Miranda Kerr Strips Down to Lingerie for Latest Wonderbra Campaign

At London's Daily Mail, "Bra-vo! Miranda Kerr puts her stunning curves on display as she strips down to lingerie for latest Wonderbra campaign."

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah 'Could Not Stand President Obama'

Heh.

And that's after six years of kowtowing to the Islamic nations of the world. Our Muslim president is surely overrated.

From NBC's Richard Engel:



PREVIOUSLY: "Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah Dead at 90."

Supreme Court Will Review Use of Lethal Injections

At USA Today:

WASHINGTON -- In a case that could have broad implications for hundreds of death row inmates, the Supreme Court will consider whether a drug protocol used in recent lethal injections violates the Constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

The justices agreed Friday to consider a case originally brought by four death-row inmates in Oklahoma -- one of whom was put to death last week, after the court refused to block his execution with a combination of three drugs that has caused some prisoners to writhe in pain.

Because the court's four liberal justices dissented from the decision to let that execution go forward, it presumably was their votes in private conference Friday that will give the issue a full hearing in open court. Only four votes are needed from the nine-member court to accept a case. It will be heard in late April and decided by late June.

Lawyers for Charles Warner and three other convicts set for execution in Oklahoma over the next six weeks sought the Supreme Court's intervention after two lower federal courts refused their pleas. While the court's conservatives refused to stop Warner's execution, the request for a full court hearing had been held for further consideration.

The lawyers claim that the sedative midazolam, the first drug used in the three-drug protocol, is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a general anesthetic and is being used in state executions virtually on an experimental basis. They say Inmates may not be rendered unconscious and could suffer painfully as the other drugs in the protocol are administered.

That, they claim, was a factor in Oklahoma's botched execution last April of Clayton Lockett, who struggled, groaned and writhed in pain for 43 minutes before dying. A state investigation later blamed Lockett's ordeal on a failure by prison staff to realize that drugs had not been administered directly into his veins. The state has since changed its procedures and increased the dose of midazolam used.

"The time is right for the court to take a careful look at this important issue, particularly given the bungled executions that have occurred since states started using these novel and experimental drugs protocols," said Dale Baich, one of the lawyers representing the death-row inmates...

This could be the case that abolishes the death penalty, or at least that's what the progs will be looking for.

More.

'Beneath the Dignity of the Office'

Here's Mediaite, via Memeorandum, "Fox’s Kurtz: Obama YouTube Interview Was ‘Beneath the Dignity of the Office’."

And watch it here.

Look, it's not that he's doing sit-downs with "some of these YouTubers." It's Obama himself. He's beneath the dignity of the office. He's not very presidential. He's a lousy executive. And he's one of the worst Commanders-in-Chief in U.S. history.

Frankly, eating cereal out of the bathtub is right in O's wheelhouse.

Aggressive ECB Stimulus Ushers In New Era for Europe

At WSJ, "European Central Bank to Purchase €60 Billion in Assets Each Month Starting in March":

FRANKFURT—The European Central Bank ushered in a new era by launching an aggressive bond-buying program Thursday, shifting pressure to Europe’s political leaders to restore prosperity in one of the global economy’s biggest trouble spots.

Investors cheered the ECB’s commitment to flood the eurozone with more than €1 trillion ($1.16 trillion) in newly created money, sparking a rally in stock and bond markets and sending the euro plunging.

But in light of Europe’s underlying problems of stagnant growth, high debt and rigid labor markets, ECB President Mario Draghi suggested the central bank’s largess alone won’t be enough to right its economy.

“What monetary policy can do is create the basis for growth,” he said. “But for growth to pick up, you need investment; for investment, you need confidence; and for confidence, you need structural reform.”

The reactions to the central bank’s move rippled widely through the world’s trading floors, corporate boardrooms and European capitals. “It’s one piece of getting Europe back to growth, and we should see an impact,” Joe Jimenez, chief executive of drug giant Novartis said in an interview in Davos, Switzerland, where the political and economic elite are gathered for meetings of the World Economic Forum.

The effects also reverberated beyond the borders of the 19-member eurozone: Denmark on Thursday cut its main interest rate for the second time in a week, seeking to damp investor interest in its currency as investors sold the euro.

Mr. Draghi said the ECB will buy a total of €60 billion a month in assets including government bonds, debt securities issued by European institutions and private-sector bonds. The purchases of government bonds and those issued by European institutions such as the European Investment Bank will start in March and are intended to run through to September 2016. Mr. Draghi signaled the purchases could extend further if the ECB isn’t meeting its inflation target of just below 2%. In December, consumer prices fell 0.2% in December on an annual basis in the eurozone, the first drop in over five years.

The ECB’s new stimulus “should strengthen demand, increase capacity utilization and support money and credit growth,” Mr. Draghi said...

More.

The League Won't Deflate the Patriots

From Bill Plaschke, at LAT, "New England Patriots might go unscathed — and that's deflating":

Bill Belichick played the rumpled dunce, wrinkled sweatshirt, rolled-up sleeves, the world's most detailed football coach shrugging and sighing and professing to have no idea about footballs.

"I had no knowledge of the various steps involved in the game balls," he said.

Tom Brady played the smiling fool, nifty ski cap, form-fitting sweats, slick and genial, one of the world's greatest passers claiming he wasn't always sure about the football he was passing.

"I'm not squeezing the balls, that's not part of my process," he said.

The two central figures in the New England Patriots football deflation scandal took two different approaches in separate news conferences Thursday, but the perception was the same.

They both came across like street-corner cheats.

Belichick was the old guy sitting at the card table with the shells. Brady was the young guy leaning against the wall with the dice. Their obliviousness was obviously orchestrated, yet they spun it in the cocksure manner of those who have done this before and know they will never get caught.

And, of course, they're right. The worst thing about the news that the Patriots allegedly deflated 11 of 12 footballs by two pounds per square inch during their AFC championship game against the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday — a clear violation of NFL rules — is that the league will let them get away with it.

You really think a league that has shrugged off domestic violence will actually care about pigskin poisoning? Oh sure, the Patriots might be fined a few bucks after the Super Bowl and, yeah, an equipment guy will probably eventually take the fall as with the USC deflation scandal, but the almighty duo of Belichick and Brady will remain untouched.

From the rule-breaking videotaping of opponents' signals to unethical last-second substitution deceptions, the Patriots have created such a culture of subterfuge that before games, some opposing coaches put locks on their locker room doors. Yet with owner Robert Kraft protecting them by serving as a mentor to Commissioner Roger Goodell — why do you think Goodell amazingly destroyed the "Spygate" tapes? — Belichick and Brady will proudly march to Arizona next week to stare down Seattle and attempt to win their fourth Super Bowl championship together, equaling records for both coach and quarterback.

Go, Seahawks...

More.

Yemen: The New Afghanistan

From Robin Wright, at WSJ:

When I first went to Yemen, two decades ago, it struck me as the one place on earth closest to understanding life on another planet. Everything seemed so different, from the architecture to the rough unsettled terrain. It was as culturally beguiling as it was politically troubled.

The outside world often views Yemen from the vantage of terrorism. It has been the unwilling base for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula since Saudi Arabia’s crackdown forced it out of the kingdom a decade ago. AQAP has become the biggest and boldest al Qaeda franchise since Osama bin Laden’s death. It was invoked by the Kouachi brothers during the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris two weeks ago.

A lot of bad boys have ties to Yemen. The bin Laden family was of Yemeni descent. Among those who still live there is Saudi-born Ibrahim al Asiri, a master bomb-maker linked to the plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day 2009. Yemen was the home of American-born Anwar al Awlaki, the AQAP ideologue, until a U.S. drone strike killed him in 2011.

The U.S. has launched more than 115 drone strikes against extremists in Yemen since 2002. Many have been killed. Many more still exploit Yemen’s chaos.

But Yemen, which is four times the size of Alabama, is important for other reasons that should be just as important to the outside world. It shouldn’t be written off or seen through a single prism.

Yemen was one of four countries where peaceful demonstrations ousted autocratic leaders in 2011 and 2012. Although the media focuses on the infamous in Yemen, its uprising also produced Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakol Karman, a young dissident, blogger and mother of three, and hundreds of thousands of others who braved danger and death in their strike at the University Square protest camp.

They had plenty of political grievances. Surrounded by oil-rich sheikhdoms, Yemenis have always also had the hardest economic slog. They live in the poorest of the 22 Arab countries–and don’t have massive oil exports to exploit. Per capita income is less than $200 a month. At least 45% of the 26 million people live below the poverty line.

Life is particularly tough for the young generation that led the uprising. The median age is 18–and unemployment among youth is as high at 40%. Yemenis also have the lowest literacy rate.

Like Libya, Yemen has imploded politically since the uprising against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the strongman who ruled for 23 years. (He also led North Yemen for another dozen years before the two halves of the country united in 1990).

His successor, President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, has been unable to enforce the consensus on a new power-sharing formula that emerged from the U.N.-backed National Dialogue in 2013-14. It calls for Yemen to create a federal system with six regions. But Mr. Hadi’s power has eroded since Houthi rebels of Asarallah, or “Partisans of God,” seized part of the capital, San’a, last September.

Yemen is now riven by many fissures: The old north-south divide still defines politics, with a secessionist movement growing ever louder. Strife among diverse tribes, clans and sects have destabilized large chunks of the country. Mr. Saleh’s loyalists and allies in the Republican Guards have maneuvered on behalf of the former president, perhaps hoping for a comeback of sorts.

On Tuesday, less than a day after negotiations between the government and Houthis over a ceasefire and power-sharing deal broke down, Houthi rebels took over the presidential palace and the headquarters of the country’s presidential guard.

Yemen remains in peril. The government is too fragile to be viable, despite support from the U.S. and Gulf monarchies. Key countries began evaluating Monday whether to withdraw diplomats and their nationals in Yemen...

Satellite Images Reveal New Long-Range Iranian Missile and Launcher

At Algemeiner.

Google's Eric Schmidt Claims the 'Internet Will Disappear'

Well, we're almost constantly connected to the net as it is. Conceptually, it's just a matter of rejiggering our understanding of things.

In any case, at London's Daily Mail, "Google's Eric Schmidt claims the 'internet will disappear' as everything in our life gets connected."

Trevor Carlson Wild Card Submission

Wicked.

I found this dude on Facebook.

Tom Steyer Won't Run for U.S. Senate

This idiot Steyer f-king bugs me. Seriously. I don't like him, at all.

I suspect when Kamala Harris threw her hat in the ring he figured he didn't stand a chance of winning the nomination, and now he's out. I can't stand Harris either, but at least I don't have to listen to the paranoid ramblings of this environmental justice retard.

At the Sacramento Bee, "Steyer won’t run for U.S. Senate; attention turns to Villaraigosa."

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah Dead at 90

At the Los Angeles Times, "Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah dies at 90."

And from Yochi Dreazen, at Foreign Policy, "King Abdullah Dies, Disrupting Saudi Arabia at a Sensitive Time":

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud died Thursday, roiling a key U.S. ally just as Washington increases its reliance on Riyadh on issues ranging from the faltering fight against the Islamic State to the on-again, off-again push to oust Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad.

Abdullah, 90, technically ruled the kingdom since August 2005, but had largely been overseeing its domestic agenda, internal security efforts, and foreign policy since his half-brother King Fahd suffered a stroke in 1996. Saudi Arabian state television reported that Abdullah would be succeeded by his brother, Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz, 79.

The king’s death comes at a delicate time for the oil-rich kingdom, which is struggling with the impact of plunging oil prices domestically, the rise of the Islamic State, and an Iran’s whose influence is growing across the Mideast as its proxies take on increasingly powerful roles in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. Abdullah’s successor will also face an intensifying crisis in Yemen, whose Saudi-backed government has been effectively overthrown by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. A Saudi official said in a recent interview that Riyadh sees the future of Yemen as “an existential threat.”

Saudi-U.S. relations have been strained in recent years because of Riyadh’s anger at the Obama administration over the ongoing nuclear talks with Tehran. Saudi Arabia and Iran have been waging a shadow war for years, and Abdullah and his aides believe that the President Barack Obama has been willing to concede too much to Tehran as part of his quest for a nuclear deal.

In a strange-bedfellows alliance, Abdullah’s fears are shared by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will be coming to Washington soon to address a joint session of Congress to effectively lobby against a legislative effort to impose new sanctions on Iran if the talks fail. Obama has threatened to veto the bill, which has the quiet support of many Saudi and Gulf diplomats, and issued a public rebuke to Netanyahu by announcing that he wouldn’t meet with the visiting Israeli leader.

In the near term, no issue may prove more complicated for the next Saudi ruler, however, than the sustained and significant drop in world oil prices. Crude has plunged to roughly $50 a barrel, dealing a massive blow to the Saudi government, which is almost entirely dependent on oil revenues. The decine will push Saudi Arabia into a budget deficit in 2015 for the first time in years.

Falling oil prices will present a pair of challenges to Salman. First, the kingdom has for decades effectively bought itself internal stability by putting in place a highly generous social welfare system that offers citizens free health care, education, and other perks. That will be more difficult to maintain with oil trading at its lowest price in decades.

Second, Saudi Arabia has used its oil to build one of the Middle East’s most powerful militaries by buying reams of advanced American weaponry and hiring thousands of American and Western troops to train its own forces. The kingdom has in recent years also massively ramped up its financial commitments to the rebels working to unseat Assad and to the new Egyptian government, which it sees as a bulwark against a return of the Islamists who controlled the country during the short reign of former President Mohamed Morsi.

For the moment, many Saudi Arabians will wonder about the future about the reform efforts Abdullah launched but was unable to fully see through...

More.

Yemen President, Cabinet Resign Amid Rebel Standoff

The Middle East is practically going up in smoke.

At WSJ, "Government Disbands to Protest Militants’ Occupation of the Capital":

SAN’A, Yemen—Yemen’s president and his cabinet resigned Thursday night to protest the occupation of the capital by militants seeking to leverage their demands for greater political power.

The resignation of the cabinet comes a day after the Houthi militants—which represent the country’s Zaidi minority sect—occupied the residence of former President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. Since September, the militants have exerted pressure on Mr. Hadi and forced the resignation of his cabinet that month after occupying the capital and clashing with government forces, protesting Yemen’s slow pace of overhauls, including the drafting of a new constitution.

The move dismantles a tenuous deal, signed between Mr. Hadi and the Houthis on Wednesday, that would give the militants a greater representation in government and say over the constitution in exchange for their withdrawal from government installations, including the former president’s residence. But, on Thursday morning, the militants still encircled Mr. Hadi’s home.

Prime Minister Khaled Bahah said, in a resignation letter submitted to Mr. Hadi, the decision comes because the country is moving in the wrong direction. “We resign as a refusal to be dragged into political differences that are outside the law.”

Government spokesperson Rajeh Badi said “the Prime Minister and cabinet’s resignation is a final decision and will not change.”

The resignation of Mr. Hadi and his cabinet leaves the U.S. counterterrorism program in the country—a cornerstone of its regional antiterror strategy—in a tenuous situation. Whether the U.S. can continue its program in Yemen without the government is unclear...

Iran, Obama, Boehner and Netanyahu

From Caroline Glick:

Iran has apparently produced an intercontinental ballistic missile whose range far exceeds the distance between Iran and Israel, and between Iran and Europe.

On Wednesday night, Channel 2 showed satellite imagery taken by Israel’s Eros-B satellite that was launched last April. The imagery showed new missile-related sites that Iran recently constructed just outside Tehran. One facility is a missile launch site, capable of sending a rocket into space or of firing an ICBM.

On the launch pad was a new 27-meter long missile, never seen before.

The missile and the launch pad indicate that Iran’s ballistic missile program, which is an integral part of its nuclear weapons program, is moving forward at full throttle. The expanded range of Iran’s ballistic missile program as indicated by the satellite imagery makes clear that its nuclear weapons program is not merely a threat to Israel, or to Israel and Europe. It is a direct threat to the United States as well.

Also on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was invited to address a joint session of Congress by House Speaker John Boehner.

Boehner has asked Netanyahu to address US lawmakers on February 11 regarding Iran’s nuclear program and the threat to international security posed by radical Islam.

Opposition leaders were quick to accuse Boehner and the Republican Party of interfering in Israel’s upcoming election by providing Netanyahu with such a prestigious stage just five weeks before Israelis go to the polls.

Labor MK Nachman Shai told The Jerusalem Post that for the sake of fairness, Boehner should extend the same invitation to opposition leader Isaac Herzog.

But in protesting as they have, opposition members have missed the point. Boehner didn’t invite Netanyahu because he cares about Israel’s election. He invited Netanyahu because he cares about US national security. He believes that by having Netanyahu speak on the issues of Iran’s nuclear program and radical Islam, he will advance America’s national security.

Boehner’s chief concern, and that of the majority of his colleagues from the Democratic and Republican parties alike, is that President Barack Obama’s policy in regard to Iran’s nuclear weapons program imperils the US. Just as the invitation to Netanyahu was a bipartisan invitation, so concerns about Obama’s policy toward Iran’s nuclear program are bipartisan concerns.

Over the past week in particular, Obama has adopted a position on Iran that puts him far beyond the mainstream of US politics. This radical position has placed the president on a collision course with Congress best expressed on Wednesday by Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez. During a hearing at the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee where Menendez serves as ranking Democratic member, he said, “The more I hear from the administration and its quotes, the more it sounds like talking points that come straight out of Tehran.”

Menendez was referring to threats that Obama has made three times over the past week, most prominently at his State of the Union address on Tuesday, to veto any sanctions legislation against Iran brought to his desk for signature.

He has cast proponents of sanctions – and Menendez is the co-sponsor of a pending sanctions bill – as enemies of a diplomatic strategy of dealing with Iran, and by implication, as warmongers.

Indeed, in remarks to the Democratic members of the Senate last week, Obama impugned the motivations of lawmakers who support further sanctions legislation. He indirectly alleged that they were being forced to take their positions due to pressure from their donors and others.

The problem for American lawmakers is that the diplomatic course that Obama has chosen makes it impossible for the US to use the tools of diplomacy to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. That course of diplomatic action is anchored in the Joint Plan of Action that the US and its partners Germany, France, Britain, China and Russia (the P5+1) signed with Tehran in November 2013...

Keep reading.

Instagram Controversy as Photo-Sharing Site Censors Image Showing Models' Pubic Hair

Oh brother.

I guess shaving down that way isn't the rage these days after all?

In any case, at Instapundit, "IT’S COME TO THIS: Models’ Pubic Hair Triggers Instagram Brouhaha."

'I like my balls a certain way...'

Heh.

At London's Daily Mail, "Tom Brady breaks his silence on Deflategate - but DENIES tampering with footballs and downplays the scandal by saying 'this isn't ISIS'."

Video: "I don't want anyone rubbing my balls."

And at PuffHo, "Tom Brady's 'Deflategate' Press Conference Was Pretty Hilarious."

Return of 'Page 3' Exposes Sad Day for Feminism

A video commentary from Claire Cohen, at the Telegraph UK: "Page 3 is back: a 'patronising stunt' by The Sun":

The Sun newspaper has seemingly done a U-turn and decided to continue publishing picture of topless women in its page 3. Claire Cohen explains that its stunt has exposed a sad day for feminism.

 PREVIOUSLY: ICYMI, at Instapundit, "HEH: Sun News Trolls Feminist Campaigners, Brings Back ‘Page 3’."

Olivia Munn

At the Superficial, "Olivia Munn at 'Mortdecai' Premiere."

BONUS: "Gwyneth Paltrow Wins the ‘Mortdecai’ Premiere."

The March for Life Reminds Us That We're Not Doomed

From Robert Stacy McCain, "The #MarchForLife2015 Thread":

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The lobby and corridors of this hotel were crowded with Catholic school kids when we checked in yesterday. St. Vincent de Paul of Perryville, Missouri, was the most visible contingent — dozens of kids wearing blue-and-gold letterman’s jackets — but the annual March for Life brings groups from all around the country, not all of them Catholic. On my way down to the lobby to go out for a smoke this morning, I noticed one of the kids was wearing a nametag with the familiar Episcopalian (or Anglican) symbol: Red cross on a white field with the St. Andrew’s cross in blue. “Episcoplian?” I asked.

“Yes, sir,” the boy said.

“Wow, I didn’t realize there were still pro-life Episcopalians.”

Out on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, the boy joined a group of about a dozen kids, and I spoke to one of the adult leaders, who told me they are from St. Michael’s Christian Academy of San Clemente, California.

Seeing so many fine young Christians who support the cause of life is very encouraging to me. I’ve spent the past several months of researching radical feminism and being immersed in such evil can be psychologically disorienting. “Has the whole world gone crazy?” I find myself asking, knowing how many millions of taxpayer dollars are spent to propagate this weird ideology in colleges and universities. “Is our civilization utterly doomed?”

The March for Life reminds me that there is still hope. There are still people who have not been deceived and corrupted. Unfortunately, however, there is the problem of Congress.

Pro-life conservatives were livid this morning after the House GOP leadership demonstrated its incompetence yesterday...

More.

And yes, talk about a Republican own-goal. See the outstanding Mollie Hemingway, at the Federalist, "Why Everyone Should Be Terrified By The GOP’s Abortion Bill Debacle" (via Memeorandum).

Orange County Officials Remove Dozens of Unvaccinated Students from Schools; Adults Urged to Get Shots

This is getting to be a major outbreak.

Over two dozen kids were sent home from Huntington Beach High School this week, and officials warn of more student removals. Also, adults are being urged to get shots.

From yesterday's Los Angeles Times, "O.C. students may have been exposed to measles, kept out of school."

And at today's O.C. Register, "Adults urged to get measles shot as outbreak spreads."

BONUS: At the New York Times, via Memeorandum, "Measles Cases Linked to Disneyland Rise, and Debate Over Vaccinations Intensifies."