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Iran Vows to Hit Back at Any Country That Stages an Attack
North Korean golfing legend (and oppressive dictator) Kim Jong Il passed away over the weekend . He was just 69 years old, but laid claim to golfing skills that would make greats like Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Walter Hagen weep with envy. Back in 1994, the man set a record that is likely to stand forever. Playing his first round of golf on a regulation, PGA-style, 18-hole course, Kim Jong Il scored 11 holes-in-one while he carded a stunning 38 UNDER par. Seventeen bodyguards were on hand to witness and attest the score. Regarding the 11 holes-in-one on a single round, that feat will only be repeated on putt-putt golf courses as most regulation-sized courses typically have only four holes short enough to reasonably be considered candidates for scoring an ace. Sadly, the golfing world outside of North Korea has yet to accept this round of golf as legitimate. Kim Jong Il had many habits that the Western world might consider curious. He was reported to only eat rice of a standard size and shape, consumed record amounts of Hennessey cognac, and allegedly kidnapped filmmakers. The Herald Sun has more on the oddities of KJI. Immortalized in the puppet-acted film “Team America” (2004) – K-J-L is seen here singing “I’m So Ronrey.” ( content warning – that pesky “F” words makes it’s way into the clip… but only once ) For more traditional views of the deceased dictator, please read the Blaze report on his death.
-By Warner Todd Huston Since he ascended from nothing to the office of President of the United States, Obama has shown a disdain for most of our western allies that borders on hatred. But he’s reserved his most backhanded treatment to Israel. It isn’t just what he’s done to show Israel that he has no use
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Obama Appointed Ambassador Says Israel At Fault for Muslim Anti-Semitism
A great piece. At Wall Street Journal , ” Big Oil Heads Back Home “: Big Oil is redrawing the energy map. For decades, its main stomping grounds were in the developing world—exotic locales like the Persian Gulf and the desert sands of North Africa, the Niger Delta and the Caspian Sea. But in recent years, that geographical focus has undergone a radical change. Western energy giants are increasingly hunting for supplies in rich, developed countries—a shift that could have profound implications for the industry, global politics and consumers. Driving the change is the boom in unconventionals—the tough kinds of hydrocarbons like shale gas and oil sands that were once considered too difficult and expensive to extract and are now being exploited on an unprecedented scale from Australia to Canada. The U.S. is at the forefront of the unconventionals revolution. By 2020, shale sources will make up about a third of total U.S. oil and gas production, according to PFC Energy, a Washington-based consultancy. By that time, the U.S. will be the top global oil and gas producer, surpassing Russia and Saudi Arabia, PFC predicts. That could have far-reaching ramifications for the politics of oil, potentially shifting power away from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries toward the Western hemisphere. With more crude being produced in North America, there’s less likelihood of Middle Eastern politics causing supply shocks that drive up gasoline prices. Consumers could also benefit from lower electricity prices, as power plants switch from coal to cheap and plentiful natural gas. RTWT.
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Big Oil Companies Are Shifting Their Focus Back to the West
A pessimistic report, at Los Angeles Times , ” Afghanistan success is in eye of beholder “: With an American troop drawdown underway and expected to accelerate in the coming year, the NATO force insists that violence is declining, that the insurgency’s strength is flagging and that Afghan forces are demonstrating a growing ability to take the lead in safeguarding the country. Many Afghans, however, subscribe to a darker view: that daily life has grown more perilous, that national and local governance has become even shakier, that the country’s police and army are chronically unable protect its citizens, and that the Taliban movement is hunkering down to wait out the Western presence. Recent months have seen escalating tension over so-called metrics that can be used to chart either progress or deterioration. RTWT. And at Michael Yon, ” Fool’s Gold & Troops’ Blood ,” ” Report to Congress ,” and ” Question for Congressman Pompeo: What is your Position? ”
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Measuring Success in Afghanistan
Representatives from the Liberty University Law School have been “un-invited” by Western Washington University to a law school information fair for the public university’s undergraduates. Liberty University is the largest non-profit university in the nation and largest Christian university in the world. The Bellingham Herald writes on why WWU decided to bar Liberty from the information fair: “The change happened after some Western students and staff brought up concerns that Liberty ‘openly discriminates against LGBTQ identified people.’ After reviewing Liberty’s non-discrimination policy, WWU officials decided that the policy was against Western’s and therefore the schools shouldn’t be represented on campus.” Liberal groups are claiming victory after 100 of the university’s 13,800 undergraduates signed a petition to rescind the invitation to Liberty. The student who led the opposition reportedly met with the Assistant Attorney General for the State of Washington. Change.org writes in the “How We Won” blog post: “Every year Western puts on the Law School Info Fair. This year the infamously homophobic Liberty University was invited to attend. Liberty was founded by none other than Jerry Falwell (the guy who blamed 9/11 on queer people and called a Teletubby gay). Good ol’ Jerry’s ideology spread to his university. They expel queer students, mark students down for taking pro-gay stances on tests, and encourage reparative therapy, which has been recognized as both ineffective and harmful by the American Psychological Association.” The Western Front , the WWU student newspaper, writes that administrators were concerned that the invitation retraction would make WWU vulnerable to legal charges but believe the university’s nondiscrimination policy includes sexual orientation and gender identity. Thus allowing the administration to “protect students from hostile or intolerant academic situations.” Liberty has reacted strongly to WWU’s actions, as the law school’s Dean has said WWU’s invite retraction “raises serious First Amendment concerns.” Dean Matthew Staver replied to the letter that Liberty received from WWU by warning the public university that he has already been granted permission from Liberty’s chancellor to take whatever legal action necessary to protect the university’s First Amendment rights. The Western Front writes: “‘The school does not change its position,’ Staver said. ‘We will not just simply do nothing.’ Liberty University School of Law is approved by the American Bar Association and its nondiscrimination policy has been approved by the association’s standards, Staver said. No other school has denied Liberty access in its more than 40 years of existence, he said.” WWU administrators had invited Liberty’s recruiting staff and other representatives to be briefed on WWU’s nondiscrimination policy, as The Western Front writes “in hopes of Liberty understanding what it could do to be invited in coming years.”
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WWU Takes Back Liberty University Law School Fair Invitation Because School ‘Openly Discriminates Against LGBTQ Identified People’
An American diver was killed in a shark attack off the coast of Western Australia coast Saturday, the second such attack in the last 12 days. The 32-year-old man was diving alone off a 25-foot boat. According to the BBC , witnesses on the boat saw a large amount of bubbles surfacing, followed by the diver’s body with “obviously fatal injuries.” Two people on the boat described seeing a 10-foot great white shark in the water as they were leaving the area with the body. The man’s name and hometown have not yet been released, but he had been working in Western Australia for the last six months on a visa. Authorities are still trying to contact his family. The state government has promised to hunt and destroy the shark, and is considering more aircraft surveillance off west coast beaches, the Sydney Morning Herald reported . Two weeks ago, a 64-year-old man was killed in an apparent shark attack at another Western Australia beach. His body was not recovered, though his swim trunks were later retrieved with signs said to be consistent with a shark attack. Authorities said they don’t know whether the same shark is responsible for both tragedies, but the local police sergeant said weather conditions were similar on both days. “It’s a cloudy old day today which is the same as we had the other day with Cottesloe [Beach], and they’re the conditions that sharks love,” Western Australia Police Sgt. Gerry Cassidy said. In September, a 21-year-old bodyboarder was bitten in half in a shark attack south of the beach where Saturday’s attack occurred.
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U.S. Diver Killed in Shark Attack off Australian Coast
As you’ve likely heard by now, American-born al-Qaeda terror leader Anwar al-Awlaki was killed early this morning in a CIA-led drone air strike in Yemen. GBTV contributor and CBN terrorism analyst Erick Stackelbeck weighs in with his opinion of what this “significant” news might mean for the Islamic extremist terror group and America’s ongoing efforts in the War on Terror: I believe this is a significant blow to Al Qaeda. A few key points: –Awlaki, often called “the Bin Laden of the Internet,” was the driving force behind Al Qaeda’s message in the Western, English-speaking world. An American citizen who lived half of his 40 years in the United States and attended Colorado State University, he was able to break down the language barrier and speak directly to aspiring young jihadists here and in Great Britain. That is something Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, Arabic speakers, could not do. In his online sermons, Awlaki could say to young Muslims in Chicago and New York City: “I’ve lived in America. I know what you are going through in that infidel land. I feel your pain.” –That familiarity with the ways of the West made Awlaki, not Osama Bin Laden, the most influential Islamic jihadist in the Western world as far back as 2008. Young Muslims here could relate to the young, hip and charismatic Awlaki in a way they could not connect to Bin Laden. One major way Awlaki was able to do that was through Al Qaeda’s glossy, English-language online magazine, Inspire, which is published out of Yemen and targets American Muslims. Continue reading…
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What does al-Awlaki’s death mean for al-Qaeda?
