Attempts by Lee Terry (R-NE) and Steve King (R-IA) to block inquiry into Israel's execution of a 19-year-old unarmed US citizen; Who do they really represent?

Nebraska congressman Lee Terry and Iowa congressman Steve King cosponsored HR 5501, a house bill that, among other things, directed the United States to "oppose any investigation by the United Nations (U.N.) into the flotilla incident (involving the May 2010 Israeli interception of ships carrying supplies to Gaza.)"
     The measure failed, but not for lack of trying by Terry and King. King and Terry are enthusiastic supporters of continued foreign aid to Israel, which now totals at least $100-$114 billion since 1973, but the total cost of US support to Israel in recent decades may be as high as 1.6 trillion dollars. according to Thomas Stauffer, a consulting economist in Washington. That's twice the cost of the US war in Vietnam.

US citizen Furkan Dogan, shot multiple times
in the head after being repeatedly kicked
 while lying on deck bleeding from previous
gunshots from Israeli Self Defense forces.
Terry and King voted to block a UN
investigation of Dogan's death.

     Israel's illegal raid resulted in the execution of an unarmed 19-year-old US citizen, Furkan Dogan who was videotaping the incursion, in international waters, on a humanitarian aid ship bound for Gaza.  Al Jazeera, the Arab news network, reported the UN fact-finding mission's report on the incident:

"The conduct of the Israeli military and other personnel towards the flotilla passengers was not only disproportionate to the occasion but demonstrated levels of totally unnecessary and incredible violence."

     The report also rejected Israel's stance that its forces acted in self-defence when they raided the flotilla, arguing that even those who did not attempt to stop Israeli soldiers from boarding the aid ships "received injuries, including fatal injuries."

     "The circumstances of the killing of at least six of the passengers were in a manner consistent with an extra-legal, arbitrary and summary execution."

     Israel insisted that it acted in line with international law, arguing that it had the right to retaliate against ships attempting to breach its blockade of the impoverished Gaza Strip.
     However, the panel said that since Gaza was suffering from a humanitarian crisis on the day of the deadly raid, for this reason alone, Israel's blockade is unlawful and cannot be sustained in law.

     Israel, which confiscated video cameras and footage on board the ship in order to make a propaganda film justifying its action, called the report "biased."
     According to the report, Dogan was filming with a small video camera when he was shot twice in the head, once in the back and in the left leg and foot.
     The report says Dogan, born in Troy, New York and living in Turkey, had apparently been "lying on the deck in a conscious or semi-conscious, state for some time" before being shot in the face.



YouTube description: Video broadcast by Turkey's Cihan News Agency appears to show two Israeli soldiers on board the Mavi Marmara on May 31, 2010, kicking and then shooting one of the activists. The broadcaster identifies the victim as Furkan Dogan, a nineteen year old Turkish young man who was also a US citizen. An autopsy has already revealed that Dogan was shot five times from less that 45cm in the face, the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back.

Here's the classiest Lauren Bacall tribute AKSARBENT has seen yet

GOP Congressman and serial exhibitionist Aaron Schock finally soaks his head

State of Nebraska gives Omaha a liquor license for city shooting range

Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert owns a
purse-size Glock 26 and a concealed-carry
permit, but doesn't pack heat at City Hall
because the City-County Bldg. doesn't
allow weapons.

Before the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission unanimously approved a liquor license for the recently and expensively renovated Harry A. Koch Trap & Skeet Range, it did express some concerns about alcoholic beverages being served at a city-owned facility where shotguns are discharged,  (Hey, you didn't think people in GOP Gov. Heineman's administration were stupid pushovers for reckless requests by the administrations of cities with GOP mayors, did you?) 
     Anyway, the liquor commission's tough questions  were smoothly allayed by Steven Slater of Mayor Stothert's administration, who assured the prudent killjoys that "Alcoholic beverages will only be served and allowed to be consumed after patrons have completed any target shooting at the range or [if] they are not target shooting"
     And how will the City of Omaha do that? Software! A computer program will track who has purchased beer and prevent them from shooting, said Slater in an email.
     Well OK! Security software, that 21st Century miracle that keeps your debit cards safe from hackers at Target and other companies, will keep drunks away from the shotguns at Omaha's shooting range!
     Incidentally, in case you thought that Nebraskans were only mad about football, you should know that competitive shooting is actually the state's fastest growing school sport, according to Omaha Parks and Recreation Director Brook Bench, who said more than 500 Omaha area high school students now shoot competitively.
     In fact, Slater, who is the "contractual services coordinator" for the project, said “High schools got us going. They wanted a place to shoot and that got the ball rolling.”
     And now high school teenagers can blast shotguns in a beautiful new venue that serves alcohol! Pull! Bottoms up!

Dan Page, St. Louis cop who pushed CNN anchor Don Lemon, is suspended after CNN airs parts of his interesting YouTube 'Oathkeepers' speech

Memo to dumb cops with a racist, homophobic and sexist Internet backstory: Don't pick fights with people who buy ink by the barrel and don't interfere with a gay, black news anchor for an international TV news operation when he's on the air. You will live to regret it.
     Officer Dan Page tried throwing his weight around, specifically on Don Lemon, during unrest in Ferguson, MO, which the CNN anchor was trying to cover, but apparently Page didn't see what was coming next: a CNN report on his own wingnut speech to a Missouri chapter of the far right organization Oathkeepers. Oops, said the cracker from the show-me state after CNN showed the world what he was really all about.
     Oathkeepers is a bunch of mostly cop/military types which is so deeply creepy that the Southern Poverty Law Center researched the group for a special report here.
     Although Officer Page ain't personally an Oathkeeper member hisself, he apparently likes to get members of said outfit cranked up with his very own crank trifecta of anti-homo, anti-Obama, and anti-broad oratory.



One cop who WAS a member of Oathkeepers (and may still be) is Don Kessler (below), who used to be the police chief of Gilberton, PA, until the town decided to terminate him after it suddenly and shockingly discovered his use of "borough-owned automatic attachments to the weapons in his now-infamous YouTube videos, tampering with a borough computer system before his initial suspension, misusing a borough discount card to buy tires for his personal Humvee, failing to turn over weapons to the borough and general dereliction of duty."


H/T: JoeMyGod

Willie Nelson - Neil Young concert to stop Keystone XL pipeline is already sold out

Etix says no more tickets remain for the benefit, described as follows on the reservation website:

Two music legends — Neil Young and Willie Nelson — will perform a benefit concert on Sept. 27 on a farm near Neligh, Nebraska that is on the route of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline and also crosses the historic Ponca Tribe “Trail of Tears.” Proceeds from the “Harvest the Hope” concert will go to Bold Nebraska, the Indigenous Environmental Network and the Cowboy & Indian Alliance, to fund the ongoing fight against the Keystone XL pipeline, as well as a number of small, community-based clean energy projects on farms and tribal land. The afternoon concert will take place in a field on a farm owned by a family who are part of a strong collective of Nebraska landowners refusing to sell their land to TransCanada for the Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline. Also performing: Willie's son - Lukas Nelson, Native American hip-hop artist Frank Waln; and the "Stopping the Pipeline Rocks All-Stars." Children ages 7 and under do not need a ticket as long as they are accompanied by a paying adult.

2014 Emmy promotion short goes viral

In it, Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul run a pawn shop to which Julia Louis-Drefus attempts to pawn her Seinfeld Emmy statuette. Don't miss the last line, delivered by Paul.

Want to solve more Jeopardy clues? Better bone up on the show's favorite state

Today's Jeopardy broadcast on WOWT featured another Nebraska category, which happens at least once a year, undoubtedly due to the fact that four of the show's top producers and writers form a sort of Cornhusker mafia.

     "They keep trying to slip in Nebraska clues that nobody else knows anything about," Trebek said, "like: 'Where did Henry Fonda and Marlon Brando's mother go to school?' "
     Alex, what is Omaha Central High School?
     That's the school executive producer Harry Friedman and senior producer Gary Johnson attended in the 1960s. Johnson also is the head writer -- and mostly to blame for all the Nebraska clues.
     Also from the state: associate segment producer Stewart Hoke and longtime writer Steve Tamerius.
     Nebraska has been named in at least 68 clues in recent years, and many others have had obvious ties to the state even though it was not named.
     "We know Nebraska, so we tend to write about it more than other states," Johnson said.
     ...Tamerius makes sure to get a Nebraska category on the show at least once a year. He also tries to mention his hometown of Fairbury in a clue, usually something about the historic Pony Express station near the Southeast Nebraska town.

Chik-fil-A cow's head is missing; owner offers reward

This is something that our family is really attached to, the owner claimed to WOWT. Well, obviously not any longer.
     According to Forbes:

Chick-fil-A, the corporate parent, has been sued [as of 2007] at least 12 times since 1988 on charges of employment discrimination, according to records in U.S. District Courts. Aziz Latif, a former Chick-fil-A restaurant manager in Houston, sued the company in 2002 after Latif, a Muslim, says he was fired a day after he didn’t participate in a group prayer to Jesus Christ at a company training program in 2000. The suit was settled on undisclosed terms.

Chik-fil-A leads the fast food industry with a per-store sales average of $3,157,900 compared to second-place McDonalds' $2,600,000. This is even more impressive when one considers that, unlike McDonalds, Chik-fil-A restaurants are not open on Sundays.

(Tipped by reader Karen)

Here's John Lennon in 1966 sarcastically telling L.A. reporters that Eleanor Rigby was a song about "two queers"

@2:56
Reporter: I'd like to direct this question toward Mssrs. Lennon and McCartney. In a recent article, Time Magazine put down pop music and they referred to "Day Tripper" as being about a prostitute and "Norwegian Wood" as being about a lesbian. Now I just wanted to know what your intent was when you wrote it and what your feeling is about the Time Magazine criticism of the music that is being written today.
Paul McCartney: We just try to write songs about prostitutes and lesbians, that's all.

@5:02
Reporter: May I ask about the song "Eleanor Rigby?" What was the motivation or inspiration for that?
John Lennon: "Two queers."

IA Rep. Steve King: no need to be concerned about racial profiling in Ferguson because protesters all have the same 'continental origin'

Unreleased Robin Williams film, Boulevard, is about a devoted husband confronting life on the down low

IMDB describes the film, Boulevard, screened last Spring at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival, as: "A devoted husband in a marriage of convenience is forced to confront his secret life."
      When Williams passed, the film had yet to be picked up by a distributor.

Statement of Washington Post on arrest of its reporter in Ferguson, Missouri

Wesley Lowrey (l.), of the Washington Post, and Ryan J. Reilly, of the Huffington Post, who described his arrest here.

Today, violence again broke out in Ferguson, Missouri following the shooting of an unarmed black teen, Michael Brown, Saturday by a policeman who authorities have so far refused to identify. Hacker group Anonymous has vowed to do so.
     Johnson's friend, Dorian Johnson, said Brown was shot multiple times. Police aren't saying how many rounds were emptied into Brown.
     Earlier tonight, a SWAT team burst into a Ferguson McDonalds used as an informal hangout for journalists to prepare and file stories via the restaurant's WiFi. Wesley Lowrey, of the Washington Post, and Ryan Reilly, of the Huffington Post, both were arrested. MSNBC interviewed Reilly here and Lowery here.

---

     The following is a statement on the incident from Washington Post Executive Editor Martin D. Baron:

      Wesley has briefed us on what occurred, and there was absolutely no justification for his arrest.
      He was illegally instructed to stop taking video of officers. Then he followed officers’ instructions to leave a McDonald’s — and after contradictory instructions on how to exit, he was slammed against a soda machine and then handcuffed. That behavior was wholly unwarranted and an assault on the freedom of the press to cover the news. The physical risk to Wesley himself is obvious and outrageous.
      After being placed in a holding cell, he was released with no charges and no explanation. He was denied information about the names and badge numbers of those who arrested him.
      We are relieved that Wesley is going to be OK. We are appalled by the conduct of police officers involved.

Gay Star Trek nerd's marriage proposal with secret celebrity surprise

Nerds are still nerds no matter their sexual orientation. Even if they're clever enough to enlist the support of a movie star in their entreaty.

Three firms busted for down-low PR deceptions: Burson-Marsteller, DCI Group and Condé Nast's Strategic Partnerships division

ONE: From Slate, on the Astroturf shenanigans of Burson-Marsteller to improve the Washington Redskins image:

     You may have noticed ads on the Washington Post and Sports Illustrated websites for a new site that wants to set the record straight on the Washington NFL team’s offensive nickname. That site, which was registered on June 30, touts the nickname’s storied history, various polls that reflect its popularity, and claims that it’s really, truly not offensive to Native Americans...
     The About Us page indicates that it is “a growing online community of passionate Washington [NFL team] fans and others who support the team’s use of its name and logo.” A Washington team spokesman told the local ABC affiliate WJLA that “they know of the site and totally support their effort,” sounding surprised and delighted by this online campaign.
     A graphic at the top of the nickname-defending website, though, indicates that it’s “sponsored by” the team’s alumni...
     Jamie Zoch of Dot Weekly noted that the firm has hand-registered several sites with very similar names in recent days. (The registrant name for the nickname-defending site itself is listed as “PERFECT PRIVACY, LLC.” Perfect Privacy is a service that allows you to buy a Web domain without releasing any of your personal information.) A Google site search of the nickname website also reveals a login page that is “Powered by Burson Site Factory.” And a search of the site’s source code reveals a link to http://www.burson.acsitefactory.com. That Burson page shares an IP address (54.235.214.41) with the nickname website.

TWO: The other day David Pakman exposed Crystal High as a covert stooge for DCI, a PR firm with clients known to be in opposition to Net Neutrality: Verizon and cable companies front, Broadband for America. This was the second time DCI had tried to fool Pakman. High has also been busted as a comment troll trying to undermine articles defending Net Neutrality by author Lee Fang:

     On the pages of VICE and an investigative website I help manage called Republic Report, I've covered the net neutrality debate—whether Internet Service Providers (ISPs) should be able to create internet fast and slow lanes, or if, instead, all content should be treated equally. A writer and attorney named Kristal High has been attacking me in the comment section throughout the year.
      For a story about how civil rights groups with funding from Comcast and other telecom companies wrote a letter to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) supporting the agency’s proposal to gut net neutrality, High showed up in the comment section to call me "paternalistic." After I published a story last week about how a Comcast-affiliated African American news outlet decided to delete a story I wrote about net neutrality upon being contacted by an advocacy group tied to the telecom industry, High appeared in the comment section once again to troll me. She claimed that I am wrong to be critical of the FCC's plan and that I have been wasting my time by focusing on the "lobbying dollars" spent in the debate.

THREE: Last week, Condé Nast's Strategic Partnerships division tried to bribe two authors highly critical of the food industry into participating in an "exciting video series" on the "topics of food, food chains and sustainability" — sponsored by GMO and pesticide vendor Monsanto — by not mentioning Monsanto in the emailed pitch (only in attachments) and by telling them that a CBS reporter would be the production's host when in fact Mo Rocca never agreed to do that.

TN primary: Knoxville voters send 'Don't Say Gay' state legislator Stacey Campfield packing, in a landslide, but Chattanooga voters defeat LGBT rights in referendum

Knoxville, TN state representative Stacey Campfield lost his reelection bid to a cardiac surgeon in the state's Republican primary voting last night. From Fox17 in Knoxville:

     With 16 percent of precincts reporting, Richard Briggs had 10,657 votes, or 68 percent, compared with Campfield's 4,143 votes, or 26 percent.
     The primary was expected to be tough for Campfield, a highly visible lawmaker who often drew attention and sometimes ridicule for his polarizing comments, as well as sponsoring contentious bills on social issues.
     They included one ridiculed as the "Don't Say Gay" bill and another that would cut welfare.
     Most recently, he made national news when he compared the federal health care law to the forced transportation of Jews to concentration camps during the Holocaust in a blog post.

     In Chattanooga, voters rejected a domestic partnership ordinance:

     Chattanooga's domestic partnership ordinance was defeated by voters in a citywide referendum. The City Council passed the ordinance last November, but it was quickly challenged by a conservative political action committee to get it on the August ballot.
     Yes Chattanooga called the referendum's outcome was "deeply disappointing."

     The mayor's statement, last night at 10:30 pm, Via WRCB:

“I have no doubt Chattanoogans value fairness and equality, and I am proud of the volunteers who spent nights and weekends to ensure our employees are treated equally. The City of Chattanooga’s non-discrimination ordinance was repealed tonight, but I want every City employee to know one thing -- your work is valued and you are important to the future of our community.  Regardless of the results tonight, my Administration will continue to hire and promote the best people who provide excellent service to our constituents." 

Michael Fassbender was just interviewed about something

AKSARBENT, which can't remember anything at all about the clip below except the quotation from Oscar Wilde about masks, was once informed that it was not a good candidate for hypnotism. Ha!

Stephen Colbert says five-year-old Apparently kid reporter could replace Sean Hannity

Vin Diesel channels Mrs. Miller in impromptu cover of Sam Smith's Stay With Me

Well, the falsetto verses, anyway.

Here's the just-released poster of Creighton Prep grad Andrew Rannells in his new Broadway drag role

Rannells, original lead of Broadway smash Book of Mormon, Elijah in HBO's Girls and Bryan in NBC's inexplicably-cancelled The New Normal, will take over the lead from Neil Patrick Harris in Hedwick and the Angry Inch.
     Rannells has played this role before. In fact, he won best actor and actress in a musical at the B. Iden Payne Awards in September 2002 for his turn as Hedwig at the Zachary Scott Theater Center in Austin, Texas.

     Rannells grew up in Omaha's Hanscom Park neighborhood and acted with Indie rocker Conor Oberst in a children's theatre production of Peter Pan, in which Oberst played one of the Darling kids and Rannells played a pirate. (Make of that what you will; AKSARBENT dares not.)
     Rannells also played a stripper in the 2012 film Bachelorette, but don't tell any of the priests at Creighton, ok? This is just between you and AKSARBENT.

Russian, angry at Obama over sanctions, teaches America a lesson by destroying his iPhone and iPad

AKSARBENT can't understand a word he's saying but Buzzfeed says his introductory rant (before the fun starts at about 2:41) includes a vow never to travel to the U.S. or step foot in an American establishment again, not even McDonalds.
     Then he makes an off-camera offering to the sink of a bottle of Coke. Then he commences the destruction of an iPhone. Amazingly, dude hits Steve Jobs' pride and joy with a very substantial hammer five times, then five times more, then twice more before the smartphone's lights go out.
     Can't beat the one-two punch of Corning Gorilla Glass and Chinese workmanship, can you?

Subway riders push car off track enough to free trapped man

Some very robust windows, we'd say.


(Via JoeMyGod)

Omaha's zoo ranked best in world by Trip Adviser based on reviews by its users

This does not surprise AKSARBENT; the Reader's Digest called the Henry Doorly Zoo the best in America six years ago.
     People who visit Omaha's zoo from out of town are generally stunned to discover the world's second-largest free-flight aviary and the world's biggest desert exhibit (inside the world's largest glazed geodesic dome) and America's largest indoor rainforest and America's biggest cat complex and the largest zoo aquarium in the world — all in one place.
     You can see it via a choice of tram, miniature railroad or Skyfari treetop chairlift.
     The Henry Doorly Zoo also has an innovative "Kingdoms of the Night" exhibit in which day and night cycles are artificially reversed to show nocturnal activity patterns. The nocturnal exhibit (yeah, it's the world's biggest) has a canyon, a wet cave, a dry bat cave and the world’s largest indoor swamp.
     For those who have the time, there's also Pachyderm Hill, the Insect and Butterfly pavilion, the separate gorilla and orangutan exhibits and an IMAX Theatre.
     TripAdvisor's complete ranking of hundreds of zoos is here.

Henry Doorly Zoo's desert exhibit, largest on earth, competes
with the zoo's world-class cat complex, aquarium*, rain forest,
aviary and nocturnal exhibits — all either largest in the world
or in America. Just reading the zoo's Wiki entry will make
your eyes glaze.
_____________________
*The aquarium is the largest inside a zoo, not considered to be
an independent attraction.

1. Henry Doorly Zoo (Nebraska)
2. San Diego Zoo (California)
3. Loro Parque (Spain)
4. St. Louis Zoo (Missouri)
5. Singapore Zoo (Singapore)
6. Chester Zoo (United Kingdom)
7. Prague Zoo (Czech Republic)
8. Tiergarten Schoenbrunn—Zoo Vienna (Austria)
9. Bioparc Valencia (Spain)
10. Gramado Zoo (Brazil)

Guardian's datablog not buying Gay Times drug/sex survey quoted by BBC Newsbeat, Huffington Post, PinkNews and others

Above: Gay sex and drug use by German cops in Freefall, now streaming on Netflix

The Guardian sneered at the headline's conclusions, referring to "the bone­-shattering dog-bites-man banality of the top line — people have sex when drunk" before getting down to the business of taking apart the survey's numbers, which the newspaper regarded as highly suspect relative to other surveys.

The survey’s conclusion is clear: gay and bisexual men are incorrigible, unrepentant alcoholic, drug-snorting sex dreadnoughts, who wouldn’t be seen dead getting it on without a line of something typically found in a rock star’s dressing room.
      The survey has a fundamental problem, which is that, unlike most professionally-conducted surveys and research, its participants were self-selecting. It was hosted online, advertised to Gay Times readers online, and pitched specifically as a ‘drugs survey’. This can have a big effect on who answers the survey, both in terms of who hears about it, and who feels that it’s relevant to them and so worth taking the time to respond to.
     By way of illustration, a 20-something party animal living in London who uses Twitter, frequents the Vauxhall scene and is comfortable using recreational drugs is both more likely to hear about and more likely to answer the survey than a middle-aged gay man living in the countryside with a dodgy internet connection.
     This may sound quite minor, but we can start to see how this may have a large effect on the results when we compare it to previous research efforts. Similar data can be found not only in a 2012 survey carried out by Stonewall (which had a much larger sample of nearly 7,000), but also in recently published figures from the authoritative Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW). Both sets of figures suggest GT has considerably overestimated drug use.

Apparently WNEP gave five-year old redhead Noah its mic to recap Wayne County fair rides

"I don't watch the news because I'm a kid... Grandpa just gives me the remote, I have to watch the PowerBall." Kid is five and already has a photobombing groupie.


(Via Towleroad)

Bill Kelly: When Omaha cops put the drag in dragnet

We totally stole Bill Kelly's headline for his look back at Johnny 5-0 in his NET blog, Courts and Cops, because what could you write that is better?

     It seems during the spring of 1920 police heard several complaints about “the degenerate who has been terrorizing roadside lovers.” It’s not spelled out , but a reader assumes Omaha had a prowling “peeping tom” or what present day law enforcement officials characterize as “a perv.” The Douglas County Sheriff assigned two deputies to the case, Charles T. Johnson and James “Jimmie” Lindsay.
     From the World-Herald story:

They did admit kissing "a time or two." Both men blushed when they admitted it. "We didn't see the degenerate," they said. "But we certainly carried our part through."

     Nowadays, the Omaha World-Herald doesn't have to settle for titillating staged photos of sexual shenanigans decoys — it actually publishes TMZ-style video (curiously missing the Omaha World-Herald logo, though) of an actual drag event...
(Tipped by reader Tom)

State Dept. "appalled" at Israel's latest civilian killings in Gaza but Reps. Lee Terry, Jeff Fortenberry and Adrian Smith just voted to give Israel an extra $225 million of your taxes anyway

From NBC's Richard Engel.

     ...There have been more Israeli airstrikes. One of those strikes caused yet another tragedy. Un officials say Israel fired on a suspected Palestinian militant on a motorcycle just as passed in front of a UN school full of 3,000 Palestinians taking shelter. At least 10 civilians were killed.
     Robert Turner, director of the UN program in Gaza, is stunned Israel chose to attack so close to the school.
     Engel: Do you think Israel should have waited a few more seconds, a few more minutes until he was further away from this location?
     Turner: Why, if this is a moving target and you're tracking him, why there? Why there, right at the gate of a shelter? The location of which you've been given 33 times.
     ...The U.S. State Department said it was "appalled" by today's "disgraceful shelling" outside the school.

Hours after an IDF attack on a UN-operated school killed 20 civilians last week, the US announced it would resupply Israeli military with new ammunition to further their campaign on the war-ravaged city. Days later, the House overwhelmingly approved an emergency measure giving Israel $225 million more for the country's Iron Dome missile system.

Guardian: Israel eavesdropped on Sec'y of State Kerry during failed Gaza peace overture

The Guardian says Der Speigel has revealed that Israel monitored Sec'y Kerry's cell phone conversations last year during peace talks with Palestinians and Arab states. Also,

     In May, Newsweek reported “unrivalled and unseemly” Israeli espionage in the US under cover of trade missions and joint defense technology contracts. Israeli officials called the report false and malicious.
     Kerry made several publicly reported comments during the talks that frayed his relationship with Jerusalem. He warned that Israel risked becoming an “apartheid state” if it did not reach a peace deal with the Palestinians, prompting protests by Israeli and US politicians. Kerry apologised. 

Oxford's Out of the Blue cover of Shakira's Hips Don't Lie goes viral

Oxford University's a capella group Out of the Blue has released a charity cover of Shakira's Hips Don't Lie, which has quickly racked up millions of views. AKSARBENT is usually indifferent to such stuff, but we can't stop listening to this. It's hypnotizing.


(Via JoeMyGod reader Lama)

Here's Ricky Nelson in his bedroom back in the 1950s keeping James Burton up past his bedtime

Rick Nelson is mostly looking at his guitar frets. James Burton is mostly looking at Ricky, which is totally what AKSARBENT would have done.
      Nelson had Burton before Elvis, who had to wait until Burton's employment with the teen idol and his TV family paterfamilias ended before hiring Burton for his band.
     By the way, James Burton's 75th birthday bash will be held three weeks from now. Anyone can attend. Go here for details.



Below: James Burton in Omaha in 1977: