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composer: update to 2.2.4. #34999
+3 −3
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Baked Oatmeal
19 comments:
I have never heard of baked oatmeal! It sounds perfect for these cool mornings we have started having. Baking it the night before makes it even more appealing. I can't wait to try it. Thanks for an exciting new recipe to try.ReplyDelete
I LOVE baked oatmeal. This one looks delicious!ReplyDelete
This is a new recipe for me, looks really delicious. Never baked oatmeal before but really looking forward to try it out, love the photo :)ReplyDelete
Okay well, this sounds like heaven in a bowl.ReplyDelete
My oldest is new to kindergarten this year and I've been keeping my eyes and ears open for breakfast ideas that are quick and healthy.
This definitely fits the bill and I've already got all the ingredients on hand. Even a fresh batch of pear-sauce. Perfect.
I hope you enjoy it! The pear sauce would be a nice substitution:)
delicious and healthy!ReplyDelete
Any reason you can't add the nuts and dried fruits when you bake it?ReplyDelete
You can always make the recipe according to your own taste:) I prefer the chewiness of the dried fruit and the toasted crunchiness of the nuts after the oatmeal is baked, but you can certainly add them prior to baking if that is what you like. I even have variations with fresh fruit that I will share in the future. I tell my readers-- make it for you, make it your own. Best!
I am going to make this :)ReplyDelete
Pleased-- I do hope you enjoy it!
O! very tasty;) I like breakfast;dReplyDelete
- MtmothersdaughterSeptember 30, 2011
I love this!! I make it with 2 mashed, ripe bananas (prev frozen work great)instead of the applesauce, add a few cinnamon chips and bake in a sprayed muffin tin. When cool, I wrap them individually and freeze in a zipper bag. Great grab&go breakfast!ReplyDelete
What a great idea! Thanks for sharing:)
- AnonymousOctober 13, 2011
Tried it for my family. Delicious!! Used apricots instead of cranberries and breakfast was yum!ReplyDelete
I am so pleased you enjoyed it! My husband likes the apricots as well:)
Love that you put yogurt in this baked oatmeal, will be linking up to this recipe in my next post :)ReplyDelete
this looks delicious what a treatful way to have oatmeal :)ReplyDelete
- AnonymousMarch 26, 2012
I made this for a pre-wedding dress shopping brunch. All the girls LOVED it! They all wanted the recipe so I sent it along. I served it with fresh strawberries and vanilla yogurt poured over top. Soo delicious!ReplyDelete
So very tasty and healthy! Add bananas and warm milk. I decrease the butter to make healthier. This has become a staple breakfast for our family.ReplyDelete
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subset: commoncrawl


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Syrian Civil War Rooted In Drought Years Before Fighting Began
William Polk was a voice of caution against U.S. intervention in Iraq. And he is once again urging caution, this time against intervention in Syria. He knows the country; he traveled there for the first time in the 1940s. Polk served in Policy Planning at the State Department under President Kennedy. He also taught for many years, first at Harvard and then at the University of Chicago where he founded the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
William Polk says the roots of the Syrian uprising began with climate change and the devastating four-year drought in the Eastern Mediterranean, much like America's Dust Bowl.
WILLIAM POLK: The wind blew all of the tops all away. The farmers were thrown off their land. There were 800,000 Syrians who lost their livelihood. Two hundred thousand of them simply abandoned their land. And there wasn't any California for them to run away to, so they all ended up in the slums of Damascus and Aleppo, and the various other cities. And obviously, they were angry.
And they, unlike the Okies in America, they demonstrated against the government. And the Syrian government at that time was very authoritarian, and it regarded what they were doing as subversion. And so, it tried to crack down on them and that spread the revolt all over the country. That started in March of 2011 - that's when really the civil war started.
SIEGEL: But I mean there was also the sequence of protest and repression that was sufficiently familiar from the region, the people spoke of an Arab Spring that was happening in not just in Syria but in Egypt, in Bahrain and in Libya. I mean there were straight political roots of this conflict, weren't there?
POLK: Very strong political roots and people stopped being content with allowing the government to simply make all the decisions, particularly when the government was incompetent of making the decisions, as it was in Syria. The government, for example, sold all the national reserves of wheat because the market was high. And so, they had nothing to give the farmers.
But in addition, there was the introduction of Islam - fundamentalist Islam - and that became the rallying cry of the people against the government.
SIEGEL: You have warned against Balkanization of Syria, the breakup either formally or practically into different provinces, different regions controlled by different minorities. But on the other hand, in Lebanon, in Iraq and now in Syria, there's this huge challenge to hold together countries that are really, when you come down to it, they're artifacts of imperialism. Are we pursuing the wrong end to figure out how to hold together countries that don't have a natural unifying identity?
POLK: I think there's a lot in that. The question is whether or not we couldn't do something more subtle that's in between. What I see that as being as federalism. You can have a central government and then you can have the various provinces, more or less running their own show.
SIEGEL: Thinking of Egypt and Syria, as two countries that have witnessed terrible upheavals in the past couple of years, Egypt is a country. I mean, Egypt is the Nile River and the people who live along side it, essentially - then a bit of the Sinai and the Mediterranean coast. You go to Upper Egypt, you can see that this, you know, this is a country that has a definition; it has a unifying story.
Does Syria have a future? Syria which for years claimed Lebanon to be part of it, Syria and Iraq which have had this rivalry, does this idea survived more than a few more years?
POLK: I think it depends very much on whether or not it would be beneficial to keep Syria together, among other reasons, because the oil, the small oil industry that they have is all in the east part of the country. And that will be under the control of eventually of, as it is today, of the Islamic fundamentalists. And the central government and the area alongside of Lebanon, alongside of the coast, has really very few resources. And so to make the country function, even to the degree that it is, is going to be a difficult process economically.
SIEGEL: William Polk, thank you very much for talking with us today.
POLK: Thank you for having me.
SIEGEL: Mr. Polk is founder of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago.
Copyright © 2013 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.


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Nikon has been teasing development of the new absurdly long, fixed AF-S Nikkor 800mm, f/5.6 aperture lens since last year. Now it's here, and you'll be happy to know that this lens' crazy and inflexible magnification potential is coupled with the absolutely ludicrous price of $18,000. But don't worry, cheapskates, because there's an actually affordable new lens coming out, too.
In fairness, this lens is freaking marvel of design intended only for professionals, and the Nikon product rep who introduced me to it told us they expect to sell every single one. Surrrrre they will. I mean the thing has up to four stops of VR image stabilization! Because you're going to hand hold it, obviously. (Also note: the fixed aperture can be trimmed to f/8.0 using a special AF-S Teleconverter TC800.)
On the much more practical end of the lens spectrum, Nikon is also introducing a AF-S Nikkor 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5 lens that is optimized for full-frame sensor cameras like the Nikon D600 and Nikon D800. The new lens has a nice compact size and weight just under one pound. And at $750, it costs considerably less than the 800mm monster. [Nikon]


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Author's website: www.interactivebuddha.com
This model is based upon the phrase in the Heart Sutra "form is emptiness, emptiness is form." To my knowledge, this model is not found in quite this presentation anywhere other than here, nor has it ever been related to the Four Path model of the Theravada in the way that follows. The inspiration for using this phrase comes from a wonderful chapter in Chogyam Trungpa's Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism called "Shunyata."
I present this somewhat novel model here because it focuses on real insight directly and treats any emotional benefits of this as side effects. Further, there are often too many cycles of insight before arahatship, making the four path model troublesome. This phenomena of too many cycles (which I will sometimes call "paths" with a lowercase "p") between each of the Four Paths gets worse as one works towards final awakening. As Bill Hamilton put it, and I have learned the hard way, "The arahat fractal is vast."
This model does not reinforce fascination with content, nor with life denying ideals or limited emotional range models in the way that the traditional Four Path Model often does. It does not tempt one to count paths. It keeps the focus on precise inquiry into the truth and one's experience of it or lack thereof.
This model basically says that enlightenment is about direct insight that progressively reveals something different in the relationship to the field of experience and gradually allows things in it to be held in their proper proportion. However, as to the specific implications of this increased clarity and more realistic perspective as regards behavior or how emotions manifest, all bets are off.
We will begin with the obvious statement that "form is form." By form, I mean all mental and physical phenomena, i.e. the world of sensations as we know it. Saying that "form is form" is like saying that "sensations are sensations" or "experience is experience." There is nothing all that profound about this understanding, and all living creatures know this. This is the state of understanding before stream entry. It is valid within its scope, and this should not be forgotten. The laws of the world are the laws of the world, and these must be acknowledged and respected, as must the beings that live in that world.
By clearly investigating form, one eventually comes to the understanding of the stream enterer, that "emptiness is emptiness." Unlike those that are unenlightened, one who has attained first path, that of stream entry, has directly understood in some completely inexplicable way what is meant by "emptiness" in terms of the non-experience of "ultimate reality" that results from entering Fruition through one of the Three Doors. However, while the stream enterer may have some intellectual clues about the "relationship" between emptiness and form due to the ways the Three Doors present, they have no obvious direct experience of it when experiencing almost all sensations. Correlations between this model and the Four Path model begin to break down during the middle two Paths.
Thus, the meanings of interdependence, dependent arising and particularly non-duality will still be somewhat mysterious to them, though in some intuitive way they will have a deeper understanding of these than someone who is unenlightened. Second path is a step higher in terms of the Four Path map, but it brings no huge improvements in the understanding of these things from the point of view of this model. The phenomenal world still generally seems perniciously "dual" for both those of the first two paths. At both first and second path, Nirvana is largely seen as something beyond all of this, an inconceivable discontinuity. However, it seems to have little to do with most of the sensations of the world except that it is "found" in the attainment of Fruition beyond experience and the sensate universe. It can be frustrating that the refuge seems to be found largely outside the universe in some non-experience, and there is a growing sense that true freedom must somehow be found in the world however it manifests. Precise inquiry into the true nature of sensations continues as before.
The next understanding that comes is that "form is emptiness." This might be thought of as the understanding of those of third path, as the attainment of this understanding does some serious damage to the illusion of a separate watcher or self, i.e. to the illusion of duality. However, it is very appropriate here to reiterate the truth of the joke being made by the phrase "Twelfth Path." There may be a lot of cycles of insight and fascinating stuff that goes on between stream entry and the dawning of the understanding that "form is emptiness." In exactly the same way, there may also be many new levels at which this may be understood before the work is fully done. Thus, counting paths doesn't work well when using this model beyond first path.
That said, the concept of Nirvana now seems to generally apply to the phenomenal world as well as the attainment of Fruition, though there is still something clouding the waters. Those of third path will have a direct understanding of what is meant by non-duality, the "intrinsic luminosity" of phenomena and of "interdependence" that is far more direct and clear than the somewhat intuitive understanding of those of first and second path. This holds up quite well until they get into another progress cycle.
The primary benefit of attaining third path is that when the mind stops laboring under the gross aspects of the illusion of a dualistic split (of a subject and an object, an observer and the observed) the mind does not produce nearly so much noise related to fundamental attraction (trying to get to the other side of the imagined split when the other side seems pleasant) and fundamental aversion (trying to get away from the other side of the imagined split when the other side seems unpleasant).
Since it is not producing so much useless noise based upon the illusion of duality, this reveals very significant levels of fundamental peace, balance and clarity. It is a bit like the increased performance of a computer that results from stopping useless processes that were running in the background. Thus, we begin to see some hints of the tenuous relationship between the non-duality models and the limited emotional range models. The weird thing is that the more one pays attention, the more the emotional range seems to grow.
A person of third path, that is, an anagami or "never returner", (however many insight cycles it took to "get there" and assuming this point can be clearly defined, which is dubious) has eliminated or overcome "fundamental attraction" and "fundamental aversion" (in non-duality terms) to ordinary phenomena. This is because, when experiencing most sensations, particularly when not in meditative states of high clarity, the sense of a separate self or duality may seem to be largely absent or often exceedingly subtle to those of third path. They simply no longer make this false imputation from most sensations. This is a radical shift in understanding, and is one of the reasons why going from second path to third path is often found to be much more difficult than going from first path to second path. It requires great deal of trust in reality as well as a fairly new realm of understanding. Paths that emphasize "surrender to the will of God" might well have an easier time with this transition. Simply emphasizing the Third Characteristic, that all things simply happen on their own, works just as well.
Those of "third path" do have gaps in their understanding, and there is still a largely subtle process of the mind creating artificial dualities that may become more obvious during moments of high clarity. There is still a subtle but illusory sense that there is a peaceful and clear "this" or separate self that is not being perturbed most of the time by "that," i.e. the world.
Ironically, the benefits of this level of understanding and the subtlety of the remaining illusion of duality can be the primary impediments to further progress. The mind of those of third path may attach to (try to solidify and then pretend it is self, the property of a self, or created by a self) such things as panoramic perspectives, mental silence, peace, clarity, the sometimes seemingly complete sense of non-duality, and that sort of thing. It is still trying to section off a part of reality as separate, realized and in control, and at these higher levels of awakening can do so in increasingly sophisticated and seductive ways. It becomes progressively harder to see what needs more work and easier to rationalize gaps in understanding once they are seen. On the other hand, there are few new tricks left that the process of creating the illusion of duality can throw at an anagami, and what is left to do is basically a question of learning the same old lessons again and again for a new set of subtle sensations and qualities of experience. Clear investigation of the sensations that make up reality is still highly recommended, as always. Did I mention that the large number of full, new and complete progress cycles from this stage to the next might surprise you? I hope so.
Finally, arahats understand that "emptiness is form." Nirvana is found in samsara, in the midst of the phenomenal world, as well as in the attainment of Fruition beyond the phenomenal world. This is what is meant by removing the "last veil of unknowing." They understand that it is form that is empty, that some illusory sense of a split off peacefulness or island of imperturbability was never true or realistic refuge. All of these phenomena are already empty and always have been. This is the great cosmic punch line: all of this transience turns out to have been it all along. Not only was form empty, but emptiness was actually form. The split is gone.


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A few months ago, my husband and I debated over whether or not to purchase a Keurig. We liked the idea and convenience of having this coffee machine, but our biggest concern was the environmental impact caused by the K-Cups. You can check out the Keurig website to see what their company is doing to help ).
We ended up making the purchase and do not regret it one bit. In fact, it is now my all time favorite appliance. To rid myself of some of the guilt that went along with not being as green as I could be, I decided to try and come up with a project that incorporated the used K-Cups.
After I had a decent sized collection (about 11), my son and I decided that the first thing we should do was to thoroughly examine the K-Cups " how did they work? So, we ripped open the aluminum foil top. Inside, as expected, were coffee grounds.
What I personally had never thought of was the fact that there was a tiny coffee filter attached to the inside of the K-Cup which held the grounds. We dumped the used coffee grounds into a bowl and decided to save them for our compost, as coffee grounds can be quite beneficial to your garden.
Already, I was feeling greener!
Playing with the grounds was good messy fun and a sensory bin I hadn't considered making before. I ™m glad, however, that I did it over the sink for easier cleanup. We then cleaned out the K-Cups and set them on the kitchen counter. We noticed the hole that had been punctured in the bottom of the K-Cup where the water flows through. This is when we got inspired.
We decided that we would use the K-Cups to make a mobile. We quickly got out our washable tempera paints and began decorating.
While my son was painting, I was scrambling around a bit trying to find the other things we might need to assemble our mobile. We eventually consulted Poppa (my father), who found some string and then took my son on a hunt for twigs. We tied the three twigs together, a low, a medium, and a high, and waited for the K-Cups to dry.
Once they were ready, we poked a bigger hole in the bottom of the K-Cup (which was now the top since we turned them upside down) " grownups, this is YOUR job!
My son helped cut the individual pieces of string that would be used to attach the K-Cups to the twigs. I put a knot at one end and my son fed the string through the hole. He then showed me in which spot that particular K-Cup was to go and I helped tie it on to the stick.
We repeated this until all of the K-Cups were attached. We had to adjust the location of some of them slightly when the mobile seemed unbalanced. We ended up with four on top, four in the middle, and five on the bottom twig. Then, we attached another string to the top and made a loop by which we could hang the mobile.
I have to say that I was pretty impressed with the way this turned out. Not only is it pretty, but we were able to recycle the contents of the K-Cups (in our compost) and the K-Cups themselves by transforming them into a hand-painted lovely piece of art which is now on display in our living room. And, being done right around Earth Day, we felt really good about supporting my coffee addiction while reducing our impact on the environment!
Final thoughts:
- We tried to hang the mobile outside, but when I checked on it on a particularly humid day, the paint had re-hydrated and rubbed off onto my fingers. Therefore, I would recommend this be an inside mobile especially if you are using washable paints.
- Depending on your child's age and ability, you may have to tie many of the knots while your child holds the twigs.
- To extend this even further, you might consider turning this into a wind chime by adding jingle bells to the string inside each K-Cup.
How else can you use your K-Cups?
Looking for other ideas for turning waste into art? Check out some of these great ideas:
- Recycled Bead Bracelet – An easy project for making a bracelet out of plastic lids
- Recycled Party Supplies – Reuse those leftover party supplies into fun projects your child will enjoy long after the party.
- Packing Peanut Sculptures – Turn cornstarch packing peanuts into cute sculptures that are easy and fun to make.


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The insurgent group taking over Iraqi cities in a wave of violence has posted disturbing pictures online of what appears to be a massacre of dozens of Iraqi soldiers.
NBC News has not independently verified the authenticity of the pictures. Iraq's top military spokesman, Lt. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, confirmed their veracity with The Associated Press, and said he was aware of cases of mass murder of captured Iraqi soldiers in areas held by the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), an offshoot of al-Qaeda.
The militants with ISIS posted graphic photos showing captive men in plain clothes being loaded onto trucks and then made to lie down in a ditch with their arms behind their back. The last images in the series show the bodies soaked in blood.
The gunmen directing the prisoners are armed with AK-47s and wearing masks, tactical vests and street clothes.
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Arabic text translated by NBC News on the photos say the mass murders were retaliation for the killing of an ISIS commander, Abdul-Rahman al-Beilawy, whose death was reported shortly before the group's blitzkrieg offensive this past week.
One photo says, "They're walking to death by their foot."
In a statement, a spokeswoman for the State Department said that the reports of the mass murders could not be confirmed.
But the spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, added, "The claim by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) that it has massacred 1700 Iraqi Shia air force recruits in Tikrit is horrifying and a true depiction of the bloodlust that these terrorists represent."
The push by ISIS has plunged Iraq into its bloodiest crisis since the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2011 — and left major northern cities Mosul and Tikrit in insurgent hands — along with $450 million looted from a central bank.
ISIS has promised to take Baghdad next, and on Sunday explosions could be heard throughout the capital.
The United States, meanwhile, has sent three Navy ships to the Persian Gulf to protect American interests in the region, although President Obama has said he will not send more ground troops.


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Background (part of letter written by the author, a Harvard and UCLA alumnus, to UCLA):
On March 3,4 there was a conference held at Harvard on a one state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. In effect it was a "one Arab majority state" solution. The panel consisted of Arab academics and Israel post modern revisionist who are apologists for terrorism. The other side or sides were completely missing. Harvard would not accept our request to be part of a panel or make a presentation.
A similar conference was held or is soon to be held at UCLA. A second conference is likely at Harvard sponsored by Professor Alan Dershowitz of the Harvard Law School on a "two state solution" to the Arab Israeli conflict.
There are in fact three sides. That last would be "a one lawful state West of the Jordan River" solution. These three sides are akin to a three legged stool. When only one or two sides is presented it makes for a strong presentation but not a very balanced one.
I have been trying to find out how this third side could be presented at UCLA and I have been told by all my contacts at UCLA that it is impossible. They tell me that UCLA is just too politically correct. So I am making a last effort. I have published information on the three sides in an on-line blog entitled "Middle East and Terrorism" and a conservative Israeli newspaper called "Arutz Sheva", and I hope, at the very least, that you will make the links available to students at UCLA so they have access to a balanced presentation to a solution for the Arab Israeli conflict.
At least three nation-states, the UK, the US and Canada allow evidence of legislative purpose to be admitted to show the meaning of a statute that is ambiguous.
What follows is a necessary minimum of that evidence to show the purpose of the Balfour Declaration that was adopted by the WWI Allies at San Remo that established the International Law provided by that Agreement and the British Mandate for Palestine.
It is widely accepted, but not correct, that the West Bank belongs to the local Arabs in Palestine who in 1964, at the suggestion of the Soviet dezinformatsia, decided to call themselves "Palestinians." [1]
These "invented people" [2] also pretend they had long had a passion for self government. [3] The full extent of Israel's claim of sovereignty has not recently been stated. At most, it is said by the Israeli government that no one has sovereignty over the West Bank, but that Israel has the better claim. [4]
A better view is that the Jews obtained a beneficial interest in sovereignty over all of Palestine in the 1922 enactment of the British Mandate for Palestine, that entrusted exclusive political or national rights in Palestine to Britain in trust for the benefit of the Jews that later matured into a legal interest on the abandonment of the trusteeship by Britain and the attainment of the Jews of a majority population.
The trusts or guardianships were to be called "mandates".
It was in 1919 that Jan Smuts submitted a memorandum to the League, which later became Article 22. The Council of Ten drafted for the League of Nations as Part I of the Treaty of Versailles [5], an Article 22 providing for trusts and guardianships for the areas in The Middle East and North Africa captured by the WWI Allies from the Ottoman Empire. This concept was later applied to other areas. Article 22's first two paragraphs provided a reasonably clear showing that a mandate was based on the longstanding British legal concepts of trusts and guardianships.
In 1917, in advance of the end of WWI, the British had drafted and published a policy for the disposition of the captured Ottoman lands in Palestine. [6] Britain and France were at that time following the "secret' Sykes-Picot Agreement in their disposition of Ottoman Lands. But in recognition of the historic association of the Jews with Palestine, the Balfour Declaration, a British Policy approved it its Cabinet, provided for exclusive political or national rights in Palestine to be granted to the Jews.
The 1920 agreement of the WWI Allies at San Remo, on the terms of the Mandate turned what had been only a British Policy approved by the Cabinet, into International Law. Under Article 22 of the League of Nations Covenant, the rights were to be provided in trust, [7].
We know this because the Balfour policy had been attacked as antidemocratic, as giving sovereignty to the Jewish people who constituted only 60,000 of the total population of 600,000 in Palestine as of 1917.
In Jerusalem, the Jews had had a plurality of the population since 1845 and a majority since 1863, but in all of Palestine, in 1917 they constituted only 10% of the population. Even US President Woodrow Wilson was advancing that argument that award of sovereignty to a minority population was inconsistent with his 14 points that provided, among other things, for majority control.
To counter this argument, which they conceded was a good one, Arnold Toynbee and James Namier in the British Foreign Office, in a memorandum of September 19, 1917 [8] said the problem of control by a minority was "imaginary" because they predicted that the grant would be placed in trust and would not vest sovereignty in the Jews until the Jews fit to govern it on modern European state.
In my view these included attainment of a majority population, defined boundaries, unified control over all within the boundaries, etc.. Providing a National Home for Jews in Palestine with the British running the government until the Jews could attain a majority status based on favored immigration from the Jews in the Diaspora would be a temporary measure and not antidemocratic. [9]
The statement of the purpose of the British Mandate for Palestine in its Preamble and Article 2 is entirely consistent with this view although not express. [10]
What was the National Home, a reconstituted state? No, it was a place for the Jewish people to feel at home while the immigration was going on that would ultimately give the Jews a majority of the population and a reconstituted state. So that the staff of the British Mandatory Power, will know how to do that: Article 4 provides for the Zionist Organization to advise the mandate government staff. Part of Article 6 requires the staff of the Mandatory Power for The Administration of Palestine, to facilitate immigration of Jews. The Mandate does NOT provide that immigration of any other peoples is to be facilitated. (emphasis added) Article 5 provides that none of the land is to be ceded to a foreign power.
Who were the beneficiaries of the trust? Only the Jews, both those already in Palestine and many more scattered worldwide in the Diaspora since the time of the Roman Empire conquest of Palestine.
Howard Grief, who has provided the seminal work on the legal foundations of Israel under International Law, says one can conclude this because they are the only people mentioned to be dealt with specially. [11]The non-Jews are referred to only to ensure their civil and religious rights are to be protected.
Because Article 22 of the League Covenant defined the relationship of Britain and the Jews as trustee and guardian with Jews in effect being beneficiaries and ward the Mandate essentially provided for a Jewish National Home that would be supervised by the British until its ward was capable of exercising sovereignty, including helping it attain a majority of population it needed to do that. It was charged with facilitating such immigration.
All this purpose was not expressed very clearly in the Mandate, likely to avoid stirring up the Arabs in time of war that might bleed off troops to maintain stability in Palestine. But the Arabs did understand that this was the case.
After the war, the Arabs were told by Winston Churchill that the request for self government by the inhabitants of Palestine would be denied until such time as the Jews had attained a majority of the population. They made that understanding clear in their arguments against Partition in the UNSCOP hearings in 1947. [12]
The Arabs argued in 1947 "It was clear from the beginning that if Palestine were to be turned into a Jewish national home, this would involve the indefinite denial of self-government until such time as the Jews were strong enough to take over the government; that pending such time, Palestine would have to be subjected to a foreign administration [of England] which had no basis in the consent of the population and of which the policy would be determined, not by consideration of the welfare of the population, but by the desire to assist in the settlement of an alien group; and that to make such a settlement possible the country would have to be cut off from the surrounding Arab lands by artificial frontiers, would be given a separate system of law, administration, finance, tariffs, and education and would thus inevitably lose some if not all of the Arab character."
But that is what the grantors had in mind and the Arabs knew it when they argued against Partition in 1947. [13] They had learned after WWI from Winston Churchill this was their intention.
"As the first Arab delegation to England stated in the course of its correspondence with Mr. Churchill, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, 'we are to understand ...that self-government will be granted as soon as the Jewish people in Palestine are sufficiently able through numbers and powers to benefit to the full by it, and not before.' "[14]
Prior to the publishing of the British Mandate the French attached a "proce's verbal" in French shown only in the French Version. [15] This was their agreement only on their stated understanding that the Mandate would not eliminate any existing rights of the non-Jews in Palestine. The League had no objection to the process verbal.
The Mandate expressly preserved existing civil and religious rights of the non-Jews. It could not preserve their political rights because they had never had any. The preservation of their civil rights only protected their individual political rights, ie. their electoral rights. It did not protect their collective political rights or national rights, the right of sovereignty and political self-determination.
The Arabs in Palestine had always been ruled from afar. So the Mandate carried out the "process verbal"
Why, in 1917, did Britain establish a policy that gave a preference to the Jews? There were several reasons.
1. Britain's Prime Minister at the time of the Balfour Declaration was David Lloyd-George. Later, in 1923, he was the author of an article "The Jews and Palestine" [16] In it he revealed his view that the Arabs under Ottoman Rule had turned Palestine, the Biblical land of milk and honey into a malarial wasteland. He believed it could be remedied under a reconstituted Jewish State.
2. There was considerable sympathy among many Christian Evangelicals in England who thought the Jews should be restored to Palestine to flee from the pogroms of Russia and Poland. This sympathy did not extend to receiving them in England. British workmen had complained that Jews were flooding in to England and taking their jobs and working for less. This led to the Aliens Act of 1909 restricting Jewish immigration into England.
But the British recognized that the oppression of the Jews in Russia and Poland was very bad and they needed some place to go. [17]
3. Chaim Weismann, an ardent Zionist and also a good chemist, had helped Britain in the war by developing an inexpensive method of manufacturing acetone used in cordite for munitions and had given it to the British. It was a great help to the British war effort. [18]
4. And England, according to Winston Churchill, also desired to win over the Jews in Russia, many of them in the Bolshevik government, so that they might influence the new Marxist government to remain in battle with the Germans and Ottomans in WWI on the side of the Allies. He thought that the Balfour Declaration could sway them in British favor. [19]
There came a time after WWII that the British decided their effort to be trustee was simply costing it too much. They tried to obtain some funding from the United States, but the United States declined to do so. Britain finally decided to abandon its trusteeship and guardianship in 1948.
On the abandonment of its trusteeship by Britain in 1948, political rights that were the "trust res" (the thing put in trust) devolved to the Jews as beneficiaries or wards of the trust and vested in them the political rights permitting them to exercise sovereignty. These rights had survived the demise of the League of Nations by virtue of Article 80 of the UN Charter. [20] It should be expressly noted that the Jews did not receive these rights from the Partition Resolution.
By that time the Jewish population had increased significantly. In 1947 the UN General Assembly had recommended that the Jews give up some of its rights in an attempt to avoid violence that had been threatened by the Arabs if the Jews were to reconstitute their state in Palestine. The Jews agreed to give up some of the land over which they were to have political rights, but the Arabs rejected the recommendation and commenced a war.
It was by the Arabs starting a war that led to a Jewish population majority. Some 600,000 to 700,000 Arabs fled the country before even seeing an Israeli soldier. The wealthy left first, at the first foreshadowing of war. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, Mahmoud Abbas wrote this in the official organ of the PLO, "Filanstin", most of the rest left at the request of the Arab Higher Committee that wanted to get them out of the way of the Arab armies in the surrounding states. [21]
Many left because of a false report that the Irgun had committed a massacre of Arabs at Deir Yassin, that the Haganah, their political enemies did not dispute. A BBC program based on an interview of an Arab radio commentator at the time revealed he had been pushed into designating a hard fought battle as a massacre so as to provide an excuse for the invasion of surrounding armies. [22]
Many Arabs local to Palestine left; some remained.
But those that left could not go back because the Arab Armies did not prevail
In 1948 Israel declared Independence and vindicated its claim by force of arms against the assault of other Arab states surrounding it. It established an orderly unified stable control of its territory except for Judea, Samaria, and East Jerusalem which had been invaded and occupied by the Arab Legion in the East. This British supplied and led organization became the Army of Jordan. [23] In the South, the Egyptian Army was able to maintain its occupation of the Gaza Strip.
In 1920 the Ottoman Empire in Article 95 of the Treaty of Sevres,had ceded its sovereignty in Palestine, which had been undisputed for 400 years, to a Mandatory Power in trust for a National Homeland for the Jews. [24] The Sevres Treaty was never ratified by the Turks who were concerned over Turkey's boundaries in Europe and in adjacent areas in Asia, not in the Middle East and North. But these issues were finally settled in 1923 in the Treaty of Lausanne that left the agreements in the Middle East unchanged.
The trustee selected by the League of Nations at San Remo was Great Britain; the US had been another possibiility. Sovereignty, i.e. political rights, over the other 99% of the lands captured from the Ottomans in the Middle East was allocated to Arab and Muslim majorities in some 20 areas such as Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq but as in the case of Palestine, in mandates of guardianship as the inhabitants had had no prior experience in self rule.
While it was expected in 1920 that the Jewish Homeland would eventually become a state when immigration gave the Jews a majority of the population, at the time the Jews were incapable of exercising sovereignty although the "Jewish Agency" was exercising administrative authority of wide scope.
End Notes
1. Brand, Soviet Russia, The Creators of the PLO and the Palestinian People, http://www.think-israel.org/brand.russiatheenemy.html
2. Newt Gingrich, Campaign speech, 2012 Republican Primary
3. Brand, Was there a Palestine Arab National Movement at the End of the Ottoman Period? http://www.think-israel.org/brand.palnationalism.html
[4] Danny Ayalon, Israel's current Deputy Foreign Minister, The Truth About the West Bank /News/News.aspx/145836
[5] See the original documents in the Avalon Project at Yale University. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/versailles_menu.asp
[6]The Balfour Declaration Text http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/E210CA73E38D9E1D052565FA00705C61
[7] See the first two paragraphs of Article 22
[8] Mueller, Editor, Churchill as a Peacemaker, Feith, p. 224 n. 36 citing Sir Martin Gilbert, Exile and Return, p. 111-12
[9] Charles Hill, Trial of a Thousand Years, World Order and Islamism
[10] San Remo Convention Text of the Mandate
[11] Howard Grief, The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law, p. 36
[12] The Future of Palestine" by Musa Alami with a foreword by Mr. Alami. Hermon Press, Beirut, London (1970)
[13] Id
[14] Id
[15] Salomon Benzsimra, Jewish People's Rights to the Land of Israel, n. 68 See below
[16] David Lloyd George, The Jews and Palestine, http://einshalom.com/archives/210
[17] Ronald Sanders, The High Walls of Jerusalem, A history of the Balfour Declaration and the Birth of the British Mandate for Palestine. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York (1983) p. 90-94
[18] High Walls at 189
[19] Sir Martin Gilbert, Churchill and the Jews,Gilbert reveals the beliefs that moved the British government to issue the Declaration: "The War Cabinet hoped that, inspired by the promise of a national home in Palestine, Russian Jews would encourage Russia—then in the throes of revolution—to stay in the war,. . . http://www.inconvenienthistory.com/archive/2011/volume_3/number_1/churchill_international_jews_and_the_holocaust.php
[21] Abu Mazen Charges that the Arab States Are the Cause of the Palestinian Refugee Problem (Wall Street Journal; June 5, 2003)
[23] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Legion


text:
Here Are Amber Liu's First Impressions Of Her Other f(x) Members
Amber Liu sat down for a hilarious interview where she recalled many of her first – from her first debut stage, her first apartment, and more.
One of the questions asked her about her first impressions of the current f(x) members: Krystal, Luna and Victoria.
When I first met the girls, I did not know they were going to be my members. We are all just trainees together, and then until we get put into a group, we don't know we're a group.
— Amber
She began by explaining how Krystal became her first friend in Korea who helped her out the most.
Krystal was I guess my first friend because she spoke English. Krystal would basically take me around everywhere, show me where to do this and do that.
— Amber
Krystal may not be helping Amber out with Korean anymore, but one thing has never changed since their first meeting – Krystal is still a princess!
Always, she's still a princess.
— Amber
Amber was amazed by Luna when they first met as Luna was ambitious as ever, challenging new things that had never been done before!
Luna is actually a lot more different than I initially thought. She was singing like power vocals, she did like popping and locking – no other girl trainee was doing that.
So I was like, 'This girl's really got her sh*t together.'
— Amber
After spending a decade together, Amber came to realize soon enough that she was just an adorable "fuzzball"!
She's a cute little fuzzball.
— Amber
Surprisingly, Amber didn't really have an impression of Victoria since they rarely ever ran into each other as trainees.
Victoria… We didn't really have an impression of each other because I barely saw her. She lived with me but I barely saw her.
— Amber
But as f(x) fans all know, Amber soon found out how much of a mother hen she is!
She's a mom.
— Amber
Who would have known that these four different personalities would come together to be one of the most famous K-Pop girl groups in history?!


text:
Nothing 'Big Screen' About Parental Guidance
- Christian Hamaker Contributing Film and Culture Writer
- 2012 24 Dec
DVD Release Date: March 26, 2013
Theatrical Release Date: December 25, 2012
Rating: PG for some rude humor
Genre: Comedy
Run Time: 104 min.
Director: Andy Fickman
Actors: Billy Crystal, Bette Midler, Marisa Tomei, Tom Everett Scott, Bailee Madison, Joshua Rush, Kyle Harrison Breitkopf, Gedde Watanabe
Some of us were blessed to know our grandparents when we were young. If they lived nearby, visits happened with some regularity. If they lived far away, you would likely see them on holidays and special occasions. Sometimes you'd go to your grandparents' place, and sometimes they'd come to your house.
Then there were the special times when you were dropped off with the grandparents while mom and dad got away for a special time without the kids. Chances are your parents preferred handing you off to one set of grandparents, and not to the other. No, the other grandparents had other things to do, or maybe they'd simply put their kid-rearing days behind them and weren't eager to rekindle the "joys" of watching small children.
Parental Guidance, the new film from director Andy Fickman (You Again, She's the Man) and the writers behind Ella Enchanted and Legally Blonde, is a tepid tale about those other grandparents. In this case, they're played by Billy Crystal and Bette Midler, recruited by their daughter (Marisa Tomei) and her husband (Tom Everett Scott) to watch their three kids while the younger couple takes their first vacation in five years. Every step of the film is utterly predictable, but for those who like the same ol' same ol', Parental Guidance is relatively inoffensive in terms of content while having a little fun at the expense of ridiculous contemporary parenting philosophies. That's not something that really cries out for a $12 ticket and a couple hours of your time, but it's better—just barely—than nothing.
Artie Decker (Crystal) is living the dream, or trying to. He's a minor-league baseball announcer, with thwarted ambitions to call games for the big-league Giants some day. The film opens as Artie wraps up the last game of the season, receives the thanks of a young protégé in the booth (who is promptly dropped from the story, never to be heard from again), and is called into his boss' office. To his shock, he's fired. Artie's on-air shtick is too old-school, and his boss wants fresh blood. Shell-shocked Artie heads home and breaks the news to his wife, Diane, whose spirits are quickly revived by an invitation from their desperate daughter Alice and husband Phil to watch their three kids. Phil has won a special trip through work, but his parents—the "go to" grandparents in the case of Alice and Phil—aren't available. That leaves just one option.
The grandkids consist of two boys and one girl, each defined by one overriding trait or conflict. The oldest boy stutters and is intimidated by a school bully (Artie encourages him to defend himself, then appears shocked when the boy comes home with a black eye). The girl needs to over-prepare for a big violin audition that could launch her career as a musician, but all she wants to do is put on some makeup and go to a classmate's party. The youngest son is a tyrant with an imaginary friend.
The parents and other adults in the kids' lives, we come to find out, cater to the children's every whim. It's up to Artie and Diane to draw lines, create boundaries and thereby allow everyone to loosen up a bit.
Crystal and Midler have a long history of playing "big" with their broad attempts at humor. They want you to like them. They really want you to like them. So it's somewhat surprising that, after the story shifts from Artie and Diane to Alice and Phil, the movie suffers badly. Tomei's Alice is a thankless role—a helicopter parent who can't bear to separate herself from her precious children for more than a day. In comparison to the pathetic and unlikable Alice, Artie and Diane's mugging for the camera and deadpan punchlines come off as at least passable, if not exactly pleasant.
The older couple's parenting philosophy also carries the day. It's sensible and not so child-centric that the adults' lives are consumed by the lives of the kids. Although Artie and Diane have moments of failure in trying to provide basic care for the kids over the course of their visit—Artie unwisely takes the youngest boy to the X Games, while Diane shares one too many stories with her granddaughter about the delights of "getting bombed"—it's the younger couple who discovers they have more to learn from their elders, rather than the other way around.
Does that make Parental Guidance worth your time? Not at the theater. It is, at best, something to watch on DVD or cable. There's absolutely nothing about it that cries out for a big screen experience. The film opens on Christmas Day—the same day that Les Miserables, a story of hope, redemption and Christian grace, also debuts at theaters around the country. The preferable choice is obvious. And that's my parental guidance on the matter.
- Language/Profanity: Constipation joke; a grandfather and his grandson sing a song about "Mr. Doody" in order to help the young boy go to the bathroom; daughter tells her mother, "I hate you and wish anyone else were my mother"
- Alcohol/Smoking/Drugs: At 9 a.m., a character says, "I need a martini"; grandmother recounts to her grandchildren a cherished memory about "getting bombed"; wine consumption
- Sex/Nudity: A "kiss cam" at a minor-league baseball game captures a kiss and a marriage proposal; a kiss lacking passion is said to be a sign that the couple is married; a husband and wife are shown lying bed; a joke about male breast-feeding; a joke about groping during an airport security pat-down; a wet crotch area of a man's pants gets blow-dried; undoing a seatbelt latch is said to be "more difficult than your grandma's bra;" a husband and wife kiss; grandmother tells her daughter that the daughter's husband wants to see her, but "I don't think he wants you in clothes;" a joke about "melon grabbing"
- Violence/Crime: A boy and his grandfather watch a clip from one of the Saw horror movies; a blow to a man's groin area; the man then vomits, and later applies ice to the affected area; a bloody nose; a black eye
Questions? Comments? Contact the writer at email@example.com.
Publication date: December 25, 2012


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Wisconsin ranks No. 2 in organic farms in US
MILWAUKEE (AP) — New federal show Wisconsin had 1,180 organic farms in 2012, more than any other state except California.
Nearly one in five was in Vernon County, home of Organic Valley, the nation's top seller of organic milk.
Organic Valley CEO George Siemon says the cooperative started in the late 1980s when tobacco farmers in western Wisconsin were looking for a new crop.
The company now employs 1,800 farms nationwide and 750 non-farm workers.
Siemon says its success has led to others' success. Vernon County is also home to Harmony Valley Farm, and another major farm, Driftless Organics, is in neighboring Crawford County.