text:
Most Recent Articles In Financial
Latest Financial Articles
- U.S. Stocks Recover From Historic Two-Day Selloff
- Mobile Commerce Provider PredictSpring Infused With $11.4 M, Adds Investors
- Europe's Stock Markets Bounce, While Retail and Luxury Shares Rise
More Articles By
The e-commerce revolution was in full view in Urban Outfitters Inc.'s fourth-quarter results — the company's direct-to-consumer business, including its digital business, drove revenues and helped double the trendy retailer's profits.
This story first appeared in the March 12, 2013 issue of WWD. Subscribe Today.
Chief executive officer Richard Hayne said the digital transformation is just beginning.
"We are still in a very early stage of unlocking the potential that the Internet and mobile technologies bring to the consumer industry," Hayne told analysts Monday on a conference call. "The extraordinary rate of change these disruptive forces create brings both significant risk and opportunity."
This year Urban Outfitters is sinking money into bringing more talent on board, ramping up marketing and sharpening its technological capabilities.
RELATED CONTENT: Click Here for More Earnings Coverage >>
"The disruptive nature of technology is completely transforming the space, and we are making investments so we remain at the top of the heap and we don't become an also-ran," Hayne said.
Sales in the company's direct-to-consumer business tallied $240.5 million in the fourth quarter, 28.1 percent of the firm's total sales. That includes mobile sales, which doubled to more than $25 million.
The stores are pitching in. Hayne said the firm's initiative to "pick, pack and ship," fulfilling online orders from stores, drove $12 million in incremental sales, picking up online business that would have been lost to out-of-stocks.
Hayne said full-price goods were selling online and would continue to pick up steam.
"Eventually the Web will be a more robust place to sell full-price and higher-price merchandise, and we're seeing that in a number of the brands," he said.
Urban's fourth-quarter profits jumped 110 percent to $82.5 million, or 56 cents a diluted share, from $39.3 million, or 27 cents, a year ago. Sales for the three months ended Jan. 31 rose 17.3 percent to $856.8 million from $730.6 million. The company's comparable-store sales were flat for the quarter, but comp sales gained 11 percent when direct operations were included.
Comp sales for the Free People brand shot up 37 percent, while Urban Outfitters increased 11 percent and Anthropologie rose 7 percent.


text:
Ballot initiative
Medical marijuana debate firing up in Volusia, Flagler
Published: Friday, December 6, 2013 at 5:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, December 6, 2013 at 6:22 a.m.
WILBUR-BY-THE-SEA — When Chris Bright learned he would probably die of a brain tumor, he smoked a joint.
Ballot summary
Here is the proposed language of the ballot summary that medical marijuana supporters would like voters to consider.
Allows the medical use of marijuana for individuals with debilitating diseases as determined by a licensed Florida physician. Allows caregivers to assist patients' medical use of marijuana. The Department of Health shall register and regulate centers that produce and distribute marijuana for medical purposes and shall issue identification cards to patients and caregivers. Applies only to Florida law. Does not authorize violations of federal law or any nonmedical use, possession or production of marijuana.
* Debilitating medical condition means cancer, glaucoma, positive HIV status, AIDS, hepatitis C, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Crohn's disease, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis or other conditions for which a physician believes that the medical use of marijuana would likely outweigh the potential health risks for a patient.
He lit up twice a day to cope with the side effects of chemotherapy and radiation treatments he received about two years ago. Bright said the marijuana stimulated his appetite. It allowed him to sleep. It dulled his pain and quelled his nausea.
"If it wasn't for cannabis, I wouldn't be here right now," said Bright, who underwent a life-saving operation to remove the tumor in May 2012.
But the 51-year-old Wilbur-by-the-Sea resident was breaking the law in Florida, and he continues to break the law on a daily basis, smoking black-market marijuana to alleviate neuropathic pain and glaucoma while also using a synthetic version of cannabis, called nabilone, legally available in pill form.
Efforts to legalize medical marijuana in Florida — buoyed by the support of advocates like Bright and a high-profile lawyer blitzing the airwaves with supportive ads — are picking up steam as petitioners seek to collect 700,000 signatures by early next year to place a constitutional referendum on the ballot for the 2014 election.
But law enforcement groups, Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Florida Medical Association have opposed the ballot initiative and say they aren't convinced the amendment as written will be good for the state. The Florida Supreme Court heard arguments Thursday that the ballot language would mislead voters.
In his garage this week, Bright inhaled while flipping through images on his computer promoting the benefits of cannabis. He says the drug provides immediate relief to burning and numbness in his face that stems from nerve damage caused by the tumor.
"This is bonus time," he said, while recalling how close he came to death. "I didn't think I'd be here."
WONDER DRUG or 'A STEP BACKWARDS'?
Dr. Frank Farmer, an Ormond Beach resident who practices internal medicine, wrestled with the explosion of pill mills pumping out oxycodone and painkillers during his tenure as Florida surgeon general from May 2011 to March 2012. He's worried legalized medical marijuana will produce a similar situation where the drug becomes widely available from unregulated dispensaries.
"I am concerned that this is a step backwards," he said. "I have reservations that this may lead to further use of more addictive drugs and more dangerous drugs."
One of the primary backers of medical marijuana is John Morgan, an influential Central Florida attorney known for his "For the People" ads. He is chairing an organization called People United for Medical Marijuana that is leading efforts to place the matter before voters. Tallahassee lawmakers have ignored the public's overwhelming support for medical marijuana, he said.
A recent Quinnipiac University poll showed 82 percent of Floridians would support the medical marijuana amendment if it were on the ballot today.
Morgan said he witnessed what marijuana could do when his father used it while coping with terminal esophageal cancer, and his quadriplegic brother also smokes it to help with spasms and phantom pain.
"This is a plant that has been put into nature by God for us to take care of ourselves," he said, adding that 400,000 signatures have been collected but not necessarily verified yet. "I don't know why it works, but it does. I don't know why aloe works, but it does. I don't know why water quenches thirst, but it does."
As of Thursday, 136,458 signatures — including 5,085 from Volusia and Flagler counties — had been validated by the Florida Division of Elections, according to a state website. Morgan said he is confident medical marijuana won't result in a "free-for-all where people start setting up tents and it's Woodstock statewide."
Volusia County Sheriff Ben Johnson views it differently and is worried medical marijuana will complicate his efforts to stamp out drug abuse. His department doesn't give leniency to marijuana smokers who claim to be using the drug for medicinal purposes.
"We go after them all the way around," Johnson said. "If someone is found with misdemeanor amounts, they are charged, but we are more interested in the dealers."
While numerous testimonies tout the benefits of marijuana in treating a variety of ailments, research is limited on the drug's medicinal benefits, side effects and effectiveness when compared to more traditional treatment methods. Marijuana's classification as a Schedule I drug — meaning it is viewed as having no known medical use and a high potential for abuse — has stymied research efforts. Other drugs falling into this category include heroin, LSD and mescaline.
Dr. Bruce Goldberger, director of forensic medicine at the University of Florida College of Medicine, said he doesn't dispute that marijuana can alleviate pain and suffering, but he thinks the potential for abuse and misuse outweighs the benefits. As a toxicologist, Goldberger said he's in the trenches and sees firsthand how marijuana intoxication can lead to fatal car wrecks and workplace accidents — deaths he thinks will only increase if restrictions on marijuana are loosened.
"There are true divergent sides," he said. "One side believes the science is perfectly clear that the use of medical marijuana is a safe, reliable, reasonable medication to treat certain ailments. The other side feels the science is lacking."
Only two synthetic versions of cannabis in pill form have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treatment of chemotherapy-related nausea and vomiting in patients who don't respond to standard treatments.
Supporters say the anecdotal evidence is clear that marijuana is effective in alleviating suffering, and smoking is often a superior delivery method that better controls dosage than synthetic versions of the drug.
State Rep. Dave Hood, R-Daytona Beach Shores, who has battled brain cancer for several years, said he wants to gather more facts before taking a stance on the issue. He's heard recently from about 10 to 15 constituents asking him to support medical marijuana, which he said is a relatively high number of comments for an issue.
While Hood is still on the fence, Bright's mind is made up. "The prohibitionists are making their last arguments," said Bright, a self-described Ron Paul Republican. "Basically, you are watching a dinosaur die."
All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.
Comments are currently unavailable on this article

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Once upon a time Europe was … 10
As the indigenous European populations commit slow suicide, Muslims pour into their continent to replace them eventually.
Mark Steyn writes:
Europe has a growing shortage of Europeans.
Yesterday's Telegraph:
Germany's birth rate has collapsed to the lowest level in the world and its workforce will start plunging at a faster rate than Japan's by the early 2020s, seriously threatening the long-term viability of Europe's leading economy … The German government expects the population to shrink from 81m to 67m by 2060 as depressed pockets of the former East Germany go into "decline spirals" where shops, doctors' practices, and public transport start to shut down, causing yet more people to leave in a vicious circle. A number of small towns in Saxony, Brandenburg and Pomerania have begun to contemplate plans for gradual "run-off" and ultimate closure, a once unthinkable prospect.
Why is this even news? Almost a decade ago, a guy called Mark Steyn wrote a book called America Alonein which he said everything the Telegraph piece said yesterday. Those East German towns?
Almost every issue facing the European Union – from immigration rates to crippling state pension liabilities – has at its heart the same root cause: a huge lack of babies. Every day you get ever more poignant glimpses of the Euro-future, such as it is. One can talk airily about being flushed down the toilet of history, but even that's easier said than done. In eastern Germany, rural communities are dying, and one consequence is that village sewer systems are having a tough time adjusting to the lack of use. Populations have fallen so dramatically there are too few people flushing to keep the flow of waste moving. Traditionally, government infrastructure expenditure arises from increased demand. In this case, the sewer lines are having to be narrowed at great cost in order to cope with dramatically decreased demand.
The Telegraph quotes the German government's own figures predicting a population decrease from 81 million now to 67 million by 2060. In America Alone, I suggested the population would fall to 38 million by the end of the century. Given that it is in the nature of demographic death spirals to accelerate once you're below 1.3 children per couple, my number may be an underestimate. And when you consider that in most German urban areas the only demographic energy now is Muslim, those 38 million turn-of-the-century "Germans" will be posterity's rebuke to the Nuremberg Laws. As I wrote in 2006:
Americans take for granted all the "it's about the future of all our children" hooey that would ring so hollow in a European election. In the 2005 German campaign, voters were offered what would be regarded in the US as a statistically improbable choice: a childless man (Herr Schroeder) vs a childless woman (Frau Merkel). Statist Europe signed on to Hillary Rodham Clinton's alleged African proverb – "It takes a village to raise a child" – only to discover they got it backwards: on the Continent, the lack of children will raze the village. And most of the villagers still refuse to recognize the contradictions: You can't breed at the lethargic rate of most Europeans and then bitch and whine about letting the Turks into the European Union. Demographically, they're the kids you couldn't be bothered having.
Lest you think this an exaggeration, look at the graph accompanying the Telegraph piece [see it below], contrasting Germany and Japan's demographic decline with France's ostensibly healthier fertility rate. The reason for that is that France has the highest Muslim population in western Europe, so it has a bright future of crowded maternity wards full of babies called Mohammed. And all this was known a decade ago: – when, already, 30 per cent of German women and 40 per cent of university graduates were childless, just like Angela Merkel.
On those numbers you're living in a present-tense culture: no matter how great you are, you're a civilizational boy-band; a generation later, someone else will be there, and no one will be singing your songs. …
Okay, this passage [in the book] is a wee bit lurid:
[In] Europe by the end of this century … the grand buildings will still be standing but the people who built them will be gone. By the next century, German will be spoken only at Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels and Goering's Monday night poker game in Hell.
But the point is: It's not wrong. in 2006, Germany already had a shrinking and aging population, and potentially catastrophic welfare liabilities … and no politician who wished to remain electorally viable was willing to do anything about it. It's not the total number of people that matters, it's the age distribution: that decline from 81 to 67 million will wind up skewing the population very geezerish. But, again, this was all known a decade ago. I pointed out the percentage of the population under the age of 15 …
Spain and Germany have 14 per cent, the United Kingdom 18 per cent, the United States 21 per cent – and Saudi Arabia has 39 per cent, Pakistan 40 per cent and Yemen 47 per cent.
When you've that many surplus young people, they're going to go somewhere else. Some of the African numbers are even higher, which is why there's that endless flotilla of boats across the Mediterranean. Because when a teeming shanty town is next door to a not-terribly-gated community of under-occupied mansions, it would be unreasonable to expect otherwise.
The case for impeachment (3) 10
Is Obama's realignment of US foreign policy so astonishing that it leaves Congress too stunned to act?
Has there ever before been such a clear case of high crimes and misdemeanors as now with the action of this president – selling out the country's interests to its worst enemy?
Why have impeachment proceedings not begun?
Shawn Mitchell writes today, March 30, 2015, at Townhall:
Ponder the dire significance of the extraordinary story from MSNBC(!) last Friday, reporting on US "incoherence" in the Middle East, the exploding chaos there, and the shocking news Arab states like Egypt, the Saudis, and UAE are withholding intelligence and launching attacks without consulting the US. Why? Because they don't trust Obama not to leak information to Iran. In seeking closer ties with Iran, Obama is threatening every other strategic US relationship in the region and candidly committing alliance-cide against America's closest ally there, Israel.
The president, as chief executive and commander in chief may be the captain of foreign policy, but the Senate, representing the American public, has a Constitutional role, which Obama is deliberately evading.
What is happening is historically unprecedented. … Obama is pursuing a one-man foreign policy of realigning the US in the Middle East, ending our friendship with Israel, forging ties with Iran, and facilitating, or at least benignly accepting, the expansion of Iran's interests, influence, and agents throughout the region.
Facilitating. Not "benignly accepting".
This profound agenda is not one he ran on. It is not disclosed to, or understood by, the American people. It is not vetted or discussed in high circles of military and security leadership. It is contrary to long and widely held understandings of US security interests. It is a covert one man revolution.
In playing his chess pieces, Obama unsuccessfully pressed Egypt to submit to the Muslim Brotherhood; stiff-armed President al-Sisi who wants to move Egypt closer to America, keep peace with Israel, and move Islam closer to modernity; launched unprovoked missiles against Libya's Qaddafi, lighting that nation on fire, delivering it to chaos and Iran-backed rebels; played patsy with Iran's client Assad while Assad scorned Obama's red lines and gassed civilians; and manufactured an escalating series of confrontations and crises with Israel, most recently exposing top secret details of its previously unacknowledged nuclear program. After Yemen fell to Iran backed rebels, the White House continues to insist its approach there is a "model of effective counterterrorism".
… It's becoming apparent the trade of five Taliban field leaders for one US deserter was not a "bad deal" but a head fake. Bergdahl was just cover for Obama to hand back five Jihadi leaders and move closer to his goal of closing Gitmo.
Did he swap the Taliban leaders for Bergdahl because he wants to close Gitmo, or is his spoken intention to close Gitmo an excuse for silently strengthening the Taliban? That one can even ask the question, that the suggestion is not implausible, shows how extraordinary are the circumstances in which it arises.
Recent reports of the surreal "negotiations" with Iran would make for farce if they weren't terrifyingly real. Alone among the P5 + 1 world powers, the US is desperate to sweeten the pot to offer Iran whatever it takes. Obama originally set a redline of 500 high-speed centrifuges; we now shrug at 6,000. We're good with Iran continuing operations at its reinforced, underground lab. It doesn't have to reveal its ongoing research with military dimensions until after the world lifts sanctions … wink. Surprise inspections will be rare to never. Last week, the Associated Press astonishingly reported a final agreement may not even be in writing. Spokesman Josh Earnest failed to deny that unfathomable idea after three direct queries.
We recently witnessed the spectacle of France trying to put the brakes on this runaway concession train, complaining it's a weak, bad, unenforceable deal and the US is still conceding. That's something … the French accusing Americans of being burger eating surrender monkeys.
The president's defenders might call his upheaval a matter of high stakes, high risk strategy to improve US standing in the Middle East by aligning it with the region's strongest power. Other commentators might call it wrongheaded, reckless, and dangerous. And others, seeing what's right in front of their face, might call it hostile to America's interests and security, treacherous to America's allies, and of great aid and comfort to America's enemies.
Under a different Iranian regime, maybe a secular one, or a reformist product of the Green Revolution that Obama strangely spurned, it might make sense to support Iran as a stabilizing force. It's the Mullacracy with its radical, bloody vision that makes Obama's policy deranged. His defenders and critics alike speculate Obama is betting the regime can be enticed to make nice and join the community of nations during the limited lifespan of the agreement. But that surmise is incoherent. If Obama wanted a reformed Iran, he would have spoken up for millions of brave protesters who confronted the Mullahs and pled for his support. He stood mute as they were brutally crushed.
It's an unresolved question if, or where, there is a redline that a president's policies abroad become Constitutionally actionable. He leads in foreign policy. But, he also took an oath to protect American peace and security. If, for an extreme hypothetical, videotape emerged showing a president handing over US nuclear codes to Vladimir Putin, presumably, he would be dealt with as a treasonous traitor, his foreign policy authority notwithstanding.
Obama's actions in the Middle East raise troubling questions about how fundamentally a president can contradict deeply rooted US understandings, policies, and alliances before he enters a danger zone. Cutting off the Senate's voice adds to the gravity. To conclude any position a president holds, no matter how radical, must be the position of the US, is akin to embracing Louis XIV's declaration: ""L'État, c'est moi" or Richard Nixon's more recent formulation: "When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal."
Twenty months remain in this presidency. About a day is left till Obama's contrived deadline to reach a deal with Iran. It may be one of the only lines he means to respect. Few imagined after the 2012 election how fast events would unfold in the Middle East and how fast Obama's hand would emerge into view. It is going to be a dangerous and scary ride.
Valerie Jarrett, Obama's unofficial co-president, was born in Iran. Does she have a sentimental attachment to it? With this administration that could be enough "reason" – silly as it is – for Obama to put its interests and ambitions above the interests of the United States.
Can anyone think of any other possible reason?
Ah, yes. If Iran is allowed to become nuclear armed, there is a high likelihood that it will destroy Israel. That's a consummation the Muslim world devoutly wishes. And where the Muslim world leads, can Obama be far behind?
Gravest danger 2
Even while the Cold War was on, and not just in hindsight, the chances of a nuclear war between the West and Soviet Russia never seemed very high. The possibility of it never seemed critical enough to stir up intense or widespread fear. Not even when thousands of peace protestors marched on the streets of Europe's capitals (at least some of them being perfectly aware of, and cynically indifferent to the fact that their movement was funded by the Soviets in hope of panicking the West into unilateral disarmament) did many people in the West seriously think – or at least show signs of thinking – that mankind was really in imminent danger of being wiped off the face of the earth.
But if Iran becomes a nuclear power – which it will because Obama is letting it – the case will be very different.
Fear of "mutually assured destruction" may have had something to do with the Soviets' restraint. The ayatollahs who rule Iran will not be restrained by that fear. They love death as we love life. Because death will translate them to a brothel in the sky.
So now the possibility of nuclear war is high. Would it be unreasonable if there were to be intense and widespread fear of it? Or if people in the West at least began to think that we are in imminent danger of being wiped off the face of the earth?
No, not unreasonable. So why aren't they? Because nuclear armageddon is not yet looming so large as to terrify us.
Before that happens other smaller wars will rage on. America might be singed by them but not devastated.
There'll be no panic until the Iranians actually deliver their first uranium or plutonium bomb.
Yet there have already been irreversible changes, and the human race is in more danger now from human causes than ever before. Largely because of the ideology-driven policies of the Obama presidency.
J. E. Dyer writes (in part) at Liberty Unyielding:
The Iranian nuclear program is just one of several problems that are working together to destabilize our world, and throw it into – quite possibly – the gravest danger mankind has ever seen.
Even aside from her nuclear program, revolutionary Iran is backing insurgencies and radical clients around the Middle East (like the Houthi insurgency that just pulled off a coup in Yemen). The problem of radical Islamism is coming to a head with the vicious, bloody state-Islamism of ISIS, but also with tribal and Islamist-factional insurgencies elsewhere (Libya, Nigeria), and the collapse of century-old nation-states. Borders are being rendered meaningless. Huge tracts of territory are being taken over by opportunists, who bring no popular charter from anyone, but only a fanatical willingness to slaughter.
Russia, meanwhile … has already invaded Ukraine, something that would have been unthinkable ten years ago. China is imposing a veto on other nations' economic and maritime activity in the South China Sea – a Chinese aggression against a core U.S. security principle that the world, until only a few years ago, expected American power to deter. Both Asian giants have bigger plans, which everyone can foresee, and there is no longer an American-led consortium with the preparedness and capability to stop them.
In fact, Russia and China are both modernizing their militaries and developing new strategic weapons as rapidly as they can, while the United States is losing ground with our strategic (as well as conventional) arsenal, and doing nothing about it.
Our fast-declining military advantage is one reason our power no longer carries the import it once did. But the more significant point here is that our legacy of power is now being turned against us. America is still the leader of the status quo pack: the nations that aren't looking to shift borders, remake the map, create economic dependencies abroad, or establish a caliphate. And that leadership, particularly in the case of the Iranian nuclear program, is being leveraged to hold the status quo nations passive and inert while the radical actors do what they want.
Our president's negotiating policy with Iran is worse than an obstacle to preventing an Iranian bomb. By fencing the "Iran problem" off and giving it time, Obama is actually aiding Iran in pursuing nuclear weapons. The main thing Iran needs is time, and Obama's management of the P5+1 process gives her that.
Few if any of our highest-profile voices have found a way to make this plain, and articulate the implications. But the main implication – that in the crunch, Obama's leadership will have to be actively disregarded, or we're all sunk – is the one the nations in the most danger have to deal with. That's their reality.
Israel is one of the nations facing this reality, but by no means the only one. Saudi Arabia, the other Gulf states, Jordan, Egypt; the nations bordering Libya and Nigeria; the nations of Eastern Europe; the neighbors in China's sights in the Far East; the nations bordering the combined socialist and cartel-driven tumult in Central America – all face the same reality. Cooperating with Obama's America under the old conventions can't be a given for them, because it's likely to actually do harm.
Just as important, to those who want to deter threats to American security, is that America herself needs to establish that Obama's leadership is not what we are committed to. We vigorously disagree with giving Iran time to build a bomb. We have no intention of being held hostage to it.
We know there is a point, in general, at which the trend of policy is no longer disputable, but clearly weak and ineffective – even counterproductive, as with the Iranian nuclear program and the security of our own border. And we've reached that point.
The American people have to speak, as much as the other nations. That's what's going on with Boehner's invitation to Netanyahu. …
Having Netanyahu come speak to Congress is the way available to him of giving the American people a voice against the Obama policy on Iran. The same attempt is at work in the Iran-policy bills being pushed in the Senate. … [T]he untethered radicalism of the Obama approach – its violation of America's own principles of power – is what they're trying to hold in check.
The president is given primacy in foreign relations by the U.S. Constitution, and it is a very big step to posture against him. It's not so big a step for a foreign leader to do so. His responsibility is to his people, not to a particular president of the United States, or to that president's policies. The Obama administration does huff petulantly at the drop of a hat, and make it all personal, but the real point is that Netanyahu, or any other foreign leader, must look out for his country's interests. [Prime Minister Netanyahu] knows that it's in Israel's interest to affirm her people's iron-forged link with the American people, and to articulate what policies a true reckoning of that link would dictate in this hour. …
Boehner has made a big decision because America faces a problem of unprecedented dimension. The world is not what it was five years ago, and trying to maintain the same priorities would, in sober truth, be fatal.
Note; While we fully agree with Commander Dyer's analysis and warning, we don't ourselves use the term "Islamism". The danger we are in comes from Islam, aided by the indulgence of the Obama administration.
Tony Blair warns that … Islam is a threat! 1
Remember Tony Blair? He was Prime Minister of Great Britain in President G.W. Bush's era.
Well, he's found out that Islam is a threat.
Muslim immigrants poured into Britain under his watch. But suddenly he's discovered that it was a bad idea.
The Clarion Project reports:
Tony Blair, the Former British Prime Minister, delivered a keynote speech at Bloomberg HQ in London entitled Why the Middle East Still Matters. In it he described radical Islam as the greatest threat facing the world today.
He specifies "radical Islam", and speaks of "Islamism", so evading the stark fact that there is only one Islam, and that it is Islam per se that is the greatest threat facing the world today. Its armies are actively waging the jihad by terrorist tactics.
Islam is not a race or a nation. It is an ideology. But like a nation, when it goes to war, its armed forces do the fighting, not everyone born into it or adopting it.
Blair is not a clear – let alone a deep – thinker. But he has at last come to an understanding that the non-Islamic world is under attack by Islam:
Wherever you look – from Iraq to Libya to Egypt to Yemen to Lebanon to Syria and then further afield to Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan – this is the essential battle.
Addressing those who regard these conflicts as distinct he said:
There is something frankly odd about the reluctance to accept what is so utterly plain: that they have in common a struggle around the issue of the rightful place of religion, and in particular Islam, in politics.
Not a good way of putting it. No Reagan-like plain speaking, let alone any felicitous Churchillian phrasing.
Yes, in all those countries Muslims fighting the Islamic jihad are engaged in the same "struggle". But it would be hard to find a jihadi who would say that his "strugge" is "around the issue of the rightful place of religion, in particular Islam, in politics".
Blair means that they are fighting a religious war, and he doesn't think that religion should be a political issue. Religion has a "rightful place", and it is not on a battlefield. He seems to have the thought swimming round in the shallows of his mind that religious wars are not the thing nowadays; that wars are fought in modern times over up-to-date political differences. (And that implies that he doesn't see Nazism and Communism as the religions they most certainly are.)
He does see that the war is global.
He argued that this struggle does not end at the borders of the region. Rather, "The reason this matters so much is that this ideology is exported around the world."
He asked listeners to "Take a step back and analyze the world today: with the possible exception of Latin America (leaving aside Hezbollah in the tri-border area in South America), there is not a region of the world not adversely affected by Islamism and the ideology is growing."
Bravo, Blair! You have seen that the battle is also being fought by immigration, propaganda, and intense proselytizing:
He notes that:
The Muslim population in Europe is now over 40million and growing. The Muslim Brotherhood and other organizations are increasingly active and they operate without much investigation or constraint. Recent controversy over schools in Birmingham (and similar allegations in France) show heightened levels of concern about Islamist penetration of our own societies.
He gets better still:
The main thrust of the speech focused on "two fascinating things."
The first is the absolutely rooted desire on the part of Western commentators to analyze these issues as disparate rather than united by common elements. They go to extraordinary lengths to say why, in every individual case, there are multiple reasons for understanding that this is not really about Islam, it is not really about religion; there are local or historic reasons which explain what is happening. There is a wish to eliminate the obvious common factor in a way that is almost wilful. …
The second thing is that there is a deep desire to separate the political ideology represented by groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood from the actions of extremists including acts of terrorism.
He acknowledged the motivation behind these fears, saying "We feel almost that if we identify it in these terms, we're being anti-Muslim, a sentiment on which the Islamists cleverly play."
And then he gets almost very good:
Blair swept these distinctions aside, acknowledging the laudable motives behind such interpretations, but ultimately pinpointing the profound danger posed by the Islamist ideology, and that it is fundamentally incompatible with the modern world.
He urged the West and indeed the entire world, to unite against the ideology Islamic extremism.
It's a speech that may help to wake up European leaders. Though it has its weakness, and the columnist Douglas Murray, clear-sighted as always, put his finger on it:
Douglas Murray argued in the Spectator that Blair went too far in his efforts to brand Islamism as disconnected from Islam and called on moderate Muslims to help combat radicalism by driving extremists from their communities.
Blair came on to suggesting what might be done about the profound danger he'd identified:
Blair outlined potential foreign policy options for the West vis-a-vis various Middle Eastern countries in order to combat Islamists and to support religiously open and tolerant elements.
Unfortunately, there aren't any – there cannot be any – "open and tolerant elements" among Muslims. Unless they are Muslims-in-name-only. (MINOs?)
In particular he focused on Egypt saying:
On the fate of Egypt hangs the future of the region. Here we have to understand plainly what happened. The Muslim Brotherhood government was not simply a bad government. It was systematically taking over the traditions and institutions of the country. The revolt of 30 June 2013 was not an ordinary protest. It was the absolutely necessary rescue of a nation.
All of these different policies are facets of the same policy:
Across the region we should be standing steadfast by our friends and allies as they try to change their own countries in the direction of reform. Whether in Jordan or the Gulf where they're promoting the values of religious tolerance and open, rule based economies, or taking on the forces of reaction in the shape of Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, we should be supporting and assisting them.
Hmm. Right about the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt having to be overthrown. Wrong about the West having friends and allies among Arab and other Muslim countries. None want reform of a kind that would turn them into reliable friends and allies.
Perhaps this statement by Blair sums up the message of his keynote speech best: "When we consider the defining challenges of our time, surely this one should be up there along with the challenge of the environment or economic instability."
It's his saying "up there with the challenge of the environment" that shows how his mind is still murky with leftist pollution. But for a leftist to put Islam "up there" with climate change is an admirable advance. He deserves loud and quite long applause. Even more so if his speech encourages other European politicians to start facing the truth: that war is being waged on their countries by the barbarous hordes of Islam.
The Clarion Project does not report the last paragraph of the speech. Blair ended with this:
Consider for a moment since 9/11 how our world has changed, how in a myriad of different ways from the security measures we now take for granted to the arenas of conflict that have now continued over a span of years, there is a price being paid in money, life and opportunity for millions. This is not a conventional war. It isn't a struggle between super powers or over territory. But it is real. It is fearsome in its impact. It is growing in its reach. It is a battle about belief and about modernity. It is important because the world through technology and globalisation is pushing us together across boundaries of faith and culture. Unaddressed, the likelihood of conflict increases.
Applause, applause. But then:
Engagement does not always mean military involvement. Commitment does not mean going it alone. But it does mean stirring ourselves. It does mean seeing the struggle for what it is. It does mean taking a side and sticking with it.
While it is true that military engagement alone won't stop Islam's subjugation of the West, and that the West needs to stir itself, and that every European country should side against Islam, if there is going to be reluctance to use military force at all, the war will be much harder to win. Perhaps he knows this, but feels it necessary to acknowledge – as he does – that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken away the West's appetite for war.
The full text of the speech can be found here. Those who read it will find that Blair erroneously believes – or at least says – that Islam has a "true message" which "Islamists" distort. And that he praises Secretary of State John Kerry for his (absurd) attempt at yet another Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" and thinks his "commitment has not been in vain". (It has been, and could not have been anything else.)
So – two cheers for Mr Blair. And let's hope his speech stirs up the dhimmis of Europe to start resisting the onslaught of Islam.
Casual terrorism – Islamic of course 0
From CNN:
An horrific video – the worst apparently edited out of it – of a terrorist attack in Yemen.
Terrorists explode bombs in a hospital and shoot staff and patients.
Such an attack is far from rare in many parts of the Islamic Middle East.
The forces of Islam enjoy a bloody weekend 3
Even by Religion of Peace standards it was an unusually bloody weekend, with nearly 300 people massacred by Holy Warriors in suicide attacks in Yemen, a funeral in Iraq [at least 70 killed including children], the shopping mall in Kenya [at least 62 killed including many children, 175 injured], and a double bombing at a church in Pakistan [more than 80 killed]. – from The Religion of Peace.
More than 500 civilians killed by the forces of Islam. And nothing is being done to oppose them.
It is not a clash of civilizations, as is often said: it is a clash of civilization with barbarism. But either civilization has not yet woken up to that reality, or it is conniving at its own destruction.
One story of the massacre in the Kenya shopping mall is of the barbarian warriors entering a children's shoe shop, demanding that the children trying on shoes recite "the Shahada" – a tribal chant about their nasty god, set down as the opening lines of the Koran – and shooting dead those who could not. Bullets in the little bodies. They were not Muslims so they had no right to live, according to the creed of the Muslim barbarians.
Most reports agree that it is a group belonging to the Somalian terrorist organization al-Shabaab, affiliated with al-Qaeda, that carried out the massacre of shoppers and their children in Kenya's capital, Nairobi. Among them are five Muslims from America, one from Canada, one from Finland, and one from Sweden. At the time of this writing there are still gunmen in the building on the loose, and they may be holding hostages.
Of the five from America, three are from Minnesota, and they – Daniel Greenfield reports at Front Page –
… were the subject of a propaganda recruitment video released by the organization Thursday. Titled The Path to Paradise: From the Twin Cities to the Land of Two Migrations, the nearly 40-minute post allegedly details the travels of Dahir Gure, Muhammad Al-Amriki and Mohamud Hassan to Somalia over 2007 and 2008.
In one segment, Al-Amriki, born Troy Kastigar, likened his experiences to being at an amusement park.
"If you guys only knew how much fun we have over here, this is the real Disneyland," he said. "You need to come here and join us, and take pleasure in this fun."
A brief colorful history of the modern state of Syria (and its neighbors) 2
Until the end of World War I, the states of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan did not exist. The territory they now cover had been part of the Empire of the Ottoman Turks for some 400 years. The names Syria and Mesopotamia designated Middle Eastern regions of the Ottoman Empire, roughly where Syria and Iraq are now.
In World War I the Turks were allies of Germany. The Arabs were loyal to their Ottoman overlords, and were also on Germany's side.
But the British incited sedition among some of them, bribing a man in high religious office to head a rebellion. The inducement they offered him was power and glory: rule of an Arab independency of undefined dimensions.
The man was Hussein Ibn Ali, of the clan of the Hashemites and the tribe of the Quraish, Sharif of the Holy City of Mecca, putatively a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad.
The British gave him arms, supplies, subsidies and advisers. When he asked also for a firm definition of his dream-kingdom, the British High Commissioner in Cairo, Sir Henry McMahon, sent him a "clarification" in a letter dated 24 October 1915, in which he made it clear that he could not make it clear. The British, he explained, could not promise territory to Hussein which the French might claim, and they did not know what the French might claim.
In 1916 the British and French agreed, in a secret document known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement, on how they would divide up the territory between them once they had conquered it from the Turks. It was against the spirit of the times, when high principles were asserted against the old ideas of empire; principles which President Wilson of the United States set out in 14 points and became enshrined on the Covenant of the League of Nations. The new ideal was that never again would great powers impose their will on smaller nations.
In 1918, the British made another promise to the Arabs. It is known as The Declaration to the Seven. The "Seven" were from the Syrian region. They went to Cairo to ask the British what their intentions were in the Middle East. They were given a pledge that Britain would recognize "the complete and sovereign independence of any Arab area emancipated from Turkish control by the Arabs themselves". It was an uncharacteristically precise promise.
It prompted the self-dramatizing Englishman, Colonel T.E.Lawrence, who had a highly romantic view of the Arabs (a view that has polluted the atmosphere of the British Foreign Office ever since), to exert himself to lead Hussein's forces to a decisive victory. He marched them to Damascus, but the Australian Light Horse Brigade got there first, and took the city from the Turks. Lawrence persuaded the British to pretend that his Arabs had conquered the city. So the British ordered the Australians to drift out and let the Arabs march in. This set a really bad precedent by which the Arabs expected always to have a fictional version of reality replace any facts on the ground which inconvenienced them. It also gave the Arabs as a whole a false understanding of their own military power and achievements. (If they had beaten the mighty Turks at Damascus, how could they not be victorious against the new little Jewish state of Israel in 1948?)
When the British, French, and Americans won the Second World War, the British set about fulfilling – more or less – their promise to Hussein.
Hussein himself already ruled the Hejaz. His son Ali was his heir to that kingdom. (They were, however, to lose it in 1924,when Abdul Aziz al Saud conquered it. Saud was to join the Hejaz and the Nejd together and found a new state, Saudi Arabia, named after himself, in 1932.) But new kingdoms were created by the British for Hussein's other sons, Abdullah and Faisal. They were to be called Syria and Iraq.
They made Faisal King of of the new state of Syria, and proposed to put Abdullah on the throne of a new state of Iraq.
Faisal ruled Syria only from March to April, 1920. The French knocked him off his throne and threw him out of the country, whose destiny they claimed was rightfully in their hands. (The French were granted mandates over Syria and Lebanon.)
The British had to find another throne for Faisal, so they made him King of Iraq instead of his brother, and then considered what they could for Abdullah.
What remained in their power to give away – or so they made out – was an area of the Ottoman Empire to which the ancient Romans had given the name Palestine when it was still part of their empire. In July 1922, the League of Nations granted Britain a mandate (also agreed on at the San Remo peace conference in 1920) over the Palestine region. The British pleaded that they needed it in order to carry out a promise they had made, in the Balfour Declaration of 1917, to let the region become a National Home for the Jews. According to the terms of the Mandate they were to "settle Jews closely on the land". But when they were confronted by the problem of Abdullah being kingdom-less, they found that there was no need to let Jews settle closely on all the land. So they presented three-quarters of it, stretching eastward from the River Jordan to a chosen line in the desert, to Abdullah and called it the Emirate of Transjordan.
All the newly created Arab states fell short of Arab dreams. One was to flourish fairly well as a monarchy: the Emirate of Transjordan renamed itself the Kingdom of Jordan in 1949, when the Arab armies had failed to crush the new state of Israel, but the Transjordanian forces – known as the Arab Legion, under the able command of a British officer, John Bagot Glubb, better known as Glubb Pasha – had advanced across the River Jordan and taken control of what has ever since been called the "West Bank". (Israel conquered it in its defensive war of 1968.)
The French held a mandate over Syria until July 1941. In September 1936, a treaty of independence was negotiated, but the French Legislature would not ratify it. Only when the British and Free French beat the forces of Vichy France in Syria and Lebanon in the Second World War, did Syria become an independent republic. But coups and attempted coups followed hot on each other, and the state was extremely unstable.
The Kingdom of Iraq also had a history of instability with numerous uprisings, massacres and assassinations. In 1958 the monarchy came to an end. The king, Faisal II, was eleven years old. His uncle, Abd al-Ilah, was regent. He was an ambitious man. He had plans to dominate an Arab unity embracing Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Kuwait. In February 1958 he achieved a union between Iraq and Jordan, the two remaining Hashemite kingdoms. This was intolerable to the president of Egypt, Jamal Abd al-Nasser, who had just created a union of Egypt and Syria in the same month. The union of Egypt and Syria under Nasser's domination was intolerable to Abd al-Ilah.
Nasser had nationalized the Suez canal. Britain and France, who were joint shareholders in the Canal, lost their ownership of it. Nasser closed it to Israeli shipping. Israel saw this as a cause for war. Britain and France arranged with Israel that Israeli forces would strike into the Sinai on 29 October 1956, and they would invade Egypt on the pretext of restoring peace between the belligerents. President Eisenhower – unwisely – put a stop to the invasion when it had only just begun. America's intervention allowed Nasser to pretend that he had won a victory, and felt encouraged to pursue his pan-Arab dream.
On February 1 1958, the union of Egypt and Syria as the United Arab Republic (UAR) came into being, with Cairo as its capital and Nasser as its president. Yemen was added a month later to form a confederation called the United Arab States.
Nasser's agents and sympathizers went to work throughout the Middle East to spread his national socialist ideology. In Baghdad officers sympathetic to "Nasserism" plotted the destruction of the Iraqi monarchy. In 1958, under pro-Nasserite leadership, a contingent of Iraqi troops despatched by the Regent to quell a pro-Nasser uprising and civil war in Lebanon (actually put down by US forces) turned instead on their own ruling house. At dawn on 14 July 1958, the boy-king Faisal was murdered, along with his grandmother, his aunt, and others in the palace, including a helpless harmless orphan boy who lived with them.
Abd al-Ilah was dragged through the streets of Baghdad tied with ropes to the back of a truck, then – whether still alive or not when the tuck stopped – his body was dismembered with axes and his limbs and head tossed about by the hysterical mob. His trunk was hung from a balcony and chunks of its flesh were sliced off and thrown to the crowd below. The Prime Minister, Nuri al-Said, disguised himself as a woman and tried to escape, but he was caught and killed, and his body flung down on a busy street to be driven over, squashed and broken by the cars full of exulting motorists. His successor too was murdered after five years in power, and his body was fed to dogs.
In 1961, Syria revolted against Egypt's domination and reasserted its independence. So the UAE was dissolved, and Yemen released. Hafez Assad became president of Syria in 1971. Under his dictatorship, and after him the dictatorship of his son Bashar Assad, rebellion has been put down with ruthless massacres.
Or not put down, as is the case now that civil war rages; or war waged by numerous militias and terrorist groups against the forces of the state. There is no reason to expect a peaceful or stable Syria to emerge out of the chaos, whether Great Powers intervene or not. The Syrians have no precedent for peace and stability in their young unhappy country.
Jillian Becker September 9, 2013
Sabotage 2
John Brennan, picked by President Obama to head the CIA, has his Senate confirmation hearing today.
Andrew C. McCarthy writes at PJ Media:
A country that was serious about its national security would never put John Brennan in charge of its premier intelligence service.
Of course, it is by no means clear that the United States is any longer a serious country in this regard. Serious countries do not fund, arm and "partner with" hostile regimes. They do not recruit enemy sympathizers to fill key governmental policy positions. They do not erect barriers impeding their intelligence services from understanding an enemy's threat doctrine … All of these malfeasances have become staples of Obama policy, under the guidance of Brennan, the president's counterterrorism guru.
Still, the installation of a Beltway operator whose métier is misinformation as director of central intelligence would be an epic mismatch of man and mission. It would expand unseriousness to new frontiers of self-inflicted peril.
The reason is as elementary as it gets: The purpose of intelligence is to see what your enemy is trying to hide, to grasp how your enemy thinks, and how he cleverly camouflages what he thinks. That, to be certain, is the only security against stealthy foes who specialize in sabotage, in exploiting the liberties that make free societies as vulnerable as they are worth defending.
Mr. Brennan, to the contrary, is the incarnation of willful blindness. His tenure as Obama's top national security advisor has been about helping our enemies throw sand in our eyes and thus enabling the sabotage. …
Sabotage is the [Muslim] Brotherhood's defining practice. Indeed, "sabotage" is the word the Brothers themselves use to describe their work. It appears in an internal memorandum, which elaborates that the organization sees its mission in the United States as "eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within." Besides that long-term goal, the Brotherhood's network of American affiliates have pursued the more immediate aim of materially supporting Hamas, a formally designated terrorist organization to which the provision of material support is a felony under federal law.
None of that is new. It was not merely well known but had been proved in court by the Justice Department a year before Obama took office. I refer to the Justice Department's 2008 Hamas financing prosecution, the Holy Land Foundation case. Yet, counterterrorism czar Brennan remains undeterred, a driving force of the Obama administration's "Islamic outreach" – a campaign to give Islamist organizations influence over U.S. policy. That several of those organizations were proved in the HLF case to be members of the Muslim Brotherhood's American network is clearly of no moment.
Two such organizations are the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). They were among a slew of Islamist groups who wrote to Brennan in October 2011 to demand a purge of information about Islamist ideology that was being used to train U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement agents. Much of that information was developed in federal investigations that have led to the convictions of violent jihadists. Nevertheless, the Obama administration has slavishly complied …
The training materials the Islamist groups insisted be removed include documentation of the fact that terrorism committed by Muslims is driven by an ideology rooted in Islamic scripture. …
Maybe the State Department and the White House press office have the luxury of trading in convenient fictions in order to reduce international tensions. Not intelligence agencies. The point of intelligence – a bedrock of national security – is to see the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.
Here is how it is: Islamic supremacism, the sharia-based ideology of Islamists, is an interpretation of Muslim doctrine that is entirely mainstream among the world's Muslims. That is why Islamists are winning elections in the Middle East even as they are found aligning with violent jihadists. Islamic supremacism is, in fact, widely promoted by the Brotherhood, and by such tentacles of its American network as CAIR and ISNA, when they are not otherwise deceptively disavowing its existence.
This Islamist ideology is incorrigibly anti-Western and anti-Semitic. It is deeply hostile to principles of equality and individual liberty (free speech, freedom of conscience, privacy, economic freedom, etc.) that undergird our Constitution, the American conception of civil rights, and the West's conception of human rights. Understand Islamist ideology and you will readily understand the ferocity of Islamic resistance to American efforts to promote democracy in the Middle East – not merely jihadist resistance but broad Islamic resistance.
Yet, in a propaganda campaign reminiscent of those waged by the Nazis and the Soviets, Islamists and their fellow travelers (Brennan-types who might be thought of as "anti-anti-Islamists") purport to be champions of human rights. When it suits them, they even feign reverence for individual liberties (particularly when it comes to the rights of Muslim in America … but don't you dare ask them how non-Muslims fare in, say, Saudi Arabia).
The counter to such a propaganda campaign is a job for intelligence agencies. The point of having a sprawling intelligence community on which American taxpayers annually lavish $55 billion – far more than the vast majority of countries spend on national defense – is precisely to see through the deceptions of those who mean us harm, to perceive the threats against us for what they are. That the competent performance of this essential function may be fraught with political complications is supposed to be a challenge for our politicians, not our intelligence agents. The latter's mission of unearthing hidden and often excruciating truths is hard enough.
Brennan's agenda is the antithesis of the intelligence mission. His goal has been to portray our enemies as a small, unthreatening fringe of charlatan "violent extremists," who kill wantonly and are unconnected to any "legitimate" Islam. Thus, he maintains for example that the only "legitimate" interpretation of the "tenet of Islam" known as jihad is: a "holy struggle … to purify oneself or one's community."
Even taken at face value, Brennan's assertion is absurd. There is between Islam and the West no common understanding of the good, and thus no consensus about "purity." In Islam, to "purify" something means to make it more compliant with sharia, Islam's legal code and societal framework. Sharia is anti-freedom and anti-equality, so to purify oneself in an Islamic sense would necessarily mean something very different from what we in the West would think of as struggling to become a better person.
But there is an even more fundamental reason not to take Brennan's remarks at face value: they run afoul of what mainstream Islam itself says about jihad. … It is quite straightforward on the matter: "Jihad means to war against non-Muslims." …
In Brennan's world, there is … no need to fret over anti-American terrorists who return to the jihad with alarming regularity once they are released from Guantanamo Bay. After all, Brennan observes, common criminals have high recidivism rates, too. Mass-murderers, pick-pockets … as they say in the administration, "What difference does it make?"
And then there's the skill of offending our friends while enabling our enemies. Brennan refers to Jerusalem, the Israeli capital, as "al-Quds." That is the name used by Islamists who reject the Jewish state's right to exist, who claim Jerusalem and the rest of Israel as their own. …
Brennan's sense of outrage, unnoticeable in response to slights against a faithful U.S. ally, is instead reserved for the "ignorant feelings" of Americans riled by jihadist attacks against our country. For Brennan, Americans' anger at Islamists, our perception that the ideology that breeds terrorists is just as much a problem as the terrorists themselves, is "Islamophobia" – a smear cleverly concocted by Islamists to deflect examination. Brennan claims to have seen Islamophobia rear its racist head in the public reaction to the Fort Hood attack – the worst jihadist mass-murder in America since 9/11, but one the Obama administration prefers to think of as "workplace violence".
Brennan claims that Hezbollah, Iran's Lebanese terror militia, is a "very interesting organization," whose "moderate elements" have evolved it from "purely a terrorist organization" into a political party whose members now serve in the Lebanese government. This, again, is rose-tinted nonsense, bespeaking breathtaking ignorance about the history and operations of jihadists who, until 9/11, had killed more Americans than any other terror network. … Its objective … is to advance the Islamic revolution at the expense of non-Muslims by any method that shows promise under the circumstances.
Hezbollah is part of the Islamist vanguard waging a global campaign against liberty. But with their Brennan blinders on, the Obama administration chooses not to see it. They see "moderates" committed to participating in a "political process." This same thinking has led the administration to issue a visa to an admitted member of the Blind Sheikh's terrorist organization (the Islamic Group) so he could come to the White House with other newly minted Egyptian "parliamentarians" to discuss U.S. policy in the Middle East.
This mindset also explains why the administration negotiates with the Taliban …
There is no place … for deceiving the American people by politicizing intelligence. That Brennan specialty, an exhaustive effort to miniaturize the threats against our nation and appease the president's Islamist allies, is the antithesis of what we have a CIA for. …
If intelligence is to be politicized so that we let our guard down, then the United States would be better off with no CIA than with a CIA headed by John Brennan.
Andrew McCarthy believes, however, that feeble Republicans will let him be appointed.
Chuck Hagel's confirmation hearing last week only bolstered concerns that he is utterly unfit to serve as secretary of defense. Yet, some Republicans have announced that they will vote for him anyway, and some others who purport to oppose him have signaled that they have no intention of mounting a filibuster, the only procedure that could derail him. Consequently, they've ensured that he will be confirmed. So let's not kid ourselves: Senate Republicans who will let Hagel take control of the Defense Department, and who just joined Democrats in a 94-3 landslide confirmation of John Kerry – a devotee of Obama's Muslim Brotherhood empowerment strategy – are not going to put up a fight over Brennan.
Such Republicans are also in the business of sabotage. They sabotage Republican principles. They sabotage liberty, of which the USA was meant to be the political embodiment. Thus they sabotage America.
How can all that Andrew McCarthy accurately reports about John Brennan be reconciled with the fact that the policy of going after Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders with drones* is his brainchild?
Come to that, how does President Obama reconcile his generally pro-Islam policies with his endorsement of the drones tactic?
Leaving aside for the moment the rights and wrongs of using drones to target American traitors fighting with the Islamic enemy, the present question is: what makes Barack Obama and John Brennan, both of whom do all they can in every other way to encourage and assist America's Islamic enemies, so persistently pursue and kill jihadis – and anyone who happens to be with them – with drones?
We are all for eliminating as many of the enemy as possible by all available means. But Brennan and Obama are not. So the question needs an answer.
Theories that answer it are welcome.
So are opinions on the targeting with drones of American traitors abroad.
*There are known US drone bases in Afghanistan, Turkey, Djibouti, the Seychelles, Qatar, the Philippines, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen and Ethiopia.
A Saudi Arabian talks sense 2
We took this extract from an article by Abdulateef al-Mulhim in the Saudi Arabian paper Arab News:
The question now is who is the real enemy of the Arab world?
The Arab world wasted hundreds of billions of dollars and lost tens of thousands of innocent lives fighting Israel, which they considered is their sworn enemy, an enemy whose existence they never recognized. The Arab world has many enemies and Israel should have been at the bottom of the list. The real enemies of the Arab world are corruption, lack of good education, lack of good health care, lack of freedom, lack of respect for the human lives and finally, the Arab world had many dictators who used the Arab-Israeli conflict to suppress their own people.
These dictators' atrocities against their own people are far worse than all the full-scale Arab-Israeli wars. …
He describes the atrocities. They provide a true and dreadful picture of the Arab world.
Then he goes on to relate some history, far more accurate than the usual Arab accounts of the same events:
On May 14, 1948 the state of Israel was declared. And just one day after that, on May 15, 1948 the Arabs declared war on Israel to get back Palestine. The war ended on March 10, 1949. It lasted for nine months, three weeks and two days. The Arabs lost the war and called this war Nakbah (catastrophic war). The Arabs gained nothing and thousands of Palestinians became refugees.
And in 1967, the Arabs led by Egypt under the rule of Gamal Abdul Nasser, went to war with Israel and lost more Palestinian land [it was never "Palestinian" land, but never mind that now – JB] and made more Palestinian refugees who are now on the mercy of the countries that host them. The Arabs called this war Naksah (upset). The Arabs never admitted defeat in both wars and the Palestinian cause got more complicated.
And now, with the never ending Arab Spring, the Arab world has no time for the Palestinians refugees or Palestinian cause, because many Arabs are refugees themselves and under constant attacks from their own forces. Syrians are leaving their own country, not because of Israeli planes dropping bombs on them. It is the Syrian Air Force which is dropping the bombs. And now, Iraqi Arab Muslims, most intelligent brains, are leaving Iraq for the east. In Yemen, the world's saddest human tragedy play is being written by the Yemenis. In Egypt, the people in Sinai are forgotten.
Finally, if many of the Arab states are in such disarray, then what happened to the Arabs' sworn enemy (Israel)? Israel now has the most advanced research facilities, top universities and advanced infrastructure.
Many Arabs don't know that the life expectancy of the Palestinians living in Israel is far longer than many Arab states and they enjoy far better political and social freedom than many of their Arab brothers. Even the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip enjoy more political and social rights than some places in the Arab World. Wasn't one of the judges who sent a former Israeli president to jail an Israeli-Palestinian?
The Arab Spring showed the world that the Palestinians are happier and in better situation than their Arab brothers who fought to liberate them from the Israelis. Now, it is time to stop the hatred and wars and start to create better living conditions for the future Arab generations.
How many fellow Arabs will he persuade to his point of view? How many quietly share it?
Al-Qaeda incited the Islamic world to riot, burn, and kill 0
… not a little video made by a Coptic Christian in America.
This is from the Examiner:
Islamic militants affiliated with al-Qaeda are leaving clues behind at U.S. diplomatic missions that demonstrations are being orchestrated directly by al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, with some social networking assistance and logistics, with campaign resources, suggesting ties to Iran.
Militant message boards started lighting up on Sunday with specific instructions regarding recruiting, communication between mosques and followers in primarily Islamic communities, and organization for protests, following the release of a video by al-Zawahiri …
Ayman al-Zawahiri, leader of al-Qaeda, is the brother of Mohamed al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian imam who had the video shown again and again, and called for its insults to the Prophet Muhammad to be avenged on Americans.
What Ayman al-Zawahiri really wanted to avenge were the killings of two al-Qaeda leaders, Abu Yahya al-Libi and Atiyah Abd al-Rahman.
Al-Libi was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan on June 4, while al-Rahman is believed to have been killed in a drone attack in North Waziristan on August the 22nd. Al-Rahman relayed Osama bin Laden's messages, and served as al-Qaeda's representative in Iran. He became the operational directorof al-Qaeda following the death of Osama bin Laden. Most considered al-Rahman's death to be a significant loss to al-Qaeda, creating a leadership crisis.
Ayman al-Zawahiri gave the orders. Others carried them out:
In Egypt, the protest was organized by Wesam Abdel-Wareth, a Salafist leader and president of Egypt's Hekma television channel, who called for a gathering on September 11 at 5 p.m. in front of the United States Embassy, to protest against a film that he thought was named "Muhammad's Trial" [actually, a scrappy crappy "trailer" made of short video clips titled Innocence of Muslims].
State-backed Islamic scholars in Sudan called for a mass protest after Friday prayers over a film [the same one] denigrating the Prophet Mohammed that originated in the United States, and an Islamist group threatened to attack the US embassy.
That the demonstrations are not spontaneous but organized is indicated by the fact that they all follow common patterns:
Crowds are chanting common slogans – The three most common chants heard have been "death to Obama", "death to America", "death to Israel", and "death to Jews".
Also: "Obama! Obama! We are all Osama!"
Cameras are present – Cameras have been in abundance at all disturbances.
U.S. flags are burned in every demonstration.
When rioters have entered U.S. diplomatic compounds, the U.S. flag has been taken down [and] the black flag of al-Qaeda, also known as the battle standard of Muhammad, has been displayed and flown above U.S. diplomatic compounds and buildings.
Defensive perimeters are being tested, and witnesses have spoken of drawings and diagrams of compounds being drawn on location.
Several attempts have been made to infiltrate the interior defenses within U.S. diplomatic compounds to reach areas where sensitive intelligence information is stored.
Protesters have been providing visual screening to al-Qaeda operatives moving in and among the large groups. These operatives are actively gathering on-site intelligence about U.S. diplomatic security measures and personnel. …
Foreign service officer Sean Smith observed before his death, "We saw one of our 'police' that guard the compound taking pictures." …
Yet the Obama administration sticks to its absurd story that the video film traveled about the Muslim world, as if by its own volition without anybody deliberately sending it, and inevitably enraged tens of thousands of Muslims everywhere and set them thirsting for American blood. The State Department singing in harmony with the leaders of the mobs!
The video film had nothing to do with the pre-planned attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, where Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans – former SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, and Sean Smith a computer expert – were murdered.
While the Obama administration appears to be operating in a combined state of chaos and denial, the administration's position of "we're not going to talk about this until investigations are complete", in regards to releasing further details about the attack on the U.S. consulate office in Benghazi, Libya, signals that the Obama administration is closing ranks to prepare for the congressional investigations that are sure to come in the near future. …
Following the attack that left four dead, including the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, the messages coming from Barack Obama's cabinet signal a disconnect between President Obama's statements, and the reality of events on the ground this week, during well coordinated demonstrations in over twenty countries worldwide. …
The White House still shows no signs that it intends to veer from it's "the film made them do it" response to attacks on U.S. diplomatic installations. There has been no change in the posture at U.S. Africa Command, and the only sign of activity in regards to consular security and intelligence protection at the administration level was President Obama issuing an order to increase security at diplomatic posts worldwide. ..
U.S. intelligence sources continue to downplay the possibility of al-Qaeda involvement in Libya.
[But] the head of Libya's newly elected Congress, Mohamed Al-Magarief, pointed at al-Qaeda as the prime suspect. Mr. Magarief didn't say how far in advance the attack had been planned. He said, however, that he believes the militants went to the consulate with violence in mind. "I think this was al-Qaeda," Mr. Magarief said in the interview. "If you take into account the weapons used, like RPGs and other heavy weapons, it proves that it was preplanned. It's a dirty act of revenge that has nothing to do with religion." Now U.S. intelligence officials are being forced to consider an al-Qaeda possibility, even if they are not announcing that they are, due to mounting evidence of intelligence in the system, at the time of the attack, that was not acted upon by the White House. …
A Washington Post report stated that a senior U.S. intelligence official did acknowledge there were indications of al-Qaeda involvement in the attack, but none were "significant". [!] The report stated that armed militants began moving into Benghazi one hour before the attack, and that none of them carried signs or shouted slogans during their time outside the compound walls. As many as 50 heavily armed men, carrying AK-47's, rocket propelled grenades, and mortars were spotted before the attack commenced. The shooting began soon after militants had organized themselves.
There was no protest by Libyan citizens going on outside the Benghazi consulate. All was quiet until the terrorists converged on it.
This is from the Star-Telegram:
A Libyan security guard who said he was outside the U.S. Consulate when it was attacked Tuesday night has provided new evidence that the assault that left four Americans dead, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, was a planned attack by armed Islamists and not the result of anger over an online video that mocks Islam and its founder, Muhammad.
The guard was interviewed Thursday in the hospital where he is being treated for five shrapnel wounds in one leg and two bullet wounds in the other.
He said that the consulate area was quiet — "there wasn't a single ant outside" — until about 9:35 p.m., when up to 125 armed men descended on the compound from all directions.
The men lobbed grenades into the compound, wounding the guard and knocking him to the ground, then stormed through the main gate, shouting "God is great" and moving to one of the many villas that make up the complex. …
"Wouldn't you expect if there were protesters outside that the Americans would leave?" the guard said.
This is from CNN:
Three days before the deadly assault on the United States consulate in Libya, a local security official says he met with American diplomats in the city and warned them about deteriorating security.
His warning was apparently ignored.
The attack came. The building was set on fire. The ambassador may have been trapped.
The main building in the compound is in charred ruins. … The suite where the body of the ambassador was found was protected by a large door with steel bars; the windows had steel bars.
His body was recovered after looters broke into the room. It appears his security detail left him in the room while they tried to deal with the attack.
All that may be true. But CNN then falsely reports –
There are numerous questions about what happened at the consulate where protesters had gathered to demonstrate against the film Innocence of Muslims, which reportedly was made in California …
As the guard attested, there was no protest. No one says they saw the film.
But here (in a video clip from PowerLine) is Susan Rice, US Ambassador to the UN, contradicting President Mohamed al-Magarief of Libya who asserts that the attack was planned, and telling the official Obama lie:


text:
27 Apr 10:31 2011
Re: [ydl-gen] Current rev?
Robert Spykerman <robert.spykerman <at> gmail.com>
2011/4/27 Matty Sarro <msarro <at> gmail.com>
Hey everyone. I am new to YDL, so please be gentle. Tonight I am
getting a 17" Powerbook G4 and I have a few questions.
Does YDL 6.2 stack up against the current rev of RHEL (6?) Or is it
closer to 5.5/5.6?
Has anyone been able to get compiz fusion working?
I'm assuming that since the hardware is rather limited compared to
what we have to deal with in the x86 world, there is better out of the
box support? Is this correct?
I appreciate any help anyone can provide.
A ppc lappie? Nostalgia? :) Good on you! I did toy around with the idea of buying some old cheap G5's but on ebay they're still not cheap enough to consider buying just to toy around.
AFAIK, YDL is a RHEL 5.x recompile...
Re: eye candy. My YDL experience is somewhat limited to a PS3 and for a very brief period, an old G4 mac with no GPU to speak off. I don't know if anyone has ever got stuff like compiz running on a high end ppc with a GPU. My recollection was that the device driver for video on that G4 was not quite up to the OS X version (understandably, as presumably Apple knew more about the underlying hardware).
Try here: they are mostly ps3 people though.
Oh, by the way, I found this (I'm more a debian person) but I really don't know how good the GPU is supported
Do let us know how you get on!
chown -R us ./base
_______________________________________________ yellowdog-general mailing list - yellowdog-general <at> lists.fixstars.com Unsuscribe info: http://lists.fixstars.com/mailman/listinfo/yellowdog-general HINT: to Google archives, try '<keywords> site:us.fixstars.com'


text:
Log In or
Your basket is empty.
Peter McNab & Rick Middleton Autographed 8x10 Photo
Stock Level: 24
Hover over image to zoom
We're offering this 8x10 Color Photo Autographed by former WCW Superstar "The Taskmaster" Kevin Sullivan.
Product Code: KEVJ12
© Sportsworld Inc. / maintained by claire walters
Mobile Site


text:
It has already been confirmed that players will once again be able to romance various non-player characters within Dragon Age: Inquisition when Bioware's latest chapter in their popular fantast series launches later this year. Clarifying what players can and can't do with these potential love interests, Dragon Age Executive Producer Mark Darrah confirmed on May 2 that marriage won't be a possible outcome for the in-game romances.
The ability to enter into intimate relationships with the cast of the games has become a stable of Bioware titles in recent years. The developer's two current major franchises, Mass Effect and Dragon Age, have allowed fans to romance different characters of their choosing in every installment from both series and this won't change with this fall's launch of Dragon Age: Inquisition.
Simply because these romances can culminate in marriage doesn't mean that they still won't be meaningful however. After all, the events of Bioware games aren't exactly the peaceful periods in which the main characters have time to get married. In Dragon Age: Inquisition, for example, the protagonist is the only person capable of sealing rifts that are allowing hordes of demons to enter the physical world. It's easy to understand why the inquisitor might be a little too busy to plan a wedding in the middle of their quest to save Thedas.
The upcoming installment of the Dragon Age franchise launches on Oct 7 for the Xbox One, Playstation 4, PC, Xbox 360, and Playstation 3. Dragon Age: Inquisition will allow players to build their character in whatever fashion they choose. In addition to being able to select the protagonist's gender, they will also have their choice of playable races which include human, elf, dwarf, and qunari. The game also features three different classes which all break down into further specializations that allow for more in-dept customization.


text:
Skydiving.com now has a network skydiving location serving Atlas and Genesee County in Michigan. Call Skydiving.com at 1-800-617-7948 for details, free information and specials on skydiving in Atlas, MI today!
Popular Tags for Skydiving Atlas:
Skydiving Atlas, Skydiving in Atlas, Sky Diving Atlas, Skydive Atlas MI, Skydiving 48411, Atlas Skydiving, Skydiving Atlas Michigan, Skydiving near Atlas, Skydiving in Atlas Michigan, Atlas Sky Diving, Skydive 48411, Skydiving Atlas MI, Skydive Atlas, Skydiving Genesee County, Skydive in 48411, Skydiving MI, Sky Diving Atlas MI, Atlas, Michigan
Sign up for our newsletter and receive updatesand specials on skydiving across America!


text:
The 96th Queen of the Rose Parade, Ana Marie Acosta, took her place with the Royal Court in the 125th Rose Parade on Jan. 1, 2014. The float on which the Court rode was announced by the Pasadena City College Herald Trumpets, who have heralded the Queen and Court in every Rose Parade since the 1970s.
Queen Ana wore a pearl crown designed by Mikimoto and she and the Rose Princesses wore Mikimoto pearl necklaces and Tadashi gowns. Macy's, the float sponsor, provided wardrobes for all the young women.
The six Rose Princesses are Sarah Elizabeth Hansen, Kayla Diyana Johnson-Granberry, Jamie Ann Kwong, Katherine Diane Lipp, Elyssia Hadi Widjaja, Elizabeth Katie Woolf. The attached slideshow has photos of all the girls on the Royal Court, and related articles can be found in the article "Tournament of Roses 101: Getting to know the 2014 Royal Court."
The trumpeters and drummer are an elite group of musicians. More than 70 auditioned for the nine trumpet positions, and 30 for the solo snare. Director Kevin Brown has led the group, which plays at many events involving the Royal Court, for 31 years.
More than 6,000 roses were used in the decoration of the float, along with white gerberas and maiden hair fern. The crown canopy was created with crisp white sweet rice with pearls of lunaria and accents of white beans.
Like this story?
Columnists are not notified of comments via Disqus, so if you have a question or would like a reply to your comment, please post on Facebook at All Things Rose Parade or email firstname.lastname@example.com. The theme of the 125th Rose Parade and 100th Rose Bowl Game on Jan. 1, 2014 was "Dreams Come True." Subscribe to Tournament of Roses Examiner by clicking the "Subscribe" link for the latest news and for upcoming announcements.
Suggested Links
- Tale of two Rose Queens: Margaret Huntley Main and Vanessa Manjarrez
- Rose Parade 101: How is the Rose Parade Queen chosen?
- 2014 Rose Parade floats: Who won what in the 125th Tournament of Roses
- Tournament of Roses 101: All about the 2013 Royal Court
- Tournament of Roses 101: Everything you want to know about the 2012 Royal Court


text:
A low-end phone to take back the throne. A late and bold attempt to get on the gravy train also known as Android…
Yeah, a Nokia Android device: The ultimate smartphone unicorn that every techie on the Internet has been screaming for since the rise of Android four years ago. And the rumor mill has been unusually active for the last few months.
There are leaked pictures, screenshots, and specs. Contrary to what everyone was hoping for, it isn't an Android smartphone with the Lumia 1020's 41MP camera. The unicorn is… rather small.
The Nokia X, also known as Normandy, is touted to be a low-end device with a price that will make you want to buy one on a whim. Nokia's Facebook page and invitations are all showing X's of some sort, so it's now certain that by next week at the Mobile World Congress the Nokia X will be unveiled at last.
It Might Just Work
The launch of the Nokia X next week could've been a step in the right direction for the troubled Finnish company had it not squandered everything on Windows Phone three years ago.
Yeah, what a journey it has been for Nokia: Three years ago, it was the king of smartphones and now, it is barely making a dent in the smartphone world with its awesome yet ultimately failing Lumia phones.
Dirt-cheap, low-end phones are a dime a dozen (pun intended) in smartphone land. Numerous low-cost smartphones operate on the barest minimum specs and will probably lag here and there but will generally get the job done. Chinese rip-offs and faceless Samsung devices are available online and in brick-and-mortar stores and are fast gaining ground because of their affordability.
There is an example, though, of a smartphone that took affordability and specs to a whole new level: the Lumia 520.
The Lumia 520 succeeded beyond their manufacturers' wildest dreams. It brought Windows Phone to the masses with its unbeatable price ($79 off-contract) and the lightning fast and smooth interface. It also showed that users need not sell their old smartphones just to afford a new one.
These devices showed that a reasonably priced product with decent specs and a recognizable brand is sure to become a hit among consumers. Within a year after release, the Lumia 520 became the most dominant Windows Phone and reminded people that iOS and Android were not the only operating systems available.
Building along those lines, Nokia is aiming to produce a smartphone that will capitalize on the "Nokia" brand with decent specs to boot. So far, the rumoured specs of the Normandy include a 4-inch screen, a dual-core Snapdragon 200 processor, 512MB of RAM and 4GB of expandable storage. This is exactly the kind of Android smartphone that KitKat, the latest OS version, is built for: low-range specs that can still deliver a stellar performance.
Or Not…
This is the hard part, though. Being fans of Nokia ourselves, we want the company to succeed. The present Lumia phones are wonderful, the perfect fusion of Nokia hardware and Microsoft software. However, we have to admit that Windows Phone just doesn't have the same pull that iOS and Android have; it will be in third place for a very long time.
The introduction of a Nokia Android phone, the Nokia X, will change the dynamics of the game, but only if Nokia plays it right this time. One low-range, low-cost smartphone isn't going to dismantle the entrenched Android empire of Samsung, LG, and the other manufacturers. The Nokia X might be a good step but it needs to be followed up with another step, one that is bigger and more ambitious…an Android Lumia.
The smartphone race has been turned into a numbers game and only lately has Nokia paid any attention to raw specs like Samsung's octa-cores and Apple's 64-bit processor. Consumers love numbers because they serve as good comparison tools.
You can claim that you have the best smartphone by virtue of specs, and who will dispute you if you own an octa-core powered smartphone? Until the Lumia 1520 and the Lumia Icon, Windows Phones didn't even support quad-cores. Yes the phones are stable, but a dual-core processor is nothing to brag about, at least in tech terms.
The Nokia X will be too little, too late if it is the first and last of its kind. The world needs more Nokia phones. More Nokia Androids, that is.


text:
Skydiving.com now has a network skydiving location serving White Oak and Camden County in Georgia. Call Skydiving.com at 1-800-617-7948 for details, free information and specials on skydiving in White Oak, GA today!
Popular Tags for Skydiving White Oak:
Skydiving White Oak, Skydiving in White Oak, Sky Diving White Oak, Skydive White Oak GA, Skydiving 31568, White Oak Skydiving, Skydiving White Oak Georgia, Skydiving near White Oak, Skydiving in White Oak Georgia, White Oak Sky Diving, Skydive 31568, Skydiving White Oak GA, Skydive White Oak, Skydiving Camden County, Skydive in 31568, Skydiving GA, Sky Diving White Oak GA, White Oak, Georgia
Sign up for our newsletter and receive updatesand specials on skydiving across America!


text:
Oscar-nominated documentarian Liz Garbus makes a music video
A call from Glenn Close & that's how Liz Garbus, director of "What Happened, Miss Simone?" came to make the video for "Ghost Story.
Jairam Ramesh, Oscar Fernandes file nominations for Rajya Sabha polls
Karnataka Industries Minister R V Deshpande, Opposition Leader in Lok S...
Paralympian Oscar Pistorius movie in works for Cannes
A documentary based on the life of Paralympian Oscar Pistorius will be aired at 69th Ca...
Oscar Pistorius sentencing postponed to June 13: Judge
The former Paralympic champion, 29, faces a minimum 15-year jail term for murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp , which may be reduced due to time he has already spent in prison.
Brand Equity: The best 'break' during Oscars
Find out about the commercials that had the most impact on the audiences during the Oscar live telecast.
After Oscars, now Priyanka Chopra to dine with Barack Obama at the White House
However, Priyanka is still not sure if she will be able to attend the get-together or not given her tight shooting schedule.
Top Oscar nominations for 2016
Watch out the top nominees for Oscar 2016 announced a day ago at Beverly Hills, California.
Oscar-winning actress Patty Duke passes away at 69
The actress died of sepsis from a ruptured intestine, according to her agent, Mitchell Stubbs.
He quit 'wasting time' as engineer, bagged an Oscar
Saajan Skaria, who works for Pixar Animation Studios, was the character supervisor in the animated comedy-drama, 'Inside Out'.
Oscar winner actor George Kennedy dies at 91
Kennedy's biggest acting achievement came in "Cool Hand Luke," a 1967 film about a rebellious war hero played by Paul Newman.
'Inside Out' wins the Oscar for best animated feature
The adventure comedy is set in the mind of a young girl, Riley, where the emotions of Joy, Anger, Disgust, Fear and Sadness conflict.
'The Revenant' wins an Oscar for best cinematography
Emmanuel "Chivo'' Lubezki has won the Oscar for best cinematography for the third year in a row.
'The Revenant' leads charge at 'whitewashed' Oscars
An audience expected to number at a several hundred million around the world will be hanging on every word uttered by black comedian Chris Rock.
Priyanka Chopra gears up for Oscars, rehearses at venue
Priyanka Chopra is all set to present at the Academy Awards tomorrow and the Bollywood actress has been busy rehearsing for the big night.
Five things to look out for on Oscars night
Many of the main categories at the Oscars appear to be locked down, but every year, the glitzy awards gala throws up plenty of surprises.
Oscars 2016: List of nominees in the main categories
With "The Revenant" leading with 12 nods, here is a list of nominees in the main categories for the 88th Academy Awards.
1970s disco theme at the Oscars 2016 stage
A fringe of sequins will dangle over the Oscars red carpet and the stage will be framed by 20,000 pounds of golden Swarovski crystals.
Five most controversial Oscar moments of all time
Academy Awards 2016 are becoming a hotbed for racial discourse, however, is not the first edition of the Oscars to be shrouded with controversy.
I did applaud Jenny Beavan at the Oscars: Alejandro Inarritu
The director has defended himself in the face of criticism for not applauding Jenny Beavan as she made her way to the stage to pick up her award.
After SAG Awards, Priyanka Chopra to present at the Oscars
The "Bajirao Mastani" actress will be the sole representative of India at this year's Oscar ceremony.
'Neerja' makers want film to be India's official entry for the Oscars
The Ram Madhvani film narrates the story of Neerja, a flight stewardesses, who saved hundreds of passengers who were hijacked on a Pan Am flight.
Amy Winehouse's father slams Asif Kapadia on 'Amy' Oscar win
Mitch Winehouse has not been a fan of Kapadia since the first time he watched "Amy", which documents the tragic star's life.
Big B congratulates DiCaprio for his debut Oscar win
DiCaprio's cold streak at the Oscars finally came to an end after 23 years. He was previously nominated on six occasions.
Sanjay Hinduja & wife Anusuya attended Elton John's Oscars party
Anusuya shared a picture of the couple striking a pose on the party's white carpet as well as her selfie with Caitlyn Jenner.
Oscars draws eight-year low US TV audience
The most tweeted about minute came as Leonardo DiCaprio's accepted his first ever Oscar, best actor for survival epic "The Revenant".
Priyanka Chopra debuts at Oscars, becomes second-most searched celeb
Priyanka was the second most searched celebrity in India after Hollywood actor Leonardo Dicaprio, internet search giant Google said.
Priyanka Chopra presents the Oscar to Margaret Sixel for 'Mad Max: Fury Road'
The "Quantico" actress presented the award to Margaret Sixel for the Best Film Editing category.
Sam Smith & Jimmy Napes win Oscar for best original song
Sam Smith became emotional while accepting the award for his song "Writing's On the Wall'' from "Spectre".
Finally! Leonardo DiCaprio wins an Oscar for 'The Revenant'
The 41-year-old actor had been nominated four times previously for an Oscar over a career spanning 25 years.
Oscars 2016: Brie Larson wins best actress award for 'Room'
The 26-year-old has won her first Oscar for her role as a young woman held hostage for years with a young son in the emotional thriller "Room."
Oscars 2016: Alejandro Iñárritu wins best director award for 'The Revenant'
Mexico's Alejandro Iñárritu is the first filmmaker in 60 years to win a back- to-back Oscar for the best director.
Oscars remembers Omar Sharif, Saeed Jaffrey, David Bowie & Alan Rickman
A montage played out as Foo Fighters' frontman Dave Grohl took to the stage to perform a soulful tribute to the deceased.
Oscars 2016: Asif Kapadia directorial 'Amy' wins the best documentary award
The documentary is based on the life of late singer Amy Winehouse, who died in 2011 from accidental alcohol poisoning.
Oops! Stacey Dash's joke falls flat at the Oscars 2016
The former "Clueless'' actress' joke about the 'Black History Month' backfired as the audience didn't understand the reference.
Oscar 2016: 'Mad Max: Fury Road' on the roll with six wins!
Only "The Revenant" has more Oscar nominations this year. "Mad Max: Fury Road" is also nominated for best picture and best director.
Chris Rock hits out at #OscarsSoWhite
The outspoken black comedian, who is hosting the Oscars, welcomed viewers to what he called "the white People's Choice awards.
Alicia Vikander wins supporting actress Oscar for 'The Danish Girl'
The 27-year-old actress has won her first Oscar for the portrayal of the wife of a transgender artist in the movie.
Oscars 2016: 'Spotlight' wins best original screenplay Academy Award
The script by Josh Singer & Tom McCarthy tells the story of the Boston Globe's Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation of sex abuse by Catholic priests.
Oscar Diaries: Who wore what at the red-carpet!
Alicia Vikander set the tone on the Oscars red carpet as she walked early in a pale yellow custom Louis Vuitton gown, her hair flowing down her back.
Oscars red carpet under way, suspense over Chris Rock monologue
Director Spike Lee and actor Will Smith have shunned the Academy Award ceremony, although a wider Oscar boycott largely failed to gather steam,
Build-up to the Oscars! Wolfgang Puck tosses chocolates to crowd
The Academy Awards, normally decorous and predictable, this year charged with enough politics and uncertainty to rival an election debate.
'Fifty Shades of Grey' dishonored at anti-Oscar Razzie awards
The big screen adaptation of EL James' sexually explicit novel also took home, worst actor for Jamie Dornan, & worst actress for Dakota Johnson.
Anohni, first transgender performer nominated, shuns 'degrading' Oscars
The outspoken artist said she was overcome by "embarrassment and anger" as she boarded a plane for Los Angeles.
Who votes for the Oscars? Thousands of white men ... and a nun!
The Academy recently revealed that its 6,000-plus voting members are 93 percent white and 76 percent male. The average age is 63.
US Vice President Joe Biden to introduce Lady Gaga at Oscars
Biden will attend the Oscars where he will introduce Lady Gaga's performance of 'Til It Happens to You' from the documentary 'The Hunting Ground'.
Oscar-winner Susan Sarandon 'not sure' about Clinton over Trump
The prominent actress is a high-profile campaigner for leftist Senator Bernie Sanders, who faces a near impossible task in trying to wrest the Democratic nomination.
Oscars' Film Academy pledges to diversify membership by 2020
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, organizer of the Oscar awards, pledged on Friday to double its membership of women and minorities by 2020.
Oscar winner Jamie Foxx helps rescue driver
Foxx and one other person pulled a man from his burning truck moments before it became engulfed in flames.


text:
Graveyards.com, and the Ruby on Rails application that powers it, are the work of Matt Hucke, a software engineer residing in Chicago.
Originally from St. Clair County, Illinois, I migrated to Chicago in 1993. Almost immediately, I began exploring the rich history and culture of the city. Informed that Graceland Cemetery was one of the "Other Top Ten Sights", I visited it for the first time within months of arriving, and was amazed at the high quality of the funerary sculpture. I began exploring other cemeteries, photographing and documenting, and began this web site in 1996 shortly after taking a job at an Internet service provider - seeing it largely as an opportunity to learn the then-new technology.
I currently work as the lead software developer for AutoAccessoriesGarage.com, where my Java and Ruby on Rails applications allow thousands of customers daily to find and purchase aftermarket auto accessories tailored specifically to their vehicle makes and models.
Additionally, I provide programming and system administration services to Blue Buddha Boutique, a leading supplier of parts and instructions for making chain maille jewelry.
My professional blog is Barbarian Engineer, so named because my career has largely been that of a lone wanderer, learning the tools and technologies by myself, in order to hack out a civilization from the wilderness.
I'm on Twitter as @matthucke, and as @graveyards_com. If you'd like to get in touch, you can follow @graveyards_com and send me a message there.


text:
Giacometti is out. Niki de Saint Phalle is in.
5 amazing actresses come together in imaginary scenarios.
Cosmetics guru Pat McGrath ups the ante.
Fall's Sculptural silhouettes take a turn for the dramatic when worn backward, sideways—any which way you please.
Where the party never stops—and the fringe benefits are many.
streamlined silhouettes.
Hermès has plenty to celebrate these days: a new women's wear designer,
the opening of a Paris flagship, and a furniture line. But, as Alice
Rawsthorn discovers, the quintessentially French maison also faces some
of the stiffest challenges in its long history.
A look into French fashion house, Hermès
Givenchy designer Riccardo Tisci is a man of many muses.
Diane Solway goes inside the gender-bending ad hoc family that
reinvented the house Hubert built.