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Featured Articles
Spring 2008, pp. 4-15
Dr. Martin L. Cook is Professor of Philosophy and Deputy Department Head at the US Air Force Academy. He has previously taught at the US Army War College, Santa Clara University, the College of William and Mary, Gustavus Adolphus College, and St. John's College. He holds master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Chicago and a bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois.
"Let's see who we've got here tonight. General Moseley, Air Force Chief of Staff. General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They still support Rumsfeld. Right, you guys aren't retired yet, right? Right, they still support Rumsfeld. Look, by the way, I've got a theory about how to handle these retired generals causing all this trouble: don't let them retire! Come on, we've got a stop-loss program; let's use it on these guys."- Comedian Stephen Colbert, at a 2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner
The fact that a joke like that could be told in front of an audience including the President, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Chief of Staff, and many other Washington dignitaries spoke volumes for the state of relations between senior military leaders and their civilian superiors. For those recently retired general officers who chose to go public with their criticisms of then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (and by implication the Iraq policy), clearly the situation had reached a point where they felt it was part of their obligation to the profession of arms and the American people to dissent. Such intense criticism from military officers who previously held positions of great responsibility in implementing the Administration's policies is something rarely seen in American history. This article will attempt to assess the ethical considerations that bear on officers contemplating such action in any future civil-military crisis.
Military Professionalism
The question of the nature of military professionalism and the distinctive demands of professional obligations has received considerable analysis in recent years. By far the greatest contribution to this discussion has been from the Army, centered on the Army Professionalism project at West Point which culminated in the publication of The Future of the Army Profession.1 The impetus for that project and a series of related articles was a fear that Army officers were losing a sense of their profession and its obligations and risked becoming, in the words of Dr. Don Snider, the project director, "a merely obedient bureaucracy."
In the face of that perceived risk, Snider (and the many other authors on the project) called for a renewed sense of the distinctive features of a profession, including commitment to a body of abstract knowledge that the profession is obligated to apply and improve. That knowledge, the authors argued, constitutes the unique expertise of the profession and commitment to it, the touchstone of intellectual independence required of the profession.
An implication of that line of reasoning was that the profession's members have an ethical obligation to apply existing professional knowledge to the highest degree possible when confronted with operational challenges, while maintaining an ability to adapt that knowledge to novel requirements and operational demands. Because the project's analysis is linked to the particular theory of professions developed by Andrew Abbott, who views professions as engaged diachronically in a struggle for professional "jurisdiction," this aspect of the analysis highlighted the need for any profession to "adapt or die" as it evolves in competition with other claimants on the expertise relevant to its own historical area of expertise.2
On the other side of this debate, there was a perception in the administration of President Clinton that a good deal of the military disrespected the President personally and disapproved of his uses of military force, especially in the Balkans. Such interventions placed the military in a role that many within the profession considered inappropriate for a military focused on "fighting and winning America's wars" (what then-Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki referred to as "the Army's non-negotiable contract with the American people").
It was in that environment that a number of writers penned cautions that the essential subordination of the military to civilian leadership was in question. The most comprehensive and strident of these analyses were those of Thomas Ricks in his novel A Soldier's Duty, which imagined the military's deliberate evasion of orders from its military superiors, and of Professor Richard H. Kohn at the University of North Carolina.3
More recently, a number of voices have been raised arguing that professional military advice was not heeded by the Bush Administration's civilian leadership.4 The concern was virtually the opposite of that voiced during the Clinton years. Instead of choosing insubordination, the claim was that by deferring to the strongly held convictions regarding novel ways of warfighting on the part of Secretary Rumsfeld and others in the hierarchy, the military's leadership accepted war plans and troop numbers at variance with their best professional judgment.5
It was in this context that several authors argued that the process of congressional oversight of military affairs was badly broken, for two reasons: Congress had largely abdicated its responsibility in recent years, and the culture of the officer corps had evolved an excessive sense of obligation to the Executive branch of government, thereby neglecting the equal if not greater responsibility to give forthright and honest military assessments to Congress.6 That, these authors argued, was a venue in which it was part of a senior officer's professional obligation to give his or her unvarnished professional opinion to congressional members and hearings.
For nearly a decade, H. R. McMaster's book Dereliction of Duty has deeply informed the ethos and self-understanding of the officer corps.7 McMaster's demonstration of the complicity of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the formulation and continuance of misguided policies in Vietnam has served as a cautionary tale in many thoughtful officers' minds. According to General Anthony Zinni, former commander of US Central Command, "[then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] General Hugh Shelton sent copies of McMaster's book to every four-star general in the US military.
The message to us, after we heard this from Hugh Shelton, is that will never happen here. And the message to us from Secretary [William S.] Cohen at that time, too, is that the door is always open, and your obligation to the Congress, which is an obligation to the American people to tell them what you think, still stands strong. And that's the expectation that we have. They did not ever want to hear that we had a problem, something sticking in our craw, that we didn't bring up to them, that we didn't honestly express if we felt it had to be expressed.8
As Richard Kohn summarized the "lesson learned" from McMaster's analysis, "There was a deep bitterness over Vietnam and the way the [service] chiefs had been co-opted. . . . [Army officers] said, 'We're never going to put up with this again, we're not going to be put in that position again by civilians.'"9
A new dimension to this debate emerged two years ago with the public criticism of Administration policy and of Secretary Rumsfeld in particular by a number of recently retired flag officers. In almost every case these officers had been in the inner circle of policy formation or execution of the Administration.10
This level of public criticism and dissent from such a large number of highly placed military leaders immediately following their service is without precedent. Never in American history have so many senior military leaders, apparently devoid of partisan political motive, felt the need or obligation to speak out publicly regarding policy and leadership during an ongoing conflict.
The novelty of this event in the midst of the extended debate about the obligations and nature of military professionalism cries out for normative analysis. Is such criticism, at least on some understandings of the circumstances and motives of the critics, indeed a manifestation of the highest standards of military professionalism? Or is it, on the contrary, a kind of reprehensible and unprofessional insubordination to duly elected political leaders and their appointees?11
It is important to set aside a number of potentially distracting related questions before launching into a normative analysis of this issue. First, there is no question whatsoever of the legal right de facto of such officers to say anything they wish.12 De facto because, as Richard Swain has recently argued, retired officers, since they are still technically part of the military and receiving military pay, might arguably be bound by exactly the same rules as serving officers. But there has never been any inclination to take that view of the matter from the legal community. As retired officers, they regain full First Amendment liberties that are necessarily somewhat curtailed while they are in uniform. Second, retired flag officers using their moral and political weight to attempt to influence political matters have already become a routine event. Every presidential candidate in recent years has organized retired senior officers to offer endorsements. Surely, one might argue, if it is acceptable for retired officers to use their status in this way for generalized partisan political endorsement, it should be orders of magnitude more appropriate for them to offer criticisms of political leaders and policies narrowly focused on areas of their specific military expertise.13
Many observers have roundly criticized those retired officers on a number of counts. Dr. Don Snider, in an unpublished talk at West Point, argued that such criticism undermines the confidence of young officers, who might think "Did he really feel this way when I was fighting for him in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and if he did why did he not resign right then?"14
Even more scathingly, Dr. Snider cited Samuel Huntington's classic statement that military people should stay out of political matters entirely, and asserted that the revolt of the generals ". . . casts the Army profession, and its current strategic leadership (too timid to speak out like us) in a very negative light."15 In this assessment, the retired general officer critics are crossing a line demarcating political judgment from proper military expertise that ought, in Snider's assessment, to be a sharp and clear distinction.
Lastly, before turning to a normative analysis of the problem, it is important to acknowledge and then try to set aside the specific political judgments regarding the war in Iraq. Now that the United States is five years into it, clearly almost all the assumptions on which it was based (both in terms of the justifying causes and the predictions of how it would play out) have been shown to be incorrect, leaving to future historians the task of determining what proportions were a result of self-delusion, duplicity, or honest mistakes.
Others, of course, have and will judge these matters differently. While it is important to acknowledge that these judgments and the feelings surrounding them are deeply divisive to American society, the purpose of this article is not criticism or defense of specific judgments. Rather, the task at hand is to try, even in the midst of political passions, to extend the normative thinking regarding military professionalism that has been so helpfully advanced in recent years.
Toward a Normative Analysis
One way to try to approach a problem in principle is to frame it as a hypothetical situation. It is important, of course, that the hypothetical be plausible in real-world terms and further, since this discussion arises from specific events, that it be at least one possible interpretation of those events. On the other hand, the advantage of the hypothetical framing of the issue is that it allows us to state the issue as a matter of in-principle terms rather than be bogged down with every detail of specific personalities and events.
Suppose you're a general officer who has given frequent and repeated advice to political leadership regarding the military feasibility of operational and strategic goals. Suppose your advice is firm that the goals sought cannot be attained by the military means the civilian leaders are willing to commit, or not attainable (in your judgment) by military means at all. Of course, one can deploy forces in pursuit of those goals. It's just that, in your opinion, all efforts will be expended in a futile end. In particular, your advice about the size and composition of the force required to have any hope of achieving the stated goals is completely disregarded in favor of an employment you believe is doomed to fail.
Once it became clear that the political leadership thought otherwise, you saluted smartly and did your best to carry out the administration's bidding. Now, you find yourself a couple of years into that deployment and having a severe case of "I told you so." You believe even more strongly now then when you gave the advice at the beginning, that your initial opinions were correct.
At the outset, you told yourself, "I could be mistaken," and "Perhaps the political leadership knows something I don't know." By now it's apparent you were initially correct and the political leadership did not in fact know anything that would have changed your judgment.
So in your judgment the continuance of current policy will never achieve political goals and will result in continually mounting casualties and degradation of your service's equipment, readiness, etc. Furthermore, you're aware that there are other threats that, because you're deployed on this one, you couldn't possibly find the resources to deal with militarily if you had to.
In such a circumstance, what do you do? Are you exactly where McMaster put the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Vietnam? What are your options? You can continue to go along, digging deeper into what you consider an impossible situation. You can't overtly criticize policy in uniform except, perhaps, by using your congressional testimony opportunities to give your unvarnished opinions. Needless to say, if the issue at stake is a mere garden-variety disagreement regarding policy, no deep moral dilemma is involved. But if the policy is, in your carefully examined opinion, over a matter of extreme importance and threatens significant and long-term costs to the military, national interest, and health of the body politic, a genuine dilemma arises.
If you retire, might it not in fact be part of your continuing professional obligation and your responsibility to your friends and troops still serving to try to extricate them from this situation? Might it not also be important for the future credibility of the military and its leadership to show independent professional judgment in such a situation rather than appear to be going along, only to have the historians document that the military leadership was yet again complicit concerning the realities it faced?
These are difficult questions. Furthermore, one is rightly hesitant to make an argument that insubordination is the correct choice, because the risk is large that doing so will be construed as permission for military leaders to routinely and publicly dissent from the policies of elected political leaders. So if one is to make a case for public dissent of any sort, it has to be hedged with qualifiers and cautions. Any such argument pertains only to the most extreme situations where, in the conscientious judgment of the senior leader, what is at stake is the fundamental security of the United States and the constitutional processes.
As was mentioned earlier, at one extreme of the debate is the position articulated by Richard Swain. Swain argues strongly (and cites law) to make the point that retired officers are in every sense still members of the armed forces. He correctly points out that they are subject to recall to active duty, take pay as retirees, and still hold commissions. Therefore, he argues they are subject to exactly the same restrictions as active-duty personnel. Swain writes:
[I]t is at least a false proposition that upon retirement officers revert to full civilian status in so far as the obligations they undertook at their commissioning. Retirement is not resignation. It is a matter of fact, not interpretation, that retired officers remain members of the armed forces by law and regulation. . . . [U]nless like George Washington they lay down their commissions by resignation, it is reasonable to assume that they remain at least ethically obliged to observe the limitations imposed by commissioned service, accepted by the oath they made and commission they still hold.16
While Swain makes a strong legal case, actual practice clearly tolerates much wider latitude in conduct by retired officers than the standard he articulates. Further, properly used, the expertise of retired officers who are freer to speak on policy than they were in uniform appears on balance a valuable national resource for informing public debate regarding those policies. Deprived of such input, the nation would have only the government's position and the comparatively non-expert opinion of nonmilitary commentators. Any attempt to make Swain's standard the reality would almost certainly be used selectively by civilian superiors eager to silence retired-officer critics, while encouraging their supporters to continue as advocates.
At the other extreme is the view derived from some interpretations of McMaster's book. In that view, senior leaders who have strong dissenting perspectives from an administration's policy have an obligation to speak out or resign in protest. Determined not ever again to be the moral equivalents to President Lyndon Johnson's "five silent men" (as the JCS were called), defenders of this view hark back to General Harold K. Johnson's retrospective reflections on his own silence:
I remember the day I was ready to go over to the Oval Office and give my four stars to the President and tell him, "You have refused to tell the country they cannot fight a war without mobilization; you have required me to send men into battle with little hope of their ultimate victory; and you have forced us in the military to violate almost every one of the principles of war in Vietnam. Therefore, I resign and will hold a press conference after I walk out of your door."17
Of course neither General Johnson nor any other senior leader did any such thing during the Vietnam conflict. For many readers, the lesson they at least think they learn from McMaster is that, should equivalent events occur on their watch, they should be prepared to submit their resignations. Chairman Shelton's comments, quoted from General Zinni previously, certainly seem to imply a readiness on his part to take precisely that course of action, should the occasion have arisen.
Retired Navy chaplain (Captain) George M. Clifford III attempts to provide the kind of fine-grained ethical analysis this particular situation requires. He distinguishes four categories of issues which might raise the dissent issue in increasing levels of severity:
-An assigned responsibility the officer can perform with minimal moral discomfort.
-An assigned responsibility the officer can perform only with substantial moral discomfort.
-An assigned responsibility the officer can perform only at the cost of significantly compromising his or her moral standards.
-An assigned responsibility the officer cannot perform.18
The easy cases (at least theoretically) are the first and last categories. The first is easy because the officer's objection is not morally significant; the last is easy because it rises to the category of "illegal orders" which officers are expected to disobey.19
The difficult categories are the second and third. Obviously, there is no way to sharply demarcate between these categories, and individual officers will draw the line in their own lives and conduct differently. As Clifford writes, "No officer, of any grade, who has a strong sense of morality will likely serve for very long without being assigned a responsibility to which he or she morally objects. Yet unless the situation involves grave consequences for others or the nation, the nation rightly expects military officers to do their duty"-i.e., obey.20 In other words, if the moral difficulty remains in the "category two" level for given officers, they should subordinate their own moral judgment to the necessities of obedience and good order.
The dilemma posed by the third category cannot be so blithely dismissed. While there is no bright line indicating when an issue is moving to this level of discomfort, as Clifford notes, it deals mostly with "the degree and amount of harm or other evil caused by complying with an assigned responsibility."21 Minimally, an officer confronting a very high degree of harm which he or she perceives to be the consequence of a policy from which the officer strongly dissents has the obligation to make every effort to be heard. Of course, an officer owes loyalty to civilian superiors, but there are other competing loyalties at work too: to military subordinates, to the health of the military services themselves, and to the long-term health of the perception of the moral integrity of the military services by their fellow citizens.
Of course, the "obligation to make every effort to be heard" should, in almost every case, be in unambiguously appropriate venues. What are those? Behind closed doors with other senior leaders one would expect and hope for candid discussion by participants. Obviously (although in practice more difficult to accomplish well), candor is appropriate before appropriate bodies of Congress, where senior leaders are expected and required to give honest military assessments.22 In the ideal situation, all participants would emerge from these discussions feeling that they had expressed their opinions, they had been "heard" at the appropriate level, and were satisfied that even if the decision were not in their favor, they could understand and accept the rationale.
What about the case when all does not go so well? In an article, retired General Richard Myers and Dick Kohn argue that "there was no 'truce' between the military and civilians after 9/11 because there had never been a war. There was just the friction and distrust (never open but exacerbated by Rumsfeld's approach and style) inherent in US civil-military relations."23 In other words, in their analysis, the situation was not a crisis in civil-military relations, but only a somewhat extreme position on the normal scale of tension inherent in the American system.
Clearly, the senior officers who publicly dissented did not view the situation in that way. One of them, in a private conversation, called it a "constitutional crisis" and argued that only such a grave situation could possibly have motivated him to breach the normal self-restraint of self-expression by officers. What kind of disagreement might warrant the conclusion that the situation was so extreme and placed the decision firmly in Clifford's third category of moral objection?
The first such case is so extreme that one might argue it falls into the illegal order category-although not according to the common definition of illegal orders, to violate the jus in bello rules of just war. The Nüremberg Trials distinguished three distinct categories of war crimes. The more familiar are violations of the law of war and crimes against humanity. The third, crimes against peace, is defined as "(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances; (ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i)."24
Although it is hard to know precisely what retired Lieutenant General Greg Newbold, one of the critics, meant when he described Iraq as "an unnecessary war," it is reasonable to interpret him as saying that his continued participation in planning the war would mean he was taking part in a war crime of this type. For the purposes of moral analysis, the analyst does not have to determine whether he or she agrees with that assessment, but only that (if this is the correct interpretation) General Newbold sincerely believes it to be the case. That no one in the US government is likely to be prosecuted for such a crime in the current geopolitical environment is also irrelevant. One can certainly see why an officer who believes the situation approaches this level would be, at a minimum, in Clifford's category three of moral distress.
Another area where public dissent should at least be entertained when appropriate is the case where an officer is as cognizant as possible of the details of the war plan and, in the full exercise of his or her professional military judgment, honestly believes the plan will have disastrous consequences for the nation and the forces about to be committed. This is not a matter of the plan having simple flaws or weaknesses. Rather, the case has to appear as much as possible (for a matter which is inherently a matter of professional judgment) to being a recipe for disaster according to every principle of professional military judgment available to the officer. Here, surely, if the standard for officers is to exercise professional judgment rather than lapse into the role of merely obedient bureaucrats, this is the moment where they are expected to not willingly participate in executing the plan.
Officers' sincere belief (even if objectively mistaken) that they are in such a situation justifies their taking advantage of the opportunity to leave their positions (if permissible by law). At the senior level, it is apparent that retirements requested for such reasons will normally be granted-if only for the practical reason that no one would want a plan executed by an officer who has no faith in it.
What about the last step: publicly criticizing leaders and plans from the newly acquired position of the retired officer? Any rationale supporting this should, of course, be developed grudgingly for all the excellent reasons the critics of the "revolt of the generals" cite. An absolute rule against such proclamation, however, flies in the face of any notion of fundamental moral responsibility and loyalty to the nation and Constitution. There can be no algorithmic rule, of course, to determine the proper threshold for such extraordinary dissent. Chaplain Clifford, in fact, moves to an analysis of the virtues of prudence, courage, and temperance in an attempt to guide such choices, in the end, concurring with Aristotle's claims about such virtues remaining valid: There is no rule for them, except "we know virtue when we see it."
It is on this point that Clifford faults General Newbold. He writes, "General Newbold's decision to retire in 2002 exemplifies the inadequacy of [the option of just retiring]. His departure caused no waves and apparently did not prompt a reexamination of the policies and plans with which he so vehemently disagreed."25
Instead, Clifford argues:
If [Newbold] could have made a persuasive case against the policies and plans he found morally objectionable without revealing classified information, then, given the magnitude of the issues at stake, he should have [resigned and spoken out] instead of [merely retiring]. That failure points to deficiencies in one or more of these three virtues: prudence (lacked wisdom to see the full importance of the issues at the time he resigned), courage (too timid), or temperance (too concerned about his position on the team or future influence).26
Although seemingly a harsh judgment, everything in the argument developed to this point suggests it is correct. To approve such a position is to run great risk of appearing to countenance insubordination whenever there is dissent regarding policy. Clearly, that is not intended, and the author has argued elsewhere against such dissent.27
In any profession, there are situations where the clearly foreseeable negative consequences of playing by the professional rules are so great that prudence expects those rules to be set aside. For example, a court case in California ruled that, although psychiatrists have a near absolute requirement of confidentiality toward their patients, that requirement must be set aside when warning potential victims of violence can save lives, adding a "duty to warn" to the moral requirements of the profession.28
Similarly, if the intellectual component of military professionalism means anything, it encompasses rare cases of unambiguous bad military judgments that promise to have disastrous consequences. In such cases the obligations of military professionals, precisely because they are professionals and not merely obedient bureaucrats, need to exceed the conduct governed by rules derived from more routine contexts.
This article is based on the author's presentations to the Interuniversity Seminar on the Armed Forces and Society on 27 October 2007 and the International Symposium on Military Ethics at the University of San Diego on 25 January 2008.
1. Don M. Snider and Lloyd J. Matthews, eds., The Future of the Army Profession (2d ed.; Boston: McGraw-Hill Custom Publishing, 2005).
2. Andrew Abbott, The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1988).
3. Richard H. Kohn, "Out of Control: The Crisis in Civil-Military Relations," The National Interest, 35 (Spring 1994), 3-17. See also Marybeth Peterson Ulrich, "Infusing Normative Civil-Military Relations Principles in the Officer Corps," in The Future of the Army Profession, 655-82. Martin L. Cook, "The Proper Role of Professional Military Advice in Contemporary Uses of Force," Parameters, 32 (Winter 2002-03), 21-33.
4. The most extensive discussion of this question can be found in Michael C. Desch, "Bush and the Generals," Foreign Affairs, 86 (May/June 2007) and in the articles critiquing Desch's piece in the "Salute and Disobey?" section of the September/October 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs which has separate pieces from Richard B. Myers and Richard Kohn (who reject most of Desch's claims as overstated), Mackubin Thomas Owens (who asserts the military's willing complicity in most of the flawed assumptions of the war plan for Iraq), and Lawrence Korb (who argues the deeper problem is the Bush Administration's tendency to use the military as a stage prop for its policies, specifically criticizing General David Petraeus for publishing an op-ed piece in The Washington Post supporting President Bush's policies in Iraq on the eve of the 2004 election). Korb and Desch are correct that the deeper issue is the military being manipulated in a fashion where "support the troops" seemed for much of this period to mean "don't criticize the policy." It's hard to know how this can be controlled when the Commander-in-Chief requests backdrops of uniformed soldiers at speaking event after speaking event.
5. It is important to note that General Myers and Richard Kohn, in their critique of Desch's Foreign Affairs piece, strongly deny this claim. At most, they argue, ". . . the combatant commander often found the probing and questioning of plans by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff distasteful. But in the end, all involved supported the final plan regardless of the disagreements along the way." "The Military's Place," Foreign Affairs, 86 (September/October 2007), 147.
6. Marybeth Ulrich and Martin L. Cook, "US Civil Military Relations Since 9/11: Issues in Ethics and Policy Development," The Journal of Military Ethics (forthcoming).
7. H. R. McMaster, Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to Vietnam (New York: Harper Collins, 1997).
8. "Gen. Anthony Zinni, USMC, (Ret.) Remarks at CDI Board of Directors Dinner, May 12, 2004," Center for Defense Information, 22 May 2004, http://www.cdi.org/program/document.cfm?DocumentID=2208. It is striking how central McMaster's book has become to all sides of this debate. Owens, in particular, places much of the blame for the current confusion in civil-military relations on what he considers a misreading of the book, which leads (he claims) to "a widespread belief that officers should be advocates of particular policies rather than simply serving in their traditional advisory roles." "Failure's Many Fathers," Foreign Affairs, 86 (September/October 2007), 150.
9. Peter Spiegel and Paul Richter, "Anti-Rumsfeld Chorus Grows," The Los Angeles Times, 13 April 2006.
10. These officers include Major General Charles Swannack, recently retired from commanding the 82d Airborne Division; Major General John Batiste, former commander of the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq and former adviser to then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz in the buildup to the war; former general and former Secretary of State Colin Powell; Lieutenant General Greg Newbold, retired Director of Operations for the Joint Staff who retired early largely because of his opposition to the war; and Major General Paul Eaton, in charge of training the new Iraqi military force. In addition, former Central Command commander General Anthony Zinni has been a harsh critic of the war from its inception, as has Lieutenant General William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency, and former CENTCOM commander General Joseph Hoare. All told, several retired general officers specifically called for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's resignation. Greg Jaffe, "The Two Star Rebel," The Wall Street Journal, 13 May 2006, A1.
11. Obviously, since all the officers in question are retired, they are not technically insubordinate since they are no longer in a chain of command. The professional status of retired general officers (perhaps especially recently retired ones coming from pivotal positions from which to have observed policy and implementation intimately) is an important professional ethical question. Clearly, the force of their criticisms and the weight it carries with the public, the media, and the Congress result from their former military status.
12. Even this is debatable. Title 10 of the United States Code clearly includes retired members of the active-duty force as full members of the force. They have not resigned their commissions, and they are still under the jurisdiction of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Despite this, however, there is no precedent I could locate for disciplining or charging a retired officer who criticized politicians, policies, or practices in ways that would clearly not be acceptable if they were still in uniform. Further, it would be very difficult to do so for any single individual without the clear appearance of selective enforcement, given the prevalence of retired officers serving as "media consultants" for the 24-hour news cycle and, perhaps more alarmingly, using their status as retired officers as a platform from which to endorse political candidates.
13. On the other hand, one might really question the wisdom of officers' trading on their military prestige to weigh in on one side of a bimodal political divide involving mostly issues on which they have no expertise whatsoever. Snider, in an unpublished West Point talk, comments as follows: "Unless the services can self-police their retired ranks through moral suasion, the risks of such increased erosion of civilian-military norms (a nonpartisan military) is likely, at some point, to be corrected by legislation that the military, retired and active, will not welcome."
14. Don Snider, e-mail message to author.
15. Ibid.
16. Richard Swain, "Reflection on an Ethic of Officership," Parameters, 37 (Spring 2007), 19.
17. Cited in George M. Clifford III, "Duty at All Costs," Naval War College Review, 60 (Winter 2007), 103.
18. Ibid., 106.
19. I stress that the illegal category is "easy" only theoretically. In actual practice, militaries do a mediocre job at preparing officers and enlisted personnel to recognize illegal orders, and even less to create structures to encourage disobedience. Mark Osiel's book, Obeying Orders: Atrocity, Military Discipline, and the Law of War (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1999) is a superb attempt to spell out ways in which this could be substantially improved, while retaining due deference to the necessities of good order and discipline.
20. Clifford, 108.
21. Ibid.
22. A perfect example of the complexity of this problem in practice occurred in September 2007 when General Petraeus, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, was asked by Senator John Warner whether invading Iraq had made America safer. General Petraeus's careful answer confined itself to how best handle the immediate issue before him in trying to manage Iraq. He clearly evaded the question Senator Warner was asking him: whether the strategic justifications for going to Iraq were valid in the first place. In my opinion, he was correct to do so, since it invited a wholly retrospective judgment about decisions made years before the responsibility was his. It is an interesting question whether a regional combatant commander, confronted with a similar question from Congress on the eve of a military operation, would be within the scope of his or her professional competence to offer a strategic assessment of the wisdom of the administration's contemplated and imminent military engagement. In this author's opinion, it would be.
23. Myers and Kohn, 147.
24. International Committee of the Red Cross, "Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nüremberg Trial and in the Judgment of the Tribunal, 1950," http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/390?OpenDocument.
25. Clifford, 120.
26. Ibid., 124.
27. Martin L. Cook, "The Moral Role of Professional Military Advice," in The Moral Warrior: Ethics and Service in the U.S. Military (Albany: SUNY Press, 2004).
28. Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California, 17 Cal. 3d 425 (1976).
Also available online at:
http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/ parameters/08spring/cook.htm


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text: iTunes 8 Makes It Easy to Convert Any File to an Audiobook 2Adam Pash and 65 others EditDelete InviteInvite manuallyPromoteXDismissXUndismissBlock for LifehackerHide iTunes 8 has added simple under-the-radar feature that allows you to quickly and easily tag any file in your iTunes library as an audiobook and move it into the Audiobooks section of iTunes and your iPod. The simple trick? Just right-click a track and select Get Info, head to the Options tab, and then select Audiobook… » 10/16/08 2:00pm 10/16/08 2:00pm


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MomentumOptionsTrading.com Morning Update for 5/19/14
Mixed Week Reveals Bullish and Bearish Signs
9:00am (EST)
The market started the week with a run at fresh all-time highs that helped lift Tech and small-caps off the mat.
I mentioned the day after Mother's Day is usually very bullish with a 75%-80% chance of an up day but much of the credit goes to a fairly non-violent weekend between Ukraine and Russia after the voting polls were opened.
Terrific Tuesday was mixed as the bulls pushed their win streak to 5-straight on the Dow but Tech and the small-caps struggled and offered signs a top might be in.
Wednesday's pullback heightened those suspicions and Thursday's plunge back below prior support levels looked convincing by the bears. However, the bulls won Friday's action as the indexes finished off their lows for week with the major averages holding in a continued trading range. (continued…)


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Story hour
Children, ages 3-5 with a caregiver, can enjoy songs, stories, crafts and fun Thursdays, 10 a.m., at the T.O.H.P. Burnham Library, 30 Martin St. Call 978-768-7410 or email email@example.com.
Game night
Game night, for teens in grades seven to 12, will take place Friday, Nov. 30, 6 to 8 p.m., at the T.O.H.P. Burnham Library, 30 Martin St. Snacks, door prize and lots of board games available.
Cursillo ultreya
The Cape Ann cursillo community will host its next ultreya and pot-luck Saturday, Dec. 8, at St. John the Baptist Church in Essex. The pot-luck is at 5 p.m., followed by the ultreya at 6 p.m. All are welcome and need not have been on a cursillo encounter weekend to attend. Call Al Mitchell at 978-879-3655.
Nutcracker party
On Saturday, Dec. 8, 2 p.m., children 5 and older, can settle into the season at the T.O.H.P. Burnham Library with storyteller Carolyn Martino narrating the spellbinding Christmas classic "The Nutcracker," followed by holiday fare. Tickets are free, but always a sell out! Call 978-768-7410 asap, or email email@example.com to reserve your seat. Funded by the Friends of the Library.
Jewelry party
On Monday, Nov. 26, join a jewelry party and support the library at 7 p.m. Hosted by the Friends of the T.O.H.P. Burnham Library. Library member Patty Roundy, 57 Martin St. Shop for Holiday gifts or treat yourself to something special. A percentage of sales support the library. Can't make the date? The Premier Designs catalog is available for preorder or preview in the library. Special bonus: If you spend $75, get any item (up to $50 value) for $5. Visit: www.premierdesigns.com
Holiday baskets
The Open Door Food Pantry needs help to provide holiday meal baskets to local families. A donation of $25 provides a turkey, potatoes, butternut squash, apples, stuffing, cranberry and more. Make checks payable to: The Open Door, with "turkey" on the memo line, 28 Emerson Ave., Gloucester, MA 01930. The Open Door serves residents of Gloucester, Rockport, Manchester, Essex and Ipswich. To donate online, visit www.foodpantry.org.


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1965 V.W. Convertible - 1300 C.C. - 4 Speed - Rare - $16,950... More
1962 HOT ROD DUNE BUGGY: MEYERS MANX STYLE. WHAT A COOL 60'S STYLE HOT ROD DUNE BUGGY ! RUNS AND LOOKS EXCELLENT WITH... More
Today as it was decades ago it's fairly cheap and easy to get into a VW Beetle and start enjoying the best hobby on... More
1957 VOLKSWAGEN BETTLE DELUXE SUNROOF TYPE 1 $28,995.00 This is a pretty amazing little Volkswagen, it is just simply stunning to look at and being... More
1960 VOLKSWAGEN, Very pretty period Java green with gray interior, full professional restoration, Judson supercharger, correct Judson VW air cleaner and Ampco oiler, Sapphire... More
2008 VOLKSWAGEN "TOUAREG 2" 4XMotion All Wheel Drive Premium Luxury Sport Utility! "Flawless" Mirror Black with Dark Anthrecite Leather 5-Passenger, 17"/18" Factory Chrome Wheels w/New Radials, 350... More
This 2003 Volkswagen Beetle convertible would be a very fun car to own. Silver with black leather and a 6-speed transmission make this car... More
For sale is a very groovy car a 1974 Volkswagen Super Beetle convertible. The car is on consignment with us in our St. Louis... More
For sale is a 1979 Volkswagen Super Beetle Wolfsburg Edition. This beautiful Beetle is an actual mileage numbers matching vehicle! The exterior is coated... More
1979 VW Beetle Convertible, Blue Green, Black top, Black interior. 1600 cc Fuel Injected engine, 4 speed manual trans., It has nice paint, and... More
1966 VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE COUPE FINISHED IN CLASSIC PEARL WHITE WITH BEAUTIFUL RED INTERIOR! ONE YEAR ONLY 50-HORSEPOWER 1,300CC ENGINE! #'S MATCHING ENGINE! 4-SPEED MANUAL TRANSMISSION! BEAUTIFULLY RESTORED! ORIGINAL JACK! A CLASSIC... More
This 1979 Volkswagen Bug Convertible features a 1600cc 4-Cyl. cyl Gasoline engine. It is equipped with a 4 Speed Automatic transmission. The vehicle is... More
Here is 1974 Volkswagen T2 Camper in bright pink with white trim. It has the 1.8L boxer engine creating 67 horsepower with a 4... More
Since the minute the first one rolled off the ship in the US the Volkswagen Beetle has been a favorite of customizers. Perhaps it's... More
1961 Volkswagen Beetle. This cherry red bug is fresh off a complete pan-off restoration with only 52 miles showing. It is powered by a... More
This 1969 Volkswagen Beetle 2dr Coupe features a 1776cc 4-Cyl. 4cyl Gasoline engine. It is equipped with a 4 Speed Manual transmission. The vehicle... More
For sale is a 1969 Volkswagen Beetle Convertible. This little cruiser is powered by a 4 cylinder engine backed by a 4 speed... More
This 1972 Volkswagen Beetle Convertible is a nice little cruiser for someone looking for an affordable, reliable car. The 'bug' starts up with no... More
1600 cc air cooled 4 cylinder, 4 speed manual transmission. This never rusted example has undergone an extensive ground up restoration from the rock... More
1960 VW beetle standard, nice solid, previous CA car, nicely kept, orig int, 15,xxx miles on rebuilt 1600, great paint and chrome, new tires,... More
1962 VOLKSWAGON BEETLE, RARE SUN SHADE MODEL, 1800 ENGINE RUNS GREAT, 4 SPEED, HEATER, MIRROR, EXCELLENT RUST FREE BODY, FLOORS, TRUNK, AND ENGINE BAY. CONVERTED TO... More
The Beetle is back! No I don't mean the New Beetle or whatever they're calling the new New Beetle I mean the vintage ones... More
1962 Volkswagon Beetle A custom shade of Blue on the outside with dark red interior with bucket seats and floor shift. A 1200cc four... More
* 1973 Volkswagen Beetle Convertible. This is an air cooled rear engine rear wheel drive automobile. The Beetle is the longest running and most... More
1966 Volkswagen Beetle that is ready to be driven. The car is in light green with a black interior. It is a matching numbers... More
Is there anything the Volkswagen Beetle can't do? It's been everywhere and done everything including apparently becoming a desirable collectable. This 1972 Super Beetle... More
Just when you think you've seen every trick VW Beetle out there something like this wild 1976 targa shows up. Professionally built by Dave... More
Stk. 1688 1966 Volkswagen Beetle Have you ever admired or wanted a classic VW when you were growing up, but never had the chance to... More
Sporty fun and practical! This has it all. Very well equipped with all wheel drive, automatic transmission and more. Inside you will find power... More
This is one fun, sporty car that is a rare find! This R-32 may look small but packs a fast Punch! Takeit for a... More


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Accommodation Russia Listvyanka Belka Hostel
Belka hostel (Lonely Planet Recommended!) is located in the village of Listvyanka, near Lake Baikal. Built from wood, a well-insulated and energy-efficient material, the place is carefully imbedded into the environment.
The main house has four guest rooms with shared facilities: three twins and one dorm for four people. There are two toilets and one shower. Our fully-equipped kitchen is for common use. Each twin room has LCD TV and multimedia players; there is also a common library for all of our guests.
The other solar house has one dormitory room for eight people plus a single room. There are three toilets and one solar shower, a fully-equipped kitchen, a common room with a big-screen TV and a free library of music, films, and photos.
We also have a wonderful Russian banya (sauna) to soothe and relax weary travellers. It is 400R per person per hour, 700R for 2, 1000R for 3 and 1200R for 4 at a time.
Our English-speaking staff is here to help, just ask!
Please note:
Only Cash payment on arrival possible
Check-In Time: Check-in can be arranged immediately upon arrival if the room or bed is available. Otherwise, check-in can be granted at 12pm (noon)
Check-Out Time: Check-out is at 12pm (noon) and guests must hand the keys back to reception.
Have you stayed here? Write a review
Note: It is the responsibility of the hotel chain and/or the individual property to ensure the accuracy of the photos displayed. Travellerspoint is not responsible for any inaccuracies in the photos.
Create your own travel plan and bookmark this hotel on your plan. You can even bookmark hotels found on other websites!
Do you have questions about Listvyanka? You might try asking in our active travel forums and see if anyone else has been there.
Keep your family and friends up to date with your trip by starting your own travel blog!


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go to Bloomberg TV
or my Facebook page has the video : Jack Bass – placed on Facebook today)
Aug. 12 (Bloomberg) — Antivirus Pioneer John McAfee discusses his internet privacy concerns on "Bloomberg West." (Source: Bloomberg)
go to Bloomberg TV
or my Facebook page has the video : Jack Bass – placed on Facebook today)
Aug. 12 (Bloomberg) — Antivirus Pioneer John McAfee discusses his internet privacy concerns on "Bloomberg West." (Source: Bloomberg)
Posted by Jack A. Bass on August 13, 2014
Stocks to Hold Forever
Buy them, forget about them, and never sell them
Three months ago, Marketocracy Master Mike Koza told us what Blackberry (NASDAQ:BBRY) needs to do to deliver a double. The following week, I published the second half of the the article and included the Marketocracy community's thoughts on how Blackberry can produce the double within the next 2 years. Since our last article, Blackberry has been volatile but the stock has risen appreciably, a bit over 28%, and Mike is not selling.
. In a press release dated June 19, included these highlights:
• Cash and investments balance of $3.1 billion at the end of the fiscal first quarter, up from $2.7 billion in the prior quarter
• Adjusted Q1 gross margin of 48%, up from 43% in the prior quarter
• Reduced adjusted operating expenses by 57% year over year and 13% quarter over quarter
John Chen, Blackberry's CEO, seems to have stemmed the negative cash flow and thereby reduced the risk that the company would have to accept a bad deal for shareholders in order to raise cash. Stabilizing the company's cash flow is a great first step on the way to a double and in my view justifies the increase in the stock price we've seen so far.
The next item on Mike's list is for the company to start growing again by focusing on the services that a security conscious professional needs in order to conduct real business.
Blackberry will never sell as many phones as Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) because its products are not geared for users whose mobile messaging needs are mostly 3 character text messages or 140 character tweets. But while Blackberry's core users are not as numerous as Apple's, they value their mobile messaging service highly and are willing to pay a premium for it because it enhances their ability to conduct business.
Apple recognizes the attractiveness of the security conscious professional market because they recently announced a joint venture with IBM (NYSE:IBM) to go after it. The threat of Apple and IBM taking market share away from Blackberry in their core market is a new development that needs to be monitored.
It is too early to tell if John Chen will be successful in growing the business, but he is already taking some needed steps. On July 21, Chen hired Marty Beard (who he worked with at Sybase) to be his new COO. John Chen can't rebuild Blackberry on his own. His success depends on getting great people to join his team. The fact that someone with Marty Beard's background and credibility would risk his career to join Blackberry at this time is a big vote of confidence for John Chen's plans for Blackberry.
When a stock moves up 28% in a few months, it is tempting to sell it and lock-in a gain. But the stock market does not offer many opportunities for doubles so routinely selling stocks just when the market is starting to agree with your investment thesis is a sure way to cut your winners off before they come to fruition thereby generating a poor long-term investment track record.
Great value investors like Mike Koza do their homework so when events start to play out in their favor they have the confidence to hold on for bigger gains, and the track record to back up their confidence.
Posted by Jack A. Bass on August 1, 2014
BlackBerry Ltd. (BBRY), pushing further into security services, agreed to buy Secusmart GmbH, a provider of anti-eavesdropping technology whose clients include German officials such as Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Secusmart, a Dusseldorf, Germany-based company that already had a partnership with BlackBerry, makes voice and data encryption for mobile phones. Financial terms weren't disclosed. The acquisition is BlackBerry's first since the hiring last November of Chief Executive Officer John Chen, who vowed to cut losses by focusing on services to corporations and governments.
Now, having stabilized the Waterloo, Ontario-based company, Chen said in an interview yesterday that he's laying the groundwork for hiring and sales growth. With Secusmart, BlackBerry aims to capitalize on demand for spy-proofing technology in the wake of revelations about U.S. government surveillance tactics, including allegations that Merkel's mobile phone was tapped.
The deal is still subject to regulatory approval. Chen said he's confident Germany will approve the sale, especially since the government already uses BlackBerry phones and software.
At a time of backlash against U.S. companies, including the German government's decision not to renew a Verizon Communications Inc. contract, Chen said it doesn't hurt being a Canadian company.
"Canadians are very neutral, as you know," said Chen, who grew up in Hong Kong and is a naturalized U.S. citizen. "Canadians always do business with everybody else and it's fine."
More Orders
Germany's government has already distributed about 3,000 encrypted smartphones made by BlackBerry to federal officials, and has plans to order more such devices, Tobias Plate, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said yesterday at a news conference in Berlin.
Last month, Germany's top prosecutor said it would start a formal investigation into whether U.S. intelligence agents tapped Merkel's phone. The White House has said agents aren't spying on Merkel and has pledged not to do so in the future.
Chen's goal is to return BlackBerry to profitability by the company's next fiscal year, which ends in March 2016. The company is seeking to counter declining demand for its phones by focusing on supplying software and hardware to customers in regulated industries such as finance, government, health care and law, which have higher standards for security and risk management.
Hiring Again
BlackBerry announced plans to fire 4,500 employees, or a third of its workforce, less than two months before Chen took over as it tried to streamline the business for a buyout deal that eventually fell through. As the turnaround plan unfolds, Chen said he's ready to start hiring again, with a focus on sales, software development and customer care.
"I have a plan to start slowly adding headcount into the company, and now we're in that phase," Chen said.
While BlackBerry shares are up 34 percent this year through yesterday with Chen at the helm, other technology companies are eyeing the same corporate niche he's going after. BlackBerry fell less than 1 percent to $9.91 at 10:33 a.m. New York time.
This month, Apple Inc. and International Business Machines Corp. said they would work together to develop mobile applications for businesses. BlackBerry dropped 12 percent the day of the announcement.
"I'm paying a lot of attention" to the partnership, Chen said. "I'm giving them due respect that they could get something done, although they're going to have to come from way behind," he said.
Part of his plan to stay ahead might include acquisitions, he said. Areas BlackBerry is interested in include server technology and identity management, Chen said.
Still, he said he's being careful not to risk too much in potential deals.
"It's not, 'Because the future is so bright, I've got to bet the farm,'" he said. "I'm a very safe, conservative guy."
Posted by Jack A. Bass on July 29, 2014
Looking for a stock that might be in a good position to beat earnings at its next report? Consider BlackBerry Limited (BBRY), a firm in the Wireless Industry, which could be a great candidate for another beat.
This company has seen a nice streak of beating earnings estimates, especially when looking at the previous two reports. In fact, in these reports, BBRY has beaten estimates by at least 55.0% in both cases, suggesting it has a nice short-term history of crushing expectations.
Earnings in Focus
Two quarters ago, BBRY expected to post a loss per share of 56 cents per share, while the company posted loss per share of 8 cents, a significant beat. Meanwhile, for the most recent quarter, the company looked to deliver loss per share of 27 cents, when it actually saw loss per share of 11 cents instead, representing a 59.3% positive surprise.
Thanks in part to this history, estimates have been moving higher for BlackBerry. In fact, the Earnings ESP for BBRY is positive, which is a great sign of a coming beat.
After all, the Zacks Earnings ESP compares the most accurate estimate to the broad consensus, looking to find stocks that have seen big revisions as of late, suggesting that analysts have recently become more bullish on the company's earnings prospects. This is the case for BBRY, as the firm currently has a Zacks Earnings ESP of 59.9 %, so another beat could be around the corner.
This is particularly true when you consider that BBRY has a great Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) which can be a harbinger of outperformance and a signal for a strong earnings profile. And when you add this solid Zacks Rank to a positive Earnings ESP, a positive earnings surprise happens nearly 70% of the time, so it seems pretty likely that BBRY could see another beat at its next report, especially if recent trends are any guide.
Posted by Jack A. Bass on July 25, 2014
" In Talks " drives the market players back into BBRY.
-NasdaqGS Follow
Please share this article with others
By Daniel Thomas, Financial Times Telecoms Correspondent
ll almost five per cent last week after IBM said it would work with Apple to sell iPhones and iPads loaded with applications for business users. The tie-up was seen by analysts as a direct challenge for customers that use BlackBerry's enterprise services.
IBM is planning more than 100 apps targeting industries such as retail, healthcare, banking, travel, transportation and telecommunications, with a focus on security and mobile device management.
Mr Chen has also focused BlackBerry on driving enterprise sales in similar areas since joining as chief executive last year, using its market leading security software combined with devices, servers and messaging services.
Mr Chen said that the partnership between Apple and IBM was both good and bad news for BlackBerry. He likened the tie-up to when "two elephants start dancing", adding that it would be interesting to see how they worked together given both companies "are used to taking charge".
"The IBM-Apple tie-up validates what is a huge market," he said. "[But] the bad news is that you are waking up two giants. It's competition but it's good competition and we are going to be more nimble. You don't want to be a strong guy in a market that is not growing."
Mr Chen said that BlackBerry was in talks about its own partnerships. "I am working on some, and maybe we will collaborate with others. If I focus on security and identity management then we will be a good solid partner in this enterprise world.
"I am not afraid of competing when I know I am more nimble. I never think [that] going alone is the right strategy. But we have a value add that no one else can do."
Mr Chen said that BlackBerry was out of danger having almost completed its restructuring. BlackBerry will focus on enterprise customers rather than the consumer business for now, said Mr Chen.
Consumer sales of BlackBerry phones for have fallen, with less than 2 per cent market share in many Western markets, according to Kantar, the research group.
Mr Chen said that even forthcoming handsets such as the square-shaped Passport – which is expected to be released in September – were geared towards being used by enterprise customers in core "regulated industries" such as financial services and healthcare.
Posted by Jack A. Bass on July 24, 2014
The upcoming BlackBerry Passport is certainly one of the most unorthodox devices currently in the rumor mill. Packing a square screen with a resolution of 1440 x 1440 pixels, the Passport is probably the last chance for the troubled company to save itself.
The smartphone was already showcased by BlackBerry's CEO himself, but outside of some live shots and vague specs info we didn't get to learn much about it back then. Now however, a leaked video shows the BlackBerry Passport in action, demonstrating its UI and some of its cool new features.
A particularly impressive feature is the touch-sensitive three-row QWERTY keyboard that doubles as a trackpad. It gets its time in the spotlight towards the end of the video.
The BlackBerry Passport will launch in September at an yet unknown price.
BlackBerry Passport discussions are flooding the web, and now a new hands-on video reveals the specifications and features of the upcoming device.
BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB)'s much talked Passport smartphone video has surfaced online following the multiple pictures that stormed earlier revealing specs and form factor of the phone. The video, also, shows the specs and features of the device in action.
The hands-on video has been uploaded by YouTube by an Arabic source. As per the video, the new device is designed using plastic and metal. On the USP front, the video reveals that the Passport is the first BB10 device with a three-row keyboard, which has a touch-sensitive input support. The source, also, revealed that apart from the personal voice assistant, the new device could also have improved video player and browser.
The new smartphone from the house of BlackBerry is expected to launch in September with an updated version of BlackBerry mobile OS, BlackBerry 10.3. Other specifications of the phone are 4.5 inches square display with a resolution of 1440×1440 pixels along with a three-row QWERTYkeyboard.
BlackBerry Passport will be powered by a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor with a clock speed to 2.5GHz. The new device will have 3GB of RAM and 32GB included storage. The device will sport a front camera of 3.7 megapixel, and rear camera is expected to be of 8 megapixels. The handset will sit on 3450 mAh battery, 200,000 Android apps through the Amazon app store with over
BlackBerry 10 is touch friendly, but Passport is a step ahead with a slim keyboard for alternate keys and shortcuts, as well as trackpad/mouse for toggling and controls. With the help high resolution track-pad user will be able to offer better movement, precise control compared to only touchscreen phones.
Passport smartphone will be able to show 60 characters in a line, in comparison to most academic textbooks that show 66 characters in line and rectangular phones show just 40 characters in a line. So, the Passport can be easily used for reading e-books and surfing the web. Also, there is no such thing like optimizing the view by tilting the screen as Passport can offer optimum view of the content displayed horizontally or vertically.
CEO John Chen notes that Passport is made specifically for the businessmen keeping in mind what they want from a phone.
Posted by Jack A. Bass on July 21, 2014
The recent news that Blackberry quickly sold a 25,000 allotment in India hardly seems significant – but it is significant to the future of Blackberry.
It seems that the Indian smartphone industry will continue to outperform globally. With the introduction of several low-cost smartphones and discounted data tariffs, smartphone shipments in the country surged 244% during fiscal year 2014, according to India-based Manufacturer's Association of Information Technology.
The industry body, going forward, estimates the Indian smartphone industry will double in size during fiscal year 2015; gradually increasing 3G penetration rate and the introduction of next-gen 4G network will compel consumers to upgrade their smartphones. Let's see what Apple(NASDAQ: AAPL ) , Blackberry (NASDAQ: BBRY ) , and Nokia (NYSE: NOK ) are doing to capture this explosive expected growth.
Boosting affordability
Long-standing premium smartphone vendor Apple is globally known for its expensive but high-quality products. And to grab a substantial market share in India, Apple is trying to boost its affordability-factor among middle-income Indians.
For instance, Deutsche Bank recently found that iPhone 5s has been priced — in terms of U.S dollars — lower in India than several other international markets. Plus, the 8GB iPhone 5c variant, under a promotional buyback scheme, is currently available for about $490 in the country — down from its launch price of $625.
This kind of strategic pricing, along with Apple's aggressive advertising campaigns in popular Indian media outlets, seems to have contributed immensely toward the smartphone vendor's growth in the country.
Tim Cook recently noted, "[During the second quarter of fiscal year 2014] iPhone sales grew by strong double-digits year-over-year, and in India and Vietnam sales more than doubled."
Needless to say, Apple India is doing a commendable job. Going forward, if speculative reports are to be believed, the upcoming iPhone 6 will be priced lower than the current iPhone 5s. In that case, the increased affordability factor might as well contribute in boosting Apple's growth in the country.
Apple India had a 1.7% volume-based market share in the quarter ended December, according to IDC.
Expanding product line
Nokia, on the other hand, is aiming to reach a broad spectrum of consumers. For instance, its Lumia range consists 14 smartphones within a price band of $140-$700. Its latest Android-based X series currently offers three smartphone variants priced between $120-$190.
The Finnish giant recently added Lumia 630, 635, 930, and Nokia X2 to its already diversified product portfolio.
Market tracker CMR estimates that smartphones selling within a price band of $250-$330, represent about 8% of the total smartphone sales in India. This suggests that Nokia's wide range of smartphone offerings are favorably priced and well-positioned to lure a huge base of budget-conscious Indian consumers.
Nokia India enjoyed a healthy 17.5% volume-based market share during the first quarter of fiscal year 2014, according to CMR India.
Entering the budget-friendly territory
Even Blackberry appears to be showing some promise lately. The Canadian smartphone vendor had slashed its Z10 prices by 60% in past February, under a 60-day limited-period offer. Shortly after, the company ran out of Z10 stock. But now that the promotional period is over, Blackberry hasn't rolled back its prices.
The financially troubled smartphone giant also slashed its Z30 prices by 15% last month under a limited 60-day promotional offer. Gauging by Z10's recent pricing history, however, it is highly unlikely that the smartphone vendor will roll back its prices.
In addition, Blackberry recently introduced its latest OS 10-based Z3 in India. Priced at about $250, the Z3 provides competitive hardware and a phablet-experience to budget-conscious consumers.
This kind of strategic pricing should, in theory, contribute in winning back some of Blackberry India's lost market share — which stood at 0.83% during 2013.
Foolish final thoughts
India is the third largest and the fastest growing smartphone market. And to capture this explosive growth potential, Apple, Nokia, and Blackberry are competing on price. Investors, therefore, might want to keep a close eye on how their marketing campaigns contribute in boosting their market share.
Leaked: Apple's next smart device (warning, it may shock you)
Apple recently recruited a secret-development "dream team" to guarantee its newest smart device was kept hidden from the public for as long as possible. But the secret is out, and some early viewers are claiming its everyday impact could trump the iPod, iPhone, and the iPad. In fact, ABI Research predicts 485 million of this type of device will be sold per year. But one small company makes Apple's gadget possible. And its stock price has nearly unlimited room to run for early-in-the-know investors.
Posted by Jack A. Bass on July 15, 2014
With a 4.5-in square display, the new BlackBerry (BBRY) Passport doesn't look much like other smartphones. The company unveiled the new device this week, hyping up its suitability for reading spreadsheets, e-books and other documents. It is expected to debut in Sept. In other news, Apple (AAPL) patented a method for building seamless all-glass devices using glass-fusing technology. BlackBerry shares rose 4.2% to 11.40. Apple rose 0.04% to 95.39
BlackBerry officially unveiled a new phone this week with a very unusual screen shape — it's perfectly square.
The BlackBerry Passport features a "unique 4.5-inch square screen with full HD capabilities," said a post on the company's official Inside BlackBerry blog earlier this week, which included photos of the device.
It has a separate keyboard below the screen, like traditional BlackBerry smartphones, but it contains only letters, not numbers or punctuation.
The square screen gives it similar viewing space to a phone with a rectangular screen that measures five inches across the diagonal, and allows it to show 60 characters on each line, instead of the 40 on most rectangular smartphone screens, wrote Matt Young, author of the blog post.
"Academic research has shown that the optimal number of characters on a line in a book is 66 characters," he said.
He added that users will also no longer have to worry about whether the phone is in portrait or landscape orientation for optimal viewing of documents, spreadsheets or images, making it ideal for professional users such as architects or doctors.
The Passport was first announced by CEO John Chen during an earnings report in June, when he said there would be an official launch in London in September, the technology blog MobileSyrup reported at the time. Since then, various photos of the device have been floating around the internet.
At least some tech watchers seemed open to the idea.
"The Passport could help BlackBerry reconnect with its traditional business and government customer," wrote Ben Fox Rubin of the technology news site CNET, "though some may still be wondering whether a square phone will fit in their pockets."
Those commenting on the official blog post had mixed responses.
"In my mind this could quite possibly the best phone design ever," gushed a user named Roy Whitney.
Another user called OWC wrote, "No thanks. I miss the alt and shift key!
Investors Reaction – with the DOW off 100 points :
|P/E Ratio (TTM)
|Last Bid/Size
|11.58 / 69
|Last Ask/Size
|11.59 / 24
|Next Earnings
|26 Sep 2014
|Previous Close
|Last Dividend
|Average Volume
|Dividend Yield
|Day High
|Ex-Dividend Date
|Day Low
|Shares Outstanding
|52 Week High
|# of Floating Shares
|52 Week Low
|Short Interest as % of Float
Posted by Jack A. Bass on July 10, 2014


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ADP ReThink HCM Conference
The ADP ReThink HCM Conference series provides senior HR leaders with the opportunity to learn, discover and network from industry experts, their peers and partners.
Join us for an ADP ReThink HCM conference.
Rethink the way your organization manages its human capital. Top performing companies will share how they have shifted their human capital management strategy to achieve their organization's goals and increase total shareholder return.
The ADP ReThink HCM agenda explores global perspectives from industry experts and your peers, builds bridges across your organization and focuses on the importance of strong leadership and the key to success – human capital.
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Research for a project led me to once again encounter Austin English's old Twenty Questions with Cartoonists blog. If you're not familiar, he asks a uniform set of interview questions to different cartoonists. They're good questions, and for several of the people on the blog I would say this is among the most interesting interview they've done. So I think we should all answer Austin's questions! I'd be interested to read your answers. Tag them #20questionswithcartoonists so they're easy to find, maybe? It's not narcissistic to answer interview questions on your own accord – well, maybe just a little. Still, it's important to be able to talk about your work, and I'm sure people will find your responses interesting.
(I'm talking to myself here. Convincing myself to post this. It got kind of long.)
Anyway, here you go:


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Offbeat cinema turned out to be the toast of the season with "Paan Singh Tomar" and "Barfi!" sharing the best film title, and its lead actors - Irrfan Khan and Ranbir Kapoor respectively, lifting the best actor's trophy at the 19th Annual Colors Screen Awards Saturday night.
Vidya Balan won her fourth consecutive best actress Screen award for her role as Vidya Bagchi in hit thriller "Kahaani". Her earlier wins were for "Paa", "Ishqiya" and "The Dirty Picture".
Irrfan essayed the role of former national steeplechase champion-turned-bandit Paan Singh Tomar in the biopic "Paan Singh Tomar", while Ranbir wowed everyone with his heart-warming performance as deaf and mute Murphy in "Barfi!".
In terms of direction too, commercial entertainers took a backseat with Anurag Basu winning the best director award for "Barfi!".
Megastar Amitabh Bachchan received a special award at the event, while late filmmaker Yash Chopra, who died in October 2012, was conferred the lifetime achievement award.
The evening was laced with power-packed performances by "Student of the Year" stars Varun Dhawan, Sidharth Malhotra and Alia Bhatt, apart from livewire dances by Sonakshi Sinha, Ranveer Singh and Priyanka Chopra.
For the first time, the mother-son duo of Neetu Kapoor and Ranbir took onto the stage to pay a tribute to Bollywood.
The glittering ceremony saw Bollywood's creme de la creme - Shah Rukh Khan, Katrina Kaif, Amitabh, Jaya Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan in attendance.
There were others too - Prem Chopra, Parineeti Chopra, Sudhir Mishra, Arjun Rampal, Arbaaz Khan, Malaika Arora Khan, Arjun Kapoor, Prabhudheva, Zeenat Aman, Sujoy Ghosh, Jacqueline Fernandez, Siddharth Roy Kapur, Abbas-Mustan, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Gulzar, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Sunny Leone.
The event was hosted by Shah Rukh, Karan Johar and Ayushmann Khurrana, who bagged the best newcomer (male) award for his performance in "Vicky Donor".
Tag : #Irrfan Khan #Paan Singh Tomar #Ranbir Kapoor #Screen Awards #Barfi
Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes
Transformers: Age of Extinction
from IBNLive
Varun Dhawan: I don't want to do movies like 'Ek Villain' at the moment
Mumbai: Actor Varun Dhawan, who followed up the success of his debut film \'Student Of The Year\' (SOTY) with comic entertainer \'Main Tera Hero\' and will now be seen in a romantic film \'Hump...
from IBNLive
Priyanka Chopra's fans ridicule her by asking inappropriate questions on reddit
New Delhi: Priyanka Chopra thought of having a Q&A session with her fans last night and asked her fans to put up any question they wanted her to answer on the open forum. Little did she know, t...
from IBNLive
'Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania' is a modern-day tribute to DDLJ: Varun Dhawan
Kolkata: After two back-to-back hits, Varun Dhawan is looking forward to his forthcoming 'Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania' and says the movie is a modern-day version of the 1995 cult film 'Dilwale Du...
from IBNLive
Manish Paul: No problem with Drashti Dhami after 'Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa' reshuffle
New Delhi: Popular TV anchor Manish Paul, who has replaced Drashti Dhami on \'Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa 7\', says his comeback on the show has not affected his friendship with the \'Madhubala\' actres...
from IBNLive
Purab Kohli: I was shocked by my elimination from 'Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa 7'
Mumbai: Bollywood actor Purab Kohli is the second contestant to be ousted from the celebrity dance reality show \'Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa\' season seven. The \'Rock On!\' star said he was not expec...
from Hindustan Times
Movie review: Humshakals has little to offer except dim-witted comedy
Based in London, the film is about the confusion caused due to three identical people Ashok (Saif Ali), Kumar (Riteish Deshmukh) and Mamaji (Ram Kapoor).
from IBNLive
Extremely disturbed by the end result: Bipasha Basu explains her absence from 'Humshakals' promotions
Mumbai: There has been much speculation about Bipasha Basu's constant absence from the promotions of 'Humshakals'. Directed by Sajid Khan, the film which stars Saif Ali Khan, Riteish Deshmukh, Ram Kap...


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Impressionist Lens
A board featuring photos taken using the 'Impressionist Lens' feature of the Garden's NYBG in Bloom app. Download for iPhone here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nybg-in-bloom/id520148675?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4 #impressionistlens
It's time to issue a challenge: Who can get us a picture of the original Monet's Garden (you know, the one in France) using the 'Impressionist Lens' feature on our app?
Water lilies in the Conservatory Courtyard as part of 'Monet's Garden' nybg.org/monet
Water lily in the Conservatory Courtyards as part of Monet's Garden. nybg.org/monet
speltflour Sarah Leavitt 9m @BuildingMuseum as an impressionist painting using @Jake_Barton 's new iPhone app: NYBG in Bloom. Not Monet. But cool! pic.twitter.com/gQkmOhMa
"NYBG Monet's Garden impressionist lens #monetsgarden #awesomeapps"
Having fun with @nybg #monetsgarden app (Taken with Instagram at New York Botanical Garden)
Cynthia Stogdill: My potted flowers using the #monetsgarden app lens. Thx! So beautiful pic.twitter.com/OwzW11sZ
shannonmmiller: LOVE the #monetsgarden app from @NYBG .....In the app you can take a pic through the "Impressionist Lens" I DID...yfrog.com/odezyop
#impressionistlens photo by Ellen Parlapiano, @Mompreneurs_E on Twitter.
We didn't have the resources to make both an Android & an iOS app this time around, so one of our Android-using Members created her own #impressionistlense photos using an effect called Splatter4 in her imaging software. Photo by Patricia Gonzalez. More on Flickr: www.flickr.com/...
hydrangeas in long island city taken using the impressionist lens from @nybg. #impressionistlens
Two of our favorite things combined: The Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden at peak bloom, and the Impressionist Lens feature in our NYBG in Bloom app!
The Impressionist Lens goes to the Chelsea Flower Show and finds #monetsgarden. Awesome!
It was the perfect beautiful afternoon—here's my #ImpressionistLens pic from #MonetsGarden app! By @Lucy Redoglia
Entry to #monetsgarden @nybg using #impressionistlens by Cindy QC on Instagram.
Check put my pic of #MonetsGarden taken w/ the impressionist lens on the free app from @MetMuseum @nybg - Photo by @GayleConran
World's greatest cat Impressionified from another angle using @NYBG app. #monetsgarden #cats
It's time to embrace your inner Impressionist! Download the Garden's new iPhone app—produced in partnership with the Metropolitan Museum of Art—and you can make your own Monet-esque masterpieces! Download it here! (Taken with Instagram at Monet's Garden at The New York Botanical Garden)
Rainy day Impressionism via www.nybg.org/app (Taken with Instagram at New York Botanical Garden)


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7 Modern Steel Homes
Whether it's subtle accents or solid exterior facades, we examine seven modern homes that utilize the classic and durable metal, steel.
dwell.com is your online home in the modern world. Join us as we follow our team around the globe on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. Want more? Never miss another word of Dwell with our free iTunes app.


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Adams Papers Indexes | Adams Papers, Cumulative Index to volumes published through 2006 | T | Trade and commerce | JA on expansion of Amer. trade with European nations
To the President of the Congress, 4 August 1779 [Papers of John Adams 8:114]
Documents in this publication are viewable by registered users only. Log in
Guest users have access to all documents in the Founders
Early Access publication.


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The Pokémon: Symphonic Evolutions concert tour is coming to Philadelphia on September 19th. Seats are limited, so be sure to book your tickets quick!
Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire are coming this November! Check BNN and Bulbanews for up-to-date Pokémon news and discuss it on the forums or in our IRC channel.
From Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia.
Jessica has several referrals:
- For the Club Member of the Fighting Club in the Pokémon Trading Card Game, see Club Member Jessica
- For the member of Team Rocket whose name is short for Jessica, see Jessie
- For the character of the day from Grooming Furfrou!, see Jessica (Kalos)
- For White's Deerling named Jessica in Japanese, see Darling


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South African Parable About Forgiveness: The Suit
* Additional fees apply.
All offers for The Suit have expired.
The last date listed for The Suit was Tuesday April 1, 2014 / 7:30pm.
Most Popular Theater Event Nearby:
The School for Lies: Freewheeling, Modern Molière Tribute
- Full Price:
- $25.00
- Our Price:
- $12.50
Contemporary slang meets 17th-century farce in The School for Lies. Adapted from Molière's The Misanthrope, playwright David Ives (Venus in Fur, All in the Timing) transforms Molière's classic into a modern satire told entirely through verse. The result is a delightfully incongruous comedy of manners that lets you peer inside the Parisian salon of Celimene, a young widow with a sharp tongue and plenty of suitors. Teresa Thuman and Ken Michels co-direct this Center Theatre production, in which a saucy siren finally meets her misanthropic match. Learn More
Venue Details
I wore dress warmly.Venus in Fur dress • Feb 24 2014 star this tip starred
The Red Papaya is a great place to eat before the show. Right around the corner , reasonably-priced, good service and good food selection.Venus in Fur dining • Feb 10 2014 star this tip starred
Reviews & Ratings
Featured review from Bob Swanson
view more less of this review
Acting excellent! Just go, it's great theatre.
star this review starred report as inappropriate
Enjoyed the play; extremely thought provoking. Shorter play just the right length for the subject matter!
star this review starred report as inappropriate
Well acted and meticulously directed. We didn't lose focus for a moment. Quietly impressive play.
star this review starred report as inappropriate
A fabulous production of a very interesting and thought provoking play
March 23 & 26, 2014 at 2:00 p.m.* — Post-Play Discussion*_**
Cast members will join the audience for a Q&A session on the production.
**The Suit_ is based on The Suit by Can Themba, Mothobi Mutloatse and Barney Simon.
Direction, Adaptation and Music by Peter Brook, Marie-Hélène Estienne and Franck Krawczyk
Presented in association with Seattle Theatre Group
This show contains mature themes.
Bring a Suit Clothing Drive:
Donate business attire when you come to see The Suit. Proceeds benefit Dress for Success and Working Wardrobe of Redmond, which provide work and interview-appropriate clothing to men and women in the community. All contributions accepted. Items urgently needed include: petite, plus-size and men's king sizes; accessories, ties, purses, belts and scarves.


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Links Directory Script with an SEO Focus
First released in 2002 and steadily improved ever since, WSN Links is a mature and powerful links directory with support you can rely on. Features include website thumbshots, google pageranks, automatic link checking, reciprocal linking facilities, extensive data import options, automated updates and much more. Integrate easily with other MySQL membership systems to leverage your existing community. And WSN Links isn't just for links — it's easily extended and offers you the flexibility to make any sort of directory.
WSN Links version 9.0.20 was released on Sunday, August 17, 2014 with these changes:
- Fixed filtered upload type error.
- Fixed multilingual urls issues.
- Fixed E_STRICT error messages.
- Added upgrade utility to fix header-breaking blank lines in mods/plugins/tweaks.


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"PREAMBLE INTRODUCING ROCK JAW'S ALFA GENUS SINGLE DYNAMIC DRIVER IEM The Alfa Genus From Rock Jaw Alfa Genus Paired With Fiio X5 RockJaw UK is a relatively new headphone/earphone manufacturer to the Head-Fi scene, so it was with particular interest that I noticed their early posts on the forums, and when they asked for potential..." --Brooko
Soundsoul S-018 Acoustic Natural Ebony Wood and Metal Fusion Earphones
" I rarely write reviews but after spending so much time trying to find good in-ear headphones I think my search has finally ended. I'm very impressed with the clarity of the sound through the entire sound range. The bass is also very impressive; something about it just feels right. They also feel very comfortable as well; most in-ear buds tend to make my ear canals uncomfortable after 30..." --hahaxixi
ROCK JAW ARCANA Dual driver IEM
"ARCANA IEMs: Rock Jaw offers a variety of IEMs and headphones, aiming to provide great value, reliable and robust devices, with self proclaimed minimal packaging and overhead to help minimise cost. Rock Jaw ARCANA IEMs are a solid entry level dual driver IEM offering a fun sound signature at a remarkable value for money. I have so far racked up 40 enjoyable hours of use with..." --ApplesRevenge
ROCK JAW HYDRA feature ROCK JAW's latest designed dual 11mm + 6mm drivers. For greater balance and separation.


text: At DMI Technology Group, we guarantee that your technology will work like it's supposed to. We were founded in 1986 and we have the people, experience, solutions and technology to support businesses of any size. We will reduce your administration costs, consolidate and improve your business systems and improve your bottom line.


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Follow Us: Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Pinterest | Quick Links: Join Blogger Programs | Join our partner Mommy's Club
1392 members16826 Comments 59 Likes
87 members679 Comments 3 Likes
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Jenny Ploeger has not received any gifts yet
Hi there and welcome from The Girlz Korner where you'll find light, witty and rather entertaining articles on every topic imaginable from beauty, health, fashion, parenting, recipes and everything else in between. So if you get a chance to kick back and exhale, if only for a brief moment, we'd love to have you. Hope you enjoy your stay :) http://www.thegirlzkorner.com


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Save Changes to Linux Live USBs. Create Persistent Bootable Drives
Sick of accidentally losing your work when using Linux Live CDs? We've got you covered.
When he's not changing diapers, watching movies or sitting next to a cactus somewhere in the desert waiting to fuel or repair an off road race truck, Patrick is probably testing products or watching movies for Tekzilla or HD Nation He's written hundreds of product reviews for the likes of PCMag, Cnet, PC World, CPU and TechTV, launched the online video and podcast group at Ziff Davis where he produced and hosted 188 episodes of DL.TV (and learned more about Flash dev, routing tables, Content Delivery Networks, compression tools, RSS feeds, log file analysis and traffic verification than he ever thought he'd need to know) and started using computers back in the late CP/M early DOS days. He's best known for answering tough tech questions, skewering products and beating dead PCs with a sledgehammer for the four years at TechTV when he hosted a live daily television show called The Screen Savers.
Sick of accidentally losing your work when using Linux Live CDs? We've got you covered.
We don't need no stinkin' consoles...or PC cases for that matter. We build a sub-$400 (and even cheaper if you shop around!) gaming PC that can run games like Titanfall on High settings.
Twibble will automatically tweet out links based on the RSS feeds that you follow!
Don't trust the word of your cable company? Record the calls for proof with this Android app!
Watch Netflix on Linux without Wine or Pipelight!
Browse securely while on any network!
Change your USB habits, because restricting account access isn't going to help. We demo BitTorrent Sync 1.4--a huge update for our favorite distributed file sharing program.
Create simplified playlists from Youtube search results!
Have a pile of data that you need to make sense of? Take a look at this DIY Tryin Extra!
App management is one thing that iOS does better than Android. There's no built-in way to quickly remove a list of applications for the Android crowd...but Easy Uninstaller App Uninstall makes life a...
Microsoft Windows 9 is coming soon! Plot.ly makes collaborative data visualization easy.
Grado's SR60 headphones are an audiophile legend, as in they sound incredible for the money you're paying. How does the refreshed SR60e version stack up?
Removing microprocessors by hand? Yep, it's possible!
Head-up displays are part of every futuristic sci-fi movie. Navdy is trying to bring the next evolution of car interfaces.
iMessage!!! Here's how to switch from the iPhone without losing your text messages.
Shannon has a review on the Fugoo Style, a bluetooth speaker with swappable cases and integrated microphone.
Shannon has a recap of DEFCON: SDR, traffic light hacks, and exploding hairdryers! Blocking RFID using Aluminum Foil.
This week we're going through yet another horrible ordeal--replacing broken screens from iOS devices.
The AutoPlay popup is an annoying aspect of Windows that rears it's head any time you insert media.
Today's Android lockscreen will make sure you get back to every important notification.


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Lunch with Mancubus
Mancubus's lunch gets rudely interrupted4.54 / 5.00 5,054 Views
Spelunker : Savlonic
Spelunker by Savlonic4.42 / 5.00 13,005 Views
'Chicken Castle'
The quest for a limbless pet.4.38 / 5.00 6,399 Views
Over a year ago I made MK Outtakes and alot of people seemed to like it so after a bunch of people kept asking for a sequel we finally made it. But this time I made it with my buddy A17.
There's 23 scenes(plus some easter eggs) so make sure you got alot of time on your hands when you watch this. :P
We tried to make something for everyone so you're not going to like all of them, scenes that you don't like other people WILL like(just check out the reviews and see all the different opinions). As long as you like some then our job is done.
OMG that pwned!!!!!!!!!1
Man that was freaking hilarious! I love the Microsoft jokes and the pokeball fatality! Great work, hope to see more from you! I can already tell that this or Cat and Fish In Space is going to get daily feature! FIFEN for you!
OMFG =.0 VA33 RetURns w00t?
D0oD, j00 GoT meH taLKiNg l33t TaAlc, teHt wa3 F0oKiN Gr8 MAn Kiip It ^p!
hehe gr8 movie guys, love all the outtake movies :D.
A Hilarious remake of MK Ultimate!!!
This remake was funny.Im a true MK fan. I especially liked smoke's Fatality. I was laughing for the rest of the day. Keep on coming with more Mortal Kombats.Good Job!!
Well what can i say the first one was cool but this turned to bee ethen cooler,my favorite was jax with the hulk that was hillarious man,and that "dudette" stuff i really didn't knew the feminin for dude.
nice movie
nice movie i liked it mainly smoke part in the movie his wus funny great movie


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The Johnson County Commissioners look to have a light agenda on Tuesday at their regular meeting.
The Hazelton Homeowners Association will present a proposal to the commission for an agreement between the Forest Service, the county and themselves. Commissioner Smokey Wildeman explains.
The Buffalo City Council will have their first meeting of the month Tuesday, and will have a full agenda to work through.
The Buffalo Golf Club will address the council about an issue with their raw water line. Councilman Bruce Hepp explains.
The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality hosted a public meeting to gather comments from citizens of Johnson County regarding a proposed gravel mine near the bottom of Crazy Woman Canyon south of Buffalo.
Since the Department of the Interior announced Secretarial Order 3310 in late December, it has drawn its fare share of opposition from many in the state of Wyoming.
U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson declared Monday that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. Earlier this month, Wyoming Governor Matt Mead entered Wyoming in the multi-state lawsuit challenging the Act.
In honor of the 17th annual Spay Day on February 22, the Humane Society of the United States in conjunction with the Doris Day Animal Foundation has bestowed a grant to Spay Wyoming.
The Advocacy and Resource Center in Sheridan has been providing their services to the residents of Sheridan County for three decades, and Monday they held an open house.
In a media release issued by the Office of the Sheridan County and Prosecuting Attorney, it is noted that Sheridan County was contacted several months ago by a representative of the trust established by the former Sheridan County Clerk, Audrey Koltiska.
It was a full house Saturday night as over 300 people took part in the annual Sheridan County Chapter of Ducks Unlimited banquet held at the Holiday Inn.
Well over 800 people showed up at the Best Western Sheridan Center Saturday night in support of 5-year-old Jacob Ahrens. It was a benefit dinner to help with the medical expenses for the little guy who was diagnosed with an inoperable mid-brain tumor last December.


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The Florida Panthers signed defenseman MacKenzie Weegar to an entry-level contract, the team announced Thursday.
"We are pleased to have reached a contract agreement with MacKenzie," Panthers general manager Dale Tallon said in a statement. "He is a young and mobile defenseman with an offensive upside, who will continue to grow and develop at the professional level."
Weegar, 20, had 12 goals and 59 points in 61 regular-season games with the Halifax Mooseheads of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League to rank fourth among league defensemen. He helped Halifax reach the QMJHL semifinals.
A seventh-round pick of the Panthers in the 2013 NHL Draft, Weegar had eight goals and 44 points in 62 games to help lead Halifax to the Memorial Cup in 2012-13. He attended training camp with the Panthers in 2013 and had an assist in one preseason game against the Nashville Predators.


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Hang out, chat and watch PAX!
You can now filter search results with text. Example: "person: john" will search only person pages for "john".
It's got its share of holdover problems, but Madden NFL 15 at least represents a positive step forward for this series.
They may not make games like this anymore, but maybe they should. Larian's latest CRPG is a deeply satisfying turn-based adventure that rewards players with patience.
Diablo III is a great game that, despite its mouse-and-keyboard roots, adapts to consoles surprisingly well.
Game »
consists of 1 releases.
Released Aug 16, 2011
Historically speaking a period from 1100 B.C. to 146 A.C. ending with the Roman conquest after the battle of Corinth, however it also envelops all of the Greek myths (including the ones of creation), Greek tales, and Classical Greek places that appear in a multitude of games.
Cyprus is the third largest island in the Mediterranean sea. It joined the European union in 2004 and its history dates up to 20000 years old. The official languages in Cyprus are Greek (78%) and Turkish(12%).
Country in the Northeast corner of Africa, it borders the Red and Mediterranean Sea. Famous for the Nile Delta, Pyramids, and Mummies.
Greece - A European country. The land that brought us The Gods, Souvlaki and Kratos.
Libya is a country in North Africa. Its capital city is Tripoli and is well known (before the 2011 revolution) as the only national flag to be of a single solid color with no insignia or design.
Persia is the former name of Iran and was the largest empire of the ancient world. Much of the events in the Prince of Persia games take place here.
A great greek city-state that produced many great warriors. Normally the rivals of Athens .
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