February 11, 2015

Cambridge MA Snow Storm 2015


During the height of the storm, Monday February 9, 2014.


Food delivery to Harvard University Art Museum, which was closed.


The truck driver was able to get through. But the new class of administrators at Harvard closed the university.  


Driver leaves the loading dock and driveway.


Harvard University did engage its snow shovelers. 


One hardy soul walking in the street, Broadway, during the storm.


Joggers must jog.


Man with backpack. A student? In Cambridge?

* * *

First day after the storm. Tuesday February 10, 2015


Harvard University property. Sidewalk is clean down to the bricks.


Until you get to the driveway at the Sackler Museum. Plows cleared the way for cars, blocking pedestrians. Priorities in America's most walkable city. Cars over pedestrians. 


Prescott Street, looking toward Cambridge Street from Broadway.


This tree holds up snow for aesthetic reasons.


Mounds of snow near the market and coffee shop on Broadway. Notice how clean and clear the streets are. Cambridge DPW does its usually excellent job.


But, again the plows blocked the sidewalk for pedestrians in the most walkable city. Mobility impaired persons and women with children in strollers must go out into the street. 


Walkways around Cambridge Rindge and Latin  (high school), are clean and clear. The school was closed.   


Uncleared paths near the Cambridge Public Library main branch. It too was closed. View is the castle at left looking toward Ellery Street. 


Cambridge Street at Trowbridge Street looking west. Clean streets. Sky is sill cloud covered.


Tall bike rider, locked his vehicle to the street sign, on top of the snow bank. 


Always open and operating, the Cambridge Hospital, formerly City Hospital. Now Cambridge Health Alliance.


Appears to be quiet one day after the storm.


This is Line Street, the dividing line between Cambridge and Somerville. The fence at left is the Cambridge Hospital.  The view is northwest.


Beacon Street Somerville, looking west. You can see the first signs of blue sky after three days of snow.


Cambridge Street, looking west. Blue sky is increasing. Memorial Hall and Gund Hall at Harvard University can be seen at right of image.


Clouds are moving east, opening up blue sky over Cambridge Street. CGIS, Gund Hall and Memorial Hall can be seen at right of image.


Cambridge Street at Quincy Street looking west. Memorial Hall at right and Cambridge Fire Headquarters at left of image. Blue sky straight ahead.


Sidewalk in front of Sackler Museum. Clean and clear, up to the driveway where the plow left snow to block pedestrians. View is Broadway looking east. Harvard's Art Museum can  be seen at right. 


Cambridge Fire Headquarters. Open for business 24/7 with or without snow. 


Open pavement at the Fire Headquarters (right), looking at Memorial Hall.


Blue sky is increasing over Cambridge. View is Broadway looking west. Fire Headquarters flag is at right. Tunnel can be seen at left.


Leaving the loading dock at Harvard's new art museum, a truck pushed snow back onto Broadway. View is to west.  


Cambridge man teaches his son how to shovel snow, while he supervises.


Pedestrians disappear behind the mounds of snow.


You can barely see the head of this man in center of the image.


Van backs out onto Broadway after a visit to Harvard's new art museum. The new building (completed November 2014) moved the driveway to the loading dock. It used to permit parallel to traffic entering and leaving. Now trucks must block traffic in both directions backing into the driveway, and in this case endangering traffic when the vehicle leaves. 

February 8, 2015

NBC News Anchor Earns $10 million A Year, And Exaggerates The News



Brian Williams, up to his neck in dysentery-contaminated water as the corpses go floating by
[From article]
Next to the Iranian nuclear program or Putin's neo-Soviet expansionism, the question of whether NBC News "managing editor" Brian Williams is a self-aggrandizing liar or a mentally ill fantasist is a relatively minor matter, notwithstanding that he is the very embodiment of the strange antiquated assumptions of network news - that because a chap looks like a 1950s department-store mannequin he's your go-to guy for economic analysis and foreign policy.
As to the subject at issue, my general view of "personal stories" (including my own) was summed up by Mel Brooks on stage a few decades back reminiscing about his life. After one especially uproarious anecdote, he said, "I swear every word is true. Well, no. The mildly funny stuff is true. The mezzo-mezzo stuff is mostly true. But the really funny stuff is entirely invented." That formula applies to the dramatic stuff, too. As you tell a story over the years, as Brian Williams did with his RPG-hit-chopper shtick, it gets too honed, too sharp.
[. . .]
We're told NBC News execs disliked Williams' "version" of events and never permitted it on their own airwaves. Yet one week ago he told NBC viewers:
The helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an RPG.
Assuredly there's been some turnover in NBC News since 2003. So maybe nobody working on the program now was working on it then.
[. . .]
Yet today Brian Williams' survival is the way to bet - because the obsolete format of Big Three "network news" is a dinner-theatre exercise that now bears so little relation to real news that Williams' ability to project the aura of authority and integrity trumps the reality that he doesn't actually have any. If you get your news from old-school "network news", you're not actually getting any news, you're watching a guy 'cause he has great hair. So getting it from a delusional narcissist is only taking it to the next level.

http://www.steynonline.com/6795/the-life-of-brian

The Life of Brian
by Mark Steyn
Steyn on America
February 6, 2015

* * *


Tanned, rested and ready: Just imagine the social media outreach possibilities, NBC!

Brief History of Al Sharpton



TOP: The Rev. Al Sharpton speaks at a news conference in 1989 with Tawana Brawley, who claimed to have been raped and tortured by six men — allegations that were eventually proven false. BOTTOM, FROM LEFT: Sharpton in 1983, 1995, 2006 and 2012.
Photos by Jahi Chikwendiu
[From article]
The group was composed of 25 pastors, organizers and community leaders from across the country, all of whom were members of Sharpton’s National Action Network, and all of whom had traveled to New York in early January at Sharpton’s request and expense.
[. . .]
Sharpton had spent most of his career railing against the American power establishment, but now he was a linchpin of it,
[. . .]
He had been so intent on finding a righteous cause during those early years that he had sometimes acted as the agitator, railing against “white interlopers” and Jewish “diamond merchants,” and spending months demanding justice for Tawana Brawley only to have her allegations of gang rape by a mob of white attackers turn out to be a hoax.
[. . .]
when Sharpton organized a “Justice for All” march in Washington that drew 10,000 people, a group of young activists had rushed the stage and tried to seize control of the microphone before Sharpton arrived. Why, they asked, did they need VIP passes to go backstage at a protest march for the people? Why should they trust Sharpton to be antiestablishment when he was a friend and loyal defender of the president?
[. . .]
“How come Sharpton’s leading the march? ’Cause I organized the march. I brought the crowd. I got the permit. Those Porta-Potties cost us $20,000. You want to run the march? Fine. Get your own damn Porta-Potties.”
[. . .]
Sharpton had been running through the terminal at the Newark airport late one night, trying to make a flight, when a woman stopped and asked him to shake hands with her 10-year-old son. “He’s too young to know much about Martin Luther King,” Sharpton remembered the woman saying. “He won’t know Jesse Jackson. All he’s got is you, so I hope you never let him down.”
[. . .]
Sharpton also believed that some of King’s work was being undone: schools resegregating, the Voting Rights Act being disassembled by the Supreme Court, income inequality at historic levels and a continued racial bias in policing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/02/07/the-public-life-and-private-doubts-of-al-sharpton/

The public life and private doubts of
Al Sharpton
Written by Eli Saslow
Photos by Jahi Chikwendiu
Published on February 7, 2015

Home Driveway Robberies in Memphis, TN




[From article]
"As soon as I was about to put my key in, I just hear something come behind me real fast and I jumped and turned around and I had a big gun in my face," said victim Margaret Watkins.
Watkins and her 5-year-old daughter were held up at gunpoint in their own driveway by a man wearing a mask.
"I'm holding my baby...then he was like, 'Turn around turn around'...I guess my daughter was still looking at him he put the gun in her head," said Watkins. "And then he asks me the pin code to my bank card and I gave it to him. I was so scared I couldn't even lie."
Watkins says she's grateful to be alive, but she's definitely making some changes.
“I added locks, but I think I'm going to get some cameras,” said Watkins.
Officials arrested the two teens charged with aggravated robbery, among other charges, Friday afternoon.

http://www.wmcactionnews5.com/story/28050075/police-arrest-two-teens-in-connection-to-driveway-robberies

Mother and child held at gunpoint; MPD makes arrest in driveway robberies
Posted: Feb 07, 2015 8:49 AM EST
Updated: Feb 08, 2015 11:14 AM EST
By Jerry Askin

Unions Shut Down Western US Ports




[From article]
PMA members stated that they cannot afford the almost $1,200 per day cost to employ International Longshore and Warehouse Union members to do little work.
After Breitbart broke the story on Thursday that union members of the ILWU planned to “walk out within the week,” the PMA employer group announced they can no longer continue to pay workers the premium pay for diminished productivity.
With ILWU members continuing to withhold the needed crane operators and slow crane movements, shippers and their customers estimated they were losing $1 billion a day. But a complete shut-down is expected to raise the U.S. economic pain to $2 billion a day.
[. . .]
In a similar series of work safe job action slowdowns in 2002, the Pacific Maritime Association closed down their operations and locked out workers for 10 days. President George W. Bush invoked the Taft-Hartley Act to reopen the ports.
Although the Obama Administration had taken a hands-off attitude to the labor battle,

http://www.breitbart.com/california/2015/02/07/1200-a-day-union-workers-force-shut-down-of-29-west-coast-ports/

$1,200-A-DAY UNION WORKERS FORCE SHUT-DOWN OF 29 WEST COAST PORTS
by CHRISS W. STREET
7 Feb 2015
Newport Beach, CA

Can't Solve A Problem Unless You Know What It Is




[From article]
The enemy, in case you need a scorecard, is Islamic expansionist jihad. The tactic is terrorism waged with shameless barbarity, and the goal is worldwide domination in the form of a Sharia-law-based caliphate.
That may seem like a ridiculous and overly ambitious aspiration, and one not worthy of response, but consider this: At the start of World War II, Germany had a population of 79 million compared to a world population of 2.3 billion people. If you want to, go ahead and throw in another 72 million to represent the population of Japan, and another 44 million for Italy. Those three Axis powers, in other words, had a combined population of 195 million to use to seek to impose their will (and their empire) over a world population of 2.3 billion people. That represents approximately a 1 to 12 ratio.
If that 1:12 threat was “credible” — and the deaths of 60 million people during World War II suggest it was — then how much more seriously should we take the threat of Islamic jihad? Muslims, after all, represent nearly one-fourth of the world’s population, and they zealously seek to expand the influence of their religion across the entire globe. This is not something new either. There have been repeated attempts by Muslim armies to conquer Europe in the last 1,300 years.
[. . .]
President Obama loves to defend Islam, and there’s no doubt that he is right about the fact that most Muslims have no interest in waging war. But by denying the self-evident truth that millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, of Muslims want to crush Israel, the United States and our European allies, he has turned himself into the Charles Lindbergh of American presidents.
Lindbergh, who like Barack Obama, was an international hero and a role model for millions of children because of his youthful accomplishments, became an ardent apologist for Germany before World War II and toured America in a vainglorious quest to keep us from going to war against the Nazis.
[. . .]
Likewise, President Obama lacks the vision or the intestinal fortitude to comprehend just how dangerous the ideology of Islamic jihad is to the rest of the world. No matter how many good Muslims there are, they are not willing nor able to hold back the angry, vengeful “true believers” willing to die for their cause.
[. . .]
Those of us who recognize the evil of the Islamic State and are prepared to do anything necessary to stop it do now have a leader, but sadly it is not President Obama. It is King Abdullah II of Jordan, who — when just one of his citizens was killed in that fiery execution — declared eternal war against the jihadis and vowed never to give up.
If President Obama is today’s Lindbergh, then we can only hope that Abdullah will prove to be this generation’s Churchill, who told Britain’s wartime schoolchildren, “Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never — in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.”

http://www.dailyinterlake.com/members/islam-history-and-the-failure-to-recognize-a-world-threat/article_9a9119dc-af2f-11e4-8549-fbb4f2c8a2f7.html

Islam, history and the failure to recognize a world threat
Posted: Saturday, February 7, 2015 7:00 pm
FRANK MIELE/Daily Inter Lake

When Misguided Government Policy Fails




[From article]
The problem, as various capital-”F” Fascists and National Socialists and Communist politburos and Vox readers all discovered in their turn, is that even if these dispassionate and disinterested managers existed — and they don’t — bureaucracies do not have the collective cognitive firepower to replace markets, or even to intelligently guide them. From the Soviet five-year plans to Obamacare, all central-planning exercises begin in hubris and end in chaos.
And when the chaos comes, the natural thing to do — the imperative thing — is: find someone to blame. The planners and schemers are intellectually incapable of dealing seriously with the fact that the project that they have set for themselves — substituting their own judgment for that of the billions of better-informed parties in the market and coming up with superior outcomes — is an impossible one.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/398133/brute-force-left-kevin-d-williamson

FEBRUARY 8, 2015 4:00 AM
The Brute-Force Left
The Left lost the argument, but is determined to win the fight.
By Kevin D. Williamson

White House's Misguided Equivalence Shows Ignorance




[From article]
Slavery was outlawed in the U.S. in 1865. Jim Crow ended officially a half-century ago. Indentured servitude, however, continues, almost exclusively among some Islamic groups in the Middle East and Africa. The caste system and ethnic and religious tribalism that institutionalized discrimination and second-class status, quite akin to Jim Crow, persist in places in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. I doubt today whether a Jew of any nationality would be allowed to immigrate and buy real estate in too many corners of the Islamic Middle East. Outside of the West, women and homosexuals are often treated no differently than in the Seventh Century.
[. . .]
The president, is fond of historical sloppiness and moral equivalence (cf. the Cairo Speech). But what is the point of citing sins of 1,000, 500, 150, or 50 years ago, without acknowledging 1) that such pathologies still continue today outside the West, especially in the world of Islam, and 2) that Christianity had a unique role in ending these wrongs?

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/397992/still-more-president-obamas-moral-equivalence-victor-davis-hanson

Still More of President Obama’s Moral Equivalence
By Victor Davis Hanson
February 5, 2015 1:34 PM

Imperative For Netanyahu To Speak To US Congress



Israeli Prime Minister Netanyau Speaks About Iranian Nuclear Engery

[From article]
More than 70 years ago, Franklin Delano Roosevelt refused to bomb the train tracks to Auschwitz, thereby failing to stop the mass slaughter of our people.
Now, Barack Obama seems equally disinclined to stop the ayatollahs' march toward building a nuclear Auschwitz, with all that might entail.
If the American president does agree to a feeble deal with Iran, he might as well sign his name at the bottom as "Barack H. Chamberlain."
But while his legacy will merely be tarnished, our future and that of America too will permanently be at risk. That is a message that the American people need to hear. And no one is better suited to deliver it than our premier.

http://www.michaelfreund.org/16033/obama-iran

Barack H. Chamberlain and Iran
by Michael Freund
Jerusalem Post
February 5, 2015

February 7, 2015

Two Tulane Law School Students Found Dead



Wajih Mazloum, 28, and Sara LaMont, 25, were found dead Sunday morning after an apparent murder-suicide near Tulane University
[From article]
Neighbors said that they did not notice or hear the couple fighting and that Mr Mazloum never acted aggressively towards Ms LaMont.
They were most well known for sitting on their porch balcony, smoking cigarettes and keeping an eye on the happenings of their block.
Friends and professors of Ms LaMont said that the young woman, who was planning on going into sports law, was 'enormously talented' and one of the sharpest at the school.
The student previously worked with the New Jersey Nets and the New York Yankee affiliate Trenton Thunder before entering law school.
She served on the Tulane Law Review, which required outstanding academic achievement, according to the New Orleans Advocate, and the school's Student Bar Association described her as 'brilliant'.
Law school dean David Meyer said that both students had bright futures ahead of them, making the incident 'inexplicable'.
Mr Mazloum, who worked with disadvantaged youth, was also described as 'positive and upbeat'.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2937916/Shock-brilliant-Tulane-Law-student-shot-boyfriend-turned-pistol-bought-gun-himself.html

Shock as brilliant Tulane Law student 'is shot by boyfriend who then turned pistol he bought at gun show on himself'
Wajih Mazloum, 28, and Sara Lamont, 25, found in New Orleans apartment
Gun found near boyfriend, whom investigators believe killed Ms LaMont
Friend says Mr Mazloum purchased pistol at recent gun show
Seven Tulane students have died this year, four thought to be suicides
By CHRISTOPHER BRENNAN FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 11:07 EST, 3 February 2015 | UPDATED: 12:52 EST, 3 February 2015







White House Reveals Ignorance of Crusades, Using Nonsensical Analogy For Politics, Brief History




[From article]
Ex-president Bill Clinton has also fingered the Crusades as the root cause of the present conflict. In a speech at Georgetown University, he recounted (and embellished) a massacre of Jews after the Crusader conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 and informed his audience that the episode was still bitterly remembered in the Middle East. (Why Islamist terrorists should be upset about the killing of Jews was not explained.) Clinton took a beating on the nation's editorial pages for wanting so much to blame the United States that he was willing to reach back to the Middle Ages. Yet no one disputed the ex-president's fundamental premise.
[. . .]
For starters, the Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression — an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands.
Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims really were gunning for them. While Muslims can be peaceful, Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword. Muslim thought divides the world into two spheres, the Abode of Islam and the Abode of War. Christianity — and for that matter any other non-Muslim religion — has no abode.
[. . .]
Christianity was the dominant religion of power and wealth. As the faith of the Roman Empire, it spanned the entire Mediterranean, including the Middle East, where it was born. The Christian world, therefore, was a prime target for the earliest caliphs, and it would remain so for Muslim leaders for the next thousand years.
[. . .]
By the eighth century, Muslim armies had conquered all of Christian North Africa and Spain. In the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which had been Christian since the time of St. Paul. The old Roman Empire, known to modern historians as the Byzantine Empire, was reduced to little more than Greece. In desperation, the emperor in Constantinople sent word to the Christians of western Europe asking them to aid their brothers and sisters in the East.
That is what gave birth to the Crusades. They were not the brainchild of an ambitious pope or rapacious knights but a response to more than four centuries of conquests in which Muslims had already captured two-thirds of the old Christian world. At some point, Christianity as a faith and a culture had to defend itself or be subsumed by Islam. The Crusades were that defense.
[. . .]
The Crusade was seen as an errand of mercy to right a terrible wrong.
[. . .]
The second goal was the liberation of Jerusalem and the other places made holy by the life of Christ.
[. . .]
It is often assumed that the central goal of the Crusades was forced conversion of the Muslim world. Nothing could be further from the truth. From the perspective of medieval Christians, Muslims were the enemies of Christ and His Church. It was the Crusaders' task to defeat and defend against them. That was all. Muslims who lived in Crusader-won territories were generally allowed to retain their property and livelihood, and always their religion. Indeed, throughout the history of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, Muslim inhabitants far outnumbered the Catholics.
[. . .]
During the early days of the First Crusade in 1095, a ragtag band of Crusaders led by Count Emicho of Leningrad made its way down the Rhine, robbing and murdering all the Jews they could find. Without success, the local bishops attempted to stop the carnage. In the eyes of these warriors, the Jews, like the Muslims, were the enemies of Christ. Plundering and killing them, then, was no vice.
[. . .]
Jews perished during the Crusades, but the purpose of the Crusades was not to kill Jews. Quite the contrary: Popes, bishops, and preachers made it clear that the Jews of Europe were to be left unmolested. In a modern war, we call tragic deaths like these "collateral damage." Even with smart technologies, the United States has killed far more innocents in our wars than the Crusaders ever could. But no one would seriously argue that the purpose of American wars is to kill women and children.
[. . .]
The colossus of the medieval world was Islam, not Christendom. The Crusades are interesting largely because they were an attempt to counter that trend. But in five centuries of crusading, it was only the First Crusade that significantly rolled back the military progress of Islam. It was downhill from there.
[. . .]
The desire to restore Jerusalem to Christian rule and regain the True Cross remained intense throughout Europe.
[. . .]
The Fourth Crusade (1201-1204) ran aground when it was seduced into a web of Byzantine politics, which the Westerners never fully understood. They had made a detour to Constantinople to support an imperial claimant who promised great rewards and support for the Holy Land. Yet once he was on the throne of the Caesars, their benefactor found that he could not pay what he had promised. Thus betrayed by their Greek friends, in 1204 the Crusaders attacked, captured, and brutally sacked Constantinople, the greatest Christian city in the world.
[. . .]
After St. Louis's death, the ruthless Muslim leaders, Baybars and Kalavun, waged a brutal jihad against the Christians in Palestine. By 1291, the Muslim forces had succeeded in killing or ejecting the last of the Crusaders, thus erasing the Crusader kingdom from the map. Despite numerous attempts and many more plans, Christian forces were never again able to gain a foothold in the region until the 19th century.
[. . .]
By the 15th century, the Crusades were no longer errands of mercy for a distant people but desperate attempts of one of the last remnants of Christendom to survive. Europeans began to ponder the real possibility that Islam would finally achieve its aim of conquering the entire Christian world.
[. . .]
The Renaissance, born from a strange mixture of Roman values, medieval piety, and a unique respect for commerce and entrepreneurialism, had led to other movements like humanism, the Scientific Revolution, and the Age of Exploration. Even while fighting for its life, Europe was preparing to expand on a global scale. The Protestant Reformation, which rejected the papacy and the doctrine of indulgence, made Crusades unthinkable for many Europeans, thus leaving the fighting to the Catholics.
[. . .]
The "Sick Man of Europe" limped along until the 20th century, when he finally expired, leaving behind the present mess of the modern Middle East.
[. . .]
Whether we admire the Crusaders or not, it is a fact that the world we know today would not exist without their efforts. The ancient faith of Christianity, with its respect for women and antipathy toward slavery, not only survived but flourished. Without the Crusades, it might well have followed Zoroastrianism, another of Islam's rivals, into extinction.

http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=4461

Real History Of The Crusades, The
by Thomas F. Madden
The Morley Institute

Taxpayers Via Department of Defense Provides Viagra For Troops




[From article]
The Department of Defense (DoD) spent more than a half a million dollars on the male enhancement drug Viagra last year, according to government contracts.
The Pentagon issued 60 contracts worth $504,816 for the drug in 2014. All 60 contracts were awarded to Cardinal Health Inc., a pharmaceutical distribution company based in Dublin, Ohio.
Last year DoD also ordered $3,505 worth of Levitra, and $14,540 of Cialis, other popular erectile dysfunction drugs.
The contracts were filed under “Troop Support.”

http://freebeacon.com/issues/pentagon-spent-504816-on-viagra-last-year/

Pentagon Spent $504,816 on Viagra Last Year
Analysis: 80,770 hours of sexual enhancement
BY: Elizabeth Harrington
@LizWFB
February 6, 2015 3:50 pm

Palestinian Muslims Harass Israeli Jews As They Pray



Jewish man on the Temple Mount
Flash 90



[From article]
“Muslim supremacists who dominate the Temple Mount” have come up with a new weapon against Jewish visits to the Mount – in the form of young girls.
"Their latest gambit, paying men and women to inhabit the Temple Mount during the hours that it is open to Jews and follow the Jewish worshipers every where they go on the Temple Mount, screaming curses and allahu akbars at the top of their lungs, got a flat tire when the Israel police and security services shut down the organizations which were funneling the money from Hamas to the agitators,” explained the Institute.
"The newest Islamic projectile aimed at the heart of Jewish worshipers on the Temple Mount is little girls. Young, pre-pubescent girls can now be found aplenty on the Temple Mount. Because they are Muslim, young and female, the Israel police won't touch them. The young girls, following the instruction and encouragement of their elders, feel free to leap in front of Jewish worshipers, screaming in their high pitched voices 'allahu akbar,' 'the Jews are dogs,'
[. . .]
“Sometimes the little angels get so wrapped up in their game of 'harass the Jews' that they even begin pushing the Jewish worshipers.
“What is a self respecting, dignified human being to do in response?,” asks the Institute. “Push the little things back? Pull on their pony tails? A group of six Jewish worshipers [Sunday] did what they thought was the responsible and appropriate thing to do: They called on the police to intervene. The police did, arresting the Jews and holding them in custody for more than 24 hours.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/190861#.VNTM8M1vb2g

Waqf's New Weapon: Screaming Girls
Young girls leap in front of Jewish worshipers, screaming 'allahu akbar,' 'the Jews are dogs.' Video shows Waqf man's lewd gestures.
By Gil Ronen
First Publish: 2/3/2015, 12:24 PM


Teen Daughter of NJ State Policeman Not Charged With Crime Expressing Threats Against Jews



One of the Jackson teens investigated by the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office sends a selfie dressed like Hitler. The caption reads: "Just glad I'm not Anne frank." (Photo: Penton, Kevin)
[From article]
A State Police sergeant's teenage daughter who dressed like Hitler and posted on social media a picture of a popular gathering spot for Orthodox Jews — with the caption "perfect bombing time" — may have behaved offensively, but not criminally, authorities said.
The Ocean County Prosecutor's Office examined the Twitter post and a cache of other pro-Hitler images by the Jackson teen and her associates and concluded that they did not amount to any credible threat.

http://www.app.com/story/news/local/jackson-lakewood/2015/02/05/jackson-teens-twitter-hitler-posts-local-jews/22924275/

Teens' tweets on killing, bombing Jews deemed no threat
Kevin Pentón
@kevinpenton
6:37 p.m. EST February 5, 2015
Asbury Park Press

Female Genital Mutilation In US Increasing Due To Immigration




[From article]
The genital cutting reduces or eliminates women’s ability to achieve sexual pleasure, but gives elders more control over who marries whom. Other cultural practices, including the wearing of hijab headscarves and the promotion of cousin marriage, reinforce the control of young people by their clan or extended family.
Mutilation was not practiced in pre-modern Western Europe, where young men and women were normally expected to choose each other and to marry outside their clans and extended families.
The ancient non-European practice is increasingly being detected in the United States and Europe when immigrant women and the Western-born daughters of immigrants visit taxpayer-funded medical facilities to treat the health problems caused by the vibrantly diverse traditions.
[. . .]
 The practice is normal among the Muslim populations in northern and eastern Africa, such as Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. It is also very common among the Muslim population of Kurdistan in Iraq and in the fast-growing population of Yemen, adjacent to Saudi Arabia.
The practice is also commonplace among Christian populations in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Nigeria, but the more extreme version occurs in Muslim communities.
Muslim advocates in the United States usually deny that the problem is associated with Islam.
But the procedure is also backed by Muslim immigrants and advocates in the United States. In 2012, for example, a Muslim doctor at the Mayo Clinic promoted the practice as an “honor” for women in Muslim communities. The doctor, who was also a senior member of the Association of Muslim Jurists of America, was subsequently fired by his American supervisors.
[. . .]
But the White House’s criticism doesn’t mention the role of immigration or Islam, and is focused on victims in Africa and Arabia, not the increasing number of victims in America.
[. . .]
Democrats and progressives favor increased diversity, in part, because the inflow of immigrants and the resulting social conflict helps them transform Americans’ anti-government culture.

http://dailycaller.com/2015/02/06/report-immigration-increases-genital-mutilation-among-american-girls/

Report: Immigration Increases Genital Mutilation Among American Girls
11:36 AM 02/06/2015
NEIL MUNRO

Arizona Gentlelady, Sentenced to Life For Killing Husband With Help of Her Children



Accessory: Steven Gibson Jr., 17, was sentenced to 22 years prison in July last year for stabbing his father, Steven Gibson Sr., 39 (together-right), to death, as part of a plot organized by his mom

Deadly siblings: Alysa Gibson and Steven Gibson Jr. have been separately charged in the murder

[From article]
An Arizona mom who was convicted of the 2013 murder of her husband - having enlisted the help of her two children and their friends to kill him - was sentenced to life is prison for the crime on Friday.
The case of 43-year-old Michelle Dawn Gibson is eerily similar to that of Pamela Smart, the New Hampshire woman who infamously conspired with her 15-year-old lover and three of his friends to murder her husband in 1990.
Dawn was found guilty in November of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
Her husband, Steven Gibson Sr., was beaten with a baseball bat, stabbed multiple times and had his throat slit, police said.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2943475/To-Die-killer-sentenced-Mom-43-enlisted-son-daughter-friends-murder-husband-case-eerily-similar-Pamela-Smart-gets-life-prison.html

Mom who enlisted her own son, daughter and their friends to murder her husband while she set up widow dating profiles gets life in prison
Michelle Dawn Gibson, 43, of Peoria, Arizona, was sentenced Friday
Found guilty of the murder of her husband, Steven Gibson, 39, in 2013
She conspire with her children, Alysa Gibson, 16, and Steven Gibson, 17, and two other teenagers to beat and stab the man to death
They have all been charged separately
Gibson claimed her husband was violent and was going to kill her
Pamela Smart seduced her 15-year-old lover and three of his friends to kill her husband in New Hampshire in 1990
By JOEL CHRISTIE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM and ASSOCIATED PRESS REPORTER
PUBLISHED: 20:38 EST, 6 February 2015 | UPDATED: 09:01 EST, 7 February 2015

Oregon Gentleman Shoots Dead Wife After Discovering Her Affair With His Brother



Troubled times: Raymond Joseph Johnson allegedly shot dead his wife Rebekah Johnson in the driveway of their Oregon home after he found out she had been having an affair with his brother for six months

[From article]
A man from Oregon shot his wife two days before Thanksgiving, after learning she was having an affair with his brother. He then turned the gun on himself but failed to kill himself.
Raymond Johnson, 38, shot himself in the chest after learning of the devastating news that his wife, Rebekah Johnson, 32, was seeing his brother on the side.
The shooting took place outside the couples home in Oregon City.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2943470/Husband-shot-dead-wife-left-critically-wounded-attempted-murder-suicide-discovering-six-month-affair-brother.html

Husband 'shot dead his wife and left himself critically wounded in attempted murder- suicide after discovering her six-month affair with his BROTHER'
An Oregon City man shot his wife, then himself after learning that she had an affair with his brother,
Raymond Johnson, 38, survived the self-inflicted wound to his chest and is being held without bail at the Clackamas County Jail on a murder charge
Rebekah Johnson, 32, died the following day
A trial is scheduled for January next year
By JAMES GORDON FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 20:47 EST, 6 February 2015 | UPDATED: 08:54 EST, 7 February 2015

Hundreds Raped, Recruited as Muslim Sex Slaves In UK



Suspects

[From article]
The Muslim rape gang scandal in Britain just keeps getting worse. Last August, the BBC reported that “at least 1,400 children were subjected to appalling sexual exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013, a report has found. Children as young as 11 were raped by multiple perpetrators, abducted, trafficked to other cities in England, beaten and intimidated, it said.” Five months later, not only has little been done to combat this scourge, but it has grown exponentially worse: hundreds of new cases have been discovered, and one of the victims says that those who abused her are “untouchable.”
[. . .]
“It’s still going on if not worse, because now they’re having to hide it more. I’m still seeing my abusers driving young girls in their car. They’re untouchable.” She said of the police that “all they care about is getting a statement. Six months on we’ve had no arrests, we’ve had no charges, evidence is still being lost.”
[. . .]
The rape gangs are made up of Muslims who believe that the Qur’an (4:3; 4:24; 23:1-6; 33:50) and Islamic law allow them to capture non-Muslim girls and press them into sexual slavery, as we have also seen the jihadists of Boko Haram and the Islamic State also do in the past year. And British authorities have feared to confront the problem in its full magnitude because they’re afraid of the stigma of stigmas in the twenty-first century West: being called “racist.”

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/robert-spencer/hundreds-more-muslim-rape-gang-cases-discovered-in-uk/

Hundreds More Muslim Rape Gang Cases Discovered in UK
February 5, 2015

Muslim Rape Gang Part 1

Part 2

Hundred Years of Abuse, Homicides, Rapes, Ends In Florida at Closed Reform School



Buried and forgotten: This December 20, 2013, file photo shows where researchers found some of the remains of 55 people in a graveyard at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida

[From article]
Dozens of children's bodies exhumed from old graves have begun yielding the shocking secrets of a shuttered Florida reform school, shedding light on decades of abuse, rape and deadly violence.
There was the 6-year-old boy who ended up dead after being sent to work as a house boy. And another boy who escaped but was later found shot to death with a blanket pulled over his body and a shotgun across his legs.
Then there was the 'rape dungeon' where students attending the Arthur G. Dozier School were taken and sexually abused.
What the researchers have learned about the horrific acts carried out at the now closed Marianna institution is outlined in a report released by the University of South Florida as researchers continue grappling with the mystery of the graves and deaths there.[. . .]
It's not an easy project. The school underreported deaths; didn't provide death certificates, names or details in many cases, particularly involving black boys; and simply reported some boys who disappeared as no longer at the school.
And many in the Panhandle community don't want to talk about the school's dark past.
Several of the boys were killed after escape attempts, including Robert Hewitt, whose family lived a few miles from the school. He was hiding in his family's house and men from the school came looking for him several times after the 1960 escape, according to relatives.
The family came home one day to find his covered body lying in a bed. He had a shotgun wound and his father's shotgun was lying across his legs.
There's also the story of 6-year-old George Grissam, who the school sent out to work as a house boy in 1918. He was delivered back to the school unconscious and later died.
George's 8-year-old brother Ernest also disappeared from school records, which simply described him as 'not here.'
Other boys died after severe beatings, being smashed in the head or other injuries. Former inmates and employees interviewed also told researchers about a 'rape dungeon' where boys, some younger than 12, were sexually assaulted.
While many of the cases are nearly a century old, some of the dead have surviving brothers, sisters and other relatives still seeking answers.
'To some of this is history, but for many of the people who are involved it's actually their reality every day,' Kimmerle said. 'They're really committed and moved by this because it's their direct family.'
The first of the bodies to be identified by researchers last summer was 14-year-old George Owen Smith, who was sent to the school after being caught in a stolen car.
In December 1940, George's mother, Frances Smith, sent a letter to the school inquiring after her son's welfare. She received a reply from Superintendent Millard Davison saying that no one knew where the teenager was.
[. . .]
The reform school for boys opened its doors in 1900 on 1,400 acres of land and closed down only in 2011 for budget reasons.
Some former students from the 1950s and 1960s have for at least a decade accused employees and guards at the school of physical and sexual abuse, but the Florida Department of Law Enforcement concluded after an investigation that it couldn't substantiate or dispute the claims because too much time had passed.
Many former Dozier inmates from that era call themselves 'The White House Boys' after the white building where they say the worst abuse took place.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2941503/Report-describes-horrific-treatment-deaths-reform-school.html

'Rape dungeon' and students hunted down and killed as they tried to escape: Report details a century of horrific abuse at notorious Florida reform school
University of South Florida researchers have found the remains of 51 people buried at Arthur G. Dozier School in Marianna, Florida
The reform school was in operation between 1900 and 2011
A 6-year-old boy ended up dead after being sent to work as a house boy, and another boy was found shot to death after escape attempt
To date, the remains of four people have been identified through DNA matches
Former inmates and employees talked about a 'rape dungeon' where boys, some younger than 12, were sexually assaulted
Some ex-Dozier inmates call themselves 'The White House Boys' after the white building where the worst abuse happened
By ASSOCIATED PRESS and SNEJANA FARBEROV FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 18:49 EST, 5 February 2015 | UPDATED: 14:28 EST, 6 February 2015

February 6, 2015

Natanyahu Disappointed Democrats Will Not Attend His Speech To Congress



Natanyahu Speaks To US Congress

[From article]
A senior Israeli official suggested on Friday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been misled into thinking an invitation to address the U.S. Congress on Iran next month was fully supported by the Democrats.
Netanyahu was invited by the Republican speaker of the house, John Boehner, to address Congress on March 3, an invitation Boehner originally described as bipartisan.
The move angered the White House, which is upset about the event coming two weeks before Israeli elections and that Netanyahu, who has a testy relationship with Democratic President Barack Obama, is expected to be critical of U.S. policy on Iran.
"It appears that the speaker of Congress made a move, in which we trusted, but which it ultimately became clear was a one sided move and not a move by both sides," Deputy Israeli Foreign Minister Tzachi Hanegbi told 102 FM Tel Aviv Radio on Friday.

http://news.yahoo.com/israeli-official-suggests-boehner-misled-netanyahu-congress-speech-123522466.html;_ylt=AwrSyCU79tRUujgAY_bQtDMD

Israeli official suggests Boehner misled Netanyahu on Congress speech

By Dan Williams
February 6, 2015

BMW Testing See Through Car Glasses




[From article]
High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6ec04f00-a2fd-11e4-9c06-00144feab7de.html#ixzz3R0SMk0FC
BMW has found a solution to the perils of parallel parking that could have been lifted from a 1950s joke shop: X-ray specs.
The Germany-based carmaker is joining the ranks of Google and Microsoft by launching a pair of augmented reality glasses that will allow drivers to see “through” the car when parking.
[. . .] High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6ec04f00-a2fd-11e4-9c06-00144feab7de.html#ixzz3R0SbEStt
The German carmaker has been developing the glasses at its research and development laboratory in the heart of Silicon Valley, according to three people familiar with the company’s plans, and will demonstrate the technology at the Shanghai motor show in April.
Details of the new product are limited, but the goggles are expected to include real-time information from the car such as speed. They are also expected to offer car-sharing information and public transport updates, suggesting that they are intended to be worn outside the car as well.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6ec04f00-a2fd-11e4-9c06-00144feab7de.html#axzz3R0S2HFSq

February 6, 2015 6:06 pm
BMW sees future through X-ray specs
Andy Sharman in Mountain View, California

Snorting Cocoa



Belgian chocolatier Dominique Persoone snorts cocoa powder off his Chocolate Shooter in his factory in Bruges, February 3, 2015. When Belgian chocolatier Dominique Persoone created a chocolate-sniffing device for a Rolling Stones party in 2007, he never imagined demand would stretch much beyond the rock 'n' roll scene. But, seven years later, he has sold 25,000 of them. Inspired by a device his grandfather used to propel tobacco snuff up his nose, Persoone created a 'Chocolate Shooter' to deliver a hit of Dominican Republic or Peruvian cocoa powder, mixed with mint and either ginger or raspberry. Picture taken on February 3, 2015. 
REUTERS/Francois Lenoir 

[From article]
When Belgian chocolatier Dominique Persoone created a chocolate-sniffing device for a Rolling Stones party in 2007, he never imagined demand would stretch much beyond the rock 'n' roll scene. But, seven years later, he has sold 25,000 of them.
Inspired by a device his grandfather used to propel tobacco snuff up his nose, Persoone created a 'Chocolate Shooter' to deliver a hit of Dominican Republic or Peruvian cocoa powder, mixed with mint and either ginger or raspberry.
"The mint and the ginger really tinkle your nose," the 46-year-old said in his chocolate factory in the medieval city of Bruges. "Then the mint flavor goes down and the chocolate stays in your brain."

http://news.yahoo.com/chocolate-snorting-offers-way-cocoa-high-161425959--sector.html;_ylt=AwrSyCS29dRUkXoAM_7QtDMD

Chocolate snorting offers new way to a cocoa high

By Miranda Alexander-Webber
February 6, 2015

Bubonic Plague Germs Found on NYC Subway



AP/Ebraham Afshinnekoo/PathoMAP Project/Weill Cornell Medical College
[From article]
Researchers have mapped out the particles found across the city’s subway system, and they found a range of DNA from mozzarella cheese to the Bubonic plague.
The “PathoMap,” created by Weill Cornell Medical College researchers, maps out microbes and pathogens found on hand rails, kiosks, benches, turnstiles and passenger seats. The research team used nylon swabs to collect DNA in 24 subway lines in all five boroughs over a period of 17 months.
Researchers say most of the DNA found across the subway system is harmless, like the cheese DNA, but the study also found some drug-resistant, disease-causing bacteria, including some DNA fragments associated with anthrax and the Bubonic plague.

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/PathoMap-Traces-Bacteria-Across-Subway-System-Cheese-Bubonic-Plague-291026181.html

"PathoMap" Traces Subway Bacteria, Finds DNA Linked to Plague, Sauerkraut
Published at 5:16 AM EST on Feb 6, 2015
NBC News New York, NY

Many Journalists Believe Obama-Holder Spying On Them




[From article]
In a survey of investigative reporters that makes Richard Nixon’s enemies list look like child's play, nearly seven in 10 said they believe that the Obama administration has spied on their phone calls, emails and online searches.
According to a Pew Research Center survey of 454 media figures, 64 percent “believe that the U.S. government has probably collected data” from their calls and email and eight in 10 believe just being a journalist jumps the chance Uncle Sam is spying on them.
The survey follows multiple reports of actual spying by federal officials on reporters, and the White House’s effort to track down those who leak information to reporters despite long-forgotten promises to be the most transparent administration ever.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/64-reporters-say-feds-spying-on-their-email-calls-online-searches/article/2559854

64% of reporters say Feds spying on their email, calls, online searches
BY PAUL BEDARD
FEBRUARY 5, 2015 | 5:28 PM

Disturbed Gentleman Attacks Four Random Victims In Manhattan



Police are looking for this man, who allegedly attacked four random people early Wednesday.

[From article]
Cops are looking for the stocky crackpot who assaulted at least four people in Manhattan early Wednesday — including three victims who were slashed with a boxcutter.
The bushwhacking binge began at around 1:20 a.m. when the assailant got on a northbound No. 4 train at the Broadway-Lafayette station, punched a man and grazed him in the face with a boxcutter, according to police.
The thug and victim got off a stop later at the Union Square station, where the crazed man slapped a 20-year-old woman in the face, cops said.
The madman’s angry spree continued above ground, when he walked to a store in Union Square and asked a homeless man for a couple of dollars. The man refused and was slashed with a boxcutter.
http://nypost.com/2015/02/04/madman-randomly-assaults-4-in-manhattan/

Madman randomly assaults 4 in Manhattan
By Natasha Velez and Matthew Abrahams
New York Post
February 4, 2015 | 11:37am

Updated: Metro North MTA Train Crashes Into Car, 7 Dead North of New York City


Posted February 3, 2015 11:14 PM ET; Last updated February 6, 2015 4:49 PM ET


Firefighters work at the scene of a train vs car accident at the Commerce Street crossing in Valhalla Feb. 3, 2015.


People arrive for Ellen Brody's (inset) funeral in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.
Photo: AP (2)

[From article]
He said Brody, a jewelry store saleswoman, had been on her way to meet a client at the time and was unfamiliar with the neighborhood in Valhalla where the crash occurred.
“Somehow she ended up in this strange and unfamiliar place,” said Alan Brody, a native of Durban, South Africa. “I once drove there in that area two years ago, and I remember thinking, ‘This looks like my old home in Africa,’ and I was also thinking, ‘Are you kidding me? Who could imagine a major commuter railroad running through this? How could it?’”
http://nypost.com/2015/02/06/husband-eulogizes-wife-who-caused-fatal-metro-north-crash/

Husband eulogizes wife who caused fatal Metro-North crash
By Lorena Mongelli and Laura Italiano
February 6, 2015 | 3:15pm
New York Post

* * *

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2938864/Metro-North-train-bursts-flames-crashing-car-just-outside-NYC-resulting-multiple-deaths.html

At least seven dead and a dozen seriously injured after train crashed into a Jeep stuck on the tracks and burst into flames just outside New York City
Metro-North train crashed into car while traveling in Valhalla, New York
Officials: At least seven people killed and further 12 seriously wounded
After crash, passengers in the first three cars were evacuated via ladder
Dozens of firefighters were pictured battling shocking blaze amid snow
One unnamed passenger tweeted: 'Front of train is completely burnt out'
It is unknown why car was on the railway tracks; police are investigating
By SOPHIE JANE EVANS FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 19:51 EST, 3 February 2015 | UPDATED: 23:45 EST, 3 February 2015


Chaos: Emergency crews stand outside the train, while concerned passengers line up inside one of its cars.

[From article]
At least seven people were killed Tuesday after a Metro-North commuter train struck a car just north of the train station, according to officials.
At least 12 others were said to be injured in the crash.
Aaron Donovan, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, had said earlier the victims included the driver of the car, a woman who was outside of her vehicle when the crash occurred, and five people on board the train. But later Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino tweeted that there were at least seven people killed.
The fiery scene began to unfold about 6:30 p.m. when the Harlem Line train out of Grand Central Terminal struck the black Jeep Cherokee at the narrow, two-lane Commerce Street crossing, causing an explosion that engulfed both the car and the train.


Evacuation: Following the crash, the first three cars of the train were evacuated via ladder. Many were crying and screaming. Above, a man from a car toward the back of the train is helped out of it by emergency crews.

http://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/westchester/2015/02/03/train-car-collide-valhalla-mass-casualties/22822737/

At least 7 dead, multiple injuries after Jeep, train collide in Valhalla
Matt Spillane, Khurram Saeed and James O'Rourke
The Journal News
10:55 p.m. EST February 3, 2015

Olfactory News At NBC




[From article]
Brian Williams did it all for the soldiers, you see. His chopper whoppers were patriotic acts. “This was a bungled attempt by me to thank one special veteran,” he explained.
In a similar vein, ­Anthony Weiner’s sext­ing was really just a misunderstood celebration of the technological sophistication of smartphones, and Bill Clinton’s dalliance with Monica Lewinsky was a selfless way to promote that great American company the Gap.
What Williams’ lie was about was what lies are always about: No one who actually scored the winning touchdown on the high-school football team misremembers it as sitting on the bench. The term “fish tale” does not mean you mistakenly tell people you caught a sickly ­8-ounce catfish when actually you snagged a 95 pound monster marlin.
http://nypost.com/2015/02/08/we-shouldnt-believe-williams-lie-was-an-innocent-mistake/

We shouldn’t believe Williams’ lie was an innocent mistake
New York Post
By Kyle Smith
February 8, 2015 | 12:05am

* * *

http://pagesix.com/2015/02/06/nbc-sets-up-brian-williams-truth-squad/?_ga=1.142050673.276668375.1423258945

NBC sets up Brian Williams ‘Truth Squad’
By Emily Smith
New York Post
Page Six
February 6, 2015 | 1:34pm

February 5, 2015

Celebrity Charities Need Scrutiny



"How did I get involved in the galas?" says Eva Longoria. "They asked me, I said yes." Here, Longoria is flanked by Maria Bravo (left) and a pregnant Alina Peralta (right) on May 12, 2014, at the Global Gift Gala at the Four Seasons Hotel in Paris.
Photo: AP Images


[From article]
With admirable results, the well-liked Longoria has leveraged her wealth (Forbes ranked her as primetime's fourth top-earning woman in 2011, with an estimated annual income of $12 million) and profile for greater good. She has become known in recent years for her highly publicized work in liberal politics and immigration, emerging as a key voice on immigrant rights and campaigning against Arizona's show-your-papers bill, SB 1070, as well as for President Obama's re-election, during which time she became one of his top bundlers and eventually spoke at the Democratic National Convention. Longoria's altruism has, along with her glamour, fame and political advocacy, earned her near-saint status in the Spanish-speaking world.
[. . .]
But while Bravo and Peralta claim that "100 percent"of the money that came into the foundation in 2014 went to "philanthropic projects," when asked by THR for substantiation of where the money from auction donations and ticket sales for the Dubai event (a number that appears to exceed $500,000) went, Bravo turned over a spreadsheet that documented $166,883 donated to two Dubai charities. Where is the rest of the money?
[. . .]
the celebrity-affiliated charity undercut by its lack of attention to detail. (Madonna's Raising Malawi board members misusing $3.8 million earmarked for a girls' school under her watch and Wyclef Jean's camp's decision to divert $100,000 of his Yele Haiti Foundation funds to pay for his performance at a benefit concert he organized are two examples cited by philanthropy experts.)
[. . .]
News reports and press releases indicate that Bravo and Peralta have helped raise $19.5 million since 2009; the two women stand by this figure. In their spreadsheet, the duo claim that exactly $17,739,205 was raised after promotional revenue (which covers event costs) was deducted — meaning that total claimed overhead for all the events they ever put on was less than $2 million.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/eva-longoria-two-philanthropreneurs-dangers-769240

Eva Longoria, Two "Philanthropreneurs" and the Dangers of Hollywood Charity: THR Investigates
by Gary Baum
2/4/2015 8:00 am PST




World's Super Rich Own $3 trillion in Homes



Indian tycoon Mukesh Ambani (C) and wife Nita Ambani (R) with cricketer Piyush Chawla (L) on April 3, 2011. The Ambanis live in one of the most lavish urban residences in the world: a 27-story, 400,000 square foot home in Mumbai.
[From article]
In fact, those with inherited wealth hold 17% of their net worth in luxury residential real estate, compared with just under 9% for self-made multi-millionaires. Some $16 trillion of global wealth will be transferred over the next three decades, mostly to family members, according to a separate survey released last month by Wealth-X found.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-worlds-superrich-now-own-3-trillion-in-homes-2015-02-04

The world’s superrich now own $3 trillion in homes
By Quentin Fottrell
Published: Feb 4, 2015 11:48 a.m. ET

Harvard University Student Panel On Systemic Racism



Photo: ZORIGOO TUGSBAYAR
Temitope A. Agabalogun ’15, left, and Nashwa Gewaily, a legal fellow at the Massachusetts ACLU, discuss the aftermath and consequences of the non-indictments of the police officers responsible for the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner last year.
Why no complaint that the US Dept of Justice did not find indictment of Ferguson MO Officer Wilson, proper? Does Eric "White people are cowards" Holder, support white privilege? Will the words racism, and racist ever be defined? Or will it continue to mean whatever I want it to mean? You don't love my iPad? You're a racist!

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/2/4/democracts-racism-panel-ferguson/

Panelists Call for Policy Changes To Address Systemic Racism
By CALEB O. SHELBURNE,
Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
February 4, 2015

Study Shows Psychiatric Drugs Destroy Human Will



Disturbingly, researchers found participants often exhibited 'a culture of hopelessness' where acceptance was dominant, which they warn can destroy an individual's will to recover. 
Credit: Charlotte Spencer
More evidence that psychiatry is a method of controlling humans, not curing, not healing not freeing or empowering. 

[From article]
Interviews with community members who are taking antipsychotic medication for mental health problems have added to growing concerns about how the drugs are administered, their effectiveness against placebo and the severity of their side-effects.
[. . .]
The recent research also touches on how stigma can lead individuals to 'just put up with the drugs' despite not believing they help.
While their sample size is limited, Murdoch University and the University of Queensland researchers say insight into lived experience is invaluable.
"People using antipsychotic medications experience adverse side-effects that reach into their physical, social and emotional lives, and cause a level of fear and suffering that is difficult for anyone else to fully comprehend," Murdoch Professor Paul Morrison says.

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-02-antipsychotic-meds-prompt-zombie-like-state.html

Antipsychotic meds prompt zombie-like state among patients
by Rob Payne
February 5, 2015

US Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) Announces Opposition To AG Nominee




US Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)
Photo: AP/Stephan Savoia
[From article]
Paul asked the team about Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) question during Lynch’s Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing about whether she’d oppose using a drone to kill an American citizen on American soil.
When Paul heard about her non-answer—she wouldn’t commit that the federal government does not have such authority—he was incredulous. Furthermore, Paul was appalled that Lynch came out in favor of President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty and the use of asset forfeiture—where the federal government seizes people’s property sometimes with flimsy reasoning, something even the Obama administration has offered slight opposition to—and then told his office staff he’s going to oppose her and aim to derail her nomination chances. “Oh, she’s going down,” Paul said to the room.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/02/04/oh-shes-going-down-rand-paul-comes-out-swinging-against-loretta-lynchs-nomination/

by MATTHEW BOYLE
4 Feb 2015
Washington, DC

Moscow Police Bust Brothel Employing Married Women Only



Some of the housewives who worked in a brothel
Photo: Europics
[From article]
Russian men have been paying big bucks to sleep with somebody else’s wife.
Authorities in Moscow recently raided a brothel that only employs married women — and they charge more than six times the usual price, Central European News reports.
“A seven-room apartment had been turned into an exclusive brothel where prostitutes were allowed to work only if they brought a marriage certificate,” said police spokesman Margarita Maslova.

http://nypost.com/2015/02/05/cops-bust-wives-only-brothel-for-cuckold-fetishists/

Cops bust ‘wives only’ brothel for cuckold fetishists
By Chris Perez
New York Post
February 5, 2015 | 12:43pm

Suspects in Cleveland Murder Of Elder Couple Arrested In Arizona, Others Sought



Doyle and Lillian Chumney
Photo: AP
[From article]
Clark has been charged with one count of murder in the deaths of 88-year-old Doyle Chumney and his 79-year-old wife, Lillian. Their remains were found inside their torched car on a country road Jan. 22, the day after they were reported missing from their home.

http://nypost.com/2015/02/05/suspect-in-crime-spree-murder-of-elderly-couple-arrested-after-manhunt/

Suspect in murder of elderly couple caught after ‘crime spree’
By Associated Press
New York Post
February 5, 2015 | 11:28am

Coastie From Virginia Charged With Killing Woman Coastie in MA, Shooting Another Woman and a Policeman



District Attorney Michael O'Keefe talks about the early morning shootings that occurred in Bourne. A woman was killed, another person injured, and a police officer was also shot and injured. O'Keefe is pictured flanked by Peter Mallett from the investigative branch of the United States Coast Guard (left), Massachusetts State Police Captain Chris Mason, and Bourne Police Chief Dennis Woodside (right) on Thursday, February 5, 2015. 
Staff photo by John Wilcox.
[From article]
A Coast Guardsman accused of ambushing police early this morning and murdering one woman and wounding another was ordered held without bail today after being arraigned on eight charges.
The suspect was identified in court as Adrian Loya, 31. He was sent away immediately for a competency evaluation as is due back in court March 23. The record of his arrest was impounded by the judge.
The two female victims also are members of the Coast Guard, authorities said. Loya had some type of “relationship” with one of them, his lawyer said.
Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe said at 2:14 a.m., officers responding to a car “fully engulfed” by flames were fired upon.
“As the firefighters were dealing with that fire and units were responding, the police were alerted to additional 911 calls that were coming in to the station regarding gunshots,” O’Keefe said. “The police proceeded past the fire toward that location where they came under fire. ... It certainly was an ambush of the police officers.”

http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2015/02/da_coast_guardsman_shot_cop_killed_1_woman_injured_second

DA: Coast Guardsman shot cop, killed 1 woman, injured second
Thursday, February 5, 2015
By: Owen Boss, Laurel J. Sweet and Antonio Planas
Boston Herald

Cambridge MA Thinks A City Ordinance Will Stop Teens From Smoking Cigarettes




“I see it everyday at the high school where I work,” [Councilor McGovern] said. “At lunch the 18 year-old goes up to the corner store and hands cigarettes to a 15 year-old. [If the ordinance amendment is followed], that’s not going to happen anymore.” How old do students have to be to purchase marijuana in Cambridge? Does the City Councilor ever see [or smell] young people smoking dope?

[From article]
“This is going to be one of the most significant public health decisions we’ve made,” McGovern said in an interview Wednesday.
[. . .]
"I see it everyday at the high school where I work,” he said. “At lunch the 18 year-old goes up to the corner store and hands cigarettes to a 15 year-old. [If the ordinance amendment is followed], that’s not going to happen anymore.”

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/2/5/cambridge-ordinance-amendment-tobacco/

Cambridge Raises Tobacco Purchasing Age to 21
By SAMUEL E. LIU,
Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
February 5, 2015