If you want the government to stop spying on you, declare your home a mosque dailycaller.com/2013/06/13/if-… via @jtlol
— mb (@imsure) June 13, 2013
The White House assures that tracking our every phone call and keystroke is to stop terrorists, and yet it won't snoop in mosques, where the terrorists are.Yet another example of how totally screwed we are. Thanks progs!
That's right, the government's sweeping surveillance of our most private communications excludes the jihad factories where homegrown terrorists are radicalized.
Since October 2011, mosques have been off-limits to FBI agents. No more surveillance or undercover string operations without high-level approval from a special oversight body at the Justice Department dubbed the Sensitive Operations Review Committee.
Who makes up this body, and how do they decide requests? Nobody knows; the names of the chairman, members and staff are kept secret.
We do know the panel was set up under pressure from Islamist groups who complained about FBI stings at mosques. Just months before the panel's formation, the Council on American-Islamic Relations teamed up with the ACLU to sue the FBI for allegedly violating the civil rights of Muslims in Los Angeles by hiring an undercover agent to infiltrate and monitor mosques there.
Before mosques were excluded from the otherwise wide domestic spy net the administration has cast, the FBI launched dozens of successful sting operations against homegrown jihadists — inside mosques — and disrupted dozens of plots against the homeland.
If only they were allowed to continue, perhaps the many victims of the Boston Marathon bombings would not have lost their lives and limbs. The FBI never canvassed Boston mosques until four days after the April 15 attacks, and it did not check out the radical Boston mosque where the Muslim bombers worshipped.
#SMC UPDATE: SM police laid out evidence found on suspect's body; news conference planned for approx 1pm twitter.com/ABC7/status/34…
— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) June 8, 2013
The semiautomatic weapon used in the Santa Monica shooting rampage appears to have been put together from various parts, possibly in an attempt to circumvent the state's restrictions on such guns, law enforcement sources said Wednesday.And of course, despite all this, Sen. Barbara Boxer cravenly announced that the Santa Monica massacre gives us "wind at our backs" for even more ineffective gun control legislation.
While certain types of AR-15-style rifles are banned in California, it's legal to purchase parts that can be used to assemble and customize the guns. Santa Monica police have said John Zawahri, 23, used an AR-15-style gun during the attack and was also carrying a .44-caliber handgun.
The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case was ongoing, said detectives are still trying to figure out how the gun was put together and whether Zawahri obtained it whole or assembled it himself.
Zawahri killed five people last Friday in an attack that started at his father's home and ended at Santa Monica College, where police fatally wounded him in the school's library.
Sources said Wednesday that Zawahri fired about 100 rounds during the rampage, which lasted about 10 minutes. He fired at passing cars, a bus, pedestrians as well as police. Authorities have said he had access to more than 1,300 rounds of ammunition.
Santa Monica Police Department investigators, working with the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the California Department of Justice, are now trying to trace where the parts came from.
Zawahri's rifle appeared to be modified so it could fire more rounds, the sources said. Police said he had 40 magazines capable of holding 30 rounds each during the rampage.
California outlaws the commerce of AR-15 weapons that have certain features, including a detachable magazine, which allows sustained firing. Other features include folding telescopic or detachable stocks or a threaded barrel.
Purchase, sale and transfer of high-capacity magazines is illegal, but currently possession of the items is not.
What a horrible, evil woman.
“As a practicing and respectful Catholic, this is sacred ground to me when we talk about this,” Pelosi said. “This shouldn’t have anything to do with politics.”
In a way, the ruling was a silent tribute to screen actress Angelina Jolie, who recently gained huge notoriety not for her acting but for voluntarily having her breasts surgically removed after discovering that she had the threatening genes in her body. She, of course, was able to pay the high cost of that test; now, women of less means will be able to afford it, and that was a key motivation for challenging Myriad’s patent rights.More at Memeorandum.
"I can do things other people can't," the man says with becoming modesty, and can he ever. Cauterize deep wounds with a single glance, leap tall buildings in a single bound, things like that. Those rumors you've been hearing are true: Superman is back in town.Continue reading.
But "Man of Steel" is not your father's Superman (there's no kryptonite in sight), or your grandfather's for that matter. It features brooding, buff British actor Henry Cavill as a muscular yet sensitive type (think Jack Kerouac spending way too much time in the gym) trying to find himself, torn between his Krypton roots and his Kansas upbringing. Who said being a superhero was easy?
"Man of Steel" is similarly torn. Directed by Zack Snyder and written by David S. Goyer from a story by Goyer and Christopher Nolan (who also produced), this film is pulled in different directions, delivering satisfactions without managing to be completely satisfying.
When Tracy Britt arrived in Omaha, Neb., in 2009 to meet with Warren Buffett, she brought a Harvard M.B.A., a glittering resume and a boatload of ambition. But she also brought the famed investor a gift to highlight their shared Midwestern roots: a bushel of corn and a batch of tomatoes.Continue reading.
he seed Ms. Britt planted that day yielded quick results: a job for Ms. Britt as Mr. Buffett's financial assistant at Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Almost four years later, it has blossomed further, with Ms. Britt emerging as one of Mr. Buffett's top lieutenants and even serving as chairman of four companies within his $284 billion conglomerate.
Ms. Britt, now 28 years old and more than five decades younger than her boss, occupies a role unlike any other within Berkshire. With an office next to Mr. Buffett's at Berkshire's headquarters, Ms. Britt helps with financial research, accompanies Mr. Buffett to meetings and occasionally drives him around town. The billionaire gradually tacked on additional responsibilities.
The firms in which she serves as chairman, including building-products company Johns Manville Corp. and paint manufacturer Benjamin Moore & Co., total more than $4 billion in annual sales. In March, a few weeks after Berkshire and Brazilian investment firm 3G Capital said they would buy ketchup maker H.J. Heinz & Co. for $23 billion, Mr. Buffett sent Ms. Britt to Brazil, according to people familiar with the matter.
The deal was Berkshire's largest acquisition since 2010, and Mr. Buffett wanted her to know more about 3G's operations, including how the Brazilian firm had turned around Burger King Worldwide Inc., the people said.
Ms. Britt is one of the executives the 82-year-old Mr. Buffett is grooming for senior positions after he steps down, say people familiar with the matter and Berkshire analysts. And she isn't the first person that he picked out of relative obscurity: His investment managers, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, were little-known hedge-fund managers before Mr. Buffett tapped them to handle big slices of Berkshire money.
Ms. Britt is also one of the most influential women within Berkshire, which has three women directors on a 13-member board and five women CEOs out of 81 operating companies.
Ms. Britt "takes care of all kinds of things that come up," Mr. Buffett told college students in Omaha last month...
Over the past several decades, American teachers’ salaries and benefits have increased steadily, while the academic performance of the nation’s students has stagnated. In a new paper released on Wednesday, Sally Lovejoy and Chad Miller of the American Action Forum argue that teachers unions’ and their collective-bargaining policies are at least partly to blame for both issues.Continue reading.
The authors cite an array of studies examining the impact of teachers’ unions and their negotiating strategies. The majority of these studies have found that collective-bargaining agreements typically focus on higher teacher pay and benefits and greater job security, with little consideration given to student performance. In fact, teachers’ unions have historically resisted most efforts to hold teachers accountable for the academic performance of their students, and have succeeded consistently. Tenure policies, for instance, make it virtually impossible to fire unqualified or ineffective teachers. Most states award tenure automatically after about three years, and do not test a new teacher’s mastery of even the most basic reading and math skills. Perhaps not surprisingly, this has had a largely negative impact on the students themselves, especially those in large urban school districts with a high percentage of black and Hispanic students.
A coalition of groups have petitioned Alicia Keys to cancel her July 4 concert in Tel Aviv to protest Israel's mistreatment of Palestinians.More at the link, including some anti-Israel propaganda quotes from the boycott sponsors.
Alicia Keys is being urged to cancel a July 4 concert in Tel Aviv in a petition by Palestinian-American groups signed by more than 12,000 people.
A delegation representing coalitions of more than 500 U.S. organizations, delivered the document to the New York City office of Alicia Keys' non-profit aimed at fighting HIV/AIDS, Keep a Child Alive. The petition asked Keys "to stand on the side of justice and cancel her gig in Tel Aviv, Israel," and to "join us now in the cultural boycott of Israel, and help stop entertaining apartheid."
The delegation met with staff at the organization, who explained that they were aware of the ongoing efforts to encourage Keys' cancellation. Delegates passed along materials that included details of the global boycott campaign and reports from rights organizations documenting Israel's violation of Palestinian children rights, which they confirmed was received by Peter Twyman, executive officer of Keep a Child Alive.
Keys recently told The New York Times that she planned to go ahead with the show, despite letters calling on her to cancel from the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic Cultural Boycott of Israel, novelist Alice Walker, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd and the Israeli group Boycott! Supporting the Palestinian BDS call from Within.
Alice Walker has written an open letter to the singer, who is scheduled to perform in Tel Aviv on the Fourth of July.More at the link.
Alice Walker, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, has lately garnered more attention for her unhinged political views than for her writing. She has compared Fidel Castro to the Dalai Lama. She refused to allow her book "The Color Purple" to be translated into Hebrew. But perhaps nothing was more off-base—at least morally speaking—than the open letter Ms. Walker wrote in late May to singer-songwriter Alicia Keys. Ms. Walker, writing at the website of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, urged Ms. Keys to cancel a July 4 performance in Israel.The whole thing's an epic lie. But readers around here are well aware of that.
Ms. Walker wrote: "you are putting yourself in danger (soul danger) by performing in an apartheid country." The writer then compared the plight of the Palestinians to that of blacks in the American South prior to the civil-rights movement. "You were not born when we, your elders who love you, boycotted institutions in the U.S. South to end an American apartheid less lethal than Israel's against the Palestinian people."
The analogy is false: "Apartheid" is a more apt description for the systemic discrimination against women across the Arab world than the only democracy in the Middle East. But this comparison is also an insult to the courageous civil-rights activists who risked their lives in Birmingham, Montgomery and elsewhere in the South to attain full rights for black Americans.
What characterized the civil-rights movement was its strict adherence to the philosophy of nonviolence. Even when attacked with fire hoses and police dogs, civil-rights demonstrators courageously refused to retaliate.
The Palestinian leadership, by contrast, for decades has used violence whenever missile attacks or suicide bombers suit its aims. It is Israel that has shown an inclination to absorb punishment, though the country's tolerance stretches only so far before it responds militarily to attacks.
The comparison that Ms. Walker and her comrades in the boycott-Israel movement make to the civil-rights movement is false in other ways...
Behold spectacular self-delusion. RT @mashable .@kanyewest: I Am the Steve Jobs of Internet, Fashion and Culture bit.ly/12G9Uvm
— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) June 12, 2013
The Dodgers have finally found something they are willing to fight for.Still more at the link.
But on Tuesday night, it was the wrong thing.
In a brawl that will undoubtedly cost them suspensions that could even include their best player -- what was Swingin' Clayton Kershaw thinking? -- the Dodgers precipitated a fight with the Arizona Diamondbacks that wasn't worth the effort.
The Dodgers say that the prolonged headhunting from the mound in the middle of their 5-3 win over the Diamondbacks at Dodger Stadium -- a sequence which ended in the thunderous melee -- was started when Arizona's Ian Kennedy hit the Dodger' Yasiel Puig in the face with a pitch in the bottom of the sixth inning. It was inarguably the worst pitch at the worst time. In just one week here, Puig has already become the Dodgers most exciting player, their most powerful hitter, their best new hope. Wearing number 66, he is Manny Ramirez turned upside down. His teammates desperately need him, and thus feel a desperate need to protect him.
But, c'mon fellas, look at the scoreboard. Why on earth would Kennedy be throwing at Puig with two strikes, nobody on base, and his team leading 2-0? What pitcher would willingly bring the tying run to the plate in that situation? The intention of a pitch can often be revealed by the immediate reaction of the pitcher throwing it. Kennedy spun and looked in frustration at the sky. He was throwing inside as anyone should throw inside to a hot young hitter. But he was clearly not trying to hit him.
How quickly the Dodgers forgot the idiocy of San Diego's Carlos Quentin exactly two months ago, when he charged the mound and broke Zack Greinke's collarbone even though Greinke was also not trying to hit him.
Puig didn't charge the mound this time, but the Dodgers nonethless retaliated one-half inning later when Greinke hit Miguel Montero, which led Kennedy to eventually hitting Greinke, and before you knew it, a 2 a.m. fast-food-restaurant brawl had broken out. You know a fight is bad when even old men are hobbling into the fray. The Legends of the Brawl featured Don Mattingly body-slamming Alan Trammell and Mark McGwire clutching Kirk Gibson.
The Dodgers looked tough then, but won't look so tough when they are hit with suspensions...
