Well, it's better than ...... Ron Paul.
In other news: Rasmussen: Santorum Leads Obama by 1 Point, Romney Trails Obama by 4 Points
Mitt Romney Will Win Nevada Caucuses, Projected [10:00 p.m. ET]
Mitt Romney surged to a strong lead in early returns out of the Nevada Republican presidential caucuses Saturday, as he shoots for the first back-to-back win in the 2012 race.
With 10 percent of precincts reporting, Romney leads with 39 percent. Newt Gingrich has 25 percent, followed by Ron Paul with 22 percent and Rick Santorum with 13 percent.
Nevada is friendly territory for Romney, having overwhelmingly supported him in 2008.
Entrance polls Saturday evening showed Romney crushing the competition among those who value beating President Obama in November as the most important quality in a GOP candidate.
The polls also showed Romney leading the field by double digits among evangelical Christian caucus-goers. Romney was backed by 48 percent of evangelicals, compared with 27 percent for Gingrich.
Despite early reports of low turnout in Nevada, state GOP Chairwoman Amy Tarkanian said she thinks turnout will exceed the roughly 44,000 who came out in 2008.
Nevada offers a modest delegate haul, with 28 convention delegates at stake. Romney led the field going into the race with 87, followed by Gingrich with 26, Santorum with 14 and Paul with four. It takes 1,144 delegates to win.
Gingrich, meanwhile, has kept his gaze trained on upcoming contests, the next of which will be held in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri -- and later in Maine, Michigan and Arizona.
Gingrich told Fox News he hopes to be "even with or slightly ahead" of Romney in the delegate count by early April.
For the near term, Romney has a healthy lead in delegates and could build on that advantage Saturday.
Romney, who is Mormon, is expected to benefit from the state's Mormon population, which made up a quarter of the GOP electorate in 2008 and almost uniformly supported him in that election.
Leaving nothing to chance, Romney supporters were calling caucus-goers late Friday asking for their vote.
"We are showing that organization and hard work and commitment make a real difference," Romney said, as he visited a Las Vegas office hosting a marathon call session.
Romney won Tuesday's Florida primary, in what was seen as a setback for Gingrich after the former House speaker won South Carolina. He also won New Hampshire, but lost Iowa to Santorum after initially being declared the winner there.
Tonight's Saturday Night Cinema is the 1956 classic Written on the Wind, the definitive Douglas Sirk film, starring Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, and Dorothy Malone. Dorothy Malone won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, Robert Stack recived an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and the film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song.
Written on the Wind is based on the novel by Robert Wilder. The story revolves around the Hadleys, a wealthy but thoroughly debauched family of Texas oil millionaires. Roger Ebert said, "In countless ways visible and invisible, Sirk's sly subversion skewed American popular culture, and helped launch a new age of irony." Wikipedia has it that the screenplay by George Zuckerman was based on Robert Wilder's 1945 novel of the same name, a thinly disguised account of the real-life scandal involving torch singer Libby Holman and her husband, tobacco heir Zachary Smith Reynolds. Zuckerman shifted the locale from North Carolina to Texas, made the source of the family wealth oil rather than tobacco, and changed all the character names.
This is director Douglas Sirk's masterpiece, a brilliant work of cinema that functions as both a fiery melodrama and a piece of cool, detached irony. It all depends on how much subtext you want to read into this story of an impotent, alcoholic Texas oil baron and his middle-class nemesis. Although Rock Hudson and Lauren Bacall are little more than vacant statues filling up cinematic space, Dorothy Malone and Robert Stack more than compensate with rich, over-the-top performances that leave you shaking your head in disbelief. That Sirk could get away with this sort of storytelling audacity within the rigid confines of 1950s Hollywood says much about his skill as an artist, just as it does about his desire to bend film genres to the breaking point. He never quite gets there, though, which is what makes his films so fascinating and multi-layered. This is a flick for both film buffs and casual moviegoers. Not to be missed.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times calls it "a perverse and wickedly funny melodrama in which you can find the seeds of Dallas, Dynasty, and all the other prime-time soaps. Sirk is the one who established their tone, in which shocking behavior is treated with passionate solemnity, while parody burbles beneath . . . To appreciate a film like Written on the Wind probably takes more sophistication than to understand one of Ingmar Bergman's masterpieces, because Bergman's themes are visible and underlined, while with Sirk the style conceals the message. His interiors are wildly over the top, and his exteriors are phony - he wants you to notice the artifice, to see that he's not using realism but an exaggerated Hollywood studio style . . . Films like this are both above and below middle-brow taste. If you only see the surface, it's trashy soap opera. If you can see the style, the absurdity, the exaggeration and the satirical humor, it's subversive of all the 1950s dramas that handled such material solemnly. William Inge and Tennessee Williams were taken with great seriousness during the decade, but Sirk kids their Freudian hysteria."
The Cast
WRITTEN ON THE WIND, screen play by George Zuckerman; based on the novel by Robert Wilder; directed by Douglas Sirk and produced by Albert Zugsmith for Universal Pictures. At the Capitol.
Mitch Wayne . . . . . Rock Hudson
Lucy Moore Hadley . . . . . Lauren Bacall
Kyle Hadley . . . . . Robert Stack
Marylee Hadley . . . . . Dorothy Malone
Jasper Hadley . . . . . Robert Keith
Biff Miley . . . . . Grant Williams
Dun Willis . . . . . Robert J. Wilke
Dr. Paul Cochrane . . . . . Edward C. Platt
Hoak Wayne . . . . . Harry Shannon
Roy Carter . . . . . John Larch
R. J. Courtney . . . . . Joseph Granby
(Y)UK!
The Mecca of the city: In a London street, the faithful find a way to pray as their mosque overflows Daily Mail (hat tip davod)
In the shadow of the glass and steel skyscrapers of London’s Square Mile, hundreds of Muslims kneel in the street for Friday prayers.
Yesterday’s hour-long service a stone's throw from the heart of the financial district proved so popular that worshippers filled the streets around the tiny community mosque.
City workers in pinstripe suits mixed with Muslims from the local Bangladeshi community, cramming into the streets beside a Bentley and other parked cars.
Filling the street: Beneath a towering office block the shoeless worshippers bow down. The Brune Street mosque, in Spitalfields, East London, is the nearest mosque for Friday prayers for many City workers
The Brune Street mosque, in Spitalfields, East London, is the nearest mosque for Friday prayers for many City workers and others from Brick Lane and Whitechapel.
It is a one-room community mosque with a maximum capacity of 100, so when some 300 turn up for Friday midday prayers locals have become accustomed to seeing worshippers kneeling in the surrounding streets, all facing Mecca.
One worshipper said: ‘It’s grown and grown in recent years. It started off as just one room in the mosque, but now people come from all over the City and there just isn’t the room for them in the building.
In prayer: City workers in pinstripe suits join local residents outside the mosque cramming into the streets beside a Bentley and other parked cars
‘You get the whole community, everyone from City boys to people from the local area. It’s great being outside on a day like today, but it’s not so much fun when it rains.
‘Some people are surprised when they come into the area on a Friday – seeing that many people praying outside together is not an everyday sight in the UK.
‘You wouldn’t know unless you were looking for it, but it’s right in the middle of the City.’
What is the goal of Obama's State Department whose mission is statecraft and crafting policy, not for today, but for 20 to 20 years from now? If you can't overthrow them all, why Mubarak and not Ahmadinejad? Why Qaddafi and not Assad? What is the strategy? What is the statecraft objective?
Here again is further proof of the uselessness (and worse) of the United Nations. Whatever sway or swagger American had in that collective negation of humanity has withered under the effete Obama. This is further proof of Iran's growing influence (Syria is a vassal state, a proxy of Iran).
"When an institution reaches the degree of corruption, brazen cynicism and dishonor demonstrated by the U.N. in its shameful history, to discuss it at length is to imply that its members and supporters may possibly be making an innocent error about its nature—which is no longer possible. There is no margin for error about a monstrosity that was created for the alleged purpose of preventing wars by uniting the world against any aggressor, but proceeded to unite it against any victim of aggression. The expulsion of a charter member, the Republic of China—an action forbidden by the U.N.'s own charter—was a 'moment of truth,' a naked display of the United Nation’s soul.
What was Red China's qualification for membership in the U.N.? The fact that her government seized power by force, and has maintained it for twenty-two years by terror. What disqualified Nationalist China? The fact that she was a friend of the United States."
Ayn Rand (1972) ["The Shanghai Gesture—Part II," The Ayn Rand Letter, Vol 1, No. 14]
Asked in a 1964 interview for Playboy magazine if she would "favor U.S. withdrawal from the United Nations," Ayn Rand answered:
"Yes. I do not sanction the grotesque pretense of an organization allegedly devoted to world peace and human rights, which includes Soviet Russia, the worst aggressor and bloodiest butcher in history, as one of its members. The notion of protecting rights, with Soviet Russia among the protectors, is an insult to the concept of rights and to the intelligence of any man who is asked to endorse or sanction such an organization. I do not believe that an individual should cooperate with criminals, and, for all the same reasons, I do not believe that free countries should cooperate with dictatorships."
Here are the Drudge headlines today. Funny, although no one in media speaks of it (including Drudge), it's all jihad. All of it.
China, Russia veto UN resolution on Syria...
Clinton and Lavrov square off...
400+ SLAUGHTERED...
'I saw bodies of women and children lying on roads, beheaded'...
12 dead in latest Egypt clashes...
Iran begins new military exercises...
Ayatollah Khamenei threatens Israel...
Libyan militia pull toenails off diplomat...
Russia and China veto resolution on Syria at UN Report by the pro-Islamic BBC
An Arab and Western-backed resolution condemning the violent crackdown in Syria has been vetoed at the UN Security Council by Russia and China.
The two permanent council members rejected the draft resolution, which came hours after activists accused Syrian security forces of killing at least 55 people at Homs.
The US ambassador said the vetoes were "shameful", Britain was "appalled".
China and Russia defended their move, saying the draft was "unbalanced".
Russia says the draft resolution had singled out the government of President Bashar al-Assad, and did not containing measures against armed opposition groups.
But proposed Russian amendments to the text were described as "unacceptable" by the US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is due to have talks with Mr Assad in Damascus on Tuesday.
'Craven tyrant'
The draft resolution, supported by all 13 other members of the Security Council, had adopted an Arab League call for a "Syrian-led political transition to a democratic, plural political system".
Ms Rice condemned the joint veto as "shameful". It showed, she said, how Russia and China aimed to "sell out the Syrian people and shield a craven tyrant".
"Any further bloodshed that flows will be on their hands," Ms Rice added.
Britain was "appalled" by the veto, said its UN envoy, Mark Lyall Grant.
French Ambassador Gerard Araud said: "It is a sad day for this council, a sad day for all Syrians, and a sad day for democracy."
Mohammed Loulichki, Morocco's ambassador to the UN and the sole Arab member of the current council, voiced "great regret and disappointment" that Moscow and Beijing had struck it down.
But Russia's ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, insisted the draft resolution had lacked balance.
"Some influential members of the international community unfortunately... have been undermining the opportunity for political settlement, calling for a regime change, pushing the oppositionists to power," he said.
Beijing's ambassador to the UN, Li Baodong, said the resolution would have been counter-productive.
US Ambassador Susan Rice: "For months this council has been held hostage by a couple of members"
"China maintains that, under the current circumstances, to put undue emphasis on pressuring the Syrian government... or impose any solution will not help resolve the Syrian issue," he said.
Pro-Assad residents in the Syrian capital Damascus welcomed the Sino-Russian stance.
"I believe there are more important issues for the Security Council to take care of... such as the starvation in Somalia, and Gaza," one told BBC News.
"Isn't there anything else apart from us for the Security Council to deal with?"
Early accounts of the casualties in Homs talked of as many as 200 deaths, but one of the main activist groups later revised its confirmed toll down to 55.
Homs appears to have come under a "pretty relentless" bombardment, which targeted areas outside government control, the BBC's Paul Woods reported from just outside the city, where he was travelling with fighters from the Free Syria Army.
Homs was one of the first cities to join anti-Assad protests, and became one of the focal points of dissent after government forces fired on crowds in April last year. Many army defectors have sought refuge in the city.
State media dismissed the Homs casualty reports as a "hysterical campaign of incitement" by armed gangs designed to influence the UN.
International media outlets are restricted in Syria, making it difficult to verify the claims of either side.
Tunisia moved to sever relations with the Assad government following the Homs violence
Activists have been attacking Syrian embassies around the world in response to the violence in Homs.
Syria has been gripped by nationwide protests against Mr Assad's government for almost a year, in a struggle that has claimed at least 5,400 lives, according to the UN.
Iran is targeting ambassadors and embassies in America. And now this. Obama's approach to the rogue jihadi regime has served to embolden it. Obama's Defense Secretary Panetta went so far as to commiserate with uber left NY Times writer David Ignatius yesterday, lamenting Israel's plan to attack Iran in the Spring. We should be grateful that Obama's DoD didn't release the exact co-ordinates.
Guarded and "soft" sites, such as synagogues, schools and community centers, are under increasing threat by Iran, letter obtained by ABC says; US, Canada heighten security around Jewish centers. By Raheb Homavandi/Reuters
The threat against Israeli and Jewish targets in North America by Iran is on the rise, ABC news reported Friday, after the Iranian regime vocalized again its intention to aid in the fight against the "Zionist regime" in the face of Western sanctions.
Guarded and "soft sites," such as synagogues, community centers and schools, are the primary targets by Iran, a letter circulated by the Consul General for Mid-Atlantic States and obtained by ABC news claimed.
"We predict that the threat on our sites around the world will increase," the letter stated.
Police and intelligence officials have stepped up monitoring Israeli government buildings and Jewish centers in cities across the US and Canada, telling local officials to remain wary of the potential threat from Iran, such as the bombing of an Argentine community center in 1984 that killed 85 people.
This development has been ongoing for a number of weeks, ABC reported.
The report came after Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamanei said on Friday he had "no fear of saying that we will back and help any nation or group that wants to confront and fight against the Zionist regime (Israel)."
He also stated that the Islamic Republic would not yield to international pressure to abandon its nuclear course, threatening retaliation for sanctions aimed at Iran's oil exports.
His comments came a day after Israel’s top political and military leadership issued a series of warnings to the Islamic Republic in some of the most candid comments on the nuclear threat in years.
Speaking at the Herzliya Conference, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said there was a consensus among many nations today that if diplomacy and sanctions failed to stop Iran, a military strike should be launched.
This Jewish mother won custody of her kidnapped daughter, but that is of little import to the Muslim prince. As a Jew, she is reviled and less than human under Islam. Any non-Muslim woman who gets romantically involved with a practicing Muslim is putting her life and her future children's lives at risk.
There is nothing in this story that is new. We see this repeatedly in Muslim marriages, but it is still shocks the Western sensibility.
Miss Cohen-Ahnin was eventually spirited out of the country after the Muslim prince allegedly produced a document purporting that she had been Muslim but had converted to Judaism — a crime punishable by death. She said she was concerned about her daughter’s upbringing when she discovered Facebook photos of her in a niqab and playing with her father’s firearms.
A French Jewish mother has won a custody battle in France against a Saudi prince, who has been ordered to return their 10-year old daughter he was alleged to have kidnapped after their cross-religious romance turned sour.
Candice said she barely saw her daughter who told her in tears she was no longer allowed to call her "mum" as her guardians said she was 'crazy'
The Paris criminal court ordered Prince Sattam al-Saud from the kingdom’s founding royal family, to hand over custody of his daughter Aya to her French mother, Candice Cohen-Ahnine, and provide child support of €10,000 (£8,300) a month.
For the past three-and-a-half years, the prince has kept Aya in a Riyadh palace despite efforts by the French foreign ministry and President Nicolas Sarkozy's office to resolve the issue.
But the French court ruling appears to have had no effect on the prince. “What do I care of Sarkozy?” he is cited as telling Nouvel Observateur magazine. “If need be, I’ll go like [Osama] bin Laden and hide in the mountains with Aya.”
Miss Cohen-Ahnin, 34, and the prince met in London 14 years ago at Brown’s nightclub and their daughter was born in November 2001.
Their relationship continued until 2006 when he allegedly announced that he was obliged to marry a cousin, but that she could be a second wife. She refused and they separated.
Miss Cohen-Ahnine claimed that her daughter was taken from her during a visit to Saudi Arabia in 2008 and that she was held in the prince’s palace where she had only fleeting meetings with her daughter.
She said she managed to leave when a maid left her door open and she sought refuge in the French embassy.
Miss Cohen-Ahnin was eventually spirited out of the country after the prince allegedly produced a document purporting that she had been Muslim but had converted to Judaism — a crime punishable by death.
She said she was concerned about her daughter’s upbringing when she discovered Facebook photos of her in a niqab and playing with her father’s firearms.
Despairing at the lack of diplomatic progress, she published Give My Daughter Back, a book recounting her ordeal, in October.
Since the court ruling, the prince faces an international arrest warrant for ignoring the custody sentence.
Mrs Cohen-Ahnine said the court ruling was a “great victory for me and vindicates everything I have said … but I’m still very worried for my child’s future.”
The prince denied ever having kidnapped the child or the mother.
Read the rest of the terrible story here. If the little girl is to have a shot, she must be spirited out of that country.
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