Just Wonderful! Arsenal owner Alisher Usmanov hands Nobel Prize back to 'disgraced' DNA scientist James Watson straight after buying it off him

Via Ryan

 

Remember this? I am an unperson’: ‘Racist’ DNA discoverer forced 

Alisher Usmanov, the Arsenal owner and the richest man in Russia, has bought the Nobel prize that was sold by James Watson, one of three people who won the prize for discovering the DNA double helix. Usmanov will now give it straight back to him — leaving Watson with the medal as well as the record-breaking $4.1 million that Usmanov bought it for.

The sale of the medal — which cost Usmanov $4.8 million including commission — set a record for the sale of such a medal and was the first time one has been sold by a living recipient. Usmanov said today that he would give him back the medal as well as giving him the cash for it.

Usmanov said that he had been motivated to buy and return the medal to avoid Watson having to sell it. He values Watson's work because of his contribution to cancer research, the disease from which Usmanov's father died, he said.

More @ The Independent

Duc: A reporter's love for the wounded people of Vietnam

 

 @ Amazon

 Another Lost Cause

Thirty-eight years after the last American helicopter took off from the roof of the U.S. embassy in Saigon, it might not seem possible for any new book to offer important insights and reporting on the Vietnam war.

Duc, however, does just that. Uwe Siemon-Netto, a Far Eastern correspondent for Axel Springer Verlag, arrived in Vietnam in 1965, early enough to see an elegant, Francophile Saigon not yet metamorphosed into an Asian honkytonk by hordes of GIs, but also early enough to be an eyewitness to harrowing scenes of the Battle of Ia Drang, when U.S. Army forces and North Vietnamese regulars clashed for the first time. Siemon-Netto’s last trip to Vietnam was in 1972, when the famous North Vietnamese Easter Offensive was well underway.

Unlike some American reporters who seldom ventured anywhere outside Saigon, Siemon-Netto ranged far and wide across South Vietnam, dipping in on remote Special Forces bases and brave South Vietnamese Army units who were cutting down from trees the corpses of village elders and their children (including babies) who had been strung up, tortured, and murdered by Communist forces. The author’s love for Saigon certainly includes forthright admiration for the beauty of Vietnamese women in their fetching ao dais, but also for the cocky street urchins who kept his aging Citroen clean and safe by taking refuge in it when it rained. He also writes admiringly of the German doctors and nurses who courageously staffed the West German hospital ship Helgoland, in the face of relentless Vietcong attempts to destroy it, far up north near Da Nang.

Duc is, in parts, hilariously funny, especially when narrating incidents involving foreign reporters in Vietnam or describing the perplexity of the Vietnamese encountering Western culture and social life. But it is also poignant and tragic, especially in reporting the viciousness of the Tet Offensive of February 1968, which Siemon-Netto experienced close-up in Saigon, and whose brutal and bloody aftermath he witnessed in Hue. 

He describes weeping Marines coming across hundreds of women and children murdered by the Vietcong on their way to enjoy the holiday. Then, slowly, the full horror of the Tet atrocity emerging when it became clear that the Vietcong had targeted at least 3,000 South Vietnamese civilians on written execution lists even before the offensive started. When this fastidious German reporter came upon a mass grave of victims, he was astonished to find an American television crew standing around with idle cameras. The crew refused to shoot the scene because, they said, they didn’t want to film “anti-Communist propaganda.”

Because he loved the Vietnamese so much, Siemon-Netto became deeply angry that the murderous brutality of the Communist side was never fully reported by American or other Western reporters. Vo Nguyen Giap, the North Vietnamese commander, supervised a military campaign that deliberately terrorized civilians, understanding that, in Giap’s own words, “the enemy does not possess the psychological and political means to fight a long, drawn-out war.” 

Unfortunately, General Giap turned out to be correct in his cynicism: Democratic societies are too vulnerable to their own doubts and critics to stomach the vigorous and costly struggle needed to defeat persistent and ruthless tyrannies. 

Siemon-Netto was, of course, well aware of some of the civilian murders perpetrated by American soldiers.  He personally reported on the court-martial of Lt. William Calley for his role in the My Lai massacre. There is also a touching scene in which he meets an American machine-gunner who was desolate with grief and contrition because the black-clad figures he had earlier gunned down had turned out to be children. But Siemon-Netto makes it clear that the chasm between Vietcong and American murders was galactic in size: The Communists carefully planned violence against civilians, whereas the Americans punished anyone they could prove had committed such acts.

Ultimately, it was the South Vietnamese who suffered most from the war, ending up under the tyrannical rule of a Hanoi regime that continued to murder thousands of South Vietnamese military and civilians even after it had won the military victory. Duc is a rhapsody of admiration for the warm and talented people of South Vietnam and for those, both Vietnamese and American, who struggled, and often gave their lives, to try to keep the country free. 

David Aikman is the author, most recently, of The Mirage of Peace: Understanding the Never-Ending Conflict in the Middle East. 

Help is on the Way

Via Billy

With Malice Toward the Conquered Rebel States

 

Jefferson Davis said in 1864: "I tried in all my power to avert this war . . . The North was mad and blind; it would not let us govern ourselves . . . and now it must go on till the last man of this generation falls in his tracks . . . We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for Independence, and that, or extermination, we will have . . .”   Not allowed to leave the Union, the South was kept in at bayonet point and ruled by those who sought their utter political, economic and cultural destruction.
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
"Unsurpassed Valor, Courage and Devotion to Liberty"
www.ncwbts150.com
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"

With Malice Toward the Conquered Rebel States

“[The] demoralization and corruption of the times distressed [Lee].  So did comments in the Northern press, such as this statement by Indiana’s George W. Julian: I would hang Jefferson Davis in the name of God.  What an outrage that Lee is unmolested too. I would hang liberally while I had my hand in.  I would give the land to the Negroes and not leave a rebel enough to bury his carcass in.”

Thundered William Lloyd Garrison: “I know that in the South the powers of hell are still strong and defiant, resolved upon doing whatever evil is possible in a spirit of diabolical malignity.”

These tongue lashings hurt the South almost as much as the physical destruction of earlier months.  They made an honorable return to free and independent Union all but impossible.

Radical Republicans . . . [instituted] Old Testament vengeance [and] Thaddeus Stevens was their leader. His long face, beetling eyebrows and protruding underlip seemed to imply that he lived to pronounce Dixie’s doomsday. He would take an eye for everyone given, until, like Oedipus, the blinded protagonist dwelled in endless deserved darkness.  Incorruptible like Robespierre, he was equally incapable of compassion.

His counterpart in the Senate, Charles Sumner, put the proposition simply: the rebel States had committed suicide.  They were territories, subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress; conquered provinces, to be given the heel. The proud nobility should be stripped of property, the aristocracy annihilated. The mighty should be laid low.

In 1865, Lee’s Virginia was sullen and somber. Even when summer came, the psychological mood was autumnal.  Brown was the pervasive color: the brown of scorched-earth, dead trees, renounced ambition and once-green hopes. Dead men were everywhere. Their portraits covered parlor walls.  Their death masks filled the public places.  Their words echoed in speeches and sermons. They seemed to be concealed in widows’ weeds.

The tempo of their lives echoed in the pounding of comrades’ wooden legs on cobblestones. Soon they would ascend to marble blocks and guard dozens of courthouse squares.”

(Lee after the War, The Greatest Period in the Life of a Great American, Marshall W. Fishwick, Dodd, Mead & Company, 1963, excerpts, pp. 51-55)

When Eggnog Started A Riot At West Point Academy

Via Terry

Even George Washington had a recipe for eggnog that included brandy, sherry, whiskey, and rum, but he probably didn’t intend for it to be used quite like this. In 1826, a group of West Point cadets decided to break one of the school’s cardinal rules and secure some whiskey for their Christmas Eve eggnog. The drunken party soon turned violent, with shots fired, buildings destroyed, and cadets expelled. Leading the pack—but not expelled—was future Confederate president Jefferson Davis.

More @ Knowledge Nuts

NC: Illegal Alien Pedophiles: 4,317 Charges Filed Against Illegals in ONE YEAR

 

I can only imagine what the numbers might be like in California, Texas, and New York. 4,317 charges of sexual assault on minors were recently recorded in a 12 month period in America’s 10th largest state — North Carolina.

Universal Free Press reports:

Between November 1, 2013 and October 31, 2014, there have been 4,317 charges of child sexual assault filed against illegal aliens in North Carolina, according to the citizens advocacy group known as NCFIRE.

Are you kidding me?

More @ D.C. Clothesline

Jessica was trying to exit a relationship with a black boyfriend (Teen girl doused, burned alive in Mississippi)

Via comment by Sioux on Teen girl doused, burned alive in Mississippi

 

Not that this isn't what first popped into my mind.

Unfortunately the details of her murder are so horrific to comprehend they make the current racial anxiety in the headlines seem small, yet also potentially more explosive.

…When the fire department got there, she was walking down the road on fire. […] They squirted lighter fluid down her throat and in her nose…

Yes, Jessica was white; and no, by all accounts her killer(s) were not.

She wasn’t just attacked, beaten, and burned alive – she was brutalized beyond all horrific imaginings. When you identify what took place, and contrast her horrific murder against the current national dialogue, you can also understand why the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation (MBI), and all Mississippi politicians, will most likely lead the media to bury this story as quick as possible.

Thanks to President Obama and AG Holder’s intentional use of racial division to advance their political goals; and against the faux racial outrage of Mike Brown and Eric Garner political narrative, the national anxiety around race in general, and racial crime specifically, is tenuously high.
High, and more unstable than recent memory.

If the facts, the gruesome and horrific facts around this story, were to hit the Mainstream Media, Mississippi might well burn. Jessica Lane Chambers suffered a similar fate as another buried and brutal murder story, Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom.

More @ The Last Refuge

Teen girl doused, burned alive in Mississippi

A father's worst nightmare.

 Fighting back tears, the father then described how his daughter’s attackers knocked her out, and squirted lighter fluid down her throat and in her nose.

A grisly killing in a small town in Mississippi has local residents on edge and looking for answers.

A blond-haired teenager with no known enemies was found walking down a rural road on fire Saturday night. She had been beaten, doused with lighter-fluid and set ablaze.

Jessica Chambers, 19, of Panola County was found engulfed in flames near the charred shell of her car sitting on the roadside in the town of Courtland. The town has a population of 460.

More with video @ WND

“I WILL BE WAITING ON YOU.” Walker-Bound Vietnam Veteran Pulls Gun On Robbers, Dares Them To Return

 

Sixty-eight-year-old Joseph Sapienza did four years as a combat Marine in Vietnam, and has the eyes of a man who doesn’t scared easily.

When he heard someone attempting to break in to his home, Mr. Sapienza grabbed his walker, grabbed his .45, and he headed towards the door.

The two stunned robbers seemed stunned when he opened the door and promised to give them more trouble than they could handle.

Mr. Sapienza has a message waiting for them if they decide to try their luck again.

More @ Bearing Arms

G2 Research’s “R.I.P.” .45 ACP Ammo Is Dangerous

 

It is relatively rare for a ammunition company to issue a platform-specific cartridge recall, but that is precisely what G2 Research is doing with a post on the company’s Facebook page which recalls R.I.P. .45 ACP ammo made between July 1-November 30 of this year, but only for owners of Glock pistols.

More @ Bearing Arms

Police department asks volunteers to have homes searched for guns

The chief feels that these inspections by his officers can uncover firearms that the resident may not have even known were there. (Righttttt)

More @ Guns

Lois Lerner: Judicial Watch strikes again

Lonely......?

......... Lois Lerner, former IRS tax-exempt division chief, had discussed possible criminal prosecution of conservative groups with Justice Department officials two years before what the agency had conceded.

Lerner met with Department of Justice officials in October 2010, just before the November midterm elections. Amid the rise of the tea party groups targeted by Lerner, Republicans in the 2010 elections gained the most seats in the House since 1948.

Judicial Watch used a Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, request to obtain the documents but had to go to court to force the DOJ to release the material.

More @ WND

Michael Brown's "Parents"

Via Cousin John

UPDATE:

The story line of the above photo is correct, but the male in the picture is not Louis Head. The male pictured is Michael Brown Sr, Mike Brown's father. Just throwing this out, I do not want the truth of his parent's story discredited because of an incorrect name on a picture. Great blog, keep up the good fight.

Mickey

******************************

Medal of Honor Roll Call: Thomas R. Norris

 

Lt. Thomas R. Norris and Petty Officer Third Class Nguyen Van Kiet went behind enemy lines disguised as fishermen in a sampan to rescue Lt. Col. Iceal Hambleton. Norris was awarded the Medal of Honor and Nguyen was recognized with the Navy Cross for their actions. 

 Human Events

Repost

This week’s Medal of Honor hero is one of a handful of Navy SEALs awarded the MOH in the Vietnam War. Norris snuck behind enemy lines with a South Vietnamese Navy petty officer rescued two downed pilots in 1972–when most of our resources had been pulled from the country. Interesting to note that later year, Norris was himself rescued by another SEAL Michael E. Thornton.
–RJL

Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as a SEAL Advisor with the Strategic Technical Directorate Assistance Team, Headquarters, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. During the period 10 to 13 April 1972, Lieutenant Norris completed an unprecedented ground rescue of two downed pilots deep within heavily controlled enemy territory in Quang Tri Province. Lieutenant Norris, on the night of 10 April, led a five-man patrol through 2,000 meters of heavily controlled enemy territory, located one of the downed pilots at daybreak, and returned to the Forward Operating Base (FOB).

On 11 April, after a devastating mortar and rocket attack on the small FOB, Lieutenant Norris led a three man team on two unsuccessful rescue attempts for the second pilot. On the afternoon of the 12th, a Forward Air Controller located the pilot and notified Lieutenant Norris. Dressed in fishermen disguises and using a sampan, Lieutenant Norris and one Vietnamese traveled throughout that night and found the injured pilot at dawn.

Covering the pilot with bamboo and vegetation, they began the return journey, successfully evading a North Vietnamese patrol. Approaching the FOB, they came under heavy machine gun fire. Lieutenant Norris called in an air strike which provided suppression fire and a smoke screen, allowing the rescue party to reach the FOB. By his outstanding display of decisive leadership, undaunted courage, and selfless dedication in the face of extreme danger, Lieutenant Norris enhanced the finest traditions of the United States Naval Service

 

ISIS cites Quran to justify child rape

After causing an uproar with the taking of ethnic minority Yazidi women and girls as sex slaves in Iraq, the Islamic jihadist group ISIS issued a pamphlet justifying its actions by citing the Muslim holy book, the Quran, and authoritative Islamic scholars.

ISIS, which began calling itself the Islamic State after establishing a caliphate in conquered areas of Syria and Iraq, published the pamphlet through its Research and Fatwa Department.

A translation of the pamphlet was published by the Middle East Media Institute’s Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor.

Titled “Questions and Answers on Taking Captives and Slaves,” it states Islam permits conquering Muslim soldiers to have sexual intercourse with non-Muslim slaves, including young girls, and also allows them to be beaten and traded.

More @ WND

Sharpton: Blacks Can't Act Decently Without More Government Payouts

 

On Sunday, Al Sharpton appeared on NBC’s Meet The Press to fulfill his weekend race-baiting quota, discussing the grand jury results in the cases of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. After Chuck Todd asked Sharpton about addressing the problem of “economic hopelessness” in the black community – Garner was arrested for selling “loosies,” cigarettes outside the pack, illegally – Sharpton explained that he supported a “jobs bill…infrastructure development.”

Then he continued by explaining that if Congress didn’t pass such bills, black men could not be held responsible for taking care of their children:

More @ Breitbart

"This is why we have a morality crisis in America"

Via Marchella