Act I
Intermission:
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Okay,Shut Up and Sit Down!
Act II
The New Museum's anti-drone scarf. |
According to the Privacy Gift Shop: Inspired by Muslim dress, the Anti-Drone Scarf conceptually aligns itself with the rationale behind the traditional hijab to act as “the veil which separates man or the world from God”, replacing God with drone. The metalized silk scarf protects against thermal imaging surveillance (a technology used widely by UAVs/drones) by reflecting heat, masking the wearer’s thermal signature. The enhanced garment is lightweight, breathable, and safe to wear.
NYT - A Facebook post said to be written by the 11-year-old son of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and “liked” or commented on by several people who appear to be the children and grandchildren of other senior members of Mr. Assad’s government, may offer a glimpse into the mindset of Syria’s ruling elite as the country braces for a potential Western strike in response to a chemical weapons attack on Aug. 21.
It is impossible to confirm whether the Facebook account does, in fact, belong to the son, Hafez al-Assad, and aspects of it invite doubt. For example, the owner of the account wrote that he was a graduate of Oxford University and a player for a Barcelona soccer team, neither of which would be likely to appear on the résumé of an 11-year-old boy in Damascus.
But those claims could also be read as the ambitions of a child, and there are reasons to believe that the account may actually belong to Hafez.Read More
"What happens when American military action has neither public support nor congressional approval? Looks like we're getting ready to find out.
Americans did not much like President Obama's 2011 decision to intervene in the Libyan civil war, and the looming entry of American forces in Syria's conflict is shaping up to be even less popular. The consequences, especially with a president famously unwilling to put his own political clout on the line for national security policies, could be serious...."
The implicit promise of the post-Vietnam understanding of presidential military authority largely unchecked by Congress is that the wars will be popularly supported. What happens in the absence of such support will set a new course for foreign policy and the use of force." — Chris Stirewalt, Fox News
"MSNBC’s ratings tumble continued with a poor August showing, with some programs seeing nearly a 50-percent drop in viewership from a year ago, TV Newser reports.
Among the lowlights were the worst showings yet by its leading program The Rachel Maddow Show, with 43 percent and 47 percent drops in total viewers and the 25-54 demographic, respectively, and 40- and 42-percent drops in the same areas for The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell......"
“The Rachel Maddow Show” posted all-time low ratings in total and demo viewers, down -43% and -47%, respectively. “The Last Word” posted a low in total viewers, losing -40% of its total viewer audience and -42% of its demo audience. at 8 PM, “All In” was down -48% and -42% in total and demo viewers, respectively, placing behind CNN for the hour."Well, after all this is the network that gave America's champion race baiter Al Sharpton camera time with a show named "Politics Nation". Seriously, Politics Nation? What the hell is that suppose to mean?
A senior Syrian official has warned that Israel will “come under fire” should the United states pursue any military aggression against the Assad regime. As reported by the Israeli news site Ynet, Halef al-Muftah, a leading member of the Syrian Ba’ath national council, and a former aide to the Syrian media minister said today that the Syrian government has “strategic weapons aimed at Israel.”Making the comments on an American Arabic radio station, Muftah added that Damascus views Israel as being “behind the aggression” and therefore will be retaliated against should the US strike Syria.The official also stated that the Syrian government would not be beholden to threats from the US, and added “If the US or Israel err through aggression and exploit the chemical issue, the region will go up in endless flames, affecting not only the area’s security, but the world’s.”
Read More
"The irony isn’t merely rich. It’s tragic. As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s 'I Have a Dream' speech this week, the Obama Justice Department is suing the state of Louisiana to stop it from distributing school vouchers to kids seeking to escape failing schools. ...
In King’s 1963 speech, he told of his 'dream' that his four children would 'one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.'
That dream remains noble, but it hasn’t been advanced by a civil-rights leadership that opposes school choice and often follows an 'I have a scheme' method of activism. As liberal journalist Margaret Carlson of Bloomberg News said last Friday: 'We’ve gone from Martin Luther King to the Reverend Al Sharpton, and . . . it’s very dispiriting.' It’s also deplorable that King’s dream as been sullied by an administration that claims King’s mantle but acts against the interests of children so that they can be counted 'by the color of their skin." - John Fund, National Review Online
"Joe Conason is still trying to be the number one journalistic ring-kisser to the Clinton family. His latest effort is fawning all over Chelsea Clinton, the humanitarian (and occasional NBC News correspondent.) He complained on her behalf that “the political press still seems far more inclined to ruminate over her supposed ambitions rather than report her real concerns.”
Chelsea is Nobel Prize material, Conason wants you to know, with global concerns that include, “among other things, an unshakable obsession with diarrhea.” In a Third World, sense of course:
[S]he is willing to confess that “I personally am obsessed with diarrhea”—meaning the symptoms of waterborne disease that leads to diarrhea, dehydration and death for millions of children annually across Africa. Aside from her growing experience in the field, she holds a master’s degree in public health from Columbia University. “I wish that someone wanted to talk about diarrhea and why I think we really have the chance to eradicate diarrhea, even before every country across the African continent or across the world has strong public health systems of sanitation and clean water.... Yes, I wish the mainstream media were interested in things like our growing work in diarrhea or the work that we’re doing in agriculture or the work we’re doing on HIV/AIDS and how important that is.”
Conason was one of the ogling correspondents who traveled to Africa with Chelsea and her father Slick Willie, and this is where the goo really began to flow freely, on how the press fails to give the Clintons enough credit for their work in Africa:Read More
"The U.S. Justice Department is suing Louisiana in New Orleans federal court to block 2014-15 vouchers for students in public school systems that are under federal desegregation orders. The first year of private school vouchers "impeded the desegregation process," the federal government says.
The statewide voucher program, officially called the Louisiana Scholarship Program, lets low-income students in public schools graded C, D or F attend private schools at state taxpayer expense. The Justice Department's primary argument is that letting students leave for vouchered private schools can disrupt the racial balance in public school systems that desegregation orders are meant to protect. Those orders almost always set rules for student transfers with the school system.
Thirty-four school systems could be affected, including those of Jefferson, Plaquemines, St. John the Baptist and St. Tammany parishes. Under the lawsuit, the state would be barred from assigning students in those systems to private schools unless a federal judge agreed to it....."
In Tangipahoa Parish, for instance, Independence Elementary School lost five white students to voucher schools, the petition states. The consequent change in the percent of enrolled white students "reinforc(ed) the racial identity of the school as a black school."
The Incredible Lethargic Duo |
"President Obama drew a spotlight on the high cost of attending college this past week, a worthy cause, but unfortunately, he sees the answer in more government control over all colleges. Government caused most of the problems in the first place.
Mr. Obama is slow-walking a nationalized college education system.
Barack Obama can’t come right out and nationalize college education with a Common Core maneuver, as he is doing in the K-12 school system, so he is instead working his way up to controlling colleges using aid money.
William Pitt once said, Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
Mr. Obama is putting forward a plan for ranking colleges that
would be tied to aid as a way to cut college costs. The government would decide school rankings, including private schools, according to tuition, student-loan debt, and graduation rates. Students will get more aid money by going to the colleges that the government decides are best.
When it doesn’t work, more exemptions, carve outs, and cronyism will seep in as it always does with massive government programs.
Higher education is about to be politicized.
Government caused the problem with their easy loan money and Mr. Obama’s answer is more government.
The high cost of college today is in large part due to student aid money. The government gives easy money to colleges and they never have to lower the costs of anything. In fact, they add unnecessary frills to entice students to their country club environment. Colleges encourage more-and-more students to attend since they will be bailed out with the student loans by the taxpayers. The government controls more than 90% of the loan money in this country, but it will eventually be 100%. With this new program that Mr. Obama wants, higher learning will be under the thumb of the government for their very existence.
Mr. Obama wants to cap payments at 10% of their income, which puts the burden on the taxpayer. It is just another redistribution of income idea.
Eventually, the government will get to decide what schools are good and why, how much they can charge, and who they should enroll."...... More
"Last month, Sir Bruce Keogh, medical director of the NHS, issued a forensic report, commissioned by the government, which found that 14 under-performing hospitals in England had substandard care, contributing to the needless deaths of nearly 13,000 people since 2005.
Earlier this year, it was reported that a single hospital in Staffordshire recorded 1,400 "excess" deaths.
Following the July report, letters from patients and relatives of those who died flooded in to newspapers, Sky News and the BBC. Many confirmed poor treatment, if in fact they or their loved ones were able to receive timely care at all. The lack of adequate nursing staff, cuts to elder care budgets and a rise in immigrant populations are a few of the factors that have exacerbated the problem......"
"What happens when big, lumbering, inefficient government seeks to provide health care. Why should the U.K.'s horrid experience with NHS matter to Americans?
Because if, in a much smaller country horror stories abound, how much worse could it be when our big, lumbering, inefficient government launches Obamacare? What impact will it have on U.S. hospitals and health care providers? Instead of merely mandating insurance coverage to the uninsured, will our government eventually begin dictating what surgeries and treatments it will pay for based on what a bureaucrat deems cost-effective?
It's only a short step from overseeing health insurance to more intrusive oversight of medical care in general.
Everyone in the U.K. might have access to health care, but they are often forced to accept inferior health care. Will Obamacare result in Americans patiently waiting four-and-a-half months between a referral and an appointment with a specialist or surgeon?
Will Americans have to wait weeks, or months, for treatment or surgery, in some cases, risking death? With Obamacare scheduled to begin phasing-in on Oct. 1, in order to avoid what Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., has called a "train wreck," these questions need answers." - CAL THOMAS, Washington Examiner
Go Go Amy’s show turned out to be a no no after her breast contraptions caused the venue at Dundee’s Abertay University to be emptied. The fire alarms were set off after the temptress set her twirling nipple tassels ablaze.
Hundreds of customers were left disappointed and instead of getting hot under the collar, they were escorted outside.
Show planner Ky Thomasson-Kay told the Sun: "They weren’t meant to use fire in the act but I think they just completely forgot. When the alarm went off everybody had to go outside. It was incredible. ‘It was one of those priceless moments that people will be talking about for years."
Amy had been performing at the Dundee Tattoo Convention. She can normally be found entertaining guests as a member of the Pretty Things Peep Show.[snip]
New Government Employees Receiving Final Instruction Before Assignments |
"Don't want to get into a long constitutional and legal debate here, but I do want to make a little comment about the current furor over whether Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is eligible to run for President.
First, forgive me for a little Diplo-Bombast. This little blog spotted the attack on Cruz coming way back when. I wrote a piece, August 1, 2012, titled, "The Media: They Just Can't help Themselves . . .." I noted then that the liberals, by way of the ultra-liberal L.A. Times was out to get Cruz, who had still not even been elected Senator, and wrote,
The LAT piece claims that since Cruz was born in Calgary, Canada while his father, a Cuban refugee, worked in the oil business, he is not a "naturally born citizen," even if his mother was a US citizen--which she was. Amazing the stuff they will come up with to try to destroy a rising GOP star. The liberals have to destroy women and minority conservatives above all others; not to do so would give the lie to their narrative that the GOP is the party of rich white guys. Look at the hatred directed at Palin, Bachmann, West, Rice, Cain, Rubio, and now Cruz.
The liberals think this is some clever retaliation for the "birther" attacks on Obama. They conveniently forget, however, that the "birther" stuff emerged from Hillary Clinton's primary campaign and was based upon, as I wrote on May 18, 2012 , a bio blurb by Obama's publisher ........" Keep Reading
"The Dec. 22 story published in Egypt's Rose El-Youssef magazine (read an IPT translation here) suggests the six turned the White House "from a position hostile to Islamic groups and organizations in the world to the largest and most important supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood."
The story is largely unsourced, but its publication is considered significant in raising the issue to Egyptian readers.
The six named people include: Arif Alikhan, assistant secretary of Homeland Security for policy development; Mohammed Elibiary, a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council; Rashad Hussain, the U.S. special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference; Salam al-Marayati, co-founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC); Imam Mohamed Magid, president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA); and Eboo Patel, a member of President Obama's Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships.
Alikhan is a founder of the World Islamic Organization, which the magazine identifies as a Brotherhood "subsidiary." It suggests that Alikhan was responsible for the "file of Islamic states" in the White House and that he provides the direct link between the Obama administration and the Arab Spring revolutions of 2011......"Read More