text:
Look out Russia, here comes Joe Biden! 6
Again we quote Daniel Greenfield. Here's his account with his apt comments:
Obama Dispatches Biden to Poland to "Send Message" to Putin
I'm not sure what the message is. I hope he didn't give it to Biden or it's lost forever.
But I'm sure Putin is intimidated now that we sent our village idiot to Poland to reassure them that we won't abandon them like we did in Ukraine. (No, we will.) …
Biden plans to deliver "the message of strong reassurance and support for the security of our NATO allies," a senior administration official told reporters Monday.
And nothing says strong reassurance like sending the most expendable member of our government to deliver a speech.
With limited options, the United States was seeking ways to show it won't stand idly by as Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a treaty for the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea to join Russia. So far, Putin has been undeterred by sanctions and visa bans levied by the U.S. and the European Union, and there's no U.S. appetite for military intervention.
So the only answer is… more sanctions. They've never worked, but this time is bound to be different.
Joe Biden warned Russia on Tuesday that the U.S. and Europe will impose further sanctions as Moscow moved to annex part of Ukraine.
Then Joe Biden turned to his weakest point. Logic.
"Russia has offered a variety of arguments to justify what is nothing more than a land grab, including what he said today," Biden said in Poland, which shares a border with both Russia and Ukraine. "But the world has seen through Russia's actions and has rejected the flawed logic behind those actions."
Now that the flawed logic is rejected, the problem is solved. All Putin has to do is realize that his logic is flawed and all the soldiers will leave.
In a clear warning to Moscow not to test other nations along its border, Biden said the U.S. commitment to defending its NATO allies is "ironclad."
Absolutely. Unless something changes.
Vice President Joseph R. Biden promised Poland and the Baltic states on Tuesday that the United States would protect them from any Russian aggression similar to what has taken place in Crimea.
You know how we didn't protect Ukraine or even agree to give it any weapons? We totally won't treat you that way.
Mr. Obama has also stepped up his engagement, speaking recently to [Polish] Prime Minister Tusk. He interrupted a recent golf weekend in Florida to hold a conference call with the three Baltic leaders.
Interrupted a golfing weekend? Now that's commitment.
A silly and evil plan 1
A Palestinian Muslim spells out what is wrong with "the Kerry plan" for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. It could not be clearer, but we don't expect Secretary of State John Kerry to understand it. Even if he could and did, we doubt that he'd change or abandon his silly and evil plan, because – plain to see – the intention of Obama and his coven is to destroy the State of Israel.
This is from Gatestone, by Daoud Assaf:
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry recently warned that "the status quo between Israel and the Palestinians" cannot continue, noting that while there is prosperity and momentary security in Israel, it is "an illusion" that is bound to change if [peace] talks flounder. "The risks are very high for Israel," Kerry said. "People are talking about boycott. That will intensify in the case of failure. We all have a strong interest in this conflict resolution."
In short, Kerry is threatening Israel with a boycott and even security unrest if it does not accept the peace plan he says he will deliver in two weeks. Is Kerry actually endorsing the anti-Israeli boycott that delegitimizes America's only stable and democratic ally in the region? Also, what is the peace plan Kerry is so determined to force on the Israelis and Palestinians?
Kerry's talk of boycotting Israel comes at a time when the anti-Israeli boycott rhetoric is becoming shrill; one day after Kerry's talk, two major European banks decided on actions against their Israeli counterparts. Sweden's Nordea Bank, the largest in Scandinavia, asked for "clarifications" from Israel's Bank Leumi and Mizrahi-Tefahot Bank regarding their activities in the West Bank. Also Denmark's largest bank, Danske Bank, said on its website that it was boycotting Israel's Bank Hapoalim for "legal and ethical" reasons, again in reference to its operations in the West Bank.
Recently, the $200 billion Dutch pension fund PGGM also decided to divest from the five largest Israeli banks, ostensibly because of their involvement in the West Bank.
Kerry's comments were not only a stab in the back that any country would not expect from its closest ally; they also provided support to the enemies of Israel – such as the smiling, racist members of the European Union.
For decades, the EU and many European nations have been secretly funneling hundreds of millions of taxpayers' euros to organizations that work towards overthrowing Israel. The EU also, despite mountains of evidence, could not even bring itself to declare Iran's proxy organization, Hizballah, a terrorist group; and if Iran is legitimized, so probably will be Iran's other proxy terrorist group, Hamas.
Joining this club of racists is the United Nations, whose record of one-sided anti-Israel hostility is so pronounced that even one of its own translators commented on it. This record not only includes the frequent resolutions condemning Israel, as opposed to any other nations that commit far worse human rights violations than those Israel is [falsely] accused of committing, but also the openly racist Durban Conferences, ostensibly organized to counter racism, but which, as anyone can see, in fact promote it.
The cumulative effect of this pile-on against Israel only provides approval for the enemies of Israel to intensify their attacks — including anti-Israeli boycott, divestment and sanctions [BDS] campaigns — even more.
Kerry, and many others in the West, understand perfectly well that boycotting Israel reduces job opportunities not only for Jews, but also for Palestinians who work for in Israeli factories, farms and settlements, inside Israel as well as in the West Bank. The Palestinians who work there often receive ten times the remuneration, as well as better working conditions, than they would find among their own people, as has been revealed recently by the workers at companies that have actually been building real bridges of peace such as SodaStream, rather than organizations that have been sanctimoniously blowing up the bridges for peace, as Oxfam has. As usual, the Europeans know what will happen if there are fewer ways for the Palestinians to earn a decent living, as they knew when they left all their colonies. … The Europeans evidently care more about flagellating Israel than helping Palestinians. …
The question then arises: Why do those in the West who claim such hand-wringing concern for the Palestinians seek to harm Israeli businesses that offer them jobs? Do they forget that the Arabs refused to accept a partition plan in 1948, and started all subsequent wars to prevent Israel's existence? Do they think that if Israel just withdraws to the 1967 line that the Palestinians will disregard their Charters, which view Israel as one big settlement and which assume a Palestine "from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea"?
In our view, it is past time that Israel set its borders – and they should be from the river to the sea.
In other words, is the Arab-Israeli Conflict — which it is, far more than a Palestinian-Israeli Conflict — actually about territory, or about the existence of Jews who have come home to the land given to them by the Holy Qur'an, Sura 7 [Al-A'raf; "The Heights"] 137: " And We made those who had been persecuted inherit the eastern and western lands which We had blessed. Thus your Lord's gracious promise was fulfilled to the children of Israel, for they had endured with patience; and We destroyed all that Pharaoh and his people had wrought, and all that they had built."
An interesting quotation that, of a sura that most Muslims seem to ignore.
Of course, even though we Muslims might prefer it if the Israelis were someplace else, as a Muslim, I must ask why are Israelis always found guilty for defending themselves? Could it be that the old, politically-incorrect anti-Semitism has now simply been replaced by a new, supposedly politically-correct anti-Israelism?
Also, what is this peace plan Kerry is so determined to force on Israel?
Kerry's plan, recently outlined in the media, includes: the division of Jerusalem; Israel's withdrawal from most of the West Bank, while it would retain control over the largest Jewish settlements there; a land swap to compensate the Palestinians for the settlement bloc [one can only imagine the years of wrangling about what a "commensurate piece of land" would consist of in each instance, thereby perpetuating the conflict a few more millennia]; recognition by the Palestinians of Israel as a "Jewish state", and compensation for Palestinian refugees who would no longer have a "right of return" to Israel.
But it does not include compensation for the Jews who were expelled from Arab lands or forced to flee, and had all their property confiscated.
In addition, the London-based newspaper, Al-Quds Al-Arabi, reported on January 8, 2014 that Kerry's plan actually revolved around solving the Palestinian refugees' problem through "settling them in Jordan under Jordan's king and granting the king $55 billion for hosting the Palestinians for five decades."
And where would they go after that, Mr Kerry?
Actually, that is where they belong. Jordan was created to be Arab Palestine by the British. They took some 80% of the Palestine region over which they were granted a mandate by the League of Nations after World War I, and handed it to Emir Abdullah, the Hashemite Sharif of Mecca, to be – as "the Emirate of Transjordan" – an Arab-only area in which no Jews would be allowed to live, although the explicit provision of the Balfour Declaration was that Jews should be "settled closely" on the the land. And it was for that purpose the League of Nations had given Britain the mandate.
A careful look at the [Kerry] plan, however, raises the following issues:
Palestinian Authority President Abbas has already said he would never recognize Israel as a Jewish state. But the real problem is that even if he did, he or his successor could easily change his mind and retract the recognition of Israel after it had already given back the West Bank … as in the time-honored tradition of Hudaibiyya which his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, repeatedly invoked in Arabic to justify signing the Oslo Accords.
"Hudaibiyya," a footnote explains, "is the story of Mohammed's promise to the tribe of the Qurayesh in Mecca not to attack for ten years; but after assembling a powerful army, Mohammed returned after three years, conquered the tribe, occupied the city and gave tribes' members the choice of either becoming Muslims, or leaving their homes and going elsewhere."
So much for treaties, as can presently also be seen in the ongoing Palestinian abrogations of UN Resolutions 242 and 838, as well as of bilateral agreements between the Palestinian Authority and Israel — again endorsed by Secretary Kerry.
Palestinians also say Abbas does not represent them because he has overstayed his four-year term by six years, and therefore has no legitimacy, or mandate, to sign anything. Abbas would undoubtedly also be regarded by many Palestinian hard-liners as a traitor — as was Egypt's President, Anwar al Sadat — and almost certainly be assassinated. …
Kerry also wants Israelis, including those who live in settlements, to be surrounded by a Palestinian state. If I were a Jew, I would frankly not want to be living in a tiny country or a settlement surrounded by people who are incited day-in and day-out [by being told that] that their mission in life is to kill you, let alone that the entire country is regarded by many Arabs as one big settlement … It is bad enough when a country — now home to over a million Arabs, who have all the same opportunities as the Jews — is slandered in a lie that it is [an] apartheid [state], but for a new Palestinian state to be legally born [an] apartheid [state], officially free of Jews, after having had to listen to the international community unjustly hurl that word around all those years — seems both legally and morally indefensible.
Last of all, it is important not to forget that historically, whenever Israel gives land for "peace," as in Egypt, southern Lebanon and Gaza, instead of rewards it gets concussions. …
Despite everything, the Israeli government has recently exhibited a willingness to accept Kerry's plan.
As a tactic only, we hope.
The Palestinians have, as usual, rejected the plan: senior Palestinian Authority official Yasser Abed Rabbo called Kerry's plan "Israeli ideas." In addition, last month, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told an audience at a conference in Munich he could never agree to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
To this author, Kerry's peace plan seems to be based on assumptions that are likely not to materialize or … The Palestinians have been offered a state many times since 1947; each time they have rejected the offer. It seems, looked at dispassionately, that they are less interested in having a Palestinian state than in destroying a Jewish state.
At the same time, Kerry's boycott threats only embolden Israel's many adversaries, including the Europeans, who seem to enjoy colluding with the Arabs, probably for the money, to launch new BDS campaigns, as they high-handedly compromise the interests and legitimacy of Israel, the only ally on which America can actually depend in the unstable Middle East.
Knock-knock 1
Again we have filched a brilliant Putin and Obama cartoon from PowerLine.
If this is not treason, what is? 6
The Cold War is not over. Russia is winning it the only way it could, by America choosing to lose it.
From this Investor's Business Daily editorial we get a clear understanding of how drastically and easily Obama and his clique are sabotaging the United States.
As Russia test-fires new, updated ICBMs on the heels of its Ukraine invasion, Obama's top arms negotiator is busy downsizing and mothballing America's nuclear arsenal and destroying our deterrent.
Thanks to Undersecretary of State Rose Gottemoeller, a left-wing peacenik and old Soviet apologist, Russian strongman Vladimir Putin is inching dangerously closer to first-strike capability.
Gottemoeller, a longtime anti-nuke activist, is the architect of the disastrously one-sided 2010 U.S.-Russia New Start deal that slashes America's nuclear arsenal from 5,000 deployable warheads to just 1,550.
One-sided is right. Ms Gottemoeller is only anti-nuke when the nukes are in the arsenal of the US. She loves them when they are in the hands of KGB officer Putin.
In a major concession to Moscow, the deal also limits our development of missile defense interceptors.
The administration won't even certify to Congress that Russia is complying with its end of the deal (the requirement was removed from the last budget deal). That's because it's not. And while we're gutting our nukes, Russia is upgrading its arsenal.
Moscow's nuclear modernization program includes new warheads and delivery systems, both missiles and bombers. Yet, "We are not developing new nuclear weapons or pursuing new nuclear missions," Gottemoeller recently clucked.
Worse, the administration has agreed not to even test our aging nukes for reliability. Gottemoeller is pushing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty as a top priority.
Despite her overtures — or perhaps because of them —
Perhaps? Precisely because of them!
Moscow has toughened its posture toward the U.S. and is no longer interested in arms control talks.
No matter, Gottemoeller is fine with disarming America unilaterally, if necessary.
She proposes cutting our strategic warheads to as low as 300. Next, she wants to cut tactical or battlefield nukes, both deployed and non-deployed, even though Russia has a massive 10-to-1 advantage in such weapons. She even wants to ban fuel production.
How can she do that without a treaty? Easy. Obama can make an executive agreement, bypassing the difficult Senate ratification process.
Like her boss, Gottemoeller thinks America is a global "bully" and that its nuclear superiority has created a global arms race. She argues the U.S. must show humility by signing nuclear disarmament treaties and become strategically equal with Russia.
Not even equal. Inferior.
… Most Cold War babies grew up hating the Soviet Union. Not "Rosie" Gottemoeller.
She admired the former communist superpower. Her father told her the Soviets were better at science, so she studied Russian and immersed herself in Soviet propaganda. She's visited Moscow so many times she now considers it her "second home".
Second home? If home is where the heart is, Moscow is her first and only home.
Where are you, Joe McCarthy, when we need you?
With her sitting across the negotiating table –
No wonder Moscow is thumbing its nose at arms reduction.
No wonder a Russian general recently threatened to take preemptive military action against U.S. and allied missile defenses in Europe.
No wonder Russian strategic nuclear bombers are flying so close to Alaska and California.
No wonder Putin has no problem marching into Ukraine. He knows nothing will happen.
Even the IBD does not see what is staring it in the face, the fact that its own story makes blindingly obvious. It concludes:
His Soviet-style power play shows just how dangerously naive Obama and his nutty no-nuke advisers are. Gottemoeller's ambitious plans for further denuclearizing the U.S. will only invite worse military aggression.
He and they are not naive. No one except a baby or a lunatic could be that naive. They are deliberately giving America to the Russians – to Putin, who wants to restore the Soviet Union and its empire. Why can't the opposition forces see what's happening and take every step necessary to stop it? Is it because they are naive – or lunatic? Or is it because they cannot bring themselves to believe the evidence so plainly set before their own eyes?
Art is dear and life is cheap 16
The State Department has spent millions of taxpayers' dollars acquiring Art. That is to say, paying for objects that its resident or consultant aesthetes swear are works of Art, worth every penny.
The acquisitions were apparently a priority for Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State. If you would see her monument, tour US embassies and look about you.
Fashionable Art doesn't come cheap. So there was no money left to pay for such a humdrum thing as effective protection of the US diplomatic and CIA missions in Benghazi. Denied the security they needed, four Americans, including the ambassador, were killed there by savage jihadis. Well – Hillary might say – there has to be human sacrifice on the altar of Art, it makes all the difference, and if you don't understand that, you are a philistine bourgeois.
Look on the bright side. The Art is displayed in many a US embassy. Americans can be proud.
In London, there's a granite wall built by Sean Scully that cost $1million. We couldn't find a picture of it, but it's like this one displayed in an art gallery.
Daniel Greenfield illustrates an article on the subject – which inspired this post – with these pictures of works by Cy Twombly. The top one is at the embassy in Rome.
From his text:
Beijing [embassy] contains $23 million worth of art. Bern has $1.2 million and Luxembourg has $2.2 million.
And here is the grave of Ambassador Stevens, murdered at Benghazi. We don't know how much it cost, or who paid for it.
Post Script: Here is some wall art that really has meaning. The wall is part of the US mission in Benghazi. The paint is blood. A hand put it there the night of the attack. It might have been the hand of Ambassador Stevens himself – or of one of his brutal killers. One does not have to read Arabic to know who signed in for the event on the other wall.
(Hat-tip: our reader and commenter donl)
Edward Snowden: loyal to the people of America 2
These are extracts from a Washington Times report of an interview it had in Moscow with Edward Snowden, the man who "betrayed" the secrets of the National Security Agency (NSA):
Snowden is an orderly thinker, with an engineer's approach to problem-solving. He had come to believe that a dangerous machine of mass surveillance was growing unchecked. Closed-door oversight by Congress and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was a "graveyard of judgment" he said, manipulated by the agency it was supposed to keep in check. Classification rules erected walls to prevent public debate.
Toppling those walls would be a spectacular act of transgression against the norms that prevailed inside them. Someone would have to bypass security, extract the secrets, make undetected contact with journalists and provide them with enough proof to tell the stories.
The NSA's business is "information dominance", the use of other people's secrets to shape events. … Snowden upended the agency on its own turf. …[and] succeeded beyond plausible ambition. The NSA, accustomed to watching without being watched, faces scrutiny it has not endured since the 1970s, or perhaps ever.
The cascading effects have made themselves felt in Congress, the courts, popular culture, Silicon Valley and world capitals.
The basic structure of the Internet itself is now in question, as Brazil and members of the European Union consider measures to keep their data away from U.S. territory and U.S. technology giants including Google, Microsoft and Yahoo take extraordinary steps to block the collection of data by their government.
For months, Obama administration officials attacked Snowden's motives and said the work of the NSA was distorted by selective leaks and misinterpretations.
On Dec. 16, in a lawsuit that could not have gone forward without the disclosures made possible by Snowden, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon described the NSA's capabilities as "almost Orwellian" and said its bulk collection of U.S. domestic telephone records was probably unconstitutional.
The next day, in the Roosevelt Room [at the White house], an unusual delegation of executives from old telephone companies and young Internet firms told President Obama that the NSA's intrusion into their networks was a threat to the U.S. information economy. The following day, an advisory panel appointed by Obama recommended substantial new restrictions on the NSA, including an end to the domestic call-records program. …
In the intelligence and national security establishments, Snowden is widely viewed as a reckless saboteur, and journalists abetting him little less so. …
It is commonly said of Snowden that he broke an oath of secrecy, a turn of phrase that captures a sense of betrayal. NSA Director Keith B. Alexander and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr., among many others, have used that formula. …
Snowden noted matter-of-factly that Standard Form 312, the classified-information nondisclosure agreement, is a civil contract. He signed it, but he pledged his fealty elsewhere.
"The oath of allegiance is not an oath of secrecy," he said. "That is an oath to the Constitution. That is the oath that I kept that Keith Alexander and James Clapper did not." …
Beginning in October 2012, he said, he brought his misgivings to two superiors in the NSA's Technology Directorate and two more in the NSA Threat Operations Center's regional base in Hawaii. For each of them, and 15 other co-workers, Snowden said he opened a data query tool called BOUNDLESSINFORMANT, which used color-coded "heat maps" to depict the volume of data ingested by NSA taps.
His colleagues were often "astonished to learn we are collecting more in the United States on Americans than we are on Russians in Russia," he said. Many of them were troubled, he said, and several said they did not want to know any more.
"I asked these people, 'What do you think the public would do if this was on the front page?' " he said. He noted that critics have accused him of bypassing internal channels of dissent. "How is that not reporting it? How is that not raising it?" …
By last December, Snowden was contacting reporters, although he had not yet passed along any classified information. He continued to give his colleagues the "front-page test", he said, until April. …
Just before releasing the documents this spring, Snowden made a final review of the risks. He had overcome what he described at the time as a "selfish fear" of the consequences for himself.
"I said to you the only fear [left] is apathy — that people won't care, that they won't want change." …
The documents leaked by Snowden compelled attention because they revealed to Americans a history they did not know they had. …
With assistance from private communications firms, the NSA had learned to capture enormous flows of data at the speed of light from fiber-optic cables that carried Internet and telephone traffic over continents and under seas. According to one document in Snowden's cache, the agency's Special Source Operations group, which as early as 2006 was said to be ingesting "one Library of Congress every 14.4 seconds", had an official seal that might have been parody: an eagle with all the world's cables in its grasp.
Each year, NSA systems collected hundreds of millions of e-mail address books, hundreds of billions of cellphone location records and trillions of domestic call logs.
Most of that data, by definition and intent, belonged to ordinary people suspected of nothing. But vast new storage capacity and processing tools enabled the NSA to use the information to map human relationships on a planetary scale. Only this way, its leadership believed, could the NSA reach beyond its universe of known intelligence targets.
In the view of the NSA, signals intelligence, or electronic eavesdropping, was a matter of life and death, "without which America would cease to exist as we know it", according to an internal presentation in the first week of October 2001, as the agency ramped up its response to the al-Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
With stakes such as those, there was no capability the NSA believed it should leave on the table. The agency followed orders from President George W. Bush to begin domestic collection without authority from Congress and the courts. When the NSA won those authorities later, some of them under secret interpretations of laws passed by Congress between 2007 and 2012, the Obama administration went further still. …
In the Moscow interview, Snowden said, "What the government wants is something they never had before," adding: "They want total awareness. The question is, is that something we should be allowing?"
Snowden likened the NSA's powers to those used by British authorities in Colonial America, when "general warrants" allowed for anyone to be searched. The FISA court, Snowden said, "is authorizing general warrants for the entire country's metadata."
"The last time that happened, we fought a war over it," he said.
Technology, of course, has enabled a great deal of consumer surveillance by private companies, as well. The difference with the NSA's possession of the data, Snowden said, is that government has the power to take away life or freedom.
At the NSA, he said, "there are people in the office who joke about, 'We put warheads on foreheads.' Twitter doesn't put warheads on foreheads."
Privacy, as Snowden sees it, is a universal right, applicable to American and foreign surveillance alike.
"I don't care whether you're the pope or Osama bin Laden," he said. "As long as there's an individualized, articulable, probable cause for targeting these people as legitimate foreign intelligence, that's fine. I don't think it's imposing a ridiculous burden by asking for probable cause. …
When it comes to spying on allies, by Snowden's lights, the news is not always about the target.
"It's the deception of the government that's revealed," Snowden said, noting that the Obama administration offered false public assurances after the initial reports about NSA surveillance in Germany. "The U.S. government said: 'We follow German laws in Germany. We never target German citizens.' And then the story comes out and it's: 'What are you talking about? You're spying on the chancellor.' You just lied to the entire country, in front of Congress." …
In hope of keeping focus on the NSA, Snowden has ignored attacks on himself.
"Let them say what they want," he said. "It's not about me."
Former NSA and CIA director Michael V. Hayden predicted that Snowden will waste away in Moscow as an alcoholic, like other "defectors." To this, Snowden shrugged. He does not drink at all. Never has.
But Snowden knows his presence here is easy ammunition for critics. He did not choose refuge in Moscow as a final destination. He said that once the U.S. government voided his passport as he tried to change planes en route to Latin America, he had no other choice. … "I have no relationship with the Russian government. I have not entered into any agreements with them."
"If I defected at all," Snowden said, "I defected from the government to the public."
We don't think it likely that the NSA will stop its surveillance of the whole earth and your and our emails. It's a power beyond the wildest dreams of all governments ever to be able to know everything about everyone, and now that it has become possible, and is being used, it will never be given up. No court judgment will stop it. No act of Congress. Preventing terrorist attacks is the excuse. Power is the reason.
At least we know about it now. For that we have to thank Edward Snowden.
Saudi Arabia behind 9/11 1
Proof that Saudi Arabia sponsored 9/11 is still being covered-up.
Paul Sperry (of the Hoover Institution) reports and comments in the New York Post:
After the 9/11 attacks, the public was told al Qaeda acted alone, with no state sponsors.
But the White House never let it see an entire section of Congress's investigative report on 9/11 dealing with "specific sources of foreign support" for the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals.
It was kept secret and remains so today.
President Bush inexplicably censored 28 full pages of the 800-page report. Text isn't just blacked-out here and there in this critical-yet-missing middle section. The pages are completely blank, except for dotted lines where an estimated 7,200 words once stood. …
A pair of lawmakers who recently read the redacted portion say they are "absolutely shocked" at the level of foreign state involvement in the attacks.
Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC) and Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) can't reveal the nation identified by it without violating federal law. So they've proposed Congress pass a resolution asking President Obama to declassify the entire 2002 report, "Joint Inquiry Into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001″.
Some information already has leaked from the classified section, which is based on both CIA and FBI documents, and it points back to Saudi Arabia, a presumed ally.
The Saudis deny any role in 9/11, butthe CIA in one memo reportedly found "incontrovertible evidence" that Saudi government officials — not just wealthy Saudi hardliners, but high-level diplomats and intelligence officers employed by the kingdom — helped the hijackers both financially and logistically. The intelligence files cited in the report directly implicate the Saudi embassy in Washington and consulate in Los Angeles in the attacks, making 9/11 not just an act of terrorism, but an act of war.
The findings, if confirmed, would back up open-source reporting showing the hijackers had, at a minimum, ties to several Saudi officials and agents while they were preparing for their attacks inside the United States. In fact, they got help from Saudi VIPs from coast to coast:
LOS ANGELES: Saudi consulate official Fahad al-Thumairy allegedly arranged for an advance team to receive two of the Saudi hijackers — Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi — as they arrived at LAX in 2000. One of the advance men, Omar al-Bayoumi, a suspected Saudi intelligence agent, left the LA consulate and met the hijackers at a local restaurant. (Bayoumi left the United States two months before the attacks, while Thumairy was deported back to Saudi Arabia after 9/11.)
SAN DIEGO: Bayoumi and another suspected Saudi agent, Osama Bassnan, set up essentially a forward operating base in San Diego for the hijackers after leaving LA. They were provided rooms, rent and phones, as well as private meetings with an American al Qaeda cleric who would later become notorious, Anwar al-Awlaki, at a Saudi-funded mosque he ran in a nearby suburb. They were also feted at a welcoming party. (Bassnan also fled the United States just before the attacks.)
WASHINGTON: Then-Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar and his wife sent checks totaling some $130,000 to Bassnan while he was handling the hijackers. Though the Bandars claim the checks were "welfare" for Bassnan's supposedly ill wife, the money nonetheless made its way into the hijackers' hands.
Other al Qaeda funding was traced back to Bandar and his embassy — so much so that by 2004 Riggs Bank of Washington had dropped the Saudis as a client.
The next year, as a number of embassy employees popped up in terror probes, Riyadh recalled Bandar.
"Our investigations contributed to the ambassador's departure," an investigator who worked with the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Washington told me, though Bandar says he left for "personal reasons".
FALLS CHURCH, VA.: In 2001, Awlaki and the San Diego hijackers turned up together again — this time at the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, a Pentagon-area mosque built with funds from the Saudi Embassy. Awlaki was recruited 3,000 miles away to head the mosque. As its imam, Awlaki helped the hijackers, who showed up at his doorstep as if on cue. He tasked a handler to help them acquire apartments and IDs before they attacked the Pentagon.
Awlaki worked closely with the Saudi Embassy. He lectured at a Saudi Islamic think tank in Merrifield, Va., chaired by Bandar. Saudi travel itinerary documents I've obtained show he also served as the official imam on Saudi Embassy-sponsored trips to Mecca and tours of Saudi holy sites.
Most suspiciously, though, Awlaki fled the United States on a Saudi jet about a year after 9/11. …
The Saudi-sponsored cleric was briefly detained at JFK before being released into the custody of a "Saudi representative". A federal warrant for Awlaki's arrest had mysteriously been withdrawn the previous day. …
HERNDON, VA.: On the eve of the attacks, top Saudi government official Saleh Hussayen checked into the same Marriott Residence Inn near Dulles Airport as three of the Saudi hijackers who targeted the Pentagon. Hussayen had left a nearby hotel to move into the hijackers' hotel. Did he meet with them? The FBI never found out. They let him go after he "feigned a seizure", one agent recalled. (Hussayen's name doesn't appear in the separate 9/11 Commission Report, which clears the Saudis.)
SARASOTA, FLA.: 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta and other hijackers visited a home owned by Esam Ghazzawi, a Saudi adviser to the nephew of King Fahd. FBI agents investigating the connection in 2002 found that visitor logs for the gated community and photos of license tags matched vehicles driven by the hijackers. Just two weeks before the 9/11 attacks, the Saudi luxury home was abandoned. Three cars, including a new Chrysler PT Cruiser, were left in the driveway. Inside, opulent furniture was untouched.
Democrat Bob Graham, the former Florida senator who chaired the Joint Inquiry, has asked the FBI for the Sarasota case files, but can't get a single, even heavily redacted, page released. He says it's a "coverup".
Is the federal government protecting the Saudis? Case agents tell me they were repeatedly called off pursuing 9/11 leads back to the Saudi Embassy, which had curious sway over White House and FBI responses to the attacks.
Just days after Bush met with the Saudi ambassador in the White House, the FBI evacuated from the United States dozens of Saudi officials, as well as Osama bin Laden family members. Bandar made the request for escorts directly to FBI headquarters on Sept. 13, 2001 — just hours after he met with the president. The two old family friends shared cigars on the Truman Balcony while discussing the attacks. …
Astonishing as [it] sounds, few lawmakers in fact have bothered to read the classified section of arguably the most important investigation in US history. …
But it's critical they take the time to read it and pressure the White House to let all Americans read it. …
As the frustrated Joint Inquiry authors warned, in an overlooked addendum to their heavily redacted 2002 report, "State-sponsored terrorism substantially increases the likelihood of successful and more lethal attacks within the United States".
Their findings must be released, even if they forever change US-Saudi relations. …
Members of Congress reluctant to read the full report ought to remember that the 9/11 assault missed its fourth target: them.
(Hat-tip Roger in Florida)
US switches sides in Syria 11
For the first time in the 1,000-day civil war, the Americans find themselves in greater sympathy with Russia, Iran, Assad and Hizballah than the rebel cause.
According to DebkaFile, Bashar Assad is winning the civil war (or uprising against his dictatorship). So the Obama administration has stopped supporting the rebels to the extent, and in whatever way they ever did, and is now romancing Bashar Assad. The new policy follows naturally from the exciting new love-in Obama is having with the Shia tyrants of Iran.
The conquest Sunday, Dec. 8, of Nabuk in the Qalamoun Mountains on the Syrian-Lebanese border is a signal strategic breakthrough for Bashar Assad's army, climaxing a row of battleground successes that have cast the rebel forces into deep disarray. Nabuk fell after a two-week siege by the combined forces of Syria, Hizballah, Iraqi Shiite units and the Iranian Al Qods Brigades. The Qalamoun range which separates central Syria from central Lebanon is at their mercy.
Assad and his allies, Hizballah's Hassan Nasrallah and Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, can chalk up four major war gains:
1. The highway from Damascus to Syria's two port towns, Latakia and Tartus on the Mediterranean coast, is now open through the wayside town of Homs.
2. The last remaining rebel supply routes from Lebanon are cut off. Syrian rebels can no longer use Lebanon as a supply base for reinforcements and new recruits or as a destination for their casualties to receive treatment.
3. The Damascus-Beirut highway is now under Hizballah control, providing its Beirut headquarters vitally direct access to the forces posted to Damascus, and easing liaison and communications among Iranian, Syrian and Hizballah military units in the field.
4. Pushing the rebels out of their Qalamoun strongholds was the last step before loosening their two-year grip on the eastern suburbs of Damascus. Under relentless Syrian army siege, many rebel commanders holding on to those suburbs are crossing the lines and handing sectors over to Syrian army officers.
The Assad regime has reached a stage in the civil war at which the rebels no longer pose a military threat to his hold on power and have lost the capacity for more more than terrorist attacks or sporadic mortar shelling.
The Syrian rebel movement has lost its coherence as a fighting force. In desperation, they are releasing a stream of false claims of successes and unfounded accusations that Assad has reverted to chemical warfare. …
Since the only anti-Assad forces still in fighting shape are the two Al Qaeda affiliates, Jabhat al Nusra and the Iraqi branch, Washington is turning its back on the Syrian rebel movement as a whole and instead [is] ready to talk indirectly to Syrian army elements loyal to Assad as well as Hizballah. …
Indeed, in consideration of Hizballah's military kudos and rising political clout in Beirut, the Obama administration has opened up a back channel to its leaders, mostly through British diplomats.
It turns out that the same coalition which contrived the nuclear deal in Geneva on Nov. 24 – the US, Russia and Iran – is going into action again on the Syrian issue with a favored spot for Iran's Lebanese Shiite pawn [Hizballah].
We think this DebkaFile report is likely to be true in its main thrust: that US policy has changed, and America is now in alliance with Russia and Iran and in negotiation with one of the world's most savage terrorist organizations.
And if it is true, it is an enormity – an extreme wrong.
It is not that the rebels are any better than Assad. Both sides are evil. Both sides seem to be peopled by vicious murdering torturing cannibals. Neither should be supported. But Assad is Iran's client. Hizballah is Iran's creation. What matters here is the colossal boost to Iranian power. The US has conceded the territory to the mullahs.
Under a pretense by their traitorous leaders that it is better to negotiate than risk a war with belligerent enemies, the American people are being led into capitulation.
Iran will be nuclear armed. Hizballah can claim legitimacy, and the cost to Lebanon and Israel is dreadful to think of. Russia's power and prestige is being enhanced with each disastrous move Obama makes in the region of the Middle East.
And the US is no longer the protector of the free world. The erstwhile free world no longer has a protector.
The rise and rise of theocratic Iran 1
In addition to allowing Iran to become a nuclear power, Obama is making the mullahs secret promises of power and glory, if this report from DebkaFile is true:
President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry secretly agreed to elevate Iran to the status of seventh world power, as a strong inducement for signing the interim nuclear accord in Geneva Sunday, Nov. 24 …
While Iran has always demanded respect and equal standing as a regional power, never in their wildest dreams had the ayatollahs expected to be granted big power standing, with an authoritative role recognized by the six big powers for addressing issues in a broad region spanning the Persian Gulf, the Middle East and Western Asia, including Afghanistan. …
President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif presented this awesome achievement Monday to their hard-line critics at home, who accused them of giving away too much in terms of Iran's nuclear program for the sake of a deal with the West.
We come home from Geneva with recognition as a world power, they replied.
The small print of Iran's new rating is not yet in place, but Western sources familiar with the new US-Iranian understandings say they would not be surprised to find President Rouhani sitting in future summits on the same side of the table as the six powers who faced Iran in the Geneva negotiations. Zarif would also attend future foreign ministers' meetings as an world-class equal.
Jerusalem and Riyadh are aghast at this development. Our Jerusalem sources report that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who has kept it back from his cabinet colleagues, has been holding back-to-back confidential consultations with the heads of Israel's security and intelligence services and the high IDF command to decide how to handle Obama's sudden replacement of Israel with Iran as America's No. 1 ally in the region.
Most immediately, a hostile Iran with a role in the ongoing US-sponsored negotiations with the Palestinians does not bear thinking of.
The Saudi royal house is deep in similarly anxious and angry discussions.
The report states that –
Israel and Saudi Arabia both find Iran's promotion to world status more shocking and deleterious even than its pretensions to a nuclear weapon. Neither had imagined the Obama administration capable of an about face so extreme.
The about face is not conjecture – it has happened.
It has happened because it seems unthinkable to most people that Obama would destroy the West if he could. However naive, incompetent, ignorant, deceitful he is, the very fact that no one would believe that that is what he is hoping to do, has made it possible for him to take such steps as this giant one in Geneva. Iran is obviously more likely to advance Islamic world-power than Saudi Arabia or the Muslim Brotherhood. So with Iran he has negotiated the great betrayal.
Obama – horrifying failure or terrifying success? 12
On June 7, 2008, we faced with horror the possibility that Barack Obama could become president of the United States with a post titled Obama can only fumble and fail:
We would say to him: 'Come on, Barry, face the fact that you cannot lead this nation.'
Barack Obama makes flabbergastingly naive statements of intent. He seems to be stuck with adolescent ideals, a view of what is desirable and possible that few sane people over the age of 21 can normally continue to hold. He manifests no knowledge of history, or of political or economic theory. His ideas have the quality of sticky-sentiment greetings cards, but are delivered with the grandiloquence of extreme narcissism. His manner of dropping his voice at the end of every sentence gives everything he says a certainty; an inarguable 'I say so, so that's how it is' finality; an apodictic quality. This manner, combined with the lift of his chin to one side like Mussolini, enchants gullible listeners: makes them think, 'Ah yes, he is so sure, he must be right, he should lead us!' Only when he has to answer a question he has not prepared himself for, do we hear him fumbling, stammering, losing the eloquence of the well-rehearsed demagogue.
To elect him to the presidency of the United States at this point in history would be a mistake so devastating that it's hard to believe sensible voters could even contemplate doing so. Now, just as Europe has learnt too late that socialism does not work, he would bring socialism to America. For make no mistake about it, Obama is a socialist … Just for starters he wants a national health service – a wholly socialist notion – though every example of such a thing everywhere in the world is failing.
Has he brought socialism to America? Yes. Or very much more of it to add to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's start.
Has he imposed a national health service on the nation? Yes. He has begun to do it with a health care act that taxes every citizen and resident of America just for existing, and is proving to be so unmanageable that the only way out of its mess is either to repeal it as Republicans want to do, or go to a full "one-payer system" – the one payer being of course the state – as Obama's faithful Democrats want to do.
His foreign policy ideas are even more disastrous. He wants to disarm the US in a world of spreading nuclear know-how and capability along with hostile intention.
Is he doing so? Yes. He is defunding the US military and turning servicemen into social workers.
Is the country called 'the last best hope' of humanity about to follow the European example and become weak, demoralized, decadent, and slowly subjugated by aliens whose ideas derive from the seventh century?
Yes. In addition to following the European model of socialism, Obama has brought the Muslim Brotherhood into his administration.
What of his world leadership as US president? He has just proved himself incapable of exercising it. Worse, he has broken the Pax Americana on which the world relied – as Caroline Glick explicates:
What happened in Geneva last week was the most significant international event since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The collapse of the Soviet Union signaled the rise of the United States as the sole global superpower. The developments in the six-party nuclear talks with Iran in Geneva last week signaled the end of American world leadership.
Global leadership is based on two things – power and credibility. The United States remains the most powerful actor in the world. But last week, American credibility was shattered.
Secretary of State John Kerry spent the first part of last week lying to Israeli and Gulf Arab leaders and threatening the Israeli people. He lied to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the Saudis about the content of the deal US and European negotiators had achieved with the Iranians.
Kerry told them that in exchange for Iran temporarily freezing its nuclear weapons development program, the US and its allies would free up no more than $5 billion in Iranian funds seized and frozen in foreign banks.
Kerry threatened the Israeli people with terrorism and murder – and so invited both – if Israel fails to accept his demands for territorial surrender to PLO terrorists that reject Israel's right to exist. …
It is hard to separate the rise in terrorist activity since Kerry's remarks last week from his remarks.
What greater carte blanche for murder could the Palestinians have received than the legitimization of their crimes by the chief diplomat of Israel's closest ally? Certainly, Kerry's negotiating partner Catherine Ashton couldn't have received a clearer signal to ratchet up her economic boycott of Jewish Israeli businesses than Kerry's blackmail message …
Kerry's threats were so obscene and unprecedented that Israeli officials broke with tradition and disagreed with him openly and directly, while he was still in the country. Normally supportive leftist commentators have begun reporting Kerry's history of anti-Israel advocacy, including his 2009 letter of support for pro-Hamas activists organizing flotillas to Gaza in breach of international and American law.
As for Kerry's lies to the US's chief Middle Eastern allies, it was the British and the French who informed the Israelis and the Saudis that far from limiting sanctions relief to a few billion dollars in frozen funds, the draft agreement involved ending sanctions on Iran's oil and gas sector, and on other industries.
In other words, the draft agreement exposed Washington's willingness to effectively end economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for Iran's agreement to cosmetic concessions that will not slow down its nuclear weapons program.
Both the US's position, and the fact that Kerry lied about that position to the US's chief allies, ended what was left of American credibility in the Middle East. That credibility was already tattered by US fecklessness in Syria and support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
True, in the end, Kerry was unable to close the deal he rushed off to Geneva to sign last Friday. [But] it wasn't Iran that rejected the American surrender. And it wasn't America that scuttled the proposal. It was France. Unable to hide behind American power and recognizing its national interest in preventing Iran from emerging as a nuclear armed power in the Middle East, France vetoed a deal that paved the way a nuclear Iran.
Kerry's failure to reach the hoped-for deal represented a huge blow to America, and a double victory for Iran. The simple fact that Washington was willing to sign the deal – and lie about it to its closest allies – caused the US to lose its credibility in the Middle East. Even without the deal, the US paid the price of appeasing Iran and surrendering leadership of the free world [in this instance] to France and Israel. …
Thus, Iran ended Pax Americana in the Middle East, removing the greatest obstacle in its path to regional hegemony. And it did so without having to make the slightest concession to the Great Satan. …
It was fear of losing Pax Americana that made all previous US administrations balk at reaching an accord with Iran. …
The Obama administration just paid that unsustainably high price, and didn't even get a different relationship with Iran.
Most analyses of what happened in Geneva last week have centered on what the failure of the talks means for the future of Obama's foreign policy.
Certainly Obama, now universally reviled by America's allies in the Middle East, will be diplomatically weakened. This diplomatic weakness may not make much difference to Obama's foreign policy, because appeasement and retreat do not require diplomatic strength.
But the real story of what happened last week is far more significant than the future of Obama's foreign policy. Last week it was America that lost credibility, not Obama. It was America that squandered the essential component of global leadership.
And that is the watershed event of this young century. …
Until Obama became president, the consensus view of the US foreign policy establishment and of both major parties was that the US had a permanent interest in being the hegemonic power in the Middle East. US hegemony ensured three permanent US national security interests: preventing enemy regimes and terror groups from acquiring the means to cause catastrophic harm; ensuring the smooth flow of petroleum products through the Persian Gulf and the Suez Canal; and demonstrating the credibility of American power by ensuring the security of US allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia. The third interest was an essential foundation of US deterrence of the Soviets during the Cold War, and of the Chinese over the past decade.
Obama departed from this foreign policy consensus in an irrevocable manner last week. In so doing, he destroyed US credibility. …
[Even] if a conservative internationalist in the mold of Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy or Ronald Reagan is elected in 2016, Obama's legacy will make it impossible for him to rebuild the US alliance structure. US allies … will not be willing to make any longterm commitments based on US security guarantees.
Obama has taught the world that the same US that elected Truman and formed NATO, and elected George H.W. Bush and threw Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, can elect a man who betrays US allies and US interests to advance a radical ideology predicated on a rejection of the morality of American power. Any US ally is now on notice that US promises – even if based on US interests – are not reliable. American commitments can expire the next time America elects a radical to the White House. …
America's appalling betrayal of Jerusalem under Obama … is the straw that has broken the back of American strategic credibility from Taipei to Santiago. …
The twice-elected president of the United States has dispatched his secretary of state to threaten and deceive US allies while surrendering to US foes. It is now an indisputable fact that the US government may use its power to undermine its own interests and friends worldwide.
Could a president fail more catastrophically than Obama has? The list of his failures is too long for this space. Enough to say he has had no successes. America under his leadership is more in debt, its government is more corrupt, its position in the world is weaker, its Constitution is voided, its citizens are less free, its enemies are triumphant, its allies are enraged …
And yet … an awful question arises. What if all this represents not failure but success? What if the wrecking of the economy, the collectivization of the people, the weakening of America as the dominant world power, the voiding of the Constitution, the advancement of Islam, the existential crisis of Israel, are precisely what Obama set out to achieve?
Then he would have to be assessed as the most successful president since George Washington. The failure is colossal, but it is not his. It is America's.


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11 Copycat Recipes for Baking Ingredients: Recipes for Homemade Bisquick & More
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Apple and Raisin Cake
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Home preserving recipes can be full of sweetness, as this easy apples recipe shows. Combine apples with raisins and other ingredients to make a delicious cake recipe that fits perfectly in a jar.
- 2/3 cup shortening
- 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 2/3 cups sugar
- 3 cups flour
- 4 eggs
- 2/3 cup water
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 3 cups apples, grated
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 2/3 cup raisins
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 2/3 cup nuts, chopped
- Mix the ingredients together in the order given.
- Sterilize 7 to 9 wide mouth pint jars and lids. Grease them with shortning.
- Fill the jars half full and bake on the middle wire wire rack in the oven.
- Bake for 45 minutes at 325 degrees F.
- As soon as the cake is done, remove the bottles from the oven one at a time. Wipe the rim of the bottle clean with cloth and put on the hot sterilized lids.
- Screw down the bands and let cool.
- Important-- do not use small mouth jars. do not add any other ingredients.
- As the cake cools in the sealed jar, it will pull away from the sides of the jar and come out easily when ready to serve.
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Okay, maybe I'm imagining things. It wouldn't be the first time.
I was reminded this morning of just how subjective everything is about how we view the show, but I feel like I'm seeing a theme this season, and whether or not it's intentional on the writers' part, I love it. 1,575 more words


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Rooms were very clean although ours had damp in the bathroom staff were extremely helpful with a room change and luggage storage (late flights,early checkout) good location lots of eating places within 5 minutes walk
Some rooms are at front of hotels are VERY noisy try to avoid if possible
The room was nice,although small. Staff were helpful
breakfast was poor - if you had a second cuppacino or espresso you had to pay 2.5 euro - quite expensive as you have already paid for the breakfast.
the room was VERY clean and a great value for the money
this is not exactly a criticism, as it has a positive aspect to it: the room smelled of bleach. Which meant it was very clean, but also that I had to open the windows to air it out a bit.
The location in perferct near Termini railway station. Good restaurants and pubs around.
Internet is expensive and poor quality. Building elevator is very old and small.
The location
The staff were rude and noisy in reseption till the early hours of the morning
The only positive point was the close location of the hotel to the train station, and it was the only reason I booked this hotel, because we were arriving to Rome a bit late at night
It does not look like a hotel at all. It was a shared building between so many hotels. It has a very old and scaring elevator. Bathroom was not also acceptable at all
Breakfast was simple but adequate. Location is good. Very near termini.
Hotel is at second floor and the whole building has only one lift. Some difficulty with carrying luggage up or down.
Location, Staff
Room had no window and was too small
Good location.
No free Wi-Fi??? THat is just stupid.
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Match report
Kevin Nolan's close-range strike ensured that West Ham United enjoyed a successful return to the Barclays Premier League with a 1-0 victory over Aston Villa. The West Ham captain turned in a low cross from Ricardo Vaz Te five minutes before half-time for the only goal of the game.
The game began to spark into some sort of life after 36 minutes when Cole was brought down on the edge of the Villa box by Ron Vlaar. Mark Noble touched the free-kick to Nolan, who drilled it low and through the wall but just wide of Shay Given's right-hand post.
Four minutes later, West Ham had the lead. Noble's lofted free-kick fell to Vaz Te, who pulled the ball back for Nolan to score from close range.
West Ham began to grow as the game went on and could have doubled their lead after 65 minutes, when Vaz Te skipped past Nathan Baker and cut a low cross back to Nolan, whose shot was blocked by Vlaar. The Villa defender then went up the other end and had a shot on goal from 35 yards as Villa sought in vain for an equaliser.
West Ham
Manager: Sam Allardyce
Aston Villa
Manager: Paul Lambert
|Next fixtures
|07 Apr 2013
|v Liverpool (A)
|25 Nov 2012
|v Spurs (A)
|17 Mar 2013
|v Chelsea (A)
|01 Jan 2013
|v Norwich (H)
|09 Dec 2012
|v Liverpool (H)
|03 Nov 2012
|v Man City (H)
|Next fixtures
|06 Apr 2013
|v Stoke (A)
|12 Jan 2013
|v Southampton (H)
|24 Nov 2012
|v Arsenal (H)
|29 Dec 2012
|v Wigan (H)
|03 Nov 2012
|v Sunderland (A)
|10 Nov 2012
|v Man Utd (H)


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This is a vintage 1950's-60's matinee length (23") chunky faux Tahitian pearl necklace. It is in beautiful restrung condition and the "pearls" measure from 15mm. down to 7mm. with 3mm. gold plated spacer beads.
Item ID: es-341
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Art Deco, 19th and 20th century decorative and functional treasures.


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Home » News » Education
Outgoing Manchester superintendent speaks his mind
"My advice would be to reach out to individual board members," he said. "She needs to take the risks that I did not take because I had big trust issues."
"Having the school board pass significant new policies that allow students to learn beyond the schoolhouse door, extending learning opportunities outside of the standard classroom, was very important," he said.
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Offend someone? To jail with you!
Jury acquits Mont Vernon driver, who was checking text, in death of former Amherst fire chief
Plaistow town planner arrested


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Spain's Mondragon Assembly takes over Gorosabel Group's solar business
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JinkoSolar sells 45% stake in downstream unit for $225 million
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Ingeteam commissions second large-scale PV plant in Argentina
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NRG Home Solar eyes California's residential market
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SYRACUSE, N.Y. - A few members of the Crunch were stuffing teddy bears at Destiny USA Monday to help promote the team's annual teddy toss Saturday.
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Bottle $62.74
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Rated 92 - A high-toned and admirably pure nose of Granny Smith apples, freshly sliced lemon and mineral reduction scents. There is equally good purity to the wonderfully vibrant and intense middle weight...
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Rated 90-92 - This is not more elegant than the Clos St. Jean but it is more aromatically complex with a beautiful array of red currant, violet, plum, earth and pepper nuances. There is superb energy and...
Bottle $85.94
12 bottle $85.34
Rated 90 - A complex and spicy nose offers up notes of honeysuckle, essence of pear and apricot. There is outstanding volume to the impressively well-concentrated medium weight flavors that brim with dry...
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Rated 91 - A cool, pure and perfumed nose of wet stone, green apple and soft pear aromas leads to beautifully vibrant and well-delineated medium-bodied flavors that possess fine concentration and plenty...
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I am configuring an image slider for a wordpress page's individual blog posts. Wanted to do this quickly so looked at incorporating the NextGen slider, but it seems like it is more geared towards putting images on wordpress 'pages' rather than wordpress 'posts'.
I want to create individual posts, each with a different NextGen slider. Whats the best way to organize this using the wordpress framework?
Currently, my slider lives at 'mysite.com/slider'. Can I set up NextGen so that different galleries point to 'mysite.com/post1', 'mysite.com/post2', etc.? If not, is there another way that you have found to perform this task?
Thank you.


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November 27, 2014
Posted Monday, September 9, 2013 --- 11:55 a.m.
Madison Police are investigating reports of shots fired on Bettys Lane and Theresa Terrace early Monday morning.
Several callers reported hearing two gunshots.
So far police have not found any shell casings, property damage or injured person during their investigation.
Click Here to access the online Public Inspection File
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I have been here on a couple of my travels and i have had such a good time. Hotel is situated on a nice place and there is also a little parking place on the back, Staff is friendly and breakfast is very good.
Location: Germany > Bavaria > Franconia > Lower Franconia > Karlstadt
Number of rooms: 20


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Time to Move On!
... of colour and action, i didn't even go to sleep which is the norm for me when it is dark and warm.
Throughout the last few days we have been over to Staten Island to get a better view of the Statue of Liberty, been to the Guggenheim musem which Ben really liked. We had great fun deciding on names of paintings, ie "Blue Square with ...
Cape Cod and Boston
... at a friend of Ellen's' cottage in Cape Cod. We were very thankful to Ellen, Sean, Chris and Thomas to drive from New Hampshire for the weekend to come and meet us. We went for a drive to the beach and saw thousands of Horse shoe crabs. These crabs are an example of a ...
Back to the East Coast
Another easy day of driving - about two and one half hours. Some great things to see here in Hyannis. Within walking distance from our hotel we found the "John F. Kennedy Museum". What a great place to learn more about one of our great presidents and his family. It was very fun to learn about his first sailboat, Victura. His father gave it to him for his 15th birthday. It is said that it was always his favorite. ...
Cape Cod
... be able to do a commuter hop from Boston which would be great. Then back down the coast following the wine trail tried a number of Massachusetts wines but not excited enough by anything to buy this time .,,. Down to Dedham as have work at alimed tomorrow, enjoyed great wine and dinner at wicked a happy stumble from the hotel , that was lucky ...
Back in Cape Cod - Chatham
... but they did a great a job converting the place and if different parts had not been pointed out to me, I would have thought it was just a converted barn. It is such a nice, elegant place that you can have your tea sandwiches and a wide variety of teas.
It was nice to be back on the cape. Even after so many visits, Athena still manages to take us to new places and expose us to new experiences.


text: film industry Michael Moore out as Michigan film board member By The Associated Press • Sep 21, 2014 Michigan Capitol Confidential LANSING, Mich. (AP) - Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Michael Moore no longer will serve on the Michigan Film Office Advisory Council after Republican Gov. Rick Snyder named a suburban-Detroit businessman to replace him. Moore joined the council as an appointee of then-Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm. Snyder announced Thursday that he was renominating a second film council member whose term was expiring along with Moore's. Michigan film incentive gets $50 million budget, praised by Hollywood for cash program By Stateside Staff • Jun 24, 2014 Erik Helgestad / Flickr Listen Listening... / 9:56 Michigan used to have one of the most generous film incentive programs in the nation. But when Rick Snyder was elected governor, he cut way back on the film incentives. For the 2015 fiscal year, the Michigan film incentive program got $50 million, for the third year in a row. The director of the Michigan Film Office, Margaret O'Riley shared her thoughts about the budget. O'Riley said the incentive is a cash incentive, versus a tax credit incentive that most states use. She says this is better for the Legislature because they know exactly how much money is being spent. "We continue to get a lot of kudos from the industry for having a cash incentive approach," O'Riley said. Right now, Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill are filming Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in Pontiac and around Detroit. It's Michigan's biggest production to date, with a $131 million budget. O'Riley said it's important to have a mixture of big projects, like the Superman movie, and smaller projects to keep Michigan on the radar. "I'm very proud of the fact that they often comment on the great workforce we have," O'Riley said. "That coupled with the fact that we have such a variety of locations within a fairly short distance. You can get pretty much any kind of look you want within Michigan within just a short drive." There are still critics who say the incentive is a poor use of money, but O'Riley said the amount of money returned to tax payers has increased under the new cash incentive program. There are a number of ways to measure the money that comes in: tax dollars that go out versus tax money that comes in to replace it; tax dollars out versus production dollars invested in the state; etc. However, O'Riley said none of these are able to put a dollar value on the cool factor. "The fact that you've got Mark Wahlberg on [The Tonight Show Starring] Jimmy Fallon talking about what a wonderful time he had in Detroit and that everybody in America should go to Detroit," O'Riley said. "The fact that we're able to say Superman was filmed in Michigan; it's the largest production in the country right now. That's fabulous!" *Listen to full interview above. -Bre'Anna Tinsley, Michigan Radio Newsroom. Bryan Cranston, Naomi Watts to star in 'Holland, Michigan' By Michigan Radio Newsroom • Feb 28, 2014 Doug Kline / Flickr Attention "Breaking Bad" fans (read: almost everyone): Bryan Cranston's latest role has a Michigan twist. Cranston, the 57-year-old star of "Breaking Bad" and of course, "Malcolm in the Middle," signed on for the lead role in the new movie, "Holland, Michigan." Academy Award-winning director Errol Morris is expected to direct the film, a thriller centered on a family from – you guessed it – Holland. Superman-Batman movie coming to Michigan By Mark Brush • Aug 29, 2013 JD Hancock Photos The "Caped Crusader" and the "Man of Steel" are getting a handout from Michigan. Julie Hinds of the Detroit Free Press reports Warner Brothers will get millions in tax incentives to shoot the movie in the state. The upcoming Superman-Batman movie has been approved for the state's film incentives, the Michigan Film Office announced today. Cinetopia Film Festival will bring world class films to Detroit and Ann Arbor By Michigan Radio Newsroom • Jun 4, 2013 People in Ann Arbor and Detroit are excitedly preparing for the second annual Cinetopia International Film Festival, taking place this coming weekend. The festival debuted in Ann Arbor last year. After a successful trial run, it's back this year and it's larger than before. Films will be screened at venues in Ann Arbor and at the Detroit Film Theatre at the Detroit Institute of Arts in Detroit. Making one film with 40 directors in 23 countries By Stateside Staff • May 9, 2013 Judy van der Velden / Flickr Listen Listening... / 7:17 When you think of filmmaking, chances are pretty good that you think of a producer, a director and a cast chosen by that director.But there are a couple of filmmakers in Detroit who are blowing up that traditional model of making films, and in its place have come up with something completely different. How about 40 directors for one film? And they're spread across 23 countries on five continents?Marty Shea is one of the Detroit-based filmmakers doing this "collaborative" movie under the name of "CollabFeature." He joined us today. Listen to the full interview above. Michigan's film incentives are on the chopping block By The Associated Press • Apr 24, 2013 Judy van der Velden / Flickr LANSING, Mich. (AP) - The Republican-led state House is looking to do away with tax incentives that lure moviemakers to Michigan so the money instead goes toward road maintenance. The House on Tuesday stripped $25 million in tax credits it planned to set aside for the film industry. The funding would go to the state and local governments for road repairs. The House also cut $25 million from an economic-development fund and allocated it for roads. The full House is expected to vote on its budget Wednesday, setting the stage for negotiations with the Senate and Gov. Rick Snyder next month. So far the GOP-controlled Senate and governor are looking to designate at least $25 million in incentives for Hollywood - half the amount in the current budget. Stateside: What film tax credit cuts mean for Michigan filmmakers By Stateside Staff • Feb 21, 2013 Lloydpictures.com Listen Listening... / 11:02 The following is asummary of a previously recorded interview. To hear the complete segment, click the audio above. Governor Snyder's proposal to cut the state's film tax credits from $50 million to $25 million has left the Michigan filmmaking community wondering if they can keep their heads above water. The divisive proposal has some lawmakers pledging to fight to maintain the state's current tax credits while others stand by the Governor's and say the incentive takes money away from "must-have" programs such as public safety and education. Michael Zervos of Northville, a Michigan filmmaker, is the head of Mother and Midwife Pictures, and is currently in pre-production for his film "Papou," which employs Michigan actors and will be filmed in Michigan. Michigan Radio's Cynthia Canty spoke with Zervos about his concerns with Governor Snyder's proposal. There are two ways you can podcast "Stateside with Cynthia Canty" Podcast of the entire show Podcast of each segment Stateside for Wednesday, February 20th, 2013 By Stateside Staff • Feb 20, 2013 Listen Listening... / 49:49 Stateside for Wednesday, February 20th, 2013. Today on Stateside, Michiganders, you have spoken. A new report is out today about how you think we can move the economy forward. We'll find out more on today's show, and we'll speak to a former University President who says universities themselves might be contributing to some of the economic crunch they're facing.But in the first part of our show, we turn to the question of just how much support the state of Michigan should give to the film industry and filmmakers.Governor Snyder's recent budget proposal contained $25 million in tax credits for film makers. That's a 50 percent cut from the present film credit cap of $50 million, and some lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, a fellow Republican, say that is one bad plan that he says will drive the film industry out of Michigan. Stateside: Supporting the film industry in Michigan By Stateside Staff • Feb 20, 2013 Robert Zuckerman / Michigan Film Office Listen Listening... / 10:30 How much support should the state of Michigan give to the film industry and filmmakers?Governor Snyder's recent budget proposal contained $25-million in tax credits for film makers. That's a 50 percent cut from the present film credit cap of $50 million. Some lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, a fellow Republican, say that is one bad plan. He says it will drive the film industry out of Michigan. Take a listen to our interview with the Director of the Michigan Film Office, Margaret O'Riley, above. State Senate leader looks to expand Michigan's film tax credits By Jake Neher • Feb 18, 2013 The state Senate's top Republican says he'll once again try to ward off big cuts to Michigan's film industry credits. For the second year in a row, Governor Rick Snyder is proposing a budget that would cap the state's film incentives at $25 million for the year. And for the second year in a row, Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville says he'll fight to give the industry at least twice that. "To that particular industry and to the mostly blue collar workers that benefit from that in Michigan, it would be devastating to them," says Richardville. Michigan's film industry reels at Snyder's budget proposal By The Associated Press • Feb 17, 2013 LANSING, Mich. (AP) - Michigan film producers and Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville say they will lobby to maintain the state's $50 million film credits cap.Gov. Snyder is calling for a $25 million dollar cap in film incentives in the budget he has proposed. The amount is the same he proposed last year, but lawmakers raised the cap to $50 million during budget negotiations. Arab museum holds 8th annual film fest By Associated Press & Associated Press • Jan 6, 2013 An annual festival of movies from the Middle East is screening films rarely seen in the United States. The Arab American National Museum in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn is hosting the 2013 festival that runs from Jan 24-26. Stateside: Detroit firefighters documented in "BURN" By Michigan Radio Newsroom • Dec 6, 2012 detroitfirefilm.org Listen Listening... / 14:25 Firefighter Walter Harris was killed in 2008 while attempting to put out a blazing abandoned building. The headlines surrounding Harris's death caught the attention of Tom Putnam and Brenna Sanchez. Both filmmakers agreed a story deserved to be told about Harris and other Detroit firefighters. "Tom and I knew there was a story here that hadn't been told about firefighters," said Sanchez. The story manifested into the new film, "BURN." Stateside: A State with Coming Days of Fame By Stateside Staff • Oct 23, 2012 Lloydpictures.com Michigan's days of filling films' frames are far from over. Carrie Jones, executive director of the Michigan Film Office, foresees a steady increase in the state's film production. Cyndy spoke with Jones in what was a continuation of Stateside's look at Michigan's film industry. Once the top film incentive program in the country, Michigan now ranks within the top 10. With a budget increase to $58 million for the 2013 fiscal year, Michigan expects to enjoy an increase in film production. Stateside: Clearing the tumbleweeds out of Michigan's film studios By Stateside Staff • Oct 22, 2012 Judy van der Velden / Flickr Not long ago stars like Mila Kunis, Ryan Gosling and Philip Seymour Hoffman were spotted in Michigan. For a brief moment the streets of Ann Arbor resembled those of New York or Los Angeles. That was when Michigan offered the nation's best subsidies for film and television production. But to Governor Rick Snyder, these generous production tax incentives were not viable for our struggling state. The incentives program was given a $25-milion dollar cap for the 2012 fiscal year. Michigan's tidal wave of film and TV production has slowed to a trickle. Stateside: Film festival shines spotlight on Detroit By Mercedes Mejia • Sep 20, 2012 MODCaR Facebook People are making a lot of movies about Detroit these days. More than 60 of those films will be screened this weekend at an outdoor film festival in Detroit's Perrien Park. Organizers hope to spark conversation about how Detroit is seen by Michiganders, and the rest of the world. 25 hours, 15 minutes and 45 seconds of film, documentaries and music videos - all about Detroit. "It's kind of wild how many [films] have been made in the last 3 or 4 years...I wasn't aware it was on this scale," said filmmaker Nicole Macdonald. Commentary: Film Tax Credits By Jack Lessenberry • May 25, 2012 Well, we are heading into the holiday weekend, and if the weather holds up, many of us will be barbecuing or going out on the water. But some of us will be going to the movies. And your odds of seeing a major motion picture made in Michigan are a lot smaller than they were a few years ago. That's because the film incentive established by the Granholm Administration ended when Rick Snyder became governor and Republicans took over both houses of the legislature. Michigan Theater to host new, international film fest By Jennifer Guerra • Apr 16, 2012 Photo courtesy of Abby Rose Photo The Ann Arbor Film Festival wrapped up less than a month ago…they've barely packed up their film reels. And already the Michigan Theater is prepping for yet another festival to open next month called Cinetopia. This new, international festival will feature more traditional narrative film and documentaries, rather than the experimental films that dominate the Ann Arbor Film Fest. Artpod: Film and fashion in Michigan By Jennifer Guerra • Feb 2, 2012 mconnors, gracey / morgueFile Lots of news packed into this week's Artpod! We learn about Michigan's burgeoning garment industry, and we get an update on how one of the state's biggest movie studios is doing (hint: not too well.) Plus, we talk with the director of the new documentary, After the Factory. Listen Listening... / Pages1 2 next › last »


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I am trying to deploy my app which uses mongo db to Heroku and it seems that i need to use some hosting service like MongoHQ or MongoLab for hosting Mongo DB. Are there any free mongo db hosting services available that i can use with Heroku ?
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Stack Overflow is a question and answer site for professional and enthusiast programmers. It's 100% free, no registration required.
closed as off-topic by LittleBobbyTables, chue x, Jeff Bauer, warren, Uli Köhler Apr 3 at 19:18
This question appears to be off-topic. The users who voted to close gave this specific reason:
You can add MongoLab to your app either through the add-on catalog or through the heroku command:
Pricing starts at free, too!


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When your son/daughter is groovin....
Find a Conversation
|Mon, 10-09-2006 - 2:54pm
|Mon, 10-09-2006 - 4:37pm
|Tue, 10-10-2006 - 1:55pm
Oh dear - don't even get me started...
Okay - my daughter is quite 'normal' in her dancing. She is five years old and just started her third year of ballet. My gut feeling is that this is something she will continue on with for quite a while. She is pretty good at it - also takes tap and loves it. She currently only wants to listen to 'girl music,' - no boy singers! She loves Sarah McLauphlin (however she spells her name) and The Go-Gos. Not sure when she decided that boys couldn't sing, because her favorite song (to my extreme embarrassment at preschool) used to be Pink Floyd's "We don't need no education... We don't need no force control... Hey-Teachers! Leave them kids alone!" She also likes Disney Music - is it the Cheetah Girls? "I don't wanna be like Cinderella, sitting in a dark cold dusty cellar waiting for somebody to come and rescue me... no no..." What can I say? Elena is a 'cool girl.' :)
Now my son is a slightly different story... Derek is the class joker boy. He doesn't sing, except for the slightly naughty version of the ABC song... if you haven't heard it, it's quite a treat! "A, B, C, D, E, F, G... Barney is my enemy..." (If it was about anyone but Barney, I would have to protest...) But his dancing - watch out Baby! He has one move - one! And he doesn't need anything else (at least not until he starts to care about the ladies...)! I will try to describe it, but understand that it is, ultimately, indescribeable.
Take your feet and spread them out. Now turn your toes outwards, bend at the knees so you are closer to the ground and get your groove on, shake your hips a little! Now raise your arms up into the air and shake them. To pull off the real look it helps if you are a scrawny boy with pants that are about to fall down. Now, jump, doing a 180 in the air so you are facing the other direction, landing in the same legs spread, toes out posture that you were in before and with attitude, slap your butt-cheeks, one at time, whilst grinning over your shoulder at your audience. Next, do the 180 jump again and run as fast as you can toward your mother, leaping into her lap. Back on-stage and Repeat. And repeat... ad nauseum...
That's my boy!


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Since Facebook users are always uniformly delighted every time the social network suddenly reveals big changes to its platform, Mark Zuckerberg and Co. have decided to bestow users with the ability to hashtag their status updates.
The Twitter-like feature hasn't rolled out for everybody quite yet. But starting today when you post something new to your timeline, you'll be able to tag it with a clickable "#" like you already can on Twitter or Instagram. For example:
According to a Facebook blog post, soon users will be able to….
• Search for a specific hashtag from the search bar.
• Click on hashtags that originate on other services, such as Instagram.
• Compose posts directly from the hashtag feed and search results.
Facebook, let's remember, has been doggedly trying to shed its reputation as a dusty place where your weird relatives hang out, particularly with teens flocking to more linear services like Snapchat or Instagram (which use hashtags). Even Google+ beat Facebook to the punch.
Hashtags also help facilitate searchable conversations that are at least semi-topical; and conversations hold currency since they keep users trapped in a time-sucking rabbit hole. That's at least partly why Twitter is the global town hall for gleaning what digitally savvy people are talking about — #RIPSteveJobs, #NSA, #RedWedding, etc.
It probably isn't worth getting too worked up by the inevitable #hashtagization of Facebook. Sure, there's the possibility that it'll heap another spoonful of stupid, distracting noise into your feed. But it's just another tool — like most things social, you don't have to use it if you don't want to.
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