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For those tracking the long train of abuses and usurpations of a modern-day George who would be King and his eminence grise behind the throne, July 14 has a resonance far beyond the fireworks of Bastille Day. Four loosely related events on that same day four years ago throw revealing light on key ingredients of the debacle in Iraq.
First, on July 14, 2003 the Washington Post and other papers carried a column by Robert Novak titled "Mission to Niger," in which he set out to do the White House's bidding by disparaging former ambassador Joseph Wilson and punishing him by making it impossible for his wife, Valerie Plame, to continue working in her chosen (covert) profession. The White House offensive against Wilson had been in the planning stage for several months. Novak's column was, in effect, the first shot in a sustained, rapid-fire volley aimed at neutralizing Wilson and deterring other potential truth-tellers who might be tempted to follow his example.
The former ambassador had spent several days in the African country of Niger at the CIA's behest to investigate a dubious report in which Vice President Dick Cheney had taken inordinate interest-a strange story that Iraq was seeking to acquire yellowcake uranium from Niger. For substantive reasons, serious intelligence analysts had judged the report false on its face, well before they learned it was based on forged documents.
But the vice president had taken quite a shine to it. As a result, in February 2002 four-star Marine General Carlton Fulford, Jr. (then deputy commander of the United States European Command with purview over most of Africa) and Ambassador Wilson made separate journeys to Niger to investigate the report. They both found it spurious. Hence, they and U.S. ambassador to Niger, Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, were amazed when President George W. Bush used the same cockamamie report in his state-of-the union address on January 28, 2003 to help build a case for attacking Iraq.
After confirming that Bush was using the same dubious "evidence" and after attempting in vain to get the White House to correct the record, Wilson went public on July 6, 2002 with an op-ed in The New York Times titled "What I Didn't Find in Africa." This brought White House wrath down on him. Cheney and his then-chief of staff, Irv Lewis "Scooter" Libby, went on the offensive, throwing friendly journalists like Novak into the fray. Novak's July 14 column reflected Cheney's neuralgic reaction not only to Wilson's New York Times piece, but also to his July 6 remark to the Washington Post that the administration's use of that bogus report "begs the question regarding what else they are lying about." So un-ambassadorial. But Wilson was angry-and with good reason.
Lying the Country Into War
Reflecting the concern driving the White House counteroffensive, Novak wrote that the administration's "mistake" in using the Iraq-Niger report "led the Democrats ever closer to saying the president lied the country into war." That concern, coupled with the priority need to protect the vice president, showed through in the defensive tone of Novak's protestation that it was "not just Vice President Dick Cheney" who had asked the CIA to look into the report.
Wilson's op-ed forced the White House to acknowledge that the spurious Iraq-Niger report should have found no place in Bush's state-of-the-union address. Then-White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, while packing his bags to leave that post, took time to memorize the main talking point for use with reporters. Without even being asked about Cheney's role, Fleischer was quick to offer instant, gratuitous insistence that the vice president was not guilty of anything. At the same time, then-CIA director George Tenet did his awkward best to absolve Cheney of any responsibility for giving the Iraq-Niger story more legs and credence than, by any objective measure, it deserved.
That this was a matter of protesting too much can be seen in Libby's Herculean effort earlier in the year to crank the Iraq-Niger story-as well as a host of other far-fetched charges against Iraq-into then-secretary of state Colin Powell's embarrassing speech at the UN on February 5, 2003. While Powell let himself be browbeaten into using much of the spurious material urged on him by Libby, the Iraq-Niger fairy tale had long since taken on an acrid smell. Besides, Powell's own intelligence analysts had branded the report "highly dubious" and, for once, he listened.
In the end, Powell decided to throw virtually everything but the kitchen sink into his UN speech condemning Saddam Hussein. The kitchen sink was the Iraq-Niger report. When asked why he did not include that story, when President Bush had featured it with such solemnity just a week before in his state-of-the-union address, Powell damned it with faint praise, publicly describing the report as "not totally outrageous."
White House officials calculated correctly that a four-star Marine general, even a retired one, could be counted on to keep his mouth shut rather than expose his former commander-in-chief in a bald-faced lie. But they "misunderestimated" Joseph Wilson, who turned out to be a man of substantial integrity and courage. Wilson saw the Iraq-Niger report as a consequential lie-a monstrous one, in that it greased the skids for launching a war of aggression, condemned at the post-WWII Nuremberg Tribunal as the "supreme international crime." And rather than grouse about it with knowing smirk, cigar, and sherry in Georgetown drawing rooms, as is the more familiar practice among retired ambassadors, Wilson went public.
Swords Drawn
And so on July 14, 2003, Robert Novak slipped into his familiar role as "conservative" pundit and launched the White House counteroffensive. As for friends Cheney and Libby, the best idea they could come up with to divert the focus from themselves was to spread the word that Wilson's wife, a CIA employee, had sent him to Niger on some kind of boondoggle. (I know; I know. Please stop laughing, those of you who have been in Niger. And Wilson performed his investigation gratis).
House pundits and other co-travelers then eked almost four years of mileage out of the next White House diversion; namely, the claim that Valerie Plame was not really under cover. Under strong White House pressure to delay, top CIA functionaries were in no hurry to set that record straight and avoided doing so until March 14, 2007, when the patience of Henry Waxman (D-California), Chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, ran out. CIA Director Michael Hayden confirmed to Waxman that Plame had been under cover until Robert Novak blew that cover; that Plame had been a covert employee, whose status with the CIA was classified information. Waxman has made that public. But (surprise, surprise) this has not stopped "neo-conservative" drummers from continuing to beat drums of doubt.
The Vice President's Man
Cheney's chief of staff, "Scooter" Libby, agreed to take the hit and was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. In his closing argument, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald made it clear that the role of Vice President Dick Cheney in blowing Valerie Plame's cover remains the key mystery, and that Libby's lies ensured that Cheney's role would remain a mystery. Fitzgerald could hardly have made this key finding clearer:
"There is a cloud over the vice president.... And that cloud remains because this defendant obstructed justice"... There is a cloud over the White House. Don't you think the FBI and the grand jury and the American people are entitled to straight answers?"
Libby was convicted, and it was widely expected that President Bush would pardon him. Not yet. A pardon would have allowed Fitzgerald to put Libby back on the stand having forfeited the advantage of being able to plead Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. So the Bush/Cheney lawyers advised the president to defer a pardon until later and simply commute Libby's 30-month jail sentence. The president commuted it to zero before Libby spent one day in jail.
According to Michael Isikoff, veteran investigative journalist for Newsweek, there was no doubt where Cheney stood on the need to spare Libby before the rigors of prison might prompt him to sing about Cheney's and Bush's own knowledge of and involvement in what Libby had been doing. And there was no doubt about the powerful influence the vice president had on the commutation decision. One White House adviser told Isikoff, "I'm not sure Bush had a choice; if he didn't act, it would have caused a fracture with the vice president." Interesting. So who is in charge over there?
So Libby walks, and Bush and Cheney remain protected precisely because, as Fitzgerald put it, "Libby threw sand in the eyes of the FBI and grand jurors, obstructed justice, and stole the truth from the judicial system."
Out of a similarly cynical past, Ollie North's reported words come immediately to mind: "Is this a great country or what?" In any case, this new Donnybrook started with Novak's column exactly four years ago, on July 14, 2003.
Second, that same day we Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) sent a formal Memorandum to President Bush, recommending strongly that he "ask for Cheney's immediate resignation." This unprecedented appeal even caught the eye of the corporate press-the more so, inasmuch as our Memorandum for the President reviewed some of the deceit engineered by the vice president in conjuring up a rationale for war on Iraq and leading the cheerleading for it.
We noted that Cheney, skilled at preemption (and an expert on clouds), had stolen a march on his vacationing colleagues by launching, in a major speech on August 26, 2002, a meretricious campaign to persuade Congress and the American people that Iraq was about to acquire nuclear weapons. That campaign mushroomed, literally, in early October, with Bush and his senior advisers raising the specter of a "mushroom cloud" over American cities. (Never mind how Iraq could mount such a strike with no nuclear weapons and no delivery systems with enough range.) To any serious onlooker, the synthetic mushroom clouds bore the label "made in the office of the vice president."
And poor George Tenet. In his recent book he complains that Cheney's claim on August 26, 2002 that Iraq would acquire nuclear weapons "fairly soon" did not square with the intelligence community's assessment that Iraq could not do so until the end of the decade, if then. The former CIA director adds, "I was surprised when I read about Cheney's assertion, 'Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.'" Tenet whines that the vice president did not send him an advance copy of the speech. Not one to cause trouble, the malleable CIA director quickly got over it, and told CIA analysts to compose the kind of National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that would provide ex post facto support for Cheney's bogus assertions and help deceive Congress into approving war.
Tenet believes President Bush, too, was blindsided by Cheney, and writes lamely, "I should have told the vice president privately that, in my view, his speech had gone too far...and not let silence imply agreement."
But wait, George. You were, by law, the president's principal intelligence adviser. Did it not occur to you to fulfill your statutory responsibility and tell the president what was going on? At very least, you might have summoned the courage to resist Cheney's pressure for a dishonest NIE-the one you signed on October 1, 2002-to support an unnecessary war with the entirely predictable consequences the world is now experiencing.
Afraid of being cut from the White House team? Were you not smart enough to recognize this as, in any case, inevitable? And, please, you are very familiar with Georgetown University's propensity for hiring celebrities, including war criminals like Douglas Feith. There would always be a large soft chair there for you. Ironically, that's where you now sit anyway-having brought disgrace to the profession of intelligence analysis and fitting right in with the Feiths of this world.
They Knew All Too Well
In fact Cheney, as well as Tenet, knew very well that Cheney's assertions were lies. How? Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, whom Saddam had put in charge of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, as well as missile development, told us when he defected in mid-1995 that all (that's right, ALL) such weapons had been destroyed at his order in July 1991 after the Gulf War.
And not only that. In mid-2002, Iraq's foreign minister, Naji Sabri, whom my former CIA colleagues had recruited in place, was telling us the same thing. When CIA operations officers, justifiably proud at having recruited Sabri, briefed the president and his senior advisers on what Sabri had said, they were astonished to be treated like skunks at a picnic-shocked to experience first hand that their hard won intelligence was decidedly not welcome. They had used almost every trick in the thick book of tradecraft to "turn" the foreign minister and get him working for us. Now they were being told that the White House wanted no further reporting from him: "This isn't about Intel anymore. This is about regime change."
Astonished Tenet was not. From the documentary evidence in the authoritative Downing Street Minutes we know that he told the chief of British intelligence, Richard Dearlove, during his visit to CIA headquarters on July 20, 2002, that the intelligence was being "fixed" around the policy. That is precisely what Dearlove reported back to then-prime minister Tony Blair and his senior national security officials at Downing Street three days later.
Meanwhile, former UN inspectors like Scott Ritter were saying that some 90 percent of the WMD Iraq earlier possessed had been destroyed-some during the Gulf War in 1991, but most as a result of the inspections conducted by the UN. No one had seen any of the "missing" ten percent, and even freshmen analysts found it unprofessional to apply to serious intelligence work either the newly introduced concept of "faith-based analysis" or, worse still, the Rumsfeld Theorem: "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
The intelligence from Hussein Kamel and then-Iraqi foreign minister Ali Sabri, sources with the best access imaginable and proven track records for reliability, was suppressed in favor of "evidence" like the Iraq-Niger report. When finally (but still before the war started) US officials were forced to concede that the Iraq-Niger information was based on a forgery, lawmakers like Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) hit the roof. But it was too late.
On March 16, 2003, three days before President Bush let slip the dogs of war, NBC's Tim Russert of Face the Nation braced Cheney with the assertion by the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Saddam Hussein did not have a nuclear program. Cheney strongly disagreed and claimed support for his view from the CIA and other parts of the intelligence community. He even ratcheted up his bogus assessment of Iraq's nuclear capability: "We believe he [Saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."
"We?" Perhaps Lynne Cheney was on board with that judgment. But there were precious few, if any, other true believers. Indeed, the nuclear claim was simply fabricated, with fabric made of whole cloth. Contrary to Cheney's claims, the most knowledgeable analysts-those who knew Iraq and nuclear weapons-scoffed at Cheney's brand of faith-based intelligence analysis.
In our July 14, 2003 Memorandum to President Bush urging him to demand Cheney's resignation, we warned the president that if he did not, intelligence analysts would conclude that the best way to climb the ladder of success is to acquiesce in the cooking of their judgments, since neither senior nor junior officials would ever be held accountable.
Ignored Testimony
Third: On July 14, 2003 Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), frustrated by all the deceit regarding WMD, had a room reserved for 11:00 AM in the Rayburn Office Building for a briefing on weapons of mass destruction, if any, in Iraq. Star witness was Lt. Col. Andrew Wilkie, formerly a senior intelligence analyst working in Australia's CIA equivalent, the Office of National Assessments (ONA). Wilkie was the only allied intelligence officer to refuse to take part in the dishonest charade leading to war on Iraq. He quit, loudly, nine days before the war, when it became clear that his government had decided to take part in launching an unprovoked war based on "intelligence" he knew to be specious.
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity had invited Wilkie to Washington (and had passed the hat around for his airfare and hotel.) At the Rayburn Building briefing, Wilkie gave a low-key but devastating account of how he viewed from his vantage point the corruption of intelligence to "justify" war on Iraq. He stressed that, in view of the evidence he saw, he could not escape the conclusion that war was totally unnecessary, partly because options short of war had not been exhausted. Wilkie accused his government of taking a willing part in fabricating the case for war:
"The claims about Iraq cooperating actively with al-Qaeda were obviously nonsense. As was the Government's reference to Iraq seeking uranium in Africa, despite the fact that the Office of National Assessments, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade all knew the Niger story was fraudulent. This was critical information. It beggars belief that ONA knew the story was discredited but didn't advise the prime minister; Defense knew but didn't tell the Defense Minister, and Foreign Affairs knew but didn't tell the Foreign Minister.
"Please remember the Government was also receiving detailed assessments on the U.S. in which it was made very clear the U.S. was intent on invading Iraq for more important reasons than WMD and terrorism. Hence, all this talk about WMD and terrorism was hollow."
Wilkie's testimony was electrifying. And three months later Wilkie was vindicated when the Australian Senate, in a rare move, publicly censured the government for misleading the public in justifying sending Australian troops off to war. But on that day, July 14, 2003 in the Rayburn Building, 14 TV cameras, including those of the corporate media, were whirring away, recording it all for history and truth. Would this be a breakthrough enabling information-deprived TV viewers to access some fact-based intelligence about how the U.S. got into the quagmire in Iraq?
Glued to the TV that afternoon and evening, we could find no coverage on any channel. Zero. And it was a slow news day, as the pundits had not yet grasped the significance of the Robert Novak column. However disappointed, Wilkie was entirely professional about the experience. He assured us he had not been so naive to believe that by loudly quitting ONA he could stop the juggernaut toward war. And he was not surprised to find the US media as domesticated as the media in Australia.
To VIPS, though, Wilkie was an inspiration. What was clear to him was that he had a moral duty to expose the deliberate deception in which his government, together with the U.S. and U.K., had become engaged. And, though he had to endure the customary character assassination back home, he found vindication of a sort in the subsequent censure of his government by the Australian Senate. We were also pleased that Andrew Wilkie agreed to join Katharine Gun, formerly of British intelligence, Major Frank Grevil, formerly of Danish intelligence, and former U.K. ambassador Craig Murray as part of the "coalition" contingent of VIPS.
Revisionist History
Fourth (as if further proof of duplicity were needed): on July 14, 2003, President Bush, during a Q and A session with reporters after an Oval Office meeting with then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, provided this remarkable version of why Saddam Hussein was to blame for the invasion:
"We gave them a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he [Saddam] wouldn't let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power, along with other nations [sic], so as to make sure he was not a threat to the United States and our friends and allies in the region."
Compare that statement to that of Kofi Annan on March 17, 2003, announcing his reluctant withdrawal of UN inspectors from Iraq, made necessary by the imminent shock, awe, and invasion:
"Yesterday [we] got information from the United States authorities that it would be prudent not to leave our staff in the region. I have just informed the Council that we will withdraw the inspectors."
Someone ought to tell the president that his version about Saddam Hussein refusing to allow the inspectors in was Plan A; i.e., the plan worked out with the British to "wrong foot" Saddam into such refusal by demanding the most intrusive inspection regime in modern history-the kind that Saddam would be sure to reject (or so it was thought). Washington and London would then have the casus belli after which they had been lusting. (Plan A is fully described in official British documents leaked to and published by the London press.)
Please, quickly, someone remind the president that, as things turned out, Plan A was foiled; that Saddam outfoxed London and Washington by acceding to a very rigorous inspection regime and that in early 2003 intrusive inspections, and one-on-one interviews with Iraqi scientists, were being conducted without serious interference (but, alas, with no success in finding WMD). Please remind President Bush that, nonetheless, someone who worked for him and Cheney abruptly told Annan to pull out the inspectors two days before the attack on Iraq. Remind Bush that he and Blair had to default to Plan B; i.e., get the UN inspectors out of Iraq before it became even clearer that, if any WMD were eventually found, they would certainly not be of such quality or quantity as to pose a serious threat.
In other words, Plan B was war without pretense. No one knew that better than Kofi Annan. So it was difficult to watch him squirm on July 14, 2003, as Bush played fast and loose with the facts...as the president continues to do, without challenge from the corporate media. To wit, at his press conference on July 12, 2007:
Q. Mr. President, you started this war, a war of your choosing.... Thousands and thousands are dead...you brought the al-Qaeda into Iraq.
A. Actually, I was hoping to solve the Iraqi issue diplomatically. That's why I...worked with the United Nations Security Council, which unanimously passed a resolution that said disclose, disarm, or face serious consequences. That was the message, the clear message to Saddam Hussein. He chose the course...It was his decision to make.... I firmly believe the world is better off without Saddam Hussein.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. He served as an Army infantry/intelligence officer in the early 60s, and then as a CIA analyst for the next 27 years. He is on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).


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text: Seret: The Amsterdam Israeli Film and Television Festival – 2015 by jewishfilmfests · November 15, 2015 Where: Amsterdam, NetherlandsWhen: November 14, 2015 to November 16, 2015InformationFacebookFilms shown# Film Buy/Watch Cover 1 Apples from the Desert 2 Fightophobia 3 The Green Prince 4 Hill Start 5 The Kindergarten Teacher 6 Yona 7 Zero Motivation For information about this festival, including films shown and schedule, please click the 'website' link above. (This site is not affiliated with the festival.) Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *Comment Name * Email * Website Notify me of new posts by email. Follow: Support JewishFilmFesivals.org Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use. To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy Recent Posts The 48 movies added to this site between May and July 2019 Video poem of/from the Auschwitz concentration camp The 42 movies added to this site in April 2019 7 minute video from 1938: The Neubergers and the Jewish Community of Sennfeld-Adelsheim The 80 movies added to this site in March 2019 My Israel: Student Short Film Competition and Festival More Israeli TV to stream when you're done with 'Shtisel' The 50 movies added to this site in February 2019 Reflections on "Bird in the Room" (2015, Israel, 67 min) The 41 movies added to this site in January 2019 Recently Added FilmsRefugee LullabyThe State Against Mandela and the OthersAmerican FactoryTorchGranny Knows BestPetting ZooSweaterAbsolutely No Spitting99 (short)The Rabbi Goes WestBlogroll Amy Kronish' Israeli Film blog Rabbis at the Movies Tzivi's Second City Vision Nest Media Projects JewishFilmFestivals.org JewishBookWorld.org FilmAndReligion.com by VisionNest.com/PGabor.com


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Thank you for your coverage of the Henry County High School Senior project program.
I was asked to help judge one night of the student presentations. I was impressed by the evidence of hard work by both the teachers involved and the students themselves. The respect the students showed the judges was complete.
The school system should be applauded for their support of the senior project. I am grateful to have seen a bit of the results and hope more in the community will be so fortunate.
Tanya Berry
Port Royal
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The following is an excerpt from Duff McKagan's memoir, It's So Easy: And Other Lies, out now via Simon & Schuster. McKagan is a weekly columnist at our sister paper, seattleweekly.com/reverb. He's be signing books at the Barnes & Noble at South Coast Plaza at 2 p.m. on Saturday (901 B South Coast Drive, Costa Mesa). In the meantime, here's a bit of the highly readable, riveting book by the former Guns N' Roses bassist.
On Thursday, June 6, 1985, we played our first live show with the Appetite for Destruction lineup. The bill at the Troubadour in West Hollywood included Fineline, Mistreater, and, at the very bottom, Guns N' Roses. Slash's high school friend Marc Canter–he turned out to be part of the family that ran Canter's Deli–came and shot pictures. He made prints of each of us the next day so we'd have head shots to put up in the places we played on our tour. That was Friday.
On Saturday, June 8, Izzy Stradlin, Axl Rose, Slash, Steven Adler, and I got together to set out for Seattle, a happy bunch of malcontents about to hit the road in search of rock & roll glory, ready to live by our wits in order to prove ourselves and our musical vision–or not. At the very least we thought we had real musical chemistry. That much was obvious even before the tour started.
A friend of ours named Danny had a huge Buick LeSabre with a powerful
455 big-block V-8 engine and a trailer hitch. Seven of us crammed into
the car that Saturday afternoon: the five of us in the band, plus Danny
and another friend, Joe-Joe, who had signed up to serve as roadies.
These guys would go to the mat for us, really solid friends, and we were
glad they, too, had not blinked an eye in the face of the uncertainties
of a no-budget road trip. We rented a U-Haul trailer to carry our gear
behind the LeSabre. Our plan was to drive straight through to
Seattle–it would take something like twenty-one hours–and arrive there
at some point on Sunday. My buddy Donner was going to let us crash at
his house the first few nights before our show that Wednesday.
As we
rose up out of the "Grapevine," a writhing section of Interstate 5 just
south of Bakersfield, California, the car started to hiccup and cough
and rebel against the weight it had to shoulder in the blazing
late-afternoon heat of the San Joaquin Valley. By the time we passed
Bakersfield, a mere 105 miles out of L.A., Danny's car up and died. A
passing motorist stopped and tried to help, but the best he could do for
us was to go to the next gas station and call AAA. The hope of grilling
burgers the next evening in Donner's backyard quickly faded with the
realization that Danny's car was going nowhere at all until it had some
major work.
We were broke, hungry, and sweltering, hunkered down on
the side of the highway. Dusk slowly descended but the heat didn't
break. When the tow truck showed up, the mechanic was a bit put off to
find a whole gang of sweaty, skinny rock guys who wanted to ride in his
truck. We ended up walking to the next off-ramp, where there was a truck
stop and gas station.
At that point, removed from the whizzing cars,
we took stock of the situation. It was the middle of the night. We had
thirty-seven dollars between us. If we went back to L.A., we would
obviously not be doing this tour. That was not an option, regardless of
our current dilemma. We decided that the five of us–along with three
guitars–should hitchhike, continuing north while Danny and Joe tried to
get the car fixed. They could then catch up, uniting us with our gear
either along the way or in Seattle.
I called Kim Warnick of the
Fastbacks from the gas station. Our first gig in Seattle was opening for
them. I began to explain the situation. Actually I had to go back
further and fill her in on the lineup change that had taken place since I
set up the show.
"So Izzy, Axl, and I convinced Slash–"
"Izzy, Axl, Slash–and Duff," she said. "What kind of names are those?"
"Well, there is a guy named Steven."
said it would be no problem for us to use the Fastbacks' gear if Danny
wasn't able to get up there in time. Okay, that part was taken care of
and now it was time to find a ride, someone willing to transport five
guys and their guitars–a tall order for sure.
We knew it was going
to be tough to hitchhike in such a big group. To make clear the
magnitude of the task at hand, I should add that even though I was in my
full-length leather pimp coat, I was not the most menacing-looking
among us. Even someone who'd be willing to stop for one bedraggled
rocker would never take us all. So we decided to try to catch a ride
with a northbound trucker. Truckers had those big empty sleeper cabs and
would surely love to have some company, right? Someone to talk to on
that long and lonely stretch of I-5 that runs up through California's
agricultural outback.
We approached several truck drivers and finally
found one willing to give us a lift as far as Medford, Oregon, in
exchange for our pooled cash. That was his end destination, and for us
it was six hundred miles closer to our first out-of-town gig. It was a
win for both parties: he would get thirty-seven bucks and we would be
heading north at highway speeds.
It was obvious right from the start
that this particular trucker was a speed-freak, and that our
thirty-seven dollars would be used to supplement his habit. He had
probably already been up for a few days, and riding with him in that
state in a huge semi truck was a risky endeavor. Fuck it. We were on a
mission. Do or die, we were going to make it to Seattle.
I was hoping
Kim would spread the word in Seattle that we had broken down and were
on the road without a car. Maybe someone would be willing to come down
to Portland to pick us up if we made it that far on our own. For now, we
piled into the eighteen-wheeler, guitars and all. The other four guys
climbed into the sleeper cab. It was tight. I rode shotgun in the
passenger seat up front.
The guy couldn't believe our story.
"Let me get this straight," he said. "You guys are fucking hitchhiking to a gig–a thousand miles away?"
"Yep," I said.
"And you don't have any equipment–or even any food?"
"Well, yeah, but our equipment . . . "
"I don't mean to sound like a prick, but, I mean, can't you play anywhere in Los Angeles?"
tried to explain the swashbuckling magic of playing to strangers, in
strange places, us-against-them, us-against-the-world . . . winning over
listeners a few at a time.
He shrugged.
The drug-induced sleep
deprivation started to take its toll on our driver about two hundred
miles into the drive. By the time we hit Sacramento in the morning, he
said he needed to rest his eyes and clear his head of the speed demons.
It was okay with me. I had been talking with the dude for this first
part of the ride and noticed that he kept looking into his sideview
mirrors and sort of jumping around in his seat. This kind of stuff
happens when you don't sleep for several days. I had a little bit of
experience with speed from my teenage years, enough to know what was
happening to the driver.
Sacramento sits at the top of the arid
central California valley–the area became a center of agriculture only
with the aid of intense irrigation. When it's hot in the valley,
Sacramento always has the highest temperatures. Our venture into the
valley coincided with an absolutely scorching heat wave. Now, for some
reason, the driver stopped in front of the state capitol building.
right, boys, I'm going to need you to hop out here." We didn't know
what to say, and were in no position to argue anyway. "I've got to take
care of something," said the driver. "But I'll be back for you, don't
worry." Yeah, right. I was convinced our driver had just tricked us and
left us behind. I'm sure the rest of the guys shared the same suspicion.
We were left sitting on the curb.
No one said a word. No one even made a face, sighed, or raised an eyebrow.
we sat there in front of the capitol, wilting in the heat, exposed to
the intense sun, it became clear: as of this moment, Guns N' Roses was
no longer a band, but the band–our band. These are my fucking boys–
they're willing to fight through anything. I already knew this trip had
set a new benchmark for what we were capable of, what we could and would
put ourselves through to achieve our goals as a band. This band became a
brotherhood under that oppressive Sacramento sun. Fuck yeah!
as I sat there silently rhapsodizing about my friends and our collective
determination, the eighteen-wheeler suddenly pulled up and the driver
"Let's roll, boys," he said. He had actually come back to
pick us up. Unbelievable. "You have a fucking show to get to!" he said. I
hopped back in the passenger seat. He was cranked out of his mind.
must have dropped us off to go score some more speed, and to this day I
have no idea how, in that state, he remembered to come back for us.
That afternoon, just after Redding, I cautiously suggested we pull over
at the next rest stop and take a break. I could see it was getting even
more dangerous being in a huge moving vehicle with him. He had huge
black circles under his eyes and he was sweating profusely. By some
miracle, he agreed–and he actually slept there for a few hours while we
just hung out nearby, trying to be as quiet as possible. We had no
money for booze or food. I'm not sure what Izzy had with him, but he
wasn't showing any signs of withdrawal yet. After the driver came to, he
took us the final hundred and fifty miles up to Medford. "I'm actually
sorry I can't take you any farther," he said. "Shit, I might even try to
make it up there myself on Wednesday for your show."
It was now
Sunday evening. We found a pay phone to check in with our contact person
in L.A., who Danny was supposed to call with an update on the
broken-down car. Danny hadn't been able to get the car fixed yet. The
replacement part would have to be shipped down to Bakersfield from San
Francisco on a business day.
With no money left, our only hope now
was to straight-up hitchhike on the side of the freeway. From a less
determined perspective, it would have seemed a hopeless long shot that
anyone would pick up five fucked-up-looking guys with their guitars–if
anyone even had enough space. But we didn't see it that way at all then.
We just had no alternative.
After only about forty-five minutes, a
Mexican farmworker in a Datsun compact pickup pulled over to give us a
ride. In broken English, he made us understand that he was going only as
far as Eugene, Oregon, but that we were welcome to pile into the back.
After only a few miles, it became painfully obvious to us that this ride
would not last. The little pickup couldn't bear the weight; the wheel
wells kept pressing down on the back tires and began to take rubber
right off of them. Our victorious feeling from just moments earlier sank
as the man pulled over to drop us off. I will never forget how
apologetic he was. I hope to this day he realized how grateful we were
to him for at least trying to help us.
Back on the side of the road,
we started to walk while we thumbed. I knew how far it was to the next
town because I had driven back and forth from Seattle to San Francisco
more than a few times on tours; it was too far to walk, that's for sure.
But as driven as we were at that point, we thought at least we would be
making headway. So we walked.
Eventually we found ourselves in the
middle of an onion field. When you're hungry and don't know where and
when your next meal is coming, you can eat almost anything. Those were
the best damn onions I've ever eaten. At that moment they tasted as
sweet as apples.
After a few more hours of walking, I was only
slightly aware of the passing cars. No one was going to pick us up, I
thought to myself. My hope was that maybe we would come to a farmhouse
with a phone and I could call Donner or Kim up in Seattle. Maybe someone
would be able to come get us.
By morning, I was so fucking hungry
and thirsty. We all were. Just then, a full-size pickup swerved to the
side of the road and stopped in front of us. Two women in their
mid-thirties told us to get in the back. They were sorry, they said, and
explained they had passed us without picking us up when they first saw
us. They were scared. But then they had talked about the way they, too,
had been passed so many times on the roadside as hippies back in the
early 1970s; they scolded each other, turned around at the next exit,
and came back for us.
They asked us if we were hungry. We were. They
asked us if we were thirsty. We were. They asked us if we were broke. We
were. They pulled over at the next gas station, bought us sandwiches
and beer, and told us they could take us all the way up to Portland.
Almost three hundred miles! These women were like angels sent from
heaven. Food and drink never tasted so fucking good. Friendship from
strangers couldn't have come at a better time.
I tried Donner's number from a pay phone at the gas station and he actually answered.
here's the deal. We broke down in Bakersfield and we've been
hitchhiking for a day and a half. We're in Medford now and some girls
are going to drive us as far as Portland. We'll be there early this
Donner grew pot. He had grow operations going in a couple
of unused buildings. He always had dough. And he had already met some
of the other members of the band–Donner had visited me in L.A.
I asked him, "Can you help us out somehow?"
we started talking: could he arrange bus tickets maybe? Then he blurted
out, "Fuck that, I'll pick you up. We're going to have a party at my
house tonight, we'll have a feast, there'll be girls, it's going to be a
Seattle welcome."
We made it to Portland on Monday afternoon, and
Donner was there. By the time we arrived in Seattle, it seemed everyone I
knew had apparently heard of our trials. They welcomed us with open
arms, open liquor bottles, and open drug stashes. People in Seattle knew
me as a drinker–they knew that as a result of my panic attacks I was
not into drugs back then. For this reason, I guess, nobody offered
anything hard. I think Izzy was a bit disappointed by this, and by then
perhaps a tad sick from withdrawal.
Donner had, however, baked a
batch of pot brownies. I think they were intended for people who would
be coming over to the party later that night–people familiar with the
potency of local weed.
Izzy just needed to catch a buzz off
something, and I guess he thought pot brownies would be a lightweight
short-term fix. Axl followed suit so Izzy wouldn't be alone.
"This shit is strong," Donner warned them. They ignored him.
the 1980s, Seattle led the nation in the fine art of hydroponic pot
growing. I'm not sure why the city excelled at it so, but the weed up
there was getting potent. Really potent. Around 1982, a new strain of
weed was developed for the basement water growers–the luckiest and most
deep-pocketed started to cultivate what would be known as "a-strain"
and later as "chronic." Up in the Northwest, we knew the strength of
this shit, and also knew it was nothing to trifle with. It was like a
mix between a strong muscle relaxer and LSD. Until you knew what was
right for you, the best thing to do was to take just the tiniest puff
and see where that got you; you had to build up a sort of tolerance.
thing I knew, Axl and Izzy went and curled up on Donner's couch with
wide, scared eyes. I went over to make sure they were all right.
the fuck did they put in these brownies?" Izzy asked me. Nothing, I
assured them, it was just very strong weed. "No way, man," he said. "I
think there's acid in here." They were completely paranoid. I told them
not to worry. I felt horrible. I was hyper-sensitive to what my new
bandmates were experiencing that first day in Seattle. They were a
curiosity to my friends, that's for sure. But we were all dead tired and
hungry, and I wanted to make sure that Axl, Izzy, Slash, and Steven
were well taken care of. I was proud of my city and my friends and
wanted to cast them in the best light. It took Izzy and Axl hours and
hours and a lot of beers to come down off of their first a-strain high.
Fortunately, by the time the party started to get into full swing, they
were returning to earth. But to this day, I am sure, they still think
they were dosed with something.
Donner threw a barn-burner that night: barbecue, beer, girls. Life was suddenly really, really good.
Joe-Joe, and our gear still hadn't arrived when we played the show on
Wednesday night at Gorilla Garden. We were sloppy on borrowed gear,
though on the plus side only about a dozen people were subjected to our
set. Kurt Bloch of the Fastbacks is always nice, and made a point of
telling all the guys we had played great. We knew we were better than
the actual gig–or at least we now knew we would be. The important thing
for us was that we had made it there at all. Together.
After the
Fastbacks set, we helped pack up their gear then hung out for a while
with the crowd at the club–which was pretty much just old friends of
mine at that point. Hanging out, of course, meant drinking, and drinking
One of the people I was most glad to see was Big Jim
Norris. He was a tough guy from the wrong side of the tracks who had
finally found a comfort zone in our little Seattle punk-rock scene. Jim
had always had his struggles with drugs and drink, but he was one of
those guys who had the spirit of life in his eyes. Jim was a leader. And
when I left for Los Angeles, he made it a point to keep in touch. Once I
got my apartment, he sent me letters, and we talked on the phone when
we could afford to. Our friendship had actually deepened since I left.
as the place cleared out, the members of Guns went back to the club
owner's office to pick up our gig money, no doubt looking like a pack of
hungry wolves. When I had booked the show, I somehow managed to finagle
a $200 guarantee out of the venue. Of course, I hadn't gotten a
contract–not for this show or for any of the others. But then again,
I'd never gotten a contract. Back in the day, punk shows were always
handshake deals–and often the handshake part was just implicit because
you had to come to terms over the phone. Our plan now was to wire this
first $200 to Danny and Joe-Joe the next day and continue the tour.
English was not the owner's first language, but he quickly made it clear that he wasn't going to pay us.
were stunned. I tried to reason with the guy. Then I played the
sympathy card, telling him of our plight and our long journey, of the
sunburn and hunger, of onion fields and tweaking truckers. But the club
owner didn't give a shit.
"You not bring any people to show," he said. "How I pay when I no have money from ticket?"
made vague–and then probably more explicit–threats of violence. He
held the office phone in his hand ready to speed-dial the police, and
made sure we understood this.
Eventually we left his office and went back into what was now a deserted club.
"Fuck that asshole," said Axl. "We went through HELL to get here and play this show. And he treats us like scum?"
Suddenly there was just one thought in my head. It was the only solution I could see. The only way to get justice.
"Let's burn this fucking place down!"
The members of the band looked around the empty club and at one another. There were no objections.
"Let's burn it the fuck down," I said again.
Axl and I threw matches into a garbage can full of paper toweling, and we all hauled ass outside.
Nothing happened.
had failed as arsonists, but the mere attempt was enough to exorcise
our ill will for the night. And it may have saved us a stint in the
After running out of the Gorilla Garden, we went out to see a
local band called Soundgarden. The initial rumblings of what would
become the Seattle sound were just starting to happen then. Buzzing on
our newly solidified camaraderie–and plenty of booze–we stormed the
stage when they were done and asked to play a few songs on their gear.
They looked at us blankly and explained in the nerdy kind of way a kid
on a playground might respond to a request to share his toys, "Um, no,
that's our gear."
It didn't matter. Nothing could bring us down that night: we had played an out-of-town show.
next day we found out we had also played our last out-of-town show for a
while. Danny and Joe-Joe weren't going to make it. That didn't matter
either. The shake-out tour had already accomplished everything I had
hoped and more.
One of Donner's friends drove us all the way back to
L.A. a few days later, and we arrived home a genuine band–a gang with
the shared experience of a road trip gone wrong, an out-of-town gig, and
the knowledge that we were all fully committed to Guns N' Roses.


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BOLIVIA — The Brunswick Community College women's basketball team beat Patrick Henry Community College 66-61 Sunday, Jan. 5, the Dinah E. Gore Fitness & Aquatics Center gym.
For BCC, Kenedra Smith scored 18 points, Kima Sidberry 13 and Crystal Hicks 10.
BCC led 34-19 at the half but a four-point play by the Patriots cut the lead to 38-37 with 14 minutes, 15 seconds left. PHCC led 43-42 with 10 minutes left, but back-to-back baskets by Hicks gave BC a 48-45 lead. The game remained close thereafter.
BOLIVIA — Caldwell Community College beat Brunswick Community College 77-68 Dec. 21 in the final game of the BCC Holiday Basketball Classic.
For the host Dolphins, Montez Loman scored 16 points, Cam Jones 15 and Kalil Stuart 12. Taylor Buffkin started and scored six points.
The first half was close early. A basket by the Dolphins' Anthony Williams tied the score 17-all. A rebound by Buffkin cut the lead to 25-23, but a 3-pointer at the halftime buzzer gave Caldwell a 35-27 lead.
The Brunswick Community College men's basketball team beat Port City Sports Authority 98-84 Saturday, Dec. 14, in the Dinah E. Gore Fitness & Aquatics Center gym.
BCC improved to 8-4. PCSA is a two-year preparatory school in North Charleston, S.C., and student-athletes compete in a sport while taking college credit courses.
BOLIVIA — The Brunswick Community College women's basketball team outscored Tidewater Community College 14-2 late in the fourth quarter en route to a 70-60 victory Sunday, Dec. 8, at the Dinah E. Gore Fitness & Aquatics Center gym.
Crystal Hicks hit five 3-pointers and scored 19 points. Tyesha McLean scored 13 of her 16 points in the second half. Katrina Brown scored nine points as the Dolphins improved to 5-3. TCC fell to 1-9.
By Sarah Sue Ingram
Beacon correspondent
If timing is everything, then give Swiss watches to Crystal Hicks and Kenedra Smith.
Hicks swished a 3-pointer for the go-ahead basket and Smith grabbed the game's most important rebound to lead Brunswick Community College to a come-from-behind 57-52 win over Spartanburg Methodist College on Sunday, Nov. 17.
The Brunswick Community College men's basketball team opened its home season beating the South Carolina Sports Academy 117-107 Wednesday, Nov. 13.
Cam Jones scored 27 points, Kalil Stuart 23, Keynan Pittman 15, Taylor Buffkin 12, Montez Loman 10 and Chris Pompey nine.
A 3-pointer by Pompey gave the Dolphins a 19-19 lead but SCSA tied the scored 24-24 with 9 minutes, 21 seconds left in the first half. BCC scored its last six points of the half on a dunk by Pittman and two dunks by Jones.
Coach Joe Gaughan begins his second year as coach of the Brunswick Community College women's basketball team with his first full recruiting class.
Briahna Dickerson is a 5-foot-8 guard from St. James High School who was team captain her senior year and averaged nearly 10 points per game.
Chantay Smith is a 5-foot-5 guard from East Carteret High School in Beaufort. She averaged 17 points per game her senior year and had a career single-game high of 32 points.
BOLIVIA — Having signed seven players from the last year's Brunswick Community College men's basketball team to four-year colleges, coach Walter Shaw faced a year of rebuilding and low expectations.
Despite the turnover, Shaw anticipates an exciting 2013-14 season for the Dolphins.
BCC plays its first home game at 7 p.m. Nov. 13 at the Dinah E. Gore Fitness & Aquatics Center gym against South Carolina Sports Academy.
The BCC baseball team beat College of The Albemarle 5-0 in nine innings and 6-5 in eight innings in a doubleheader Saturday at Founders Field.
In the first game, Zachary Andrews (9-1) gave up four hits in nine innings. He walked one and struck out four. He also picked off a runner at first in the fourth and in the eighth.
In the third, BCC scored when Deese singled, went to second on Allen's groundout and scored on Corbett's single past the shortstop.
BOLIVIA—The Brunswick Community College baseball team beat Lenoir 8-0 and 4-2 in seven-inning games Saturday at Founders Field.
In the first game, started Zachary Andrews (5-1) gave up three hits in seven innings. He struck out seven and walked none.
BCC (14-4) finished with 12 hits, and two of those were home runs by Ryan Brendle and Johnathan Corbett.
Copyright © 2019
The Brunswick Beacon is your source for local news, sports, events and information in Brunswick County, North Carolina and surrounding areas.


text:
2009-10: In the fall, competed at both the Great American XC Festival and the Panorama Farms Invitational, running a season-best 25:37.82 at the Panorama Farms ... indoors, ran in the mile, 3,000m and DMR events ... in the mile, clocked 4:05.68, the No. 3 all-time Duke performance, to finish fourth at the Virginia Tech Classic ... turned in a season-best 8:21.28 time over 3,000m to place ninth at the Armory Collegiate in New York ... member of the school-record-setting DMR squad that clocked 9:34.39 at the Alex Wilson Invitational on Mar. 5 ... during the outdoor season, turned in the No. 5 Duke performance in the 1,500m with a 3:42.77 showing at the Carolina Fast Times ... won his second consecutive ACC individual title in the 3,000m steeplechase, clocking 8:56.01 ... garnered All-East honors in the steeplechase with an 8:51.90 showing at the IC4A Championships on May 14 ... at the NCAA First Round, ran a personal-best 8:44.36, also the No. 2 performance at Duke, to qualify for the NCAA Championships in Eugene, Ore. ... finished 20th at the NCAA Championships in 8:55.47 ... finished out the season at the USATF National Championships
2008-09: Building his fall strength as a member of the cross country team, earned All-East honors as Duke's sixth man on the IC4A Championship team ... indoors, became No. 4 all-time at Duke with an 8:16.92 clocking over 3,000m ... anchored the ACC fourth-place DMR with a 4:08.40, 1,600m split ... in a 25-hour time-span, ran a 4:08.77 mile to earn a spot in the finals, then anchored the 4x800m relay with a 1:53.30 split to send the squad to the finals ... in the IC4A mile finals, earned All-East recognition with a seventh-place 4:09.72 ... his fourth and final effort was a 1:54.90 anchor in the 4x800m relay to close out a 7:33.32 time, the No. 4 all-time indoor performance at Duke, to earn another All-East honor ... outdoors, lowered his 3,000m steeplechase personal best three times, first with a 9:00.23 at the Duke Invitational, then the ACC gold medal effort in 8:56.45 and finally a fifth-place, 8:52.36 at the IC4A Championships to earn his fourth All-East honor of the year.
2007-08: Ran a personal-best 25:17.9 over 8K at the ACC Cross Country Championships on Oct. 27 ... indoors, lowered his 3,000m personal best four times, starting with a win in his first collegiate race at UNC ... turned in an 8:28.91 time in New York, followed by an 8:24.04 showing at the ACC title meet ... posted the Duke freshman record 0f 8:18.22 in the 3,000m at the IC4A Championships, then the No. 4 performance at Duke ... outdoors, ran a then-personal-best 9:03.24 to win the Penn Relays college steeplechase ... qualified for the NCAA East Regional, placing 15th at the event ... ran under the IC4A qualifying time of 9:16.00 on four occasions.
Prior to Duke: Nike Outdoor National Championship in the 2,000m steeplechase ... USATF Junior National Champion in the 3,000m steeplechase ... ran fro Team USA at the Pan-Am Games in Brazil ... two-time high school All-America in the steeplechase ... selected to Millrose High School Mile Run at Madison Square Garden ... All-America team member in the 4x800m relay and the distance medley relay ... served as president of the National Honor Society ... graduated as class salutatorian.
Personal: Son of Mary and Michael McDermott ... born March 24, 1989 ... has two brothers, Sean ('07) and Kevin ('09), and one sister, Erin ... both brothers were members of the Duke cross country and track & field teams ... uncle, Kevin Murphy, ran cross country and track at Lehigh University (1990-93) ... majoring in Political Science.
Indoor PRs
1 Mile- 4:05.68 (2/20/2010)
Outdoor PRs
1500m- 3:42.77 (4/10/2010)
3K Steeplechase- 8:44.36 (5/29/2010)


text:
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I would like to inform you all about our recent activities that we are attempting to achieve.
First of all, we have totally rebuilt our web site. This new ones aim to be a central repository of all the (external/internal) news concerning botnets (mainly) and malwares (secondary).
We will use the blog for posting about our project developments, and for commenting/reporting interesting news concerning the field that we are currently treating, so you can now add a new entry to your feeds reader :) Read more »


text:
4 pieces tilapia fillet
Salt and pepper to taste
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
Olive oil
250 grams linguini;cooked
For Sauce:
1 can tomato chunks
3 cloves of garlic smashed
1 tbsp plus 2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup heavy cream
Salt and pepper to taste
1. Season fish with salt,pepper and pepper flakes. Set aside to marinade for 5 minutes.
2. Coat a medium sauce pan with olive oil. Heat over medium high heat. Add fish, cook for about 3 minutes/side, set aside
3. Add cooked noodles to the sauce pot. Heat noodles and cream sauce over high heat until it thickens.
4. Remove from heat and top with fish, pour remaining tomato cream sauce over fish
For sauce:
1. In a saucepot, combine tomatoes, garlic, 1 tbsp of olive oil and vinegar , mix until everything is evenly coated. Season with AJINOMOTO UMAMI
2. Boil and simmer then serve with pasta and fish.


text:
Epidemiology Exercises for Regional Response Teams
Please note: The files listed below are zipped files. You will be asked if you want to open file from current location or save to disk. Select save to disk and then select which directory to store file in. Files may take a few minutes to download. Files will be downloaded as a zipped file. They will need to be unzipped to view.
- Blurred Vision in the State Capitol - Works through initial reporting, case finding, evaluation, and response to an unusual cluster of symptoms. (Introductory Exercise)
- The Cruise Blues - Describes an outbreak of "flu-like" illness following a cruise. Focuses on case-finding and the subsequent epidemiology. There is an emphasis on interviewing, with several role-playing activities. (Northwestern Region Exercise) Note: This is a large (1.8 MB) download.
- March Madness - Explores Communication and jurisdictional issues between various entities, and when to notify "up the chain". (Eastern Region Exercise)
- Fall Football Affliction - Examines a number of individual case reports to determine their relationship and existence of a common event. (Southwestern Region Exercise)
- Just Another Weekend in a Sleepy College Town - Uses surveillance and Epi techniques to try to connect a number of disparate reports and determine the existence, cause and intervention of a possible outbreak. (Central Region Exercise)
- Fatal Pneumonia in the Heartland - Uses surveillance and medical record review to determine the possible source of a number of cases of atypical fatal pneumonia in a picturesque Southeastern Missouri Town. (Southeastern Region Exercise) Note: This is a large (5 MB) download


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text:
If I am honest, I do not actually look that forward to December. Oh I try, but I am usually dragged under by endeavoring to make this the Most Wonderful Time of the Year. People can say simplify and say no, which is good advice, but even with a lot of simplification and no-ing, this is still a month that gets to feeling like a 300 pound ape on your chest by oh say December 16.
One thing I have grown to look forward to, though, this time of year, is our family's annual trek to SeaWorld San Antonio. It's cool, the park is decked out to the holiday nines, and there are loads of special events. Before that, though, I get to camp out in the park with some people I really, really like. And this is a story best told in pictures...of all the things we did...
We started with a Polar Plunge. I know, everyone says blah blah blah Polar Plunge in Texas ha ha. It was 28 degrees, people. That's cold, and in the water? Really, really cold! But my friends Kami, Stacy and Alba did it for Special Olympics! So did the SeaWorld Communications team, which includes our intrepid friends Brian, Mason, Jeff and Steve...who went as very cold Richard Simmons.
Afterwards we toured the super cool decorations, which are organized into theme areas. I particularly liked the Have Yourself a Very Texas Christmas, which included a boot tree! We went to see our buddies the seals (Yoga Seal, my personal favorite -- a Harbor Seal, for the record -- was doing Zen meditation.
Here's the ALL TRUE part though you won't believe it: then we went backstage and met the sea lions, who we went on stage with (somewhere, someone has a photo and someday I will have proof. I stood on the stage with a sea lion.). On our way to the stage, we got to see the otters who can make me laugh just by sitting there. I snapped one of the sweet mates and YES I sang Muskrat Love. (If you don't know that song...LMGTFY.)
My favorite otters, the best posing seal, penguins (of course!) and a cactus wreath.
Next big adventure was Snow World. They took a huge space and made it a snowy winter wonderland, complete with sledding hill. In case you wondered, of course I slid down!
Right outside of Snow World was the most amazing snow globe that you could go inside. This is not photoshopped or a trick! We are really inside that snow globe. It's was hilarious and so fun, plus what a great photo.
Then I took a selfie in the snowglobe and oh my gosh it did not suck! So I included it here! Look! A decent photo of me!
Yeah we stole up on another stage and took photos because...STAGE and LIGHTS and CANDY CANES! My buddies who are so fun!
As usual, it was so much fun I had to promise to bring my family back during the holidays!


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REWARDS and RICHES
It's nice to work really hard and enjoy putting your feet up at the end of the day. Let's face it growing up on a soap opera and getting your hair, make up and wardrobe styled and kissing nice looking men isn't the same as working construction or being a school teacher. Truth be told I've never worked(stay at home mom) so hard in my damn life and I'm about to get a double dose. (second child is coming in early Sept) Working hard is good for the soul and mind. This isn't news to anyone, just something we all remember every once in awhile. Life to me was always going to be about having kids and getting the chance to learn how to be a kid again yourself. The Rewards and Riches of having a family far out way the pro's of the hedonistic life I used to live. Not that I don't long for those days, but the deep connection you fill with your partner and a growing sense of self is the ultimate. WOW...deep thoughts by Jack Handy(SNL). Right, snap out of it!
DON'T EVER come to San Francisco in July and August, it's just a foggy mess. Although, we do have a unbelievable music fest called OUTSIDELANDS in August that is not to be missed if you like great music. My morning Jacket and Kings of leon are headlining this year. Off to catch up on True Blood, Mad Men and I"m finally getting into the WIRE. Thank Goodness, for cable TV!
Here's to an epic AUGUST!
Christie Clark


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Home › Scene › Art Attack ›
Art Attack
THE PARTY The chic galleries of La Jolla join forces once a month with power openings and mingling during the village's Artist Walkabout. THE PLAYERS Quint Contemporary Art, Madison Gallery, Joseph Bellow, Scott White THE HIGHLIGHTS Orange County artist James Verbickey came to town for his opening at Madison Gallery; at Quint, there was the Troublesome exhibit, featuring old-guard conceptual artists Robert Barry and Mel Bochner. Meanwhile, at Scott White, artist James Rielly gave a "Walk and Talk"—with wine, of course. Photography by Tim Hardy and Brian Lockhart


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On September 11th, Muslim men hi-jacked several airplanes and flew them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and one of them crashed in rural Pennsylvania due to a passenger uprising that prevented it from hitting its target. This was only the second attack by Muslims on the World Trade Center, and followed a pattern of escalating violence by Muslims against our interests, such as bombing our embassies in Africa and an attack on the U.S.S. Cole.
Since these events, America has conducted military action against three Muslim nations – Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya – while supporting military actions of other nations against some other Muslim nations, namely Ethiopia against Somalia. Further, America would have also attacked Iran by now were Iran not so strong militarily and economically, and may yet attack Iran also down the line if forced to.
So, we are in a war against Islam, correct? A thousand times no. No less than George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Barack Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton and a number of other people in positions of power have made it clear: this is not a war against Islam! Instead, it is a war against terrorism, or a war on terror. In other words, this is not a religious war – for the United States and its principle allies are secular – but an ideological war. So, the United States, and indeed a international community which now must necessarily include the United Nations thanks to their recent resolution authorizing military force in Libya, is committed to waging ideological warfare.
Make no mistake: the problem with Saddam Hussein, Usama bin Laden, Muammar Qadaffi, the Republic of Iran etc. is not that they are Muslims. If you want further evidence of that, witness Peter King's hearings. Despite the claims of the liberals in the media otherwise, the target was not Muslims as a religion, or as a people or culture who are given over to this barbaric cult born of a demon who abused and entered into M0hammed. (Please note: Christians are to love our neighbors and our enemies, so the teachings of the sermon on the mount of Jesus Christ most certainly applies to our interactions with Muslims.) Instead, it was "radical" Muslims, meaning those who are "anti-American", or "anti-western" or "anti-democracy." (Please note: opposing Israel is just fine.)
One may wonder why Great Britain, our most reliable ally in going to warfare in the Middle East, cares about a bunch of anti-American Muslims. Or why the United Nations, which is weakening Iran with sanctions, did the same to Iraq, and now authorized military action against Libya, cares about being "anti-western." The answer: these things, especially being "anti-democracy", are merely euphemisms, stand-ins, for opposing the new world order. That is why Abu Mazen, or Mahmoud Abbas, despite being a Muslim terrorist with the blood of innocent Jews on his hands and longtime member of the terrorist P.L.O., is not the target of a war on terror. This Abbas is the leader of a U.N. funded and supported Palestinian Authority, and oft states his desire to create a democracy in Palestine that will be pro-western and pro-United Nations, and a model for other Arab and Muslim regimes. That is why Abbas gets a blank check (both literally and figuratively) from the international community, and Qaddafi gets bombs. (And keep in mind: the international community, including the Bush administration, courted Qaddafi for years, including endorsing his plans to work to centralize the governments and militaries of Africa, before turning on him when he refused to step down in favor of a democratic government.)
So, if being a "terrorist" is not a function of A) your religion, B) your nationality, C) your culture, D) your own membership in a known terrorist organization that affiliates with other terror organizations and regimes and E) your own personal terrorist acts (again, all of which would indict Abbas) but is instead being one who opposes the prevailing worldly ideology, where does that leave Christians who adhere to a legitimate New Testament faith? Precisely.
Rather than going to war against Muslims, the goal is to get Muslims to join the U.N., to join NATO, to join the EU, to participate in these globalist concerns. Muslim Turkey, which persecutes Christians to the outrage of absolutely no one of influence, is very influential in the U.N., a member of NATO and will ultimately join the EU. Right now, a carrot or stick approach is being taken with the Muslim world. Join the emerging world order, and you get a carrot. Refuse, and you get a stick, and replaced with leaders who will take the carrot. Again, this is not a function of the Muslim faith, culture or proclivity to violent jihad. Instead, it is a function of the support for the coming global consensus.
As it is with Muslims, so will it soon be with Christians. Germany, who persecuted legitimate Christians during the reign of Hitler, is now jailing Christians who object to their wicked public education system. One family took their case to the EU on religious freedom grounds, and the EU sided with the German government. At least one African nation is now taking similar actions against Christian parents who homeschool, claiming that it violates the United Nation's "rights of the child" treaty. Many other examples abound.
Make no mistake: one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. The day will come when being willing to publicly stand for the freedom from sin that comes from being a bondslave to Jesus Christ will cause you to be labeled a terrorist. This will not be merely because of the stands that Christianity takes against abortion, homosexuality and other moral/family issues. As the movie "The Time Changer" succinctly stated, Satan is not against good morals and values, but he is against Jesus Christ and His church, those who keep His commandments and bear His testimony.
Merely being a Christian will be a crime, whether you are a conservative culture warrior who pickets abortion clinics and hands out tracts at "gay pride" events, or a Christian who is relatively liberal on all points that do not transgress the Bible. And when that day comes, the terrorist will be the Christian, and the war will be against the Christian. These days will climax during the time of the great tribulation, when the anti-Christ will be given power to make war against the saints, and to overcome (most of) them. Many Christians will endure great tribulation, including a martyr's death. Will you stand in those days?
So, Christian, knowing what the "war on terror" will ultimately lead to, how counterproductive is it, how worldly and revealing the lack of a mind renewed from it, would it be to support this abomination NOW? The answer is yours.
If you are not a Christian, make no mistake: being an enemy of the world and its wickedness is part of friendship with Jesus Christ. The good news is that this world and its wickedness will be destroyed and Jesus Christ and His saints will reign forever! You can be a part of this reign by repenting of your worldliness, your sins and:


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Ex-lawmakers do get special access
Companies such as FedEx, Comcast and General Motors have spent big money to win recent significant battles on Capitol Hill.
And their government affairs divisions share a commonality: an impressive roster of former congressional members.
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They're hardly alone: 188 different corporations, organizations and other special interest groups employed at least two former members of Congress to lobby the federal government last year, according to disclosure records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Of them, 45 hired at least three former members, 17 at least four, the center's records show.
Many corporations and organizations say that a former member of Congress is an important, if expensive, weapon in a lobbying arsenal.
It's a person who knows the system inside out and has unmatched personal connections.
"They will at least see you and meet with you, in most cases," said former Rep. Martin Frost (D-Texas), who served in Congress from 1979 to 2005, and is now a lawyer and lobbyist for Polsinelli Shughart. "If a former member called me when I was in Congress, I would see them. It's a courtesy."
Says former Rep. Kenny Hulshof (R-Mo.), who served in Congress from 1997 to 2009 and now also works for Polsinelli Shughart: "If there is an advantage to being a former member, it's getting those face-to-face meetings with current members."
Telecom giant AT&T last year led all others with eight former members. Comcast, FedEx, LightSquared, General Electric, GM, Space Exploration Technologies, Verizon Communications and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce followed with five each.
Former members played key government affairs roles last year as FedEx prevailed over the United Parcel Service in a pitched battle over labor organizing.
Comcast, for its part, won its regulatory bid to merge with NBCUniversal.
Given such stakes, large companies that don't pay what's often a modest premium for former members' clout, cachet and knowledge risk placing themselves at a competitive disadvantage.
And now, even in an election year, when major legislation is scarce, there are few concrete indications that companies and organizations — SpaceX is one exception — are terminating contracts with former congressmen-turned-lobbyists, choosing instead to keep them in their fold.
At any given time, there are "several complex policy issues that have a significant effect on GM's business, the livelihood of thousands of employees and the overall competitiveness of American manufacturing," GM spokeswoman Carolyn Markey said. "As such, it would not be unusual that some who would help us in the exercise of our right to petition our government might have previous congressional experience."


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Barack Obama's much-vaunted eloquence faces the biggest test of his presidential career this week when he takes to the stage at West Point military academy to explain to a nation that thought it had elected an anti-war president why he is escalating the conflict in Afghanistan.
After almost three months of agonizing, nine war councils and endless leaks, the president will finally make his views known on Tuesday when he is expected to announce that he is sending about 30,000 more troops. This will push up American forces to 100,000 and the total number of allied forces to almost 140,000, as many troops as the Soviet Union had in Afghanistan.
The carefully chosen backdrop cannot disguise Obama's dilemma. Somehow he has to convince his own public that the United States has an exit strategy and will not become bogged down, as it did in Vietnam, while making clear to the Taliban and Pakistan that it has not lost its resolve and will stay as long as it takes.
Obama's toughest challenge will be to win over his most loyal political supporters. He is facing a growing revolt in the Democratic party over why the US needs to be in Afghanistan at all when the real threat - Al-Qaeda - is in Pakistan, and over the spiraling cost in both lives and dollars.
"I think the operative question is why we're there," said Anna Eshoo, a Democratic congresswoman who sits on the House intelligence committee. "That's what I'll be wanting to hear from the president."
Eshoo, who represents a seat in California where unemployment is at a post-war high of 12.5%, is one of a growing number of voices in the party questioning whether the nation can afford the war.
The annual bill for the extra troops is estimated at $30 billion (£18.2 billion), on top of the $10 billion-a-month the war is costing. "We're still not out of Iraq and we're getting deeper into Afghanistan, both of which are hugely expensive," she said.
She has joined David Obey, a Democratic congressman from Wisconsin, to introduce legislation that would impose a surtax on all taxpayers to fund the war. "It doesn't seem fair that the sacrifice is being made only by military and their families," she said.
In a sign of White House concern over the issue Obama invited Peter Orszag, the budget director, to sit in on his final round of deliberations on the Afghanistan strategy last week. "There is serious unrest in our caucus ... can we afford this war?" said Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker.
Obey's proposal would impose a 1% surtax on anyone earning less than $150,000 a year, and up to 5% on those earning more. It was an idea put into practice by President Lyndon Johnson, who brought in a temporary 10% surtax to help pay for the Vietnam war.
Democrats fear that stepping up the conflict at a time when unemployment is at a 26-year high of 10.2% will rebound on them in the mid-term elections next November.
"I think it threatens his domestic agenda pretty substantially," said Bruce Buchanan, a professor of government at the University of Texas. "That's what a lot of other Democrats like Pelosi are worried about right now."
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For this reason Obama's speech will emphasize that sending more troops does not mean a never ending commitment to the war. "The president will ... underscore for the American people that this is not an open-ended conflict," said Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman.
Obama has come under much criticism from the military at home and abroad and both sides of the political spectrum for the amount of time he has taken to decide whether to back recommendations made by General Stanley McChrystal, the American commander in Afghanistan, to send more troops "or risk failure".
Obama is expected to back a compromise proposal from Robert Gates, his defence secretary, to send 30,000 troops. This is less than the 40,000-plus requested by McChrystal, but he hopes to make up the shortfall with 10,000 extra soldiers from NATO countries. NATO defense ministers are meeting this week but an official admitted its contribution is likely to be more like 5,000.
There is still more backing for the war in the US than in Britain - a poll last week showed slightly more Americans in favor of escalating the war than cutting troop levels. But this support comes largely from Obama's political opponents, while those who voted for him and who will be crucial to re-electing Democrats in Congress next year are skeptical.
"Voters, particularly women, thought they had elected an anti-war president to get them out of Iraq, not to get them deeper into Afghanistan," said Karen O'Connor, director of the Women & Politics Institute at American University in Washington.
With the 21,000 extra troops Obama agreed in February, he will have authorized more than 50,000 this year.
The situation in Afghanistan was far worse than he realized during the campaign and has deteriorated since his election last November.
The president will need all his resolve in the coming months. Military commanders admit that sending more troops will mean more casualties, though they hope that the McChrystal strategy of pulling troops back to the main cities and highways will show some results. The Americans are anxious to avoid getting entangled in remote valleys and villages fighting the Taliban.
The biggest obstacle to success may be the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, who started his second term in office earlier this month after a deeply flawed election.
Officials will be watching closely to see whether he brings in warlords to his cabinet and what he does about his brother, Ahmed Wali, reputed to be heavily involved in opium smuggling.
Wali was in Mecca last week. "He went to repent," laughed a close adviser to Karzai. "He thinks that's enough."


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BBC News
- Andrew Harper death: Man charged with newlywed PC's murder
- Boris Johnson: UK 'will be ready' for no-deal Brexit
- No-deal papers reveal council fears over food supply
- Elton John defends Harry and Meghan's use of private jets
- Edinburgh Fringe: Tourette's charity wants apology over award-winning joke
- Boys sentenced for trashing Stamford model railway show
- Costa Coffee: Employees call £200 deductions for training 'unfair'
- Man shot dead in Waringstown, County Down
- Brexit: EU migration rules 'to end straight after no-deal'
- Fermanagh bomb: PSNI plea for political progress after murder bid
- 'Most unusual' vehicle stopped on M25 in Hertfordshire
- Prince Andrew 'appalled' by Jeffrey Epstein's sex abuse claims
- Knife crime curfew plan for 12 year olds
- 'My Instagram got hacked and I lost my business'
- Knife crime chicken boxes to be taken back to government
- No-deal Brexit: What is the UK government doing to prepare?
- Essex cyclist tops 174mph in speed challenge
- Five ways UK farmers are tackling climate change
- The playground for quality dad-and-kids time... in a prison
- Pregnant and depressed: 'I feared they'd take my child if I admitted how I felt'
- Stop and search: What are your rights?
- Man's wildflower garden gains attention
- Building Salisbury Cathedral out of matchsticks
- Royal approval for Berkshire woman's Kenyan charity
- Didcot power station towers demolished
- Artist Adam Riches: 'I turned drawing doodles into a career'
- Marchioness disaster: Thames historic vessels 'still not modernised'
- Four-year-old Leicestershire boy completes 50th Parkrun
- Call for crackdown on junk food price deals to tackle obesity
- Harland and Wolff workers 'buoyant' over shipyard's future
- 999 ambulance target times 'should be reinstated for stroke victims'
Local Pubs in RAWCLIFFEBRIDGE:
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Estate planning: not just for the wealthy
Some people may hear 'estate planning' and think it only applies to millionaires or billionaires; those people who have a vast fortune to divvy up once they pass on. The truth is you don't have to be uber wealthy to make plans to distribute your possessions. In fact, you don't have to be wealthy at all.
"The truth is you don't have to be uber wealthy to make plans to distribute your possessions."
Planning your estate
Planning your estate basically means you get to decide how your possessions will be distributed after you die. It also eases the burden of decision making on your loved ones during their bereavement. Here are a few tips to help you get started:
- List your assets
It's hard to design an effective estate plan without first having a complete list of what you own – real estate, bank accounts, investments, family heirlooms, etc. Update the list periodically.
- Draft a will
A will is a written legal document that dictates the distribution of your property after your death. If you die without a valid will, state law will not only govern the distribution of your estate, but could also decide the guardianship for your children.
- Update your beneficiary information
Make it an annual event to check and update your beneficiary information. This due diligence can help save your loved ones from the burden and cost of probate.
An up-to-date estate plan is part of saving for retirement. Let us help you develop an estate plan, as well as outline the action steps and strategies that will help you achieve your estate planning goals.


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As a U.S. congressman probes for answers to why the NCAA has not dug into the academic scandal at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, the association is working on a "clarification" of its regulations as they relate to academic misconduct.
As a U.S. congressman probes for answers to why the NCAA has not dug into the academic scandal at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, the association is working on a "clarification" of its regulations as they relate to academic misconduct.
At least two NCAA committees in recent weeks have been focusing on when academic misconduct rises to the level that it requires NCAA investigation. Members of those committees say their work is not specific to the scandal at UNC, but they are aware of it.
"You can't say that it's not there and on people's minds," said Carolyn Callahan, an education professor at the University of Virginia and a member of the NCAA's Division I Academic Cabinet. She said her committee has been working on the issue for two years.
Meanwhile, the NCAA's Division I Legislative Council produced a report last week also seeking to clarify academic misconduct cases. According to council records, "significant confusion" exists on the issue.
"The current interpretation creates confusion regarding the type of academic misconduct that results in an NCAA violation and does not specify who determines whether academic misconduct in violation of NCAA rules has occurred," a legislative council report said.
The NCAA so far has stayed out of the academic fraud case at UNC, despite numerous experts saying the circumstances at UNC appear to involve violations of NCAA regulations. The problems at UNC involve more than 200 suspected or confirmed lecture-style classes that never met and required only a paper at the end that typically received a high grade.
Athletes made up 45 percent of the enrollments, despite accounting for roughly 5 percent of the undergraduate population at UNC.
A question
of intent
The NCAA's ethical conduct standards say cases in which "knowing involvement in arranging for fraudulent academic credit or false transcripts for a prospective or an enrolled student-athlete" constitute a serious violation. But the NCAA has also had a hands-off policy in cases in which the fraud benefited athletes and nonathletes equally if it can't be shown that those on the athletic side had a hand in creating or perpetuating the benefits.
NCAA President Mark Emmert cited that "intent" criteria 15 months ago. But he also noted that questions remained as to whether the fraud equally benefited athletes and nonathletes.
Records obtained by The News &Observer show academically challenged freshman athletes being steered to the classes. UNC officials have not produced examples in which that happened with freshman nonathletes.
Earlier this month, U.S. Rep. Tony Cardenas, a Los Angeles-area Democrat, said he wants the NCAA to explain why it decided to stay out of the UNC case. If the organization doesn't give him a satisfactory answer, he said he will seek an explanation at a committee hearing.
"Is the priority educating these young people?" Cardenas asked in an interview. "Or is the priority having the best teams so they can get the best exposure and then the next time they come up for a contract they can get an even bigger contract?"
NCAA officials had no comment on Cardenas' efforts. In a statement last week, they said the clarification tells schools they have to report academic misconduct to the NCAA when a staff member arranges for an athlete to receive false academic credit, when athletes cheat academically or when an athlete competes while ineligible as the result of academic misconduct.
UNC officials have reported that the NCAA has not found evidence of violations connected to the academic fraud.
"Carolina is fully committed to both academic integrity and complying with all NCAA rules," said Steve Kirschner, a spokesman for the UNC Athletic Department.
for excuses?
It is unclear how the proposed clarification could alter how the NCAA handles academic misconduct cases. The Chronicle of Higher Education, which first reported on the effort, said the change could require NCAA involvement if a "high" number of athletes are involved in academic impropriety.
Two NCAA critics say the clarification efforts look more like the NCAA trying to find an excuse not to punish UNC by claiming the rules are murky, while telegraphing that similar cases down the road could face violations.
The critics — professors Gerald Gurney of the University of Oklahoma and David Ridpath of Ohio University — say under current regulations, UNC committed NCAA violations because counselors within the tutoring program steered athletes to the classes that they should have known were academically fraudulent. They also cited an email in which a tutoring program counselor requested a no-show Swahili language class be offered again.
"This just gives them cover and pushes themselves farther away from UNC," said Ridpath, president-elect of The Drake Group, a faculty-led organization that seeks to eliminate academic corruption in college sports.


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So from the wiki page:
I assume this model was designed to allow iterative game development (so each release holds a new chapter) but this holds problems as small things can change making the previous models incompatible with the new one.Release Model Offered for download on the internet. Game will be released in several 20-30 minute sections of gameplay called "modules".
Personally I think we should try update by update release model (like used by Mount&Blade) since that would be easier to maintain. But since this still allows changes to the story we should think of patching save files to make up for any changes (a save game editor, maybe).
There is almost no differnce with the "modules release model" and the "update by update release model" accept that the later one is a complete new download which is easier to maintain than going through all the previous modules. I did read in http://www.allacrost.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=745 that this is easier, but I think it's harder to delevop.
So is the above release model still valid? Because I haven't seen much topics about it (couldn't search on "module" alone)


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Study a language.....discover a culture!
The International Language Institute (ILI) offers a dynamic language program which includes English as a Second Language (ESL), Spanish, French, Arbic, Portuguese, and other language and preparation courses. The ESL program is the most intensive and structured of all the course offerings. All instructors have a vast experience in teaching ESL or their respective other languages, and are unquestionably dedicated to the students' learning. Our courses are intended for the serious student who wants to learn a target language within a short period of time. The information on this website is specifically designed for prospective students who would like to obtain general information about the program. The site also describes expected program outcomes and course descriptions.
Our Courses | Application Process | Testing
Course Descriptions | Tuition and Fees | Faculty and Staff
International Language Institute • Pellegrino Hall, room 302
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Phone: 956-326-2136 • Fax: 956-326-2909