Monday Links - Again

Once again, Monday appears to be a good time to round up some stories in the news.  So here we go:

From The Guardian, as tensions rise in the wake of an apparent chemical weapons attack in Syria, the United Kingdom moves military equipment to a base in Cyprus.

From the Boston Globe, the full text of Secretary of State John Kerry's statement in response to these attacks.

From the Jerusalem Post, according to Israeli International Relations Minister Yuval Steinitz it is "crystal clear" that Syrian President Bashir Assad's forces used chemical weapons in an attack five days ago.

From CBS News, worries about Syria are affecting Wall Street.

From the Washington Post, the prospect of American intervention in Syria is very unpopular.

From Town Hall, the story of Shin Dong-Hyuk, who escaped the North Korean GULAG.

From Mashable, Bloomberg beat Reuters in web traffic for this past July.

From WRAL(dot)com, a charitable group in Raleigh, North Carolina has been threatened with arrest for feeding the homeless without a permit.  (via Breitbart's The Conversation)

From Breitbart's Big Government, the media ignore the killing of Americans by illegal aliens.

From Forbes, Donald Trump is being sued for fraud.

From Fox News, two House Democrats propose a bill to increase taxes on guns and ammunition.

From the Mail Online, investigators have requested the school records of the Sandy Hook shooter.

From Talking Points Memo, according to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, the federal government will reach the latest debt ceiling in mid-October.

And from the Times Union, the best and worst dressed at the MTV VMAs.

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Turnabout Is Fair Play

Remember about two weeks ago, when station KTVU mis-identified Asiana Airlines personnel with some obviously fake names, such as "Sum Ting Wong", after an Asiana jet crash-landed?  Well, after the crash-landing of a Southwest Airlines plane at La Guardia Airport in New York, a Korean news outlet has shown us that such humor is a two-way street.  (Both links come from Slothed.)

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Two Takes On Zimmerman And Martin

The first comes via Young Conservatives.  Bill Whittle tell us the story of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman the mainstream media didn't.  Warning:  The video includes some graphic images.

The other may be found at Liberty Works.  No video, just go over there and read it.

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Wednesday Links

Some stories from today's news:

From CBS News, a search for art stolen from the Netherlands appears to have turned up ashes in the oven of a woman in Romania.

Also from CBS News, a new "intelligent knife" can distinguish between healthy tissue and cancerous tissue.

From BBC News, the Greek parliament has approved budget cuts amid an atmosphere of protest.

From the Irish Times, a well-known defender of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has been gunned down in Lebanon.

From Boston(dot)com, Democrats pursuing an immigration bill are pinning their hopes on congressman and former vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan (R-WI).

From Breitbart's Big Government, congressman Steve Stockman (R-TX) thinks that if Speaker John Boehner tries to salvage the "gang of eight" immigration bill, "it will blow up in his face".

From the Washington Post, the federal government's collection of phone records does not sit well with, believe it or not, the man who authored the Patriot Act.

From Yahoo News, state and local police have been using license plate scanners, thus tracking the movements of your vehicle.

From Time, the Rolling Stone's cover depicting accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev has not sat well with some retail stores.

From USA Today, the jury in the trial of George Zimmerman was correct, according to former president Jimmy Carter.

From Breitbart's Big Hollywood, Bill Maher tells some jokes about Zimmerman on the Late Show with David Letterman, and gets booed.

From CNS News, as the Pentagon furloughs civilian workers, the Army spends $81,000 on TVs for Gitmo.

From the Washington Free Beacon, Samantha Power, nominated to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, promises to fight against anti-Israel sentiment if confirmed.

And from the New York Post, British researchers say that they have developed a cell phone that can be recharged by using a very convenient fuel.

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George Wallace, Republican?

Last night, a show on MSNBC identified George Wallace, the one-time segregationist governor of Alabama and 4-time presidential candidate, as a Republican, despite his long-time affiliation with the Democrats.  He ran as an independent in the 1972 campaign, during which he was shot and wounded by a would-be assassin.  As a result, he was confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life, and would die in 1998.

Read more at Mediaite and Breitbart's The Conversation.

I've known about politicians who change parties during their lifetime, most of them, it seems, from Democrat to Republican.  But this is the first time I've heard of one making that switch 15 years after his death.

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Speech For A High School Principal

The speech comes from conservative columnist Dennis Prager by way of a12iggymom, and was originally published in 2010.  It appears to have generated an Internet meme alleging that Prager gave the speech in a high school.  One version of the meme had Prager being a high school principal himself.  In reality, however, it was nothing more than a hypothetical speech that Prager wrote as one of his columns.  Even so, I would still say that it's full of good ideas, so here's a small excerpt.  Read the whole speech at either of first two links above.

To the students and faculty of our high school:
I am your new principal, and honored to be so. There is no greater calling than to teach young people. 

I would like to apprise you of some important changes coming to our school. I am making these changes because I am convinced that most of the ideas that have dominated public education in America have worked against you, against your teachers and against our country. 

First, this school will no longer honor race or ethnicity. I could not care less if your racial makeup is black, brown, red, yellow or white. I could not care less if your origins are African, Latin American, Asian or European, or if your ancestors arrived here on the Mayflower or on slave ships. 

The only identity I care about, the only one this school will recognize, is your individual identity -- your character, your scholarship, your humanity. And the only national identity this school will care about is American. This is an American public school, and American public schools were created to make better Americans.

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Judge Sentenced For Selling Kids To Prison

Former Pennsylvania judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. has been sentenced to 28 years in prison for what has been described as "literally selling juveniles for cash".  He accepted money from the owner of a private prison in exchange for sending thousands of convicts to the prison, some as young as 10 years old, a program that became known as "kids for cash".  Ciavarella has been convicted of 12 total counts, and also ordered to pay restitution.  The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has overturned about 4,000 convictions issued by Ciavarella.

This story comes via American Vision News, who note that it was barely touched by the American media, and who instead found it in The Independent, which is British, and in a blog named BlackNews.

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Asteroid Blamed On Global Warming?

From MRC TV via The Blaze:

CNN anchor Deb Feyerick, after wondering if the blizzard that the northeast is now digging out of was caused by global warming, apparently asks science reporter Bill Nye if global warming is to blame for an asteroid that will soon pass near the earth.  I was going to give her the benefit of the doubt because she uses the pronoun "this", which could refer to either the blizzard or the asteroid, as possibly being caused by global warming, but then she refers to "meteoric phenomena", which nowadays refers to rocks traveling through outer space and sometimes entering the earth's atmosphere.  At one time, however, the term "meteor" encompassed not only rocks from outer space, but things that fall from within our atmosphere, such as rain and hail.  A vestige of this is the term "meteorology" for the the science that studies weather.  Maybe she meant "meteorological phenomena", which would refer to the blizzard.  Watch the video and decide for yourself.

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The Te'o Hoax, And Some Other Stories

Manti Te'o is a college football player who recently completed his senior season with Notre Dame, the team losing to Alabama in the BCS Championship Game.  During the 2012 season, he endured the deaths of his grandmother, Annette Santiago, and his girlfriend, Lennay Marie Kekua, within days of each other.  Earlier during 2012, Te'o had learned that Kekua was in a car accident, recovered from the resulting injuries, graduated from Stanford, and then was diagnosed with leukemia, from which she eventually died.  There was one problem with all of this.  Te's and Kekua never met in person.  Their relationship was completely online.  All of these events, and Lennay Kekua's very existence, were a hoax.  The only remaining question is whether Te'o was purely the victim of this hoax, or was in on it.  Read more at Deadspin, CBS Sportsline, Newsfeed, Fox News and the Sporting News.

In other news:

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, an Illinois woman survived for two days after her car skidded into a ravine.

From the Sioux City Journal, a tribute to Sioux City native Pauline Friedman Phillips, known to the world as Dear Abby.  She recently passed away at the age of 94.

From Yahoo News, a Florida man was killed when he was run over by his dog.

From Israel National News, about 4,300 of Nazi-seized advertising posters will be auctioned off in New York.

From WGRZ, Border Patrol agents have arrested a man who entered the United States illegally, by paddling across the Niagara River into Fort Niagara State Park.  (Full disclosure:  I have visited Fort Niagara.  It's in the northwest corner of New York state, on the east bank of the Niagara River where it empties into Lake Ontario.  If the sky is fairly clear, you can see Toronto on the other side of the lake.)

From Breitbart's Big Journalism, the NRA, which has been vilified in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, has a better approval rating than the president.

And finally, to return to our first topic, it seems that Manti Te'o might have been living out a song that I remember from the 1970's.

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Links For The New B'ak'tun

It's now the evening of December 21, 2012, and the world still hasn't come to an end.  That's because it's not supposed to.  Instead, it's merely the start of the 13th b'ak'tun, a Maya calendar period consisting of 144,000 days, as explained in this article.  So now that it looks like the world will keep on going for the foreseeable future, let's take a look at things that really are going on out there.

From Delaware105.9, ABC news veteran and former White House correspondent Sam Donaldson, recently arrested for DUI, has waived his arraignment hearing.  His trial has not been scheduled.

From Fox News, later tonight and early tomorrow morning, the Ursid meteor shower will peak.  These meteors are related to comet Tuttle 8P, and appear to radiate from the constellation Ursa Minor, a.k.a. the Little Dipper.

From Human Events, the NRA addresses the Newtown massacre.

From the Daily Caller, reporters at an NRA presser are overheard mocking the NRA and praising the Code Pink protesters.

From White House Dossier, now that Susan Rice has withdrawn, President Obama will nominate Senator John Kerry (D-Mass) for Secretary of State.

From the Spiegel, a German archaeologist working in Yemen has found evidence of a tribal confederation centered on the city of Zafar.

From Yahoo Finance, the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing has been producing a much higher than usual amount of $100 bills.

From ARRA News Service, Congressman-elect and Iraq combat veteran Tom Cotton (R-Ark) gives his opinion on the possible nomination of former Senator and Vietnam combat veteran Chuck Hegel (R-NH) for Secretary of Defense.

From Gateway Pundit, at the funeral of Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI), former Hawaii resident Barack Obama talks for ten minutes about himself.

From The Foundry, the twelve days of Obamacare surprises, including more cuts to Medicare.

From the IPT, the president of the Al Haya Party in Egypt claims that American diplomats and President Obama have given Egyptian secular democrats a "cold shoulder".

From MSNBC, the most exciting alien planets discovered in 2012.

And from SFGate, sirens in Denver are not a doomsday signal.  They are only a test.

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More Blasphemy?

From Todd Starnes at Fox News & Commentary:

A painting on display at Bunker Hill Community College shows President Obama with outstretched arms, simulating the arm positions of Jesus as commonly depicted on a crucifix, and wearing a crown of thorns. The painting, by Michael D'Antuono, entitled "Truth", was supposed to debut almost four years ago in New York City, but the event was cancelled due to public outrage.  Although Obama is "posed as Jesus Christ crucified", according to Starnes, the painting does not show a cross, any nails or any wounds.

“I always regretted cancelling my exhibit in New York because I feel my First Amendment rights should override someone’s hurt feelings,” D'Antuono told Fox News. “We should celebrate the fact that we live in a country where we are given the freedom to express ourselves.”

I agree with Mr. D'Antuono, but would hope that the First Amendment is applied consistently.  For example, I wonder if he has any paintings of Mohammed, or of a modern public figure in a pose intended to remind people of Mohammed, that he'd like to show us.

Click on the fold, or go to the above link, to see the painting.

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Monday Links

A few things going on out there:

From The Telegraph, the British are not amused by President Obama's gaffes made during his trip to Thailand and Myanmar.  (Or is it Burma again?)

From Mediaiate via Weasel Zippers, Secretary of State Clinton falls asleep during Obama's speech.

From Breitbart's Big Journalism, a BBC reporter spreads around a photo of a child reportedly injured in an Israeli attack on Gaza.  The only problem is that the photo was actually taken in Syria.

From the Daily Caller, Senator Marco Rubio passes on answering a question about the age of the earth.  Lefties in the media go nuts.  Funny, they had no problem with then-Senator Obama decided that a question about when life begins was above his pay grade.

From Hispanic Business, GE Healthcare will eliminate 2% of its jobs in Wisconsin.

From the Phoenix Business Journal, the Mexican company Grupo Bimbo, despite rumors to the contrary, will not be acquiring Hostess Brands.

From My Fox Chicago, meanwhile back in the US, a judge has ordered Hostess to mediate with their second largest union.

From France24, noted musician and vegetarian Paul McCartney says, "Skip the turkey."  Yours truly, a much less-noted musician and alumnus of a college whose mascot is a highly evolved turkey, says, "Sir Paul, mind your own [bleep]ing business!"

From Tribble News, the real story of the first Thanksgiving.

From the Indy Star, Marion County, Indiana authorities are investigating the explosion of a house in the Richmond Hills subdivision as a homicide.  On November 10, the house blew up, killing two people and damaging dozens of neighboring homes.

And from SFGate, shoppers at a Kohl's store in Iowa got to experience a line from the Rodger & Hammerstein song Do Re Mi.  Doe, a deer, a female deer.

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Was The Mohammed Movie Trailer Wrong?

Usama Dakdok, a Christian who immigrated from Egypt in 1992, explains why the Mohammed Movie Trailer, blamed by some for the attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, is correct in its claims according to the Qur'an and the writings of Muslim scholars.  Mr. Dakdok is one of the hosts I listen to on BlogTalkRadio, and has his own Internet-based ministry at The Straight Way.

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Friday Links

A few stories out there in the news:

From NBC News, a New York man has allegedly been stranded in Europe since October 1st, because his name appears on a no-fly list.  This, of course, begs the following question.  Why was he allowed to fly over there in the first place?

From Life News, Bruce Springsteen campaigns for Obama and abortion.

From the LA Times, Malala Yousafzai, the 14-year-old education rights campaigner recently shot by the Taliban and taken to Britain for treatment, has recovered the abilities to stand and to write.

From CBC News, the Catholic Church will declare Kateri Tekakwitha a saint.  A member of the Mohawk tribe, she will become the first native North American woman to receive this honor.  (Full disclosure:  I have visited her shrine in Fonda, NY.)

From the NY Post, alleged would-be bomber Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis may have had an accomplice who was busted on kiddie porn charges.

From Yahoo News, a car-bomb explodes in Beirut, killing an anti-Syrian intelligence official.

From Reuters, the Curiosity rover eats Martian dirt.

From Breitbart's Big Journalism, the magazine Us headlines the cost Ann Romney's dress, even though it cost about half of what Michelle Obama was wearing, as the two ladies watched their husbands debate.

From Iconic Surrealism, watch Mitt Romney's speech at the Alfred E. Smith dinner.

Form Human Events, Romney gets the endorsement of lifelong Democrat Lee Iacocca.

And last but not east, from Pinterest, some of Obama's favorite golf courses.

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Obama Campaign: Vote Your "Parts"

Earlier today, the Obama campaign posted an e-card on their Tumblr site, saying "Vote like your lady parts depend on it."  Bloggers took notice, and soon afterwards, the hashtag #LadyParts became popular on Twitter.  Hours after bloggers started criticizing the e-card, it was deleted.  However, the Washington Examiner (among others) saved a shot of the e-card.  Obviously, I think that the Obama presidency has harmed Americans, both those with lady parts and those with manly parts.

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Monday Links

A few stories recently in the news:

From the Daily Caller, members of the Occupy movement protest the president - of Iran.

World Net Daily has found a video of Obama from 1995, in which he talks about "common ground".

From the American Thinker, the Obama campaign has quietly discontinued their sales of the "Obama flag".

From the Washington Times, the Obama administration has released a list of 55 terrorists, er, uh, detainees who have been approved for release from Guantanamo.

From WXYZ Action News, the owners of three stores in Dearborn(istan), Michigan have been arrested for alleged fraud against the Bridge Card Program, which is part of the Food Stamps system.

From ABC News, Polish soldiers in Afghanistan found a newborn baby girl abandoned on the side of a road. Niech żyje Polska!

From Big Government, Mr. Bill implies that if there's a second Obama term, Hillary won't be part of it.

From Big Journalism, one of Hillary's aids, during an interview with a CNN reporter, slips into some foul language.

From the Telegraph (and the PC department), France is not only preparing to legalize gay marriage, but also to eliminate the words "mother" and "father" from official documents.

From The Hill, several prominent Democrats warn Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to stay out of the US presidential election.

From Yid With Lid, several other Democrats, on the other hand, warn "Don't trust Obama on Israel."

From Occupy Corporatism, FEMA has created a civilian group intended to assist the federal government in future disaster preparedness.

And finally, from the Norwalk Reflector, a potential Darwin Award nominee: a stop sign thief runs a stop sign, thus making his last mistake.

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Obamanation: The Interactive Painting

Artist Jon McNaughton has created a painting which illustrates the wrongdoings of the Obama presidency.  On his website, he has made an interactive version, in which you can hover your mouse pointer over its various features and read a brief summary of what is illustrated.  If you click, a new window will open, which has some links, where you can find more detailed information.  Here's a video introduction:

Go here to see and interact with the painting.  (H/T Pat Dollard)

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A Few Things Going On Out There

The Washington Free Beacon finds that women employed by the DNC make 15% less than their male counterparts.

The Boston Herald reports that DEMOS, a non-profit group that likes to sue states into sending out voter registration cards to people on welfare, has included the daughter of Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren on their board of directors.  (Via the Weekly Standard)

From (instead of via) the Weekly Standard, over 100 million people are now receiving some form of Federal welfare assistance.

From the Canada Free Press, Brian Ross, who previously tried to link the theater shootings in Aurora, Colorado to the Tea Party movement, calls the man who killed seven people at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin a member of the "right wing".

From Watchdog, an oil boom in eastern Montana is giving the state the "illusion of prosperity".

From Fox Nation, Teh One^TM complains that the First Lady doesn't make any money.  (Aren't all her expensive vacations worth something, Mr. President?)

From Fox News, according to documents procured by Judicial Watch, the Obama administration urged local authorities to "go easy" on Occupy protesters.

StixBlog tells us about how Obama's policies have affected Julia's wallet.  (When I joined AndRightlySo, about 4 years ago, Stix was the first person to comment on my first post.)

From Townhall, the Obama campaign has been caught in a "blatant lie" about the anti-Romney "cancer" ad.

From the Catholic News Agency, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York gave the keynote speech at the 130th Supreme Convention of the Knights of Columbus, saying that strong marriages "serve as a foundation of a healthy society".

From USA Today, an Ohio teenager's 4-day X-Box marathon lands him in the hospital.

You've probably heard the expression "bull in an china shop".  But now, according to Yahoo News, there was a bear in a chocolate shop.

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Muslim Teenager Tries To Grab Olympic Torch

According to the Guardian, a "teenager" tried to grab the Olympic torch from Anna Skora, the runner who was carrying it.  The kid was quickly subdued and arrested by police.  What the Guardian left out of their report (and its accompanying video) is what he yelled, just before leaping at Skora.  However, a nearby spectator making an amateur video had no problem hearing and understanding him.  (H/T TROP)

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The "Real Story" Of Obama

Duh Progressive is mostly a satirical website, but they include a section called True Op-Ed, in which writers get into some serious subject matter.  In today's true opinion column, Nick Taxia gives us what he believes is the "real story" that President Obama would like to tell.  In doing so, Taxia delves into the history of the United States and of the European colonization of Africa, as seen from the Marxist perspective, and how all of that has left its mark on Obama's political philosophy.  An except:

Obama's story actually begins in 1885, when the Germans began a "protectorate" colony over the Sultan of Zanzibar's possessions along the Kenyan coast.  Soon the British followed, establising their presence in the country three years later.  From then until the conclusion of World War I, the British and Germans bickered over how much they would possess of Kenya and which resources they would gather and exploit.  Following the Germans' defeat in World War I, the British gained full dominance over Kenya, which as anyone can imagine, did not please native Kenyans much.

Read the full article.

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