO. Nancy also named four people as general managers of our principal networks: David McKillop at A&E, Dirk Hoogstra at HISTORY, Rob Sharenow at Lifetime and Jana Bennett at the forthcoming FYI and Lifetime Movie Network.
New leadership at our Entertainment & Syndication group also came from within, as the deputy in that group, George Kliavkoff, partnered with the company's chief creative officer, Neeraj Khemlani, himself a former deputy head of E&S, to become new co-presidents.
Dr. Greg Dorn, a 14-year veteran of our medical businesses, became executive vice president and deputy group head of Hearst Business Media, with primary responsibility for our healthcare businesses under Rich Malloch. Two top executives at our First Databank became executive vice presidents there, Bob Katter and Chuck Tuchinda.
We also successfully went outside of the company for top talent. Hearst Magazines remade its digital leadership team with three major new hires: Troy Young, former president of Say Media, as president of digital; Todd Haskell, former head of digital advertising at The New York Times, as head of digital advertising; and Mike Smith, former president of Forbes.com, to lead our innovation efforts marrying technology and advertising sales.
Private equity executive Jeff Johnson, a former publisher of the Los Angeles Times, became publisher of the San Francisco Chronicle, and Nancy Barnes, who led the Minneapolis Star Tribune to a Pulitzer Prize last year, became editor of the Houston Chronicle. Mike DeLuca, a Groupon sales leader, became president of LocalEdge.
Dr. Justin Graham, formerly chief medical information officer at NorthBay Healthcare in California, became head of innovation for our healthcare operations, and David Vogler left digital ad agency The Wonderfactory to become executive creative director of Hearst Digital Studios.
All our operating groups benefit from the great support provided by our corporate teams: finance, led by Chief Financial Officer Mitch Scherzer; legal, led by Chief Legal and Development Officer Jim Asher and General Counsel Eve Burton; and communications, headed by Chief Communications Officer Debra Shriver.
We lost a significant member of our corporate team this year with the tragic death of Ron Doerfler, senior vice president of finance and administration. A trustee and board member, Ron served this company with great distinction for 15 years and served our partners at what was then Capital Cities/ABC (now part of our partners the Walt Disney Company) similarly for many years before that. He will be greatly missed.
We head into 2014 with a great deal of optimism due in no small measure to the innovation and dedication each of you show to Hearst each day. On behalf of our chairman, Will Hearst, and executive vice chairman, Frank Bennack, I want to thank you for all you do to make this the great company that we are all so fortunate to serve.
Steven R. Swartz
President & CEO
Hearst Corporation


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DBpediaDBpedia.org is a community effort to extract structured information from Wikipedia and to make this information available on the Web. DBpedia allows you to ask sophisticated...
LexvoAbout Data exposed: Linguistic Data Size of dump and data set: ~40MB Openness Download dump: CC-BY-SA 3.0 license The web service additionally provides some parts that are not...
OpenCycAbout Now it is even easier to use the rich and diverse collection of real-world concepts in OpenCyc to bring meaning to your semantic web applications! The full OpenCyc...
U.S. Census dataDuplicate of package:2000-us-census-rdf
SIMILE Data CollectionAbout Data exposed: various data sets including CIA's World Factbook, Library of Congress' Thesaurus of Graphic Materials, National Cancer Institute's cancer thesaurus, Web...
Semantic BibleData exposed: (for New Testament Names) is a semantic knowledge base describing each named thing in the New Testament Size of dump and data set: about 600 names NTNames base URI...
Rpm FindData exposed: data exposed? Size of dump and data set: expands to about 1.3GB
Quotations BookData exposed: at least 42,000 famous quotations with author and subject Size of dump and data set: size?
Open DirectoryData exposed: — Size of dump and data set: size? Notes: this is the classic RDF source but historically has had some problems with RDF correctness.
NLM 2007 MeSHAbout Data exposed: NLM 2007 MeSH Size of dump and data set: 13 MB Notes: MeSH MOU Openness Appears to be in public domain. Copyright pages states: Government information at...
Neurocommons text mining pilotAbout The complete dataset is composed of a set of smaller datasets. Each download is in one of two formats: (1) WARC or (2) tar.gz. You can read about the WARC format by...
MeSH titlesData exposed: Extracted from 2007 Medline baseline distribution Size of dump and data set: 670 MB Notes: contact Medline for use terms
MeSH pairsData exposed: NLM 2007 MeSH descriptor/qualifier pairs Size of dump and data set: 13 MB Openness: OPEN See http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/termscon.html (basically attribution with...
MeSH headingsAbout Data exposed: List of all associations of MeSH headings to papers indexed by Medline extracted from 2007 Medline baseline distribution Size of dump and data set: 758 MB...
HomologeneData exposed: what? Size of dump and data set: 626 KB Notes: NCBI Copyright and Disclaimers
GO annotations from National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and ...Data exposed: GO annotations from National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) Size of dump and data set: 73 MB Openness...
Freebase RDF StoreDuplicate of package:freebase Data exposed: Freebase Views of Freebase Topics following the principles of Linked Data. The dataset extractions contain aggregated data from:...
Fly-TEDData exposed: derived from data published by www.fly-ted.org and provides metadata on images depicting in situ hybridisation in D. melanogaster testes. Size of dump and data...
FlyAtlasData exposed: FlyAtlas and Affy D2 probe-to-gene Size of dump and data set: size? Notes: also found in the of SPARQL Endpoints
Entrez Gene ExtractData exposed: Entrez Gene Extract from [ftp://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gene/DATA/gene_info.gz] Size of dump and data set: 5.6 MB Notes: NCBI Copyright and Disclaimers